Cliff Varnell

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

KK:

Hoover was reluctant.

Now I know you did not read Bart's book.

In about two hours, Hoover is pushing the Oswald angle.  

Pushing the angle Oswald was connected to the Soviets.

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

When, in fact, what is the evidence for this at that time?

 

Bundy called AF1 to inform Johnson there was no evidence of conspiracy.  It didn’t start with Hoover.

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Both Hoover and LBJ decided to go with the lone sociopath angle. 

After Harriman and Bundy gave the marching orders.

Hoover was a reluctant lone nutter.

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Read John Newman's books. 

The above quote is a pithy, fair, quick summation of Newman's narrative,

Quote Newman claiming someone from the CIA spoke with Johnson on 11/22/63.

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

 

that the CIA planned the Kostikov-LHO meeting, and other elements linking LHO to Moscow-Havana, as the method to limit any investigation into the JFKA.

As opposed to linking LHO to the commies for the express purpose of blaming Castro as a pretext for invading Cuba?

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I don't see an effective State Department role in the snuffing out of the JFKA investigation.

Of course you don’t Ben, since the following doesn’t fit your pet theories.

Max Holland's The Assassination Tapes, pg 57:

<quote on>

At 6:55 p.m. Johnson has a ten minute meeting with Senator J. William Fulbright and diplomat W. Averell Harriman to discuss possible foreign involvement in the assassination, especially in light of the two-and-a-half-year sojourn of Lee Harvey Oswald [in Russia]...Harriman, a U.S. ambassador to Moscow during WWII, is an experienced interpreter of Soviet machinations and offers the president the unanimous view of the U.S. government's top Kremlinologists. None of them believe the Soviets have a hand in the assassination, despite the Oswald association. </q>

There was no meeting of “top Kremlinologists” — Harriman made that up to leverage the US foreign policy establishment in support of the Lone Nut scenario.

Katzenbach admitted he was under pressure from State.  Don’t you read Pat Speer’s posts?

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Thanks for the reminder, Cliff. I've been giving too much credit to Katzenbach. (And Jim has been giving him too much blame IMO.) He didn't put out his memo till after Oswald was dead. But Johnson was ordering people to forget about the conspiracy angle the night of the assassination. Right? Two days earlier.

And this was due to Harriman telling him that the top Kremlinologists were saying that Russia was not involved.

I need to give Harriman credit for thwarting the CIA's plot.

 

I couldn’t agree more!  

In his WC testimony Rusk spoke of the urgency he felt on the flight back to DC to join the inquiry into possible foreign involvement.  By the time he got back the “inquiry” was already over — all on Harriman’s say so.

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Sandy:

That memo blames Oswald for killing JFK, and its Oswald alone.

It was a done deal Friday night when LBJ ordered Cliff Carter to call the Texas authorities and order them to drop the conspiracy angle.

Why would we expect Katzenbach to refuse to follow similar orders?

He said he was under pressure from the State Department.  The historical record shows Johnson under pressure from the State #3, Averell Harriman.

Those who either demonize or lionize Katzenbach have not processed those facts.

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Yeah, that is John Newman's idea, the "WWIII" virus. 

Newman didn’t write this nonsense, you did.

Someone at the CIA told LBJ, "'Hoo-boy, look at this LHO-Kostikov meeting, we better put the lid on this, or its WWIII." 

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Take it up with John Newman.

He does know a little something about LHO and the CIA. 

You didn’t quote John Newman, did you?

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

SL--

Well, at this late date....my best guess...

Here is my short take (and I think that of John Newman's, more importantly): 

The whole Russia-Cuba-LHO connection was phony, planned and intended to stifle a real investigation into the JFKA. Newman calls the LHO-Kremlin-Havana tale the "WWIII virus." 

Someone at the CIA told LBJ, "'Hoo-boy, look at this LHO-Kostikov meeting, we better put the lid on this, or its WWIII." Kostikov was the wet work guy in Mexico City for the KGB. 

Nonsense.  The first people LBJ met with at the White House were Averell Harriman and William Fulbright.  Harriman claimed to speak for all the US Gov’t Kremlinologists and informed him the Soviets were not involved.

Harriman was the #3 man at the State Department.

Katzenbach claimed he was under pressure from State.

I don’t see why folks can’t believe him.

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

In Bart's book, he proffers some info I had not seen that Hoover was blindly pushing for Oswald as the sole killer on the 22nd.

Hoover apparently changed his mind.

"I urged strongly that we not reach conclusion Oswald was the only man." — Hoover on 12/12/63.

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Yet, the guy has no idea what was going on in Mexico City?  And he admits later in the day that the DPD case is very weak.

In fact, Hoover was so unconcerned he went to the racetrack on Saturday.

But he later on did realize that the CIA had deceived him on Oswald in Mexico City.

In fact, its almost funny to see how far behind the curve the FBI was in Mexico City.  Ochoa and Echeverria really had everything in order before the FBI started.  In fact, even Willens was surprised by how those two had rigged it all before the FBI got there.

Hoover despised the Kennedys, especially RFK.  But is there any excuse for Katzenbach, who owed so much to them? 

He said Foggy Bottom leaned on him.

The historical record shows the State Department behind the Lone Nut push.

“We may never know ifJFK’s death was the act of a lone shooter or a CIA coup d’état.”

Why do folks celebrate this kind of False Mystery garbage?

5 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

I second that question.

J. Edgar H. ... correct?

I didn’t ask a question.  I’ve presented the receipts for the State Department driving the Lone Nut scenario.

Hoover wanted to push a commie conspiracy.  From a 12/12/63 memo Hoover wrote:

"I urged strongly that we not reach conclusion Oswald was the only man."

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

In other words Katzenbach was simply following the dictates of the higher ups at the FBI.

Who were following the dictates of higher ups at the State Department.

1 hour ago, Leslie Sharp said:

We posit Capt. Gannaway was a pivotal character on the ground, operating outside official Washington, and closely aligned with Jack Crichton.

On the ground to paint Oswald as a killer commie, right?

1 hour ago, Leslie Sharp said:

I would need to dig through a defunct iPhone for the screenshot of the news account of Gannaway telling reporters Oswald had been in USSR and married a Russian, but I'm virtually certain he did so on Friday afternoon. He must not have received the memo. 😞 

The no-conspiracy “memo” from the White House didn’t go out until Friday night.

2 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Who Had the Power to Cover It Up? 

Thus asked the composite character, “X,” played by actor Donald Sutherland in Oliver Stone’s depiction of DA Jim Garrison’s investigation into the assassination, JFK (the movie). 

Much deliberation ensued between the authors of this book following the analysis of the “holdout” entries [appearing in a 1963 datebook maintained by intel contractor Pierre Lafitte]. A pertinent question surfaced as the pursuit of "holdout" grew more aggressive: “who within the domestic intelligence agencies would have the most influence over the investigation on the ground in Dallas?”

 

Someone Would Have Talked, Larry Hancock, pg 289.

<quote on>

On Friday night the White House placed telephone calls to Dallas DA Henry Wade, to Texas State Attorney General Carr and Police Chief Curry requesting that they avoid any official statements, charges, or discussion relating to conspiracy.  Johnson’s aide Cliff Carter was making the calls and if the individual in question raised objections, President Johnson was used as the authority for the message.  </q>

Johnson met with Harriman and then instructed his aide Carter to call Dallas and cut short talk of conspiracy.

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

This document only adds to what I already had on Katzenbach.

 

From chapter 1b at patspeer.com:

 

Katzenbach Recap:

On November 22, shortly after the assassination, Katzenbach took over as Acting Attorney General, so that Attorney General Kennedy could both grieve for his murdered brother and devote himself to his family.

On November 24, after Oswald was assassinated, he met with FBI Director Hoover. The next day, he issued a memorandum to Bill Moyers, then working as the Johnson Administration's Press Secretary, encouraging Moyers to use the press to convince the public Oswald had acted alone. He later defended this action by insisting he was under pressure from the State Department to silence talk of a vast conspiracy.

#3 man at Foggy Bottom, W. Averell Harriman, leveraged the entire US foreign policy apparatus to convince LBJ to back away from any commie conspiracy talk.  But Harriman hadn’t consulted with anyone when he told Johnson top Kremlinologists concluded the Soviets were innocent.

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

He then began to pressure the FBI to finish its investigation as fast as possible, and pressure President Johnson to create a Presidential Commission to confirm the FBI's findings.

By early December, he cooperated with Chief Justice Warren and began pressuring the Attorney General of Texas to forego its own investigation.

And then on December 9, he pressured the Warren Commission to simply sign-off on the FBI's findings!

It's amazing to reflect that, in the aftermath of the assassination, Katzenbach, acting as the nation's top cop, had tried to cut-off a thorough, and one might say REAL, investigation at every opportunity, and that, when questioned about this later, he refused to take responsibility, blaming his actions on the FBI and the State Department.

He was correct.  

3 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Hoover and LBJ made the decision to blame a lone gunman?

Or was that decision made earlier?

The President Has Been Shot, Charles Roberts  (p. 141) A reporter for Newsweek, Roberts was on AFI and met McGeorge Bundy at Andrews.

<quote on, emphasis added>

I remember looking at (McGeorge) Bundy because I was wondering if he had any word of what had happened in the world while we were in transit, whether this assassination was part of a plot. And he told me later that what he reported to the president during that flight back was that the whole world was stunned, but there was no evidence of a conspiracy at all.

<quote off>

 

 

The Assassination Tapes, Max Holland, (pg 57):

<quote on>

At 6:55 p.m. Johnson has a ten minute meeting with Senator J. William Fulbright and diplomat W. Averell Harriman to discuss possible foreign involvement in the assassination, especially in light of the two-and-a-half-year sojourn of Lee Harvey [in Russia]...Harriman, a U.S. ambassador to Moscow during WWII, is an experienced interpreter of Soviet machinations and offers the president the unanimous view of the U.S. government's top Kremlinologists. None of them believe the Soviets have a hand in the assassination, despite the Oswald association.

<quote off>

This was the genesis of the Lone Nut Cover Story.  Bundy called LBJ on AF1 and told him the lone assassin was in custody.  As soon as Johnson got to the White House he found out that all of his government’s top Kremlinologists concluded the Soviets were innocent.

But there was no such discussion among top Soviet experts on 11/22/63.

By reputation the top 3 Soviet hands were Charles Bohlen, George Kennan, and Harriman himself. According to his biography, Bohlen was traveling by train in Europe. According to Kennan’s biography, he spent the day quietly with Robert Oppenheimer up in Princeton.

By title, the US gov’t’s top Soviet guys were Llewelyn Thompson, Ambassador At Large for Soviet Affairs, and Dean Rusk, Secretary of State.

From their Warren Commission testimonies:

Mr. DULLES:  Did you have any conversations at any time while you were Ambassador or after you returned to the United States with any Soviet official with regard to the Oswald case?

Ambassador THOMPSON: I discussed with the Soviet Ambassador the desire of the [Warren] Commission to receive any documentation that they might have available, but I did not in any way discuss the case itself, nor did the Soviet official with whom I talked. 

Mr. DULLES:   And do you know of any conversations of that nature that any other official of the Department had in connection with the Oswald case?

Ambassador THOMPSON: I do not myself know of any. 

Mr. DULLES: You probably would, would you not, if that had taken place-of any importance? 

Ambassador THOMPSON: Off the record. 

(Discussion off the record.) 

Mr. DULLES: Your testimony is you have no knowledge of any other conversations other than that of the Secretary of State [Dean Rusk], in connection with communications to and from the Soviet Government on this case? 

Ambassador THOMPSON: That is correct.  I know of no other cases where it was discussed with Soviet officials. </q>

Thompson acknowledged discussions with Dean Rusk, but nothing about Harriman or other "top Kremlinologists".  Rusk didn't return to Washington until after Harriman's meeting with Johnson.

Here's what Rusk told the Warren Commission (Vol 5):

<quote on>. 
Secretary RUSK: As the Commission may remember, I was with several colleagues in a plane on the way to Japan at the time the assassination occurred. When we got the news we immediately turned back. After my mind was able to grasp the fact that this event had in fact occurred, which was the first necessity, and not an easy one, I then, on the plane, began to go over the dozens and dozens of implications and ramifications of this event as it affects our foreign relations all over the world. I landed briefly in Hawaii on the way back to Washington, and gave some instructions to the Department about a number of these matters, and learned what the Department was already doing. But one of the great questions in my mind at that time was just that question, could some foreign government somehow be involved in such an episode. I realized that were this so this would raise the gravest issues of war and peace, but that nevertheless it was important to try to get at the truth-to the answer to that question-wherever that truth might lead; and so when I got back to Washington I put myself immediately in touch with the processes of inquiry on that point, and as Secretary of State had the deepest possible interest in what the truthful answer to those questions would be, because it would be hard to think of anything more pregnant for our foreign relations than the correct answer to that question. </q>
 

Harriman and Bundy called the shots on the Lone Nut.

Didn’t the Dallas PD suspect Oswald’s involvement well before the FBI?

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

To be clear, if my assumption is correct, the memo is from Clyde Tolson, and he claims that Katzenbach, then Deputy AG, told him that the man in custody in Dallas was to be blamed for the murder. I would read that as coming from Hoover, who had already told Katzenbach’s boss the same thing. 
Sandy - refresh my memory - who in the CIA was communicating with Hoover prior to his phone call to RFK? 
It sure seems like the FBI and Justice department were at loggerheads with the CIA and Military from the get go. This seems like a good reason for LBJ to be sitting on the crapper on AF 1 freaking out. If the planners were in communication with AF 1, and they were prepared beforehand with a designated patsy who they had linked in any way they could to Soviets and Cubans, it must have been painfully obvious to LBJ what came next. So in this case Hoover and LBJ decided to clamp down on this purposeful conspiracy and enforce the lone gunman theory immediately. It might also suggest that RFK knew enough to side with Hoover and LBJ on this immediately, through Katzenbach. 

Hoover and LBJ made the decision to blame a lone gunman?

Or was that decision made earlier?

The President Has Been Shot, Charles Roberts  (p. 141) A reporter for Newsweek, Roberts was on AFI and met McGeorge Bundy at Andrews.

<quote on, emphasis added>

I remember looking at (McGeorge) Bundy because I was wondering if he had any word of what had happened in the world while we were in transit, whether this assassination was part of a plot. And he told me later that what he reported to the president during that flight back was that the whole world was stunned, but there was no evidence of a conspiracy at all.

<quote off>

Most Still Aren’t Buying JFK ‘Lone Gunman’ Conclusion

https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/general_lifestyle/october_2017/most_still_aren_t_buying_jfk_lone_gunman_conclusion

Most Americans still aren’t convinced that President John F. Kennedy was the victim of a lone assassin in November 1963.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 43% of American Adults accept the government’s conclusion that Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman. But 33% continue to believe he was the victim of a conspiracy, while one-in-four (24%) are undecided. </q>

6 years later:

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/rasmussen-reports-jfk/2023/07/12/id/1126834/

Voters are still divided on whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. 

A 1964 Warren Commission found that Kennedy was killed by Oswald, a U.S. citizen who had previously lived in the Soviet Union, and that Oswald acted alone.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 38% of likely U.S. voters accept the government's conclusion that Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman. But 38% continue to believe he was the victim of a conspiracy, while 24% are undecided. These numbers haven't changed much since 2017, when 43% of adults said a lone gunman killed JFK. </q>

Thr purveyors of False Mystery are prevailing, even if they don’t want to.

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

And any auther who relies on Otash is simply not credible.

James Ellroy is a great auther.

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/13/1199058023/book-review-james-ellroy-the-enchanters-sees-return-of-freddy-otash

I engaged in pseudo-debate for 21 years on-line.  For the first 8 years I didn’t realize I was participating in the cover-up of the JFKA.  In 2005 I went to the Cracking The Case Conference in Bethesda, a proud member of the Critical Community.

By the time I got back home I was a critic of that community.  I didn’t feel part of a movement at all.  I engaged in fake debate for my own kicks.  I’m not the one who put Our Lady of JFKA Truth in the gutter; I was just flicking ashes on Her bruised and bleeding body.

By the end 2018 I felt I’d learned enough and quit with the fake debate.  I was then entitled to enroll in the Vincent Salandria School of Research into the Obvious.

With a license to ridicule pseudo debate, I still get my kicks.

8 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

Thanks for this, Cliff.  I had seen Salandria's "False Mystery" speech at the same COPA convention in '98 several times but not this. This speech was a brilliant complement to that.  Schotz was a gem.

I wonder if it was well received by the COPA crowd.  He basically said to their faces they didn’t want to solve the case.  

The subtext of pseudo-debate: there is a foundational mystery to solve.  In JFK Revisited it’s debunking the Magic Bullet that solves the false mystery.  False because JFK had a shallow wound in his back and 6.5 mm Full Metal Jacket rounds don’t leave shallow wounds, not in soft tissue.

8 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

25 years later researchers are still making the same mistakes he and Salandria were railing against.

Indeed.  The last time the clothing evidence was mentioned at a JFK Conference was Schotz in ‘98. 

16 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

According to Farlex Dictionary of Idioms, "go through the ceiling" means "to increase significantly and often suddenly."

A literal interpretation of “go through the ceiling” is equally valid: “unprecedented heights.”

Pure hearsay:

Henry Heiberger was the FBI agent who handled JFK’s clothing.  Heiberger had four daughters.  One of his daughters went to college with my sister.  She told my sis that her Dad told her the Warren Report was a lie.