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National Archives Accessions Newly Discovered Post-JFK Assassination Tape Recording


Peter Fokes

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Dave, since you have the book 'Memories' by Clifton and Stoughton, can you tell us if Clifton discusses the ride home on AF1 and if Stoughton has any photos of AF1 in the book?

There are no photos of AF1 in the book. And there is no discussion at all about the trip from Dallas

to Washington on Nov. 22. And there are no assassination-related pictures in the book at all. The book is a celebration of JFK's life rather than his death.

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/08/memories-jfk-1961-1963.html

Edited by David Von Pein
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And the second point is the conversation that William Manchester is referring to - is NOT on the existing tape or transcript, so he must of got that info from a different transcript or got it from Clifton or Bundy or someone else in the room - perhaps the radio man he mentions by name. But it is NOT on the tape, so the tape is not complete. And Vince Salandria does suspect Bundy as having knowledge of a conspiracy, if you bother to read his Tale of the Tape.

Those comments merely reflect the natural concern among JFK's top aides that some kind of "plot" MIGHT have existed in Dallas to murder the President. Nothing more, nothing less. And it's the very same concern that LBJ, RFK, and lots of other people (both in and out of the Government) were feeling and expressing in the hours and days following JFK's assassination.

Lots of such talk among officialdom in the hours after the assassination -- but not that much in the days after the assassination.

For instance, Dallas Assistant DA William Alexander was ready to charge Oswald will killing JFK "in furtherance of a Communist conspiracy."

This charge was squelched.

J. Edgar Hoover told Bobby Kennedy a few hours after JFK's murder that Oswald had been to Cuba -- an accusation that was totally squelched.

At Parkland 15 minutes after JFK was pronounced dead LBJ's press secretary asked if a statement should be made and Johnson replied -- "No. Wait. We don't know if it's a communist conspiracy or not."

Those suspicions were squelched within hours.

And who did the squelching of any official Oswald-as-commie-agent scenario?

This guy:

At 6:55 p.m. Johnson has a ten minute meeting with Senator J. William Fulbright and diplomat W. Averell Harriman to discuss possible foreign involvement in the assassination, especially in light of the two-and-a-half-year sojourn of Lee Harvey Oswald [in Russia]...Harriman, a U.S. ambassador to Moscow during WWII, is an experienced interpreter of Soviet machinations and offers the president the unanimous view of the U.S. government's top Kremlinologists. None of them believe the Soviets have a hand in the assassination, despite the Oswald association.

--Max Holland's The Assassination Tapes, pg 57

Harriman was the U.S. government's top Kremlinologist -- bar none. How could he have possibly made a responsible assertion of Soviet innocence in a matter of hours given all the evidence of multiple shooters and Oswald's alleged meeting with the Soviet KGB man Kostikov -- unless Harriman knew who did it?

And if Harriman knew who did it -- does that not make him a suspected accomplice?

Bundy in the Situation Room -- Oswald did it.

Harriman in the White House not more than 10 minutes after LBJ arrived -- the Soviets didn't do it.

These guys were the ring-leaders of the cover-up, at the very least.

Edited by Cliff Varnell
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To have released the unedited tapes would have revealed, directly or indirectly, the identity of one of the conspirators.

LOL.gif

Ya gotta love the paranoid mind of a conspiracy theorist at work. On what amounts to no evidence whatsoever on which to base such a charge, the conspiracy theorist has no hesitation whatsoever in jumping to the sordid and sinister conclusion quoted above.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Then you must support the release of the complete unedited tape, right?

BK

JFKcountercoup

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Then you must support the release of the complete unedited tape, right?

Absolutely. (If such a tape exists, that is.)

The more stuff I can add to my A/V sites, the better. :-)

I've had a 16-minute version of the AF1 tapes on my sites for years, and I was very glad to see an expanded 2-hour version come to the forefront from NARA this week.

Plus, if such an "unedited" tape could be made public, it would serve to silence a few more conspiracists....because such an unedited tape would certainly not be revealing anything covert or sinister in any way, shape, or form.

Edited by David Von Pein
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Bill,

Do you really believe that some ham radio operator in Boise, Idaho, could have listened in on the AF1 radio frequencies on 11/22/63?

That, to me, sounds like a ridiculous claim....and a ridiculous possibility (even in circa 1963). I would imagine the AF1 radio frequencies were a little more secure than that.

(Do I know for sure they were more secure than that? No, but I'm guessing they were.)

Yes, a HAM radio operator in Boise, Idaho could have listened in on the AF1 radio communications if they had a HAM radio receiver and a scanner or knew the frequencies that were being used, and assigned by the Liberty Station at Collins Radio, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

That's why they used code names for each other and places, and that's why it was not Kosher for Clifton to ask Bundy if there was a conspiracy on an insecure line.

There was even a group of HAM operators out of Colorado who made it a hobby of listening in on the AF1 radio chatter, and I believe they may have tape recorded parts of the three radios going at once on 11/22/63.

In addition, it is probable that the NSA also recorded the radio communications as well as the Ruskies at their Cuban listening post and some allies like Canada, Israel and Australia.

Maybe we should ask them for their copies of the tapes since we seem to have lost or misplaced ours?

BK

JFKcountercoup

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Yes, a HAM radio operator in Boise, Idaho could have listened in on the AF1 radio communications if they had a HAM radio receiver and a scanner or knew the frequencies that were being used.

That's amazing. And nearly unbelievable.

I'm not saying you're wrong, Bill. It just seems unbelievable to me.

Can a guy in his basement in Baton Rouge listen in to the private AF1 conversations here in 2012 while SAM 28000 is airborne? Or has the Govt. decided to make the AF1 airwaves a tad more secure nowadays? (I don't mean regular ATC traffic, of course.)

Edited by David Von Pein
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Somehow its not significant that we did not know someone was looking for LeMay at the time JFK's body was bring returned to DC and the decision was being made as to where to do the autopsy.

I saw a reference to this, but is that portion of the transcript available?

I'm wondering why someone would have trouble locating LeMay. Supposedly the joint chiefs were meeting with West German officials at the Pentagon that day. Since LeMay did not see fit to attend this supposed meeting, I would think that the Pentagon would at least know what LeMay's other plans were, i.e. where he was. Or was the chiefs meeting with the West German officials just a cover story as I have long suspected? Is this meeting referenced at all in the frantic search for LeMay?

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Yes, a HAM radio operator in Boise, Idaho could have listened in on the AF1 radio communications if they had a HAM radio receiver and a scanner or knew the frequencies that were being used.

That's amazing. And nearly unbelievable.

I'm not saying you're wrong, Bill. It just seems unbelievable to me.

Can a guy in his basement in Baton Rouge listen in to the private AF1 conversations here in 2012 while SAM 28000 is airborne? Or has the Govt. decided to make the AF1 airwaves a tad more secure nowadays? (I don't mean regular ATC traffic, of course.)

I know it sounds unbelievable but it's true.

Larry Hancock is trying to figure out how they did these things back then.

Today they have more secure radio communications but in 1963 they did not. They reserved a number of frequencies that could be used only by the military and the government, and if you knew what they were you could tune in, as William Manchester describes in his book The Death of the President:

JFKcountercoup: "Pentagon taking its own steps..." - Bundy

Aft of the cockpit Signalman John Trimble was too busyto brood. He had three phone patches going to the communications shack, and he was using Hanson's UHF and VHF sets, yet it wasn't enough. Every official in Washington it seemed, wanted to talk to Air Force One...Several conversations were trivial....Lem Johns was forwarding instructions to the White House Communications Agency, and Bill Moyers was talking to Walter Jenkins and MacBundy. (Ted Clifton talked to Bundy, too, asking again whether an international plot was emerging. It was not a discreet inquiry.Trimble's patches were not secure. They could be bugged. Bundy repliedcrisply that the Pentagon was taking its own steps.) But the bulk of theverbal traffic was about President Kennedy...p. 341 - Death of a President, Manchester.

BK Notes: They didn't have to be "bugged," as anyone with a radio who knew the frequencies could tune in and listen, as many did.

Manchester also notes that JFK had ordered the tapes made, and LBJ didn't know this.

Footnote 9 - p. 371

9. That Friday Lyndon Johnson did not know that John Kennedy had ordered the taping of all Angel conversations while the plane was in flight. On April 21, 1964, this writer learnedthat the Love-to-Andrews tape still existed. Since security was not involved,it was first thought that a complete transcript of it would serve as auseful appendix to this book.Presidential consent was withheld, however.On May 5, 1965, the author was permitted to read an edited transcript at the White House. Doubtless the tape will be available to future historians.

Edited by William Kelly
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Somehow its not significant that we did not know someone was looking for LeMay at the time JFK's body was bring returned to DC and the decision was being made as to where to do the autopsy.

I saw a reference to this, but is that portion of the transcript available?

I'm wondering why someone would have trouble locating LeMay. Supposedly the joint chiefs were meeting with West German officials at the Pentagon that day. Since LeMay did not see fit to attend this supposed meeting, I would think that the Pentagon would at least know what LeMay's other plans were, i.e. where he was. Or was the chiefs meeting with the West German officials just a cover story as I have long suspected? Is this meeting referenced at all in the frantic search for LeMay?

LeMay was at an air base in Canada at the time of the assassination and flew back to DC - landing at DC National in disregard of orders to land at Andrews. He was in the air at the same time as AF1.

JFKcountercoup: General Curtis LeMay on 11/22/63

When I finish transcribing the new additions from the Clifton/Raab/NARA tape I will post it at my blog.

BK

JFKcountercoup: "Pentagon taking its own steps..." - Bundy

Edited by William Kelly
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AS DOUG HORNE'S ARRB MEMO NOTES: THE COMPLETE TAPE OF THREE RADIO TRANSMISSION GOING AT THE SAME TIME FROM AF1 WOULD BE SIX TO SEVEN HOURS OF TAPE. flying

Only if the plane was 170 - 200 mph

http://www.travelmat.../Washington,+DC

Gary Mack made this claim to.

You can do the math yourself Len, but first understand what you are talking about, and read Doug Horne's ARRB Memo and the Chapter devoted to the AF1 recordings in his book (Chapter 13), which I have taken the time and trouble to type and post at my blog for you to read, though I suggest you read all five volumes of his book if you really want to debate anybody with any knowledge of the case.

The bottom line is, as Manchester notes in his book The Death of the President, and quoted elsewhere and at my blog,

there were THREE sideband radios being used to communicate with others outside the plane while enroute from Love Field, Dallas to Andrews AFB DC, a flight that took less than three hours, so as Doug Horne estimates, and I agree, there should be at least five to six hours of taped conversations, tapes that as Manchester notes - were ordered made by JFK himself, an order that was unknown to LBJ at the time.

Now before you start arguing about things, please read on and bone up on what is already known before you start sprouting off and trying to teach anybody arithmetic.

BK

JFKcountercoup: "Pentagon taking its own steps..." - Bundy

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...

LeMay was at an air base in Canada at the time of the assassination and flew back to DC - landing at DC National in disregard of orders to land at Andrews. He was in the air at the same time as AF1.

...

What was the alleged reason LeMay was at an air base in Canada? Also, do you recall where you learned that?

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http://JFK-Archives.blogspot.com/2011/12/aircraft-radio-transmissions-11-22-63.html#Air-Force-One-Tapes-CNN-Video

The above CNN video is totally misleading, with the commentators giving the CNN audience the impression that there was possibly something sinister, devious, or conspiratorial about the decision to take President Kennedy's body to Bethesda Naval Hospital instead of Walter Reed Hospital on the night of the President's assassination.

It's true that on the Air Force One radio tapes (the 2-hour version released by NARA in January 2012), Dr. George Burkley does say that the body will be going to Walter Reed. But that was obviously not a finalized decision at the time Burkley made that statement aboard Air Force One on 11/22/63.

And much more important is the fact that we know exactly WHO it was who made the final decision to have the autopsy at Bethesda -- it was Jackie Kennedy herself. And the Warren Commission testimony of Ken O'Donnell confirms that fact for history (at 7 H 454-455):

KENNETH P. O'DONNELL -- "We arrived at Andrews and meanwhile the Attorney General had been notified, the decision had been made that he would go to Bethesda."

ARLEN SPECTER -- "Who made that decision, by the way?"

MR. O'DONNELL -- "Mrs. Kennedy."

MR. SPECTER -- "That the autopsy should be performed?"

MR. O'DONNELL -- "I don't think she knew anything about an autopsy. The question is where the body went. We didn't tell her there was to be an autopsy. And the choice was Walter Reed or Bethesda. He being a Navy man, she picked Bethesda."

MR. SPECTER -- "She chose Bethesda, as between Bethesda and Walter Reed?"

MR. O'DONNELL -- "She did."

http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh7/html/WC_Vol7_0231b.htm

-------------------

So when Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley recently appeared on CNN and told the unaware audience that we are still "missing" any kind of an explanation for why JFK's autopsy was performed at Bethesda instead of Walter Reed, he simply didn't know what he was talking about. Because the above excerpt taken from Kenny O'Donnell's 1964 Warren Commission testimony put that question to rest 48 years ago.

It would be nice if the talking heads (like Douglas Brinkley) would do at least a small amount of homework and research before appearing on live television, in front of millions of people, and saying incorrect and uninformed things that can only add to the suspicions of the American public and lead them to the inaccurate notion that something sinister and underhanded just might have been going on with respect to the selection of Bethesda as the site for JFK's autopsy.

When, in reality, the truth is something quite non-sinister and innocent: the President's widow selected the location of the autopsy herself. And anyone who wants to doubt that fact is going to have to call one of JFK's best friends, Kenneth P. O'Donnell, an outright xxxx. And I doubt if there are even many hardcore conspiracy theorists who have a desire to do that.

In addition, JFK's personal physician, Admiral George Burkley, whose voice we hear on the newly-released expanded version of the Air Force One tape saying that JFK's body was going to go to Walter Reed, told the HSCA in an affidavit that it was, indeed, Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy who had made the final decision (and/or had given "permission", per Burkley's affidavit) to have JFK's body taken to Bethesda:

"I had ordered the United States Naval Hospital to be prepared for performing an autopsy on the body of John F. Kennedy, President of the United States, the permission having been granted by Mrs. Kennedy while enroute. It was to be a complete autopsy with no limitations and no curtailment in time necessary for completion." -- George G. Burkley; November 28, 1978

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/burkaff.htm

Burkley, by the way, also said this in that same affidavit:

"I saw President Kennedy's wounds at Parkland Hospital and during the autopsy at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. There was no difference in the nature of the wounds I saw at Parkland Hospital and those I observed at the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital." -- George Burkley; 11/28/78

-------------------

In addition, I want to also emphasize something else that's very relevant to the previously-linked CNN video feature Rice University's Douglas Brinkley:

Brinkley and the other talking heads in that CNN clip seem to be of the opinion that prior to late January 2012, when the National Archives released a new expanded 2.5-hour version of the Air Force One radio transmissions, nobody in the world had ever heard any audio clips from the AF1 tapes that even suggested that President Kennedy's body was going to be taken to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington.

But that's simply wrong. The previously-available condensed versions of the Air Force One radio tapes contain multiple references to the body being taken to Walter Reed for the post-mortem examination. JFK's military aide, General Chester V. Clifton, can be heard giving instructions to Washington regarding the location of the autopsy. Clifton can be heard on the tape saying this:

"This is General Clifton. .... We do not want a helicopter for Bethesda Medical Center. We do want an ambulance and a ground return from Andrews to Walter Reed; and we want the regular post-mortem that has to be done by law under guard performed at Walter Reed." -- Chester V. Clifton; Aboard Air Force One; 11/22/63

And, to emphasize again, the above quote from General Clifton is not a "new" discovery at all (contrary to what the commentators and analysts at CNN seem to believe). The audio clip that contains General Clifton's "Walter Reed" quote has been available for years. And I've had that audio clip on my websites for quite some time prior to January 2012.

You can hear Clifton make the above statement regarding "Walter Reed" at the very beginning of the video labelled "Part 2" on the webpage below:

http://DVP-Potpourri.blogspot.com/2010/09/aircraft-radio-transmissions-11-22-63.html

Edited by David Von Pein
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