What is the source for a Philip Shenon claim that Robert Kennedy's family and friends said RFK "never stopped fearing that Castro was behind his brother's death"?

[Greg Doudna]

In an article dated Oct 6, 2015, Politico, Philip Shenon reported on an article by CIA in-house historian David Robarge published in Studies in Intelligence 57/3, Sept 2013, in which Robarge reported on John McCone deceptions to the Warren Commission in withholding information on CIA plots to kill Castro as part of a "benign coverup" by the CIA. Here is the Philip Shenon article: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/jfk-assassination-john-mccone-warren-commission-cia-213197/. Here is the David Robarge original article: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB493/docs/intell_ebb_026.PDF. 

In Shenon's article Shenon paraphrases and quotes from the Robarge article, tells what it says, gives the reader the gist of the article, with some interspersed quotes from persons Shenon interviewed for comment and reactions on the story.

I have a question though on a detail.

Shenon's article says this, APPARENTLY in context representing what the Robarge article says, though it is not explicitly attributed to the Robarge article. Shenon:

"The 2013 report also draws attention to the contacts between McCone and Robert Kennedy in the days after the assassination. In the wake of the Bay of Pigs disaster in 1961, the attorney general was asked by his brother, the president, to direct the administration's secret war against Castro, and Robert Kennedy's friends and family acknowledged years later that he never stopped fearing that Castro was behind his brother's death. 'McCone had frequent contact with Robert Kennedy during the painful days after the assassination,' the report says... 'Because Robert Kennedy had overseen the Agency's anti-Castro covert actions--including some of the assassination plans--his dealings with McCone about his brother's murder had a special gravity,' the report concludes. 'Did Castro kill the president because the president had tried to kill Castro? Had the administration's obsession with Cuba inadvertently inspired a politicized sociopath to murder John Kennedy?' "

The Question: what is Shenon's source for the claim that "Robert Kennedy's family and friends acknowledged years later that he never stopped fearing that Castro was behind his brother's death?"

What family said that? What friend said that?

The Robarge article does not have that detail-- about RFK family or friends having said in later years that RFK feared Castro was behind his brother's death. Therefore, the sentence is a claim by Philip Shenon.

This does not square with anything I have read of Robert Kennedy's private views of his brother's assassination. There are many accounts of RFK's private views starting from day one--how he suspected the CIA, asked McCone with whom he was close about it, believed McCone's answer that the CIA didn't. How RFK asked a trusted friend in Chicago with mob contacts to quietly ask and find out if the mob did it, and the answer came back no, nothing there. How RFK called his anti-Castro Cuban contacts and said "one of your guys did it!", meaning anti-Castro Cubans, NOT pro-Castro Cubans or Castro. The story of the emissary sent by RFK circles to the USSR with a private message saying JFK had been killed by his domestic opponents. 

Nothing in any of these stories about RFK suspecting Castro was involved.

And here is Philip Shenon himself quoted in 2013, two years earlier, nothing about RFK for the rest of his life suspecting Castro involved:

"Attorney General Robert Kennedy was not a believer in the lone gunman theory ... Who did he suspect was part of the plot? 'Apparently Bobby Kennedy's first suspicion was that it was some rogue element in the CIA,' said Philip Shenon, author of a new book on the JFK assassination.

"But, after an intimate meeting with CIA Director John McCone, the president's brother was convinced the agency was not involved. He lived the rest of his life suspecting the Mafia or the Cubans were behind his brother's death, according to Shenon's book, "A Cruel and Shocking Act." (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/inside-job-cia-suspect-some-jfks-killing-flna2D11627219)

And all accounts have those "Cubans" suspected by RFK as anti-Castro Cubans. Not Cubans working for Castro or sent by Castro.

According to this 2011 Salon article by Jefferson Morley citing David Talbot, RFK suspected anti-Castro Cubans, nothing about suspecting Castro.

"More likely, Kennedy was ambushed by enemies who sought to avoid detection. That is what JFK's widow, Jacqueline, and his brother Robert believed. As David Talbot demonstrated in his 2007 book "Brothers," Bobby Kennedy concluded within hours of the gunfire in Dallas that his brother had been killed by anti-Castro Cubans. For the rest of his life, RFK never abandoned a conspiratorial interpretation of his brother's death. (Full disclosure: Talbot is my boss and friend.)

"The story is well-documented. Within a week of the assassination, RFK and Jackie Kennedy sent a friend to Moscow with a message for the leadership of the Soviet Union. As historians Aleksandr Fursenko and Tim Naftali reported in their 1999 book on the Cuban missile crisis, "One Hell of a Gamble," Bobby and Jackie wanted the Soviet leadership to know that “despite Oswald’s connections to the communist world, the Kennedys believed that the president was felled by domestic opponents." This finding is worth repeating on the 48th anniversary of JFK's death: Jackie and Bobby Kennedy "believed that the president was felled by domestic opponents."

"Naftali, now the director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in California, told me in an email that he and his co-author learned the story from a Soviet diplomat, Georgi Bolshakov, and found his written account of Bobby and Jackie's message in the Soviet archives. In that message Bobby and Jackie sought to assure the Soviet leadership that they did not believe that Oswald acted at Castro's behest." (https://www.salon.com/2011/11/22/the_holy_grail_of_the_jfk_story/)

Therefore, what is Shenon's basis for the claim that "Robert Kennedy's friends and family acknowledged years later that he [RFK] never stopped fearing that Castro was behind his brother's death"?

Is Shenon referring to something published somewhere, something credibly saying that some RFK "friends and family" "acknowledged" years later that RFK "never stopped fearing that Castro was behind his brother's death"?

Does anyone know?  

[Kevin Balch]

7 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

In an article dated Oct 6, 2015, Politico, Philip Shenon reported on an article by CIA in-house historian David Robarge published in Studies in Intelligence 57/3, Sept 2013, in which Robarge reported on John McCone deceptions to the Warren Commission in withholding information on CIA plots to kill Castro as part of a "benign coverup" by the CIA. Here is the Philip Shenon article: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/jfk-assassination-john-mccone-warren-commission-cia-213197/. Here is the David Robarge original article: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB493/docs/intell_ebb_026.PDF. 

In Shenon's article Shenon paraphrases and quotes from the Robarge article, tells what it says, gives the reader the gist of the article, with some interspersed quotes from persons Shenon interviewed for comment and reactions on the story.

I have a question though on a detail.

Shenon's article says this, APPARENTLY in context representing what the Robarge article says, though it is not explicitly attributed to the Robarge article. Shenon:

"The 2013 report also draws attention to the contacts between McCone and Robert Kennedy in the days after the assassination. In the wake of the Bay of Pigs disaster in 1961, the attorney general was asked by his brother, the president, to direct the administration's secret war against Castro, and Robert Kennedy's friends and family acknowledged years later that he never stopped fearing that Castro was behind his brother's death. 'McCone had frequent contact with Robert Kennedy during the painful days after the assassination,' the report says... 'Because Robert Kennedy had overseen the Agency's anti-Castro covert actions--including some of the assassination plans--his dealings with McCone about his brother's murder had a special gravity,' the report concludes. 'Did Castro kill the president because the president had tried to kill Castro? Had the administration's obsession with Cuba inadvertently inspired a politicized sociopath to murder John Kennedy?' "

The Question: what is Shenon's source for the claim that "Robert Kennedy's family and friends acknowledged years later that he never stopped fearing that Castro was behind his brother's death?"

What family said that? What friend said that?

The Robarge article does not have that detail-- about RFK family or friends having said in later years that RFK feared Castro was behind his brother's death. Therefore, the sentence is a claim by Philip Shenon.

This does not square with anything I have read of Robert Kennedy's private views of his brother's assassination. There are many accounts of RFK's private views starting from day one--how he suspected the CIA, asked McCone with whom he was close about it, believed McCone's answer that the CIA didn't. How RFK asked a trusted friend in Chicago with mob contacts to quietly ask and find out if the mob did it, and the answer came back no, nothing there. How RFK called his anti-Castro Cuban contacts and said "one of your guys did it!", meaning anti-Castro Cubans, NOT pro-Castro Cubans or Castro. The story of the emissary sent by RFK circles to the USSR with a private message saying JFK had been killed by his domestic opponents. 

Nothing in any of these stories about RFK suspecting Castro was involved.

And here is Philip Shenon himself quoted in 2013, two years earlier, nothing about RFK for the rest of his life suspecting Castro involved:

"Attorney General Robert Kennedy was not a believer in the lone gunman theory ... Who did he suspect was part of the plot? 'Apparently Bobby Kennedy's first suspicion was that it was some rogue element in the CIA,' said Philip Shenon, author of a new book on the JFK assassination.

"But, after an intimate meeting with CIA Director John McCone, the president's brother was convinced the agency was not involved. He lived the rest of his life suspecting the Mafia or the Cubans were behind his brother's death, according to Shenon's book, "A Cruel and Shocking Act." (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/inside-job-cia-suspect-some-jfks-killing-flna2D11627219)

And all accounts have those "Cubans" suspected by RFK as anti-Castro Cubans. Not Cubans working for Castro or sent by Castro.

According to this 2011 Salon article by Jefferson Morley citing David Talbot, RFK suspected anti-Castro Cubans, nothing about suspecting Castro.

"More likely, Kennedy was ambushed by enemies who sought to avoid detection. That is what JFK's widow, Jacqueline, and his brother Robert believed. As David Talbot demonstrated in his 2007 book "Brothers," Bobby Kennedy concluded within hours of the gunfire in Dallas that his brother had been killed by anti-Castro Cubans. For the rest of his life, RFK never abandoned a conspiratorial interpretation of his brother's death. (Full disclosure: Talbot is my boss and friend.)

"The story is well-documented. Within a week of the assassination, RFK and Jackie Kennedy sent a friend to Moscow with a message for the leadership of the Soviet Union. As historians Aleksandr Fursenko and Tim Naftali reported in their 1999 book on the Cuban missile crisis, "One Hell of a Gamble," Bobby and Jackie wanted the Soviet leadership to know that “despite Oswald’s connections to the communist world, the Kennedys believed that the president was felled by domestic opponents." This finding is worth repeating on the 48th anniversary of JFK's death: Jackie and Bobby Kennedy "believed that the president was felled by domestic opponents."

"Naftali, now the director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in California, told me in an email that he and his co-author learned the story from a Soviet diplomat, Georgi Bolshakov, and found his written account of Bobby and Jackie's message in the Soviet archives. In that message Bobby and Jackie sought to assure the Soviet leadership that they did not believe that Oswald acted at Castro's behest." (https://www.salon.com/2011/11/22/the_holy_grail_of_the_jfk_story/)

Therefore, what is Shenon's basis for the claim that "Robert Kennedy's friends and family acknowledged years later that he [RFK] never stopped fearing that Castro was behind his brother's death"?

Is Shenon referring to something published somewhere, something credibly saying that some RFK "friends and family" "acknowledged" years later that RFK "never stopped fearing that Castro was behind his brother's death"?

Does anyone know?  

https://philipshenon.com/contact/

[Greg Doudna]

Thank you Kevin B, I have sent an inquiry.

[Greg Doudna]

I received a reply from Philip Shenon which answers the question. Shenon's statement in the Politico article was accurate. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (friend) and RFK, Jr. (family) are cited in Shenon's 2013 book, A Cruel and Shocking Act, as having said that Robert Kennedy suspected Castro could have been behind his brother's assassination. The references are:

Page 433, referring to LBJ telling someone that the JFK assassination was "divine retribution" for American involvement in the assassinations of Trujillo and Diem, and word of that getting back to RFK.

"Johnson's remark was quickly relayed to Kennedy, as the president might have suspected, and the attorney general was furious. 'Divine retribution?' Kennedy asked in astonishment. In a conversation in April 1964 with his friend, the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy described it as 'the worst thing that Johnson' had ever said.

"But was Johnson wrong? Whatever his fury toward the new president, Kennedy had his own suspicions that a foreign leader targeted for assassination by the Kennedy administration had simply struck first: Castro. According to Schlesinger, he asked Kennedy that fall--'perhaps tactlessly'--if he really believed Oswald had acted alone. 'He said that there could be no serious doubt that Oswald was guilty, but there was still argument if he had done it by himself or as part of a larger plot, whether organized by Castro or by gangsters.'"

Page 550:

"[I]n the nearly five years between his brother's violent death and his own, Robert Kennedy kept insisting publicly that he fully supported the findings of the Warren Commission, all the while telling family and friends that he was convinced that the commission had it wrong. If anyone doubted Kennedy's lack of candor, those doubts were put to rest in January 2013, when his son and namesake, Robert Jr., appeared to stun an audience in Dallas--at a forum to honor his father's legacy--by revealing that his father thought the commission's report 'was a shoddy piece of craftsmanship.' He said his father believed the assassination might have been carried out by mobsters in retaliation for the Justice Department's crackdown on organized crime during the Kennedy administration, or that the murder might have been linked to Cuba, or even possibly to 'rogue CIA agents.'

"Robert Jr. had an explanation for why his father had misled the public for years. His father, he said, felt he had no ability in the mid-1960s to pursue the investigation himself, and he worried that by raising his suspicions publicly about a conspiracy in his brother's assassination, he might divert attention from pressing national issues, especially the civil rights movement. 'There was really nothing he could have done about it at the time,' Robert Jr. explained. 'As soon as Jack died, he lost all of his power.'"

Shenon referred me for further information to a biography of RFK by Evan Thomas, which I do not have but have ordered. 

It seems to me RFK did not believe the Warren Report, but either did not think he knew for sure who was behind his brother's assassination or did not let on if he did think he knew for sure. He includes the Castro possibility among the others in these private musings as part of "could be any of these" language the way one speaks of an unsolved case, it sounds like to me. But that is not different from what Shenon wrote. If Castro was a suspect or possibility to RFK at all during those years the statement was accurate. 

 

[Robert Morrow]

2 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

I received a reply from Philip Shenon which answers the question. Shenon's statement in the Politico article was accurate. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (friend) and RFK, Jr. (family) are cited in Shenon's 2013 book, A Cruel and Shocking Act, as having said that Robert Kennedy suspected Castro could have been behind his brother's assassination. The references are:

Page 433, referring to LBJ telling someone that the JFK assassination was "divine retribution" for American involvement in the assassinations of Trujillo and Diem, and word of that getting back to RFK.

"Johnson's remark was quickly relayed to Kennedy, as the president might have suspected, and the attorney general was furious. 'Divine retribution?' Kennedy asked in astonishment. In a conversation in April 1964 with his friend, the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy described it as 'the worst thing that Johnson' had ever said.

"But was Johnson wrong? Whatever his fury toward the new president, Kennedy had his own suspicions that a foreign leader targeted for assassination by the Kennedy administration had simply struck first: Castro. According to Schlesinger, he asked Kennedy that fall--'perhaps tactlessly'--if he really believed Oswald had acted alone. 'He said that there could be no serious doubt that Oswald was guilty, but there was still argument if he had done it by himself or as part of a larger plot, whether organized by Castro or by gangsters.'"

Page 550:

"[I]n the nearly five years between his brother's violent death and his own, Robert Kennedy kept insisting publicly that he fully supported the findings of the Warren Commission, all the while telling family and friends that he was convinced that the commission had it wrong. If anyone doubted Kennedy's lack of candor, those doubts were put to rest in January 2013, when his son and namesake, Robert Jr., appeared to stun an audience in Dallas--at a forum to honor his father's legacy--by revealing that his father thought the commission's report 'was a shoddy piece of craftsmanship.' He said his father believed the assassination might have been carried out by mobsters in retaliation for the Justice Department's crackdown on organized crime during the Kennedy administration, or that the murder might have been linked to Cuba, or even possibly to 'rogue CIA agents.'

"Robert Jr. had an explanation for why his father had misled the public for years. His father, he said, felt he had no ability in the mid-1960s to pursue the investigation himself, and he worried that by raising his suspicions publicly about a conspiracy in his brother's assassination, he might divert attention from pressing national issues, especially the civil rights movement. 'There was really nothing he could have done about it at the time,' Robert Jr. explained. 'As soon as Jack died, he lost all of his power.'"

Shenon referred me for further information to a biography of RFK by Evan Thomas, which I do not have but have ordered. 

It seems to me RFK did not believe the Warren Report, but either did not think he knew for sure who was behind his brother's assassination or did not let on if he did think he knew for sure. He includes the Castro possibility among the others in these private musings as part of "could be any of these" language the way one speaks of an unsolved case, it sounds like to me. But that is not different from what Shenon wrote. If Castro was a suspect or possibility to RFK at all during those years the statement was accurate. 

 

When LYNDON JOHNSON told that anecdote to PIERRE SALINGER he did it with the express purpose of it getting back to ROBERT KENNEDY.

What Lyndon Johnson was telling Robert Kennedy was the death of your brother JOHN KENNEDY was DIVINE RETRIBUTION for you Kennedy bastards trying to destroy ME. LBJ was acutely aware of and highly agitated about and even rightfully obsessed with the Kennedy brothers' vigorous and imminent attempts to destroy LBJ in real time in November of 1963:

(Btw the attitude of LBJ was quite similar to that of Donald Trump's and who told his supporters "I am your retribution" when I really means "I am my retribution to wage vengeance on my (many, too numerous to count) political enemies."

LBJ top aide Horace Busby strongly implies that Lyndon Johnson was acutely aware by Nov. 4, 1963 that the Kennedys had sent a SWAT team of over **FORTY** national reporters to Texas to utterly destroy him  https://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/lyndon-johnson-was-acutely-aware-by-nov.html  I wonder how LBJ would have reacted?

Burkett van Kirk (GOP Senate Rules Committee counsel) and James Wagenvoord (Life Magazine assistant editor) prove the Kennedys were out to destroy LBJ in November of 1963 http://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2021/08/senate-counsel-burkett-van-kirk-and.html

National Review’s Phil Brennan knew in real time all about the Kennedys’ ongoing plan to destroy LBJ with the media in fall of 1963: https://www.newsmax.com/Pre-2008/Some-Relevant-Facts-About/2003/11/18/id/677423/

The JFK assassination DID have a tie-in to the death of Diem because GENERAL EDWARD LANSDALE, who I think LBJ used to kill JFK, was in an absolute RAGE of the death of Diem in an American-backed coup that JFK supported. LBJ immediately resurrected Lansdale's military career and by 1965 sent on to Vietnam with a portfolio.

LBJ on that "cross-eyed" John Kennedy and divine retribution

Gus Russo:

           "In his oral history, Robert Kennedy bitterly recounted a remark that Johnson supposedly made to someone else after the assassination. "When I was young in Texas, I used to know a cross-eyed boy," Johnson said. "His eyes were crossed, and so was his character... That was God's retribution for people who were bad - and you should be careful of cross-eyed people because God put his mark on them ... Sometimes I think that what happened to Kennedy may have been divine retribution." JFK himself had slightly crossed eyes."

 [Leo Janos, LBJ speechwriter, Church Committee interview by Rhett Dawson, Oct. 14, 1975 ... also Gus Russo, Live by the Sword, p. 377]

Arthur Schlesinger on Robert Kennedy being convinced at one point that Lyndon Johnson had murdered John Kennedy

 "We tried to perpetuate the myth by convincing ourselves that we were good and that LBJ was evil. I remember one time Bobby telling me he was convinced that Lyndon was behind his brother's death. 'Come on Bob. Get real.' I said. His other theory had it that Richard Nixon and Howard Hughes were somehow involved. He hated them both. 'Nixon's a true slimebucket,' he said. 'And I should have investigated Hughes years ago.'"

 [C. David Heymann, RFK, p. 365]

From Arthur Schlesinger:

QUOTE

July 23 1964

Bobby seemed philosophical about the vice presidency. His thoughts are still turning to the idea of spending a year at Oxford reading and writing.

We talked a good deal about his relationshp to LBJ. Obviously Johnson's actions in the first 24 hours after JFK's death left wounds which will take a long time to heal. Bobby commented that Sarge Shriver had taken it on himself to harmonize the situation then and had only made it worse. Bobby said, "I told Sarge that if I wanted him to intervene I was capable of asking him to do so." His references to Sarge were fairly cool, and he seemed scornful of the notion that Sarge might be a serious possibility for the vice presidency.

After a silence Bobby said, "You know the worst thing Johnson has said? ... Once he told Pierre Salinger, 'When I was young in Texas, I used to know a cross-eyed boy. His eyes were crossed, and so was his character. Sometimes I think that, when you remember the assassination of Trujillo and the assassination of Diem, what happened to Kennedy may have been divine retribution.'"

[Schlesinger, Journals, p. 227-228]

UNQUOTE

[My note: John Kennedy had a lazy eye and was a bit cross eyed.]

Author Larry Hancock on who LBJ blamed for the JFK assassination:

 QUOTE

             The day after John Kennedy’s funeral, Johnson pointed at a picture of Diem and told Hubert Humphrey that, “We had a hand in killing him; now it’s happening here.” Johnson later told Pierre Salinger a story about “divine retribution” and implied that perhaps also applied to Kennedy’s death. A few days after Kennedy’s funeral, Kennedy aide Ralph Dungan was working late in his office in the West Wing when he heard a noise at the door. Dungan looked up and there was President Johnson, in nothing but a t-shirt and boxer shorts. He told Dungan he wanted to talk to him and motioned him to the Oval Office, where Johnson forced him to sit on the sofa and in a low voice said, “I want to tell you why Kennedy died.” A stunned Dungan sat while Johnson pointed his finger and said, “Divine retribution … he murdered Diem and then he got it himself.” (Mahoney 302-303, from Mahoney interview with Dungan). Shesol also relates that Johnson told Jack Valenti his inner political instinct was that Castro was behind the killing. Johnson expanded on that thought to Joseph Califano – President Kennedy tried to get Castro, but Castro got Kennedy first. Apparently, Johnson made a similar remark to Richard Helms of the CIA. When asked by the Congressional Committee if he had ever heard the theory that Castro might have been behind the assassination of President Kennedy, Helms replied that “the very first time I heard such a theory (that Castro might have shot the president on Casto’s behalf) was in a very peculiar way from President Johnson.” Later Johnson would relate to Acting Attorney General Ramsey Clark that (he) Castro called Oswald and a group in … and said go set it up and get the job done (killing Kennedy). Jeff Sheshol, Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy and the Feud that Defined a Decade, (New York, NY: Norton and Company, 1997), 131-134. Johnson’s best known biographer, Robert Caro, remarked that “Johnson could believe whatever he wanted to believe … could believe it with all his heart … he could convince himself of anything, even something that wasn’t true”

 UNQUOTE

 

Edited Saturday at 08:41 PM by Robert Morrow

[Robert Morrow]

A few years ago (2022) at a JFK Historical Conference I interviewed a JFK assassination researcher who once was on a cruise with the longtime hair dresser for Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert Kennedy. I am going to censor his name and contact information because he wants me to but here is his story. In a nutshell, in early 2015 Ethel Kennedy's longtime hairdresser told [Name Withheld] that she once asked Ethel Kennedy, "Who do you think killed JFK" and the reply around year 2010 was "We all thought it was Lyndon Johnson."

Ethel Kennedy told her hairdresser “We all thought it was Lyndon Johnson” who murdered John Kennedy. In January, 2015 Ethel’s hairdresser told this to [Name Withheld] while they were on the Ruby Princess cruised in January, 2015.  [Name Withheld] told the Ethel Kennedy hairdresser anecdote to Robert Morrow in November, 2022 at the JFK Historical Conference in Dallas.

  Email to Robert Morrow: 

Rob,

Just got David Denton's email about November.  I hope the visit with your Mom is going well!

Yes, I had a tough year with the NECK and back problem, but the neck, mysteriously started to dissipate in mid-may and I am thrilled to report it is doing well.  Keep fingers crossed! 

I did some investigation and the meeting with the hairdresser (HD) was on the Ruby Princess, that sailed on January 24, 2015.  It was a week cruise and the dinner with her was the second or third night in.  It was a singles cruise with "Vacationstogo" and we had a large 100 or so group of singles.  I was with a couple people I already knew.  The group had multiple tables, and we were encouraged to mix it up each night.  I was in Dallas November of 2014 and was telling folks about my interest in the assassination.  Some lady said something the effect, "you should have sat with us last night, we were with a lady that has been doing Ethel Kennedy's hair for years".  I asked her to point her out for the next night's dinner, and sure enough, she did and I sat next to HD.

 I gained her confidence early on, but she was quite talkative as she was quite annoyed at Ethel's recent behavior of not having her payment, and, bringing unannounced people with her to do their hair.  She distinctly said she was owed "over $800" at that point, and told her the "accountant" would send her a check.  She had been doing the hair for Ethel for 15 years. 

We got into a discussion about how the very wealthy live in a different world than us, and does not realize that "$800 plus bucks" can mean a lot to us working folks.  

TIME OUT!  Just noticed I'm running late, and this is to be continued.............

Best to your Mom,

 [Name Withheld] 

On Saturday, June 17, 2023 at 07:53:12 AM PDT, Robert Morrow <morrow321@aol.com> wrote:

 [Name Withheld], I was worried about you medically because I had not heard from you. Yes, I would like to know about when the hairdresser told you this. Even better, I wonder what the hairdresser's name is. I know Ethel Kennedy is alive. Caroline Kennedy is awful on the JFK assassination and will not discuss a "conspiracy" at all. Robert Kennedy, Jr. has not figured out "LBJ Did It." I wish I could talk with the hairdresser or know her name. Maybe you could describe her physical appearance and ethnicity. 

I am going home to Alabama for a week June 18-25 to see my 85 year old mother. My cell phone 512-496-1293 is a number I can be reached anywhere.

 Sincerely,

 Robert Morrow

 In a message dated 6/17/2023 2:23:08 AM Central Standard Time, [Name Withheld] writes:

 Rob,

Sorry for the delay.  I got interested in pinning the cruise down, which will pin down the week and year.  It was a singles cruise out of Southern Florida, most likely, Ft. Lauderdale.  I have been on 40 cruises. By the way, Ethel Kennedy is still alive, and is 95. I have a busy weekend.  But, will pin down these dates, and be back in touch.

 [Name Withheld] 

On Friday, June 16, 2023 at 09:09:39 AM PDT, Robert Morrow <morrow321@aol.com> wrote:

 [Name Withheld], 

    This is Robert Morrow of Austin, TX. I met you at the JFK assassination conference last November in Dallas. Is everything okay with you medically? I tried to contact you several times at XXX-XXX-XXXX. My home landline number is 512-306-1510 and my cell phone number is 512-496-1293.

     I would like to talk with you about what Ethel Kennedy's hairdresser told you about Ethel's view on the JFK assassination - "We all thought it was Lyndon Johnson." I think this is extremely historically important because Jackie Kennedy and Evelyn Lincoln thought the same in real time and I am sure Robert Kennedy did as well.

     Please give me a call at your convenience to 512-306-1510 - it is CST time zone and my home in Austin, TX.

 Sincerely,

 Robert Morrow 

Robert Morrow 7/3/2023 interview with [Name Withheld] on Edith Kennedy saying that “We all thought it was Lyndon Johnson” behind the JFK assassination”

 Phillip said the hairdresser said Ethel said:

 We -meaning the family, “We always thought it was Lyndon Johnson” – told to [Name Withheld] by the hairdressing quoting Ethel- Ethel said this in about 2010 when she would have been about 82 years old.

 The age of the hairdresser seemed to be about age 45-55, dark haired – Caucasian woman. [Name Withheld] does not know what state the hairdresser worked in for Ethel (meaning Florida or Massachusetts) ...

 [Name Withheld] – had a career as an insurance claims adjuster – mid 1980s, then got into the litigation aspect of claims, liability. Defense attorneys reported to Phillip who became extremely knowledgeable about legal stuff. [Name Withheld] was promoted to the major case unit, had own defense attorneys.

 [Name Withheld] and committee would decide how much damages to pay or to go to court.

[Name Withheld] was required to show up at trials and watch whole case fold in the court room. More knowledgeable than 98% of lawyers in the litigation world. [Name Withheld] had the major case unit.

 The company [Name Withheld] worked for was Zurich North America, based in Illinois, but he was living in California. [Name Withheld] was in charge of the big cases for California and Nevada for Zurich. Washington, Oregon, Arizona – had about 8 states.

Lives in Indio, California near Indian Wells which is a very upscale area. Larry Ellison lives out there. Thunderberg Country Club nearby. 

Ethel Kennedy in 1963 was 100% for dumping Lyndon Johnson and replacing him as VP with her husband Robert Kennedy. She advocated this repeatedly

 QUOTE

           At the time of JFK’s death (November 1963), there was talk among Kennedy insiders of dumping LBJ as a running mate in the 1964 election. Ethel Kennedy made repeated recommendations that there be a Kennedy-Kennedy ticket, RFK to fill the vice-presidential slot. It is doubtful, however, that such a plan would have passed muster with either the president of the attorney general.

 UNQUOTE

 [David Heymann, RFK, p. 542]

 Robert Kennedy, Jr. on how Lyndon Johnson was presented as a nemesis to the Kennedy family when he was a kid

 QUOTE

 “Lyndon Johnson was rather a nemesis to the family while we were growing up,” reminisced Bobby, Jr. “In retrospect, he was one of the best presidents we ever had, but during the heat of battle, the kids all regarded him as some kind of ogre.”

 UNQUOTE

 [David Heyman, RFK, p. 367]

Edited Saturday at 09:59 PM by Robert Morrow

[Greg Doudna]

Fact-checking... DID RFK Jr. tell Charlie Rose his father suspected Castro might be behind the JFK assassination?

Although Shenon wrote in his book that RFK Jr. told Charlie Rose, in a forum in Dallas in 2013, that his father suspected "Cuba" as possibly having been behind his brother's assassination, I have not been able to verify that.

All the wire service reports of that event I see from the time don’t mention RFK Jr. mentioning his father suspected Castro, only the mob angle (e.g. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-dad-believed-warren-commission-shoddy/).

I cannot find a video of that RFK Jr/Charlie Rose in Dallas of Jan 2013, nor can I find a transcript. But this article on DiEugenio’s Kennedys and King quotes the “Cubans” reference from that event and says it was Charlie Rose who spoke that word, not RFK Jr.

"But RFK Jr. then returned to this Mafia theme when he said one of the things that pricked his father’s curiosity was the phone records of Oswald and Ruby. These contained many calls to organized crime figures. Therefore, his father “was fairly convinced at the end of that there had been involvement by somebody.” Again, Rose jumped in and did his bit: “Organized crime, Cubans.” To which, RFK Jr. (thankfully) replied, “Or rogue CIA.” " (https://www.kennedysandking.com/news-items/the-msm-and-rfk-jr-only-45-years-late-this-time)

In a followup with Shenon, I cited this quotation from the Kennedys and Kings article and asked if he was sure RFK Jr had said "Cubans" were a possibility considered by his father ("He said his father believed the assassination might have been carried out by mobsters in retaliation for the Justice Department’s crackdown on organized crime during the Kennedy administration, or that the murder might have been linked to Cuba, or even possibly to ‘rogue CIA agents’” [Cruel and Shocking Act, 550]). Shenon answered, "Apologies, but I wrote that book more than a decade ago and I don't remember that level of detail. The interview transcript must exist somewhere..."

 

Edited Saturday at 08:36 PM by Greg Doudna

[Robert Morrow]

13 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

In an article dated Oct 6, 2015, Politico, Philip Shenon reported on an article by CIA in-house historian David Robarge published in Studies in Intelligence 57/3, Sept 2013, in which Robarge reported on John McCone deceptions to the Warren Commission in withholding information on CIA plots to kill Castro as part of a "benign coverup" by the CIA. Here is the Philip Shenon article: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/jfk-assassination-john-mccone-warren-commission-cia-213197/. Here is the David Robarge original article: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB493/docs/intell_ebb_026.PDF. 

In Shenon's article Shenon paraphrases and quotes from the Robarge article, tells what it says, gives the reader the gist of the article, with some interspersed quotes from persons Shenon interviewed for comment and reactions on the story.

I have a question though on a detail.

Shenon's article says this, APPARENTLY in context representing what the Robarge article says, though it is not explicitly attributed to the Robarge article. Shenon:

"The 2013 report also draws attention to the contacts between McCone and Robert Kennedy in the days after the assassination. In the wake of the Bay of Pigs disaster in 1961, the attorney general was asked by his brother, the president, to direct the administration's secret war against Castro, and Robert Kennedy's friends and family acknowledged years later that he never stopped fearing that Castro was behind his brother's death. 'McCone had frequent contact with Robert Kennedy during the painful days after the assassination,' the report says... 'Because Robert Kennedy had overseen the Agency's anti-Castro covert actions--including some of the assassination plans--his dealings with McCone about his brother's murder had a special gravity,' the report concludes. 'Did Castro kill the president because the president had tried to kill Castro? Had the administration's obsession with Cuba inadvertently inspired a politicized sociopath to murder John Kennedy?' "

The Question: what is Shenon's source for the claim that "Robert Kennedy's family and friends acknowledged years later that he never stopped fearing that Castro was behind his brother's death?"

What family said that? What friend said that?

The Robarge article does not have that detail-- about RFK family or friends having said in later years that RFK feared Castro was behind his brother's death. Therefore, the sentence is a claim by Philip Shenon.

This does not square with anything I have read of Robert Kennedy's private views of his brother's assassination. There are many accounts of RFK's private views starting from day one--how he suspected the CIA, asked McCone with whom he was close about it, believed McCone's answer that the CIA didn't. How RFK asked a trusted friend in Chicago with mob contacts to quietly ask and find out if the mob did it, and the answer came back no, nothing there. How RFK called his anti-Castro Cuban contacts and said "one of your guys did it!", meaning anti-Castro Cubans, NOT pro-Castro Cubans or Castro. The story of the emissary sent by RFK circles to the USSR with a private message saying JFK had been killed by his domestic opponents. 

Nothing in any of these stories about RFK suspecting Castro was involved.

And here is Philip Shenon himself quoted in 2013, two years earlier, nothing about RFK for the rest of his life suspecting Castro involved:

"Attorney General Robert Kennedy was not a believer in the lone gunman theory ... Who did he suspect was part of the plot? 'Apparently Bobby Kennedy's first suspicion was that it was some rogue element in the CIA,' said Philip Shenon, author of a new book on the JFK assassination.

"But, after an intimate meeting with CIA Director John McCone, the president's brother was convinced the agency was not involved. He lived the rest of his life suspecting the Mafia or the Cubans were behind his brother's death, according to Shenon's book, "A Cruel and Shocking Act." (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/inside-job-cia-suspect-some-jfks-killing-flna2D11627219)

And all accounts have those "Cubans" suspected by RFK as anti-Castro Cubans. Not Cubans working for Castro or sent by Castro.

According to this 2011 Salon article by Jefferson Morley citing David Talbot, RFK suspected anti-Castro Cubans, nothing about suspecting Castro.

"More likely, Kennedy was ambushed by enemies who sought to avoid detection. That is what JFK's widow, Jacqueline, and his brother Robert believed. As David Talbot demonstrated in his 2007 book "Brothers," Bobby Kennedy concluded within hours of the gunfire in Dallas that his brother had been killed by anti-Castro Cubans. For the rest of his life, RFK never abandoned a conspiratorial interpretation of his brother's death. (Full disclosure: Talbot is my boss and friend.)

"The story is well-documented. Within a week of the assassination, RFK and Jackie Kennedy sent a friend to Moscow with a message for the leadership of the Soviet Union. As historians Aleksandr Fursenko and Tim Naftali reported in their 1999 book on the Cuban missile crisis, "One Hell of a Gamble," Bobby and Jackie wanted the Soviet leadership to know that “despite Oswald’s connections to the communist world, the Kennedys believed that the president was felled by domestic opponents." This finding is worth repeating on the 48th anniversary of JFK's death: Jackie and Bobby Kennedy "believed that the president was felled by domestic opponents."

"Naftali, now the director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in California, told me in an email that he and his co-author learned the story from a Soviet diplomat, Georgi Bolshakov, and found his written account of Bobby and Jackie's message in the Soviet archives. In that message Bobby and Jackie sought to assure the Soviet leadership that they did not believe that Oswald acted at Castro's behest." (https://www.salon.com/2011/11/22/the_holy_grail_of_the_jfk_story/)

Therefore, what is Shenon's basis for the claim that "Robert Kennedy's friends and family acknowledged years later that he [RFK] never stopped fearing that Castro was behind his brother's death"?

Is Shenon referring to something published somewhere, something credibly saying that some RFK "friends and family" "acknowledged" years later that RFK "never stopped fearing that Castro was behind his brother's death"?

Does anyone know?  

Within a week of the JFK assassination, Jackie and Robert Kennedy sent their close pal WILLIAM WALTON to Russia to deliver a message and one of the things that MADE SURE that William Walton relayed to the Soviets was that the selection of LYNDON JOHNSON as Vice President had been a DREADFUL MISTAKE.

Here is how Alexandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali tell this anecdote:

By Nov. 29, 1963 the Kennedys had sent close friend William Walton to the USSR to tell their leaders that JFK had been murdered by his American opponents in a conspiracy and that the selection of Lyndon Johnson as vice president had been a “dreadful” mistake.

 Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble (jfk-online.com)

 https://www.jfk-online.com/fursenko.html

[Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964, pp. 343-350]

 QUOTE

 On November 25, as John F. Kennedy was being laid to rest, Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner with a taste for scandal, shot Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters. This event gave free rein to Khrushchev's wildest fears about the larger meaning of the tragedy. "The whole thing is obviously a crude provocation," announced TASS. Khrushchev could not understand why the security around Oswald had been so lax.

Intelligence coming to Khrushchev in the weeks following the assassination seemed to confirm the theory that a right-wing conspiracy had killed Kennedy. On November 25 the Mexican ambassador to Cuba told the members of his embassy's political section about his information that an "extensive conspiracy" had been behind the assassination that would bring "serious political consequences." This report likely came from Cuban intelligence. A source in Mexico City reported that the leader of the Mexican senate had quoted President Lopez Mateos as saying that Kennedy had died at the hands of "extremely right-wing elements that did not like his policies, especially his policy toward Cuba."

 These Mexican hunches were bolstered by KGB information from its network in the French government. "The Quai d'Orsay," it was reported to the Kremlin, "has come to the conclusion that Kennedy's assassination was organized by extremely right-wing racist circles, who are dissatisfied with both the domestic and foreign policies of the slain president, especially his intention of improving relations with the Soviet Union." The French permanent representative to the UN, according to Soviet intelligence, believed that the assassination was a "carefully organized act" by a determined group on the far right of American politics.

 The most striking information on the assassination came from a member of the Kennedy inner circle. In the first week of December, an emissary from Robert Kennedy flew to Moscow, with news that the Kennedy family believed that the former president had been the victim of a right-wing conspiracy. William Walton had been one of John Kennedy's closest friends. In March 1961 Life featured him in an article entitled "The Painting Pal of the President."" When John Kennedy narrowed his circle of friends after entering the White House, Walton remained close. A former journalist who had found a new calling as an abstract painter, he assisted Jacqueline in shaping the president's program for the arts. It was Walton who had led the campaign to maintain the architectural unity of Lafayette Park, facing the White House. Walton had last seen Kennedy, radiant and upbeat, on November 19, 1963. Kennedy spoke confidently of his chances for reelection in 1964 and informed his good friend that he intended to be the first US president to visit the Kremlin, as soon as he and Khrushchev reached another arms control agreement. Only three days later, Walton found himself participating in the sad decision over whether Kennedy's casket would be left open in the Rotunda of the Capitol. Walton and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., suggested to Robert Kennedy that the disfigured president not be the last image of Kennedy glimpsed by the nation. The casket was sealed.

 Shortly before his death Kennedy had asked Walton to visit Moscow to meet Soviet artists. He wanted Walton to familiarize himself with the course of Soviet art and the future plans of the artistic community there. The trip had to be delayed because on October 31, 1963, the Soviets had picked up the Yale professor Frederick Barghoorn on a trumped-up charge of espionage. The Barghoorn case was settled quickly, and Walton had a ticket to leave for London and Leningrad on November 22. The shocking news from Dallas delayed his trip a second time. After the assassination Robert Kennedy urged Walton to go. Instead of bringing the greetings of a happy and confident president, Walton traveled east on November 29 in the shadow of the tragedy in Dallas."

 In the wake of the assassination, Walton now had a secret mission besides his ostensible visit with Soviet artists. Robert and Jacqueline Kennedy wanted him to meet with Georgi Bolshakov, the man who for twenty months around the time of the Cuba missile crisis had served as the Russian end of a secret link between the White House and the Kremlin. The Kennedys wanted the Russian who they felt best understood John Kennedy to know their personal opinions of the changes in the US government since the assassination. Fearing interference from the Johnson administration, Robert Kennedy instructed Walton to meet Boishakov before he moved into the US embassy. The new US ambassador, Foy Kohler, was not considered a Kennedy admirer. Walton, Jacqueline Kennedy, and the attorney general bad opposed his nomination, and they assumed that Kohler knew this."

 Boishakov and Walton met at the Sovietskaya restaurant. "Dallas was the ideal location for such a crime," Walton told the Soviet intelligence officer. "Perhaps there was only one assassin, but he did not act alone." Bolshakov, who had himself been deeply moved by assassination, listened intently as Walton explained that the Kennedys believed there was a large political conspiracy behind Oswald's rifle. Despite Oswald's connections to the communist world, the Kennedys believed that the president was felled by domestic opponents.

 Walton described in some detail the aftermath of the assassination. The crime shocked the Kennedy inner circle and threw all of Washington into confusion. When Bobby Kennedy finally made his way to bed in the early morning of November 23, he spent the next few hours weeping, unable to sleep. In the first twenty-four hours following the assassination, Walton explained with a sense of drama, Kennedy's national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy, had run the entire country because no one else had quite his presence of mind in those trying moments.

 More dismaying to Khrushchev, who would have understood Robert Kennedy's natural paralysis from grief, was what Walton told Bolshakov, and therefore the Soviet leadership, about Lyndon Johnson. The Kennedy clan considered the selection of Johnson a dreadful mistake. "He is a clever timeserver," Walton explained, who would be "incapable of realizing Kennedy's unfinished plans." Walton relayed his own and Robert Kennedy's fear that Johnson's close ties to big business would bring many more of its representatives into the administration. This was certainly not designed to please Khrushchev. Surprisingly, Walton believed that the one hope for US-Soviet relations was the former automobile executive Robert McNamara, who would probably remain in the cabinet as secretary of defense. Walton described McNamara as "completely sharing the views of President Kennedy on matters of war and peace." For the sake of good relations between Moscow and Washington, Walton assured Bolshakov, it was even more important that McNamara stay put than that Secretary of State Dean Rusk remain.

 Walton's purpose was clear in his discussions of Robert Kennedy's political future. He said that Kennedy intended to stay on as attorney general through the end of 1964. He would then run for the governorship of Massachusetts to build up his political capital for an eventual run for the presidency. Walton, and presumably Kennedy, wanted Khrushchev to know that only RFK could implement John Kennedy's vision and that the cooling that might occur in US-Soviet relations because of Johnson would not last forever. He added that he was surprised to hear some Russians say that Bobby was more reactionary in his views on the Soviet Union than his brother. "This is untrue," asserted Walton. "If Robert differed from Jack, it was only in that he is a harder man; but as for his views, Robert agreed completely with his brother and, more important, actively sought to bring John F. Kennedy's ideas to fruition."

 Bolshakov was not the only Soviet with whom Walton talked, but their conversation was the most open. Walton bit his tongue and said a kind word about Lyndon Johnson in front of Aleksei Adzhubei and Yuri Zhukov. The latter argued with keen persistence for a summit between the new president and Khrushchev by June of 1964: "Who else is there to talk to!" asked Adzhubei. "[British prime minister] Alec Home! Ha! The Germans -- Pfft. Gen. de Gaulle? Nobody can talk to him."

 The Walton visit was the first of three by prominent Americans that seemed to confirm Khrushchev's fears that Lyndon Johnson would not continue Kennedy's efforts on behalf of detente. A little over a week after Walton lunched with Bolshakov, Kennedy's and now Johnson's special assistant for national security affairs, McGeorge Bundy, had his own long lunch with Anatoly Dobrynin. "On the whole this was the most searching and instructive conversation I have yet had with a Soviet diplomat," Bundy reported to Johnson afterwards. Indeed, over the course of the lunch, the men began to call each other by their first names.

 But for Dobrynin the meeting spelled the end of his special channel through Robert Kennedy to the White House, and Bundy did not offer much of a substitute. Bundy told Dobrynin that "he could continue to rely on the Secretary of State, Ambassador Thompson, and myself with the respect to the most private communications." Dobrynin, however, was worried that his preferred link, Robert Kennedy, would not really be a player in this administration. Bundy later wrote to Johnson that he assured the Soviet ambassador that Kennedy would remain a very important member of the team. However, on behalf of Johnson, Bundy tried to steer Dobrynin away from the attorney general, "when the Ambassador asked in the most explicit way where he should go with his most private messages, I told him that I thought his best bet was Ambassador Thompson." Thompson, not a Johnson intimate, was not the intermediary Dobrynin had hoped for.

 Three days later the Kremlin learned that the new White House was not really interested in these "most private messages" anyway. On December 21, when the much delayed meeting between Karpovich of the KGB and Salinger finally took place, the White House press secretary had discouraging news for the Soviets. Superpower talks were not on the immediate agenda of the new American regime. Johnson assured Khrushchev through Karpovich that in principle he shared his predecessor's belief in keeping as many lines open to the Kremlin as possible. But at the moment he saw no reason to maintain this confidential channel through the KGB. Johnson was interested in the Soviet reaction to his speech at the UN. Otherwise, he was consumed by the need to reassure Americans that their government was functioning despite the tragedy. Semichastny reported to Khrushchev two days after the meeting that Salinger had said that "at the present time Lyndon Johnson is devoting serious attention to the preparation of his State of the Union address, which he intends to deliver before Congress on January 8, 1964."

 Johnson sent a private message to Khrushchev through Mikoyan just after Kennedy's funeral that was intended to prevent these misunderstandings from arising. "I should like you to know," Johnson wrote, "that I have kept in close touch with the development of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and that I have been in full accord with the policies of President Kennedy."

 The Soviets wanted more proof of Johnson's intention to keep the faith. During the week before Christmas, Moscow received the second official US visitor since the assassination. But though Najeeb Halaby, the administrator of the Federal Aviation Agency, held out hope of a civil air accord, he was too minor an official to carry any special proposals from Johnson. The one feeler that Johnson apparently did send to the Kremlin was crude. The editor of the Saturday Review, Norman Cousins, met on two occasions with Soviet representatives at the behest of the new president. Cousins's statements seemed to imply that Johnson feared a Soviet hand behind the tragedy. Cousins told the Soviets, who then reported this to the KGB, that Johnson "had shown great interest in Soviet press reaction to the circumstances of the assassination of the president." Moreover, he explained Johnson's concern that "the USSR would engage in some kind of hasty, unilateral action," such as "harsh criticism of the US in connection with the Kennedy assassination." Khrushchev had paid attention to Cousins before. On the eve of the Vienna summit, Khrushchev had read his statements to a KGB source about the role of the CIA in American society. Cousins had then had harsh words about the Trotskyite" element that the CIA listened to in writing its assessments of the Soviet Union. These cast the American journalist in the light of an independent-minded critic. But now Cousins was speaking for Lyndon Johnson, of whom the Kremlin was wary, and this time he would not be listened to.

 The KGB chose to ignore Johnson's promises to continue the Kennedy approach to foreign policy. The stream of information from the Kennedy circle, along with its own informants, confirmed a dark interpretation of the events in Texas. By the end of December, KGB analysts had concluded that an anti-Soviet coup d'etat had occurred:

 "The assassination of JFK on November 22 of this year in Dallas was organized by a circle of reactionary monopolists in league with pro-fascist groups of the US with the objective of strengthening the reactionary and aggressive aspects of US policy. The aforementioned circle was dissatisfied with the independent features of Kennedy's foreign and domestic policies, in particular, various measures to normalize US-Soviet relations, the broadening of civil rights of the Negro population, and also a significant limitation of the interests of a part of the American bourgeoisie, above all the oil and metallurgical monopolies."

 The KGB now had some details as to which members of the American right had been behind the murder. In late November a highly regarded Polish intelligence source, an American businessman who owned a series of companies, informed the Poles that three wealthy Texas oil wildcatters-Sid Richardson, Clint Murchison, and Harold Lafayette Hunt-had organized the plot against President Kennedy. All three were noted sponsors of southern racist and "pro-fascist" organizations." Moreover, a law passed in October 1962 had angered the oil industry by removing the tax provisions that had allowed profits reinvested abroad to be treated differently from repatriated oil profits. The oil lobby expected the situation to worsen in 1963. In talking up tax reform, Kennedy had implied that the oil industry's beloved oil depletion allowance was vulnerable.

 The KGB soon received more information that implicated Hunt. In early December, Paul W. Ward, the longtime diplomatic correspondent of the Baltimore Sun, told a KGB informant that the Texas oilman Hunt headed the group that decided to have Kennedy killed. According to Ward, Hunt had instructed Jack Ruby in the name of the group to offer Oswald a large amount of money to kill the president. Fearing Oswald's capture, Ruby was to persuade Oswald to hide this contract from his (Oswald's) wife and his mother. Ruby, who was friendly with Oswald, knew that the young man was having money trouble, could not hold a job, and needed assistance to maintain his family. Oswald "was a most appropriate figure for staging the terrorist act against Kennedy because of his past -- he implicated the USSR, Cuba, and the Communist Party of the US."

 Consistent with this the conspirators planned to launch an anti-Soviet propaganda blitz following Kennedy's removal from the scene to ensure that Moscow was held responsible. However, Ward added, the conspirators had not known that Oswald was psychologically deranged. Through their sources the conspirators learned that, under interrogation in the Dallas jail, Oswald had said he would tell all at his trial. It was then that Ruby decided to shoot Oswald to shut him up.

 Ward was a celebrated journalist who in nearly thirty years as a diplomatic correspondent had a record of shaping as well as covering great events. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for a series of articles called "Life in the Soviet Union." But it was his work in the twilight of European appeasement before World War II that first earned him notice. Ward interviewed Neville Chamberlain and wrote before the Munich conference that the British leader was "going with a plan and, if the plan works, the result may be worse than war. When Ward's prediction came true that Hitler would swallow the rest of Czechoslovakia after consuming the Sudetenland as an appetizer, the British Manchester Guardian wondered in its pages why MI6 was not as well informed as Paul Ward.

 The KGB report to the leadership did not indicate Ward's sources on Hunt, in December 1963, however, Ward was not alone in his suspicions. Harold Lafayette Hunt was a notorious supporter of right-wing causes in Texas. He sponsored a radio show called Lifeline, which regularly excoriated Kennedy and his administration. In much the same way that contemporary reactionaries were criticized following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 for having incited terrorism through their antigovernment rhetoric, in the days following the assassination of John Kennedy, H. L. Hunt was castigated publicly. The New Republic editorialized that Hunt's last radio broadside on Kennedy, broadcast the morning of the assassination, was "[t]he kind of program . . . that the brooding Oswalds of the left- or right-wing listen and sometimes act on."

 Ward's report -- and by extension the KGB's best estimate on "Who killed JFK?" -- probably derived from a discovery made by the FBI in late November that tied the Hunt family to the events in Dallas. In Jack Ruby's notebook, bureau agents found the name "Lamar Hunt," H.L.'s second son from his first marriage. By the time Ward's report reached Moscow, the distinction between Lamar and H. L. Hunt was lost. Indeed, for a while the US government wondered whether the Lamar Hunt connection was significant. On December 17 the FBI interviewed Lamar Hunt about Jack Ruby. Hunt denied ever having known Ruby. In jail Ruby agreed.

 The reporting of a seasoned American journalist like Ward was a boon for the disinformation team in the KGB, which was looking for ways to shift world attention away from Oswald's Soviet connections. For the chairman of the KGB, Semichastny, disinformation was a means to "enhance the prestige of the Soviet Union. Under him disinformation became a standard weapon in the KGB's war against the CIA. In December 1963, with the Soviet Union fearful of the rise of the political right in the United States, any evidence could be exploited, however flimsy, that tied American political primitives like H. L. Hunt to the murder of the president."

 The KGB likely did not wait for Ward to send this kind of information through its Wurlitzer of disinformation. The CIA reported to Bundy on December 5 that just two days earlier a "known Soviet intelligence officer in New Delhi" had tried to use the communist party of India to send telegrams to President Johnson, Chief justice Earl Warren, and Robert Kennedy. These telegrams, ostensibly from Indian youth groups, legal personalities, and other important representatives of Indian society, were to call for a full investigation of the Kennedy assassination.

 In Khrushchev's mind these intelligence fragments were annealed into a strong belief that a right-wing conspiracy had killed Kennedy. Khrushchev's wife, Nina Petrovna, was also sure that Jacqueline Kennedy was a widow because of an American conspiracy. The Khrushchevs revealed their suspicions to Drew Pearson and his wife, when the latter visited at the end of May 1964. In English, which she spoke quite well, Nina Khrushchev expressed her affection for Jackie Kennedy and her concerns about her welfare. The conversation then turned to the wife of Earl Warren, a mutual friend. When the women began discussing the Warren commission, Khrushchev joined in.

 "What really happened?" Khrushchev asked Drew Pearson through his interpreter. Pearson said that the newspapers had gotten it right. Oswald was the lone assassin. Khrushchev refused to accept this. It was impossible for him to imagine that the US security services were so inept as to have allowed a madman to kill the president. No doubt recalling what the KGB had reported, Khrushchev asserted that the Dallas Police Department had been part of a larger conspiracy. None of this surprised the Pearsons. Mrs. Pearson later told the CIA that the Soviet leader's conspiracist mind-set was typical "of every European [she had] ever talked to on this subject." The Pearsons tried to persuade their Soviet guests. "We Americans are peculiar people," Drew Pearson said, as a way to explain away the seemingly fantastic. His efforts were met "with a tolerant smile." The Khrushchevs remained convinced that the official version of the assassination story was false.

 UNQUOTE

 [Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964, pp. 343-350]

 

 

 

[Robert Morrow]

No, Phil Shenon, Robert Kennedy did not spend the rest of his life "thinking" Fidel Castro was behind the JFK assassination. (By summer 1964 Jackie Kennedy's mother Janet Auchincloss was a believer in LBJ being behind the JFK assassination.) As did Jackie Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy and JFK's secretary Evelyn Lincoln: they all knew "LBJ Did It."

Robert Kennedy spent the rest of his life KNOWING Lyndon Johnson was behind the JFK assassination, as did Jackie Kennedy and as did Ethel Kennedy.

Lyndon Johnson spent the rest of his life SAYING (to many people) that Fidel Castro was behind the JFK assassination.

Jackie Kennedy, on the flight back from Dallas, referring to the murder of her husband JFK: “Lyndon Johnson did it.”

 Eddie Fisher:

 QUOTE

           Pam was with the President and Jackie on that fatal trip to Dallas. He was assassinated on a Friday, November 22, 1963. Jack Kennedy and Pam had arranged an appointment for me with Vice-President Lyndon Johnson for the following Monday to discuss an effort I was leading to change our national anthem from “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which is very difficult to sing, to “America the Beautiful.” Obviously that meeting never took place.

          On the flight back to Washington after the murder, Pam told me, Jackie Kennedy told her, “Lyndon Johnson did it.” Words I’ll never forget.”

 UNQUOTE

 [Eddie Fisher, Been There, Done That: An Autobiography, pp. 257-258]

 

Jackie Kennedy, spring 1977: on her Dislike & Mistrust of Lyndon Johnson: “I did not like or trust Lyndon Johnson. Never mention his name again!” – spoken while the HSCA was in full bloom

One of JFK, Jr.'s best friends (actually a girlfriend) at the Phillips Academy was Meg Azzoni. In spring, 1977, she and John went to visit Jackie while Caroline was still at Harvard. Meg says: "Jackie told John and I at the 'break-the-fast' breakfast, 'I did not like or trust Lyndon Johnson.' No one said another word the whole meal in memorial contemplative silence."

[Meg Azzoni, "John F. Kennedy, Jr. to Meg Azzoni Eleven Letters: Memories of Kennedys & Reflections on His Quest, p. 52]

Barr McClellan (who I have spoken with many times and again on 2-24-2020) ghostwrote her book for/with Meg Azzoni and said that the actual quote by Jackie was:

"Jackie told John and I at the 'break-the-fast' breakfast, 'I did not like or trust Lyndon Johnson. Never mention his name again!’”

Jackie Kennedy’s mother Janet Auchincloss by summer of 1964 was quite sure Lyndon Johnson was involved in the JFK assassination but she did not know exactly how or why

QUOTE

          One night in the summer of ’64, Yusha went to visit Jackie and found her drinking vodka and crying over a scrapbook of photos. She told him she believed “a group of rightwingers” had something to do with Jack’s death. Yusha knew Janet felt LBJ had something to do with the murder. She didn’t know how or why, but she was sure of it.

UNQUOTE

[Randy Taraborrelli, Jackie: Public Private Secret, p. 179]

Early in the morning on 11/25/63, Jim Wilson a former reporter for the UPI called the home the home of Janet Auchincloss, the mother of Jackie Kennedy, and implied that Lyndon Johnson was involved in the JFK assassination.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10490#relPageId=51&search=Commission_Document%2087%20-%20Secret%20Service%20report%20of%2008%20Jan%201964%20re:%20Oswald

https://twitter.com/FilesJFK/status/1777389497103090055

Jim Wilson to Janet Auchincloss on the morning of 11/25/63

QUOTE

For God’s sake get hold of Bobby or J. Edgar and have them straighten out the mess in Dallas. You are a person of influence and can get to them. Oswald was not guilty – he was only a tool. He was allowed to lay on the floor for ten minutes and bleed to death … there is a connection between Oswald and Rubenstein and they were set up before. The whole Dallas situation should be found out now. You won’t like this but the present President [LBJ] always wanted to be President.

UNQUOTE

Lyndon Johnson blaming Fidel Castro for the JFK assassination to his good friend publisher George Weidenfeld - March 1971

March, 1971

QUOTE

          “Of Kennedy’s assassination he said: ‘I think I know who killed JFK. I can’t prove it yet, but one day I will. Goddammit, I know it … It was Castro. You see, the Kennedy brothers liked playing cops and robbers, and when Bobby was Attorney-General he was responsible for the CIA and they sent people into Cuba to git Castro, but they failed and Castro git Jack Kennedy.’ He continued to expand on his theory. ‘I could never understand why Bobby tried to put some CIA people on the Warren Commission. I had Dick Helms here not long ago and I asked him point blank, but he refused to be drawn. Oswald was a communist agent, he was in Cuba, he was in the Soviet Union. One day I will prove it.’

UNQUOTE

[George Weidenfeld, Remembering My Good Friends, p. 350]