The Killing Floor

[James DiEugenio]

The best one can say about Katzenbach is that he was one of these guys who thought  that expediency was more important than investigatory truth.

I just think that no one could possibly believe that one could solve a triple homicide, with the utterly bizarre circumstances of Oswald being killed live on TV in the arms of the DPD, in 72 hours.

I mean how could anyone not see the possibility of conspiracy after that?  Ruby's shooting of Oswald opened up a Pandora's Box.  Why would he do that on camera, in public?  Was he fearful Oswald would talk?  If so was he afraid he would be implicated in the assassination?

How could any criminal investigator not think that could be a possibility?

[Benjamin Cole]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Let's see if we can find some common ground. I suspect Katzenbach had no intention of covering up the truth, per se. He just thought time was of the essence and that the people should be told as soon as possible that it was Oswald acting alone. He'd looked at some of the facts, and had made up his mind. And he wanted the American public told those facts. 

So, no, he didn't want to lie. But he didn't want the public to be in the dark while awaiting the outcome of a thorough investigation, either. 

I think he thought it best to tell the public it was Oswald acting alone so everyone would calm down. I think he thought as well that if it turned out there was more to it that the American people would be told.

Boy, was he naive. 

PS-

Yes it is important to give people the benefit of the doubt, and not everyone is a scheming conspirator. 

OTOH, Katzenbach was a talented, experienced lawyer and wordsmith, a policy-maker. 

No experienced lawyer would believe "all the facts were out" just three days after the JFKA and after the assassin himself is gunned down by a mobbed-up nightclub operator. To assume then that LHO and Rudy were each lone-wolf assassins...

Perhaps Katzenbach was in an emotional state. The wording of his memo, he should have understood, is open to multiple interpretations.

The Katzenbach memo badly needed clarifying sentences, to the effect, "if an intensive, objective investigation determines LHO acted alone, then the public should be so informed. Every stone should be overturned." 

As it was, the WC became a prosecutorial body (with no defense counsel anywhere), with the mission to find LHO the lone assassin.

Red-flag leads were treated with oceanic apathy and incuriousness.

It is hard to let Katzenbach off the hook. 

[John Cotter]

11 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

There are numerous flaws, which have been explained to you, and which you ignore. Why should Kirk play that game?

Matt,

The "game" is logic. So far Kirk’s contributions, including his latest post, have consisted mostly of logical fallacies, baseless accusations and flimsy speculation.

You demolished your own argument and corroborated mine when you said on this thread (p 27) last Wednesday:

“The Trade Mart was an absolute security nightmare; a disaster waiting to happen. The WH refused to use it, and held their ground until the middle of November.

“The TSBD was not part of any plan until the Trade Mart was considered, at minimum, a likely locale for the luncheon.”

Thus, the White House was prevailed upon against its better judgment to have the motorcade go through Dealey Plaza and so facilitate the plot. In other words, an entity or entities more powerful than the White House ultimately called the shots.

Edited November 6, 2022 by John Cotter

[Pat Speer]

5 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

PS-

Yes it is important to give people the benefit of the doubt, and not everyone is a scheming conspirator. 

OTOH, Katzenbach was a talented, experienced lawyer and wordsmith, a policy-maker. 

No experienced lawyer would believe "all the facts were out" just three days after the JFKA and after the assassin himself is gunned down by a mobbed-up nightclub operator. To assume then that LHO and Rudy were each lone-wolf assassins...

Perhaps Katzenbach was in an emotional state. The wording of his memo, he should have understood, is open to multiple interpretations.

The Katzenbach memo badly needed clarifying sentences, to the effect, "if an intensive, objective investigation determines LHO acted alone, then the public should be so informed. Every stone should be overturned." 

As it was, the WC became a prosecutorial body (with no defense counsel anywhere), with the mission to find LHO the lone assassin.

Red-flag leads were treated with oceanic apathy and incuriousness.

It is hard to let Katzenbach off the hook. 

I agree and don't. Katzenbach was eager to impress his new boss, IMO. And failed to process what would happen if in their zeal to calm the public, the truth got swept under the rug. 

From patspeer.com Chapter 1b:

 

Katzenbach Recap:

On November 22, shortly after the assassination, Katzenbach took over as Acting Attorney General, so that Attorney General Kennedy could both grieve for his murdered brother and devote himself to his family.

On November 24, after Oswald was assassinated, he met with FBI Director Hoover. The next day, he issued a memorandum to Bill Moyers, then working as the Johnson Administration's Press Secretary, encouraging Moyers to use the press to convince the public Oswald had acted alone. He later defended this action by insisting he was under pressure from the State Department to silence talk of a vast conspiracy.

He then began to pressure the FBI to finish its investigation as fast as possible, and pressure President Johnson to create a Presidential Commission to confirm the FBI's findings.

By early December, he cooperated with Chief Justice Warren and began pressuring the Attorney General of Texas to forego its own investigation.

And then on December 9, he pressured the Warren Commission to simply sign-off on the FBI's findings!

It's amazing to reflect that, in the aftermath of the assassination, Katzenbach, acting as the nation's top cop, had tried to cut-off a thorough, and one might say REAL, investigation at every opportunity, and that, when questioned about this later, he refused to take responsibility, blaming his actions on the FBI and the State Department. It was not HIS job to cater to the insecurities of FBI Director Hoover. It was Hoover's job to answer to him. It was not HIS job to assuage the concerns of the international community. It was HIS job, however, to make sure the assassination was properly and thoroughly investigated, and that those responsible were exposed and brought to justice. Even if one were to acknowledge the likelihood Oswald acted alone, one can not possibly believe that Katzenbach's actions were appropriate and reflective of a high regard for his responsibilities. Robert Kennedy may not have been a giant, but his shoes were clearly too large to be filled by Katzenbach.

Robert Kennedy's approach would almost certainly have been different. On December 9, the same day that Katzenbach urged the Warren Commission to confirm the FBI's findings that Oswald had acted alone, Robert Kennedy had a private conversation with historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and made it clear that he could not agree with so simple a solution. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning epic, Robert F. Kennedy and His Times, Schlesinger wrote that Kennedy, who had deliberately removed himself from the investigation, was nevertheless keeping tabs on the developments, and was suspicious that Oswald, whose guilt he had accepted, may have been part of a larger plot, "organized by Castro or gangsters." Kennedy also told Schlesinger that CIA Director John McCone believed there was a second assassin.

[Pat Speer]

32 minutes ago, Miles Massicotte said:

The DPD of course had it figured out in less than 24. What a great investigative body they were! Must have really been something, and I'm sure never wrongly convicted or imprisoned anybody. Somebody call the Law and Order people and ask the DPD for advice, they solved the biggest political assassination in history in under a day.............

Completely agree with all of that. But don't you think that makes him a little bit more morally culpable that simply trying to impress his boss?

 

Yes, he is morally culpable. I just think we need to separate those we think "went along" with the cover-up thinking it was just Oswald, and those orchestrating a cover-up of something they thought might lead back to themselves, or the U.S. government. 

When I look at Johnson's actions, I see someone who didn't want the truth to come out. But when I look at Katzenbach's actions, I see someone who was anxious to calm the public. It goes back to intent. 

I suppose I am a bit biased by their subsequent statements. Johnson told lie after lie about what happened on the day of the shooting, while Katzenbach was frequently forthcoming. As I recall, he later expressed outrage over the CIA's failure to notify the Warren Commission about the attempted hits on Castro. He also acknowledged and discussed LBJ's obsession/phobia regarding RFK. He also went against the grain by claiming RFK had given his approval for a WC review of the autopsy evidence--something Specter had frequently cited as the reason no such review had been conducted. 

So I'm somewhat sympathetic to Katzenbach. 

[Matt Allison]

7 hours ago, John Cotter said:

the White House was prevailed upon against its better judgment to have the motorcade go through Dealey Plaza and so facilitate the plot. I

After Oswald had already been working there a full month. Thus, your below claim is nonsense.

18 hours ago, John Cotter said:

his getting the job in the TSBD must have been similarly controlled.

[John Cotter]

2 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

After Oswald had already been working there a full month. Thus, your below claim is nonsense.

Not so, Matt. Your argument was that getting Oswald a job in the TSBD was not part of the plot because the motorcade route wasn’t decided until later.

However, your effective acknowledgment that it was the conspirators who subsequently chose the Dealey Plaza route blows your argument out of the water.

Edited November 6, 2022 by John Cotter

[Benjamin Cole]

7 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I agree and don't. Katzenbach was eager to impress his new boss, IMO. And failed to process what would happen if in their zeal to calm the public, the truth got swept under the rug. 

From patspeer.com Chapter 1b:

 

Katzenbach Recap:

On November 22, shortly after the assassination, Katzenbach took over as Acting Attorney General, so that Attorney General Kennedy could both grieve for his murdered brother and devote himself to his family.

On November 24, after Oswald was assassinated, he met with FBI Director Hoover. The next day, he issued a memorandum to Bill Moyers, then working as the Johnson Administration's Press Secretary, encouraging Moyers to use the press to convince the public Oswald had acted alone. He later defended this action by insisting he was under pressure from the State Department to silence talk of a vast conspiracy.

He then began to pressure the FBI to finish its investigation as fast as possible, and pressure President Johnson to create a Presidential Commission to confirm the FBI's findings.

By early December, he cooperated with Chief Justice Warren and began pressuring the Attorney General of Texas to forego its own investigation.

And then on December 9, he pressured the Warren Commission to simply sign-off on the FBI's findings!

It's amazing to reflect that, in the aftermath of the assassination, Katzenbach, acting as the nation's top cop, had tried to cut-off a thorough, and one might say REAL, investigation at every opportunity, and that, when questioned about this later, he refused to take responsibility, blaming his actions on the FBI and the State Department. It was not HIS job to cater to the insecurities of FBI Director Hoover. It was Hoover's job to answer to him. It was not HIS job to assuage the concerns of the international community. It was HIS job, however, to make sure the assassination was properly and thoroughly investigated, and that those responsible were exposed and brought to justice. Even if one were to acknowledge the likelihood Oswald acted alone, one can not possibly believe that Katzenbach's actions were appropriate and reflective of a high regard for his responsibilities. Robert Kennedy may not have been a giant, but his shoes were clearly too large to be filled by Katzenbach.

Robert Kennedy's approach would almost certainly have been different. On December 9, the same day that Katzenbach urged the Warren Commission to confirm the FBI's findings that Oswald had acted alone, Robert Kennedy had a private conversation with historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and made it clear that he could not agree with so simple a solution. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning epic, Robert F. Kennedy and His Times, Schlesinger wrote that Kennedy, who had deliberately removed himself from the investigation, was nevertheless keeping tabs on the developments, and was suspicious that Oswald, whose guilt he had accepted, may have been part of a larger plot, "organized by Castro or gangsters." Kennedy also told Schlesinger that CIA Director John McCone believed there was a second assassin.

Well, fair enough. Monday morning quarterbacking is easier than making the plays on the field. 

[Ron Bulman]

On 11/2/2022 at 9:07 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Here is an interesting aside on Linnie Mae's daughter Dianna.

My friend Mike who I worked with a dozen years met his wife Susan in college.  They bought a house in the early 70's close to where Susan grew up and her parents still lived.  A couple of blocks from where the Randle's and Paine's lived.

Susan and Dianna were in the fourth grade together at Otis Brown elementary on November 22, 1963.  They walked to and from school together.  Susan says when they left school that day there was a man by a car by the sidewalk who spoke to Dianna telling her he was with the FBI, that he'd like to give her a ride home.  Dianna was scared and told him no, her mother had told her not to talk to or take a ride from strangers.  Susan says he followed them in the car. I never thought to ask if he followed Dianna all the way home.  I'll give them a call and get back on that.

I know this may sound incredible to some.  Why would the FBI be interested in a fourth grader?  

Mike's question has always been how did they know who Dianna was, the school she was at, the time she got out.  All within an hour or two of when Lee was supposedly known as a suspect to them?

We, my wife and I, have known Mike and Susan 35 years.  We still go out to eat every month or two, I talk to Mike every week or two.  Susan wouldn't make something like this, or anything else up.  She worked with Dianna forty years at Mary Kay.

We know Ruth had a cordial relationship with the FBI prior to the assassination regarding their questions about Lee and attempt to question Marina.  Why would they be interested in Wesley or Linnie Mae so quickly?

  

While it's fresh in my mind, I spoke to Mike about this today.  I read him what I posted from memory.  He corrected me and elaborated.

Susan and Diana did not walk to school together.  While they both lived only a couple of blocks away it was in opposite directions.  Most of this came from Diana while socializing with Susan and Mike in the 1980's when she and Susan worked together.  Mike said she didn't talk about it in prior years.

I asked if Diana said the FBI did follow her all the way home.  He's not positive but that's what she implied.  Something about she was scared, crying, didn't know what was going on.  Did they go to the door or inside, talk to Linne?  Well, I guess so if they followed Diana home.

He then told me about Linnie's father-in-law having a heart attack.  Which is where Wesley Buell Fraizer, Linnie's brother went when he left the TSBD around 2:00 -2:30.  Also, where the DPD found him at 4:00.  Mike says he asked Wes when he spoke at the Irving library in 2013 (with Hugh Aynesworth!), It was the DPD that found you at the hospital, not the FBI?  Wes said yes, the DPD.

Then I read him Tom Gram's post about Bill Randle.  Which I'll post about in a quote of Tom's post for reference.

[Ron Bulman]

On 11/2/2022 at 10:18 PM, Tom Gram said:

On the topic of the Randles, one person I don't see mentioned very often is Linnie Mae's husband Bill.  Bill Randle's whereabouts on the day of the assassination are a complete mystery until around 7:00 p.m. when he shows up at a motel in Austin, roughly a three hour drive from Dallas. The only reason we know that is because the motel manager called the FBI on Bill after overhearing him say he was "personally acquainted" with Oswald and that he had heard rumors JFK would be assassinated if he came to Dallas. Bill later denied making these statements and denied ever meeting Oswald. 

About 3-4 hours earlier, one of Randle's neighbors told Postal Inspectors that Oswald was seen with a large package that morning and that "Wille Randle" (Bill) had given Oswald a ride to work. The neighbor, C.P. Schneider, said he had heard the information from Dorothy Roberts who heard it from Bill himself. Now, this apparently simple mixup is not surprising considering the double hearsay, but the way this information was handled gets a little weird. The Postal Inspectors passed the information on to the Secret Service, then proceeded to write up their report on December 4th, long after any confusion should have been cleared up. The Postal Inspection Service later passed the same info to the WC in a compilation report where other aspects were heavily edited and corrected from the original agent reports. 

At about the exact same time Schneider is talking to Postal Inspectors, Linnie Mae gets the urge to head over to the Paine home and tell the DPD that Buell was Oswald's driver. 

The next day - after Buell had been cleared - the Secret Service was investigating Bill Randle as an associate of Oswald and even checked if he might have purchased the scope found on the rifle with Ordnance Optics in California. 

On November 26th, the Secret Service wrote up their official "personal history of prisoner" report on Oswald, with most of the information appearing to have come from Oswald's interrogations (e.g. the Neely St. address is not listed). Only one person was listed in the section for "known associates", Bill Randle, with a note saying that he drove Oswald to and from Irving to work. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10490#relPageId=243

I can give the Postal Inspection Service a pass on this one, but was the Secret Service really that incompetent to mix up Linnie's brother with her husband for four days after the assassination? Where was Bill Randle that day prior to 7:00 p.m.? I think these are valid questions. 

When I read this to Mike today his initial reaction to Bill taking Oswald to work was no, Buell.  Maybe they confused the names.  He thought maybe Bill was working/estimating a job down towards Austin, because . . . 

The Randle's, several of them, worked at Irving Counter Tops, owned or run by Ernie Randle.  Mike's first job after he and Susan settled in Irving in 1974 - 75 was at Irving Counter Tops.

He then said I remember a Bill Randle, several years older than him, worked in another department, kept to himself, quiet, never said anything.  Bill had a falling out with the others and moved to Sulpher Springs Texas.  Where Linnie Mae moved to when she retired from Mary Kay years later.  

Mike also remembered a Martin Randle he worked for who he had a personality conflict with causing his termination.  And a delay in the payment of unemployment benefits because of his l-i-e-s.  Martin became Mayor of Irving, "I hated that right wing SOB".  Mike later taunted him at softball games.

While he did wonder about Bill vs Buell, he agreed these are valid questions.  

I wonder about Bill working/estimating a job that far away from a small town D/FW Irving Counter Tops in 1963.  Where was Bill that morning or afternoon, did anyone ever ask?