Why murder Oswald?

[Roger Odisio]

This question comes up from time to time.  Ben raised it yesterday:  "Why murder LHO? If LHO was really not connected to US intel, then LHO had little to reveal." 

 

The answer is clear.  The killers murdered Oswald because they knew he didn't do it.  They wanted no part of the inevitable trial with the whole world watching.  So they killed him before he could tell his alibi, or anything else, to a lawyer. 

 

They had planned to quickly name Oswald as the lone assassin to divert attention from themselves.  Which they did, for example, in the messages naming Oswald as the lone assassin they sent to the planes carrying much of official Washington coming back to DC on the day of the murder. 

 

As Salandria said, these messages were from the killers.  The murder has been officially solved. Don't interfere, no matter what you think you saw in Dallas.

 

After Oswald was eliminated, the killers' plan was to create the WC to frame Oswald in secret and have the 7 prominent figureheads sign the report.  The WC was announced, with the figureheads in place, 5 days after Oswald was killed.  

 

 

[Joe Bauer]

On 5/21/2024 at 7:59 AM, Roger Odisio said:

This question comes up from time to time.  Ben raised it yesterday:  "Why murder LHO? If LHO was really not connected to US intel, then LHO had little to reveal." 

 

The answer is clear.  The killers murdered Oswald because they knew he didn't do it.  They wanted no part of the inevitable trial with the whole world watching.  So they killed him before he could tell his alibi, or anything else, to a lawyer. 

 

They had planned to quickly name Oswald as the lone assassin to divert attention from themselves.  Which they did, for example, in the messages naming Oswald as the lone assassin they sent to the planes carrying much of official Washington coming back to DC on the day of the murder. 

 

As Salandria said, these messages were from the killers.  The murder has been officially solved. Don't interfere, no matter what you think you saw in Dallas.

 

After Oswald was eliminated, the killers' plan was to create the WC to frame Oswald in secret and have the 7 prominent figureheads sign the report.  The WC was announced, with the figureheads in place, 5 days after Oswald was killed.  

 

 

Sounds generally true to me.

Related questions:

Why order one of their own ( Dallas FBI ) to destroy incredibly important Lee Harvey Oswald evidence just hours after he was whacked right inside the Dallas PD building?

Dallas FBI head James Gordon Shanklin to SA James Hosty regards their Lee Harvey Oswald file:

"Take this and get rid of it. I don't ever want to see it again."

Whereupon Hosty dutifully took it to their office bathroom and flushed it down a toilet.

Mind boggling. Totally illegal.

Destruction of vitally important evidence that any legitimate truth-seeking investigative body would demand and need to see. Especially if they knew it existed. 

Imagine if the Warren Committee knew of the Oswald FBI file destruction before they even began their investigation?

Hosty wouldn't voluntarily inform the WC of his office's FBI file and it's destruction by him hours after Oswald was murdered when he testified before them under this sacred oath  "I swear to tell the truth, >>> the whole truth <<< and nothing but the truth...so help me God."

And Hosty was of the Catholic faith? 

Even a sacred oath to God wasn't enough for Hosty to tell the "whole truth" to the WC and the world versus placing his keeping silent loyalty to his employer above such?

When asked many years later why he withheld this incredibly important destruction of evidence information ( the Oswald FBI file and his destruction of it ) from the WC, Hosty "chucklingly" declared this still oblivious dismissive justification... "they didn't ask!"

"They didn't ask." ?

How could the WC ask about something they don't know exists?

The arrested Oswald should have been taken to a more secure holding facility ( Federal?) than a police department seething with vindictive hatred toward him for killing one of their own and with a good amount of KKK minded types who ( like detective Jim Leavelle ) didn't even consider the killing of liberal race minded JFK to be that big of a deal.

 

 

 

Edited May 22 by Joe Bauer

[Paul Cummings]

Why was he allowed to leave TSBD?

[Roger Odisio]

4 hours ago, Paul Cummings said:

Why was he allowed to leave TSBD?

Using what pretext to kill him?  They had no one who could place Oswald on the 6th floor with a rifle in his hand at the time of the murder, as Jesse Curry later admitted in his book, The JFK Assassination File.  In fact he wasn't there.

 

They had no trouble locating him at the theatre shortly after the murder.  Some think the plan was to kill him then, but Oswald foiled them by shouting I'm not resisting arrest. I doubt that.

 

I think they wanted to get his alibi first so they could start to destroy parts of it. Which he gave them during his first interrogation. (Went outside to watch the p parade)

 

Later that afternoon, they tried to intimidate Frazier into giving them information they could use, even going so far as to claim they were going to charge him as an accessory.  They knew his relationship with Oswald, and the fact Frazier was prominently standing on the steps in pictures and films of the aftermath, at least some of which they already had.

 

We know they already had Altgens 6 because later that evening they talked to Lovelady to see if he could identify himself in it.  And were relieved when he could.

 

I think it was that first weekend that NBC sent the Darnell and Weigman films showing the steps shortly after the murder to their NY headquarters.  They have rebuffed all requests to see the film originals since.

 

That afternoon they were just beginning to float the idea of Oswald as the lone assassin.

 

But time was running out on them.  Oswald was getting closer to finding a lawyer and they couldn't allow that.  He was killed less than 2 days after the murder.

[Roger Odisio]

4 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Sounds generally true to me.

Related questions:

Why order one of their own ( Dallas FBI ) to destroy incredibly important Lee Harvey Oswald evidence just hours after he was whacked right inside the Dallas PD building?

Dallas FBI head James Gordon Shanklin to SA James Hosty regards their Lee Harvey Oswald file:

"Take this and get rid of it. I don't ever want to see it again."

Whereupon Hosty dutifully took it to their office bathroom and flushed it down a toilet.

Mind boggling. Totally illegal.

Destruction of vitally important evidence that any legitimate truth-seeking investigative body would demand and need to see.

Imagine if the Warren Committee knew of the Oswald FBI file destruction before they even began their investigation?

Hosty wouldn't voluntarily inform the WC of his office's FBI file and it's destruction by him hours after Oswald was murdered when he testified before them under this sacred oath  "I swear to tell the truth, >>> the whole truth <<< and nothing but the truth...so help me God."

And Hosty was of the Catholic faith? 

Even a sacred oath to God wasn't enough for Hosty to tell the "whole truth" to the WC and the world versus placing his keeping silent loyalty to his employer above such?

When asked many years later why he withheld this incredibly important destruction of evidence information ( the Oswald FBI file and his destruction of it ) from the WC, Hosty "chucklingly" declared this still oblivious dismissive justification... "they didn't ask!"

"They didn't ask." ?

The arrested Oswald should have been taken to a more secure holding facility ( Federal?) than a police department seething with vindictive hatred toward him for killing one of their own and with a good amount of KKK minded types who "like detective Jim Leavelle ) didn't even consider the killing of liberal race minded JFK to be that big of a deal thing.

 

 

 

They concealed, distorted or destroyed lots evidence, not just what you describe, because there was no "legitimate truth-seeking investigative body".  They created the WC to instead frame Oswald.

[Benjamin Cole]

9 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

This question comes up from time to time.  Ben raised it yesterday:  "Why murder LHO? If LHO was really not connected to US intel, then LHO had little to reveal." 

 

The answer is clear.  The killers murdered Oswald because they knew he didn't do it.  They wanted no part of the inevitable trial with the whole world watching.  So they killed him before he could tell his alibi, or anything else, to a lawyer. 

 

They had planned to quickly name Oswald as the lone assassin to divert attention from themselves.  Which they did, for example, in the messages naming Oswald as the lone assassin they sent to the planes carrying much of official Washington coming back to DC on the day of the murder. 

 

As Salandria said, these messages were from the killers.  The murder has been officially solved. Don't interfere, no matter what you think you saw in Dallas.

 

After Oswald was eliminated, the killers' plan was to create the WC to frame Oswald in secret and have the 7 prominent figureheads sign the report.  The WC was announced, with the figureheads in place, 5 days after Oswald was killed.  

 

 

Interesting questions. 

1. Maybe Ruby was, just like LHO, a lone wolf. So, we get the WC version. It is possible, but not my cup of tea. 

2. If Ruby was a cat's paw, then whose cat's paw?

3. For me, that signals CIA. We know that William King Harvey was working with the Mafia already. The CIA needed a cut-out to do the deed of killing LHO. Johnny Roselli comes to mind, a man found later in a barrel in the Gulf of Mexico. 

4. OK, let's say the CIA had LHO rubbed out. Why?

5. Because on the stand, the lone-wolf LHO would be able to prove his innocence, or at least raise reasonable doubts?  Does that threaten the CIA somehow? I do not see how. 

6. Perhaps the two/three men who hoodwinked a lone-wolf LHO into cooperating on 11/22 were CIA assets. Could a lone-wolf LHO ID them? He could provide the usual physical descriptions, "Latin men 5'10".  Seems unlikely that a lone-wolf LHO could do much damage to the CIA. 

7. My guess is LHO would have been found guilty anyway on the JFKA, due to the M-C rifle found on the TSBD6, and the phony palm print. LHO could proclaim his innocence, but no one would believe him, and worse he might be thought to be covering up for communist compatriots. Reminder: No one has ever said they saw LHO when shots rang out. LHO was invisible when JFK was assassinated. 

8. I am not sure where LHO was when shots rang out of 11/22, but certainly TSBD6 was a likely spot. Someone indisputably pointed a rifle out of the said window on TSBD6 and fired in the direction of JFK. I happen to think the shot (s) were a ruse, and mostly likely fired by LHO. If it wasn't LHO, then who, and how did they escape unnoticed? If they could escape unnoticed, why not LHO? The LHO "not seen on the stairways" angle is not convincing. 

In conclusion, my guess is LHO was a low-level CIA asset, of which there were thousands in the US at the time, due to the Cuba situation. LHO was inveigled by other CIA assets into staging an event on 11/22. LHO might even be able to put a name on the men he worked with, or a tattoo, something that might give traction to his tale. 

Even if the whole JFKA was perped by low-level CIA assets, that was not a story the CIA could afford to come out. 

That what I think, and all IMHO, per usual. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Charles Blackmon]

44 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Interesting questions. 

1. Maybe Ruby was, just like LHO, a lone wolf. So, we get the WC version. It is possible, but not my cup of tea. 

2. If Ruby was a cat's paw, then whose cat's paw?

3. For me, that signals CIA. We know that William King Harvey was working with the Mafia already. The CIA needed a cut-out to do the deed of killing LHO. Johnny Roselli comes to mind, a man found later in a barrel in the Gulf of Mexico. 

4. OK, let's say the CIA had LHO rubbed out. Why?

5. Because on the stand, the lone-wolf LHO would be able to prove his innocence, or at least raise reasonable doubts?  Does that threaten the CIA somehow? I do not see how. 

6. Perhaps the two/three men who hoodwinked a lone-wolf LHO into cooperating on 11/22 were CIA assets. Could a lone-wolf LHO ID them? He could provide the usual physical descriptions, "Latin men 5'10".  Seems unlikely that a lone-wolf LHO could do much damage to the CIA. 

7. My guess is LHO would have been found guilty anyway on the JFKA, due to the M-C rifle found on the TSBD6, and the phony palm print. LHO could proclaim his innocence, but no one would believe him, and worse he might be thought to be covering up for communist compatriots. Reminder: No one has ever said they saw LHO when shots rang out. LHO was invisible when JFK was assassinated. 

8. I am not sure where LHO was when shots rang out of 11/22, but certainly TSBD6 was a likely spot. Someone indisputably pointed a rifle out of the said window on TSBD6 and fired in the direction of JFK. I happen to think the shot (s) were a ruse, and mostly likely fired by LHO. If it wasn't LHO, then who, and how did they escape unnoticed? If they could escape unnoticed, why not LHO? The LHO "not seen on the stairways" angle is not convincing. 

In conclusion, my guess is LHO was a low-level CIA asset, of which there were thousands in the US at the time, due to the Cuba situation. LHO was inveigled by other CIA assets into staging an event on 11/22. LHO might even be able to put a name on the men he worked with, or a tattoo, something that might give traction to his tale. 

Even if the whole JFKA was perped by low-level CIA assets, that was not a story the CIA could afford to come out. 

That what I think, and all IMHO, per usual. 

 

 

 

"staging an event"

Alan Ford, who posted on here earlier this year, seems to think Oswald was waving some kind of foreign country's flag. I was never able to view the GIFs he posted as evidence so I have to defer to others here who can. 

[Benjamin Cole]

9 hours ago, Charles Blackmon said:

"staging an event"

Alan Ford, who posted on here earlier this year, seems to think Oswald was waving some kind of foreign country's flag. I was never able to view the GIFs he posted as evidence so I have to defer to others here who can. 

AFAIK, no one has ever said they saw a flag unfurled from the TSBD during the JFKA, and I know of no photos of such an event. 

[Paul Cummings]

13 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

Using what pretext to kill him?  They had no one who could place Oswald on the 6th floor with a rifle in his hand at the time of the murder, as Jesse Curry later admitted in his book, The JFK Assassination File.  In fact he wasn't there.

 

They had no trouble locating him at the theatre shortly after the murder.  Some think the plan was to kill him then, but Oswald foiled them by shouting I'm not resisting arrest. I doubt that.

 

I think they wanted to get his alibi first so they could start to destroy parts of it. Which he gave them during his first interrogation. (Went outside to watch the p parade)

 

Later that afternoon, they tried to intimidate Frazier into giving them information they could use, even going so far as to claim they were going to charge him as an accessory.  They knew his relationship with Oswald, and the fact Frazier was prominently standing on the steps in pictures and films of the aftermath, at least some of which they already had.

 

We know they already had Altgens 6 because later that evening they talked to Lovelady to see if he could identify himself in it.  And were relieved when he could.

 

I think it was that first weekend that NBC sent the Darnell and Weigman films showing the steps shortly after the murder to their NY headquarters.  They have rebuffed all requests to see the film originals since.

 

That afternoon they were just beginning to float the idea of Oswald as the lone assassin.

 

But time was running out on them.  Oswald was getting closer to finding a lawyer and they couldn't allow that.  He was killed less than 2 days after the murder.

If he was the patsy why was he allowed to leave the building? I find it hard to believe they let him walk with the idea they can just get him later. 

[Chuck Schwartz]

LHO was viewed as an idiot, per this section of an essay written by Paul Bleu..

"Persons of interest like John Martino, Frank Sturgis, and Phillips-linked contacts (Carlos Bringuier, Ed Butler, and journalist Hal Hendrix) began a “Castro was behind it” spin to the assassination.

Carlos Bringuier of the DRE, who had gotten into what was likely a staged fight with Oswald on Canal Street in New Orleans in August of 1963, also wrote a press release that was published the day after the assassination to position Castro as being in cahoots with Oswald.

The DRE was actually set up under William Kent in 1960, working for David Phillips. David Morales was the group’s military case officer. Later, with Phillips in Mexico City, Kent was George Joannides supervisor. Kent’s daughter told Gaeton Fonzi that her father never mentioned Oswald except one time over dinner. He stated that Oswald was a “useful idiot”. "

It wasn't until LHO said publicly I am just a patsy that it was decided to kill LHO, in my opinon. 

[Kevin Balch]

1 hour ago, Chuck Schwartz said:

It wasn't until LHO said publicly I am just a patsy that it was decided to kill LHO, in my opinon.

When exactly did Oswald make that statement, as Ruby was stalking Oswald as early as Friday evening?

[Matt Cloud]

THE PARANOID STYLE

 

The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com › opinions › 1991/12/29

 

 

 

By Daniel Patrick Moynihan. December 29, 1991. "It happens I was in the White House ... I pleaded with any who knew me: "We must get hold of Oswald." No one had the foggiest idea what I was talking about."

 

From Coping: On The Practice of Government, on p. 6, written in August 1972, but not published until 1974, Moynihan describes the scene:

 

"It occurred to me to take one last look at the Oval Room, which I did not expect to see again.  I had hardly been a regular visitor. but even so I had been there, with him in the rocking chair, and had once, even, corrected his arithmetic; and now this was all finished."

 

Moynihan adds, breaking some news, as ever, however parenthetically:

 

"(I have never seen it recorded that on the day of the assassination they were fixing the rug or something, and furniture from the Oval Room was piled out in the corridor, with the rocking chair on top, as if the occupant was moving.)"

 

Then this, which deserves to be quoted at some length (pp. 6-7):

 

"... I came to later in the afternoon on learning that the Dallas police had arrested a left-wing, pro-Castro sympathizer.  It flashed: which 'they' had done what?  It did not surprise me that such a man might be arrested, and I was not disposed to think it impossible he was guilty.  But I knew the Nation now.   I knew Dallas just well enough to assume the police would be incompetent.  I knew Texas well enough to think someone there would try to shoot the man who was said to have shot the President.  I knew the rest of the country would never believe it.  It was clear: We had to get custody of Oswald. [Emphasis in original.]

 

Washington was empty.  There was almost no one to tell this to save men to stricken to care, or too stupid to understand.  Air Force One returned, but there was no way to speak to the new President or his men.  The Cabinet had been halfway across the Pacific, en route to Japan, when the assassination occurred. Its plane got back to Andrews Air Force Base at midnight, and here commenced a decisive experience.  I made my way up and down the hierarchy of those waiting, and then those arriving, pleading: We had to get custody of Oswald.  [Emphasis in original.]  But with no success.  I kept it up until Oswald was shot.  I then realized that it is possible to grow enormously successful and powerful in America without knowing that the world is a dangerous place.

 

I suppose I had always realized this, but never in a way that made any difference to me.  In the weeks that followed it sank in.  It seemed to me that unless the murder of Kennedy and of his accused assailant was remorselessly investigated, a penumbra of suspicion would grow around the American national government such as would darken its moral authority for a generation to come, and who could say what might happen in the interval?  John Macy, then Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, shared this view.  [See reference to Macy and Maurice Stans by me, in other thread, supra.]  Together, and singly, we went round the capital much as I had made my way among the throng at Andrews Air Force Base.  At best we encountered incomprehension; at worst, the suspicion that we thought there had been a conspiracy. [Emphasis in original.]  We did not; we were merely convinced that significant portions of the public would believe there had been one unless the inquiry went forward with this preeminent concern in mind.  [Emphasis in original.]  I went to New York. Commentary and America published powerful editorials affirming my point.  But all for nothing, as we learned later from Edward Jay Epstein's Inquest, and from the public opinion polls that preceded and followed his study.

 

And so I failed, and at some cost.  I was never, thereafter, quite trusted by the new Administration.  This sank in and at length I left."

[Joe Bauer]

Why would anyone breathe a sigh of relief when Oswald was killed?

Yet, we know many did.

Many in highest positions of power and influence.

I watched Ruby whack Oswald in the DPD parking basement the morning of 11,24,1963 on live TV feed.

Even as a 12 year old...I felt sick to my stomach.

I sensed that there goes any chance of knowing who really did JFK.

A living Oswald was our only chance to get the truth.

My guess is that 90+% of all Americans felt the same thing.

Logic tells you that anyone who breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing that Oswald was taken out were threatened by his living. 

And it is so much easier to pin a crime singly on a dead suspect with a built-in ridiculously over-kill incriminating background versus a vehemently denying and pleading for legal assistance living one.

Wouldn't be hard to come up with a list of those ( including the highest levels of our government ) who felt the most threatened by a living, breathing and "talking" Oswald? 

And for more reasons than just LBJ's constantly promoted World War III fear one he used to coerce others to do what he wanted them to do in regards to becoming part of a JFKA investigative body of his, Hoover's and Katzenbach's creation.

 

 

 

[Kevin Balch]

If Larry Hancock’s thesis that Oswald could have been manipulated by others (US intelligence, pro-Castro Cubans, anti-Castro Cubans) is correct, those others would have a motive to silence Oswald.

Staging a hit in the Dallas Police HQ was a risky operation of trading one knowledgeable person for another. Presumably, Ruby’s recruitment for the job was compartmentalized so he knew nothing about the assassination. It also suggests that he did not know Oswald. Otherwise, what’s to prevent Ruby from revealing who put him up to killing Oswald?

Who and what cause could have motivated Ruby and be confident that he would not be a threat in captivity?

Organized crime offering a carrot of debt forgiveness and stick of threatening him?
Was Ruby a sayanim for the Mossad?
US intelligence or the Dallas Police?

If Oswald knew so much that he would have been a threat if captured, why weren’t better measures taken to safely get him out of and away from the TSBD? Why was he allowed to escape the control of his associates? Even if he realized he had been duped and went rogue, wouldn’t the planning have anticipated that?

In response to a question I had in a previous post, Oswald declare “I am a Patsy” at 7:55 PM on the evening of November 22. I don’t know whether it was broadcast live or played later.

 

[Roger Odisio]

3 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

THE PARANOID STYLE

 

The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com › opinions › 1991/12/29

 

 

 

By Daniel Patrick Moynihan. December 29, 1991. "It happens I was in the White House ... I pleaded with any who knew me: "We must get hold of Oswald." No one had the foggiest idea what I was talking about."

 

From Coping: On The Practice of Government, on p. 6, written in August 1972, but not published until 1974, Moynihan describes the scene:

 

"It occurred to me to take one last look at the Oval Room, which I did not expect to see again.  I had hardly been a regular visitor. but even so I had been there, with him in the rocking chair, and had once, even, corrected his arithmetic; and now this was all finished."

 

Moynihan adds, breaking some news, as ever, however parenthetically:

 

"(I have never seen it recorded that on the day of the assassination they were fixing the rug or something, and furniture from the Oval Room was piled out in the corridor, with the rocking chair on top, as if the occupant was moving.)"

 

Then this, which deserves to be quoted at some length (pp. 6-7):

 

"... I came to later in the afternoon on learning that the Dallas police had arrested a left-wing, pro-Castro sympathizer.  It flashed: which 'they' had done what?  It did not surprise me that such a man might be arrested, and I was not disposed to think it impossible he was guilty.  But I knew the Nation now.   I knew Dallas just well enough to assume the police would be incompetent.  I knew Texas well enough to think someone there would try to shoot the man who was said to have shot the President.  I knew the rest of the country would never believe it.  It was clear: We had to get custody of Oswald. [Emphasis in original.]

 

Washington was empty.  There was almost no one to tell this to save men to stricken to care, or too stupid to understand.  Air Force One returned, but there was no way to speak to the new President or his men.  The Cabinet had been halfway across the Pacific, en route to Japan, when the assassination occurred. Its plane got back to Andrews Air Force Base at midnight, and here commenced a decisive experience.  I made my way up and down the hierarchy of those waiting, and then those arriving, pleading: We had to get custody of Oswald.  [Emphasis in original.]  But with no success.  I kept it up until Oswald was shot.  I then realized that it is possible to grow enormously successful and powerful in America without knowing that the world is a dangerous place.

 

I suppose I had always realized this, but never in a way that made any difference to me.  In the weeks that followed it sank in.  It seemed to me that unless the murder of Kennedy and of his accused assailant was remorselessly investigated, a penumbra of suspicion would grow around the American national government such as would darken its moral authority for a generation to come, and who could say what might happen in the interval?  John Macy, then Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, shared this view.  [See reference to Macy and Maurice Stans by me, in other thread, supra.]  Together, and singly, we went round the capital much as I had made my way among the throng at Andrews Air Force Base.  At best we encountered incomprehension; at worst, the suspicion that we thought there had been a conspiracy. [Emphasis in original.]  We did not; we were merely convinced that significant portions of the public would believe there had been one unless the inquiry went forward with this preeminent concern in mind.  [Emphasis in original.]  I went to New York. Commentary and America published powerful editorials affirming my point.  But all for nothing, as we learned later from Edward Jay Epstein's Inquest, and from the public opinion polls that preceded and followed his study.

 

And so I failed, and at some cost.  I was never, thereafter, quite trusted by the new Administration.  This sank in and at length I left."

Moynahan's reaction was similar, tho not identical, to Salandria's reaction that weekend.  Except Salandria didn't see the murder of Oswald as leading to a cloud of suspicion that would be difficult to dispel. He saw it. and what happened afterwards as a confirmation of government guilt in the murder. Salandria told his brother in law that if Oswald doesn't survive the weekend we'll know what happened.

He later found out about the messages sent from the White House Situation Room to the planes coming back to DC. They were referred to by both Theodore White and Pierre Salinger in their books.

In the Making of the President 1964, White said the Presidential party on AF1 "...learned there was no conspiracy, learned of the identity of Oswald and his arrest".'

Salandria tried to get the help of both writers in locating the messages and he contacted every fed agency he could think of that might have a record of them.  To no avail.  He did get confirmation in 1993 of the content of the message to AF1 from Robert Manning, a Kennedy official who was on the plane.

Salandria's conclusion, spelled out in his False Mystery speech at the 1998 CPA convention deserves quoting.

"The government could not have known at that time that Oswald was the killer and there was no conspiracy"....They had sent the message to AF1 "before there was any evidence against him and while there was overwhelmingly convincing evidence of a conspiracy 

What they [the passengers on the plane] had heard, smelled, and seen in Dealey Plaza was of no consequence.  The patsy had been selected, and the conclusion of a conspiracy had been ruled out.  Bundy [who was running the Situation Room at the time] was indirectly instructing the Presidential party and the cabinet that he was speaking for the killers....what they had observed in Dealey Plaza was merely evidence, and that the needs of the State rose above evidence....They were circuitously informed that the assassination had been committed by a level of US power that was above and beyond punishment." 

Kennedy's battles with parts of his own government were no secret in Washington at the time. Many did not buy the Oswald story.  Salandria and Moynahan help us understand why their was so little push back against it, why the coverup went so smoothly despite many obvious bumps in the road.