Bobby Baker, Lyndon Johnson and the Assassination of JFK

[John Simkin]

 

By 1963 John F. Kennedy realised that Lyndon B. Johnson had become a problem as vice-president as he had been drawn into political scandals involving Fred Korth, Billie Sol Estes and Bobby Baker. According to James Wagenvoord, the editorial business manager of Life, the magazine was working on an article that would have revealed Johnson's corrupt activities. "Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the 1964 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligence agencies and we were used after by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public."

 

The fact that it was his brother Robert Kennedy who was giving this information to Life Magazine suggests that Kennedy intended to drop Johnson as his vice-president. This is supported by Evelyn Lincoln, Kennedy's secretary. In her book, Kennedy and Johnson (1968) she claimed that in November, 1963, Kennedy decided that because of the emerging Bobby Baker scandal he was going to drop Johnson as his running mate in the 1964 election. Kennedy told Lincoln that he was going to replace Johnson with Terry Sanford, the Governor of North Carolina.

 

Phil Brennan, a journalist working for The National Review, argued that the Washington press corps had buried the stories about the Bobby Baker scandal and the connections with Johnson. However, John J. Williams, the Republican Party senator for Delaware, called upon the Committee on Rules and Administration to conduct an investigation of the financial and business interests and possible improprieties of Baker. Brennan points out: "A few days later, the attorney general, Bobby Kennedy, called five of Washington's top reporters into his office and told them it was now open season on Lyndon Johnson. It's OK, he told them, to go after the story they were ignoring out of deference to the administration."

 

John Williams was known as "Honest John" and "the conscience of the Senate" because of his investigations into the corrupt activities of officials in the Harry S. Truman and the Dwight D. Eisenhower administrations. This included the downfall of General Harry H. Vaughan (1951) and Sherman Adams (1958). In September 1963 Williams began to look into the business activities of Bobby Baker. On 7th October, Baker resigned from his post as Johnson's Senate's Secretary. Three days later, Williams introduced a resolution calling for an investigation by the Senate Rules Committee.

 

The full article can be read here:

 

https://spartacus-educational.com/spartacus-blogURL143.htm

[Robert Morrow]

Were the Kennedys in the process of getting rid of Lyndon Johnson in November, 1963? Absolutely 100% and I don't see why there is even an argument about this anymore. There are many sources on this. Well, actually, I do, because understanding this fact leads to Lyndon Johnson's direct participation in the JFK assassination and some people don't like that because it contradicts their pet theories on the JFK assassination.

Here is just one big data point about how the Kennedys were out to utterly destroy LBJ with the media in November, 1963 and it comes from journalist Phil Brennan:

“Some Relevant Facts about the JFK Assassination” by Phil Brennan for NewsMax on Nov 18, 2003

 ["Some Relevant Facts About the JFK Assassination," Phil Brennan, NewsMax, 11-18-2003]

 http://www.newsmax.com/Pre-2008/Some-Relevant-Facts-About/2003/11/18/id/677423/

 Also: http://home.earthlink.net/~sixthfloor/brennen.htm

Phil Brennan
Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2003

There’s an explosive new book that lays out a very detailed – and persuasive – case for the probability that the late President Lyndon Baines Johnson was responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy

I say persuasive because the author, Barr McClellan, was one of LBJ's top
lawyers, and he provides a lot of information hitherto unknown to the general 
public - much more of which he says is buried in secret documents long 
withheld from the American people.

"The American public has waited forty years to hear the truth about the JFK assassination," McClellan says. "For government agencies to withhold critical evidence and not cooperate with the [1998 investigation conducted by the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB)] is a form of obstruction of justice. Under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act, the public should be granted access to these documents."

According to McClellan and Doug Horne, a former ARRB investigator, hundreds of relevant documents were withheld from the 1998 investigation into the JFK assassination. They believe that these materials are now in the possession of the National Archives, relocated from sealed files previously controlled by the CIA and FBI.

McClellan also asked for a formal review of the evidence in his book, "Blood, Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K.," which establishes a direct connection between LBJ and an individual involved with the assassination and cover-up.

"At this time we need to see what else is missing and what else would be helpful to presenting the entire truth," McClellan continued. "The Senate 
Judiciary Committee and the Department of Justice could make the request of the National Archives and should do so."

Now, in normal circumstance I would tend to view this latest explanation of who was behind the killing of JFK as exactly that - just another theory among dozens. But the circumstances are not normal. Poll after poll establishes that an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that the official verdict of the Warren Commission is simply not borne out by what little is known publicly about the case.

McClellan's new book adds to those facts and names a second suspect he says was a longtime assassin for Lyndon Johnson, whom he portrays as ... 
well, as being homicidal whenever he or his many concealed interests were 
threatened.

Add to that the incredible inconsistencies in the FBI and Secret Service 
investigations, which reek with the stench of cover-up, and one can't escape the conclusion that if LBJ did nothing else in dealing with the aftermath of the assassination, he sure as hell clamped a lid on any evidence that contradicted the official finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman acting solely on his own initiative.

I report all of this as a prelude to revealing what I know about the matter but have never before written about - in the beginning, because I had a wife and seven children to protect, and since, because I had no reason to revisit the matter.

Let's start with this: McClellan and others before him have discussed the fact that LBJ faced some pretty awful prospects, including not only being dumped from the 1964 ticket but also spending a long, long time in the slammer as a result of his role in the rapidly expanding Bobby Baker case - something few have speculated about because the full facts were never revealed by the media, which didn't want to know, or report, the truth.

Sometime in early 1963 I was approached by a young lady with whom I had worked on Nixon's 1960 campaign staff. She asked me if I would meet with her fiancé, who was in great difficulty - and in danger of being murdered.

At the time I was on the staff of the House Republican Policy Committee, and one of my assignments was to keep my bosses up to date on what was 
going on behind the scenes in the Cold War, analyzing intelligence that 
came our way and otherwise engaging in a never-ending clandestine, back-
alley war with the Democrat majority.

I was also writing a Washington column for Bill Buckley's National Review magazine under the cover name Cato, a fact known only to the top GOP House leadership, which allowed me to do the column as long as I didn't use my byline or write it on government time.

Moreover, in my Cato column I had recently broken the story about the Billie Sol Estes scandal, which involved Estes' crony, Lyndon Johnson. 
The young lady knew all that, and that's why she came to me. I agreed to meet with her fiancé, a South Carolinian named Ralph Hill. We met at the Market Inn, had a couple of martinis, and Hill told me his tale of woe.

He had come to Washington some time before and was steered to a fellow South Carolinian, one Bobby Baker, the powerful secretary of the Senate and a very close associate of Vice President Lyndon Johnson.

To make a long story short, Baker advised Hill to go into the vending machine business and promised him he'd arrange to get some major defense contractors to install the machines, which vended soft drinks, sandwiches, cigarettes and the like.

There was only one catch - Baker wanted under-the-table payoffs for his part in setting up what would be a very lucrative business opportunity with tens of thousands of potential customers who worked in defense plants.

True to his word, Baker got a number of defense contractors to agree to allow Hill the exclusive right to install his vending machines on their premises. It was an opportunity to print money by the barrel, and with those golden contracts in hand, Hill was able to go to the bank and borrow all the funds he needed to buy the vending machines and go into business. For a while he prospered - as did Baker.

But whatever he was paying Baker was not enough to satisfy the man who, for all intents and purposes, had the Senate under his thumb. He saw that the members of the Democrat majority got whatever they wanted - money, bimbos, LBJ's help, you name it. They were all in his pocket.

He could arrange multimillion-dollar contracts for the defense industry or take them away if he wanted. He was LBJ's guy and was all-powerful and a very dangerous man to have as an enemy, a fact Ralph Hill learned when Baker put the bite on him for bigger payoffs.

The problem for Hill was that he had big payments to make on the loans he'd taken out to buy the equipment and set himself up in business, had 
some pretty steep overhead, and simply didn't have enough left over to 
boost his payments to Baker.

He tried to explain that fact of life to Baker, but the secretary of the United States Senate wasn't having any. He simply repeated his demands and threatened Hill that if he didn't pay up he'd see that Hill lost all those juicy defense plant contracts.

Bad went to worse, Baker made good on his threats, and Hill was facing 
bankruptcy. Moreover, it was made known to him that if he didn't simply fold his tent and go off without making trouble for Baker, he might meet with an unfortunate - and probably fatal - accident.

But Hill was facing bankruptcy and the loss of everything he had, and he simply would not give up. He was fighting for his life. And he had the guts to hang in there.

He asked me to help him. But I was completely a creature of the House side of Capitol Hill - the Senate side was foreign territory and, I hate to admit it, I didn't even have the vaguest idea of who this Bobby Baker, the Senate's imperial potentate, was.

I told Hill that his only way out was to expose Baker publicly, to get the story out - once it was public, Baker could not afford to retaliate. I advised Hill to file suit against Baker, laying out all the sordid details in the complaint, and once h had served Baker, to give me the complaint papers and I'd see that the media on the Hill got their hands on copies.

He did and I did - and I now found myself a potential target, not only of Baker's but of the media as well, but that's another story. I was able to get 
only two reporters to write the story - the late Clark Mohlenhoff, one of the best investigative reporters in Washington, and one other whose name I don't recall.

For the most part, the Washington press corps kept the lid on the story - until the late Bob Humphrey, then the GOP Senate leadership's spokesman, an incredibly gifted strategist and a mentor, asked me to tell the story to the late Delaware Republican Sen. John Williams, a crusader for good government and a crackerjack of an investigator.

Sen. Williams asked me to introduce him to Hill and I did. They got together with some Senate investigators for the GOP minority and Hill told them the whole story, including the part played by Vice President Johnson. Williams got his committee to launch an investigation and the lid came off.

A few days later, the attorney general, Bobby Kennedy, called five of
Washington's top reporters into his office and told them it was now open season on Lyndon Johnson. It's OK, he told them, to go after the story they were ignoring out of deference to the administration.

And from that point on until the events in Dallas, Lyndon Baines Johnson's future looked as if it included a sudden end to his political career and a few years in the slammer. The Kennedys had their knives out and sharpened for him and were determined to draw his political blood - all of it.

In the Senate, the investigation into the Baker case was moving quickly ahead. Even the Democrats were cooperating, thanks to the Kennedys, and an awful lot of really bad stuff was being revealed - until Nov. 22, 1963.

By Nov. 23, all Democrat cooperation suddenly stopped. Lyndon would serve a term and a half in the White House instead of the slammer, the Baker investigation would peter out and Bobby Baker would serve a short sentence and go free. Dallas accomplished all of that.

Sometimes I wonder: If I had not met Hill and convinced him to go public with the story, and the Bobby Baker case and Lyndon's part in it had not come out as a result, would Dallas not have happened? I don't like to think about that.

And that's why I am convinced that McClellan is on to something. I hope he persists. There's an incredible amount of sordid government corruption that needs to be aired in public. As McClellan says, it's about time that the 
American people learned the truth about the death of John Fitzgerald 
Kennedy.

And a lot more.

Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and 
helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska 
Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee 
of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

He can be reached at phil@newsmax.com.

 

[Matt Cloud]

Why this information is not used after the assassination to control Johnson you never address.  Let's assume for argument's sake it was.  It was in effect owned by TIME-LIFE, as with the Zapruder film.  A plausible reason why Democratic cooperation stopped after 11/22 is because now the Democratic agenda could go forward.  This demonstrates Johnson's weakness, not his strength.  I don't see why you cannot grasp that.   

[Benjamin Cole]

3 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

Why this information is not used after the assassination to control Johnson you never address.  Let's assume for argument's sake it was.  It was in effect owned by TIME-LIFE, as with the Zapruder film.  A plausible reason why Democratic cooperation stopped after 11/22 is because now the Democratic agenda could go forward.  This demonstrates Johnson's weakness, not his strength.  I don't see why you cannot grasp that.   

MC-

I wonder---was the agenda of the D-Party at large (pre-JFKA) to pursue the Vietnam War? Even Senator Richard Russell was not on board with that. Or was Vietnam more the agenda of the globalist-intel state? 

It is curious the D-Party, by and large, went along with the Warren Commission snuff job on a true investigation into the JFKA, and then later, same deal on the RFK1A.  And of course, the D-Party is compliant with the snuff job on the JFK Records Act. But then so was and is the GOP.

What does that tell us about the two major parties? 

 

[Robert Morrow]

10 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

Why this information is not used after the assassination to control Johnson you never address.  Let's assume for argument's sake it was.  It was in effect owned by TIME-LIFE, as with the Zapruder film.  A plausible reason why Democratic cooperation stopped after 11/22 is because now the Democratic agenda could go forward.  This demonstrates Johnson's weakness, not his strength.  I don't see why you cannot grasp that.   

When you are the current President you can MAKE THINGS GO AWAY. The same media organizations that were just about to destroy LBJ on November 22, 1963 (Life Magazine, Newsweek Magazine, Drew Pearson) immediately flipped into being enablers of Lyndon Johnson. Some liked his war hawk position on Vietnam; some liked LBJ's cynically newly created enthusiasm for civil rights.

The point is: The Kennedys in November, 1963 were in high gear in destroying Lyndon Johnson and LBJ was acutely aware of this an highly agitated about it.

President Lyndon Johnson was extremely worried about the Bobby Baker scandal on 2/4/64. Imagine how LBJ felt as a powerless eunuch in the fall, 1963, as Robert Kennedy was within days of  destroying him with the exploding Bobby Baker scandal

 [Noel Twyman, "Bloody Treason: the Assassination of John F. Kennedy," pp. 807-808.

           Illustrating Johnson's fear of revelation of the Bobby Baker scandal, David Scheim wrote:

           The hush on Baker may be explained by a conversation between Johnson and House Speaker John McCormack as reported in The Washington Payoff by ex-Washington lobbyist Robert Winter-Berger. On February 4, 1964, Winter-Berger was discussing public relations with McCormack in McCormack's Washington office. President Johnson then barged in and began ranting hysterically, Winter-Berger reported, oblivious to the lobbyist's presence. During his long tirade, Johnson said:

          "John, that son of a bitch [Bobby Baker] is going to ruin me. If that cocksucker talks, I'm gonna land in jail....I practically raised that motherxxxxer, and now he's gonna make me the first President of the United States to spend the last days of his life behind bars."

 When Johnson finally noticed Winter-Berger's presence, McCormack explained that the visiting lobbyist was a close friend of Nat Voloshen, who was a Mob fixer of enormous influence. Johnson then became enthusiastic, exclaiming, "Nat can get to Bobby. They're friends. Have Nat get to Bobby." When Winter-Berger volunteered that he had an appointment with Voloshen the next day, Johnson told Winter-Berger:

           "Tell Nat that I want him to get in touch with Bobby Baker as soon as possible- tomorrow if he can. Tell Nat to tell Bobby that I will give him a million dollars if he takes this rap. Bobby must not talk. I'll see to it that he gets a million-dollar settlement."

 Given a subsequent scandal involving intercessions for Mobsters from McCormack's office at Voloshen's behest, the recounted tirade would hardly have been exceptional in that office ..."

 [Noel Twyman, "Bloody Treason: the Assassination of John F. Kennedy," pp. 807-808. Also Robert N. Winter-Berger, "The Washington Payoff: An Insider's View of Corruption in Government," pp. 61-68] 

Lyndon Johnson to Speaker McCormack on 11/29/63: “Just keep them from investigating!” (the JFK assassination)

We don’t want to be testifying,” Johnson said to Speaker of the House John McCormack, “and some fellow comes up from Dallas and says, “I think Khrushchev planned this whole thing and he got our President assassinated.”... You can see what that’ll lead us to, right quick. … You take care of the House of Representatives for me.”

“How am I going to take care of them?” McCormack asked.

“Just keep them from investigating!” was Johnson’s decisive answer. 

[Beschloss, Taking Charge, p. 62]

Edited June 24 by Robert Morrow

[Joe Bauer]

On 6/24/2024 at 1:14 AM, Robert Morrow said:

When you are the current President you can MAKE THINGS GO AWAY. The same media organizations that were just about to destroy LBJ on November 22, 1963 (Life Magazine, Newsweek Magazine, Drew Pearson) immediately flipped into being enablers of Lyndon Johnson. Some liked his war hawk position on Vietnam; some liked LBJ's cynically newly created enthusiasm for civil rights.

The point is: The Kennedys in November, 1963 were in high gear in destroying Lyndon Johnson and LBJ was acutely aware of this an highly agitated about it.

President Lyndon Johnson was extremely worried about the Bobby Baker scandal on 2/4/64. Imagine how LBJ felt as a powerless eunuch in the fall, 1963, as Robert Kennedy was within days of  destroying him with the exploding Bobby Baker scandal

 [Noel Twyman, "Bloody Treason: the Assassination of John F. Kennedy," pp. 807-808.

           Illustrating Johnson's fear of revelation of the Bobby Baker scandal, David Scheim wrote:

           The hush on Baker may be explained by a conversation between Johnson and House Speaker John McCormack as reported in The Washington Payoff by ex-Washington lobbyist Robert Winter-Berger. On February 4, 1964, Winter-Berger was discussing public relations with McCormack in McCormack's Washington office. President Johnson then barged in and began ranting hysterically, Winter-Berger reported, oblivious to the lobbyist's presence. During his long tirade, Johnson said:

          "John, that son of a bitch [Bobby Baker] is going to ruin me. If that cocksucker talks, I'm gonna land in jail....I practically raised that motherxxxxer, and now he's gonna make me the first President of the United States to spend the last days of his life behind bars."

 When Johnson finally noticed Winter-Berger's presence, McCormack explained that the visiting lobbyist was a close friend of Nat Voloshen, who was a Mob fixer of enormous influence. Johnson then became enthusiastic, exclaiming, "Nat can get to Bobby. They're friends. Have Nat get to Bobby." When Winter-Berger volunteered that he had an appointment with Voloshen the next day, Johnson told Winter-Berger:

           "Tell Nat that I want him to get in touch with Bobby Baker as soon as possible- tomorrow if he can. Tell Nat to tell Bobby that I will give him a million dollars if he takes this rap. Bobby must not talk. I'll see to it that he gets a million-dollar settlement."

 Given a subsequent scandal involving intercessions for Mobsters from McCormack's office at Voloshen's behest, the recounted tirade would hardly have been exceptional in that office ..."

 [Noel Twyman, "Bloody Treason: the Assassination of John F. Kennedy," pp. 807-808. Also Robert N. Winter-Berger, "The Washington Payoff: An Insider's View of Corruption in Government," pp. 61-68] 

Lyndon Johnson to Speaker McCormack on 11/29/63: “Just keep them from investigating!” (the JFK assassination)

We don’t want to be testifying,” Johnson said to Speaker of the House John McCormack, “and some fellow comes up from Dallas and says, “I think Khrushchev planned this whole thing and he got our President assassinated.”... You can see what that’ll lead us to, right quick. … You take care of the House of Representatives for me.”

“How am I going to take care of them?” McCormack asked.

“Just keep them from investigating!” was Johnson’s decisive answer. 

[Beschloss, Taking Charge, p. 62]

These are facts.

Amazing that still ( after 60+ years ) our official historical record biblio-zeitgeist is void of the full disclosure truth of LBJ's massive corruption and it's importance.

We have been lulled into this apathetic acceptance of this contrived LBJ corruption void mind-set all this time without understanding why and by whom.

LBJ was so corrupt ( way, WAY beyond our official historical record ) yet this incredibly important historical fact is tamped down / controlled to keep it out of the reality of who we are as a society ( back in 1963 particularly ) and who really ran the show back then and for decades later.

Edited June 26 by Joe Bauer

[Matt Cloud]

6 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

When you are the current President you can MAKE THINGS GO AWAY. The same media organizations that were just about to destroy LBJ on November 22, 1963 (Life Magazine, Newsweek Magazine, Drew Pearson) immediately flipped into being enablers of Lyndon Johnson. Some liked his war hawk position on Vietnam; some liked LBJ's cynically newly created enthusiasm for civil rights.

The point is: The Kennedys in November, 1963 were in high gear in destroying Lyndon Johnson and LBJ was acutely aware of this an highly agitated about it.

President Lyndon Johnson was extremely worried about the Bobby Baker scandal on 2/4/64. Imagine how LBJ felt as a powerless eunuch in the fall, 1963, as Robert Kennedy was within days of  destroying him with the exploding Bobby Baker scandal

 [Noel Twyman, "Bloody Treason: the Assassination of John F. Kennedy," pp. 807-808.

           Illustrating Johnson's fear of revelation of the Bobby Baker scandal, David Scheim wrote:

           The hush on Baker may be explained by a conversation between Johnson and House Speaker John McCormack as reported in The Washington Payoff by ex-Washington lobbyist Robert Winter-Berger. On February 4, 1964, Winter-Berger was discussing public relations with McCormack in McCormack's Washington office. President Johnson then barged in and began ranting hysterically, Winter-Berger reported, oblivious to the lobbyist's presence. During his long tirade, Johnson said:

          "John, that son of a bitch [Bobby Baker] is going to ruin me. If that cocksucker talks, I'm gonna land in jail....I practically raised that motherxxxxer, and now he's gonna make me the first President of the United States to spend the last days of his life behind bars."

 When Johnson finally noticed Winter-Berger's presence, McCormack explained that the visiting lobbyist was a close friend of Nat Voloshen, who was a Mob fixer of enormous influence. Johnson then became enthusiastic, exclaiming, "Nat can get to Bobby. They're friends. Have Nat get to Bobby." When Winter-Berger volunteered that he had an appointment with Voloshen the next day, Johnson told Winter-Berger:

           "Tell Nat that I want him to get in touch with Bobby Baker as soon as possible- tomorrow if he can. Tell Nat to tell Bobby that I will give him a million dollars if he takes this rap. Bobby must not talk. I'll see to it that he gets a million-dollar settlement."

 Given a subsequent scandal involving intercessions for Mobsters from McCormack's office at Voloshen's behest, the recounted tirade would hardly have been exceptional in that office ..."

 [Noel Twyman, "Bloody Treason: the Assassination of John F. Kennedy," pp. 807-808. Also Robert N. Winter-Berger, "The Washington Payoff: An Insider's View of Corruption in Government," pp. 61-68] 

Lyndon Johnson to Speaker McCormack on 11/29/63: “Just keep them from investigating!” (the JFK assassination)

We don’t want to be testifying,” Johnson said to Speaker of the House John McCormack, “and some fellow comes up from Dallas and says, “I think Khrushchev planned this whole thing and he got our President assassinated.”... You can see what that’ll lead us to, right quick. … You take care of the House of Representatives for me.”

“How am I going to take care of them?” McCormack asked.

“Just keep them from investigating!” was Johnson’s decisive answer. 

[Beschloss, Taking Charge, p. 62]

No, that's not the point.  You keep missing the point, and conflating (mis)interpretation with fact.  Those aren't the same things.  TIME-Life and The Washington Post Co -- and Beschloss who straddles both, later -- have no fear of Lyndon Johnson.  The point which your interpretation refuses to consider, and is therefore inadequate, fundamentally, for its failure to recognize at least the ambiguous potential, is that Johnson is now obligated to these organizations.  

Edited June 24 by Matt Cloud

[Matt Cloud]

12 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

MC-

I wonder---was the agenda of the D-Party at large (pre-JFKA) to pursue the Vietnam War? Even Senator Richard Russell was not on board with that. Or was Vietnam more the agenda of the globalist-intel state? 

It is curious the D-Party, by and large, went along with the Warren Commission snuff job on a true investigation into the JFKA, and then later, same deal on the RFK1A.  And of course, the D-Party is compliant with the snuff job on the JFK Records Act. But then so was and is the GOP.

What does that tell us about the two major parties? 

 

I think you should consider the possibility that the intellectual author of the events in question sufficiently implicated all interested sides and parties in order to create a mutual interest in maintaining secrecy for over 60 years -- the "diabolical symmetry" as readers of Le Carre would recognize.

It is the policy of the United States to achieve decolonization in the Third World -- that includes both the Democratic Party and what was becoming the modern Republican Party.  It is the policy of the United States to successfully navigate the ideological conflict as between Left and Right, East and West, which was exacerbated by the rise of industrialization at the beginning of the 20th century and then again by the de-industrialization at the end of the 20th century. 

The Democratic Party, during the period in question, had more direct involvement with elements of the East, and were therefore inclined to support an investigation which did not expose "collusion."  That would change however over the reminder of the course of the Cold War as the new Right -- the Reagan Revolution -- would be similarly implicated in what might be called a softer approach to elements of communism (notwithstanding the hard rhetoric of the protagonists).  It is for this reason that today we see an alignment of these interests -- the neo-libs and the neo-cons -- against disclosure.

 

[Robert Morrow]

8 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

No, that's not the point.  You keep missing the point, and conflating (mis)interpretation with fact.  Those aren't the same things.  TIME-Life and The Washington Post Co -- and Beschloss who straddles both, later -- have no fear of Lyndon Johnson.  The point which your interpretation refuses to consider, and is therefore inadequate, fundamentally, for its failure to recognize at least the ambiguous potential, is that Johnson is now obligated to these organizations.  

The whole point you are missing is: the Kennedys' running a high gear "destroy LBJ campaign" in November 1963 is MOTIVE for Lyndon Johnson to murder JFK. LBJ knew what was going on and was highly agitated about it. George Reedy and John Connally have talked about this. Horace Busby implies the same in his posthumously published book The Thirty-First of March. All three of these men knew LBJ extremely well.

I was not making a statement on "who controls who" in the aftermath of the JFK assassination.

[Matt Cloud]

24 minutes ago, Robert Morrow said:

The whole point you are missing is: the Kennedys' running a high gear "destroy LBJ campaign" in November 1963 is MOTIVE for Lyndon Johnson to murder JFK. LBJ knew what was going on and was highly agitated about it. George Reedy and John Connally have talked about this. Horace Busby implies the same in his posthumously published book The Thirty-First of March. All three of these men knew LBJ extremely well.

I was not making a statement on "who controls who" in the aftermath of the JFK assassination.

No, I am not missing that.  I fully accept your statement of facts in that regard, for argument's sake at least.  The point I am making is that -- as you say -- the story did indeed go away and that could be the result of at least two, somewhat exclusive, possibilities.  (1) Johnson made them go away, which is what you say; or (2) they were kept as a "control file" of sorts, against Johnson, in order to achieve Civil Rights and Vietnam.  You rule in favor of the former, without evidence, and do not consider the latter.  The latter scenario should be considered in light of many circumstances, not least of which is Johnson's own breakdown.  If he was so powerful, according to your contention, he wouldn't have had the problems he had -- from within the Democratic Party.  More, if presidents generally are so powerful, as you contend, that they can "make things go away," then why didn't the same apply for Nixon, or Reagan?  To go further, if you consider TIME-LIFE as effectively as CIA adjunct -- and there is good reason to achieve this realization -- you can see perhaps -- perhaps -- that by feeding dirt on Johnson to TIME and LIFE and Newsweek -- the Kennedys were strengthening the control the press (read CIA [edit: / KGB]) would have over Johnson.  TIME did not spike the Johnson story because of any pressure from Johnson.  If you have evidence to the contrary, share it.

In sum, you've fallen for the obvious and superficial over the more nuanced and considered.  

Edited June 24 by Matt Cloud

[Matt Cloud]

7 minutes ago, Matt Cloud said:

No, I am not missing that.  I fully accept your statement of facts in that regard, for argument's sake at least.  The point I am making is that -- as you say -- the story did indeed go away and that could be the result of at least two, somewhat exclusive, possibilities.  (1) Johnson made them go away, which is what you say; or (2) they were kept as a "control file" of sorts, against Johnson, in order to achieve Civil Rights and Vietnam.  You rule in favor of the former, without evidence, and do not consider the latter.  The latter scenario should be considered in light of many circumstances, not least of which is Johnson's own breakdown.  If he was so powerful, according to your contention, he wouldn't have had the problems he had -- from within the Democratic Party.  More, if presidents generally are so powerful, as you contend, that they can "make things go away," then why didn't the same apply for Nixon, or Reagan?  To go further, if you consider TIME-LIFE as effectively as CIA adjunct -- and there is good reason to achieve this realization -- you can see perhaps -- perhaps -- that by feeding dirt on Johnson to TIME and LIFE and Newsweek -- the Kennedys were strengthening the control the press (read CIA [edit: / KGB]) would have over Johnson.  TIME did not spike the Johnson story because of any pressure from Johnson.  If you have evidence to the contrary, share it.

In sum, you've fallen for the obvious and superficial over the more nuanced and considered.  

To add, in case you're not getting by now, scenario 2 implicates TIME and The Post and other organizations as being in on the assassination (along with the Zapruder film, Diem, and other matters), at least insofar as covering-up, but possibly also with foreknowledge.  Myopic focus on scenario 1 overlooks all of this, and just renders the press as somehow in obsequious fealty to Johnson.  Which is absurd.

[Matt Cloud]

I would imagine too that the tale as told by Jason Robards playing Ben Bradlee in All The President's Men, where he tell Woodward & Bernstein how he had reported for Newsweek in 64 that Johnson was thinking of replacing Hoover and then Johnson didn't and told McPherson to tell Bradlee to "go 'eff himself", is very much tied up in all of this.  Certain players that is wanted Hoover and his control files in place for awhile longer, over Johnson.