Review of Joan Mellen's new book on LBJ

[James DiEugenio]

Sandy:

My source was from p. 261 of Joan's book. She quotes Garret as saying he would have come to the same conclusion with the Austin prints as he did the Navy print.

Can you give me the source to replace your info for p. 272. I don't see it there.

[Sandy Larsen]

Sandy:

My source was from p. 261 of Joan's book. She quotes Garret as saying he would have come to the same conclusion with the Austin prints as he did the Navy print.

Can you give me the source to replace your info for p. 272. I don't see it there.

Jim,

Well I can see why you are saying what you did. Joan has some inconsistencies in reporting on Garrett's findings.

I'm not affected by that because I've only referred to the appendix on fingerprints, which is all in Garrett's writing.

You don't see on page 272 the two things I wrote? The first thing I wrote was a direct quote from the page, the other thing a paraphrase. I wanted to quote what Garrett said rather than paraphrase, but the conclusion is qualified and a bit complicated. (He couldn't find enough minutiae to make an identification, so he couldn't say it was a match. But had he been able to find numerous matching minutiae then an identification was possible. Something like that.)

Maybe the page numbering is different for the Kindle version. Though I DID find what you wrote about on the page you gave me.

Just go to the appendix on fingerprints. BELOW the photo of the Navy fingerprints and ABOVE the photo of Austin fingerprints is the statement that one of the two sets of Austin fingerprints (the "rolled" set) is of value for identification. Though it does have some "reproduction artifacts." (He might be referring to the photocopy when he says that. Because why would a modern-day reproduction have artifacts? And besides, in the next paragraph he repeats the same when specifically referring to the enlarged photocopy.)

Further down in the page is the CONCLUSIONS paragraph. That is the one I paraphrased. For your ease of understanding it, note that it refers to the comparison of Austin low-quality photocopy (enlargement) which he calls D, and the WC latent low-quality photocopy (enlargement) which he calls E. Unfortunately he doesn't call the Austin photocopy by the proper designation, D, but rather by what it was copied from, B. (You'll see why when you read it.) But you can tell by reading the preceding pages that the comparison was between D and E, not B and E. (D and E are the low-quality photocopies.)

Joan said that the Austin prints weren't usable, but that is only true of the "flat" set. According to Garrett.

[Douglas Caddy]

Decades ago when Jay Harrison was compiling evidence on LBJ, Billie Sol Estes and Mac Wallace, I visited him in his trailer in Austin. He described to me the research in which he was engaged. I later received three binders containing documents on the three aforementioned persons that Jay had compiled. A year ago I gave a set of the most relevant of these documents, a pile about a foot and a half high, to Roger Stone and also to Robert Morrow. I also gave these to a highly credible person whom I am not at liberty to name but who is legend in Texas history and who knows plenty about the murdering trio.

I am exploring the feasibility to reproducing these documents and making them available to those who want to see them.

I plan to cite some of them in my review of Joan Mellen's new book.

Anyone who sees these documents compiled by Jay Harrison when quickly realize that there remains a big story not yet told about LBJ, Billie Sol Estes and Mac Wallace. Hopefully Robert Caro will tell this saga in the fifth installment of his LBJ biography that he is working on now. This may the reason why Caro did not even mention Billie Sol or Mac Wallace in his most recent volume that covered the years Billie Sol and Mac Wallace had contact with LBJ.

Barr McClellan, Dawn Meredith and I have lived in Texas and we know what it was like when LBJ exercised supreme power both within the state and nationally. This knowledge sets us apart from others in the JFK assassination community who may live in California or Pennsylvania or elsewhere. Texas was a world of its own when LBJ and his cronies held sway in the Lone Star State.

Amen Doug.

But I don't expect the truth about this from Caro. I fact I doubt he will even go near it.

I just listened to an interview with Stone for the first time ever. Most interesting. I agreed with a lot of it, but I do not see LBJ was the mastermind, just deeply involved. And I said THAT day one at age 14 .

I no longer believe Joan had a mission for the truth. But that is as far as I will go on a forum.

I spoke with Nathan Darby's son today to see if he had any proof - aside from his personal recollection- that his father had kept up his certification. He is not certain if such still exists. I also told him about an alleged note his dad had sent to the IAI and his response to that was "then let her produce this note". (Which no one will I am sure as I know that never occurred).

J had told me about meeting with you Doug and had a copy of your book. A funny Jism: One day after I had returned from court he called and just told me to go find a copy of that day's Wall St journal. Nothing else. (Cryptic as usual) then to call him back So I did. Then it was "open to such and such a page", then lo and behold there was an editorial by you about your days as Watergate atty. I was taken aback as I knew you had represented Billy sol in his letters to AG Trott (etc). "Strange bedfellows", I thought at the time.

I hope someone does a TRUE bio of Mac. Not a whitewash. He was truly a stone cold killer. I have a lot more on my mind about this but have a very early morning. I wonder if non Texan residents are quick to dismiss the TX connection out of some Democratic loyalty to LBJ. It simply baffles me.

Dawn

Dawn: You must possess a form of ESP. You reference above my article to which Jay Harrison called your attention, "What If Judge Sirica Were With Us Today?", that the Wall Street Journal published on March 24, 1998. It was later included in a book that the Journal published on the Clintons.

As I write this my priority mail envelop is being delivered to the Wall Street Journal this morning in which, 18 years later, I submit a second article. This one is titled, "Contrasting the roles of the FBI in Watergate and Clinton's Email Case." In It I draw upon a FBI internal 1974 report to show how the Bureau mishandled both cases. I don't know if the Journal, which receives 300 submissions each day, will publish my latest article but the coincidence in your mentioning my prior one after all these years leads me to be hopeful.

VERY eager and hopeful to read this new article, Doug. I'd like to think that your submission might earn its way toward the top of the list. Here's hoping...

Glenn: I have heard nothing back from the Wall Street Journal on the article that I submitted on Oct. 1. So I am reproducing the article here because I think that it is more pertinent than ever in light of FBI Director Comey's "reopening" of Hillary Clinton's email case.

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CONTRASTING THE FBI INVESTIGATIONS IN WATERGATE AND CLINTON’S EMAIL CASE

By

Douglas Caddy

An examination of Watergate and Hillary Clinton’s email case reveals striking similarities in how the Federal Bureau of Investigation mishandled both cases, causing the truth to be suppressed.

On July 5, 1974, the FBI’s Office of Planning and Evaluation (OPE) submitted to the FBI Director its completed “analysis of the FBI’s conduct of the Watergate and related investigations”, a report that can be found in the Len Colodny Collection of Watergate documents at Texas A&M University.

The OPE analysis declared in part:

“On June19, 1972, WFO [Washington Field Office] by teletype requested authority to interview Charles W. Colson since information had been developed that [Howard] Hunt had worked for Colson at the White House. On June 22, 1972, [Acting FBI Director L. Patrick] Gray telephonically authorized then Assistant Director Bates to have WFO contact [White House Counsel] John Dean to set up an interview with Colson. Dean subsequently indicated that he would sit in on interviews of White House personnel and all requests for investigation at the White House had to be cleared through him.

“Criticism of FBI interviews in the presence of Dean and clearing of proposed investigative activities through him is justified. However, there appeared no alternative to WFO and the Accounting and Fraud Section to following this procedure since the decision concerning this had been made between Mr. Gray and Dean, and neither Bureau supervisors nor field agents were in a position to overrule the decisions of the Acting Director.

“With respect to the submitting of FBI reports to Dean, this is probably the most serious blunder from an investigative standpoint made by Mr. Gray. The facts concerning this development became known outside of Mr. Gray’s staff for the first time on February 5, 1973. This is long after the substantive investigation into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters (DNCH) break-in was completed and, in fact, was after the trial of those originally implicated was completed. While Dean’s role as the master manipulator of the cover up was unknown and, in fact, the cover up itself was unknown during the investigation, obviously the furnishing to Dean by Mr. Gray of our reports allowed Dean the total opportunity to plan a course of action to thwart the FBI’s investigation and the grand jury inquiry. There was no way that the FBI personnel could have avoided this situation since it was unknown that Mr. Gray was furnishing the reports to Dean.

“The principal lesson to be learned from this is that rarely should we conduct interviews in the presence of an attorney and never should we allow the same attorney to sit in on all interviews relative to a certain situation. Further, the FBI reports should be disseminated only to the prosecutor and certainly never to the White House.”

Four decades after Watergate consider how the FBI has handled Hillary Clinton’s email case. This was best explained by Kimberley A. Strassel in her Sept. 30 Journal column about FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee two days earlier:

“Congress hauled Mr. Comey in to account for the explosive revelation that the government granted immunity to Clinton staffers Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson as part of the investigation of whether Mrs. Clinton had mishandled classified information….

“Ms. Mills was able to extract an immunity deal avoid answering questions, and sit in on Mrs. Clinton’s FBI interview because she has positioned herself as Hillary’s personal lawyer. Ms. Mills could therefore claim that any conversations or interactions she had with Mrs. Clinton about the private server were protected by the attorney-client privilege.

“Only here’s the rub: When Ms. Mills worked at the State Department she was not acting as Mrs. Clinton’s personal attorney. She was the secretary’s chief of staff. Any interaction with Mrs. Clinton about her server, or any evidence from that time, should have been fair game for the FBI and the Justice Department.”

Ms. Mills was a witness in the case because she possessed knowledge of Hillary’s email server. To enable her not to have to testify as to what she knew Mr. Comey and the Justice Department anointed her with a fictional attorney-client relationship with Hillary, granted her immunity and then let her sit in on the FBI’s interview of Hillary as the latter’s attorney. This turned the interview into a farce.

FBI Director Comey’s handling of Clinton’s email case is striking similar in many ways to what FBI Acting Director Gray did in Watergate, who in addition to giving FBI reports to Dean also destroyed Howard Hunt’s files that were in his White House safe. In fact, Mr. Comey went even further than Mr. Gray by appearing to have aided and abetted the cover up in the Clinton case when he announced last July that Mrs. Clinton should not be prosecuted for mishandling classified information. Mr. Comey’s official role was to investigate the case, not to act as prosecutor or as judge and jury, thus effectively terminating the criminal case. In reality the entire legitimate inquiry into whether Hillary’s handling of emails as secretary of state compromised our national security was transformed by Mr. Comey and the Justice Department into a giant farce.

Hillary served on the staff of the House Judiciary Committee in its investigation into Watergate and proposing impeachment of President Richard Nixon. She must of have learned a thing or two then from studying John Dean’s masterful cover up on how to thwart a criminal investigation. Should she not be elected president, President Obama will likely grant her a pardon from future prosecution, just as President Gerald Ford did for Richard Nixon. In any event neither she nor Mr. Comey will escape historians’ detailed judgment of the handling of her criminal email case.

[Full disclosure: I served as the original attorney for the Watergate Seven as described in my published Wall Street Journal article of March 24, 1998, “What If Judge Sirica Were With Us Today?” Further, I recently mailed my election ballot back to the local county clerk after voting for Hillary Clinton for President, perceiving her as the lesser of two great evils.]

Edited October 30, 2016 by Douglas Caddy