by Mark Lane
Yarborough’s name appears four times in the Warren Report. On page 2 the report states that he was in a car with Lyndon Johnson and Mrs. Johnson. On page 42 it states that he had come from Fort Worth with Governor and Mrs. Connally and the president. On page 52 it cites Volume V, page 561, as the place where a specific statement by Lyndon Johnson may be found in which Yarborough is mentioned as being present in the car with him. That statement actually appears on page 562.
As was the case with other lawyers who had sacrificed their integrity in what they claimed was service to their country, Liebeler was rewarded for his work on an important case. He did not become a United States senator as Arlen Specter did, but he was given a job teaching at a university. Liebeler, according to his friends at UCLA who wrote in his defense, “came to UCLA in 1965 as a new law teacher fresh from the role of assistant counsel to the Warren Commission.” They added that his “strongly held perspectives were not for everyone” and that he “could be exasperating, sometimes downright maddening.” When questioned under oath about his contacts with intelligence agencies, he stated, without explaining, “I was interviewed by a CIA agent once when I was much younger.”
I met Liebeler at a restaurant at the Pan Am building in New York City after he was hired as an assistant counsel by the commission. He began the conversation by stating, “I am not Jewish although some people are misled into thinking that I am Jewish because of my name.” Those assertions came after I had merely said, “Hello, Mr. Liebeler, I am Mark Lane.” Later when I discussed that odd exchange with friends, I was unable to comprehend why he initiated our meeting with that statement.
Sometime later I met with Edward J. Epstein at Cornell University where I had lectured on the Kennedy assassination. I asked him to try to conduct some interviews with people associated with the commission so that we might understand their modus operandi. Subsequently, Epstein called me and said that he had interviewed Liebeler. When I asked him what he had learned, he said almost nothing except that the interview began in a very strange fashion. Epstein told me that as soon as they introduced themselves to each other, Liebeler assured him that he was not Jewish, although some people thought that he might be because of his name. Epstein said that he was puzzled; I was re-bemused.
When Liebeler was a teacher at the law school at UCLA, he assigned my book,Rush to Judgment, as a project. Each student was directed to read the book carefully, check various citations and footnotes, approximately 5,000 of them, and write a brief, pointing out errors they had discovered. He was disappointed to learn that none of his bright young charges had discovered any.
Later, Liebeler, according to The Nation, stated that the Warren Commission had done a great job, except that they got “the entrance wounds in the wrong place.” The Warren Commission’s assertion that the president was shot from the back by Lee Harvey Oswald and not from the front from someone on the grassy knoll, rested in large measure upon the insistence that they got the entrance wounds in the right place.
Notes
73. The judge who tried the Bolden case, Joseph S. Perry, was born in Alabama in 1896. After the prosecution of Bolden, Edward V. Hanrahan, a “law-and-order prosecutor” known as “Fast Eddy,” organized a Chicago Police Department raid on the headquarters of the Black Panther Party. They killed Fred Hampton and Mark Clark while they were sleeping. The FBI had provided an informant with a powerful barbiturate, secobarbital, to place in Hampton’s dinner several hours before the police break-in. Later Hanrahan was indicted for conspiracy to present false evidence and obstruction of justice regarding that illegal raid. A wrongful death civil suit was brought by the families of those who had been murdered. It was dismissed by Judge Perry. Perry’s biased ruling was reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Before the case was retried the defendants settled the action for $1.85 million. Hanrahan, after much political maneuvering, was never convicted. He ran for various offices but was defeated in every election. Fred Hampton had been a highly respected and beloved community organizer. The Chicago City Council unanimously passed a resolution establishing December 4, 2004, as “Fred Hampton Day.” A street in Maywood, Illinois, Hampton’s hometown, was named to honor him.
74. Abraham Bolden, The Echo from Dealey Plaza: The True Story of the First African American on the White House Secret Service Detail and His Quest for Justice After the Assassination of JFK, (Harmony Books, 2008).
75. Ibid, p. 252.
76. All references to Rowley’s testimony are to Vol. V, pages 449–455.
77. An indictment, Warren acting as a judge had often observed, has no probative value; it proves nothing; it is merely a mechanism by which a prosecutor brings a case toward trial against a person presumed to be innocent.
78. Warren Commission Report, pages 444–5.
79. Warren Commission Report, p. 454.
80. The Final Assassinations Report, Bantam Books, page 289.
81. Ibid, p. 290.
82. Ibid, p. 300.
83. Ibid.
84. Ibid, p. 295–6.
85. Vol VII, page 535. A commission attorney, Wesley J. Liebeler, who must have known that there were no Secret Service agents behind the fence, as the Secret Service had made that clear months earlier, declined to ask any questions about the men with those credentials.
86. James W. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 2008), pages 266 and 449.
87. Vol. 2, p. 63.
88. WCR, p. 31.
89. WCR, p. 57.
90. Ibid, page 4.
91. Vol. 2, page 74.
92. Vol. 2, p. 117.
93. Vol. 2, p. 77.
94. Vol 2, p. 73.
95. Ibid.
96. Vol. 2, p. 138.
97. Vol. 2, p. 139.
98. Hargis testimony, Vol. VI, p. 293–6.
99. WCR, index, p. 883.
100. Vol. 6, p. 294.
101. Ibid.
102. Ibid.
103. Ibid.
104. Ibid, pp. 294–295.
105. Vol 7, p. 534.
106. Ibid, p. 535.
107. *John and Caroline’s British nanny.
108. Warren Commission Report, p. 52, italics added.
109. Warren Commission Report, p. 2.
110. Gerald Blaine with Lisa McCubbin, The Kennedy Detail, (New York; Gallery Books, 2010).
111. Blaine, The Kennedy Detail, 306–307.
112. Ibid., 307.
113. Ibid., 307–8.
114. Warren Commission Transcripts, Vol. V, 449–486.
115. The most accurate and persistent inquiries into the role of the Secret Service are the numerous interviews and studies complied by Vince Palamara and his blog is by far the most complete record of their conduct. He has published on that site Abraham Bolden’s analysis of The Kennedy Detail. A visit to that blog and other related work on the Internet by Palamara would be very rewarding for those seeking additional information.
116. Blaine, The Kennedy Detail,for example, 42, 97, 120–2, 122–3.
117. Ibid., 132–3.
BOOK FOUR
MEXICO CITY
The Scenario Begins
David Atlee Phillips was fond of his location in Mexico City. His office ran the Western Hemisphere for his organization. The climate was perfect; even now in August the temperature was never above seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit and never dropped below fifty-three because the city is located on the central plateau far above sea level.
Above all, he was gratified by the political climate. His organization could have chosen Washington, D.C.; Langley, Virginia, its national headquarters; or New York City. But there were local and state police agencies there, some of them inquisitive, and there was the ever-present New York Times and The Washington Post, and his work, especially now, required the absence of prying eyes. Phillips, one of the highest-ranking officials of the CIA, was responsible for all operations of the Central Intelligence Agency to be carried out in the Western Hemisp
here.
The newspapers were not bothersome in Mexico City and the police authorities had long since been co-opted by the use of several methods. Select mid-level officers were fed secret intelligence about minor or semi-major criminal activities permitting those favored to quickly “solve” open cases through what appeared to be brilliant investigative work. They rose through the ranks knowing that they owed their careers to the CIA. Those open to bribery were easily recruited, and the few important officials who were loyal to their own country were placed in situations, filmed sexual assignations as one device, so that their cooperation and silence was extorted. For those reasons the CIA chose Mexico City, rather than a city in the United States, to make plans that directly involved the United States.
If Phillips successfully completed his complex assignment, he could expect rewards from his employer. Promotion to chief of station and finally, chief of all operations in the Western Hemisphere, not just the responsibility, were positions he coveted. Almost beyond his imagination was the Career Intelligence Medal, a secret CIA award that very few had ever earned. He won them all through his brilliant and innovative creations.
He worked assiduously and established the legend that a man, to be selected shortly, had been to Mexico City and while there visited both the Soviet and Cuban embassies. A search of intelligence files resulted in a few candidates, but one appeared most satisfactory. Lee Harvey Oswald had ties to the intelligence community and had been interviewed by a CIA asset, Priscilla Johnson, as soon as he arrived in Moscow.
Sufficient false information would be fed to J. Edgar Hoover, knowing that he would within hours of the assassination make his irrevocable response “Oswald was the assassin and he acted alone.” No agent of the FBI would dare to find any evidence that could lead to a contrary conclusion. The FBI would be on board.
Priscilla Johnson, on behalf of the CIA while posing as a news reporter, would release her version of the interview she had conducted with Oswald in 1959 stating that Oswald hated his country. When I wrote Plausible Denial more than two decades ago, Priscilla Johnson retained counsel who informed me and my publisher that if I dared to publish the statement that she was connected to the CIA, she would file a devastating lawsuit against us both for defamation. I assured the publisher that I would take full responsibility. I published the statement then, invited her to sue, and have not heard from her since. The CIA sent Priscilla Johnson on the mission of interviewing Oswald. At the time she claimed to be a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA), which was owned by a former officer of the CIA’s predecessor, the OSS. It published CIA-associated reporters including Virginia Prewett who, on behalf of the CIA, sought to cover up the facts surrounding the murder of Orlando Letelier. David Phillips considered Johnson to be one of his important media assets.
In 1967, the CIA scored one of its major victories by arranging for Svetlana Stalin, the only daughter of the dictator of the Soviet Union, to defect to the United States and condemn her father. The CIA obtained a safe house for her; it was the home of Priscilla Johnson’s family. Johnson remained with Svetlana as her constant companion. She participated in both writing and translating the autobiography for Svetlana. Johnson also purportedly helped Marina Oswald write her book that presented the government’s view of the events. When it was published Marina stated that it was false in all major respects.
It was presumed by Phillips and his associates as they began to create the Oswald Legend that after the death of President Kennedy, still many weeks ahead, there would be demands by many committees of the Congress for the facts. Allen W. Dulles, former director of the CIA, would be the appropriate person to lead the investigation; but since President Kennedy had quite publicly fired him for having repeatedly made false statements to him, some questions might be asked even by a complicit media. A titular head was required as well as members from both the Senate and the House, and both parties, and of course, the ubiquitous Allen Dulles, who still maintained important contacts with the new president. If possible, an FBI informant should also have a position.
President Johnson, after conferring with the intelligence community, appointed a presidential committee to investigate. The White House, and later the commission itself, explained why the commission was required. It was to head off and prevent an investigation by congress since several congressional committee heads had announced the intention of conducting hearings. His choice for chairman was Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren. Warren stated that he would not serve but Johnson persisted until the justice agreed. Republican and Democratic members of both houses were appointed, as was Allen Dulles. Rep. Gerald Ford, a Republican asset of the FBI, was one of the members. Later the FBI provided Ford with a special briefcase so that he could steal Warren Commission secret documents and deliver them to FBI officials. The purpose was to brief in advance the FBI witnesses with the questions that they would be asked. Of course, Dulles provided the same service to the CIA.
In attempting to design an inescapable trap for Oswald, Phillips was troubled by what he considered to be possibly fatal obstacles to the plan. Oswald would deny that he had been to Mexico City and might be able to provide proof that he was elsewhere at that time. That will not be a problem, he was assured. Oswald will not live to defend himself or even talk to a lawyer. Two days after his arrest, Oswald was murdered in the Dallas Police and Courts Building by an FBI asset, Jack Ruby, while the prisoner was being guarded by numerous police officers. The FBI and the Dallas Police Department had not permitted Oswald to meet with a lawyer, although he had publicly made that request.
There still remained the problem of Oswald’s wife and two children. The children were too young to be relied upon as witnesses, but Marina, soon to be his widow, might have some information to offer. She was to be immediately taken into custody by the Secret Service and denied access to counsel. Later the CIA arranged for Priscilla Johnson to spend time with her. Marina was told that if she did not remain silent, she would be deported to the Soviet Union and that her children would remain in the United States to be raised by the state as orphans.
With those assurances in place, Phillips went to work. A major feature of the plan was to create a scenario that would prevent any responsible body appointed to conduct the inquiry from doing so. “National Interests” and “Patriotism,” the last refuges for scoundrels, always remained the basis for turning away from the facts; and those concepts were cleverly employed by Phillips. He became the architect of the advance frame-up. He was not on the grassy knoll when the fatal shot was fired. But he was in Mexico City many weeks earlier when the plan to prevent the possibility of an honest inquiry as to who was responsible was initiated.
The “lone assassin” was the story the CIA would try to sell. Yet the CIA had built in a safeguard in case their original efforts failed. They had arranged alternative scenarios. Jim Garrison, District Attorney of New Orleans, and later a state court appellate judge in Louisiana, said that as long as no one suspected that the CIA was complicit in the assassination the agency would be satisfied. He pointed out that the CIA had devised a scheme that resembled the layers of an onion. The first impression was that Oswald did it alone. If that story was rejected, there was a fallback theory to take its place. Remove that layer and you encounter the next choice, organized crime. That false lead would make for an ideal culprit. No group would respond by stating that it was organized crime and that in this matter the syndicate was innocent. Also, most people did not approve of those who controlled the sale of drugs and prostitution and regularly dealt in murder and numerous other illegal acts and, therefore, would not be surprised or dissatisfied to learn that they were also involved in assassinations. There were many layers as indicated by clues scattered about, but the concept was that before you might reach the CIA you would have to reject all others that preceded it.
In addition, if you were going to write a book or produce a film on the subject, choosing criminals as your villains would cause a lo
t less trouble for you than asserting that your own government killed your president.
The Legend Is Established: The CIA’s Mexico City Caper
The CIA and David Atlee Phillips developed the Legend that Lee Harvey Oswald had been to Mexico City during September 1963. That assertion was not true, yet the complicated legend that the CIA constructed about Oswald’s journey to Mexico became the basis for removing Warren and his commission as independent investigators.
