by Gus Russo
When the lights went up, Brewer pointed out Oswald. There was a ferocious struggle. It took seven policemen to subdue the assassin. Oswald even attempted to get off a shot, but his pistol trigger became wedged between the thumb and index finger of one of his captors. By the end of the battle, Oswald’s face was battered, Detective Paul Bentley had a broken ankle, and Officer Nick McDonald was cut on the face. In typical Oswald fashion, he was heard to yell, “I am not resisting arrest!”
By the time the police dragged the kicking and screaming Oswald out to the street, a crowd of over 150 had gathered. The mob was screaming, “Kill the son of a bitch,” and, “Give him to us, we’ll kill him!”
On the ride to the Dallas police station, Oswald pleaded his innocence. In the police car, Officer C.T. Walker told Oswald that he was a suspect in the murder of a police officer. Oswald replied sarcastically, “Police officer been killed?” Officer Gerald Hill, also in the car, recalls Oswald saying, “I haven’t done anything I’m ashamed of.” Hill told the author, “Oswald was very surly—very cocky. He was the kind of person that had it been under different circumstances, you would have wanted to hit him.”28
After a brief period of silence, Oswald said, “I hear they burn for murder.”
Walker replied, “You just might find out.”
“Well, they say it just takes a second to die,” came Oswald’s retort.
Detective Bentley, a third officer in the car, then perused Oswald’s wallet and observed both his “Oswald” ID’s and his fake “Hidell” cards. Oswald refused to say which was his real name. Like numerous others who had come into contact with Oswald, Paul Bentley remembers “the smirk” permanently affixed on Oswald’s face. While Officer Hill radioed to Captain Fritz at headquarters, giving him the two names, Fritz shot back, “You may have a suspect in the Kennedy shooting.” With that, Paul Bentley asked the suspect, “Did you kill our beloved President?”
“You find out your own way,” came Oswald’s icy reply. It was, Bentley remembers, the last thing he said on the ride in. The rest of the trip took place in total silence—at least inside the car. Outside was a different story altogether. “On the way downtown, cars—mostly containing women—pulled up alongside, yelling, ‘Kill the bastard,’” Bentley remembers.29
Upon arriving at the police station in downtown Dallas, Oswald was led through a phalanx of reporters. Lonnie Hudkins was among those in attendance. He recently recalled the scene:
I was in the hallway with all the other reporters when [Captain] Fritz came out and asked me if I’d come in and son of be the token reporter inside for a few minutes. I went in to see Oswald and the only thing Fritz said is, “Please don’t ask him about the President,” and so I didn’t. The first question I asked was—“Was he being treated all right?” He said “yes,” and I asked him about his eye and he said that he was punched out and knocked down—you know, wrestled down. And then I asked him, “Why did you kill officer Tippit?” and he said, “Someone get killed? Policeman get killed?” At that time, he had this little smirk on him. I wanted to hit him but I didn’t. Then all of a sudden it dawned on me he wasn’t sweating—not a drop of sweat on him. He said something to the effect that he hadn’t done anything that he was ashamed of.30
There is every reason to believe that Lee Oswald was, for once, telling the truth—for he probably was not in the least bit ashamed of murdering John Kennedy, an act with far-reaching implications for Oswald’s hero, Fidel Castro, and quite possibly one of the most successful revolutionary strikes of the 20th century. If Lee Oswald’s motivation was to halt the Kennedy attempts on Castro’s life, and the prevention of another invasion of a sovereign country he admired, one can imagine how he himself regarded the deed.
The Dallas police assembled the evidence and put two and two together: Lee Oswald, the Tippit suspect, was the only employee missing from a roll call at the Book Depository, where the sniper’s nest had been located. In addition, Oswald’s appearance seemed to match the descriptions of those who saw the sniper in the Depository window. While the Dallas police settled in for a long series of fruitless interrogations of the suspect, government functionaries struggled with the implications of what had occurred.
The question remains: Was Lee Harvey Oswald en route to a clandestine rendezvous on the afternoon of November 22—at Redbird or elsewhere? If Mexico was Oswald’s destination, and if he intended getting there on his own—or missed a rendezvous—then the bewilderment Elcan Elliott witnessed is understandable: the next bus to leave Lancaster Road for Loredo was due at 3:15 p.m. It was approximately 1:10 p.m. when Elliott observed the disoriented assassin, who may have been pondering where to hide for the next two hours.
That Friday night, the trail was still fresh. Oswald had missed whatever escape might have been planned for him, but his “Latin friends” had not yet scurried back to Cuba. The CIA, hampered by the slow cognitive processes of a bureaucracy, would not realize the event’s full implications in time to detain the Cubana Airlines flight in Mexico City or Lopez at the border. However, once the principals had escaped to Cuba (if that in fact happened), why did the CIA not investigate these possible Cuban connections to the Kennedy murder? The answer is that they were prevented from doing so by Washington officials who feared what they might find out.
A COVERUP
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE AFTERMATH
On Air Force One, Lyndon Johnson was now fully recovered from his uncharacteristic bout with hysteria, and comfortably in charge again. The man famous for wielding the telephone as an excalibur took it up once more. He placed his first calls to his attorneys and business associates, and to Robert Kennedy. The details of the call to Bobby are still withheld. We do know that Johnson wanted an update from his attorney, Abe Fortas. Fortas, a politically savvy attorney later to be named to the U.S. Supreme Court, had successfully led Johnson through many potentially scandalous quagmires and now was serving as Bobby Baker’s lawyer. From Fortas, Johnson most wanted to know if the insurance salesman Don Reynolds, in testimony that day before the Senate Rules Committee, had given up Johnson’s name. The new president was greatly relieved to learn that the news of the assassination had halted the inquiry, preempting Reynolds just before he could disclose his most famous client.1
Johnson’s next call was to J.W. “Waddie” Bullion, a Dallas lawyer and Johnson business crony. One of Bullion’s former associates, requesting anonymity, has alleged that Johnson called, in part, for advice on what to do with his stocks in light of the market’s almost certain plunge on news of the assassination.
Most now saw in Johnson a sober political pro masterfully doing what needed to be done. Yet, his success in these first few hours moving a paralyzed, fearful nation forward was viewed by Kennedy loyalists as insensitive. New York Times reporter Tom Wicker, traveling with the president’s press entourage, wrote: “In the terrible hours of Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson had found himself reprieved from political oblivion. . . His whole life, in a sense, had been resurrected and Johnson meant to make the most of it.”2
Observing Johnson’s activity, JFK aide Kenny O’Donnell was heard to say, pointing at the new President, “He’s got what he wants now. But we take it back in ‘68.” The Kennedy brother whom they hoped would recapture the presidency five years hence had more immediate concerns. Back in Washington, Bobby Kennedy put his grief on hold to perform important favors for his dead brother.
The Coverup Begins
“Bobby’s a lawyer, he’s savvy, he knows all the political ins and outs, and he can protect you.”
—Joe Kennedy to JFK, bolstering his insistence that he appoint Bobby as Attorney General3
“For Bob, the important thing was now the memory of the President, and he wanted it to be pure and golden.”
—Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General4
Robert Kennedy immediately grasped the fact that his role had changed. An hour earlier, he had been consumed with furthering his brother’s career and poli
cies. Suddenly, without any warning, he had become the protector of his older brother’s legacy. As his close friend, former Assistant Secretary of State Averell Harriman, recalled, “Bobby’s value was in his most extraordinary loyalty, his understanding of his brother’s objectives, and his fierce instinct to protect him in every way he knew.”5
Thus, before he could allow himself time to grieve, Bobby had to clamp down all threats to his brother’s legacy. Placing his sorrow on hold, Bobby Kennedy took the steps necessary to protect Jack’s place in history. Before making plans to meet Air Force One, then carrying his brother’s corpse to Washington, Bobby dispatched Jack Miller to Dallas to be his eyes and ears and to determine what had happened. Miller was an Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.6
Bobby then called the Secret Service at the White House and demanded the Oval Office tapes. White House conversations had been taped since July 1962, but only a handful of people were aware of the taping: JFK’s personal secretary Evelyn Lincoln, the two Secret Service agents who installed the system, Bobby Kennedy, and a few others.7 Those tapes are, as of this writing, still withheld from historians. In fact, the tapes made after November 8, 1963 are missing.
Years later, Bobby would summon George Dalton, a young Naval aide, to the Executive Office Building to undertake the task of transcribing some of the tapes he was given. Dalton had attracted the attention of the Kennedy family in September 1963. He was then responsible for launching helicopters to and from Hyannis and Squaw Island, where Jackie was staying just before the premature birth and death of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. When he left the Navy, Dalton went to work for Senator Edward Kennedy and performed odd jobs for Bobby. During the 1970’s, he reportedly removed tapes, and other family records, from a family vault in a National Archives warehouse in Waltham, Massachusetts. Dalton has consistently refused comment on all these matters.8 Recently, however, more was learned of the disposition of the Oval Office tapes.
The issue surfaced again in 1973, when the Kennedy family was preparing material for the newly-constructed John F. Kennedy (Presidential) Library in Boston. At the time, Kennedy family attorney Burke Marshall informed Senator Ted Kennedy’s aide Rick Burke, “We’re erasing the tapes.” A stunned Burke learned that “countless sensitive” conversations had been deleted by Marshall, Dalton, and Kennedy family key advisor (and brother-in-law) Steve Smith. In a few days, Marshall called to reveal some of what had been heard on the tapes: “Marilyn [Monroe] was on the phone with the President. Boy the things they talked about. . . .” In the coming weeks, Rick Burke was assigned to ship all of JFK’s files, now locked in storage in Ted’s inner office, to Steve Smith, who would then send them to the library. Burke discovered a 3-inch thick folder of telephone transcriptions of the tapes. He quickly scanned the conversations, reading steamy dialogue between the President and Monroe, and others such as Judy Campbell.9
Not yet finished his efforts at protecting his slain brother, Bobby took immediate steps to conceal other Presidential artifacts. Bobby quickly placed a call to Presidential aide McGeorge Bundy, directing him to change the combinations on White House safes containing John Kennedy’s personal files, which he did.10
Finally, Bobby was ready for the drive to Andrews Air Force Base to meet the Presidential party. After his brother’s legacy, the next thing on Bobby’s mind was his sister-in-law, Jackie. Together, they might get through the terrible days that lay ahead.
The Kennedy Autopsy
In the cramped quarters of the presidential jet, Jackie Kennedy spent the trip to Washington sitting by her husband’s coffin. John Kennedy’s personal physician, Dr. George Burkley, knelt in the aisle, and delicately broached the practical decisions that had to be made. Foremost in Burkley’s mind was the choice of an autopsy site. Burkley explained that, for security reasons, the autopsy venue should be a military facility. The only ones in the immediate area of Andrews Air Force Base, where the plane would land, were Bethesda Naval Hospital and Walter Reed Army Hospital.
“Of course, the President was in the Navy,” whispered JFK aide Godfrey McHugh. “Of course. Bethesda,” came Jackie’s decision.11 She would later inform Bobby, “I don’t want any undertakers. I want everything done by the Navy.”12
In November 1963, Dr. James Humes was the lab director at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. In the wake of the presidential assassination, Humes, who was home early that day, was busy calling invitees to cancel a dinner party he and his wife had scheduled for that evening. The assassination had hit the Humes like many other Americans—like a loss in the family—and clearly that evening was an inappropriate time to go ahead with a party. As Humes’ wife Ann was telling one friend of the party’s cancellation, an emergency operator broke through with a call for James. The caller, at 5:15 p.m., was Admiral Edward Kenney, the Surgeon General of the Navy. “Jim, you’d better hurry over to the hospital,” said Kenney.
Dr. J. Thornton Boswell was Bethesda’s Chief of Pathology. On the afternoon of November 22nd, he was going over autopsy slides with pathology residents when he received a similar call. Like Humes, Boswell was informed that the president’s autopsy was to be performed at Bethesda. In 1992, Boswell gave a rare interview to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), in which he described his reaction:
I argued, “That’s stupid. The autopsy should be done at AFIP [five miles away at Walter Reed Army Medical Center].” After all, the AFIP was the apex of military pathology and, perhaps, world pathology. I was told, “That’s the way it is. Admiral Burkley [the president’s personal physician] wants Bethesda.” . . .I was told that Jackie Kennedy selected Bethesda because her husband had been a Navy man.13
It was an inconsolable Bobby Kennedy who at 7:30 that evening met the incoming Air Force One carrying his dead brother and his grieving sister-in-law, Jackie. Given what is now known about the practical consequences of the day’s tragedy, Bobby could well have been experiencing brain-numbing inner turmoil—if, in the farthest recesses of his grief-stricken consciousness, he considered them for only a microsecond. That weekend was supposed to have been so much different: by mutual decree, the Lyndon Johnson so despised by the younger Kennedy would soon be wrapping up his final year in the Kennedy administration; with Cubela on his way to Havana, and Artime in Central America, the equally despised Fidel Castro seemed to be even more endangered.
Instead, Bobby was now addressing Johnson as “Mr. President.” The realization may have begun to creep in that El Presidente Castro would outlive them all. Worst of all was the unthinkable possibility that this was all Bobby’s fault—that one of his schemes had backfired. It was against this real world backdrop that Bobby, accompanied by Jackie, rode in the ambulance transporting Jack’s body to the Navy’s medical facility just outside Washington. The oft-considered October 1964 election now seemed to belong to another universe. Bobby’s world had been turned upside down in every way imaginable.
Bobby Continues To Protect His Brother
“The Kennedy who was really in charge in the [autopsy] tower suite was the Attorney General.”
—William Manchester, author, The Death of a President14
“It is true that we were influenced by the fact that we knew Jackie Kennedy was waiting upstairs to accompany the body to the White House and that Admiral Burkley wanted us to hurry as much as possible.”
—Dr. James J. Humes, 199215
While President Kennedy’s body was taken to the autopsy suite, the Kennedy entourage was escorted to a 17th floor suite in the hospital tower. Dr. John Walsh, Jackie’s obstetrician, arrived, and quickly noticed the unmistakable signs of nervous exhaustion in the widow. She turned to him saying, “Maybe you could just give me something so I could have a little nap.” Walsh proceeded to inject her with 100 milligrams of Visatril. The formidable dose had absolutely no effect. Walsh thought, “I might just as well have given her a shot of Coca-Cola.”16
In addition to choosing the autopsy venue, the Kenn
edys also attempted to limit the extent of the autopsy, and to rush those performing it. From their 17th floor room, where they were in phone contact with the autopsy suite, Bobby and Jackie Kennedy exerted their influence over the proceedings.
There were still other components to the Kennedy family’s “presence” at Bethesda. In 1993, Dr. Pierre Finck, who assisted in the autopsy, described the president’s autopsy as only “adequate,” and “not as complete as some other autopsies I have done.” When pressed for details, Finck stated that neither the abdominal cavity nor the organs of the neck were examined. In addition, no mention was made of adrenals, pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, larynx, trachea, ureters, urinary bladder, testes, prostrate, gastrointestinal tract, or spinal column. Finck explained that the Kennedy family did not want a “complete” autopsy, adding (contradictorily, it seems), “The Kennedy family did not want us to examine the abdominal cavity, but the abdominal cavity was examined.”
Dr. Robert Karnei was present and assisting at most of the autopsy. In 1991, regarding the internal organs that were not dissected, Karnei stated flatly:
They [Boswell and Humes] were not allowed to do that. . . Robert [Kennedy] was really limiting the autopsy. . . We had to get permission all the time from Mrs. Kennedy to proceed with the autopsy.. Jim [Humes] and fay [Boswell] were really handicapped that night with regards to performing the autopsy. . . . I think it was as complete as they were allowed to do.17
Karnei later testified that two days after the autopsy, the Kennedy family circulated a statement that he and all others present were asked to sign. The statement was a pledge that no one would discuss the details of what they saw at the autopsy for twenty-five years. Like everyone else, Karnei obliged.18
Complicated homicide autopsies have been known to last for two days. But when John Kennedy’s autopsy had been in progress for just two hours, Bobby Kennedy, in his suite on the 17th floor, began growing impatient. It was 10 p.m. and he was ready to leave with his brother’s body. Godfrey McHugh spoke with Bobby by phone and assured him the doctors would be finished by midnight.19
