Conversation between LBJ, RFK and Dulles in June 1964.

[Kirk Gallaway]

Below is a June 1964, 3 way  conversation between LBJ, RFK and Allen Dulles. In June 1964,  the Mississippi governor asks LBJ to send a representative of the administrative to oversee activities going on during racial tensions where 3 civil rights workers were killed down there. LBJ discusses with AG RFK, what to do and this is a phone call where  LBJ and RFK phone Dulles to ask him to represent the administration and be their emissary to Mississippi in an advisory role and come back and report about it.

 

This appears on the surface to be your taxpayer dollars at work. LBJ, RFK putting aside their animosities and enlisting Alan Dulles to help the administration de escalate Civil Rights tensions in the South with Dulles's onsite observance, advice and counsel.

 

*****

 

2:08--One part of the recording appears to be edited and repetitively skipping at one point, At first Dulles might be confused about offering condolences. to RFK about his brother's assassination when he's really offering condolences about Teddy's recent injury in a plane crash.

 

5:20-Dulles to RFK: "What is the timing on this, you know I'm on this other commission you know" (namely investigating your brother's assassination!) But Bobby assures Allen that won't get in the way at all!

 

7:00 Dulles:Why did you pick me for this?

RFK: Because I know you. (Dulles laughs uproariously.)

Dulles: I've been a little mad at you because of this Bay of Pigs thing, a little bit, but I can forget that very easily. I don't stay angry long.

 

Dulles is now back with LBJ, 8:40 

Dulles: You know you put me on this commission with the Chief Justice and others where we're now reaching a point where I wouldn't want to neglect that.

LBJ: No I understand that.

 

I assume some here are hearing this for the very first time.I have brought this conversation up before to what I assume was in some cases a stunned silence, yet the visible reaction was as if it wasn't really noteworthy to a group that largely suspects Alan Dulles had a direct hand in the assassination of JFK. A curious reaction, no doubt. Because in conversation, it touches directly on the alleged Dulles motive, but perhaps it's because it doesn't further the Dulles-and-friends-did-it- narrative.

I do remember in print comments to this  by a number of JFKA researchers, a sort of scrambling. Though I'm not sure that was really necessary.

 

Because this is not conclusive, but I don't see a hint of suspicion that Bobby suspects Dulles had any hand in his brother's death here.. And I don't think Bobby is a guy who hides what he thinks that well.

I've never seriously heard the topic here discussed  "What did Bobby truly know, and when did he know it? Or did he positively know anything at all ?, other than someone quoting one author in passing.

 

It could also shed light on another topic that I've posted in the past. Why did the Kennedy's spend decades spurning the JFKA research community? Was there an early opportunity lost, because Bobby was just paralyzed  because he had no clue who among a number of enemies were behind the assassination of his brother?, and with no central head, the rest of the family just floundered? A similar topic has been recently  posted here with a provocative partisan political title, blaming the Democrats but then everything is politics these days.

 

If anything, this clip should be fun to speculate about, rather than sweep under a rug.

What do you think? Does it give any new insight into the relationships between these 3 men?

 

[W. Niederhut]

Kirk,

     My impression of this 1964 conversation between Allen Dulles and RFK is that it was rather bizarre.  Certainly awkward.  It must have been set up by LBJ.

     I wonder if LBJ was secretly amused by the prospect of having Bobby ask Dulles for a favor.  An abject form of humiliation.

     The first thing that came to mind for me was the post-assassination Dulles quote about JFK thinking that "he was a little God," and Prescott Bush telling Dulles that he "would never forgive" JFK for canning Dulles after the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

      I interpret Dulles's prolonged laughter after RFK saying, "Because I know you," as an expression of veiled hostility and surprise at the absurdity of the "compliment."

      There's no question that Dulles's darker personality traits were readily concealed by his suave, cultured Princetonian persona.

      (I'm basing my general impressions of Dulles on my reading of David Talbott's biography, The Devil's Chessboard.)

       As for Dulles' putative role in the JFK assassination and cover up, we certainly know that he aggressively promoted the "Lone Nut" narrative from the very beginning of the Warren Commission deliberations.  And he had, obviously, been involved in global assassination ops prior to 11/22/63.

       Above all, he was a Cold War hawk, like his brother, who despised JFK.

     

     

[Kirk Gallaway]

 

5 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

It must have been set up by LBJ.

i would have thought that. I know the idea that Bobby would have suggested Dulles as emissary is outright heresy here. And though I don't believe that. It is Bobby who goes into very fine detail to Dulles just exactly what the job description is. Whereas it seems LBJ job is just to close the deal and close it in that phone call, as Dulles suggests that they first get together in a meeting and LBJ and Bobby in essence say there's no time for that.

isn't it interesting that Dulles tries to put Bobby on the defense about his hurt feelings about the BOP. And Bobby is very detached as if he has one goal, to put aside feelings in order to quickly implement their plan.

I liked the Devil's Chessboard too.

Of course we do have Phil Shenon, the guy who first suggested that a position on the WC was offered to Allen Dulles  by Bobby and Nicholas Katzenbach, in a memo  that he got from the Johnson Library. But after all of LBJ's other lies, how credible could that be? 

However,  He quoted RFK  from his book "Robert Kennedy, in His Own Words" which was a collection of transcripts of interviews edited by his close friend Edwin Guthman,as praising Dulles below, for how he handled his ouster after the BOP...

“”He dealt with his ouster with a great deal of dignity and never attempted to shift the blame…. The President was very fond of him, as was I.”

Does anybody have this book? i wonder what year that quote would be from? It seems to me, either the quote is in the book, or it isn't.

 

 

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Does anybody have this book? i wonder what year that quote would be from? It seems to me, either the quote is in the book, or it isn't.

I have it in a loft in the UK, I’ll dig it out next time I am back. 
 

16 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

isn't it interesting that Dulles tries to put Bobby on the defense about his hurt feelings about the BOP. And Bobby is very detached as if he has one goal, to put aside feelings in order to quickly implement their plan.

That’s what I picked up too. Its all rather cordial apart from this awkward moment where Bobby slides Dulles raising of the BOP differences. 
 

Same as you guys, I suspect LBJ set that up, and there was a level of humiliation for Bobby. 

[Joe Bauer]

9 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

I interpret Dulles's prolonged laughter after RFK saying, "Because I know you," as an expression of veiled hostility and surprise at the absurdity of the "compliment."

      

Agree.