James DiEugenio

Sandy:

I must say that John Newman also agrees with Scott on his Phase One and Phase two model.

I don't care to call it a theory, since I agree with you, that it is pretty close to what happened.  So I don't think it can be called something theoretical.

I think the ground level perps wanted an attack on Cuba, I mean look at the DRE for one.

But a friend of mine brought this up to me: Jim was there really a tandem plan or was it planned all along to revert to Phase two?

I have to say that is pretty insightful.

That is hysterical.

Fred Otash, the guy who wanted to hire a high priced call girl to nab JFK and she would not do it.

LOL 😃

Thanks to you both.

Russia is about 150 million people.  

So this should be good, I hope they send me a copy when done.

After almost two years in DVD and streaming release, JFK Revisited is still number 12 in sales for Amazon documentaries.  Which is something if you know anything about the film business and release patterns.

But beyond that, to show what a world wide reach it has had, a very big broadcast network in Russia is making a documentary on the JFK case.  They were clearly inspired by Oliver's film since they got in contact with me.  And they specifically asked for contact with the following: Aguilar, Mantik, Wecht, and Lisa Pease.

High cotton I think.

I don't think it was Rybka.  I think it was Lawton.

And BTW, you know the way Roger said that there was evidence in Valenti's  book, A Very Human President, that somehow Johnson ordered Kennedy's body to be taken out of Parkland? And Hornberger repeated that here?

I drove 25 miles round trip to the LA Central Library to find that book.

It says no such thing.  Here are the relevant parts.

Valenti had to be cleared to get on AF One, that is how worried Youngblood  was about a continuing plot. (p. 46)

Johnson said they would wait for Jackie and the casket before they took off. (ibid)

Valenti confirmed the oath of office with Katzenbach, word by word, as Fehmer, wrote it down. (p. 47)

I could have predicted this outcome  because Manchester interviewed Valenti twice. And Jim Bishop talks about him in 13 sections of his long book, so he had to have done a very long interview with the man.  Therefore, what I wrote from Manchester and Bishop stands.  The decision to leave Parkland and roll over Rose was made by O'Donnell and Kellerman, since Jackie said she was not going back without the casket.

Roger, I am very clear about where the idea of a blue ribbon commission started.

And so is Gibson.

The first guy to bring it up was Rostow.  And its right in Gibson's article.  (See The Assassinations, p. 7.)

So can we stop that one.

And I cannot believe you are now saying that somehow I do not know that the WC was a joke?  I have written, contributed to or edited,  five books on this subject Destiny Betrayed, The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, JFK Revisited, The Assassinations, and The JFK Assassination  Chokeholds.

So I think I know something about the WC.  But that is not the point. Which you keep on avoiding.  Namely that whatever would have occurred, with Hoover as the investigator the verdict would have been the same.

RI: Alsop himself when the told Johnsons he was *not* suggesting a new investigative body.

This is just silly. And it can only stand if you do not read the dialogue. Alsop knew what he wanted from LBJ from the start.  He said what Roger hangs onto like a life raft only to detract from that agenda, to make it seem he was not manipulating him. Anyone can figure that out by just reading the whole thing.

In other words, Alsop was giving LBJ the Johnson treatment. And it worked.  Just read the thing.  At the beginning LBJ insists on a Texas Board of Inquiry.  At the end he is going to call Acheson who is clearly part of this loose confederation that is trying to get the inquiry out of Texas.

I cannot believe what else you are trying to convey here.  But I think you imply that somehow Johnson let himself be rolled because the WC is what he wanted all along?  Is that what you are trying to say? I mean that is really wild. So the Rostow and Alsop calls, the Washington Post threat was all smoke and mirrors in order to disguise what he really wanted?  And he only put up a fight with Alsop because he wanted that to exist in the record?

I mean that is really bizarre.  I really don't know what to make of that one.

Finally, Dulles lobbied to be on the Commission. The only one who did so. Johnson picked a Commission because that is what they were suggesting to him to do. Rostow wanted 7-9, Alsop wanted three.  But my point is that whether it was a presidential commission or a Texas Board of Inquiry, either one was going to be supplied by Hoover. So ultimately it would have made little or no difference.

Unless there was some guy down in Texas who wanted to play hero and get himself killed.

Let us go to number two.

As demonstrated above the idea of a wider ranging plot was the Secret Service's idea specifically Youngblood, Roberts and also Kivett.  This is why they sent agents to guard his kids.  Kivett actually thought they were going to shoot Johnson in the hospital. Which is one reason they wanted him out of there.

The reason for the delay at the airfield was that no one knew if LBJ was the president yet. If he was not, then how could he order a counterattack if the Pentagon called him?  In fact, McNamara actually thought he was running that aspect.  Sarah Hughes was not in when they called her.  They had to locate her.  

Hornberger's third one, well Gibson dealt with that at length. The Commission was not Johnson's idea, plain and simple.  He resisted it.

As per Allen Dulles, he lobbied to get on the Commission, as proven by David Talbot.  The only guy to do that.

Can you show me that Roger? 

 Who received it?  Because in neither book, and both were written at the time period, is that acknowledged.

As per Rose, in neither rendition is Johnson's name invoked.  And Manchester spends several pages on this.

Thanks Ron. 

Also thanks for not quoting Ruby under the control of Jolly West.

Roger, I never said that the results would have been different if LBJ had not given in. Because he still wanted the Texas Court of Inquiry to be supplied by Hoover. But what I am saying is that he and the White House were worked on over this issue.  

So for Fetter to call it the Johnson Commission is misguided. It was not his idea and once it was up and running, we know who controlled it. 

You know, I think Jacob posted this due to this debate going on when I posted my review of Under Cover of Night.

Let us take them one by one.  The idea that somehow LBJ forced the cadaver out of the hospital so there would not be an autopsy struck me as odd.  Since i had never seen that particular charge before.  So I went back to what should be the two best sources on this, namely Manchester and Bishop. Those two men wrote books based on many sources and interviews nearest to the time of the crime.  They were hour by hour, sometimes minute by minute chronicles.  

The man who wanted to get LBJ out of Dallas was Rufus Youngblood, and secondarily Roberts. (Manchester, pp 232-34; Bishop p. 245) Nobody knew at that time how extensive the plot was. Recall, the Lincoln assassination had at least three targets.  Youngblood also was the one who urged LBJ to get out of the hospital once Kennedy was dead. And, in fact, since JFK was dead, the Secret Service should have gone with Johnson. (ibid, p. 289) Because as Manchester notes, once JFK was dead, Jackie was not technically the First Lady and was not entitled to Secret Service, bodyguards or aides.

And actually, O'Donnell and Powers and O'Brien had no standing either.  

When Kilduff told LBJ that Kennedy was now dead, this is why Johnson told him that the Secret Service wanted him to leave.  In fact, they had sent agents out to guard his daughters, that is how palpable the sense of a wide ranging plot was. (Bishop, p. 250) Another indication is this: LBJ also told Kilduff to wait until he was gone before he addressed the press. (Bishop, p. 248). Johnson told Kilduff he would wait for Jackie. (Bishop p. 250)

It was Jackie Kennedy who said to O'Donnell, Powers and the Secret Service, "I'm not going to leave her without Jack."  She actually said this three times at different intervals. O'Donnell ordered a casket after the first time she said it.. (Manchester, p. 289) Clint Hill then picked out a casket at O"Neals. (ibid, p. 292) When they brought it back, Jackie looked at it.  O'Donnell then said, "We must get her out of here." (Bishop, p. 268) The body was loaded into the casket with Jackie watching.   Meanwhile the Pentagon calls Dallas and asks "Who is in charge?" Obviously worried about a big attack and what a response would be. (Bishop p. 272). LBJ calls the AG about taking the oath. (ibid.)

Kellerman is waiting for the death certificate from Clark so he can get the casket out to Air Force One ASAP. (Bishop p. 284) When he gets it the big confrontation with Earl Rose takes place. Manchester has a really good description of this.  No one in the Kennedy camp would listen to Rose, and this included Burkley.  O'Donnell was almost as vociferous in this as Kellerman. (Bishop p. 286, Manchester, p. 304). O'Donnell said, "I was in a panic to get out of there, that little lady just couldn't stand there with her husband's body that long." (Manchester, p. 306).   In fact, it was O'Donnell who gave the order to Kellerman to run over Rose. (Bishop, p. 286). Which they did.

Once they were out, Kellerman called AIr Force 1 and said they were on the way, as did O'Donnell. (Bishop p. 299) Kellerman described their vehicles and said once they were inside, to lock the gates. O'Donnell said to take off once they were on board. But Sarah Hughes was not there yet so they waited for her and Jackie for LBJ to take the oath. (Bishop, pp. 299-300). O'Donnell dreaded waiting since he thought Rose would follow them with a police detachment. (Bishop p. 306). AF One left at 2:47 PM

In about 75 pages of detail, I could find no order that Johnson demanded that Kennedy's corpse be taken out of the hospital over any objections by Jackie or Rose.  What happened is that Youngblood and Roberts wanted LBJ out of Dallas, as did the people in Washington. There really was a fear of a continuing plot. Once Youngblood made that decision then it was just a matter of waiting for Jackie.  And the decision to take the body out was clearly by JFK's assistants and the top level of the Secret Service.  

If someone can show me where this is wrong or something is missing, go ahead.  But please, unlike Hornberger, and Fetter, footnote your reply properly.

Thanks Ron. 

The shock of Ruby doing what he did on national TV just kind of gave the image of a world gone mad, as Hosty said in his book.  What was next?

So Rostow and Alsop and the CFR crowd decided a blue ribbon Commission was the way out. And they bamboozled Johnson into creating one.

Johnson, as advised by his lawyers, was legally correct.

But as Rostow, whoever his friend was--probably Acheson--and Alsop decided, the utterly shocking death of Oswald on TV was just too much.  Dallas was looking like Tombstone.  So they had all decided that you had to have a commission with a lot of luminaries on it to restore stability and equilibrium.  

This idea was good at the time because it was something that the media embraced without question. At least I have never found any real objection to the idea  at the time.    And once that was done, it meant they would go ahead and accept its verdict.  Which they did.  In fact CBS was leaked  the results and given permission to film witnesses as long as they supported the verdict, which--to their everlasting shame-- they did. 

Again, as with many things these CFR types come up with, I admire their brains as much as I don't the uses to which they put them.  Because in the long run, by letting Hoover be the main gatekeeper, it undermined belief in the system. And led to a steady erosion in democracy.

And that is something that somehow, some way, Sean Fetter missed.

Roger,

This is the last reply I will make to this since I think you are close to joining the Robert Morrow club.

The references I will make are to the Gibson essay in The Assassinations.

Gibson begins his essay by saying that the version on the creation of the Commission in the HSCA is largely based on Katzenbach and is therefore not complete. (p. 4). For one, both Hoover and Johnson were dead.

Its quite clear that Hoover did not want a Commission, as Gibson writes, he opposed the idea. (ibid). And Katzenbach admitted that , "I am sure I talked about it with people outside the government entirely who called me and suggested old friends or former colleagues." (p. 7)  Incredibly, or predictably,  the HSCA did not follow this lead up.  

The first time anyone brought it up specifically was by Rostow on the 24th.(p. 7)  Right after Ruby shot Oswald. Rostow was a figure outside the government, at Yale. Rostow had talked to Katzenbach already about it (more than once), and he is now talking to Moyers. Rostow specifically said that his suggestion was of a "Presidential commission",  one "of very distinguished citizens".  He wanted a set of 7-9 people to "look into the whole affair of the murder of the President." (p. 7) 

Why?  Because, Rostow went on to say, that "American opinion is just now so shaken by the behavior of the Dallas Police that they're not believing anything." (p. 7)  And Moyers agreed with that perception.  And then Moyers repeated the idea of a blue ribbon commission.  And then he said he would bring it up with LBJ. (p.8) And we know that Rostow recruited Katzenbach because Hoover mentions that Katzenbach had suggested the idea late on the 24th.  And there is some evidence that Walter Jenkins had also been approached. (p. 9)

Now I do not see how you can get any more specific than that. Because Rostow's concept is what happened. And Rostow had now recruited, at least, Katzenbach and Moyers to his idea.

On the morning of the 25th LBJ is talking to Hoover. Johnson says that a  DOJ rep, likely Katzenbach, is lobbying  with the Washington Post about a presidential commission.  He then says he thinks that "would be very bad".  Because he does not think the White House should be part of this. (p. 9). He then brings up the idea of jurisdiction. (p. 10)  (Which legally, he is correct on.)

Later on in the conversation LBJ says that he favors an FBI report which would then be given to the AG.  If not then a Texas Board of Inquiry supported by the FBI.  (p. 10). After this conversation is when Alsop now called LBJ.   Rostow was the guy working the flanks and softening up the ramparts.  Alsop will now go in for the kill.

RIght at the  beginning, LBJ says he favors a Texas inquiry backed by the FBI.   Something from outside would be really bad.(p. 10) He actually said this three times to Alsop at the start.  Alsop steps right over this by saying that the Post is going to advocate for a blue ribbon commission.  He then says that Johnson should announce, in this case, a smaller commission, of three men, preferably lawyers.  And they will write a report. He accents that this report has to be reviewed outside of Texas.(p. 11)

He then resorts to flattery and tells him if he does this, he will have The Post behind him and also the rest of the press. LBJ still resists, since he does not want to interfere with a state matter, and says he has been advised by lawyers not to.  Alsop battles back and plays his ace card:  this is  the murder of a president! (p. 12). LBJ still resists.  But Alsop comes right back and plays his other ace: only in this way can the country be convinced. He then says he is worried about the Post but LBJ can get ahead of them. He even says that Moyers should call Kay Graham and tell them that he is going to do it. (p. 14). LBJ is now cowered and says he will talk to Acheson about it.  Alsop plays the affection card, and says "I hate to interfere sir, I only dare to do so because I care so much about you." (p. 14) And LBJ falls for this and says, "I know that Joe."

And within 72 hours of this, LBJ had reversed himself and announced he will form a commission. The double team of Alsop and Rostow worked.   I stand by what I said, the Commission was not LBJ's idea. It was brought to him by players outside the government. 

Its not safe to take LBJ at his word, especially on Vietnam and what happened there after JFK was killed or on Bobby Kennedy.

But in his memoir, he says that the first person who pushed the idea of a blue ribbon commission was Gene Rostow, backed up by Alsop, and he adds the name of Rusk. I wonder if Rusk was the guy in the room with Alsop who Alsop referred to but did not name. (And recall that Alsop also mentioned Acheson.)

So this appears to be an instance where he actually was telling the truth. Not often but...

Nice one Keven, 👋

Roger, your reply to Gibson above is, to say the least, rather weird.

Plain and simple: LBJ did not want a blue ribbon commission. 

The record indicates that the first guy to suggest this to the White House was Gene Rostow on the 24th. RIght after Ruby shot Oswald. And Rostow had already talked to Katzenbach.  Rostow tells Moyers this had to be done, the appointment of a commission and Moyers  tells him he will bring it to Johnson's attention. And Rostow said he had talked to one other person about this matter already.  Further, Walter Jenkins was also cognizant of the idea that day.  Since he wrote a note about it.

On the 25th, in a call with Hoover, Johnson voices his opposition to it and calls it "very bad".  But he is aware that some have gone to the Washington Post about the idea. He wants an FBI report that would then be passed on to the AG. HIs second suggestion is a Texas Court of Inquiry to be supplemented by the FBI.

Now that is where LBJ was right before the Alsop call on the 25th and its all in B and W, right in Gibson's essay.

It was clearly the Alsop call that changed Johnson's mind on this issue. Because at the beginning of the call, he still is insisting that the Texas authorities take the inquiry since its a state crime.  And he thinks they should be supplemented by the FBI.

It was at this point that Alsop took over the call and he invokes the Washington Post and the name of people like Dean Acheson to serve on the Commission.  And the FBI would serve as the investigatory body.

WIthin 72 hours LBJ reversed himself and supported the Commission.  So no, the Warren Commission was not Johnson's idea. The other stuff you have in there does not relate to what Gibson is saying here. Its theorizing.

1 hour ago, Roger Odisio said:

Why would Pompeo do that, tell Carlson about the files?

I think Robert and William replied to this effectively.

The whole last day pleading by the CIA with Trump had been well known for a long time when Carlson did his show.

Pompeo was a regular at Fox.  

So if you put 2 and 2 together...

I think this was probably why Pompeo's lawyer called Carlson and threatened him the day after. Because this was supposed to be off the record.

And that clearly coincides with the Napolitano experience with Trump.

My latest substack is on this subject.  It is still free, what a bargain.

"Tucker Carlson on the JFK Case: Pompeo was protecting James Angleton"

Here you go.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-144086075?source=queue

I am doing a substack on this right now.

Just remember, although Pompeo was not CIA Director when Carslon's Fox program went on the air, he was DIrector when Trump was going to declassify all the documents on the case in October of 2017.

Does anyone think that the CIA guys went over to the Oval Office and read Trump the riot act and Pompeo did not know about it?

I think he was probably right there.

This was all a coincidence?

To me, the tell is that it was Pompeo's lawyer who called Carlson.

And Pompeo was not in the CIA at the time Carlson's show aired.

Thanks for that Robert.  Nice one.

And William should get EF brownie points for predicting way back that Pompeo was Carlson's source.

Roger:

Do you know a lot of nice sweetie pies who work for the CIA?

So I don't know where you are going with that.

But the significance of this is that it corroborates what Trump told Napolitano.  Because Pompeo is the guy who, on the day the documents were supposed to be let go, pleaded with Trump not to do it.

 So he threatens Carlson with a lawsuit, and previously he got Trump to, IMO, break the law.

I like what Carslon said to him, so  you shutting me up is more important than who killed JFK?

I am not sure if Jeff Morley is aware of this. 

But I sure hope someone tells him about it.

This is something he can run with, since he gets more face time on the MSM than anyone on our side.

Here is a link to the relevant part of the show.