Oswald's alibi

[Roger Odisio]

In the spirit of the question Salandria used to pose when discussing what happened--what would an honest government do?--I'd like to go over what the people who planned and carried out JFK's murder and coverup  did after the shooting.  

Within hours after the murder, Hoover was saying we have caught the killer.  That weekend, Fritz said they were confident Oswald was the guy.  Most importantly, the White House Situation Room sent a message to those on the plane returning from Dallas that day that the killer was in custody.  IOW, no matter what you think you may have seen in Dallas, the case has been officially solved.  Do not step out of line.

Theodore White somehow found out about the message to the plane and mentioned it in his book, The Making of the President, 1964.  Pierre Salinger, among others tried to get access to the tape but were stonewalled.  I think the tape has disappeared.

These lies have one thing in common.  None of the people could have possibly known at that point whether what they were saying was true.  The plane message in particular is clear evidence of a conspiracy planned at the highest levels of government.  The coverup had begun.  

The first step was to arrest Oswald and ask for his alibi.  That set the focus--to bury what he said and destroy, whether by intimidation or murder, all forms of collaboration.  It should surprise no one that so little support for Oswald and his story has surfaced.  Unfortunately Hosty, possibly with visions of a best seller dancing in his head, kept some of his notes, including Oswald's actual alibi.

Confiscate every film or photo you can get your hands on that might contradict the story you were concocting.

Grab Frazier and accuse him of being an accomplice.  Either he cooperated in their story or he would fry with Oswald.

Visit Lovelady the night of the murder with a blowup of Altgens and ask him if the prominent figure on the steps was him.  Relieved when he said yes, make sure he was on board with the story of not having seen Oswald (which he probably didn't during the shooting since his back was to Oswald.)

Ever since his arrest Oswald had been screaming for a lawyer.  The next big piece was to silence him before he could talk to one.  The head of the Dallas bar was sent to offer Oswald the services of a handpicked member who could be manipulated in service to the coverup.  Oswald declined.  He wanted either the lawyer he knew had defended communists, or someone from the ACLU he could trust.  But then he made a mistake.  In turning down the Bar Assn offer, he said he wanted a few days to find his own lawyer, but if he failed he would get back to them.

Uh oh.  That set time limit for his murder.  They couldn't let him talk to any lawyer, even one they had hand picked (I'm not sure whether the original off was genuine or just a delaying tactic while they lined up Oswald's murder.)  Too risky, when the alternative was simply getting rid of Oswald period.    Oswald was dead about 17 hours later.

Then followed a set of fairy tales--the magic bullet, second floor lunch room encounter, etc., and the final travesty of the Warren Report, lapped up by media stenographers.

 

[Ron Ege]

Roger, nice summation.  Keep it comin'.

[Paul Brancato]

7 hours ago, Ron Ege said:

Roger, nice summation.  Keep it comin'.

Agree

[Roger Odisio]

9 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Agree

Actually, I forgot to include a bit about Allen Dulles, prime candidate to have been at the heart of the murder and coverup.  According to David Talbott, in The Devil's Chessboard, Dulles spent the entire weekend of the murder at "the Farm" in Virginia, which Dulles had established soon after taking over as head of the CIA, and at which he had built himself a home.  Talbott quotes Dan Hardway, a former House investigator, that the Farm was "basically an alternative CIA headquarters from where Dulles could direct ops".  Ever since Kennedy fired him, Dulles had used his Georgetown home to interact with his former colleagues as tho he were still at Langley.  But the Farm was a more secure location.  And there were many decisions to be made as to how to frame Oswald and conduct the coverup.  Including of course the urgent decision of when and how to kill Oswald.

Then Dulles got himself on the Warren Commission where he could more securely guide the coverup as the only commission member without a full time job.  Where he could protect the CIA from scrutiny and direct attention elsewhere..

 

[Joe Bauer]

It wasn't just the constant repeating by the 3 main Dallas press feeding police authority mouthpieces Wade, Curry and Fritz that not only did they have their man (Oswald) and he was "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" ( Wade )   and "This case is cinched" (Fritz ) and that he did the act alone ... but that all this was figured out in just 72 hours!?

During which time Oswald never confessed and instead claimed his innocence and pleaded for "someone to step forward" and defend him legally. And with not one eye witness, forensic and evidence analysis still continuing and Oswald's personal history not well known by these three pillars of investigative authority.

The aggressive and certain without doubt press proclamations that Oswald did it and did it alone by the big three was accepted by the media without hardly any published reservations and questions. You would have thought at least some major media outlets would have caught and realized the preposterousness of such a quick non-trial verdict and within just 72 hours and without any serious, deeper investigation taking place.

The more that was revealed about Oswald in the coming days, weeks and months however, the more there were major unanswered logical questions regards Oswald's certain guilt and the possibility that others may have been involved.

These guys lost JFK, they lost Oswald just 48 hours later, they lost control of the entire case to the FBI...

The entire affair was an embarrassingly discredited mess.

[Joe Bauer]

22 minutes ago, Roger Odisio said:

Actually, I forgot to include a bit about Allen Dulles, prime candidate to have been at the heart of the murder and coverup.  According to David Talbott, in The Devil's Chessboard, Dulles spent the entire weekend of the murder at "the Farm" in Virginia, which Dulles had established soon after taking over as head of the CIA, and at which he had built himself a home.  Talbott quotes Dan Hardway, a former House investigator, that the Farm was "basically an alternative CIA headquarters from where Dulles could direct ops".  Ever since Kennedy fired him, Dulles had used his Georgetown home to interact with his former colleagues as tho he were still at Langley.  But the Farm was a more secure location.  And there were many decisions to be made as to how to frame Oswald and conduct the coverup.  Including of course the urgent decision of when and how to kill Oswald.

Then Dulles got himself on the Warren Commission where he could more securely guide the coverup as the only commission member without a full time job.  Where he could protect the CIA from scrutiny and direct attention elsewhere..

 

The decision to place Dulles on the Warren Commission is one of the most discrediting aspects of all. The supposed non-biased integrity of the commission was totally lost from the second he was appointed.

LBJ knew Dulles hated JFK. And especially so after JFK ( he thought he was a little God-Dulles) had the ballsy audacity to fire him!

LBJ was way too close to Dulles and Hoover who both hated JFK.

LBJ and Hoover made sure the FBI had their man on the commission as well - Gerald Ford.

The John McCloy insertion is another weird agenda story in and of itself.

At least one segregation JFK hating Southern state senator as well?

The Warren Commission was corrupted with JFK hating, FBI feeding and Segregation state bias even before their first day of work.

 

[Pat Speer]

21 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

In the spirit of the question Salandria used to pose when discussing what happened--what would an honest government do?--I'd like to go over what the people who planned and carried out JFK's murder and coverup  did after the shooting.  

Within hours after the murder, Hoover was saying we have caught the killer.  That weekend, Fritz said they were confident Oswald was the guy.  Most importantly, the White House Situation Room sent a message to those on the plane returning from Dallas that day that the killer was in custody.  IOW, no matter what you think you may have seen in Dallas, the case has been officially solved.  Do not step out of line.

Theodore White somehow found out about the message to the plane and mentioned it in his book, The Making of the President, 1964.  Pierre Salinger, among others tried to get access to the tape but were stonewalled.  I think the tape has disappeared.

These lies have one thing in common.  None of the people could have possibly known at that point whether what they were saying was true.  The plane message in particular is clear evidence of a conspiracy planned at the highest levels of government.  The coverup had begun.  

The first step was to arrest Oswald and ask for his alibi.  That set the focus--to bury what he said and destroy, whether by intimidation or murder, all forms of collaboration.  It should surprise no one that so little support for Oswald and his story has surfaced.  Unfortunately Hosty, possibly with visions of a best seller dancing in his head, kept some of his notes, including Oswald's actual alibi.

Confiscate every film or photo you can get your hands on that might contradict the story you were concocting.

Grab Frazier and accuse him of being an accomplice.  Either he cooperated in their story or he would fry with Oswald.

Visit Lovelady the night of the murder with a blowup of Altgens and ask him if the prominent figure on the steps was him.  Relieved when he said yes, make sure he was on board with the story of not having seen Oswald (which he probably didn't during the shooting since his back was to Oswald.)

Ever since his arrest Oswald had been screaming for a lawyer.  The next big piece was to silence him before he could talk to one.  The head of the Dallas bar was sent to offer Oswald the services of a handpicked member who could be manipulated in service to the coverup.  Oswald declined.  He wanted either the lawyer he knew had defended communists, or someone from the ACLU he could trust.  But then he made a mistake.  In turning down the Bar Assn offer, he said he wanted a few days to find his own lawyer, but if he failed he would get back to them.

Uh oh.  That set time limit for his murder.  They couldn't let him talk to any lawyer, even one they had hand picked (I'm not sure whether the original off was genuine or just a delaying tactic while they lined up Oswald's murder.)  Too risky, when the alternative was simply getting rid of Oswald period.    Oswald was dead about 17 hours later.

Then followed a set of fairy tales--the magic bullet, second floor lunch room encounter, etc., and the final travesty of the Warren Report, lapped up by media stenographers.

 

 

Is this how conspiracies succeed? Leave a lot of loose strings and then go back and make them go away?

 

OR...how about this? Avoid the loose strings to begin with? 

1. Have Oswald's handler tell him someone will meet him at back of the building when the shooting takes place.

2. Kill him as he walks out the back of the building.

Oh crap, he walked out the front. Well, okay then, how about we track him down and kill him? Oh crap, he made it to a public place. Hmmm...how we gonna kill him now?

Let's get the mob in on it. Dirty the waters...

Done. 

 

P.S. The cover-up post-assassination was clearly supervised by Johnson with the cooperation of others, including Warren and some members of the WC staff. There is no reason to believe this was part of the murder plot. In fact, the murder plot may have been designed to blame the commies and those covering up afterwards may have thought it was their patriotic duty to cover it up, as opposed to rolling the dice. 

 

 

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by Pat Speer

[Roger Odisio]

35 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

 

Is this how conspiracies succeed? Leave a lot of loose strings and then go back and make them go away?

 

OR...how about this? Avoid the loose strings to begin with? 

1. Have Oswald's handler tell him someone will meet him at back of the building when the shooting takes place.

2. Kill him as he walks out the back of the building.

Oh crap, he walked out the front. Well, okay then, how about we track him down and kill him? Oh crap, he made it to a public place. Hmmm...how we gonna kill him now?

Let's get the mob in on it. Dirty the waters...

Done. 

 

P.S. The cover-up post-assassination was clearly supervised by Johnson with the cooperation of others, including Warren and some members of the WC staff. There is no reason to believe this was part of the murder plot. In fact, the murder plot may have been designed to blame the commies and those covering up afterwards may have thought it was their patriotic duty to cover it up, as opposed to rolling the dice. 

 

 

 

So you think those who devised the murder played no important role in the coverup?  Remember the abandoned coup attempts before Dallas in Chicago and Miami, which also came with a designated patsy to blame?  In your wildest dreams do you think Dulles, if you know anything about him, would have gone ahead with the murder without a coverup plan in place.  It was Dulles, not Johnson, who exerted day to day supervision of the WC and protected the CIA from scrutiny after the murder, which was crucial to the coverup.  Of course Johnson appointed Dulles knowing that would be his role. 

What do you think Dulles was doing that crucial first weekend at the Farm as Oswald was murdered and the coverup began?

Which is not to say the murder and coverup came without any loose strings.  All plans of that magnitude have them.  An important part of the coverup plan was control of the media to minimize any pulling on those strings.  Anyone doubting the extent of that control, which is growing still today as spooks now dominate the coverage of what passes for mainstream news, should read the glowing review in the NY Times at the release of the Warren Report in Sept. 1964.  The WR is a "comprehensive and convincing account" of the assassination, it said,  that answers any all questions that could be raised.  That is the stance they and much of the rest of the media took, and they have stuck with it since

Yes, among those who wanted Kennedy eliminated there were, at the beginning, factions with different goals once he was gone. Johnson was crucial to sorting those out.  You can have your war in Vietnam; no, we will not invade Cuba, etc.  But in the main the planners knew Johnson would go along with most of what they wanted so the plan could go forward.  His foreign policy views were in many instances about 180 degrees from what Kennedy was doing.  

Bottom line:  killing a president is a big deal.  A coverup plan allowing them to get away with it was essential to the plot itself.

[Pat Speer]

41 minutes ago, Roger Odisio said:

So you think those who devised the murder played no important role in the coverup?  Remember the abandoned coup attempts before Dallas in Chicago and Miami, which also came with a designated patsy to blame?  In your wildest dreams do you think Dulles, if you know anything about him, would have gone ahead with the murder without a coverup plan in place.  It was Dulles, not Johnson, who exerted day to day supervision of the WC and protected the CIA from scrutiny after the murder, which was crucial to the coverup.  Of course Johnson appointed Dulles knowing that would be his role. 

What do you think Dulles was doing that crucial first weekend at the Farm as Oswald was murdered and the coverup began?

Which is not to say the murder and coverup came without any loose strings.  All plans of that magnitude have them.  An important part of the coverup plan was control of the media to minimize any pulling on those strings.  Anyone doubting the extent of that control, which is growing still today as spooks now dominate the coverage of what passes for mainstream news, should read the glowing review in the NY Times at the release of the Warren Report in Sept. 1964.  The WR is a "comprehensive and convincing account" of the assassination, it said,  that answers any all questions that could be raised.  That is the stance they and much of the rest of the media took, and they have stuck with it since

Yes, among those who wanted Kennedy eliminated there were, at the beginning, factions with different goals once he was gone. Johnson was crucial to sorting those out.  You can have your war in Vietnam; no, we will not invade Cuba, etc.  But in the main the planners knew Johnson would go along with most of what they wanted so the plan could go forward.  His foreign policy views were in many instances about 180 degrees from what Kennedy was doing.  

Bottom line:  killing a president is a big deal.  A coverup plan allowing them to get away with it was essential to the plot itself.

Perhaps I'm more cynical... I suspect those behind it wanted it to look like a commie did it, and LBJ et al covered it up to thwart their plans. I don't discount, however, that LBJ let them think he would play along, and that he basically double-crossed them by letting Oswald go down as a lone nut. He would, of course, then be in their debt. He may have paid that debt, moreover, with hundreds of thousands of lives in SE Asia, or by cutting back the FBI's mob investigations...or both...

The government response over the first few weeks was largely chaos, so, no, the media was not aware of what was gonna happen or what they were supposed to say. Their involvement was not part of the plot. 

Once the FBI and WC etc got rolling, however, the media sucked up to them the way they usually do, and became what amounted to a propaganda arm of the Johnson Administration. 

As far as Dulles... Yes, he was a creep. But I think the assumption he hated JFK and JFK hated him is incorrect. There is reason to believe he and RFK were friendly. It's been purported, moreover, that RFK approved of his being on the WC. But I'm not aware of RFK ever saying as much...

But I can say this... While it can not be disputed that Dulles was out to protect the CIA's interests, it is also incorrect to claim he was running the WC's investigation. At every turn, one man prevented the commission from going where it wasn't supposed to go.

That man was Chief Justice Earl Warren...

From Chapter 3c at patspeer.com:

 

So, let's break this down. The Warren Commission's top staff (Rankin, Willens, Redlich, and Eisenberg) spent over 900 work-days supervising its investigation, co-ordinating its investigation with the commissioners, and editing and re-writing the commission's report. While, at the same time, the commission's investigators spent over 1,000 work-days investigating and writing about Oswald's life and death--separate from his role in the assassination. While, at the same time, the commission's investigators spent less than 400 work-days investigating what happened on the day of the shooting, and who pulled the trigger...

Well, this seems a bit backwards, correct? When one looks at the timing of these man-hours, this ratio seems even more out-of-whack. The investigation lasted, basically, 8 months, from late January to late September. Adams, Specter, Ball, and Belin (the investigators for Areas 1 and 2) worked 378 days, 2 hours, between them. But only 73 days, 1 hour of this was in the last three months of the commission's investigation. Well, this suggests that the commission's investigation into what happened and who did it was essentially over by June, and not September. And that the rest was just putting lipstick on a pig. I mean, seriously, Burt Griffin worked 91 of the last 96 days trying to understand why and how mobster wannabe Jack Ruby came to kill the supposedly lone-nut Oswald, and David Slawson worked 83 of the last 96 days trying to understand what the supposedly lone-nut Oswald was doing in Mexico City, meeting with Cubans and Russians. And that's not even to mention that Albert Jenner and Wesley Liebeler worked 81 days and 90 days, respectively, of the last 96 days of the commission, while trying to understand why in the heck Oswald would kill a President he claimed to admire.

All four of these men, individually, worked more days in the last three months of the commission's investigation than the four men who'd worked in areas 1 and 2, COMBINED.

Well, this supports what seemed clear from the beginning of the commission's investigation--that the commission was ready to claim Oswald did it without doing much digging, but was concerned this wouldn't fly if they didn't offer the public a mountain of reasons to believe Oswald was nothing but a nut, who acted alone.

But that's not all we learned from the release of Shenon's and Willens' books.

When one read between the lines, one discovered an awful reality--that liberal icon Earl Warren was not the simple bumpkin many had presumed, and that he was instead a one-man wrecking crew, committed to making sure his commission went nowhere and learned nothing.

Here, then, is a partial list of Warren "no-no"s, as we now know them.

1. Chief Justice Warren was determined from the outset that the commission investigating President Kennedy's death limit its scope to the investigations already performed by the Dallas Police, Secret Service and FBI. Yes, unbelievably, the transcript of the commission's first conference reflects that Warren wanted the commission to have no investigators of its own, no subpoena power, and no public hearings.

2. When the Attorney General of Texas, Waggoner Carr, persisted in his plan to convene a Texas Court of Inquiry, a public hearing at which much of the evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald would be presented, Warren convinced him to cancel his plan by assuring him the commission would be "fair to Texas." No record was made of this meeting.

3. Not long thereafter, the commission became privy to the rumor Oswald had been an intelligence asset. Although commissioner and former CIA chief Allen Dulles assured Warren and his fellow commissioners the FBI and CIA would lie about this, he also told them the only way to get to the bottom of it was to ask President Johnson to personally tell the heads of the FBI and CIA not to lie. Warren did not do this. And the transcript of the hearing in which this rumor was first discussed was destroyed, undoubtedly at Warren's direction.

4. The commission's staff had questions about the medical evidence. They were particularly concerned about the location of Kennedy's back wound, which may have been too low to support the single-bullet theory deemed necessary to the commission's conclusion Oswald acted alone. Even so, Warren personally prevented Dr. James J. Humes from reviewing the autopsy photos he'd had taken, and wished to review.

5. The commission's staff had questions about Oswald's trip to Mexico. What did he say to those he spoke to? What did he do at night? Did he actually go to the Cuban consulate and Russian embassy on the days the CIA said he'd visited the consulate and embassy? And yet, despite the commission's staff's fervid desire they be allowed to interview Sylvia Duran, a Mexican woman employed by the Cuban consulate, who'd handled Oswald's request he be allowed to visit Cuba, (and who, it turns out, was rumored to have entertained Oswald at night), Chief Justice Warren personally prevented them from doing so, telling commission counsel David Slawson that "You just can't believe a Communist...We don't talk to Communists. You cannot trust a dedicated Communist to tell us the truth, so what's the point?"

6. The commission's staff had questions about Russia's involvement in the assassination. Oswald, of course, had lived in Russia. His wife was Russian. While in Mexico, he'd met with a KGB agent named Kostikov, who was believed to have been the KGB's point man on assassinations for the western hemisphere. Shortly after the assassination, a KGB officer named Yuri Nosenko defected to the west. Nosenko told his handlers he'd reviewed Oswald's file, and that Oswald was not a Russian agent. The timing of Nosenko's defection, however, convinced some within the CIA that Nosenko's defection was a set-up. The commission's staff hoped to talk to Nosenko, and judge for themselves if his word meant anything. The CIA (er, rather, The CIA's Assistant Director of Plans--its master of dirty tricks, Richard Helms), on the other hand, asked the commission to not only not talk to Nosenko, but to avoid any mention of him within their report. Chief Justice Earl Warren, acting alone, agreed to this request. He later admitted "I was adamant that we should not in any way base our findings on the testimony of a Russian defector."

7. The commission's staff had questions about Jack Ruby's motive in killing Oswald. Strangely, however, the commission's staff charged with investigating Ruby and his background were not allowed to interview him. Instead, the interview of Ruby was performed by, you guessed it, Chief Justice Earl Warren. Despite Ruby's telling Warren such things as "unless you get me to Washington, you can’t get a fair shake out of me...I want to tell the truth, and I can’t tell it here. I can’t tell it here…this isn’t the place for me to tell what I want to tell…” Warren refused to bring Ruby to Washington so he could provide the details he so clearly wanted to provide.

8. The commission's staff had even more questions about how Ruby came to kill Oswald. It was hard to believe he'd just walked down a ramp and shot Oswald, as claimed. As Ruby had many buddies within the Dallas Police, for that matter, it was reasonable to investigate the possibility one or more of the officers responsible for Oswald's protection had provided Ruby access to the basement. Commission counsel Burt Griffin even found a suspect: Sgt Patrick Dean. In the middle of Dean's testimony in Dallas, in which Dean said Ruby had told him he'd gained access to the garage by walking down the ramp, Griffin let Dean know he didn't believe him, and gave him a chance to change his testimony. Dean was outraged and called Dallas DA Henry Wade, who in turn called Warren Commission General Counsel J. Lee Rankin. Dean then asked that he be allowed to testify against Griffin in Washington. Not only was he allowed to do so, he received what amounted to an apology from, you guessed it, Chief Justice Earl Warren. Warren told Dean "No member of our staff has a right to tell any witness that he is lying or that he is testifying falsely. That is not his business. It is the business of this Commission to appraise the testimony of all the witnesses, and, at the time you are talking about, and up to the present time, this Commission has never appraised your testimony or fully appraised the testimony of any other witness, and furthermore, I want to say to you that no member of our staff has any power to help or injure any witness." It was later revealed that Dean had failed a lie detector test designed to test his truthfulness regarding Ruby, and that the Dallas Police had kept the results of this test from the Warren Commission. If Griffin had been allowed to pursue Dean, this could have all come out in 1964. But no, Warren made Griffin back down, and the probability Dean lied was swept under the rug. (None of this is mentioned in Willens' book, of course.)

9. Although Warren was purportedly all-concerned about transparency, and wanted all the evidence viewed by the commission to be made available to the public, he (along with commissioners McCloy and Dulles) came to a decision on April 30, 1964, that the testimony before the commission would not be published along with the commission's report. (This decision was over-turned after the other commissioners--the four elected officials on the commission, and thereby the only ones accountable to the public--objected.)

10. Although Warren was purportedly all-concerned about transparency, and wanted the public to trust the commission's decisions, he wanted to shred or incinerate all the commission's internal files, so no one would know how the commission came to its decisions. (This decision was over-turned after commission historian Alfred Goldberg sent word of Warren's intentions to Senator Richard Russell, and Russell intervened.)

11. Although Warren was purported to have worked himself day and night in order to give the President the most thorough report possible, he actually flew off on a fishing trip that lasted from July 6 to August 1, 1964, while testimony was still being taken, and the commission's report still being polished.

12. Although Warren was purportedly all-concerned about transparency, and felt the commission's work should speak for itself, he (according to Howard Willens' diary) asked the National Archives to hold up the release of assassination-related documents that were not used in the commission's hearings, so that said documents could not be used by critics to undermine the commission's findings.

So let's review. The Chief Justice, who was, by his own admission, roped into serving as chairman of the commission by President Johnson through the prospect of nuclear war, refused to allow important evidence to be viewed, refused to allow important witnesses to be called, cut off investigations into controversial areas, demanded that testimony before the commission be done in secret, agreed to keep the testimony before the commission from the public, tried to keep the commission's internal files from the public, and ultimately asked the national archives to help hide some of the evidence available to the commission from the public until a decent interval had passed in which the commission and its friends in the media could sell the commission's conclusions.

Now if that ain't a whitewash, then what the heck is?

Edited September 14, 2022 by Pat Speer

[Paul Brancato]

2 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

 

Is this how conspiracies succeed? Leave a lot of loose strings and then go back and make them go away?

 

OR...how about this? Avoid the loose strings to begin with? 

1. Have Oswald's handler tell him someone will meet him at back of the building when the shooting takes place.

2. Kill him as he walks out the back of the building.

Oh crap, he walked out the front. Well, okay then, how about we track him down and kill him? Oh crap, he made it to a public place. Hmmm...how we gonna kill him now?

Let's get the mob in on it. Dirty the waters...

Done. 

 

P.S. The cover-up post-assassination was clearly supervised by Johnson with the cooperation of others, including Warren and some members of the WC staff. There is no reason to believe this was part of the murder plot. In fact, the murder plot may have been designed to blame the commies and those covering up afterwards may have thought it was their patriotic duty to cover it up, as opposed to rolling the dice. 

 

 

 

I know that many people agree with you that the coverup was not engineered by the plotters per se. I am more inclined to think that the plotters were prepared to cover up their crimes, even if there were loose ends.
In your view who engineered the assassination? 

[Pat Speer]

2 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

I know that many people agree with you that the coverup was not engineered by the plotters per se. I am more inclined to think that the plotters were prepared to cover up their crimes, even if there were loose ends.
In your view who engineered the assassination? 

I have not focused as much on "who did it" as I have "what happened'.  But I tend to believe whoever did it picked Oswald as a patsy because of his background as a commie, and not because they thought he was a nut. IOW, they wanted the trail to lead to Cuba, and Russia, and not stop at Oswald. 

So I would have to assume those involved were right-wing hawks, with access to the intelligence agencies. SO...if I had to pick I'd pick people like Harvey, Robertson, Morales and Phillips as suspects... using some anti-Castro Cuban shooters. But I don't think they would have made the call. No, I think the call would have to have been made by someone with lots of moolah and connections... Perhaps someone like H.L. Hunt... But I don't think we can ignore Harvey's connections to Roselli and thereby Giancana and thereby Marcello, and thereby Trafficante... 

So it may have been a mob hit, after all.. With LBJ's blessing, of course...

[Ken Davies]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

Perhaps I'm more cynical... I suspect those behind it wanted it to look like a commie did it, and LBJ et al covered it up to thwart their plans. I don't discount, however, that LBJ let them think he would play along, and that he basically double-crossed them by letting Oswald go down as a lone nut. He would, of course, then be in their debt. He may have paid that debt, moreover, with hundreds of thousands of lives in SE Asia, or by cutting back the FBI's mob investigations...or both...

The government response over the first few weeks was largely chaos, so, no, the media was not aware of what was gonna happen or what they were supposed to say. Their involvement was not part of the plot. 

Once the FBI and WC etc got rolling, however, the media sucked up to them the way they usually do, and became what amounted to a propaganda arm of the Johnson Administration. 

As far as Dulles... Yes, he was a creep. But I think the assumption he hated JFK and JFK hated him is incorrect. There is reason to believe he and RFK were friendly. It's been purported, moreover, that RFK approved of his being on the WC. But I'm not aware of RFK ever saying as much...

But I can say this... While it can not be disputed that Dulles was out to protect the CIA's interests, it is also incorrect to claim he was running the WC's investigation. At every turn, one man prevented the commission from going where it wasn't supposed to go.

That man was Chief Justice Earl Warren...

From Chapter 3c at patspeer.com:

 

So, let's break this down. The Warren Commission's top staff (Rankin, Willens, Redlich, and Eisenberg) spent over 900 work-days supervising its investigation, co-ordinating its investigation with the commissioners, and editing and re-writing the commission's report. While, at the same time, the commission's investigators spent over 1,000 work-days investigating and writing about Oswald's life and death--separate from his role in the assassination. While, at the same time, the commission's investigators spent less than 400 work-days investigating what happened on the day of the shooting, and who pulled the trigger...

Well, this seems a bit backwards, correct? When one looks at the timing of these man-hours, this ratio seems even more out-of-whack. The investigation lasted, basically, 8 months, from late January to late September. Adams, Specter, Ball, and Belin (the investigators for Areas 1 and 2) worked 378 days, 2 hours, between them. But only 73 days, 1 hour of this was in the last three months of the commission's investigation. Well, this suggests that the commission's investigation into what happened and who did it was essentially over by June, and not September. And that the rest was just putting lipstick on a pig. I mean, seriously, Burt Griffin worked 91 of the last 96 days trying to understand why and how mobster wannabe Jack Ruby came to kill the supposedly lone-nut Oswald, and David Slawson worked 83 of the last 96 days trying to understand what the supposedly lone-nut Oswald was doing in Mexico City, meeting with Cubans and Russians. And that's not even to mention that Albert Jenner and Wesley Liebeler worked 81 days and 90 days, respectively, of the last 96 days of the commission, while trying to understand why in the heck Oswald would kill a President he claimed to admire.

All four of these men, individually, worked more days in the last three months of the commission's investigation than the four men who'd worked in areas 1 and 2, COMBINED.

Well, this supports what seemed clear from the beginning of the commission's investigation--that the commission was ready to claim Oswald did it without doing much digging, but was concerned this wouldn't fly if they didn't offer the public a mountain of reasons to believe Oswald was nothing but a nut, who acted alone.

But that's not all we learned from the release of Shenon's and Willens' books.

When one read between the lines, one discovered an awful reality--that liberal icon Earl Warren was not the simple bumpkin many had presumed, and that he was instead a one-man wrecking crew, committed to making sure his commission went nowhere and learned nothing.

Here, then, is a partial list of Warren "no-no"s, as we now know them.

1. Chief Justice Warren was determined from the outset that the commission investigating President Kennedy's death limit its scope to the investigations already performed by the Dallas Police, Secret Service and FBI. Yes, unbelievably, the transcript of the commission's first conference reflects that Warren wanted the commission to have no investigators of its own, no subpoena power, and no public hearings.

2. When the Attorney General of Texas, Waggoner Carr, persisted in his plan to convene a Texas Court of Inquiry, a public hearing at which much of the evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald would be presented, Warren convinced him to cancel his plan by assuring him the commission would be "fair to Texas." No record was made of this meeting.

3. Not long thereafter, the commission became privy to the rumor Oswald had been an intelligence asset. Although commissioner and former CIA chief Allen Dulles assured Warren and his fellow commissioners the FBI and CIA would lie about this, he also told them the only way to get to the bottom of it was to ask President Johnson to personally tell the heads of the FBI and CIA not to lie. Warren did not do this. And the transcript of the hearing in which this rumor was first discussed was destroyed, undoubtedly at Warren's direction.

4. The commission's staff had questions about the medical evidence. They were particularly concerned about the location of Kennedy's back wound, which may have been too low to support the single-bullet theory deemed necessary to the commission's conclusion Oswald acted alone. Even so, Warren personally prevented Dr. James J. Humes from reviewing the autopsy photos he'd had taken, and wished to review.

5. The commission's staff had questions about Oswald's trip to Mexico. What did he say to those he spoke to? What did he do at night? Did he actually go to the Cuban consulate and Russian embassy on the days the CIA said he'd visited the consulate and embassy? And yet, despite the commission's staff's fervid desire they be allowed to interview Sylvia Duran, a Mexican woman employed by the Cuban consulate, who'd handled Oswald's request he be allowed to visit Cuba, (and who, it turns out, was rumored to have entertained Oswald at night), Chief Justice Warren personally prevented them from doing so, telling commission counsel David Slawson that "You just can't believe a Communist...We don't talk to Communists. You cannot trust a dedicated Communist to tell us the truth, so what's the point?"

6. The commission's staff had questions about Russia's involvement in the assassination. Oswald, of course, had lived in Russia. His wife was Russian. While in Mexico, he'd met with a KGB agent named Kostikov, who was believed to have been the KGB's point man on assassinations for the western hemisphere. Shortly after the assassination, a KGB officer named Yuri Nosenko defected to the west. Nosenko told his handlers he'd reviewed Oswald's file, and that Oswald was not a Russian agent. The timing of Nosenko's defection, however, convinced some within the CIA that Nosenko's defection was a set-up. The commission's staff hoped to talk to Nosenko, and judge for themselves if his word meant anything. The CIA (er, rather, The CIA's Assistant Director of Plans--its master of dirty tricks, Richard Helms), on the other hand, asked the commission to not only not talk to Nosenko, but to avoid any mention of him within their report. Chief Justice Earl Warren, acting alone, agreed to this request. He later admitted "I was adamant that we should not in any way base our findings on the testimony of a Russian defector."

7. The commission's staff had questions about Jack Ruby's motive in killing Oswald. Strangely, however, the commission's staff charged with investigating Ruby and his background were not allowed to interview him. Instead, the interview of Ruby was performed by, you guessed it, Chief Justice Earl Warren. Despite Ruby's telling Warren such things as "unless you get me to Washington, you can’t get a fair shake out of me...I want to tell the truth, and I can’t tell it here. I can’t tell it here…this isn’t the place for me to tell what I want to tell…” Warren refused to bring Ruby to Washington so he could provide the details he so clearly wanted to provide.

8. The commission's staff had even more questions about how Ruby came to kill Oswald. It was hard to believe he'd just walked down a ramp and shot Oswald, as claimed. As Ruby had many buddies within the Dallas Police, for that matter, it was reasonable to investigate the possibility one or more of the officers responsible for Oswald's protection had provided Ruby access to the basement. Commission counsel Burt Griffin even found a suspect: Sgt Patrick Dean. In the middle of Dean's testimony in Dallas, in which Dean said Ruby had told him he'd gained access to the garage by walking down the ramp, Griffin let Dean know he didn't believe him, and gave him a chance to change his testimony. Dean was outraged and called Dallas DA Henry Wade, who in turn called Warren Commission General Counsel J. Lee Rankin. Dean then asked that he be allowed to testify against Griffin in Washington. Not only was he allowed to do so, he received what amounted to an apology from, you guessed it, Chief Justice Earl Warren. Warren told Dean "No member of our staff has a right to tell any witness that he is lying or that he is testifying falsely. That is not his business. It is the business of this Commission to appraise the testimony of all the witnesses, and, at the time you are talking about, and up to the present time, this Commission has never appraised your testimony or fully appraised the testimony of any other witness, and furthermore, I want to say to you that no member of our staff has any power to help or injure any witness." It was later revealed that Dean had failed a lie detector test designed to test his truthfulness regarding Ruby, and that the Dallas Police had kept the results of this test from the Warren Commission. If Griffin had been allowed to pursue Dean, this could have all come out in 1964. But no, Warren made Griffin back down, and the probability Dean lied was swept under the rug. (None of this is mentioned in Willens' book, of course.)

9. Although Warren was purportedly all-concerned about transparency, and wanted all the evidence viewed by the commission to be made available to the public, he (along with commissioners McCloy and Dulles) came to a decision on April 30, 1964, that the testimony before the commission would not be published along with the commission's report. (This decision was over-turned after the other commissioners--the four elected officials on the commission, and thereby the only ones accountable to the public--objected.)

10. Although Warren was purportedly all-concerned about transparency, and wanted the public to trust the commission's decisions, he wanted to shred or incinerate all the commission's internal files, so no one would know how the commission came to its decisions. (This decision was over-turned after commission historian Alfred Goldberg sent word of Warren's intentions to Senator Richard Russell, and Russell intervened.)

11. Although Warren was purported to have worked himself day and night in order to give the President the most thorough report possible, he actually flew off on a fishing trip that lasted from July 6 to August 1, 1964, while testimony was still being taken, and the commission's report still being polished.

12. Although Warren was purportedly all-concerned about transparency, and felt the commission's work should speak for itself, he (according to Howard Willens' diary) asked the National Archives to hold up the release of assassination-related documents that were not used in the commission's hearings, so that said documents could not be used by critics to undermine the commission's findings.

So let's review. The Chief Justice, who was, by his own admission, roped into serving as chairman of the commission by President Johnson through the prospect of nuclear war, refused to allow important evidence to be viewed, refused to allow important witnesses to be called, cut off investigations into controversial areas, demanded that testimony before the commission be done in secret, agreed to keep the testimony before the commission from the public, tried to keep the commission's internal files from the public, and ultimately asked the national archives to help hide some of the evidence available to the commission from the public until a decent interval had passed in which the commission and its friends in the media could sell the commission's conclusions.

Now if that ain't a whitewash, then what the heck is?

Pat,

This is an astute, excellent synopsis !

[Roger Odisio]

The idea that RFK asked for or, approved of, Dulles being appointed to the WC was floated by Johnson near the end of his life.  It was a lie, part of his attempt to discredit Kennedy at every opportunity.  RFK's first response the afternoon of the murder was to contact someone at the CIA (there have been different stories as to whom) and ask whether their people killed his brother.  Thereafter he kept his mouth shut publicly and was determined to reopen the case if he become president, recognizing the enormity of the task and the power he would need to pursue it.  He was anything but friendly with Dulles, other than perhaps the usual Washington-fake stuff.  When he asked his contact at the CIA about their involvement, Dulles had to have been in the forefront of is thoughts.  He knew everything his brother knew about Dulles.

The key point here is there was no investigation of what happened and none was intended.  The WC hired a bunch of lawyers to build the case against Oswald by ignoring some facts and witnesses, distorting or outright lying about what others said, and making up "facts" like the magic bullet and its trajectory.  One of my favorites is when Gerald Ford changed the drawing of Kennedy's back wound by moving it higher so the trajectory of the magic bullet might actually work, when in fact Kennedy's shirt and coat had a bullet hole bout 5 1/2 inches below the neck.  When found out later, he said he did it to "clarify" things. 

I did know about the Ruby-Warren meeting and it told me most of what i need to know about Warren. I'm not conversant with every thing you say Warren did, but he certainly was in position to enforce the no investigation, just frame Oswald dictum.  And Dulles kept everyone away from any questions about the CIA, so that no one on the WC even knew about the multiple attempts to kill Castro.  They worked well together.

 

[Karl Hilliard]

On 9/13/2022 at 2:50 PM, Roger Odisio said:

 

Grab Frazier and accuse him of being an accomplice.  Either he cooperated in their story or he would fry with Oswald.....Then followed a set of fairy tales--the magic bullet, second floor lunch room encounter, etc.

 

 

The 'Curtain Rod' story.... the 'Paper Bag'---- total fabrication.

[Pat Speer]

57 minutes ago, Roger Odisio said:

The idea that RFK asked for or, approved of, Dulles being appointed to the WC was floated by Johnson near the end of his life.  It was a lie, part of his attempt to discredit Kennedy at every opportunity.  RFK's first response the afternoon of the murder was to contact someone at the CIA (there have been different stories as to whom) and ask whether their people killed his brother.  Thereafter he kept his mouth shut publicly and was determined to reopen the case if he become president, recognizing the enormity of the task and the power he would need to pursue it.  He was anything but friendly with Dulles, other than perhaps the usual Washington-fake stuff.  When he asked his contact at the CIA about their involvement, Dulles had to have been in the forefront of is thoughts.  He knew everything his brother knew about Dulles.

The key point here is there was no investigation of what happened and none was intended.  The WC hired a bunch of lawyers to build the case against Oswald by ignoring some facts and witnesses, distorting or outright lying about what others said, and making up "facts" like the magic bullet and its trajectory.  One of my favorites is when Gerald Ford changed the drawing of Kennedy's back wound by moving it higher so the trajectory of the magic bullet might actually work, when in fact Kennedy's shirt and coat had a bullet hole bout 5 1/2 inches below the neck.  When found out later, he said he did it to "clarify" things. 

I did know about the Ruby-Warren meeting and it told me most of what i need to know about Warren. I'm not conversant with every thing you say Warren did, but he certainly was in position to enforce the no investigation, just frame Oswald dictum.  And Dulles kept everyone away from any questions about the CIA, so that no one on the WC even knew about the multiple attempts to kill Castro.  They worked well together.

 

I don't remember everything that fed into my impression Dulles and RFK were friendly, but I do remember that during the WC investigation, Dulles was asked to take a break and report back on the conditions in the south, where some good ole boys with guns were trying to restart the "civil" war over civil rights. It is my recollection that Dulles, who was, like Warren, a pro-Civil rights Republican,  reported back to RFK. I believe I've also read that Dulles worked with RFK on a report about the Bay of Pigs, and that their relationship was amicable. 

That doesn't necessarily mean anything, of course. Iago was Othello's best friend.