David Francis Powers and Kenneth O'Donnell Options

[John Simkin]

David Francis Powers and Kenneth O'Donnell were both members of what became known as the Irish Mafia. O'Donnell met JFK via Robert Kennedy.

Powers met JFK when he helped deliver the working-class neighborhood of Charlestown during his campaign to win the 11th Congressional district seat in 1946. An interesting thing about Powers was that during the war he was a member of William Pawley/Tommy Concoran Flying Tigers in China. I am sure this is a coincidence but I thought it was an interesting point.

The most important thing about Powers and O'Donnell is what they did not tell the Warren Commission. Here is a passage from Tip O'Neill's Man of the House (1987 - page 178):

I was never one of the use people who had doubts or suspicions about the Warren Commission's report on the president's death. But five years after Jack died, I was having dinner with Kenny O'Donnell and a few other people at Jimmy's Harborside Restaurant in Boston, and we got to talking about the assassination.

I was surprised to hear O'Donnell say that he was sure he had heard two shots that came from behind the fence.

"That's not what you told the Warren Commission," I said.

"You're right," he replied. "I told the FBI what I had heard, but they said it couldn't have happened that way and that I must have been imagining things. So I testified the way they wanted me to. I just didn't want to stir up any more pain and trouble for the family."

"I can't believe it," I said. "I wouldn't have done that in a million years. I would have told the truth."

"Tip, you have to understand. The family-everybody wanted this thing behind them."

Dave Powers was with us at dinner that night, and his recollection of the shots was the same as O'Donnell's. Kenny O'Donnell is no longer alive, but during the writing of this book I checked with Dave Powers. As they say in the news business, he stands by his story.

And so there will always be some skepticism in my mind about the cause of Jack's death. I used to think that the only people who doubted the conclusions of the Warren Commission were crackpots. Now, however, I'm not so sure.