Did the JFK Assassination almost kill the Saturday Evening Post?

[Pat Speer]

13 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Pat your posts helped keep me reading for years before I ever posted.  But I have to disagree somewhat.  I can't link it at the moment easily but I'm sure you've seen the written directions the CIA developed in the latter 60's to discredit conspiracy theorists.  Dulles and Angleton had extensive media connections.  Cord Meyer, as a protégé of theirs ran Mockingbird for several years, for them.  I think you know more about this than I.  As for these days, the 1% own (?) 98% of all media.  

I agree that by 67 the CIA had been roped into Johnson's web of self-protection. I tried to put this all in context in chapter 1...

From chapter 1 at patspeer.com:

That the "clearing" of Johnson's name was a major factor in the commission's creation is confirmed, moreover, by a memo written by Warren Commission counsel Melvin A. Eisenberg. While reporting on the Warren Commission's first staff conference of 1-20-64, Eisenberg recalled in a 2-17-64 memo that Chief Justice Warren had discussed "the circumstances under which he had accepted the chairmanship of the Commission," and had claimed he'd resisted pressure from Johnson until "The President stated that the rumors of the most exaggerated kind were circulating in this country and overseas. Some rumors went as far as attributing the assassination to a faction within the Government wishing to see the Presidency assumed by President Johnson. Others, if not quenched, could conceivably lead the country into a war which could cost 40 million lives."

Eisenberg's account of Warren's statements was supported, for that matter, by Warren Commission Junior Counsel--and subsequent Senator--Arlen Specter in his 2000 memoir Passion for Truth. In Specter's account, Warren claimed that Johnson had told him "only he could lend the credibility the country and the world so desperately needed as the people tried to understand why their heroic young president had been slain. Conspiracy theories involving communists, the U.S.S.R., Cuba, the military-industrial complex, and even the new president were already swirling. The Kennedy assassination could lead America into a nuclear war that could kill 40 million people..."

And this, apparently, wasn't the only time Warren admitted Johnson's worries extended both beyond and closer to home than the possible thermo-nuclear war mentioned in his autobiography. In his biography of Warren, Ed Cray reported that Warren once confided to a friend that "There was great pressure on us to prove, first, that President Johnson was not involved, and, second, that the Russians were not involved."

And yet Warren refused to put Johnson's fears he'd be implicated on the record. While he was interviewed a number of times in his final years about the creation of the Warren Commission, Warren never admitted in these interviews what he'd readily told his friends and the commission's staff--that Johnson had railroaded him onto the commission in part to clear himself. In fact, Warren said the opposite. When interviewed by Warren Commission historian Alfred Goldberg on March 28, 1974, to be clear, Warren told Goldberg the opposite of what he'd told Eisenberg and Specter (and presumably Goldberg) in 1964. Instead of claiming Johnson told him "Some rumors went as far as attributing the assassination to a faction within the Government wishing to see the Presidency assumed by President Johnson," Warren now related "There were of course two theories of conspiracy. One was the theory about the communists. The other was that LBJ's friends did it as a coup d'etat. Johnson didn't talk about that."

It seems likely, then, that even Warren thought it improper that the Chief Justice of the United States, the head of the Judicial Branch of Government, be hired by the head of the Executive Branch of Government, the President, in part to clear his name.

Now, it's not as if Warren's fellow commissioners had a problem with serving this higher purpose... John McCloy, Wall Street's man on the Commission, told writer Edward Epstein on June 7, 1965 that one of the commission's objectives was "to show foreign governments we weren't a South American Banana Republic." Well, seeing as the expression "Banana Republic" is not a reference to countries whose leaders have been killed by foreign enemies, but to countries whose leaders have been killed by domestic enemies, who then assume power, this is most certainly a reference to Johnson.

And it's not as if this was all a big secret. The December 5, 1963, transcripts of the Warren Commission's first meeting reflect that Senator Richard Russell, Johnson's long-time friend and mentor, admitted "I told the President the other day, fifty years from today people will be saying he had something to do with it so he could be President."

And it's not as if Washington insiders weren't also in the know. In 1966, columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak published Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power. In this book, they discussed the creation of the Warren Commission as follows: "There was first the question of the assassination itself. Inevitably, irresponsible demagogues of the left and right spread the notion that not one assassin but a conspiracy had killed John Kennedy. That it occurred in Johnson's own state on a political mission urgently requested and promoted by Johnson only embellished rancid conspiratorial theories. If he were to gain the confidence of the people, the ghost of Dallas must be shrugged off."

Now, should one still doubt that Johnson was as least as concerned with suspicions of himself as of the Soviets, there is confirmation from an even better source: Johnson himself. In a rarely-cited interview with columnist Drew Pearson, cited in a November 14th, 1993 article in The Washington Post, Johnson admitted that, in his conversation with Warren, in which he convinced Warren to head his commission, Johnson brought up the assassination of President Lincoln, and that rumors still lingered about the conspiracy behind his murder 100 years after the fact. According to Pearson, Johnson admitted telling Warren that "The nation cannot afford to have any doubt this time." Well, this says it all. The doubt, according to Johnson, the nation could not afford to have, was doubt about Southern and/or military involvement in the assassination. The rumors about Lincoln's death, after all, revolved largely around his being murdered by The Confederate Army as revenge for his successful campaign to re-unite the States, or his being murdered by his Secretary of War, or his being murdered by his Vice-President, a Southerner named JOHNSON.

And Johnson repeated these concerns in his presidential memoir, The Vantage Point: Perspectives on the Presidency 1963-1969, published 1971. Of the national mood on 11-24-63, after the man accused of killing President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, a purported communist-sympathizer, was shot down while in police custody, by Jack Ruby, a man with connections to organized crime, Johnson wrote: "The atmosphere was poisonous and had to be cleared. I was aware of some of the implications that grew out of that skepticism and doubt. Russia was not immune to them. Neither was Cuba. Neither was the State of Texas. Neither was the new President of the United States."

And, should one have doubts so many men--not only those working for the commission, but those working for the Secret Service, FBI, and CIA--would agree to give Johnson a free pass, in the name of national security, etc, one should consider that some of these same men defended the conclusions of the Warren Commission for these very same reasons...and left a "smoking gun" document in the National Archives as proof of their activities.

Here is a link to this document. The Smoking Gun Document One might wish to take a quick look at it before returning to our discussion...

This document, released in 1993 as a result of the 1992 JFK Records Act, which was passed in the aftermath of Oliver Stone's movie JFK, was written on January 4, 1967, at a time when questions surrounding the assassination were beginning to be taken seriously, and appear in mainstream publications like Life Magazine, the New York Times, and The Saturday Evening Post. It is a CIA document, and it proposes that the CIA chiefs around the world to whom it was directed "employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passage to assets. Our play should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (i) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (ii) politically interested, (iii) financially interested, (iv) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (v) infatuated with their own theories."

Note that it says "Destroy when no longer needed" across the bottom. We were never supposed to know about this. Note also that January 1967 marks the precise time the so-called mainstream media pulled back from its criticisms of the Warren Commission, and started focusing its criticism on the critics. CBS News, most pointedly, had started an investigation of the Warren Commission months before, but had changed its direction around this same time, after former Warren Commissioner John McCloy crawled onboard as a top secret adviser.

But note, primarily, the stated purpose of this propaganda push. It says nothing about the danger Americans might think a foreign power killed Kennedy. It says nothing about preventing World War III. Instead, it says, in so many words, that all this talk of conspiracy is starting to circle in on President Johnson and the CIA, and that would be bad for business.

Here are the relevant paragraphs:

1. Our Concern. From the day of President Kennedy's assassination on, there has been speculation about the responsibility for his murder. Although this was stemmed for a time by the Warren Commission report (which appeared at the end of September 1964), various writers have now had time to scan the Commission's published report and documents for new pretexts for questioning, and there has been a new wave of books and articles criticizing the Commission's findings. In most cases the critics have speculated as to the existence of some kind of conspiracy, and often they have implied that the Commission itself was involved. Presumably as a result of the increasing challenge to the Warren Commission's Report, a public opinion poll recently indicated that 46% of the American public did not think that Oswald acted alone, while more than half of those polled thought that the Commission had left some questions unresolved. Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse, results.

2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization. The members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience, and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society. Moreover, there seems to be an increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as the one person who might be said to have benefited, was in some way responsible for the assassination. Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government. Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material for countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.

Now note that, according to this last paragraph, this trend towards accusing Johnson was, in the eyes of the writer of this dispatch (undoubtedly one of the CIA's top officials), "a matter of concern to the U.S. government," including the CIA. This more than suggests that this order to "employ" the CIA's propaganda assets to help clear Johnson's name did not originate within the CIA itself... but from elsewhere in the executive branch.

Quite possibly Johnson himself... In October 2007, the Johnson Presidential Library released a batch of previously withheld recordings of President Johnson's phone calls while President. Most interesting of these was a January 11, 1967 phone call between Johnson and his most trusted adviser, Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas. This call built upon similar calls with Fortas on October 1 and October 6, 1966; it was made, moreover, just one week after the "smoking gun" document was written. In this call, amazingly, Johnson drops his guard completely, and tells Fortas that he believes Senator Robert Kennedy--his predecessor's brother--and Robert Kennedy's supporters are behind the recent spurt of books and articles on the assassination. He claims, moreover, that: "They've started all this stuff...they've created all this doubt...And if we'd had anybody less than the attorney general--ah, the chief justice--I would've already been indicted."

And should one think Johnson exaggerating here, and stating something that he didn't really believe, one should consider that he said similar things even after Robert Kennedy was dead and buried. As reported by Robert Caro, in his 2012 epic The Passage of Power, Johnson dropped his mask yet again during the August 19, 1969 recording of an oral history for the Johnson Library. He declared: "I shudder to think what churches I would have burned and what little babies I would have eaten if I hadn't appointed the Warren Commission." He also offered a slightly different and no doubt more honest version of how he got Warren to chair his commission. Leaving off the bit about the Russians launching nukes should they think we blamed them for killing Kennedy, he admitted he'd actually pressured Warren through a call for domestic tranquility. He said he told Warren: "When this country is threatened with division, and the President of the United States says you are the only man who can save it, you won't say no, will you?" And that Warren responded, "No, sir!"

So there you have it, straight from the horse's--ah, President's--mouth. Johnson felt that his having left-wing icon Earl Warren chair the commission investigating President Kennedy's murder not only stopped Kennedy's brother Robert Kennedy from having him (Johnson) investigated as a suspect, but stopped him (Johnson) from actually being indicted for Kennedy's murder.

Which leads us back to the "smoking gun" document... Note that one of the arguments the CIA plans on using to assure the world Johnson is above reproach is "Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc. Note that Robert Kennedy, Attorney General at the time and John F. Kennedy's brother, would be the last man to overlook or conceal any conspiracy."

Well, this is grossly unfair. Robert Kennedy did not participate in the investigation of his brother's murder. He never even read the report of Earl Warren's commission.

This argument is also familiar. On November 4 1966, just when critics of the Warren Commission started gaining traction, President Johnson made a similar argument at a press conference. He offered: "The late, beloved President's brother was Attorney General during the period the Warren Commission was studying this thing. I certainly would think he would have a very thorough interest in seeing that the truth was made evident." (Note that this was well after Johnson first started musing that the "beloved President's brother," Robert Kennedy, was behind all these critics...)

This argument was then repeated by those closest to Johnson. A January 1968 letter to the New York Times by John Roche (subsequently quoted in its January 5 edition), offered: "Any fair analysis of Sen. Robert Kennedy's abilities, his character and of the resources at his disposal as Attorney General would indicate that if there were a conspiracy, he would have pursued its protagonists to the ends of the earth." Roche was a "Special Consultant" to Johnson, his so-called "intellectual in residence." Roche had written Johnson a memo on 11-23-66 urging Johnson to make countering the critics of the Warren Commission a "top priority" of his administration. 

And the residue of this sticky business stuck to Johnson for the remainder of his days. In 1971, Johnson published The Vantage Point, his presidential memoir. On page 25, he relates: "One of the most urgent tasks facing me after I assumed office was to assure the country that everything possible was being done to uncover the truth surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy. John Kennedy had been murdered, and a troubled, puzzled, and outraged nation wanted to know the facts. Led by the Attorney General who wanted no stone unturned, the FBI was working on the case 24 hours a day and Director J. Edgar Hoover was in constant communication with me."

Well, this was bullxxxx of a presidential magnitude. Johnson knew full well that Robert Kennedy barely followed the FBI's investigation, and most certainly never "led" it. Kennedy even put this on the record, signing a statement to the Warren Commission declaring ""As you know, I am personally not aware of the detailed results of the extensive investigation in this matter which has been conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation." What's worse, Kennedy's statement was an understatement...a gross understatement. The June 4, 1964 memo of Warren Commission counsel Howard Willens, in which Kennedy's signing such a statement was proposed, admits "The proposed response by the Attorney General has, of course, not been approved by him, or on his behalf by the Deputy Attorney General. It represents a revision of an earlier letter which I did show to them during my conference with them earlier today. At that time the Attorney General informed me that he had not received any reports from the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding the investigation of the assassination."

And it's not as if Robert Kennedy later studied these materials. Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, in a 10-8-69 oral history performed for the Kennedy Library, admitted that Robert Kennedy "didn't approve" of the Warren Commission and never read its report. He said further that "I like to think that deep down he understood that it had to be done" and that, whatever his feelings on the matter, "he understood that he had to endorse it..." Katzenbach then added: "but he wouldn't read it."

So...gulp...President Johnson was not only so paranoid he thought Robert Kennedy was behind the rumors he'd killed President Kennedy, and so concerned about these rumors he thought that only his appointing Chief Justice Earl Warren to chair the commission investigating President Kennedy's murder had saved him from an indictment for murder, and a reputation as one of the world's most evil men, but so ruthless he was willing to use Robert Kennedy's deep remorse over his brother's murder, and resultant failure to promptly investigate his brother's murder, to suggest what he (Johnson) undoubtedly KNEW was untrue--that Robert Kennedy, President Kennedy's brother, ("Bobby"), had led the FBI's investigation into President Kennedy's murder, and cleared Johnson of all wrong-doing.

Well...would an innocent man behave in such a manner?

[Pat Speer]

On 3/10/2018 at 7:17 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Pat:

Do you have that AP series on your site?

Was it really as bad as the CBS series?

I don't have it on my site, but I found it on Weisberg's, here:

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/A Disk/Associated Press/Dallas Times-Herald/Item 01.pdf

While the article was released over 5 or 6 days in most papers, the Dallas Times Herald released it as a Sunday supplement, as a "public service."

P.S. I haven't re-read it yet, but my recollection is that it was every bit as bad as the CBS program.

[Steve Thomas]

14 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

The article is by Josiah Thompson.  He is given full credit,  Washington photographer for the magazine, Oliver Atkins, is never mentioned.  It's more extensive than a synopsis.  Spread out over 12 pages, roughly 8 of them total text, not including pictures and advertisements.  This in a 10 1/2" X 13 1/4" format.  For the time in the Main Stream Media, of the time,  (TV, a few National Newspapers, and a few National Magazines) it was dynamite.  It talks about things they didn't. Four shot's, three shooters, two headshots hitting JFK.  Much clearer film and prints of the z film at Life magazine than at the National Archives or than the FBI used (copy of a copy).  Back and to the Left.    

Ron,

 

I'm glad you were able to secure a copy.

Do your best to preserve it.

 

Steve Thomas

[James DiEugenio]

Pat:

I read the AP article.  You are correct, it is as bad as the CBS show.

 

[Pat Speer]

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Pat:

I read the AP article.  You are correct, it is as bad as the CBS show.

 

I looked back through it. The over-all point seemed to be that the critics were biased and hadn't proved someone else did it, and that therefore the public should be satisfied the Warren Commission was right. That's backwards, IMO. If the WC failed to consider all the evidence, or properly analyze the evidence it did consider, that's a problem, no matter who points it out, no matter the over=all quality of their analysis.

There were parts in there that were just pathetic, IMO. I mean, writing off the problems with the back wound location by claiming the mark on the face sheet was just an 'errant dot"? Without even noticing that this mark was in line with the measurements?

That's propaganda. Not analysis.

[Ron Bulman]

11 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I agree that by 67 the CIA had been roped into Johnson's web of self-protection. I tried to put this all in context in chapter 1...

From chapter 1 at patspeer.com:

That the "clearing" of Johnson's name was a major factor in the commission's creation is confirmed, moreover, by a memo written by Warren Commission counsel Melvin A. Eisenberg. While reporting on the Warren Commission's first staff conference of 1-20-64, Eisenberg recalled in a 2-17-64 memo that Chief Justice Warren had discussed "the circumstances under which he had accepted the chairmanship of the Commission," and had claimed he'd resisted pressure from Johnson until "The President stated that the rumors of the most exaggerated kind were circulating in this country and overseas. Some rumors went as far as attributing the assassination to a faction within the Government wishing to see the Presidency assumed by President Johnson. Others, if not quenched, could conceivably lead the country into a war which could cost 40 million lives."

Eisenberg's account of Warren's statements was supported, for that matter, by Warren Commission Junior Counsel--and subsequent Senator--Arlen Specter in his 2000 memoir Passion for Truth. In Specter's account, Warren claimed that Johnson had told him "only he could lend the credibility the country and the world so desperately needed as the people tried to understand why their heroic young president had been slain. Conspiracy theories involving communists, the U.S.S.R., Cuba, the military-industrial complex, and even the new president were already swirling. The Kennedy assassination could lead America into a nuclear war that could kill 40 million people..."

And this, apparently, wasn't the only time Warren admitted Johnson's worries extended both beyond and closer to home than the possible thermo-nuclear war mentioned in his autobiography. In his biography of Warren, Ed Cray reported that Warren once confided to a friend that "There was great pressure on us to prove, first, that President Johnson was not involved, and, second, that the Russians were not involved."

And yet Warren refused to put Johnson's fears he'd be implicated on the record. While he was interviewed a number of times in his final years about the creation of the Warren Commission, Warren never admitted in these interviews what he'd readily told his friends and the commission's staff--that Johnson had railroaded him onto the commission in part to clear himself. In fact, Warren said the opposite. When interviewed by Warren Commission historian Alfred Goldberg on March 28, 1974, to be clear, Warren told Goldberg the opposite of what he'd told Eisenberg and Specter (and presumably Goldberg) in 1964. Instead of claiming Johnson told him "Some rumors went as far as attributing the assassination to a faction within the Government wishing to see the Presidency assumed by President Johnson," Warren now related "There were of course two theories of conspiracy. One was the theory about the communists. The other was that LBJ's friends did it as a coup d'etat. Johnson didn't talk about that."

It seems likely, then, that even Warren thought it improper that the Chief Justice of the United States, the head of the Judicial Branch of Government, be hired by the head of the Executive Branch of Government, the President, in part to clear his name.

Now, it's not as if Warren's fellow commissioners had a problem with serving this higher purpose... John McCloy, Wall Street's man on the Commission, told writer Edward Epstein on June 7, 1965 that one of the commission's objectives was "to show foreign governments we weren't a South American Banana Republic." Well, seeing as the expression "Banana Republic" is not a reference to countries whose leaders have been killed by foreign enemies, but to countries whose leaders have been killed by domestic enemies, who then assume power, this is most certainly a reference to Johnson.

And it's not as if this was all a big secret. The December 5, 1963, transcripts of the Warren Commission's first meeting reflect that Senator Richard Russell, Johnson's long-time friend and mentor, admitted "I told the President the other day, fifty years from today people will be saying he had something to do with it so he could be President."

And it's not as if Washington insiders weren't also in the know. In 1966, columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak published Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power. In this book, they discussed the creation of the Warren Commission as follows: "There was first the question of the assassination itself. Inevitably, irresponsible demagogues of the left and right spread the notion that not one assassin but a conspiracy had killed John Kennedy. That it occurred in Johnson's own state on a political mission urgently requested and promoted by Johnson only embellished rancid conspiratorial theories. If he were to gain the confidence of the people, the ghost of Dallas must be shrugged off."

Now, should one still doubt that Johnson was as least as concerned with suspicions of himself as of the Soviets, there is confirmation from an even better source: Johnson himself. In a rarely-cited interview with columnist Drew Pearson, cited in a November 14th, 1993 article in The Washington Post, Johnson admitted that, in his conversation with Warren, in which he convinced Warren to head his commission, Johnson brought up the assassination of President Lincoln, and that rumors still lingered about the conspiracy behind his murder 100 years after the fact. According to Pearson, Johnson admitted telling Warren that "The nation cannot afford to have any doubt this time." Well, this says it all. The doubt, according to Johnson, the nation could not afford to have, was doubt about Southern and/or military involvement in the assassination. The rumors about Lincoln's death, after all, revolved largely around his being murdered by The Confederate Army as revenge for his successful campaign to re-unite the States, or his being murdered by his Secretary of War, or his being murdered by his Vice-President, a Southerner named JOHNSON.

And Johnson repeated these concerns in his presidential memoir, The Vantage Point: Perspectives on the Presidency 1963-1969, published 1971. Of the national mood on 11-24-63, after the man accused of killing President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, a purported communist-sympathizer, was shot down while in police custody, by Jack Ruby, a man with connections to organized crime, Johnson wrote: "The atmosphere was poisonous and had to be cleared. I was aware of some of the implications that grew out of that skepticism and doubt. Russia was not immune to them. Neither was Cuba. Neither was the State of Texas. Neither was the new President of the United States."

And, should one have doubts so many men--not only those working for the commission, but those working for the Secret Service, FBI, and CIA--would agree to give Johnson a free pass, in the name of national security, etc, one should consider that some of these same men defended the conclusions of the Warren Commission for these very same reasons...and left a "smoking gun" document in the National Archives as proof of their activities.

Here is a link to this document. The Smoking Gun Document One might wish to take a quick look at it before returning to our discussion...

This document, released in 1993 as a result of the 1992 JFK Records Act, which was passed in the aftermath of Oliver Stone's movie JFK, was written on January 4, 1967, at a time when questions surrounding the assassination were beginning to be taken seriously, and appear in mainstream publications like Life Magazine, the New York Times, and The Saturday Evening Post. It is a CIA document, and it proposes that the CIA chiefs around the world to whom it was directed "employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passage to assets. Our play should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (i) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (ii) politically interested, (iii) financially interested, (iv) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (v) infatuated with their own theories."

Note that it says "Destroy when no longer needed" across the bottom. We were never supposed to know about this. Note also that January 1967 marks the precise time the so-called mainstream media pulled back from its criticisms of the Warren Commission, and started focusing its criticism on the critics. CBS News, most pointedly, had started an investigation of the Warren Commission months before, but had changed its direction around this same time, after former Warren Commissioner John McCloy crawled onboard as a top secret adviser.

But note, primarily, the stated purpose of this propaganda push. It says nothing about the danger Americans might think a foreign power killed Kennedy. It says nothing about preventing World War III. Instead, it says, in so many words, that all this talk of conspiracy is starting to circle in on President Johnson and the CIA, and that would be bad for business.

Here are the relevant paragraphs:

1. Our Concern. From the day of President Kennedy's assassination on, there has been speculation about the responsibility for his murder. Although this was stemmed for a time by the Warren Commission report (which appeared at the end of September 1964), various writers have now had time to scan the Commission's published report and documents for new pretexts for questioning, and there has been a new wave of books and articles criticizing the Commission's findings. In most cases the critics have speculated as to the existence of some kind of conspiracy, and often they have implied that the Commission itself was involved. Presumably as a result of the increasing challenge to the Warren Commission's Report, a public opinion poll recently indicated that 46% of the American public did not think that Oswald acted alone, while more than half of those polled thought that the Commission had left some questions unresolved. Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse, results.

2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization. The members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience, and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society. Moreover, there seems to be an increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as the one person who might be said to have benefited, was in some way responsible for the assassination. Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government. Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material for countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.

Now note that, according to this last paragraph, this trend towards accusing Johnson was, in the eyes of the writer of this dispatch (undoubtedly one of the CIA's top officials), "a matter of concern to the U.S. government," including the CIA. This more than suggests that this order to "employ" the CIA's propaganda assets to help clear Johnson's name did not originate within the CIA itself... but from elsewhere in the executive branch.

Quite possibly Johnson himself... In October 2007, the Johnson Presidential Library released a batch of previously withheld recordings of President Johnson's phone calls while President. Most interesting of these was a January 11, 1967 phone call between Johnson and his most trusted adviser, Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas. This call built upon similar calls with Fortas on October 1 and October 6, 1966; it was made, moreover, just one week after the "smoking gun" document was written. In this call, amazingly, Johnson drops his guard completely, and tells Fortas that he believes Senator Robert Kennedy--his predecessor's brother--and Robert Kennedy's supporters are behind the recent spurt of books and articles on the assassination. He claims, moreover, that: "They've started all this stuff...they've created all this doubt...And if we'd had anybody less than the attorney general--ah, the chief justice--I would've already been indicted."

And should one think Johnson exaggerating here, and stating something that he didn't really believe, one should consider that he said similar things even after Robert Kennedy was dead and buried. As reported by Robert Caro, in his 2012 epic The Passage of Power, Johnson dropped his mask yet again during the August 19, 1969 recording of an oral history for the Johnson Library. He declared: "I shudder to think what churches I would have burned and what little babies I would have eaten if I hadn't appointed the Warren Commission." He also offered a slightly different and no doubt more honest version of how he got Warren to chair his commission. Leaving off the bit about the Russians launching nukes should they think we blamed them for killing Kennedy, he admitted he'd actually pressured Warren through a call for domestic tranquility. He said he told Warren: "When this country is threatened with division, and the President of the United States says you are the only man who can save it, you won't say no, will you?" And that Warren responded, "No, sir!"

So there you have it, straight from the horse's--ah, President's--mouth. Johnson felt that his having left-wing icon Earl Warren chair the commission investigating President Kennedy's murder not only stopped Kennedy's brother Robert Kennedy from having him (Johnson) investigated as a suspect, but stopped him (Johnson) from actually being indicted for Kennedy's murder.

Which leads us back to the "smoking gun" document... Note that one of the arguments the CIA plans on using to assure the world Johnson is above reproach is "Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc. Note that Robert Kennedy, Attorney General at the time and John F. Kennedy's brother, would be the last man to overlook or conceal any conspiracy."

Well, this is grossly unfair. Robert Kennedy did not participate in the investigation of his brother's murder. He never even read the report of Earl Warren's commission.

This argument is also familiar. On November 4 1966, just when critics of the Warren Commission started gaining traction, President Johnson made a similar argument at a press conference. He offered: "The late, beloved President's brother was Attorney General during the period the Warren Commission was studying this thing. I certainly would think he would have a very thorough interest in seeing that the truth was made evident." (Note that this was well after Johnson first started musing that the "beloved President's brother," Robert Kennedy, was behind all these critics...)

This argument was then repeated by those closest to Johnson. A January 1968 letter to the New York Times by John Roche (subsequently quoted in its January 5 edition), offered: "Any fair analysis of Sen. Robert Kennedy's abilities, his character and of the resources at his disposal as Attorney General would indicate that if there were a conspiracy, he would have pursued its protagonists to the ends of the earth." Roche was a "Special Consultant" to Johnson, his so-called "intellectual in residence." Roche had written Johnson a memo on 11-23-66 urging Johnson to make countering the critics of the Warren Commission a "top priority" of his administration. 

And the residue of this sticky business stuck to Johnson for the remainder of his days. In 1971, Johnson published The Vantage Point, his presidential memoir. On page 25, he relates: "One of the most urgent tasks facing me after I assumed office was to assure the country that everything possible was being done to uncover the truth surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy. John Kennedy had been murdered, and a troubled, puzzled, and outraged nation wanted to know the facts. Led by the Attorney General who wanted no stone unturned, the FBI was working on the case 24 hours a day and Director J. Edgar Hoover was in constant communication with me."

Well, this was bullxxxx of a presidential magnitude. Johnson knew full well that Robert Kennedy barely followed the FBI's investigation, and most certainly never "led" it. Kennedy even put this on the record, signing a statement to the Warren Commission declaring ""As you know, I am personally not aware of the detailed results of the extensive investigation in this matter which has been conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation." What's worse, Kennedy's statement was an understatement...a gross understatement. The June 4, 1964 memo of Warren Commission counsel Howard Willens, in which Kennedy's signing such a statement was proposed, admits "The proposed response by the Attorney General has, of course, not been approved by him, or on his behalf by the Deputy Attorney General. It represents a revision of an earlier letter which I did show to them during my conference with them earlier today. At that time the Attorney General informed me that he had not received any reports from the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding the investigation of the assassination."

And it's not as if Robert Kennedy later studied these materials. Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, in a 10-8-69 oral history performed for the Kennedy Library, admitted that Robert Kennedy "didn't approve" of the Warren Commission and never read its report. He said further that "I like to think that deep down he understood that it had to be done" and that, whatever his feelings on the matter, "he understood that he had to endorse it..." Katzenbach then added: "but he wouldn't read it."

So...gulp...President Johnson was not only so paranoid he thought Robert Kennedy was behind the rumors he'd killed President Kennedy, and so concerned about these rumors he thought that only his appointing Chief Justice Earl Warren to chair the commission investigating President Kennedy's murder had saved him from an indictment for murder, and a reputation as one of the world's most evil men, but so ruthless he was willing to use Robert Kennedy's deep remorse over his brother's murder, and resultant failure to promptly investigate his brother's murder, to suggest what he (Johnson) undoubtedly KNEW was untrue--that Robert Kennedy, President Kennedy's brother, ("Bobby"), had led the FBI's investigation into President Kennedy's murder, and cleared Johnson of all wrong-doing.

Well...would an innocent man behave in such a manner?

Johnson did not control the CIA.  Those who controlled it controlled him.  "Just give me the Damn Presidency and I'll give you your Damn War".

[Cliff Varnell]

4 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I looked back through it. The over-all point seemed to be that the critics were biased and hadn't proved someone else did it, and that therefore the public should be satisfied the Warren Commission was right. That's backwards, IMO. If the WC failed to consider all the evidence, or properly analyze the evidence it did consider, that's a problem, no matter who points it out, no matter the over=all quality of their analysis.

There were parts in there that were just pathetic, IMO. I mean, writing off the problems with the back wound location by claiming the mark on the face sheet was just an 'errant dot"? Without even noticing that this mark was in line with the measurements?

That's propaganda. Not analysis.

As is yours.  Those measurements you refer to were not recorded according to autopsy protocol and certainly do not match the "errant dot."

There's no way way that "errant dot" was at the top of JFK's back.

You habitually promote the weakest evidence, Pat Speer, and mis-represent the strongest evidence.

[James DiEugenio]

Well, here we go again.

From the AP and CBS cover ups to the shirt and back wound.

Can I ask a question?

Cliff, what was the last book on the JFK case you read?  And when did you read it?

Also, what was the last book on the JFK career you read?  And when did you read it?

I hope you understand these questions.  I think they are both fair and objective.

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Well, here we go again.

From the AP and CBS cover ups to the shirt and back wound.

From the AP and CBS cover ups to Josiah Thompson/James DiEugenio/Pat Speer cover-ups regarding the T3 back wound.

The AP and CBS cover-ups were in response to Salandria/Fonzi/Epstein weaponizing the clothing evidence.

Quote

Can I ask a question?

No.  I ask you questions all the time you ignore.

You have yet to grasp the first day evidence, much less anything more recent.

 

Edited March 14, 2018 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

Jim -- Where and when was JFK shot in the back?

Fundamental part of the assassination and you can't answer that question with a factual case.

Edited March 14, 2018 by Cliff Varnell

[James DiEugenio]

Cliff, that was a nice pivot by you and I give you credit for that.

Now, I will answer your question if you agree to answer mine.

 

[Cliff Varnell]

6 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Cliff, that was a nice pivot by you and I give you credit for that.

Now, I will answer your question if you agree to answer mine.

 

Mellen's Our Man in Haiti and the Harriman bio Spanning the Century.

[Ron Bulman]

The Saturday Evening Post article continues to astound me re reading it given the time.  In 1967 Josiah Thompson, with the help of Vincent Salandaria who developed the technique, examined 35 mm photographs of each frame of the Z film from the National Archives by using two projectors side by side focused on the same screen superimposing one over the other.  This allowed them to see changes from one frame to the next in detail.  In frame 312 he saw JFK's head move slightly but quickly to the front for a split second.  In 313 it goes violently back and to the left.  With the help of a physicist and examining the 35mm slides under a dissecting microscope he asserts...  The head moves forward in 312  at 69.6 feet per second, he notes a human body falling from the sky hits the ground at 32 fps.  In 313 JFK's head moves back and to the left at 100.3 fps.  This change occurs over one eighteenth of a second.

How can the change in extreme forward inertia be explained in terms of the even more extreme overcoming of it and more extreme reaction in the opposite direction?  The first head shot from the rear was from further away and had started loosing speed, as opposed to, the front shot being much closer and maybe a more powerful weapon/larger bullet.  Wish Bob Prudhome was still around to destroy my speculation.

Just trying to comprehend here.  So if your thrown out of a helicopter high enough to achieve maximum possible speed over a flat granite mountain top you would be broken apart at 32 fps.  JFK's head was hurtled forward by an impact from behind at a speed of twice that.  Then Stopped, And, hurtled back the other way Three times that fast.  In other words it stopped 70 fps forward with at least that much force and then blew it backwards at the 100 fps.  I.E., his head hit from the front with enough force from the front to propel it back and to the left with five time the force of a body being dropped out of a chopper from a couple of thousand feet.  Before it encountered the force of the shot from the rear.

Mr. Thompson thought then a rear shot came from the top of the Records Building.  I've suspected at least one (the back shot) from the second floor of the Dal Tex Building for years.  Blast away as you may at him, and me too.

I've not yet read the Romney or Nixon articles in this issue. 

Edited March 15, 2018 by Ron Bulman

[Steve Thomas]

3 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Mr. Thompson thought then a rear shot came from the top of the Records Building.  I've suspected at least one (the back shot) from the second floor of the Dal Tex Building for years.  Blast away as you may at him, and me too.

 

Ron,

 

It's funny. I was just thinking about this last night.

I think JFK was hit four times. The first one from his left front (the drivers's side) that went through the windshield and hit him in the throat. The second one hit him in the upper back. The third and fourth ones hit him in the head - the first from the rear, and the second from the front.

I think at least two missed. That's at least six shots with four hits.

I'm not a scientist, so I'll probably get blasted too.

 

Steve Thomas

[Cliff Varnell]

10 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Mellen's Our Man in Haiti and the Harriman bio Spanning the Century.

I'm currently reading Larry Hancock's Surprise Attack.

So, Jim...Where on JFK's back did he get hit, and during what sequence of the shooting?