I thought researchers would be interested in reading this email I received last night:
I've been reading through you web site and believe that I can add one of the final jigsaw puzzle pieces that affect the timing of JFK's Dallas trip and the nervousness of LBJ during the weeks preceding the killing At the time I was the 27 year old Editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developoing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the '64 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligance agencies and we were used ofter by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public. Life's coverage of the Hoffa prosecution, and involvement in paying off Justice Department Memphis witesses was a case in point.
The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24 (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on Nov.26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been thetop editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film. Based upon our success in syndicating the Zapruder film I became Chief of Time/LIFE editorial services and remained in that job until 1968.
Full Version: Life Magazine, LBJ and the Assassination of JFK
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Nov 4 2009, 03:52 AM) 
I thought researchers would be interested in reading this email I received last night:
I've been reading through you web site and believe that I can add one of the final jigsaw puzzle pieces that affect the timing of JFK's Dallas trip and the nervousness of LBJ during the weeks preceding the killing At the time I was the 27 year old Editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developoing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the '64 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligance agencies and we were used ofter by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public. Life's coverage of the Hoffa prosecution, and involvement in paying off Justice Department Memphis witesses was a case in point.
The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24 (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on Nov.26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been thetop editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film. Based upon our success in syndicating the Zapruder film I became Chief of Time/LIFE editorial services and remained in that job until 1968.
I've been reading through you web site and believe that I can add one of the final jigsaw puzzle pieces that affect the timing of JFK's Dallas trip and the nervousness of LBJ during the weeks preceding the killing At the time I was the 27 year old Editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developoing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the '64 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligance agencies and we were used ofter by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public. Life's coverage of the Hoffa prosecution, and involvement in paying off Justice Department Memphis witesses was a case in point.
The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24 (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on Nov.26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been thetop editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film. Based upon our success in syndicating the Zapruder film I became Chief of Time/LIFE editorial services and remained in that job until 1968.
QUOTE (Bernice Moore @ Nov 4 2009, 04:15 AM)
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Nov 4 2009, 03:52 AM)
I thought researchers would be interested in reading this email I received last night:
I've been reading through you web site and believe that I can add one of the final jigsaw puzzle pieces that affect the timing of JFK's Dallas trip and the nervousness of LBJ during the weeks preceding the killing At the time I was the 27 year old Editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developoing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the '64 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligance agencies and we were used ofter by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public. Life's coverage of the Hoffa prosecution, and involvement in paying off Justice Department Memphis witesses was a case in point.
The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24 (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on Nov.26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been thetop editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film. Based upon our success in syndicating the Zapruder film I became Chief of Time/LIFE editorial services and remained in that job until 1968.
I've been reading through you web site and believe that I can add one of the final jigsaw puzzle pieces that affect the timing of JFK's Dallas trip and the nervousness of LBJ during the weeks preceding the killing At the time I was the 27 year old Editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developoing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the '64 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligance agencies and we were used ofter by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public. Life's coverage of the Hoffa prosecution, and involvement in paying off Justice Department Memphis witesses was a case in point.
The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24 (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on Nov.26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been thetop editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film. Based upon our success in syndicating the Zapruder film I became Chief of Time/LIFE editorial services and remained in that job until 1968.
I suspect the article concerned the claims made by Don B. Reynolds.
Reynolds told B. Everett Jordan and his committee on 22nd November, 1963, that Johnson had demanded that he provided kickbacks in return for him agreeing to this life insurance policy. This included a $585 Magnavox stereo. Reynolds was also told by Walter Jenkins that he had to pay for $1,200 worth of advertising on KTBC, Johnson's television station in Austin. Reynolds had paperwork for this transaction including a delivery note that indicated the stereo had been sent to the home of Johnson.
Reynolds also told of seeing a suitcase full of money which Bobby Baker described as a "$100,000 payoff to Johnson for his role in securing the Fort Worth TFX contract". Reynolds also provided evidence against Matthew H. McCloskey. He suggested that he given $25,000 to Baker in order to get the contract to build the District of Columbia Stadium. His testimony came to an end when news arrived that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.
As soon as Johnson became president he contacted B. Everett Jordan to see if there was any chance of stopping this information being published. Jordan replied that he would do what he could but warned Johnson that some members of the committee wanted Reynold's testimony to be released to the public. On 6th December, 1963, Jordan spoke to Johnson on the telephone and said he was doing what he could to suppress the story because " it might spread (to) a place where we don't want it spread."
Abe Fortas, a lawyer who represented both Lyndon B. Johnson and Bobby Baker, worked behind the scenes in an effort to keep this information from the public. Johnson also arranged for a smear campaign to be organized against Reynolds. To help him do this J. Edgar Hoover passed to Johnson the FBI file on Reynolds.
On 17th January, 1964, the Committee on Rules and Administration voted to release to the public Reynolds' secret testimony. Johnson responded by leaking information from Reynolds' FBI file to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. 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 while in Berlin in 1953.
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.
John McClellan, the chairman of the Senate subcommittee investigating the F-111 contract said that he wanted to interview Don Reynolds. However, for some reason the subcommittee did not resume its investigation until 1969, after Johnson had left office.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKreynoldsD.htm
Reynolds told B. Everett Jordan and his committee on 22nd November, 1963, that Johnson had demanded that he provided kickbacks in return for him agreeing to this life insurance policy. This included a $585 Magnavox stereo. Reynolds was also told by Walter Jenkins that he had to pay for $1,200 worth of advertising on KTBC, Johnson's television station in Austin. Reynolds had paperwork for this transaction including a delivery note that indicated the stereo had been sent to the home of Johnson.
Reynolds also told of seeing a suitcase full of money which Bobby Baker described as a "$100,000 payoff to Johnson for his role in securing the Fort Worth TFX contract". Reynolds also provided evidence against Matthew H. McCloskey. He suggested that he given $25,000 to Baker in order to get the contract to build the District of Columbia Stadium. His testimony came to an end when news arrived that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.
As soon as Johnson became president he contacted B. Everett Jordan to see if there was any chance of stopping this information being published. Jordan replied that he would do what he could but warned Johnson that some members of the committee wanted Reynold's testimony to be released to the public. On 6th December, 1963, Jordan spoke to Johnson on the telephone and said he was doing what he could to suppress the story because " it might spread (to) a place where we don't want it spread."
Abe Fortas, a lawyer who represented both Lyndon B. Johnson and Bobby Baker, worked behind the scenes in an effort to keep this information from the public. Johnson also arranged for a smear campaign to be organized against Reynolds. To help him do this J. Edgar Hoover passed to Johnson the FBI file on Reynolds.
On 17th January, 1964, the Committee on Rules and Administration voted to release to the public Reynolds' secret testimony. Johnson responded by leaking information from Reynolds' FBI file to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. 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 while in Berlin in 1953.
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.
John McClellan, the chairman of the Senate subcommittee investigating the F-111 contract said that he wanted to interview Don Reynolds. However, for some reason the subcommittee did not resume its investigation until 1969, after Johnson had left office.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKreynoldsD.htm
Friday, Mar. 12, 1965
The "FBI Report"
Last Dec. 1, in closed hearings held by the Senate Rules Committee investigating the Bobby Baker case, Mary land Insurance Agent Don B. Reynolds leveled a barrage of charges against Democrats in high office, testified to parties where "beauties and whisky and money flowed freely." Only last week was the substance of Reynolds' testimony made public — along with the release of a 30-page document rebutting Reynolds' charges, one by one, which the Rules Committee chairman, North Carolina's Democratic Senator B. Everett Jordan, pretentiously called "the FBI report."
Among the charges and rebuttals:
> Reynolds said that Bobby Baker had told him that "the leader" —meaning then Vice President Lyndon Johnson— had "interceded" to make sure that the controversial $10 billion TFX fighter-bomber contract was awarded to General Dynamics Corp. The so-called FBI report quoted Defense Secretary Robert McNamara as saying that any claim of official pressure brought to bear about the TFX contract was "definitely and categorically" wrong.
> Reynolds said that a Grumman Aircraft official, anxious to land a fat TFX subcontract, visited Baker's Capitol office, left behind a bulging blue flight bag containing $100,000 in "hundred dollar bills that were bound in brown paper or some sort of thing." The report quoted the Grumman official as saying that he had never been in Baker's office and had never paid Bobby so much as a penny "for any purpose whatsoever."
> Reynolds said that in 1949 Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, then a Democratic Representative, while on a European junket used counterpart funds—local funds accumulated by the U.S. abroad and often used to meet official Government expenses—to buy "many articles," including a statue called Dawn. The report quoted Mansfield as saying that if he had indeed spent counterpart funds, it was only for such legitimate expenses as hotel bills, and that his wife had bought the controversial statue with $110 of "her own personal funds."
>Reynolds said that in 1961 Vice President Johnson, while in Hong Kong, spent 150,000 Hong Kong dollars in counterpart funds "in a period of 14 hours in buying personal gifts for people." The report says that at the time Johnson was there, the counterpart fund was down to 37,642 Hong Kong dollars.
The Rules Committee's six-man Democratic majority promptly seized upon the report to try to bring an end to the Baker investigation. "I think it's over," said Chairman Jordan, explaining that the report "makes it obvious beyond a doubt that the testimony of Don B. Reynolds is unworthy of belief."
But did it? In fact, the report was not written by the FBI at all, but rather by a team of Justice Department functionaries who boiled down hundreds of pages of raw FBI interviews. Unlike Reynolds, none of the persons interviewed by the FBI were under oath. The only part of Reynolds' testimony that has at any time been tested by a sworn statement from an adversary witness turned out to be true: that was Reynolds' claim that he had purchased advertising time on a Johnson-owned Austin TV station in return for selling insurance on Johnson's life. The claim was recently corroborated in substance by former White House Aide Walter Jenkins.
Click to Print
Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,839360,00.html
The "FBI Report"
Last Dec. 1, in closed hearings held by the Senate Rules Committee investigating the Bobby Baker case, Mary land Insurance Agent Don B. Reynolds leveled a barrage of charges against Democrats in high office, testified to parties where "beauties and whisky and money flowed freely." Only last week was the substance of Reynolds' testimony made public — along with the release of a 30-page document rebutting Reynolds' charges, one by one, which the Rules Committee chairman, North Carolina's Democratic Senator B. Everett Jordan, pretentiously called "the FBI report."
Among the charges and rebuttals:
> Reynolds said that Bobby Baker had told him that "the leader" —meaning then Vice President Lyndon Johnson— had "interceded" to make sure that the controversial $10 billion TFX fighter-bomber contract was awarded to General Dynamics Corp. The so-called FBI report quoted Defense Secretary Robert McNamara as saying that any claim of official pressure brought to bear about the TFX contract was "definitely and categorically" wrong.
> Reynolds said that a Grumman Aircraft official, anxious to land a fat TFX subcontract, visited Baker's Capitol office, left behind a bulging blue flight bag containing $100,000 in "hundred dollar bills that were bound in brown paper or some sort of thing." The report quoted the Grumman official as saying that he had never been in Baker's office and had never paid Bobby so much as a penny "for any purpose whatsoever."
> Reynolds said that in 1949 Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, then a Democratic Representative, while on a European junket used counterpart funds—local funds accumulated by the U.S. abroad and often used to meet official Government expenses—to buy "many articles," including a statue called Dawn. The report quoted Mansfield as saying that if he had indeed spent counterpart funds, it was only for such legitimate expenses as hotel bills, and that his wife had bought the controversial statue with $110 of "her own personal funds."
>Reynolds said that in 1961 Vice President Johnson, while in Hong Kong, spent 150,000 Hong Kong dollars in counterpart funds "in a period of 14 hours in buying personal gifts for people." The report says that at the time Johnson was there, the counterpart fund was down to 37,642 Hong Kong dollars.
The Rules Committee's six-man Democratic majority promptly seized upon the report to try to bring an end to the Baker investigation. "I think it's over," said Chairman Jordan, explaining that the report "makes it obvious beyond a doubt that the testimony of Don B. Reynolds is unworthy of belief."
But did it? In fact, the report was not written by the FBI at all, but rather by a team of Justice Department functionaries who boiled down hundreds of pages of raw FBI interviews. Unlike Reynolds, none of the persons interviewed by the FBI were under oath. The only part of Reynolds' testimony that has at any time been tested by a sworn statement from an adversary witness turned out to be true: that was Reynolds' claim that he had purchased advertising time on a Johnson-owned Austin TV station in return for selling insurance on Johnson's life. The claim was recently corroborated in substance by former White House Aide Walter Jenkins.
Click to Print
Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,839360,00.html
QUOTE (Bernice Moore @ Nov 4 2009, 11:52 AM)
Friday, Mar. 12, 1965
The "FBI Report"
Last Dec. 1, in closed hearings held by the Senate Rules Committee investigating the Bobby Baker case, Mary land Insurance Agent Don B. Reynolds leveled a barrage of charges against Democrats in high office, testified to parties where "beauties and whisky and money flowed freely." Only last week was the substance of Reynolds' testimony made public — along with the release of a 30-page document rebutting Reynolds' charges, one by one, which the Rules Committee chairman, North Carolina's Democratic Senator B. Everett Jordan, pretentiously called "the FBI report."
Among the charges and rebuttals:
> Reynolds said that Bobby Baker had told him that "the leader" —meaning then Vice President Lyndon Johnson— had "interceded" to make sure that the controversial $10 billion TFX fighter-bomber contract was awarded to General Dynamics Corp. The so-called FBI report quoted Defense Secretary Robert McNamara as saying that any claim of official pressure brought to bear about the TFX contract was "definitely and categorically" wrong.
> Reynolds said that a Grumman Aircraft official, anxious to land a fat TFX subcontract, visited Baker's Capitol office, left behind a bulging blue flight bag containing $100,000 in "hundred dollar bills that were bound in brown paper or some sort of thing." The report quoted the Grumman official as saying that he had never been in Baker's office and had never paid Bobby so much as a penny "for any purpose whatsoever."
> Reynolds said that in 1949 Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, then a Democratic Representative, while on a European junket used counterpart funds—local funds accumulated by the U.S. abroad and often used to meet official Government expenses—to buy "many articles," including a statue called Dawn. The report quoted Mansfield as saying that if he had indeed spent counterpart funds, it was only for such legitimate expenses as hotel bills, and that his wife had bought the controversial statue with $110 of "her own personal funds."
>Reynolds said that in 1961 Vice President Johnson, while in Hong Kong, spent 150,000 Hong Kong dollars in counterpart funds "in a period of 14 hours in buying personal gifts for people." The report says that at the time Johnson was there, the counterpart fund was down to 37,642 Hong Kong dollars.
The Rules Committee's six-man Democratic majority promptly seized upon the report to try to bring an end to the Baker investigation. "I think it's over," said Chairman Jordan, explaining that the report "makes it obvious beyond a doubt that the testimony of Don B. Reynolds is unworthy of belief."
But did it? In fact, the report was not written by the FBI at all, but rather by a team of Justice Department functionaries who boiled down hundreds of pages of raw FBI interviews. Unlike Reynolds, none of the persons interviewed by the FBI were under oath. The only part of Reynolds' testimony that has at any time been tested by a sworn statement from an adversary witness turned out to be true: that was Reynolds' claim that he had purchased advertising time on a Johnson-owned Austin TV station in return for selling insurance on Johnson's life. The claim was recently corroborated in substance by former White House Aide Walter Jenkins.
Click to Print
Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,839360,00.html
The "FBI Report"
Last Dec. 1, in closed hearings held by the Senate Rules Committee investigating the Bobby Baker case, Mary land Insurance Agent Don B. Reynolds leveled a barrage of charges against Democrats in high office, testified to parties where "beauties and whisky and money flowed freely." Only last week was the substance of Reynolds' testimony made public — along with the release of a 30-page document rebutting Reynolds' charges, one by one, which the Rules Committee chairman, North Carolina's Democratic Senator B. Everett Jordan, pretentiously called "the FBI report."
Among the charges and rebuttals:
> Reynolds said that Bobby Baker had told him that "the leader" —meaning then Vice President Lyndon Johnson— had "interceded" to make sure that the controversial $10 billion TFX fighter-bomber contract was awarded to General Dynamics Corp. The so-called FBI report quoted Defense Secretary Robert McNamara as saying that any claim of official pressure brought to bear about the TFX contract was "definitely and categorically" wrong.
> Reynolds said that a Grumman Aircraft official, anxious to land a fat TFX subcontract, visited Baker's Capitol office, left behind a bulging blue flight bag containing $100,000 in "hundred dollar bills that were bound in brown paper or some sort of thing." The report quoted the Grumman official as saying that he had never been in Baker's office and had never paid Bobby so much as a penny "for any purpose whatsoever."
> Reynolds said that in 1949 Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, then a Democratic Representative, while on a European junket used counterpart funds—local funds accumulated by the U.S. abroad and often used to meet official Government expenses—to buy "many articles," including a statue called Dawn. The report quoted Mansfield as saying that if he had indeed spent counterpart funds, it was only for such legitimate expenses as hotel bills, and that his wife had bought the controversial statue with $110 of "her own personal funds."
>Reynolds said that in 1961 Vice President Johnson, while in Hong Kong, spent 150,000 Hong Kong dollars in counterpart funds "in a period of 14 hours in buying personal gifts for people." The report says that at the time Johnson was there, the counterpart fund was down to 37,642 Hong Kong dollars.
The Rules Committee's six-man Democratic majority promptly seized upon the report to try to bring an end to the Baker investigation. "I think it's over," said Chairman Jordan, explaining that the report "makes it obvious beyond a doubt that the testimony of Don B. Reynolds is unworthy of belief."
But did it? In fact, the report was not written by the FBI at all, but rather by a team of Justice Department functionaries who boiled down hundreds of pages of raw FBI interviews. Unlike Reynolds, none of the persons interviewed by the FBI were under oath. The only part of Reynolds' testimony that has at any time been tested by a sworn statement from an adversary witness turned out to be true: that was Reynolds' claim that he had purchased advertising time on a Johnson-owned Austin TV station in return for selling insurance on Johnson's life. The claim was recently corroborated in substance by former White House Aide Walter Jenkins.
Click to Print
Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,839360,00.html
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Nov 4 2009, 07:52 AM)
I thought researchers would be interested in reading this email I received last night:
I've been reading through you web site and believe that I can add one of the final jigsaw puzzle pieces that affect the timing of JFK's Dallas trip and the nervousness of LBJ during the weeks preceding the killing At the time I was the 27 year old Editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developoing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the '64 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligance agencies and we were used ofter by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public. Life's coverage of the Hoffa prosecution, and involvement in paying off Justice Department Memphis witesses was a case in point.
The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24 (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on Nov.26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been thetop editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film. Based upon our success in syndicating the Zapruder film I became Chief of Time/LIFE editorial services and remained in that job until 1968.
I've been reading through you web site and believe that I can add one of the final jigsaw puzzle pieces that affect the timing of JFK's Dallas trip and the nervousness of LBJ during the weeks preceding the killing At the time I was the 27 year old Editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developoing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the '64 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligance agencies and we were used ofter by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public. Life's coverage of the Hoffa prosecution, and involvement in paying off Justice Department Memphis witesses was a case in point.
The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24 (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on Nov.26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been thetop editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film. Based upon our success in syndicating the Zapruder film I became Chief of Time/LIFE editorial services and remained in that job until 1968.
I believe this information is of great significance. The subject that dominates LBJ thinking in the weeks following the assassination is the testimony of Don Reynolds. LBJ knows that if he had not been president he would almost certainly been forced to resign. However, as president, he was able to keep the information from the public for several months. In the meantime he began a smear campaign against Reynolds (using information supplied by J. Edgar Hoover). By the time the information was published, the US media decided it was not a good idea to impeach the new president and Reynolds' testimony got very little coverage. As Reynolds only testified on the day JFK was assassinated, it is possible that Life had other information on LBJ.
The other interesting aspect of this story is that the leaks against LBJ were coming from Robert Kennedy (this information originally came from Carl Curtis in his autobiography published in 1986). Curtis was a Republican member of the Senate committee looking into the Bobby Baker case. Therefore, in November, 1963, JFK was trying to get rid of his Vice-President. This is confirmed by JFK's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln.
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Nov 4 2009, 07:52 AM)
I thought researchers would be interested in reading this email I received last night:
I've been reading through you web site and believe that I can add one of the final jigsaw puzzle pieces that affect the timing of JFK's Dallas trip and the nervousness of LBJ during the weeks preceding the killing At the time I was the 27 year old Editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developoing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the '64 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligance agencies and we were used ofter by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public. Life's coverage of the Hoffa prosecution, and involvement in paying off Justice Department Memphis witesses was a case in point.
The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24 (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on Nov.26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been thetop editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film. Based upon our success in syndicating the Zapruder film I became Chief of Time/LIFE editorial services and remained in that job until 1968.
I've been reading through you web site and believe that I can add one of the final jigsaw puzzle pieces that affect the timing of JFK's Dallas trip and the nervousness of LBJ during the weeks preceding the killing At the time I was the 27 year old Editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developoing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the '64 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligance agencies and we were used ofter by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public. Life's coverage of the Hoffa prosecution, and involvement in paying off Justice Department Memphis witesses was a case in point.
The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24 (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on Nov.26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been thetop editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film. Based upon our success in syndicating the Zapruder film I became Chief of Time/LIFE editorial services and remained in that job until 1968.
I was surprised this posting did not have much impact with members. However, I sent the information out to selected researchers who did see the significance of this information. Several will be using this information in books they are working on. Unfortunately, it came too late for Doug Horne to include it in his book (due out next month).
The information comes from James Wagenvoord, the editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. He has supplied me with a lot more information about this story but I am not at liberty to publish it at the moment.
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Nov 12 2009, 08:30 AM)
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Nov 4 2009, 07:52 AM)
I thought researchers would be interested in reading this email I received last night:
I've been reading through you web site and believe that I can add one of the final jigsaw puzzle pieces that affect the timing of JFK's Dallas trip and the nervousness of LBJ during the weeks preceding the killing At the time I was the 27 year old Editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developoing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the '64 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligance agencies and we were used ofter by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public. Life's coverage of the Hoffa prosecution, and involvement in paying off Justice Department Memphis witesses was a case in point.
The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24 (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on Nov.26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been thetop editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film. Based upon our success in syndicating the Zapruder film I became Chief of Time/LIFE editorial services and remained in that job until 1968.
I've been reading through you web site and believe that I can add one of the final jigsaw puzzle pieces that affect the timing of JFK's Dallas trip and the nervousness of LBJ during the weeks preceding the killing At the time I was the 27 year old Editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developoing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the '64 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligance agencies and we were used ofter by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public. Life's coverage of the Hoffa prosecution, and involvement in paying off Justice Department Memphis witesses was a case in point.
The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24 (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on Nov.26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been thetop editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film. Based upon our success in syndicating the Zapruder film I became Chief of Time/LIFE editorial services and remained in that job until 1968.
I was surprised this posting did not have much impact with members. However, I sent the information out to selected researchers who did see the significance of this information. Several will be using this information in books they are working on. Unfortunately, it came too late for Doug Horne to include it in his book (due out next month).
The information comes from James Wagenvoord, the editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. He has supplied me with a lot more information about this story but I am not at liberty to publish it at the moment.
I found this posting fascinating and shared it with a non-member of the Forum who at one time was a key executive at LIFE.
Very interesting email
Thanks for sharing it John
Thanks for sharing it John
QUOTE (Douglas Caddy @ Nov 12 2009, 03:59 PM)
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Nov 12 2009, 08:30 AM)
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Nov 4 2009, 07:52 AM)
I thought researchers would be interested in reading this email I received last night:
I've been reading through you web site and believe that I can add one of the final jigsaw puzzle pieces that affect the timing of JFK's Dallas trip and the nervousness of LBJ during the weeks preceding the killing At the time I was the 27 year old Editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developoing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the '64 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligance agencies and we were used ofter by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public. Life's coverage of the Hoffa prosecution, and involvement in paying off Justice Department Memphis witesses was a case in point.
The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24 (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on Nov.26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been thetop editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film. Based upon our success in syndicating the Zapruder film I became Chief of Time/LIFE editorial services and remained in that job until 1968.
I've been reading through you web site and believe that I can add one of the final jigsaw puzzle pieces that affect the timing of JFK's Dallas trip and the nervousness of LBJ during the weeks preceding the killing At the time I was the 27 year old Editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developoing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the '64 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligance agencies and we were used ofter by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public. Life's coverage of the Hoffa prosecution, and involvement in paying off Justice Department Memphis witesses was a case in point.
The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24 (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on Nov.26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been thetop editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film. Based upon our success in syndicating the Zapruder film I became Chief of Time/LIFE editorial services and remained in that job until 1968.
I was surprised this posting did not have much impact with members. However, I sent the information out to selected researchers who did see the significance of this information. Several will be using this information in books they are working on. Unfortunately, it came too late for Doug Horne to include it in his book (due out next month).
The information comes from James Wagenvoord, the editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. He has supplied me with a lot more information about this story but I am not at liberty to publish it at the moment.
I found this posting fascinating and shared it with a non-member of the Forum who at one time was a key executive at LIFE.
Douglas,
Did he comment?
Dave
Bill Kelly has chastised me for posting this on the Doug Horne thread, when it really belongs here:
QUOTE (J. Raymond Carroll @ Nov 13 2009, 02:19 AM)
Peter Fokes has just posted this over on the the McAdams forum:
Here is a link to the story. Perhaps John Simkin could ask James Wagenvoord to comment. Was this the first article in a planned series?
http://books.google.com/books?id=SVIEAAAAM...;q=&f=false
Are any of these reporters still alive?
QUOTE
I have a copy of the Nov. 22, 1963 issue of LIFE, and the issue
contains an article, "The Bobby Baker Scandal. It grows and grows as
Washington shudders. By Keith Wheeler (and a LIFE task force)."
The task force was headed by William Lambert and Keith Wheeler, and
also included Russell Sackett, Mike Durham, Mike Silva, Bill Wise,
Audrey Jewett, Kenneth Reich and Hal Wingo.
I am curious how Horne will explain why none of these people spoke up.
Did none of them know about this secret article?
contains an article, "The Bobby Baker Scandal. It grows and grows as
Washington shudders. By Keith Wheeler (and a LIFE task force)."
The task force was headed by William Lambert and Keith Wheeler, and
also included Russell Sackett, Mike Durham, Mike Silva, Bill Wise,
Audrey Jewett, Kenneth Reich and Hal Wingo.
I am curious how Horne will explain why none of these people spoke up.
Did none of them know about this secret article?
Here is a link to the story. Perhaps John Simkin could ask James Wagenvoord to comment. Was this the first article in a planned series?
http://books.google.com/books?id=SVIEAAAAM...;q=&f=false
Are any of these reporters still alive?
While Doug Horne quotes from John Simkin's correspondence with Life Mag editor in his latest blog, he does not mention this issue in his book, which confronts a dozen other, similar and equally important issues.
I think it is important that those who want to discuss the LIFE Mag issues should do so here, and not under the heading of Doug Horne, which should focus on is own work, five volumes and 2000 pages worth of material, rather than on his quoting of the LIFE Mag in his blog because it supports his work.
They are two different topics and should be considered separately.
Of course, if you want to refrain from discussing the more important issues of Doug Horne's work and instead debate the Life Mag stuff, then that would effectively eliminate the proper discussion of a much more important work.
Life Mag should be discussed here and Doug's book should be discussed on his thread, but I'm sure that's not the way it will turn out.
BK
I think it is important that those who want to discuss the LIFE Mag issues should do so here, and not under the heading of Doug Horne, which should focus on is own work, five volumes and 2000 pages worth of material, rather than on his quoting of the LIFE Mag in his blog because it supports his work.
They are two different topics and should be considered separately.
Of course, if you want to refrain from discussing the more important issues of Doug Horne's work and instead debate the Life Mag stuff, then that would effectively eliminate the proper discussion of a much more important work.
Life Mag should be discussed here and Doug's book should be discussed on his thread, but I'm sure that's not the way it will turn out.
BK
QUOTE (J. Raymond Carroll @ Nov 13 2009, 02:00 AM)
Bill Kelly has chastised me for posting this on the Doug Horne thread, when it really belongs here:
QUOTE (J. Raymond Carroll @ Nov 13 2009, 02:19 AM)
Peter Fokes has just posted this over on the the McAdams forum:
Here is a link to the story. Perhaps John Simkin could ask James Wagenvoord to comment. Was this the first article in a planned series?
http://books.google.com/books?id=SVIEAAAAM...;q=&f=false
Are any of these reporters still alive?
QUOTE
I have a copy of the Nov. 22, 1963 issue of LIFE, and the issue
contains an article, "The Bobby Baker Scandal. It grows and grows as
Washington shudders. By Keith Wheeler (and a LIFE task force)."
The task force was headed by William Lambert and Keith Wheeler, and
also included Russell Sackett, Mike Durham, Mike Silva, Bill Wise,
Audrey Jewett, Kenneth Reich and Hal Wingo.
I am curious how Horne will explain why none of these people spoke up.
Did none of them know about this secret article?
contains an article, "The Bobby Baker Scandal. It grows and grows as
Washington shudders. By Keith Wheeler (and a LIFE task force)."
The task force was headed by William Lambert and Keith Wheeler, and
also included Russell Sackett, Mike Durham, Mike Silva, Bill Wise,
Audrey Jewett, Kenneth Reich and Hal Wingo.
I am curious how Horne will explain why none of these people spoke up.
Did none of them know about this secret article?
Here is a link to the story. Perhaps John Simkin could ask James Wagenvoord to comment. Was this the first article in a planned series?
http://books.google.com/books?id=SVIEAAAAM...;q=&f=false
Are any of these reporters still alive?
Hi JRC,
I am not one to chastise anyone about anything, but Doug was kind enough to share some of his book with me and I intend to write a review and discuss his book at length, though none of it has anything to do with Life Magazine.
And I'm sure Horne will not explain anything about why these people spoke up.
I think the Life Mag editor's story is an important new lead, but it has nothing to do with Horne's ARRB work or his book, though it does support his ultimate thesis.
If you want to carry on about Life Mag under the Doug Horne banner go right ahead, and I will start another thread about his book Inside the ARRB.
As Dean Hagerman pointed out in another thread, tailing off onto other subjects is the nature of the beast.
BK
QUOTE (William Kelly @ Nov 13 2009, 01:06 AM)
Life Mag should be discussed here and Doug's book should be discussed on his thread, but I'm sure that's not the way it will turn out.
I agree. I am sure Doug will be willing to discuss his book next month on the Forum.
I have read some of Doug's book and understand why he is very excited by the testimony of this witness. That is why I sent him this information because it does support his ultimate thesis.
I have also been in email contact with someone (Will Emaus) who questions the truth of this story. I have invited him to join the forum in order to discuss these issues here:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=14996
James has sent me a detailed account of the events at Life Magazine. This will be published on the web soon. An interesting character in these events is Dick Billings who was definitely working for the CIA in 1962 (Operation Tilt) and 1963. He later attempted to undermine Jim Garrison investigation and worked with G. Robert Blakey on The House Select Committee on Assassinations. George Joannides was not the only CIA agent brought in to misdirect the HSCA. Billings and Blakey were the co-authors of The Plot to Kill the President (1981).
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbillings.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbillings.htm
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Nov 13 2009, 09:19 AM)
QUOTE (William Kelly @ Nov 13 2009, 01:06 AM)
Life Mag should be discussed here and Doug's book should be discussed on his thread, but I'm sure that's not the way it will turn out.
I agree. I am sure Doug will be willing to discuss his book next month on the Forum.
I have read some of Doug's book and understand why he is very excited by the testimony of this witness. That is why I sent him this information because it does support his ultimate thesis.
I have also been in email contact with someone (Will Emaus) who questions the truth of this story. I have invited him to join the forum in order to discuss these issues here:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=14996
Hi, and thanks for the invitation.
It's not really that I question the "truth" of the story, but as a former RR Donnelley employee who worked in the Calumet Plant in Chicago I do have a couple of questions regarding the timings referred to in the story.
On the afternoon of November 22nd, 1963, there were almost 300,000 copies of the November 29th, 1963 Life magazine issue already printed, bound and mailed when Kennedy was shot.
After the assassination, Life issued a kill order for all original copies of the November 29th issue, although there are a number of copies that I know of that employees happened to keep and I believe there are a few other copies of the issue floating around out there as well.
The new version of the November 29th issue was worked on by RRD Prepress until roughly 3:30AM on the 24th when it went on Press. The presses then went down again after Oswald was shot, and after the Ruby -> Oswald material was inserted went back on Press Sunday evening.
So, not questioning the authenticity of what's being said, but I do know a number of people that worked on this issue and so I had a couple of questions regarding the timing.
1. The story being referred to is regarded as "almost Print Ready" even though the November 29th issue was already in production.
2. There were 300,000 copies not only printed, but also bound and mailed when the kill order came. The fact that product was already binding and being mailed would typically preclude adding an additional form to the magazine if they intended to have a late press run specifically for this story.
3. If the story was being held due to Don Reynolds' testimony or some other late-breaking information, which is just speculation, wouldn't it have made more sense to hold the story until the Dec. 6th issue? It doesn't seem like the type of story that you would break into Production at expense to insert.
So I guess my question becomes whether there is a possibility that the story was actually going to go into the Dec. 6th issue and not the November 29th issue...
QUOTE (Will Emaus @ Nov 13 2009, 07:33 PM)
It's not really that I question the "truth" of the story, but as a former RR Donnelley employee who worked in the Calumet Plant in Chicago I do have a couple of questions regarding the timings referred to in the story.
On the afternoon of November 22nd, 1963, there were almost 300,000 copies of the November 29th, 1963 Life magazine issue already printed, bound and mailed when Kennedy was shot.
After the assassination, Life issued a kill order for all original copies of the November 29th issue, although there are a number of copies that I know of that employees happened to keep and I believe there are a few other copies of the issue floating around out there as well.
The new version of the November 29th issue was worked on by RRD Prepress until roughly 3:30AM on the 24th when it went on Press. The presses then went down again after Oswald was shot, and after the Ruby -> Oswald material was inserted went back on Press Sunday evening.
So, not questioning the authenticity of what's being said, but I do know a number of people that worked on this issue and so I had a couple of questions regarding the timing.
1. The story being referred to is regarded as "almost Print Ready" even though the November 29th issue was already in production.
2. There were 300,000 copies not only printed, but also bound and mailed when the kill order came. The fact that product was already binding and being mailed would typically preclude adding an additional form to the magazine if they intended to have a late press run specifically for this story.
3. If the story was being held due to Don Reynolds' testimony or some other late-breaking information, which is just speculation, wouldn't it have made more sense to hold the story until the Dec. 6th issue? It doesn't seem like the type of story that you would break into Production at expense to insert.
So I guess my question becomes whether there is a possibility that the story was actually going to go into the Dec. 6th issue and not the November 29th issue...
On the afternoon of November 22nd, 1963, there were almost 300,000 copies of the November 29th, 1963 Life magazine issue already printed, bound and mailed when Kennedy was shot.
After the assassination, Life issued a kill order for all original copies of the November 29th issue, although there are a number of copies that I know of that employees happened to keep and I believe there are a few other copies of the issue floating around out there as well.
The new version of the November 29th issue was worked on by RRD Prepress until roughly 3:30AM on the 24th when it went on Press. The presses then went down again after Oswald was shot, and after the Ruby -> Oswald material was inserted went back on Press Sunday evening.
So, not questioning the authenticity of what's being said, but I do know a number of people that worked on this issue and so I had a couple of questions regarding the timing.
1. The story being referred to is regarded as "almost Print Ready" even though the November 29th issue was already in production.
2. There were 300,000 copies not only printed, but also bound and mailed when the kill order came. The fact that product was already binding and being mailed would typically preclude adding an additional form to the magazine if they intended to have a late press run specifically for this story.
3. If the story was being held due to Don Reynolds' testimony or some other late-breaking information, which is just speculation, wouldn't it have made more sense to hold the story until the Dec. 6th issue? It doesn't seem like the type of story that you would break into Production at expense to insert.
So I guess my question becomes whether there is a possibility that the story was actually going to go into the Dec. 6th issue and not the November 29th issue...
It is true that in the original email James did refer to the November 29th issue. However, this was corrected in a later email. "The main flaw in my note to you is that I gave you the wrong date for the issue that would have carried the LBJ-Baker piece. It was the issue, in the process of being closed which I believe would have been dated 12/9 . He (Will Emaus) is right - There are collector copies around of the 12/2 issue that have the the original cover and toc of the edition that carried the first JFK death material."
All this will be made clear when James publishes the full version of these events in the near future.
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Nov 13 2009, 08:33 PM)
James has sent me a detailed account of the events at Life Magazine. This will be published on the web soon. An interesting character in these events is Dick Billings who was definitely working for the CIA in 1962 (Operation Tilt) and 1963. He later attempted to undermine Jim Garrison investigation and worked with G. Robert Blakey on The House Select Committee on Assassinations. George Joannides was not the only CIA agent brought in to misdirect the HSCA. Billings and Blakey were the co-authors of The Plot to Kill the President (1981).
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbillings.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbillings.htm
Just off the top, there's Operation Tilt, which includes Billings and John Martino, et al., Clare Booth Luce's articles on her anti-Castro Cuban maritime raiders, the purchase and suppression of the Zapruder film, the publication of the backyard photo(s), and the propaganda Life published in support of the Tonkin Gulf (Northwinds) incident.
Then there's Issac Don Levine, high on the Life masthead, a major psych ops cold warrior who wrote The Mind of the Assassin about the assassination in Mexico City by Raymond Mercader, a Russian agent whose whole family was a Soviet cell. IDLevine could uncover the deep background of these Soviet agents, but he couldn't or didn't bother to try to figure out Oswald.
He was also a major player in the purchase of the Zapruder film and Marina's story.
Besides being in on Operation Tilt, and co-author with Blakey on trying to pin the blame for the assassination on the mob, Billings was also down in New Orleans poking around Garrison's investigation, and must have an interesting story list.
For some reason I think Billings would take exception to being called a CIA Agent in the same breath as Joannidies.
BK
QUOTE (William Kelly @ Nov 14 2009, 07:12 AM)
Besides being in on Operation Tilt, and co-author with Blakey on trying to pin the blame for the assassination on the mob, Billings was also down in New Orleans poking around Garrison's investigation, and must have an interesting story list.
For some reason I think Billings would take exception to being called a CIA Agent in the same breath as Joannidies.
For some reason I think Billings would take exception to being called a CIA Agent in the same breath as Joannidies.
I told Blakey about Billings background. He also took exception to my claims about working for the CIA. He tells me that Billings is still alive but is unwilling to talk about these matters.
I thought members would be interested in reading all the articles on the testimony of Don B. Reynolds:
Investigations: Bobby's Busyness, Time Magazine (31st December, 1964)
The Senate committee investigation of the affairs of former Senate Majority Secretary Bobby Gene Baker has hardly set a scorching pace. But last week the committee did release closed-door testimony taken earlier this month from Don B. Reynolds, a Maryland insurance man and longtime Baker business associate. It made Bobby out to be a busy, busy boy - from dabbling in abortion to procuring gifts for Lyndon Baines Johnson.
"If Anyone Should Know . . ." Reynolds testified that he had made Bobby a nominal officer of his insurance brokerage, over ten years had paid Baker some $15,000 for putting him in touch with the right people. When other, non-insurable problems came up, Baker was still a good man to know. Once, said Reynolds, a client called him for help in getting an abortion for a friend. Reynolds got in touch with Bobby, who gave him a Capitol number for his concerned client to call. Whether the abortion was actually performed, Reynolds did not know. But, he said, "Some time later, 'Mrs. X' [the client] called and thanked me." Why, asked Committee Counsel Lennox McLendon, had Reynolds turned to Baker for advice about an abortion? Replied Reynolds: "I felt if anyone should know, he should, sir."
Baker also steered Reynolds to Lyndon Johnson. That was in 1957, only two years after Senate Majority Leader Johnson had suffered a heart attack. The Senator was having trouble finding an insurance company that would give him life insurance. Reynolds went looking on Johnson's behalf, talked to three companies, and finally found that the Manhattan Life Insurance Co. would write the policy. Manhattan issued a first policy of $50,000, and shortly afterward, when it had covered part of its risk through a reinsurance company, issued another policy of $50,000 for Johnson.
Out of Gratitude. In the course of those negotiations, Reynolds said, it was suggested to him by Walter Jenkins, then and now a top Johnson aide, that he buy advertising time on Lady Bird Johnson's radio-TV station in Austin. Reynolds said he bought $1,208 worth of advertising on the station.
"Did you buy this advertising time to advertise your insurance business?" asked Nebraska's Republican Senator Carl T. Curtis.
Reynolds: No, sir.
Curtis: Why did you buy it?
Reynolds: Because it was expected of me, sir.
Curtis: Who conveyed that thought to you?
Reynolds: Mr. Walter Jenkins.
Reynolds testified that in 1959 Bobby Baker suggested that Reynolds might further show his gratitude by giving a stereo phonograph to the Johnson family. Again Reynolds went along. "I supplied Bobby with a catalogue," said Reynolds, "and he said he had taken it out for Mrs. Johnson to make a selection." Reynolds told the committee that he purchased a set and had it installed in Johnson's home at a cost of $588. Did Johnson know, asked West Virginia's Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, that the stereo was a gift from Reynolds? Replied Reynolds: "The invoice delivered to Johnson's home showed that the charges were to be sent to Don Reynolds." It was two years later, said Reynolds, that Johnson purchased another $100,000 in life insurance through him (for a total of $200,000).
In answer to all this, White House Aide Jenkins swore in an affidavit that he had no knowledge "of any arrangement by which Reynolds purchased time on the TV station." Press Secretary Pierre Salinger said that the President had assumed the stereo to be a gift from "a longtime employee," not Reynolds. And President Johnson, in the course of an impromptu press conference, brought up the matter himself. Said he: "The Baker family gave us a stereo set. We used it for a period, and we had exchanged gifts before. He was an employee of the public and had no business pending before me and was asking for nothing, and so far as I know expected nothing in return, any more than I did when I had presented him with gifts." With that, Johnson cut off questions and left the press conference.
A Difference. Republicans, understandably, had a field day with the Reynolds testimony. G.O.P. National Chairman William Miller called the stereo gift "an atrocious thing and a travesty of justice." Said Delaware's Republican Senator John J. Williams: "I see no difference in the acceptance of an expensive stereo and in the acceptance of a mink or vicuna coat, a deep freeze or an Oriental rug."
There was, in fact, a difference. On the basis of the record so far, neither Johnson nor Baker was guilty of using his public office for private gain. In the Reynolds deal, Johnson got what he wanted: some personal life insurance. Reynolds also got what he wanted: his insurance commissions.
Still, the Baker probe was just getting started, and Washington was alive with reports that the names of Bobby Baker and Lyndon Johnson would be even more closely connected.
Investigations: A Senator's Insurance, Time Magazine (5th March, 1965)
Did Walter Jenkins know of any arrangements whereby Don B. Reynolds, a business sidekick of Bobby Baker's, bought $1,208 in advertising on Lady Bird Johnson's Austin TV station in return for selling two $100,000 insurance policies on Lyndon Johnson's life?
The answer, in a sworn affidavit, was a flat no - but that was back on Dec. 16, 1963, when Jenkins was a top White House aide. Last week Jenkins answered again - and this time his no was a lot less than flat. He had meant on that other occasion that he had not known "of the specifics for the purchase of advertising." But "I did know Mr. Reynolds planned to purchase advertising time, and I have never asserted the contrary."
"No Secret." As before, Jenkins did not appear in person before the Senate Rules Committee, which is investigating the Bobby Baker case. He left the White House last October, after being arrested on a morals charge, and his lawyer and two psychiatrists testified that his appearance before the committee would cause such a strain as to endanger his health. Instead, Jenkins replied on paper, but under oath, to 40 written questions from the committee.
In late 1956 or early 1957, Jenkins recalled, he was treasurer of the LBJ Co., which owned the television station, and "I was seeking an insurance company from which insurance on the life of the then Senator Lyndon B. Johnson might be purchased. I made no secret of this search, and I'm confident that Robert G. Baker knew of it, either from me or indirectly. Mr. Baker told me that he knew Don Reynolds, who represented a company which was beginning to specialize in insurance for former heart attack patients. Mr. Baker did not tell me that he had any interest in Mr. Reynolds' business."
Baker arranged a meeting between Jenkins and Reynolds, and Jenkins later talked to Baker several times about the proposed insurance. But then Jenkins "received word from the LBJ Co. that it would not be necessary to pursue the matter further because a local agent in Austin had become interested in selling the policies and that he not only had been an advertiser on the radio and television stations for many years, but also had always related the amount of his advertising to the amount of his business done with the station." This local agent, it turned out, was Huff Baines, a cousin of Lyndon Johnson's.
Meeting the Competition. Jenkins "communicated this information to Mr. Reynolds," and presumably was pleased to hear "that Mr. Reynolds wished very much to sell the policies and would also like to purchase advertising time in the event he sold them." Jenkins studied Reynolds' "offer to meet the competition," and "it was decided to accept the Reynolds offer."
Jenkins insisted that at no time did he "pressure" Reynolds to buy the television time. But in any event, he certainly got the idea across.
Investigations: The FBI Report, Time Magazine (12th March, 1965)
Last Dec. 1, in closed hearings held by the Senate Rules Committee investigating the Bobby Baker case, Mary land Insurance Agent Don B. Reynolds leveled a barrage of charges against Democrats in high office, testified to parties where "beauties and whisky and money flowed freely." Only last week was the substance of Reynolds' testimony made public — along with the release of a 30-page document rebutting Reynolds' charges, one by one, which the Rules Committee chairman, North Carolina's Democratic Senator B. Everett Jordan, pretentiously called "the FBI report."
Among the charges and rebuttals:
* Reynolds said that Bobby Baker had told him that "the leader" - meaning then Vice President Lyndon Johnson - had "interceded" to make sure that the controversial $10 billion TFX fighter-bomber contract was awarded to General Dynamics Corp. The so-called FBI report quoted Defense Secretary Robert McNamara as saying that any claim of official pressure brought to bear about the TFX contract was "definitely and categorically" wrong.
* Reynolds said that a Grumman Aircraft official, anxious to land a fat TFX subcontract, visited Baker's Capitol office, left behind a bulging blue flight bag containing $100,000 in "hundred dollar bills that were bound in brown paper or some sort of thing." The report quoted the Grumman official as saying that he had never been in Baker's office and had never paid Bobby so much as a penny "for any purpose whatsoever."
* Reynolds said that in 1949 Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, then a Democratic Representative, while on a European junket used counterpart funds - local funds accumulated by the U.S. abroad and often used to meet official Government expenses - to buy "many articles," including a statue called Dawn. The report quoted Mansfield as saying that if he had indeed spent counterpart funds, it was only for such legitimate expenses as hotel bills, and that his wife had bought the controversial statue with $110 of "her own personal funds."
* Reynolds said that in 1961 Vice President Johnson, while in Hong Kong, spent 150,000 Hong Kong dollars in counterpart funds "in a period of 14 hours in buying personal gifts for people." The report says that at the time Johnson was there, the counterpart fund was down to 37,642 Hong Kong dollars.
The Rules Committee's six-man Democratic majority promptly seized upon the report to try to bring an end to the Baker investigation. "I think it's over," said Chairman Jordan, explaining that the report "makes it obvious beyond a doubt that the testimony of Don B. Reynolds is unworthy of belief."
But did it? In fact, the report was not written by the FBI at all, but rather by a team of Justice Department functionaries who boiled down hundreds of pages of raw FBI interviews. Unlike Reynolds, none of the persons interviewed by the FBI were under oath. The only part of Reynolds' testimony that has at any time been tested by a sworn statement from an adversary witness turned out to be true: that was Reynolds' claim that he had purchased advertising time on a Johnson-owned Austin TV station in return for selling insurance on Johnson's life. The claim was recently corroborated in substance by former White House Aide Walter Jenkins.
Investigations: Messrs. Clean, Time Magazine (9th July, 1965)
A year ago the Senate Rules Committee's six-man Democratic majority slapped a few coats of whitewash over the Bobby Baker investigation with a final report that was supposed to end the case once and for all. But Delaware Republican John J. Williams, the tenacious Senate watchdog, pointed out a few splotches, and the Democrats were forced to try again. Last week they issued a second "final report" that is as white as can be.
To be sure, there were harsh words for Bobby Baker, the former Senate page who amassed a $2,000,000 fortune as the $19,600-a-year secretary to the Senate's Democratic majority and the loyal friend of then Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson. The report accused Bobby of using "the influence of his public office to feather his own nest," said that on one occasion he had received $5,000 from the Ocean Freight-Forwarder Group for helping to get a bill through Congress. That "flagrant" abuse of his office, concluded the report, "justifies careful consideration looking to an indictment for violation of the conflict of interest statutes."
When it came to a number of other embarrassing aspects, though, the majority got out its brushes. Veteran Democratic Fund Raiser Matthew H. McCloskey, for example, had been accused of deliberately overpaying Maryland Insurance Man Don B. Reynolds $35,000 for writing a performance bond on the $20 million District of Columbia Stadium that McCloskey's firm was building. McCloskey claimed that it was only a bookkeeping goof, but Reynolds testified that $25,000 of the money was illegally channeled into the Democrats' 1960 presidential campaign fund through Baker. Generously, the committee found McCloskey's testimony "candid and convincing," dismissed Reynolds' as "devious and inconsistent."
As for the charge that former Presidential Aide Walter W. Jenkins had pressured Reynolds into buying useless advertising time on Lyndon Johnson's Austin, Texas, television station in return for selling Johnson $200,000 in life insurance, the report said: "This procedure follows business conduct considered legitimate by many reputable American businessmen."
In a sharp dissent, the three-man Republican minority complained: "This whole investigation has been marked by a refusal to investigate, by attempts to cover up and foot dragging generally." The Democrats shrugged off the charges, consider the investigation closed.
Investigations: Bobby's Busyness, Time Magazine (31st December, 1964)
The Senate committee investigation of the affairs of former Senate Majority Secretary Bobby Gene Baker has hardly set a scorching pace. But last week the committee did release closed-door testimony taken earlier this month from Don B. Reynolds, a Maryland insurance man and longtime Baker business associate. It made Bobby out to be a busy, busy boy - from dabbling in abortion to procuring gifts for Lyndon Baines Johnson.
"If Anyone Should Know . . ." Reynolds testified that he had made Bobby a nominal officer of his insurance brokerage, over ten years had paid Baker some $15,000 for putting him in touch with the right people. When other, non-insurable problems came up, Baker was still a good man to know. Once, said Reynolds, a client called him for help in getting an abortion for a friend. Reynolds got in touch with Bobby, who gave him a Capitol number for his concerned client to call. Whether the abortion was actually performed, Reynolds did not know. But, he said, "Some time later, 'Mrs. X' [the client] called and thanked me." Why, asked Committee Counsel Lennox McLendon, had Reynolds turned to Baker for advice about an abortion? Replied Reynolds: "I felt if anyone should know, he should, sir."
Baker also steered Reynolds to Lyndon Johnson. That was in 1957, only two years after Senate Majority Leader Johnson had suffered a heart attack. The Senator was having trouble finding an insurance company that would give him life insurance. Reynolds went looking on Johnson's behalf, talked to three companies, and finally found that the Manhattan Life Insurance Co. would write the policy. Manhattan issued a first policy of $50,000, and shortly afterward, when it had covered part of its risk through a reinsurance company, issued another policy of $50,000 for Johnson.
Out of Gratitude. In the course of those negotiations, Reynolds said, it was suggested to him by Walter Jenkins, then and now a top Johnson aide, that he buy advertising time on Lady Bird Johnson's radio-TV station in Austin. Reynolds said he bought $1,208 worth of advertising on the station.
"Did you buy this advertising time to advertise your insurance business?" asked Nebraska's Republican Senator Carl T. Curtis.
Reynolds: No, sir.
Curtis: Why did you buy it?
Reynolds: Because it was expected of me, sir.
Curtis: Who conveyed that thought to you?
Reynolds: Mr. Walter Jenkins.
Reynolds testified that in 1959 Bobby Baker suggested that Reynolds might further show his gratitude by giving a stereo phonograph to the Johnson family. Again Reynolds went along. "I supplied Bobby with a catalogue," said Reynolds, "and he said he had taken it out for Mrs. Johnson to make a selection." Reynolds told the committee that he purchased a set and had it installed in Johnson's home at a cost of $588. Did Johnson know, asked West Virginia's Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, that the stereo was a gift from Reynolds? Replied Reynolds: "The invoice delivered to Johnson's home showed that the charges were to be sent to Don Reynolds." It was two years later, said Reynolds, that Johnson purchased another $100,000 in life insurance through him (for a total of $200,000).
In answer to all this, White House Aide Jenkins swore in an affidavit that he had no knowledge "of any arrangement by which Reynolds purchased time on the TV station." Press Secretary Pierre Salinger said that the President had assumed the stereo to be a gift from "a longtime employee," not Reynolds. And President Johnson, in the course of an impromptu press conference, brought up the matter himself. Said he: "The Baker family gave us a stereo set. We used it for a period, and we had exchanged gifts before. He was an employee of the public and had no business pending before me and was asking for nothing, and so far as I know expected nothing in return, any more than I did when I had presented him with gifts." With that, Johnson cut off questions and left the press conference.
A Difference. Republicans, understandably, had a field day with the Reynolds testimony. G.O.P. National Chairman William Miller called the stereo gift "an atrocious thing and a travesty of justice." Said Delaware's Republican Senator John J. Williams: "I see no difference in the acceptance of an expensive stereo and in the acceptance of a mink or vicuna coat, a deep freeze or an Oriental rug."
There was, in fact, a difference. On the basis of the record so far, neither Johnson nor Baker was guilty of using his public office for private gain. In the Reynolds deal, Johnson got what he wanted: some personal life insurance. Reynolds also got what he wanted: his insurance commissions.
Still, the Baker probe was just getting started, and Washington was alive with reports that the names of Bobby Baker and Lyndon Johnson would be even more closely connected.
Investigations: A Senator's Insurance, Time Magazine (5th March, 1965)
Did Walter Jenkins know of any arrangements whereby Don B. Reynolds, a business sidekick of Bobby Baker's, bought $1,208 in advertising on Lady Bird Johnson's Austin TV station in return for selling two $100,000 insurance policies on Lyndon Johnson's life?
The answer, in a sworn affidavit, was a flat no - but that was back on Dec. 16, 1963, when Jenkins was a top White House aide. Last week Jenkins answered again - and this time his no was a lot less than flat. He had meant on that other occasion that he had not known "of the specifics for the purchase of advertising." But "I did know Mr. Reynolds planned to purchase advertising time, and I have never asserted the contrary."
"No Secret." As before, Jenkins did not appear in person before the Senate Rules Committee, which is investigating the Bobby Baker case. He left the White House last October, after being arrested on a morals charge, and his lawyer and two psychiatrists testified that his appearance before the committee would cause such a strain as to endanger his health. Instead, Jenkins replied on paper, but under oath, to 40 written questions from the committee.
In late 1956 or early 1957, Jenkins recalled, he was treasurer of the LBJ Co., which owned the television station, and "I was seeking an insurance company from which insurance on the life of the then Senator Lyndon B. Johnson might be purchased. I made no secret of this search, and I'm confident that Robert G. Baker knew of it, either from me or indirectly. Mr. Baker told me that he knew Don Reynolds, who represented a company which was beginning to specialize in insurance for former heart attack patients. Mr. Baker did not tell me that he had any interest in Mr. Reynolds' business."
Baker arranged a meeting between Jenkins and Reynolds, and Jenkins later talked to Baker several times about the proposed insurance. But then Jenkins "received word from the LBJ Co. that it would not be necessary to pursue the matter further because a local agent in Austin had become interested in selling the policies and that he not only had been an advertiser on the radio and television stations for many years, but also had always related the amount of his advertising to the amount of his business done with the station." This local agent, it turned out, was Huff Baines, a cousin of Lyndon Johnson's.
Meeting the Competition. Jenkins "communicated this information to Mr. Reynolds," and presumably was pleased to hear "that Mr. Reynolds wished very much to sell the policies and would also like to purchase advertising time in the event he sold them." Jenkins studied Reynolds' "offer to meet the competition," and "it was decided to accept the Reynolds offer."
Jenkins insisted that at no time did he "pressure" Reynolds to buy the television time. But in any event, he certainly got the idea across.
Investigations: The FBI Report, Time Magazine (12th March, 1965)
Last Dec. 1, in closed hearings held by the Senate Rules Committee investigating the Bobby Baker case, Mary land Insurance Agent Don B. Reynolds leveled a barrage of charges against Democrats in high office, testified to parties where "beauties and whisky and money flowed freely." Only last week was the substance of Reynolds' testimony made public — along with the release of a 30-page document rebutting Reynolds' charges, one by one, which the Rules Committee chairman, North Carolina's Democratic Senator B. Everett Jordan, pretentiously called "the FBI report."
Among the charges and rebuttals:
* Reynolds said that Bobby Baker had told him that "the leader" - meaning then Vice President Lyndon Johnson - had "interceded" to make sure that the controversial $10 billion TFX fighter-bomber contract was awarded to General Dynamics Corp. The so-called FBI report quoted Defense Secretary Robert McNamara as saying that any claim of official pressure brought to bear about the TFX contract was "definitely and categorically" wrong.
* Reynolds said that a Grumman Aircraft official, anxious to land a fat TFX subcontract, visited Baker's Capitol office, left behind a bulging blue flight bag containing $100,000 in "hundred dollar bills that were bound in brown paper or some sort of thing." The report quoted the Grumman official as saying that he had never been in Baker's office and had never paid Bobby so much as a penny "for any purpose whatsoever."
* Reynolds said that in 1949 Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, then a Democratic Representative, while on a European junket used counterpart funds - local funds accumulated by the U.S. abroad and often used to meet official Government expenses - to buy "many articles," including a statue called Dawn. The report quoted Mansfield as saying that if he had indeed spent counterpart funds, it was only for such legitimate expenses as hotel bills, and that his wife had bought the controversial statue with $110 of "her own personal funds."
* Reynolds said that in 1961 Vice President Johnson, while in Hong Kong, spent 150,000 Hong Kong dollars in counterpart funds "in a period of 14 hours in buying personal gifts for people." The report says that at the time Johnson was there, the counterpart fund was down to 37,642 Hong Kong dollars.
The Rules Committee's six-man Democratic majority promptly seized upon the report to try to bring an end to the Baker investigation. "I think it's over," said Chairman Jordan, explaining that the report "makes it obvious beyond a doubt that the testimony of Don B. Reynolds is unworthy of belief."
But did it? In fact, the report was not written by the FBI at all, but rather by a team of Justice Department functionaries who boiled down hundreds of pages of raw FBI interviews. Unlike Reynolds, none of the persons interviewed by the FBI were under oath. The only part of Reynolds' testimony that has at any time been tested by a sworn statement from an adversary witness turned out to be true: that was Reynolds' claim that he had purchased advertising time on a Johnson-owned Austin TV station in return for selling insurance on Johnson's life. The claim was recently corroborated in substance by former White House Aide Walter Jenkins.
Investigations: Messrs. Clean, Time Magazine (9th July, 1965)
A year ago the Senate Rules Committee's six-man Democratic majority slapped a few coats of whitewash over the Bobby Baker investigation with a final report that was supposed to end the case once and for all. But Delaware Republican John J. Williams, the tenacious Senate watchdog, pointed out a few splotches, and the Democrats were forced to try again. Last week they issued a second "final report" that is as white as can be.
To be sure, there were harsh words for Bobby Baker, the former Senate page who amassed a $2,000,000 fortune as the $19,600-a-year secretary to the Senate's Democratic majority and the loyal friend of then Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson. The report accused Bobby of using "the influence of his public office to feather his own nest," said that on one occasion he had received $5,000 from the Ocean Freight-Forwarder Group for helping to get a bill through Congress. That "flagrant" abuse of his office, concluded the report, "justifies careful consideration looking to an indictment for violation of the conflict of interest statutes."
When it came to a number of other embarrassing aspects, though, the majority got out its brushes. Veteran Democratic Fund Raiser Matthew H. McCloskey, for example, had been accused of deliberately overpaying Maryland Insurance Man Don B. Reynolds $35,000 for writing a performance bond on the $20 million District of Columbia Stadium that McCloskey's firm was building. McCloskey claimed that it was only a bookkeeping goof, but Reynolds testified that $25,000 of the money was illegally channeled into the Democrats' 1960 presidential campaign fund through Baker. Generously, the committee found McCloskey's testimony "candid and convincing," dismissed Reynolds' as "devious and inconsistent."
As for the charge that former Presidential Aide Walter W. Jenkins had pressured Reynolds into buying useless advertising time on Lyndon Johnson's Austin, Texas, television station in return for selling Johnson $200,000 in life insurance, the report said: "This procedure follows business conduct considered legitimate by many reputable American businessmen."
In a sharp dissent, the three-man Republican minority complained: "This whole investigation has been marked by a refusal to investigate, by attempts to cover up and foot dragging generally." The Democrats shrugged off the charges, consider the investigation closed.
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