James DiEugenio

I don't think that is what he was referring to Larry. I think that he was referring to Chicago and Klein's. And Bart makes an interesting case about that concerning the whole issue of the Hidell card. Did it exist on Friday?

Here is a more direct link to the Hoover document Bart closes the book with. Its pretty interesting. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32263509.pdf

Jean: There are not four versions of the story. Not by those involved. There is one story between Trento and Lane. And it stood up under oath at trial.

Actually I was not here, would have loved to have been in on the discussion.

The Texas Board of Inquiry did convene. I have seen their records at the Dallas Public Library. It actually went on for a few weeks. But it was clear that the Commission would now take center stage. LBJ did not finangle his way on to the ticket. The best chronicle of this is in Mutual Contempt by Jeff Shesol. JFK was advised by people like Phil Graham to take Johnson since he could help him in the south. Bobby Kennedy did not like the choice. He ran his own private campaign up and down the stairs of the hotel to try and get Johnson to turn down the invite. Bobby ending up losing that battle. Most interested observers consider Shesol's the best research on the subject.

This really has little to do with Weberman or Holt. As we all know, the first time around Spotlight lost the case to Hunt. On appeal, Mark Lane came in. I cannot begin to summarize Plausible Denial, but it was a very interesting period of discovery and a trial. It turned out that there really was a memo by Angleton saying that they needed to devise an alibi for Hunt being in Dallas on the day of the assassination. The memo did not say he was dressed as a tramp. Angleton had shown it to Joe Trento. With that piece of evidence, Lane went to work on tearing apart the alibi that Hunt had for being on the East Coast. The jury agreed with Lane. Hunt lost the case on appeal.

Thanks William. Nice one. Just recall, this all started back in late 1991. Two major points of contention. Kennedy was getting out of Vietnam. The 112th should have been there is Dallas. Prouty was assaulted for both by his critics. He was right on both.

Thanks Mart. He also says that because the police were such blabbermouths there would have had to have been a change of venue for Oswald. And he predicts already that there will have to be one for Ruby, which there ended up being. Bart is right, that is a pretty interesting memo by Hoover. Its the 11th one down on this page. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jGCKcrcAmWFZ67M4g6jx4O3rTAUkFJCP

I just finished Bart's book. I wonder how many have actually read it? He ends the book in an original and pungent manner. He describes the shooting of Oswald by Ruby. He says that if Fritz was not going to clear the basement then there should have been what is called a human corridor to the car. There was not any such thing. He also says that incredibly Curry was not there. He says he was on the phone with Cabell. (I thought it was Crull?) After the debacle of murder live on TV, everyone was shocked at how something like that could happen. Dallas had given the world two seismic shocks in about 48 hours. So Wade decided to go on TV and present his case that, really, it did not matter that Oswald was killed since he was guilty anyway. Which was pretty easy to do with no defense lawyer. (Bart does a nice job showing that this was what the police wanted, with the whole Greg Olds episode.) But he caps this with the irony of a memo that Hoover was writing around the same time about how bad the performance of the DPD was: in not protecting Oswald, depriving him of his civil rights, and not really having a good case without the FBI work. But the capper is that Hoover then comments on the Dallas Police case by writing: "Oswald had been saying he wanted John Abt as his lawyer, and Abt with only that kind of evidence could have turned the case around, I'm afraid." He then says everyone should read this memo by Hoover. Does anyone have this or know where it is? That is quite an admission.

Roger: That reply by you was a bit acrid was it not? I did not say that you were a disciple of A Texan Looks at Lyndon. What I was trying to say is that many people take that book at face value in its picture of an omnipotent--and murdering-- master politician with almost supranatural powers. Exhibit One: Nelson. Second, LBJ was a regional figure or candidate in 1960? Johnson was a national figure by then. Because of his Senate Majority leader status, and his role in getting through the two civil rights bills. He did that in large part to make himself palatable on the national stage. He made a very bad mistake in underestimating what a well oiled machine Bobby Kennedy would run, which made his strategy--of relying on the back benchers and old guard--look pretty obsolete. He himself even admitted this. Third, as I said, and maybe you missed, LBJ was technically correct on the jurisdiction issue. And on the tapes he talks about how he has been up all night talking to lawyers about the issue. But the Power Elite had decided that Dallas and the state had no credibility. I think the fact that he was from Texas had something to do with that myopia.

One of the best things that the ole curmudgeon ever said. He put into just a few words volumes of literature on the case.

Roger and Ben: The obvious question then is why did LBJ not announce a commission idea on the 24th? I mean that would have been the obvious reaction to Ruby killing Oswald on live TV would it not? Eugene Rostow sure thought so. So did Alsop. So did Kay Graham, Wiggins, and Friendly and Reston. Rostow's reaction was something like:Dallas is resembling a wild west show. First JFK, then TIppit and now Oswald. How can anyone buy this police force and DA that allows the prime suspect to get shot on national TV. But yet Johnson is not thinking that. And technically he is correct, murder is a state crime. And there is no law at that time to make the murder of a president a federal one. Rostow is first about a blue ribbon commission and he even suggests people in both number and specifics like 7 or 9, and people like Tom Dewey or Bill Story. Why? "Because world opinion and American opinion is just now so shaken by the behavior of the Dallas Police that they're not believing anything." Rostow had talked to Katzenbach more than once, but thought he was not getting through since the man seemed groggy to him. Rostow said he talked about this commission idea with someone else who he does not name. But he tells Moyers he is telling him since he wants LBJ to know that this is the best idea since what is happening in Dallas is too far out. Moyers repeats the idea and Rostow says yes that is what he means.. And there is evidence that Katzenbach did already get the idea from Rostow; its a memo from Jenkins to LBJ in which Jenkins mentions Katzenbach floating the idea of a commission. On the 25th LBJ is talking to Hoover and he says he thinks the commission is a very bad idea. Because that would probably necessitate White House appointments. He wants a Texas Court of Inquiry--which did get off the ground--supplemented by an FBI report to the DOJ. But even at this point, he has heard about Friendly, Graham, and Wiggins wanting a Commission. Alsop then calls on the 25th, and LBJ is still supporting a Texas court of inquiry at the start. But its Alsop who is the one who loosens his moorings on this. Let me add two points that are not explicit yet. First, the idea that somehow LBJ was a wizard in all things political is a myth set up by people like Caro and Nelson in order to sell books. LBJ screwed up his own chance to be president in 1960 in a complete miscalculation that overestimated his torque and underestimated what JFK was doing that year. Second, LBJ sowed the seeds of his own destruction at the hands of Bill Fulbright with that idiotic invasion of the Dominican Republic. So please do not throw this mythology at me right out of A Texan Looks at Lyndon, a book which was written for the John Birch Society. Second, Alsop starts the dialogue off after LBJ suggests a Texas Court of Inquiry by asking: will there be someone outside of Texas? What all these people understood was that this had to be taken out of Dallas first, and preferably out of Texas completely. Because with the murder of Oswald by Ruby, it was clearly suggested the Dallas police might have been involved. And if that was the case, how could one trust someone like Wade or Fritz to get to the bottom of that?

Unfortunately its behind a wall. Apparently there is new material in it. https://jfkfacts.substack.com/p/the-man-who-photographed-oswald

I CAN IMAGINE WHAT THIS WILL BE LIKE IF BOBBY DECLARES INDEPENDENT THIS WEEK.

Chris is very familiar with this aspect. I agree with him, the O'Dell version is likely the best.

Ben: Alsop: For summing up the results of the FBI inquiry in a way that will be completely coherent, detailed and will carry unchallengeable convictions and this carrying conviction is just as important as carrying on the investigation in the right way,,, and I worry about this Post editorial. LBJ: And I worry about the Post period...but Alsop: Well, I do too...but I'd like you to get ahead of them and if you have...if you make this decision and have Moyers call Friendly or Kay instead of being...well you know...this is what we ought to to this is what ought to be done and then what you do being denounced as inadequate, they'll be put so hard and will do you a tremendous piece and I'm sure you will have the strongest possible support...it will be thought that everything has been done that needs doing... Alsop knows just how to get to Johnson because after getting the committee idea into his head--which LBJ did not want to do-- and giving him instructions on how to announce it through Al Friendly, this is what follows: Alsop: I hate to interfere sir, I only dare to do so because I care so much about you. And how does LBJ reply? LBJ: I know that Joe Alsop then backtracks since he knows he had made headway. But note what he says at the end: Alsop: From the public relations standpoint and from the standpoint of carrying conviction...there is that missing key which is easy to supply without infringing upon Texas' feelings or sovereignty. Alsop played Johnson like a fiddle, hitting all the right notes of flattery, of empathy, of fondess and sympathy, but never losing sight of what he really wanted. And it is pretty obvious he has been colluding, not just with Eugene Rostow and Acheson, but with Friendly and Wiggins and Graham at the Washington Post and Reston at the Ny TImes.. In fact, when LBJ was ready to announce he called Alsop in advance. Within 72 hours this reversal will be complete and LBJ will now endorse the Commission idea. In fact, on the 28th he calls Eastland to shut down a senate committee hearing on Kennedy's murder. In fact, there will be not one congressional inquiry that got off the ground. In his book The Vantage Point, LBJ essentially said Eugene Rostow first called the White House suggesting a Commission idea. Then Alsop and Acheson also endorsed it. For once, Johnson was telling the truth. It was a masterful job by them all. The player got played.

What Don's article suggested was that actors from outside the administration--Rostow, Alsop and Acheson and a mystery man-- were manipulating the White House to get a blue ribbon committee. Then they did that double whammy on Warren and it was really all over. By that I mean: 1.) Johnson scaring the heck out of him with those visions of atomic holocaust. 2.) Hoover, McCloy and Dulles vetoing Warren Olney as his chief counsel. Warren was reduced to nothing but a figurehead.

You have to read the transcript.

William, I did not think that was what Gil was saying. I thought he was drawing a straight line between the Deep State and the JFK case.

BTW its an important point as to who was Carlson's source.

Ben: Did you read Gibson's article "The Creation of the Warren Commission"? It does not sound like you did, because Johnson did not want a blue ribbon committee. Period. It was only under a lot of pressure indirectly by Rostow, and then by Alsop and the Washington Post that he finally relented to do so. The triumph of Don's article is that he was the first one to dig into this after the phone calls were declassified by the JFK Act. No one had really done what he did prior to that. Alsop essentially forced the issue with him after discussing it with an unnamed person. LBJ mightily resisted but Alsop appears to have had some training in interrogation, because he simply denuded Johnson in that conversation.

Nice one Gil. 👋

BTW, as Bart mentions in his book, Hoover directed FBI agent Manning Clements to establish contact with the DPD right when the news of the assassination broke. (Gibson p. 39) In other words, Hoover is in contact with Shanklin and with the DPD through Clements within an hour or so. This is why he has two agents in on Oswald's first questioning session. Altogether, Hoover wrote four memos that day. One was directly for LBJ. (ibid) Donald Gibson was such an underrated author on this case. This stuff is from his essay "The First 72 Hours". The one which follows that one is his milestone article "The Creation of the Warren Commission." There he brings out the roles of Eugene Rostow, Alsop and, to a lesser extent, Acheson in the formation of the Commission. I am glad his two books, Battling Wall Street, and the Kennedy Assassination Cover up were reprinted. The former is simply a classic in the literature. It was really a breakthrough. As anyone can see, although Hoover did not get the evidence until that evening through Drain, he was clearly in on the investigation just about from the outset through his proxies on the scene. And boy was he out to close the case and get the Kennedys out of his life. Which he did.

Napolitano is basically a good guy which may be why he is not on Fox anymore. I like his show and even though I disagree with his politics I like him personally. But I really do not know what to think about Trump's claim. I mean, of course I hope its true, but at this point in his career, he simply does not have much credibility. The latest being that Mar-al-ago is worth 1.5 billion?

RFK had no role in MM's death. Proved by Don McGovern and Susan Bernard. There was no FBI taping or by Hoffa. Proved by Gary Vitacco Robles and the New York authorities who arrested Spindel. Therefore, the above is flapdoodle. Rothmiller was trying to sell a silly book. Mike is starting to sound as goofy as Mark Shaw.