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LBJ and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy


John Simkin

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Excellent article with astute analysis!  Have you seen an aticle by Phil Brennan, a GOP House aide?  He states that Hill came to him in literal fear for his life becauseof pressure from Bobby Baker.  Brennan advised Hill that his only way out was to go public by filing suit against Baker.  Later Brennan introduced Hill to Sen. Williams.

Thank you for the link. Another example of collective intelligence at work. I will email Phil Brennen and maybe he will join the seminar. I think the following passage is especially interesting (1) :

To make a long story short, Baker advised Hill to go into the vending machine business and promised him he'd arrange to get some major defense contractors to install the machines, which vended soft drinks, sandwiches, cigarettes and the like.

There was only one catch - Baker wanted under-the-table payoffs for his part in setting up what would be a very lucrative business opportunity with tens of thousands of potential customers who worked in defense plants.

True to his word, Baker got a number of defense contractors to agree to allow Hill the exclusive right to install his vending machines on their premises. It was an opportunity to print money by the barrel, and with those golden contracts in hand, Hill was able to go to the bank and borrow all the funds he needed to buy the vending machines and go into business. For a while he prospered - as did Baker.

But whatever he was paying Baker was not enough to satisfy the man who, for all intents and purposes, had the Senate under his thumb. He saw that the members of the Democrat majority got whatever they wanted - money, bimbos, LBJ's help, you name it. They were all in his pocket.

He could arrange multimillion-dollar contracts for the defense industry or take them away if he wanted. He was LBJ's guy and was all-powerful and a very dangerous man to have as an enemy, a fact Ralph Hill learned when Baker put the bite on him for bigger payoffs.

The problem for Hill was that he had big payments to make on the loans he'd taken out to buy the equipment and set himself up in business, had some pretty steep overhead, and simply didn't have enough left over to boost his payments to Baker.

He tried to explain that fact of life to Baker, but the secretary of the United States Senate wasn't having any. He simply repeated his demands and threatened Hill that if he didn't pay up he'd see that Hill lost all those juicy defense plant contracts.

Bad went to worse, Baker made good on his threats, and Hill was facing bankruptcy. Moreover, it was made known to him that if he didn't simply fold his tent and go off without making trouble for Baker, he might meet with an unfortunate - and probably fatal - accident.

But Hill was facing bankruptcy and the loss of everything he had, and he simply would not give up. He was fighting for his life. And he had the guts to hang in there.

He asked me to help him. But I was completely a creature of the House side of Capitol Hill - the Senate side was foreign territory and, I hate to admit it, I didn't even have the vaguest idea of who this Bobby Baker, the Senate's imperial potentate, was.

I told Hill that his only way out was to expose Baker publicly, to get the story out - once it was public, Baker could not afford to retaliate. I advised Hill to file suit against Baker, laying out all the sordid details in the complaint, and once he had served Baker, to give me the complaint papers and I'd see that the media on the Hill got their hands on copies.

He did and I did - and I now found myself a potential target, not only of Baker's but of the media as well, but that's another story. I was able to get only two reporters to write the story - the late Clark Mohlenhoff, one of the best investigative reporters in Washington, and one other whose name I don't recall.

For the most part, the Washington press corps kept the lid on the story - until the late Bob Humphrey, then the GOP Senate leadership's spokesman, an incredibly gifted strategist and a mentor, asked me to tell the story to the late Delaware Republican Sen. John Williams, a crusader for good government and a crackerjack of an investigator.

Sen. Williams asked me to introduce him to Hill and I did. They got together with some Senate investigators for the GOP minority and Hill told them the whole story, including the part played by Vice President Johnson. Williams got his committee to launch an investigation and the lid came off.

A few days later, the attorney general, Bobby Kennedy, called five of Washington's top reporters into his office and told them it was now open season on Lyndon Johnson. It's OK, he told them, to go after the story they were ignoring out of deference to the administration.

And from that point on until the events in Dallas, Lyndon Baines Johnson's future looked as if it included a sudden end to his political career and a few years in the slammer. The Kennedys had their knives out and sharpened for him and were determined to draw his political blood - all of it.

In the Senate, the investigation into the Baker case was moving quickly ahead. Even the Democrats were cooperating, thanks to the Kennedys, and an awful lot of really bad stuff was being revealed - until Nov. 22, 1963.

By Nov. 23, all Democrat cooperation suddenly stopped. Lyndon would serve a term and a half in the White House instead of the slammer, the Baker investigation would peter out and Bobby Baker would serve a short sentence and go free. Dallas accomplished all of that.

Sometimes I wonder: If I had not met Hill and convinced him to go public with the story, and the Bobby Baker case and Lyndon's part in it had not come out as a result, would Dallas not have happened? I don't like to think about that.

There has always been a aspect of the Bobby Baker case I have not been able to understand. Hill told Baker he planned to go to the press with his story. Baker ignored these threats. As Brennen points out, the story was slow to get out. Before publishing their story reporters contacted Johnson. He was furious and he told Baker to sort it out with Hill before the story got published. (2) For some reason, Baker refused claiming that the story would not go public. He was wrong and in September, 1963, the story appeared in the September edition of the Vend magazine (3).

The story was then picked up by the Washington Post (4) and became big news. It was as a result of this story that Don Reynolds contacted John Williams. Some else tipped off Williams about the parties that Baker had been holding for politicians, business contacts, members of the underworld and women of easy virtue (very few were actually prostitutes) at Carole Tyler’s home. It was also revealed that Tyler’s home was actually owned by Baker.

The question is why did Baker not sort it out? Baker just claims it was the biggest mistake of his life. I suspect Baker is not telling the truth about Hill. Is it possible that the it was already out of Baker’s control. That some powerful figure was already setting up Johnson? That Johnson was being moved into a position that would guarantee that he would participate in the cover-up.

Notes

(1) Phil Brennan, Some Relevant Facts About the JFK Assassination (19th November, 2003)

(2) Bobby Baker, Wheeling and Dealing (1978) pages 175-76

(3) Vending Magazine (September, 1963)

(4) Washington Post (12th September, 1963)

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Thanks John and James,

I wanted to check how close he was to the Baker/Rowland suspect. I suppose he could pass for early 30s, and the dark hair is a match. If weight also matched, I could use those sightings to rule him out.

Not sure if you're aware, but there may be some exciting developments on the fingerprint evidence next year through a researcher in Ohio named Jim Olmstead.

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Not sure if you're aware, but there may be some exciting developments on the fingerprint evidence next year through a researcher in Ohio named Jim Olmstead.

Could you provide more details about this? Is Jim Olmstead checking Nathan Darby's original research?

If Mac Wallace's fingerprint is identified as being the one found in the TSBD, does it prove that he was there on the day of the assassination? Is it not possible that Wallace touched the box and it was then placed in the TSBD to implicate Johnson? This would then have given Johnson a good reason to suppress this evidence and to ensure that a cover up took place.

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Not sure if you're aware, but there may be some exciting developments on the fingerprint evidence next year through a researcher in Ohio named Jim Olmstead.

Could you provide more details about this? Is Jim Olmstead checking Nathan Darby's original research?

If Mac Wallace's fingerprint is identified as being the one found in the TSBD, does it prove that he was there on the day of the assassination? Is it not possible that Wallace touched the box and it was then placed in the TSBD to implicate Johnson? This would then have given Johnson a good reason to suppress this evidence and to ensure that a cover up took place.

John,

The FBI said in a memo on the 23ed that the images lifted by Day from the triggerguard were of no value. In a legal sense, this means that they cannot be sad to belong to any particular individual. Using software developed by the FBI, Jim has concluded that the prints do have value... and may match an individual whose prints are in the DPD files.

Jim was in the process of trying to get the FBI interested when 9/11 happened. Any small chance they may have taken up the "cause" was lost at that time.

I don't want to get into a debate -- or even a discussion on this, as I am bound at some point to misrepresent Jim's work.

However he did a presentation at the Wecht conference last November, and a DVD set of the conference is now available line. A google search should find it.

As a result of his presentation, he now has some expert help, and as I understand it, he is planning to take further action on the issue in the coming year.

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I have argued that I believe LBJ was set-up as a patsy in order to persuade him to cover up the Kennedy assassination. I therefore believe that the Baker Scandal was forced out into the public domain by the conspirators to kill Kennedy. I have examined Baker’s role in this. I now want to look at the role played by Don Reynolds in this conspiracy.

The LBJ tapes show that there was a concerted effort to smear Reynolds. On 5th February, 1964, the Washington Post reported that Reynolds had lied about his academic success at West Point. The article also claimed that Reynolds had been a supporter of Joseph McCarthy and had accused business rivals of being secret members of the American Communist Party. It was also revealed that Reynolds had made anti-Semitic remarks in the early 1950s.

A few weeks later the New York Times reported that Lyndon B. Johnson had used information from secret government documents to smear Reynolds. It also reported that Johnson's officials had been applying pressure on the editors of newspapers not to print information that had been disclosed by Reynolds in front of the Senate Rules Committee.

It was assumed that the information came from FBI files? However, one has to ask why the FBI were keeping a file on Reynolds in the 1950s. Support for Joseph McCarthy and making anti-Semitic remarks are hardly likely to create much concern at the FBI. Is it possible that this information came from the CIA? If so, why would the CIA be interested in Reynolds?

I did some research into the background of Reynolds and discovered that in the early 1950s he was working as a U.S. consular official in Berlin. He was therefore in Berlin at the same time as Maxwell Taylor, John McCloy, David Morales, Ted Shackley and William Harvey. He also shared their right-wing views.

Was Reynolds used to manipulate Johnson? Why does Reynolds accept a pay-off before giving evidence against Johnson on the day Kennedy was assassinated? He appears to be willing to do this after the assassination. Reynolds is quoted as saying “it is one thing to give evidence against a vice-president, it is something else to give evidence against a president”. Was that the only reason he went quiet after the assassination?

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Just before JFK was assassinated he upset people like Clint Murchison and Haroldson L. Hunt when he talked about plans to submit to Congress a tax reform plan designed to produce about $185,000,000 in additional revenues by changes in the favourable tax treatment until then accorded the gas-oil industry. Kennedy was particularly upset that Hunt, who had an annual income of about $30,000,000, paid only small amounts of federal income tax.

In Barr McClellan’s book, Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK (1) he argues that the assassination was paid for by oil millionaires. McClellan claims that Clark got $2 million for this work.

The assassination of Kennedy allowed the oil depletion allowance to be kept at 27.5 per cent. It remained unchanged during the Johnson presidency. According to McClellan this resulted in a saving of over 100 million dollars to the American oil industry. Soon after Johnson left office it dropped to 15 per cent.

I decided to do some research into the origins of these tax concessions enjoyed by the oil industry. The story is an interesting one.

Sid Richardson (2) and Clint Murchison (3) were both involved in providing Johnson with election funds. However, in 1952, they decided to support Dwight Eisenhower in his election campaign. Part of the deal was that Eisenhower should appoint Robert Anderson as his Navy Secretary. Anderson was a close friend of Lyndon Johnson. During the Second World War Anderson purchased the KTBC Radio Station. (4) In 1943 he sold it to Johnson for $17,500. By 1951 the station was earning $3,000 a week. (5)

According to Robert Sherrill (6):

Anderson, a resident of landlocked Fort Worth, knew nothing of naval affairs before he got the post, but that hardly matters; all he needed to know was that Texas is the largest oil-producing state and that the Navy is the largest consumer of oil as well as leaser of valuable lands to favored oil firms. From this producer-consumer relationship things work out rather naturally, and it was this elementary knowledge that later made John Connally (who had for several years, through the good offices of his mentor Lyndon Johnson, been serving as Sid Richardson's attorney and who later became executor of the Richardson estate) and Fred Korth, also residents of Fort Worth, such able secretaries of the Navy, by Texas standards.

In 1956 Richardson and Murchison tried to persuade Eisenhower to drop Nixon and select Anderson as his running mate. Eisenhower refused but did agree to appoint Anderson as his Secretary of the Treasury (7):

Eisenhower, on the urging of Richardson and Lyndon Johnson, named him to the office of Secretary of Treasury, and on June 21 (1957), ten days after selling his gift oil property, Anderson was free and clear to tell the Senate Finance Committee that he held no property that would conflict with his interest in the cabinet post.

A few weeks later Anderson was appointed to a cabinet committee to "study" the oil import situation; out of this study came the present-day program which benefits the major oil companies, the international oil giants primarily, by about one billion dollars a year.

When Johnson arrived back from Dallas one of the first things he did was to phone Robert Anderson. It is not known what the two men talked about. However, other conversations were taped and this included Anderson providing advice to Johnson on the Baker Scandal (8).

Despite Johnson’s close relationship with Anderson, he is not mentioned in Robert A. Caro’s books: Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power (9) and Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate (10).

In 1987, Robert Anderson was found guilty of tax evasion. This was related to possible money laundering involving an unregistered off-shore bank that he operated. He was disbarred and sent to prison. He died in 1989.

Notes

(1) Barr McClellan, Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK (2003)

(2) Sid Richardson: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKrichardsonS.htm

(3) Clint Murchison: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmurchison.htm

(4) Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising (1991) page 247

(5) Robert A. Caro, Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate (2002) page 424

(6) Robert Sherrill, The Accidental President (1967) page 144

(7) Robert Sherrill, The Accidental President (1967) page 145

(8) Michael R. Beschloss, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964 (1997)

(9) Robert A. Caro, Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power (1982)

(10) Robert A. Caro, Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate (2002)

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I have had an email about Robert Anderson. The person wishes to remain anonymous. I thought it was worth posting as it might help others researching Anderson.

Regarding the Robert Caro LBJ biography project: You state that Robert B. Anderson is not mentioned in Volumes 1 & 3. He is mentioned, however, in Vol 2, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent (pages 83 & 84). The mention of Anderson, in name, is brief and has to do with the fact that he was one of the three owners of the Austin, Texas radio station that was later purchased by the Johnsons (officially, only Lady Bird). The description of the whole story of the radio station purchase, however, takes up much of the chapter entitled, “Buying and Selling.”

Another book I have that mentions Anderson is the James Reston, Jr., biography, The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally (pages 165-167). It states that after Eisenhower was elected, Sid Richardson influenced him to appoint Anderson as Secretary of the Navy. It goes on to discuss speculation that Anderson might have been in a position to help Clint Muchison out of tax problems with the famous Hotel Del Charro in California, when he later became Secretary of the Treasury. It seems an upset man from San Diego had written a letter to newspaper columnist Drew Pearson in which he asked, “…Why doesn’t the Treasury Department rule on this dodge? …One reason the Treasury Department wasn’t interested could have been that Richardson’s own man, Robert B. Anderson, had moved from the Navy Department to the Treasury Department.”

I have always found it fascinating to read about the goings on at the Hotel Del Charro.

Eisenhower Declassified by Virgil Pinkley (with James F. Scheer) has two interesting refs:

1) When Anderson was Secretary of the Navy Eisenhower gave him the mission of desegregating the Department of the Navy. Book says the Texas Democrat Anderson "lit up" and accomplished the mission in 90 days. (pages 346-347)

2) After the 1956 election Eisenhower faced Democratic majorities in both houses of congress, so he called Anderson back from private business in New York and asked him to be Secretary of the Treasury. That was only part of the story, what he really wanted Anderson for was to be his confidential liaison with Anderson's Texas friends House Speaker Sam Rayburn and Senate Majority Leader LBJ. (page 359)

Thy Will Be Done - The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil by Gerard Colby (with Charlotte Dennett).

1) In 1954 Nelson Rockefeller was appointed chairman of the (Operations Coordinating Board) OCB's 5412 Committee (also called the "Special Group"). Other members were Undersecretary of State Hebert Hoover, Jr., Defense Undersecretary Robert B. Anderson (representing Defense Secretary Wilson), and Allen Dulles (representing the CIA). I am a little confused on the Anderson timeline, i.e., when he went from Secretary of the Navy to Under Secretary of Defense to private business in New York, then back to Sec of the Treasury, etc.. Describes the Special Group as only second to the President in having responsibility for managing covert operations, but actually more powerful than the President. (page 851 note 21)

2) As Treasury Secretary shoot down an Eisenhower idea to work with the Soviet Union to aid third world countries (sounds crazy but one needs to read the whole thing). (page 328)

3) Re: LBJ transition from JFK foreign-aid policies. CIA director John McCone advised LBJ to bring back Anderson to head the Alliance for Progress (I don't see if he actually took this post). (page 422)

4) LBJ sent Anderson on a mission to Peru re: oil business. (page 538-539)

5) Re: Senate Rules Committee hearings on Bobby Baker. This is a long footnote that mentions Anderson's ties to Nelson Rockefeller and describes him as a former major stockholder in Delada Oil. Refs to: "On Delada, see Bernard B Nossiter, _'Ex-Treasury Chief Received Oil Funds,' Washington Post, June 16, 1970." (page 880 note 6)

My editorializing on this second book: Extremely important work with tons of vital information but also seriously flawed. It paints an extremely inaccurate picture of the role of the Rockefeller family in world power circles. I strongly feel that this must have been deliberate.

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Another message from my anonymous contact. I believe this to be very important information. I will explain later today.

Thy Will Be Done - The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil by Gerard Colby (with Charlotte Dennett), (page 880 note 6)

6. Four Texans were named in Senate Rules Committee hearings in connection with payoffs and loans to Baker: Thomas E. Webb, Clint Murchison, Jr., Robert H. Thompson, and Bedford Wynne. Webb was involved in a Florida land-development loan from Hoffa's Teamsters Pension Fund, and Murchison's Tecon Corporation allegedly paid Webb to negotiate the loan (see John Masher, "Murchison Associate Reveals Baker Tieup in Joint Venture," Dallas Morning News, January 29, 1964). Webb and Murchison employee Thompson were also involved in questionable loans to Baker arranged by Dallas banker Robert H. Stewart.

Finally, Wynne took a "salary" from Murchison's Sweetwater Development Company that was criticized in an army audit of Sweetwater's construction of a North Carolina desalination plant built with federal contracts. Baker, after recommending Wynne hire the law firm of New York Congressman Emmanuel Celler to help in the project, received $2,500 of the $10,000 Sweetwater paid the Celler firm in legal fees ("Didn't Know Firm, Murchison States," Dallas Morning News, February 5, 1965). Both Stewart and Wynne were directors of the Great Southwest Corporation, a venture in real estate holdings located between Dallas and Fort Worth, in which Nelson Rockefeller and his brothers had a large stake through Rockefeller Center, Inc. This was part of Nelson's growing business ties with conservative Texan oil and financial principals, including Robert B. Anderson, a major stockholder in Delada Oil, controlled by Bedford Wynne's uncle, T. L. Wynne (and after Anderson's sellout to return to the Eisenhower administration, 50-percent-controlled by Nelson's IBEC), and real estate developer Trammel Crow, a director of Great Southwest. Control of Southwest, according to congressional investigators, "was tightly centered in the Rockefeller and Wynne families" (House Committee on Banking and Currency. Staff Report, The Penn Central Failure and the Role of Financial Institutions [Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1970], part III, p. 30; see also Congressional Record, January 26, 1965, p. 1313, and Senate Committee on Rules, Construction of the District of Columbia Stadium [Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 19641, pp. 859-87). On Stewart, see Senate Committee on Rules, Financial or Business Interests of Officers or Employees of the Senate (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1964), p. 987ff. On Delada, see Bernard B. Nossiter, "Ex-Treasury Chief Received Oil Funds," Washington Post, June 16, 1970.

In 1966, Baker was convicted of fraud and taking bribes and was subsequently imprisoned. Wynne, Murchison, and Webb denied any wrongdoing and were not charged with any crime.

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More on Anderson

In Johnson's memoirs, The Vantage Point, he records that on the day after the assassination, Eisenhower drove down to Washington and made out a list describing what he'd do if he was in Johnson's shoes. Number one on the list was that Johnson should send for Anderson to confer on general subjects. Later on, LBJ sent Anderson to Panama and Egypt as a special ambassador.

The Making of the President 1964 by T. White p.74 reflects that Eisenhower wanted Anderson to run for President instead of Goldwater, but that Anderson actually supported Johnson. On p. 369 it says that Anderson was a member of the National Independent Committe for Johnson and Humphrey.

A number of other books reflect that Anderson had once owned the TV station Lady Bird ended up with and that Anderson advised Johnson throughout his Presidency. The Beschloss books of LBJ transcripts include a number of calls to Anderson.

One rare book that mentions Anderson is Robert Keith Gray's Eighteen Acres Under Glass. In this book, Gray, Eisenhower's Secretary of the Cabinet, says that he'd vote Bob Anderson for King. He says that Anderson had been Ike's dream choice for Vp in 56, and that, with Dulles and Herter travelling so much, Anderson was usually third in line behind Ike and Nixon at the cabinet meetings. Evidentally, Anderson knew his numbers and was low-key and impressive as hell.

The only thing I found on Anderson which might lead somewhere would be that in Ben Bradlee's memoirs, A Good Life, he mentions a scandal involving Anderson. On page 237, he says that Kennedy cancelled all 24 White House subscriptions to the New York Herald-Tribune after it failed to print a word on Senator Stuart Symington's investigation of stock piling policies. Evidently, this investigation revealed that, while the government lost nearly a billion dollars, some producers dealing with the government had made 700-1000 percent, and that 3 members of Eisenhower's cabinet, George Humphrey, Arthur Fleming, and Robert Anderson had made windfall profits. Sure would be curious as to what the investigation revealed and whether or not any of the companies involved were from Texas... It might also be interesting to know if any criminal charges were ever pondered and if and when they went away.

Edited by Pat Speer
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One rare book that mentions Anderson is Robert Keith Gray's Eighteen Acres Under Glass.  In this book, Gray, Eisenhower's Secretary of the Cabinet, says that he'd vote Bob Anderson for King.  He says that Anderson had been Ike's dream choice for Vp in 56, and that, with Dulles and Herter travelling so much, Anderson was usually third in line behind Ike and Nixon at the cabinet meetings.  Evidentally, Anderson knew his numbers and was low-key and impressive as hell.

The only thing I found on Anderson which might lead somewhere would be that in Ben Bradlee's memoirs, A Good Life, he mentions a scandal involving Anderson.  On page 237, he says that Kennedy cancelled all 24 White House subscriptions to the New York Herald-Tribune after it failed to print a word on Senator Stuart Symington's investigation of stock piling policies.  Evidently, this investigation revealed that, while the government lost nearly a billion dollars, some producers dealing with the government had made 700-1000 percent, and that 3 members of Eisenhower's cabinet, George Humphrey, Arthur Fleming, and Robert Anderson had made windfall profits.  Sure would be curious as to what the investigation revealed and whether or not any of the companies involved were from Texas...  It might also be interesting to know if any criminal charges were ever pondered and if and when they went away.

Thank you for this. Two immediate responses:

(1) I think it is highly unlikely that Eisenhower did want Anderson to be his VP. That is what Murchison and Richardson wanted to buy but Eisenhower refused. Instead, he gave Anderson the far more important post of Secretary of the Treasury (Robert Sherrill, The Accidental President, 1967, page 145). That raises the question why Murchison and Richardson wanted Anderson to be VP? Was it the same reason that they wanted Johnson to be Kennedy’s VP?

(2) Anderson was sent to prison in 1987 as a result of his role in this scandal. I did not know that Stuart Symington was behind the investigation of Anderson. This could be relevant. Symington had been under the control of Murchison and Richardson in the 1950s. However, his support for the “oil industry” made him unpopular with other sections of the party. In an attempt to win the Democratic nomination in 1960 he broke all links with this group. Symington was defeated by Kennedy for the nomination. At the Democratic convention Kennedy was expected to select Symington as his VP. At the last minute, Kennedy, to the surprise of all his closest advisers, he selected Johnson instead. Was Symington gaining revenge by exposing Anderson? Or was there another reason for this investigation?

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More on Anderson. Some of this is good.

The Murchisons by Jane Wolfe reveals on p. 274 that in June 1961, John Murchison was victorious in a proxy fight for the control of Allegheny Corporation. He made himself president temporarily, but was rumored to have offered the position to Robert Anderson and John McCloy, both of whom turned it down.

In Stephen Ambrose's Eisenhower the President on p. 607 it says that when Kennedy visited Eisenhower a week before assuming power he asked Ike about Symington's report, which was shocking in its assertions of Anderson's wrongdoing. Ike told him the report was so useless as to be ridiculous, and urged Kennedy not to act "until he himself could become well acquainted with the problem." "Eisenhower himself stressed to Kennedy the seriousness of the balance-of-payments problem (and later subjected Kennedy to a forty-five minute lecture from Robert Anderson on the subject). "I pray the he understands it," Eisenhower wrote in his diary."

On p. 609, Ambrose describes a meeting of Ike, his cabinet, and the CIA, where Ike proposed creating a reason for the U.S. to attack Cuba before he left office, to which Secretary of State Christian Herter proposed that the U.S. fake an attack on Guantanamo. This story is repeated in Bissell's Reflections of a Cold Warrior, but in Ambrose's account Anderson is there and he said that "rather than break relations, he favored vigorous action, now, to "get rid of Castro." He wanted the CIA to get going."

So here we have a Texan with ties to the Murchisons, who is also a former Secretary of the Navy, and is additionally a strong advocate of the CIA and its removal of Castro, as one of Ike's and LBJ's top advisers. I see why John is so interested in him.

Edited by Pat Speer
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As I stated on another thread, Oswald was Marines, a branch of the Navy, and ONI must have known about him, or was controlling him...not that he was the lone gunman of course, but that his staged antics and frame came out of the naval side of things......Robert Anderson looks like the point man......

As Dept. Secretary of Defense he was at the top of the security clearance pyramid and had access to all sorts of Cold War Plans and Programs....

As Secretary of Treasury he had control of the Secret Service until C.D. Dillon came in and probably had hired or at least had influence with people like Emory and Greer....so he would be a Navy Texas Oil Republican DDOD Secretary of Treasury with ties to Murchison and Richardson, and the man who "gave" LBJ his lucrative radio station.....

Then there is this

quote

In 1954 Nelson Rockefeller was appointed chairman of the (Operations Coordinating Board) OCB's 5412 Committee (also called the "Special Group"). Other members were Undersecretary of State Hebert Hoover, Jr., Defense Undersecretary Robert B. Anderson (representing Defense Secretary Wilson), and Allen Dulles (representing the CIA). I am a little confused on the Anderson timeline, i.e., when he went from Secretary of the Navy to Under Secretary of Defense to private business in New York, then back to Sec of the Treasury, etc.. Describes the Special Group as only second to the President in having responsibility for managing covert operations, but actually more powerful than the President. (page 851 note 21)

unquote

Robert Anderson, like Robert Lovett and Nelson Rockefeller, these are the type people who held themselves above the law and saw themselves as fit to pass judgment on the capacity of the President and order executive sanctions

...............

WAS THE JFK ASSASSINATION "LEGAL"???????

Edited by Shanet Clark
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The Murchisons by Jane Wolfe reveals on p. 274 that in June 1961, John Murchison was victorious in a proxy fight for the control of Allegheny Corporation.  He made himself president temporarily, but was rumored to have offered the position to Robert Anderson and John McCloy, both of whom turned it down.

In Stephen Ambrose's Eisenhower the President on p. 607 it says that when Kennedy visited Eisenhower a week before assuming power he asked Ike about Symington's report, which was shocking in its assertions of Anderson's wrongdoing.  Ike told him the report was so useless as to be ridiculous, and urged Kennedy not to act "until he himself could become well acquaninted with the problem." "Eisenhower himself stressed to Kennedy the seriousness of the balance-of-payments problem (and later subjected Kennedy to a forty-five minute lecture from Robert Anderson on the subject). "I pray the he understands it," Eisenhower wrote in his diary."

I believe all this is linked to Eisenhower’s Military Industrial Complex speech. As you probably know, the speech originally referred to the term “Military Industrial Congressional Complex”. Objections were raised and the word “Congressional” was removed. According to the person who wrote the speech, Malcolm Moos, Eisenhower was deeply concerned about a powerful group in Congress who were working closely with the armaments industry. If that was the case, Eisenhower was talking about the group led by Johnson and Russell. As he appeared to be concerned by what Robert Anderson was up to, he would have been aware of the link with Richardson, Murchison, Kerr and the Brown brothers.

Your reference to McCone is interesting. One of the things we know about Johnson’s political career is that he insisted on unanimous reports. I think we can therefore say that everyone on the Warren Commission was linked in to Johnson’s corrupt dealings before the assassination. All of them were controllable. The big question is why Johnson put Russell under so much pressure to serve on the commission? This is followed by a second question. Why was Russell so keen not to serve?

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Richard Russell was his own man. As Governor of Georgia, he was more powerful than even Gene Talmadge, because he worked better with the National Democratic Party than Talmadge. Richard Russell was longtime chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, and chaired the Intelligence Subcommittee.

He was as powerful in his day, over intelligence, as the entire Joint Committee on Intelligence is today. Basicallly he ran the congressional Intelligence oversight function out of his back packet, no investigations, no leaks, no Church/Kean type investigative oversight, just Senator Russell keeping an eye on the CIA and NSA during the Cold War....that is why Johnson wanted and needed him on the Warren Commission.

He did not want to serve because he knew "that dog won't hunt"

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