The exoneration of Lyndon Johnson?

[Cliff Varnell]

Joseph Trento, The Secret History of the CIA, pgs 334-5

<quote on emphasis added>

Who changed the coup [overthrow of Ngo Brothers in South Vietnam 11/01/63] into the murder of Diem, Nhu and a Catholic priest accompanying them? To this day, nothing has been found in government archives tying the killings to either John or Robert Kennedy. So how did the tools and talents developed by Bill Harvey for ZR/RIFLE and Operation MONGOOSE get exported to Vietnam? Kennedy immediately ordered (William R.) Corson to find out what had happened and who was responsible. The answer he came up with: “On instructions from Averell Harriman…. The orders that ended in the deaths of Diem and his brother originated with Harriman and were carried out by Henry Cabot Lodge’s own military assistant.”

Having served as ambassador to Moscow and governor of New York, W. Averell Harriman was in the middle of a long public career. In 1960, President-elect Kennedy appointed him ambassador-at-large, to operate “with the full confidence of the president and an intimate knowledge of all aspects of United States policy.” By 1963, according to Corson, Harriman was running “Vietnam without consulting the president or the attorney general.”

The president had begun to suspect that not everyone on his national security team was loyal. As Corson put it, “Kenny O’Donnell (JFK’s appointments secretary) was convinced that McGeorge Bundy, the national security advisor, was taking orders from Ambassador Averell Harriman and not the president. He was especially worried about Michael Forrestal, a young man on the White House staff who handled liaison on Vietnam with Harriman.”

At the heart of the murders was the sudden and strange recall of Sagon Station Chief Jocko Richardson and his replacement by a no-name team barely known to history. The key member was a Special Operations Army officer, John Michael Dunn, who took his orders, not from the normal CIA hierarchy but from Harriman and Forrestal.

According to Corson, “John Michael Dunn was known to be in touch with the coup plotters,” although Dunn’s role has never been made public. Corson believes that Richardson was removed so that Dunn, assigned to Ambassador Lodge for “special operations,” could act without hindrance.

<quote off>

[Roger Odisio]

39 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Not from Bundy?  Where do you get that idea?

The President Has Been Shot, Charles Roberts (p. 141) A reporter for Newsweek, Roberts was on AFI and saw McGeorge Bundy at Andrews Air Force Base, where Air Force One landed. 

<quote on> 

I remember looking at (McGeorge) Bundy because I was wondering if he had any word of what had happened in the world while we were in transit, whether this assassination was part of a plot. And he told me later that what he reported to the president during that flight back was that the whole world was stunned, but there was no evidence of a conspiracy at all.

<quote off>

The last thing we want to do is follow a lead...

He also cited Jim Bishop as the basis for his assertion McGeorge Bundy made the call.

The Tale Told by Two Tapes by Vincent Salandria  

<quote on>

[National Security Adviser] McGeorge Bundy was in charge of the [White House] Situation Room and was spending that fateful afternoon receiving phone calls from President Johnson, who was calling from Air Force One when the lone-assassin myth was prematurely given birth. (Bishop, Jim, The Day Kennedy Was Shot, New York & Funk Wagnalls, 1968, p. 154) McGeorge Bundy as the quintessential WASP establishmentarian did not take his orders from the Mafia and/or renegade elements. 

<quote off> 

Bundy was in charge of the WH situation room. I have read that another person there actually made the call. That is what I meant. It's a minor detail.  Whoever made the  call it was at the direction of Bundy.

The call was a main reason Salandria always said Bundy was involved in the murder.  He was Kennedy's national security adviser.  One of the guys in the "top echelon" of JFK's own government to which he referred .

To be clear, I am *not* saying guys like Harriman and Bundy weren't involved in some aspects of the murder and coverup. I am saying they were not voices independent of Johnson, directing things instead of Johnson.  I am saying the obvious--that these guys had no ability to deliver the policy changes the killers wanted that were the reasons for the murder in the first place. Only Johnson did.

 

[Roger Odisio]

46 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

The actions of Harriman and Bundy tie together as significant factors in the murder.  I’m just demonstrating Salandria’s prescience.

Are you familiar with the career of Averell Harriman, or the sway he wielded over SE Asia policy?

Earlier in their careers the Dulles brothers were Harriman employees.  I doubt that ever changed.

My earliest memory of Harriman was when, as a patrician posing as a regular guy, he ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1952.  And lost out to Stevenson.  I'm familiar with some his behind the scenes activities after that.  He was already 72 when Kennedy was murdered by the way.   I think Kennedy regretted letting him anywhere near SE Asia policy, particularly after the Diem murder. 

One thing you said, Cliff, about Harriman's importance, among all the back and forth flying around, seems to me particularly misplaced:  

"RO:  There was a faction that wanted Oswald linked to the Cubans and Soviets. But Johnson said no. 

</q>

 

Johnson said no after he was informed by Harriman that Foggy Bottom opposed such a claim."

 

As if Johnson needed to be told by Harriman that the State Dept opposed linking Oswald to the Soviets before he would reject the idea.  It's clear Johnson himself wanted no part of a confrontation with the Soviets that would blow up the presidency he had long sought.

 

[Pat Speer]

FWIW, the Nixon tapes reveal that Nixon wanted Colson/Hunt to improve the records in the archives so they would reflect JFK's complicity in the Diem murder. On one of the tapes, moreover, he admits that Henry Cabot Lodge was really responsible...Lodge, Nixon's VP candidate in 1960. Lodge...from the Cabot family of...United Fruit fame...and Guatemala coup fame... 

The Lodge family business was coups d'etats, and Nixon picked him as his VP, and JFK and RFK's murders cleared the way for Nixon to sit on the Iron Throne. Coincidence? 

LBJ and Harriman were not the only snakes in the basket. 

[Benjamin Cole]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

FWIW, the Nixon tapes reveal that Nixon wanted Colson/Hunt to improve the records in the archives so they would reflect JFK's complicity in the Diem murder. On one of the tapes, moreover, he admits that Henry Cabot Lodge was really responsible...Lodge, Nixon's VP candidate in 1960. Lodge...from the Cabot family of...United Fruit fame...and Guatemala coup fame... 

The Lodge family business was coups d'etats, and Nixon picked him as his VP, and JFK and RFK's murders cleared the way for Nixon to sit on the Iron Throne. Coincidence? 

LBJ and Harriman were not the only snakes in the basket. 

Nixon wanted Hunt to manipulate or gin up some fake cable-traffic indicating JFK complicity in the Diem murder, as I recall. Hunt was eager to the task, and working on it. 

Yet another reason to take documents with a pinch of salt. 

[Cliff Varnell]

5 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

My earliest memory of Harriman was when, as a patrician posing as a regular guy, he ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1952.  And lost out to Stevenson.

A patrician trying to be a regular guy.  A little light in the loafers, right?

Let’s go back 25 years, to the late ‘20s.  Banker Harriman helped the Soviet Union resuscitate it’s oil and manganese industries.  

In the 30’s the Union Banking Corporation — a subsidiary of Brown Brothers Harriman — financed 45% of all raw material purchases by the 3rd Reich.  Soviet manganese went to Germany to make the steel Hitler used to build a war machine he hoped would seize Soviet oil fields.

In the lead up to WW2 Harriman was the #1 war hawk in the Roosevelt administration.  He was put in charge of the Lend-Lease program providing aid to Britain and the Soviet Union.  He was Churchill’s favorite Yank.

Averell Harriman was arguably the one individual most responsible for WW2.

After the war Truman instituted the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe.

Who was tapped to administer the Marshall Plan?

That lightweight, Averell Harriman.

5 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

I'm familiar with some his behind the scenes activities after that.

On September 15, 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev landed in Washington DC on the first stop of a two week tour
of the States.

The next day he showed up at W. Averell Harriman's pad in Manhattan.

From Spanning the Century The Life of W. Averell Harriman, by Rudy Abramson, pg. 575

<quote on>

In his second-floor drawing room, Harriman gathered leaders from mining, manufacturing, oil, chemicals, banking,
and insurance industries, including John D. Rockefeller III; General David Sarnoff, chairman of RCA; Frank Pace,
chairman of General Dynamics Corporation; W. Alton Jones, chairman of Cities Service Corporation; and John J. McCloy,
chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank. By his estimate, scribbled on a yellow legal pad before Khrushchev arrived, they
represented assets of some $38 billion. Among them, as witnesses to history, were a few men of ordinary means,
former ambassadors, educators, and, notably, Rockefeller Foundation president Dean Rusk, and Harvard economist
John Kenneth Galbraith, the latter having invited himself as a "representative of the proletariat."

Surround by Picassos and Derains, their voices muffled by Persian carpets, the capitalist Titans greeted the Communist
chieftain one by one, then sat in a semi-circle savoring caviar and sipping champagne and New York wine as Averell
conducted his exposition of capitalism, war profits, and American politics. No one present, nor any of their friends,
he and the others assured the guest of honor, favored world tensions. The assembled war profiteers, said the host, were men who'd champion disarmament the moment it became safe for the United States. There was not a hint, however, that
mingling with the millionaires did anything except reinforce Khrushchev's belief that he was then in the presence of the
men who controlled America far more than Eisenhower and the members of Congress he had met in Washington.

One testimonial to free enterprise followed another. And when the Soviet leader reasserted his stubborn belief that the
men present composed the country's ruling circle, Galbraith later tattled, "Somebody demurred, but in perfunctory fashion."
After it was over, Harriman insisted that the Soviet leader had gained insights of "real importance."  <quote off>

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

R.O.:  As if Johnson needed to be told by Harriman that the State Dept opposed linking Oswald to the Soviets before he would reject the idea.  It's clear Johnson himself wanted no part of a confrontation with the Soviets that would blow up the presidency he had long sought. </q>

Whether Johnson needed to be told or not, he was told.

Max Holland's The Assassination Tapes, pg 57: 

<quote on>

At 6:55 p.m. Johnson has a ten minute meeting with Senator J. William Fulbright and diplomat W. Averell Harriman to discuss possible foreign involvement in the assassination, especially in light of the two-and-a-half-year sojourn of Lee Harvey Oswald [in Russia]...Harriman, a U.S. ambassador to Moscow during WWII, is an experienced interpreter of Soviet machinations and offers the president the unanimous view of the U.S. government's top Kremlinologists. None of them believe the Soviets have a hand in the assassination, despite the Oswald association. </q>

The plot I’m looking at was designed to put the Soviets on the defensive while the USA, in the words of Richard Helms, “bombed Cuba back to the Stone Age.”

[Cliff Varnell]

6 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

To be clear, I am *not* saying guys like Harriman and Bundy weren't involved in some aspects of the murder and coverup. I am saying they were not voices independent of Johnson, directing things instead of Johnson.  I am saying the obvious--that these guys had no ability to deliver the policy changes the killers wanted that were the reasons for the murder in the first place. Only Johnson did.

Johnson meets with ‘The Wise Men,’ March 25, 1968

https://www.politico.com/story/2010/03/johnson-meets-with-the-wise-men-march-25-1968-034945

<quote on>

On this day in 1968, as pessimism over U.S. prospects in Vietnam deepened, President Lyndon B. Johnson met with 14 informal advisers. In 1945, some of them had forged a bipartisan foreign policy based on containing the Soviet Union. They went on to craft key institutions like NATO, the World Bank and the Marshall Plan. They were known, collectively, as “The Wise Men.”

They met with LBJ after being briefed by officials at the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA. They had been informed of a request from Gen. William Westmoreland, the top U.S. commander in Vietnam, for additional troops in the wake of perceived U.S. setbacks in the Tet Offensive. 

Present at the White House meeting were Dean Acheson, George Ball, McGeorge Bundy, Clark Clifford, Arthur Dean, Douglas Dillon, Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, Averell Harriman, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Robert Murphy, Cyrus Vance and Gens. Omar Bradley, Matthew Ridgway and Maxwell Taylor. 

In the words of Acheson, who summed up the recommendations from 11 of the men, “we can no longer do the job we set out to do in the time we have left, and we must begin to take steps to disengage.” Murphy, Taylor and Fortas dissented. 

That was a change from Johnson’s first series of such meetings, on Nov. 1-2, 1967. Then, the Wise Men had unanimously opposed leaving Vietnam. “Public discontent with the war is now wide and deep,” Bundy had said, but he told Johnson to “stay the course.”  </q>

In early November, 1967 the Wise Men told LBJ to “stay the course.”  He followed their orders.  On March 25, ‘68 they told him he needed to find a way out of Vietnam.  6 days later he announced he wasn’t running for re-election.  On May 10 the US began negotiations with No. Vietnam.

Who led these talks?  Averell Harriman.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Cliff Varnell

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Nixon wanted Hunt to manipulate or gin up some fake cable-traffic indicating JFK complicity in the Diem murder, as I recall. Hunt was eager to the task, and working on it. 

Yet another reason to take documents with a pinch of salt. 

As I recall, they showed the phony documents to Lucien Conein, who discussed them on a news program, but backed down when Life Magazine told them they would need to have an expert study them before they would publish them or do an article on them. So there's that.

Today, of course, a number of networks would feast on them. 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Pat Speer

[Benjamin Cole]

3 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

As I recall, they showed the phony documents to Lucien Conein, who discussed them on a news program, but backed down when Life Magazine told them they would need to have an expert study them before they would publish them or do an article on them. So there's that.

Today, of course, a number of networks would feast on them. 

Lucien Conein? I had forgotten about that. Great story. 

[Joe Bauer]

41 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Lucien Conein? I had forgotten about that. Great story. 

Was watching an interview on the new Book channel just a week or so ago.

The book was about JFK's Viet Nam policy and the history of exactly what went down there right up until JFK's murder.

When the interview discussion reached the timeline of the Diem murder, the writer mentioned that Lucien Conein was the liaison in direct contact with the Generals who would take control once Diem was removed.

That mention of Conein and in that context stopped me.

I am not a student of Conein but have seen his name pop up often in the dens of debate and discussion here on the forum.

He sounds like he is in the same shady stuff milieu as people like Wild Bill Harvey.

 

[Benjamin Cole]

2 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Was watching an interview on the new Book channel just a week or so ago.

The book was about JFK's Viet Nam policy and the history of exactly what went down there right up until JFK's murder.

When the interview discussion reached the timeline of the Diem murder, the writer mentioned that Lucien Conein was the liaison in direct contact with the Generals who would take control once Diem was removed.

That mention of Conein and in that context stopped me.

I am not a student of Conein but have seen his name pop up often in the dens of debate and discussion here on the forum.

He sounds like he is in the same shady stuff milieu as people like Wild Bill Harvey.

 

He sure does. I guess the Nixon people used him to try to plant the fake cables story. 

You wonder what to believe at any point in time. 

[Joe Bauer]

2 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

A patrician trying to be a regular guy.  A little light in the loafers, right?

Let’s go back 25 years, to the late ‘20s.  Banker Harriman helped the Soviet Union resuscitate it’s oil and manganese industries.  

In the 30’s the Union Banking Corporation — a subsidiary of Brown Brothers Harriman — financed 45% of all raw material purchases by the 3rd Reich.  Soviet manganese went to Germany to make the steel Hitler used to build a war machine he hoped would seize Soviet oil fields.

In the lead up to WW2 Harriman was the #1 war hawk in the Roosevelt administration.  He was put in charge of the Lend-Lease program providing aid to Britain and the Soviet Union.  He was Churchill’s favorite Yank.

Averell Harriman was arguably the one individual most responsible for WW2.

After the war Truman instituted the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe.

Who was tapped to administer the Marshall Plan?

That lightweight, Averell Harriman.

On September 15, 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev landed in Washington DC on the first stop of a two week tour
of the States.

The next day he showed up at W. Averell Harriman's pad in Manhattan.

From Spanning the Century The Life of W. Averell Harriman, by Rudy Abramson, pg. 575

<quote on>

In his second-floor drawing room, Harriman gathered leaders from mining, manufacturing, oil, chemicals, banking,
and insurance industries, including John D. Rockefeller III; General David Sarnoff, chairman of RCA; Frank Pace,
chairman of General Dynamics Corporation; W. Alton Jones, chairman of Cities Service Corporation; and John J. McCloy,
chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank. By his estimate, scribbled on a yellow legal pad before Khrushchev arrived, they
represented assets of some $38 billion. Among them, as witnesses to history, were a few men of ordinary means,
former ambassadors, educators, and, notably, Rockefeller Foundation president Dean Rusk, and Harvard economist
John Kenneth Galbraith, the latter having invited himself as a "representative of the proletariat."

Surround by Picassos and Derains, their voices muffled by Persian carpets, the capitalist Titans greeted the Communist
chieftain one by one, then sat in a semi-circle savoring caviar and sipping champagne and New York wine as Averell
conducted his exposition of capitalism, war profits, and American politics. No one present, nor any of their friends,
he and the others assured the guest of honor, favored world tensions. The assembled war profiteers, said the host, were men who'd champion disarmament the moment it became safe for the United States. There was not a hint, however, that
mingling with the millionaires did anything except reinforce Khrushchev's belief that he was then in the presence of the
men who controlled America far more than Eisenhower and the members of Congress he had met in Washington.

One testimonial to free enterprise followed another. And when the Soviet leader reasserted his stubborn belief that the
men present composed the country's ruling circle, Galbraith later tattled, "Somebody demurred, but in perfunctory fashion."
After it was over, Harriman insisted that the Soviet leader had gained insights of "real importance."  <quote off>

 

Great stuff there CV.

Incredibly enlightening.

The "real" power and control people in America.

And based on Eisenhower's MIC warning speech...still in control in 1960.

[Roger Odisio]

15 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I don't believe I've ever said we know LBJ was complicit in JFK's murder. I agree that much of what's been written about LBJ is probably bs. But I find his own statements on the assassination and aftermath suspicious as heck. 

Anyhow, I think you'll find much to like in this section...

From chapter 21: 

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, William Manchester began work on his book The Death of a President. This was to be an authorized book, one for which Manchester was granted unparalleled access. On 4-10-64, Manchester interviewed CIA Director John McCone. (A transcript of this interview was placed in the CIA's files. It was declassified in October, 1998. It is 15 pages long. Manchester's notes on this interview were first made available in 2009, and are only 4 pages long. This suggests that McCone taped his conversation with Manchester, but that Manchester was not allowed to tape McCone. I guess this isn't much of a surprise.) In any event, McCone told Manchester that after hearing of the shooting, he called Robert Kennedy "through the White House. When I got him at his home he told me he was at home, and he asked if I would come right over." McCone then described Kennedy's mood and activities. He then claimed he'd overheard Robert Kennedy's conversations with Johnson on the day of the shooting, and that after being asked about the oath of office in a first call "He contacted his office--and I've forgotten just who in that office--to find out exactly just who could or should administer the oath. He found that any federal judge could do it, and he transmitted that information together with appropriate references so they could get the exact oath down to Dallas. He insisted that the swearing-in be done immediately. I think President Johnson felt the same way. He did not want the country to go the two hours and a half that President Johnson would be in the air without a President. And that was arranged. This involved several phone calls." McCone then described the arrival of a Catholic Priest. He said that this priest "sensed that the Attorney General was involved in the myriad of problems that arose almost at once, you know--his concern over Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy, his concern over the swearing-in of the President." He then continued: "There was a period of half an hour, I suppose, that he was debating whether to fly to Dallas himself to return with the body and with Mrs. Kennedy. I urged that he not do that, stating that there was an element of time--that the best thing to do would be to bring the president's body up as quickly as possible, as quickly as it could be released, and he couldn't possibly get down there for three or four hours, by the time he got aboard a plane and got down there, and he would be out of touch all the time that he was in the air. He agreed with this, and as a result either decided or agreed with the decision that the body should be brought up with President Johnson and Mrs. Kennedy just as quickly as possible."

Hmmm...so McCone told Manchester Robert Kennedy not only told Johnson he should be sworn-in in Dallas, but that he--Robert Kennedy--had "either decided or agreed that the body should be brought up with President Johnson and Mrs. Kennedy." Hmmm...is this credible? This not only exonerates Johnson for the swearing-in's taking place in Dallas, but Mrs. Kennedy's returning on his plane. This is mighty curious, and suspicious when one takes into account Robert Kennedy's statements on the matter. Perhaps, then, Johnson had gotten to McCone.

Or perhaps McCone was on board with Johnson from the beginning.

Yeah, yeah, I know this smells like dog dirt, but indulge my paranoia for a second... McCone told Manchester that upon hearing of the shooting, he called Robert Kennedy, and that Kennedy asked him to come right over to his house. He then claimed he'd spent the next hour or so walking around Kennedy's house and grounds, talking to him about the assassination in between the incoming calls.

Well, wait a second. McCone was the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, not some retired businessman or old friend. Didn't he have a job to do? Shouldn't he have been at CIA Headquarters, digging up everything he could regarding a possible conspiracy? Shouldn't he have been on the phone, calling up everyone he knew to find out everything he could? His holding Bobby's hand in a time of national crisis simply makes no sense--unless one is to assume this was something previously agreed upon by the person to whom McCone would now be reporting, Lyndon Johnson. Yes, shockingly, there is no record of McCone talking to Johnson--who purportedly suspected a Russian or Cuban attack from the outset--on the day of the shooting. Johnson received briefings from National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, but there is no record of him talking to CIA Director John McCone until the next morning.

Heck, the record of what was discussed the next morning is also kinda suspicious. On 11-25-63 McCone created a memo on this, his first meeting with his new boss after the killing of his old boss. This memo reveals that they met at 9:15 in the office of National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, and that the meeting lasted "approximately 15 minutes." The memo reveals as well that they discussed their own personal and professional relationship--that there were a number of issues that had arisen during the Kennedy Administration on which they'd "seen eye to eye." It then reveals that McCone had "confirmed" his confidence in Johnson, as well as his "desire to help and support him in every way..." McCone then describes their reviewing details of the "President's checklist" and their agreeing to meet every morning for the next few days. That's it. The meeting lasted but fifteen minutes. Apparently, there was no extended discussion of Oswald, or of Russian activity.

Now contrast McCone's 11-25-63 memo with the transcript of his 8-19-70 interview with the Johnson Library. When asked when he first saw Johnson after the shooting, McCone replied "I think I saw him at his home that night." (This was incorrect. Johnson's calendar of phone calls and visitors shows it was the next morning-- a fact confirmed by McCone's 1964 interview with Manchester, where he claimed "I did not see him that evening when he arrived--I saw him the next morning, and I saw him every day for a long time--sometimes several times a day.") In any event, when then asked Johnson's mood during this meeting, McCone replied: "Well, his mood was one of deep distress over the tragedy, and grave concern over how to get his arms around the problems that confronted him--some concern over how to properly handle the men in the organization whose competence he recognized, but also whose allegiance to President Kennedy-- And, of course, you know the background of issues that arose that dated 'way back to the convention here in Los Angeles and even before."

Well, wait a minute. The man whose competence Johnson recognized, with whom he'd had a problem dating back to the convention and even before, was Robert Kennedy. Did Johnson spend his first meeting with John McCone, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency--the agency tasked with determining the likelihood Russia, our number 1 enemy of the day, had backed the main suspect in the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald--talking about "Bobby"?

And, if so, is it all that far-fetched to assume McCone visited "Bobby" on the day of the shooting--at a time when he had serious business to attend to--at his new boss Johnson's direction?

On 5-16-64 Manchester interviewed Robert Kennedy. The recording of this interview, while still withheld from the public, was made available to Arthur Schlesinger for his 1978 book Robert Kennedy and His Times. According to Schlesinger, Kennedy claimed "John McCone called me and said 'I'll come out,' and he came out..." Hmmm... McCone told Manchester that Kennedy had asked him to come over, while Kennedy, in his interview with Manchester, said nothing of the sort, and suggested instead that McCone had come over without even being invited.

And that's just the little "hmmm..." According to Schlesinger, Kennedy described the phone call Johnson made to him as follows: "First he expressed his condolences. Then he said... this might be part of a worldwide plot, which I didn’t understand, and he said a lot of people down here think I should be sworn-in right away. Do you have any objection to it? And – well, I was sort of taken aback at the moment because it was just an hour after... the President had been shot and I didn’t think – see what the rush was. And I thought, I suppose at the time, at least, I thought it would be nice if the President came back to Washington – President Kennedy... But I suppose that was all personal... He said, who could swear me in? I said, I’d be glad to find out and I’ll call you back." Schlesinger then wrote that Kennedy called Katzenbach, and found out any federal judge could give Johnson the oath. Schlesinger then returned to quoting Kennedy: "So I called Johnson back and said anybody can..." Kennedy's account of the call was thus in line with Marie Fehmer's notes on every point but one--a big one--Kennedy didn't mention telling Johnson he should be sworn-in in Dallas during the second phone call.

And Kennedy wasn't the only one pushing against the tide. In his 5-18-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, Kenneth O'Donnell insisted that, at Parkland Hospital "As soon as I was assured that he (Kennedy) was dead, and it was definite, I went back to the Vice President and informed him the President was dead, and that in my opinion he ought to get out of there as fast as he could. We had a general discussion. The President's first words to me were that we must look upon this in a sense that it might be a conspiracy of some nature, and that all security must be taken..." O'Donnell then claimed Johnson started discussing some security measures he might take at the airport, such as moving the plane to a nearby military base, but that he shot Johnson down on this matter, reiterating that Johnson should leave without delay, and that "it would be much better if he got to the field immediately, where he was under security, and got aboard one of the aircraft." O'Donnell then claimed that he didn't specify which plane Johnson should board, Air Force One or Air Force Two, which were nearly identical. He then testified that when he arrived at Air Force One with Mrs. Kennedy and the president's body "I didn't know whether it was 1 or 2, to be honest, until I saw the members of the crew" and that, prior to the loading of President Kennedy's casket onto the plane, "I didn't know President Johnson was on the plane." He was then asked point blank if there had been any discussion of President Johnson's waiting for Mrs. Kennedy on Air Force One while at Parkland, and responded: "There had been no discussion of that to my knowledge. Once the President--the Vice President--left, I left him, I had not seen him again. I had been notified he had departed, I had been notified that he arrived, and that was the last I heard of it, until I got on the airplane." He was then asked what happened after he realized Johnson was on the plane, and waiting to be sworn-in: "the President and I carried on a conversation, which, again my recollections might be hazy--that it had been brought to his attention that I had asked for the plane to take off, and that there was some difference of opinion between him and me. He said to me that he had called the Attorney General, and that the Attorney General had indicated that it was, if not mandatory, at least preferable that he be sworn-in prior to the aircraft taking off. I didn't describe what I saw as the problems. I realized it was an inevitable delay. So I don't believe I commented on it. I just listened to him. We sat there." Hmmm... O'Donnell backed down after being told Robert Kennedy had said the swearing-in was preferable. Apparently, Johnson had said something similar to Jacqueline Kennedy. Presumably, Robert Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Kenneth O'Donnell were now telling everyone who would listen that Robert Kennedy had never said such a thing...and that Johnson had lied and manipulated them when they were at their weakest.

Unfortunately for Johnson, for that matter, one of his closest cronies was unable to help him in his ongoing effort to blame O'Donnell and Robert Kennedy for the decisions made in Dallas. On 5-20-64, Johnson assistant Clifton Carter provided an affidavit to the Warren Commission that tried to keep the peace. It read: "At 1:12 p.m. Special Agent Emery Roberts brought the news that President Kennedy was dead. At that moment the only people present were Vice President Johnson, Congressman Thornberry, Special Agent Lem Johns, and I. Special Agent Roberts advised Vice President Johnson to return to the White House forthwith because of the concern of the Secret Service that there might be a widespread plot to assassinate Vice President Johnson as well as President Kennedy. Vice President Johnson then asked that Kenny (O'Donnell) and Larry (O'Brien) be consulted to determine what their views were on returning promptly to Washington. Kenny and Larry came down and told Vice President Johnson that they agreed he should return to Washington immediately. Vice President Johnson then asked me to try to alert some of the members of his staff to go to the airport for the return trip to Washington. I then proceeded to look for those members of the staff, and I was later driven to Love Field by a young Dallas policeman. By the time I returned to the Presidential plane (AF-1), Vice President and Mrs. Johnson had already boarded the plane and arrangements had already been made to have Vice President Johnson sworn-in as the President. I do not have any personal knowledge of Vice President Johnson's conversation with Attorney General Kennedy concerning the advisability of a prompt swearing-in or of the arrangements to have Judge Sara Hughes participate in that ceremony. I was present at the swearing-in and shortly thereafter the President's plane took off for the Washington area."

And that wasn't the end of a bad week for Johnson. Unfortunately for Johnson, one of Kennedy's closest cronies was in a position to help, but did not. On 5-26-64 Lawrence F. O'Brien testified before the Warren Commission. O'Brien had been a close Kennedy aide. Unlike O'Donnell, however, he'd retained much of his influence under Johnson. This made his statements especially intriguing. And they didn't disappoint. First and foremost, he suggested that Johnson's presence on Kennedy's plane came as a surprise to both Kenneth O'Donnell and himself.He told the Commission that, after helping lift Kennedy's coffin onto the plane, he "noticed that seats to the left of the door had been removed, leaving a floor space in the plane to place the coffin. We placed the coffin on the floor. Then I looked up, and the President and Mrs. Johnson were at the corridor that would go into the compartment from that area of the plane." He then testified "During the course of these few minutes, it was my understanding that we were going to immediately depart. There was some confusion for a couple of minutes about departure. I was not privy to that. And the President asked the two of us to sit with him, at which point he said that he was awaiting a judge who was en route to swear him in--that he had secured the advice of the Attorney General, which, as I understood it, was a preference in his view to have a swearing-in ceremony immediately. And that this would be accomplished within a matter of minutes."

O'Brien's subsequent words were more descriptive on this point. In his 1974 book No Final Victories, written after Johnson's death, O'Brien claimed that when he and O'Donnell first spoke with Johnson on the plane "I told Johnson about the problem we'd had at the hospital and said I thought we should take off immediately. I knew that the delay was terribly painful to Jackie. 'No, I've talked with the Attorney General,' Johnson said. 'He thinks I should be sworn-in here.' Then it hit me. This man is President of the United States. After that, I didn't argue." Although a bit murky, O'Brien's words suggest that he'd actually explained to Johnson that further delay would be "terribly painful to Jackie," and that Johnson had nevertheless responded by invoking Robert Kennedy as the authority indirectly causing her this pain. Hmmm... If Johnson had really done this, and had lied to O'Brien about Kennedy's comments, well, he was indeed quite the weasel.

That Johnson had lied about what O'Donnell and Kennedy had told him, and had lined up the likes of Rufus Youngblood, Lem Johns, and John McCone as support for his lies, however, seems a very real possibility. One can only assume the Kennedys thought as much. They most certainly doubted Johnson's reasons for being on the plane in Dallas. In a 6-2-64 interview of Mrs. Kennedy, conducted by historian Arthur Schlesinger and finally released in 2011, she volunteered "I don't know if Lyndon had an Air Force One just like it or one of the older planes, but he always kept pushing for a bigger plane. And--or for more--all the kind of things like that he wanted, the panoply that goes with power, but none of the responsibility."

Mrs. Kennedy's words, one can only assume, stuck with Schlesinger. When one looks at June 1964 in his journal, published 2007, one finds that he talked about the flight back from Dallas with Air Force General Godfrey McHugh on 6-5-64, and was told that neither Kenneth O'Donnell nor McHugh knew Johnson was on Air Force One when they arrived at the plane. McHugh told Schlesinger, furthermore, that, upon arrival on the plane, he'd initially been told the plane was being held until Mrs. Johnson's luggage could be brought over from the other plane, and not that they were waiting for Judge Hughes.

This, apparently, whet Schlesinger's appetite. His journal reflects further that he tried to talk about the flight with Mrs. Kennedy at a get-together on 6-16-64, but was cut-off when a third party changed the subject.

This, then, brings us to Johnson's account of his actions. In his 7-10-64 statement to the Warren Commission, Johnson related: "It was Ken O'Donnell who, at about 1:20 p.m., told us that the President had died. I think his precise words were, "He's gone." O'Donnell said that we should return to Washington and that we should take the President's plane for this purpose... When Mr. O'Donnell told us to get on the plane and go back to Washington, I asked about Mrs. Kennedy. O'Donnell told me that Mrs. Kennedy would not leave the hospital without the President's body, and urged again that we go ahead and and take Air Force 1 and return to Washington. I did not want to go and leave Mrs. Kennedy in this situation. I said so, but I agreed that we would board the airplane and wait until Mrs. Kennedy and the President's body were brought aboard the plane... Despite my awareness of the reasons for Mr. O'Donnell's insistence--in which I think he was joined by one or more of the Secret Service agents--that we board the airplane, leave Dallas, and go to Washington without delay, I was determined that we would not return until Mrs. Kennedy was ready, and that we would carry the President's body back with us if she wanted...When we got to the airport, we proceeded to drive to the ramp leading into the plane, and we entered the plane. We were ushered into the private quarters of the President's plane. It didn't seem right for John Kennedy not to be there. I told someone that we preferred for Mrs. Kennedy to use these quarters. Shortly after we boarded the plane. I called Robert Kennedy, the President's brother and the Attorney General. I knew how grief-stricken he was, and I wanted to say something that would comfort him. Despite his shock, he discussed the practical problems at hand--problems of special urgency because we did not at that time have any information as to the motivation of the assassination or its possible implications. The Attorney General said that he would like to look into the matter of whether the oath of office as President should be administered to me immediately or after we returned to Washington, and that he would call back. I thereafter talked with McGeorge Bundy and Walter Jenkins, both of whom urged that the return to Washington should not be delayed. I told them I was waiting for Mrs. Kennedy and for the President's body to be placed on the plane, and would not return prior to that time. As I remember, our conversation was interrupted to allow the Attorney General to come back on the line. He said that the oath should be administered to me immediately, before taking off for Washington, and that it should be administered by a judicial officer of the United States. Shortly thereafter, the Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Katzenbach, dictated the form of oath to one of the secretaries aboard the plane. I thought of Sarah Hughes, an old friend who is judge of the U.S. district court in Dallas. We telephoned Judge Hughes' office. She was not there, but she returned the call in a few minutes and said she would be at the airplane in 10 minutes. I asked that arrangements be made to permit her to have access to the airplane. A few minutes later Mrs. Kennedy and the President's coffin arrived. Mrs. Johnson and I spoke to her. We tried to comfort her, but our words seemed inadequate. She went into the private quarters of the plane. I estimate that Mrs. Kennedy and the coffin arrived about a half hour after we entered the plane, just after 2 o'clock. About a half hour later, I asked someone to find out if Mrs. Kennedy would stand with us during the administration of the oath. Mrs. Johnson went back to be with her. Mrs. Kennedy came and stood with us during the moments that the oath was being administered. I shall never forget her bravery, nobility, and dignity. I'm told that the oath was administered at 2:40 p.m."

Let's note first that Johnson's statement is largely based on Marie Fehmer's notes. It repeats that Robert Kennedy called Johnson back to tell him the "oath should be administered immediately." It also claims Mrs. Kennedy arrived at the plane just after 2:00. That Johnson was willing to admit this last fact in his statement, moreover, supports that the Secret Service claim she arrived at 2:14 or 2:15 was, if not true, an innocent mistake, or at least not a lie pushed by Johnson.

Now note that Johnson stressed that, upon reaching the plane, he was ushered into the president's "private quarters" and that he told "someone" that "we preferred for Mrs. Kennedy to use these quarters." Well, this hid that Johnson turned around and used these "private quarters" to make a series of phone calls. And that's not all. While it's widely reported that Mrs. Kennedy spent the bulk of the flight in the back of the plane with her husband's casket and companions, the location of Mrs. Johnson on the flight back from Dallas is rarely discussed. In a 10-18-69 Oral History interview with the Johnson Library, however, Johnson aide Jack Valenti was asked point blank her whereabouts on the flight back from Dallas, and admitted "most of the time she was back in the little bedroom." Apparently, the Johnsons' preference the private quarters be reserved for Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Kennedy alone was asking too much...of themselves.

Now note that Johnson and O'Donnell's stories were at odds on two key points. Johnson claimed that before he (Johnson) left Parkland Hospital for the airport he was told by Ken O'Donnell to fly back on "the President's plane," which in this context would mean Kennedy's plane, number 26000. O'Donnell denied doing any such thing. Johnson then indicated that he (Johnson) had told O'Donnell at Parkland that he would wait for Mrs. Kennedy on "the President's plane." O'Donnell denied this as well.

Johnson's story was also at odds with Robert Kennedy's, of course. He claimed Kennedy told him the oath should be administered immediately in Dallas, while Kennedy--at least in Schlesinger's account--recalled no such thing.

Even so, the writers of the Warren Report--not surprisingly, in light of the fact their report was designed in part to clear Johnson--chose to take his word on these matters. In Chapter 2 of the report--a chapter written by Arlen Specter, then edited by Norman Redlich--it is claimed that O'Donnell told Johnson of Kennedy's death. It then relates: "When consulted by the Vice President, O'Donnell advised him to go to the airfield immediately and return to Washington.245 It was decided that the Vice President should return on the Presidential plane rather than on the Vice-Presidential plane because it had better communication equipment.246" The citation for footnote 245 reads "Id. at 152; 7 H 451 (O'Donnell); 5 H 561 (Johnson)." The claim is accurate and the citation is accurate. The citation for footnote 246, however, reads simply "Ibid." The Free Online Dictionary defines "Ibid" as "In the same place. Used in footnotes and bibliographies to refer to the book, chapter, article, or page cited just before." Note the words "just before." The page cited just before was a page from Johnson's statement. By placing a sentence in which O'Donnell "advised" Johnson before a sentence in which "it was decided" Johnson should return on the Presidential plane, the report had implied O'Donnell was a party to this decision. The writers of the report had thereby chosen to ignore O'Donnell's sworn testimony--the testimony they'd found credible enough to cite in the preceding footnote--and had decided to instead push the facts as related in Johnson's un-sworn statement. They'd then hidden this fact from the public.

It should come as no surprise then that they also accepted Johnson's word on the conversation he'd had with Robert Kennedy. The report claimed "From the Presidential airplane, the Vice President telephoned Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who advised that Mr. Johnson take the Presidential oath of office before the plane left Dallas.263" They, of course, never double-checked this with Kennedy.

As a result, the Johnson/O'Donnell and Johnson/Kennedy conflict on these matters was little recognized. It lay hidden beneath the surface of Washington politics.

Conclusion number 5: the Warren Commission was deceptive in its reporting of the aftermath of the assassination, and showed undue deference to Johnson's version of events.

 

Thanks for rummaging through this mess of conflicting remembrances, Pat. 

Let's try to make sense about what happened by looking through the eyes of the Lyndon Johnson who was in on the murder plan and was beginning the coverup.

His first task was to wrest the body of JFK from the local coroner and take it back to DC where they could control the autopsy. Johnson knew that Dr. Rose had jurisdiction of the body, but if Rose got his hands on it, it's very likely he would have uncovered information that the Oswald-did-it-from-behind story they planned to tell was false. Johnson could not allow that.

Early on Jackie had made it clear she was sticking by JFK.  Johnson wanted her to fly back with him, but she was not going to leave without her husband. She suggested that Johnson go ahead back to DC without her.  He had a job to do.  

Johnson's solution was to order the Secret Service to take the body and deliver it to AF1.  Mrs. Kennedy would follow it to the plane. Jack Valenti referenced the order in his later book defending Johnson, terming it Johnson's first major decision as president.

But Johnson wasn't done.  He didn't want to face the logical question: why couldn't he go ahead without Jackie and the body, since they could take AF2 later? Many folks were recommending he get the hell out of Dallas as quickly as he could.  His safety was at risk.

So he made up a cover story.  He called around asking people about being sworn in as president.  When should he do it? Who could do it?

Presumably at least one of those smart people told him:  you became president the moment Kennedy was officially pronounced dead. You don't have to wait there to be sworn in.  Johnson didn't want to hear that.  That conversation, if it happened, has been lost to history.

Johnson went with the story that he had to wait (I think it was more than an hour) to be sworn in before the plane could be flown the DC.  Don't pay attention to the arrival of the body on the plane while he was waiting.

 

 

[Roger Odisio]

20 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

First, a point i already addressed, the maestro of the cover up was Hoover.  In second place was Rowley. Those are the two people who submitted the investigations to the WC.  I have never seen evidence that Johnson was involved in their day to day dealings.  The most one can say is he asked them to have it done before the election. But does anyone think the verdict would have been different if they came in later?

Look, the turnaround in policy on Vietnam was almost instant. Anyone can have an opinion, but that is all it is when confronted with facts.  As John Newman proved, this turnaround began at the first meeting on Vietnam, while Kennedy's body was in the rotunda.  LBJ kept Lodge as Ambassador, when in fact, Kennedy was going to terminate him.  And everyone at that meeting noticed a real  change in attitude and tone, now it was like America had to win--not withdraw quietly and then leave.

It was then continued with NSAM 273, which LBJ altered from the draft.  Newman again proved that this alteration caused the Tonkin Gulf incident. 

But even before that, NSAM 288 essentially outlined how the war was going to be carried to the north. Every credible writer agrees on this issue that NSAM 288 was a milestone on the path to war and reversed Kennedy.  What Kennedy did not do in three years, LBJ had now done in 3 months.

Finally, the Tonkin Gulf resolution was written before the Tonkin Gulf incident took place!  And one of the men who LBJ assigned to change the policy toward that end, well it was Mr. Sullivan.  This is the guy who excised the withdrawal plan from the Taylor/McNamara report. When JFK heard of this he called them into his office and put it back in.

These are facts, not opinions.

And it does not prove that LBJ was part of the plot.  But the plotters could obviously figure that he was more militant on the issue than JFK was. 

JD:  First, a point i already addressed, the maestro of the cover up was Hoover.  In second place was Rowley. Those are the two people who submitted the investigations to the WC.  I have never seen evidence that Johnson was involved in their day to day dealings.  The most one can say is he asked them to have it done before the election. But does anyone think the verdict would have been different if they came in later?

 

RO:  The FBI did a quick investigation of the JFKA and filed a report.  Hoover recommended against a commission to do more.  Johnson overruled him and created the WC precisely because he wanted more done to frame Oswald. 

 

When it was realized that one of the three bullets they claim was fired missed the target, the WC had to create the magic bullet.  In that sense Johnson and those that wanted a commission were proved right.  This was in addition to any other points that were made about flaws in the FBI report requiring resolution in order to convince the public of their Oswald story.

 

Of course Johnson was not involved in the day to day dealings of the WC.  He didn't need to be. The Commissioners were figureheads there to lend their names to the predetermined verdict.  The mission of the staff of lawyers was to gather any information they could to frame Oswald and ignore, destroy, or distort anything else.

 

The coverup included a lot more than just what the WC did.  Hoover had no role in most of that.  E.g., the fake autopsy.