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The Swearing in Aboard AF1 - A New Perspective


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I, too, have some problems with your scenario, Bill.

Earlier this year, I added a chapter to my website on LBJ's behavior on the plane. The evidence is fairly clear on a number of points, and one of these is that Air Force One did not have "superior communications equipment" to the equipment on LBJ's plane and that this was something made up by LBJ's supporters to cover up that he just wanted to be on Kennedy's plane, which was a bit newer, and slightly bigger, than his own.

LBJ's plane, in fact, had been Kennedy's plane up through 1962. It served as LBJ's plane yet again a few years later, when he decided, almost on a whim, to fly around the world. It flew back into the spotlight yet again when Reagan was shot, and George H.W. Bush returned upon it back to Washington.

So it was far from an inferior puddle-jumper.

I also think you're wrong about the oath. LBJ was convinced that Bobby was gonna try to stop him from becoming President, and wanted to make his new status official asap. He called RFK AFTER he'd decided to take the oath in Dallas, and then lied through his teeth and told everyone it was Bobby's idea.

If he took Air Force One because it was better, and was sworn in to stop a coup, he would have told as much to Kenny O'Donnell, and RFK himself. But he didn't.

He told some stories and fueled a feud that would haunt him till the end.

As for the superior communications equipment, AF1 was newer and while having the same Collins Radio sideband equipment, I think AF1 had more of them - three or four.

The Warren Report (I think its p. 57) says: "...When consulted by the Vice President O'Donnell advised him to go to the airfield immediately and return to Washington. It was decided that the Vice President return on the Presidential plane rather than the Vice Presidential plane because it had better communications equipment..."

They certainly didn't take it because it had more bathrooms.

O'Donnell provided sworn testimony to the WC, and swore not only that he'd never told Johnson to take Kennedy's plane because it had better equipment, but that the planes were nearly identical, and that he didn't even know Johnson was taking Kennedy's plane before his own arrival on the plane.

Yea, and after reading your blog posts regarding the activities aboard AF1 I found it flush with details, some of which were new to me, and that I agree with your 12 conclusions, and don't see any conflicts with my own, still developing theory that LBJ in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, was more afraid of the military than he was of RFK or anybody else, and the swearing in was done to placate them, not the public.

All of the SAM Special Air Mission planes had the capability of serving the president, the plane that he used was the one with the most recently updated and advanced electronics, especially communications, and that the decision for LBJ to use that plane was made by the Secret Service, not LBJ or anyone else.

LBJ played Kenny O for the fool, and he apparently accepted it. Kevin Costner plays KOD in the movie "13 Days," and it would be terrific if they did a similar movie on the assassination with the same characters playing out their roles, and I don't think KOD would come off as good as he does as the fly on the wall in "13 Days."

I think KOD fell into a drunken stupor after the assassination and never recovered.

Joe McBride's new book - "Into the Nightmare," reportedly has new information about the role Kenny O'Donnell plays in the Opera, perhaps portraying him as the goat, though I have yet to read it myself.

In any case, there are many different takes on what happened aboard Air Force One in those hours, and each one is different in some way, but we do have the Air Force One radio transmission tapes, records that are etched in stone - so there is no argument as to what was said, and I think these tapes are the most important record we have of what actually transpired in those key hours after the assassination.

And Pat, when I get the combined and refined version of the AF1 radio transmissions that is currently being prepared, I'd like you to listen to it and give me feedback before I publicly release it at the Wecht Conference in October.

BK

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OTOH it's also possible that the SS caused such a scene in getting the coffin out of Parkland not because they didn't want an autopsy in Dallas but because they knew, and didn't want anyone else to find out, that the coffin was empty.

I see Mr. Ecker is developing a suspicious mind about the Secret Service. Tut Tut!

This is a totally new theory to me, but is there any evidence to support it?

Circumstantial, yes. The body was removed from the coffin either at Parkland or on the plane, and the Secret Service was in charge of the body at both places. Again, I'm more inclined to think it was removed on the plane. As I recall it has been confirmed by some military personnel that the Dallas casket was known to be empty, a decoy while the body was taken from the plane (having been necessarily removed from the coffin and kept on board elsewhere) and taken (directly or indirectly) to Bethesda.

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  • 2 months later...

One of the elements that has to go into this equation is that the Castro Did It theme was reintroduced again and again during the two months following the assassination. It

was not something that was "shut down" immediately by anyone. You find it all over the place, coming from either Cuban exiles or particularly from CIA officers working with

the exiles. The FBI was quite interested in some of the leads and Hoover even asked permission to put something in the FBI report about foreign influence since he was still

looking for Cuban involvement....and Martino was feeding a chain of reports upstream through the Miami field office.

Another element, that will become clearer once Bill Simpich gets his book out, is that the highest levels in Washington had a major worry over the weekend following the

assassination, and that was that US intelligence officers or someone who had gotten inside information from them about Lee Oswald had been involved in linking Oswald to

Castro and Cuba in Mexico City. It would have been the same concern that JMWAVE had when Shackley ordered a secret investigation of exile involvement and then suppressed

the reports. And in the end, it would have been the same thing David Phillips admitted to not long before his death when he admitted that a conspiracy involving American

intelligence officers had occurred. I'll leave that to Bill, but starting on Saturday morning and going on over the weekend, there was ample reason to suspect that any

true investigation of the murder would not lead to Castro but rather to something domestic...and the notes from the national security level meetings on that are gone...we know

the subject was discussed but the content of the discussion never went on record..of course few real deep national security discussions ever do, its all verbal.

BUMP

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