Chapter 1:  The Aftermath

For reasons beyond my grasp, the first image in each chapter sometimes fails to appear. If there's nothing up above, don't despair; you can still see the image here

The Delivery Men 

While J. Lee Rankin, general counsel to the Warren Commission, and the man tasked with heading its investigation, is reported to have told his staff that the truth was their "only client," much evidence has arisen over the years to indicate that this simply was not so. The available record, in fact, now suggests that the Commission had another client, one whose interests were to be placed above and beyond the Commission's search for truth. This client was called... "national security." One need look no further than the memoirs of Chief Justice Earl Warren, for whom the commission was named, in fact, to see that this is true. There, in the final pages written at the end of his long life, Warren admitted that he was strong-armed into chairing the Commission only after Kennedy's successor, President Lyndon Johnson, told him that if people came to believe there was foreign involvement in the assassination it could lead to a war that would kill 40 million. This, one can only assume, gave Warren the clear signal he was NOT to find for a conspiracy involving a foreign power. 

Now that would be bad enough, but it appears that Warren was also under great pressure NOT to find for a domestic conspiracy. In his biography of Warren, writer Ed Cray reported that he had spoken to an unnamed friend of Warren's, and that this friend had claimed that Warren had confided "There was great pressure on us to prove, first, that President Johnson was not involved, and, second, that the Russians were not involved." As the finding for any domestic conspiracy would no doubt bring doubts about Johnson's involvement, the Commission's options, regarding conspiracy, were apparently quite limited.

But this fear of speculation was more than just a limitation. It was, so it should seem, a major factor in its creation. Acting Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, whose discussions helped spark the commission's creation, testified on  9-21-78 that his basic motivation at that time was "the amount of speculation both here and abroad as to what was going on, whether there was a conspiracy of the left or a lone assassin or even in its wildest stages, a conspiracy by the then vice president to achieve the presidency, the sort of thing you have speculation about in some countries abroad where that kind of condition is normal." Yikes. These words make clear that Katzenbach, who was only running the Justice Department in the aftermath of the assassination, considered Johnson's involvement unthinkable, and not even worth investigating. 

That the Warren Commissioners shared Katzenbach's concern about speculation regarding Johnson, and that they were equally closed to the possibility it should be investigated, also seems apparent. The transcripts of the first meeting of the Warren Commission, on December 5th, 1963, in fact, reflect that Senator Richard Russell, Johnson's long-time friend and mentor, admitted "I told the President the other day, fifty years from today people will be saying he had something to do with it so he could be President." That this concern was shared by Johnson and was a factor in the commission's creation is confirmed, furthermore, by a 2-17-64 memo written by Warren Commission counsel Melvin A. Eisenberg.  While reporting on the Warren Commission's first staff conference of 1-20-64, Eisenberg recalled that Chief Justice Warren had discussed "the circumstances under which he had accepted the chairmanship of the Commission," and had claimed that he had resisted pressures from Johnson until "The President stated that the rumors of the most exaggerated kind were circulating in this country and overseas. Some rumors went as far as attributing the assassination to a faction within the Government wishing to see the Presidency assumed by President Johnson. Others, if not quenched, could conceivably lead the country into a war which could cost 40 million lives." 

And, should one still doubt that Johnson was as least as concerned with suspicions of himself as of the Soviets, there is confirmation from at least one other source: Johnson himself. In a rarely-cited interview with columnist Drew Pearson, brought to this writers' attention by a November 14th, 1993 article in The Washington Post, Johnson admitted that, in his conversation with Warren, in which he convinced Warren to head his commission, Johnson brought up the assassination of President Lincoln, and that rumors still lingered about the conspiracy behind his murder 100 years after the fact. According to Pearson, Johnson admitted telling Warren that "The nation cannot afford to have any doubt this time." Well, this says it all. The doubt that, according to Johnson, the nation could not afford to have, was doubt about Southern and/or military involvement in the assassination. The rumors about Lincoln's death revolved largely around his being murdered by The Confederate Army as revenge for his successful campaign to re-unite the States, or his being murdered by his Secretary of War, or his being murdered by his Vice-President, a Southerner named JOHNSON.

But Johnson's creation of a commission in part to clear himself is only part of the story. If one is even remotely prone to suspicion, it is also intriguing that Johnson initially hoped to avoid an independent commission altogether, and instead pressured the FBI and a Texas Court of Inquiry to investigate the crime, and, presumably, clear his name. In a 12-23-68 interview conducted on behalf of the Johnson Library, Leon Jaworski, Special Counsel to the State of Texas during its inquiry, explained the circumstances of its creation: "Here and in Europe were all kinds of speculations, you know, that this was an effort to get rid of Kennedy and put Johnson in, and a lot of other things. So he immediately called on Waggoner Carr, who was Attorney General of Texas, to go ahead and conduct a Court of Inquiry in Texas." That Johnson would call on Texans with right-wing political affiliations to investigate a crime many suspected was committed by Texans with right-wing political affiliations was not lost on Jaworski, who clearly saw the need for something with a more national flavor. In his memoir Confession and Avoidance, Jaworski, who met with Johnson in Washington a few days after the assassination, describes the circumstances of their meeting as follows: "a problem had developed. The city was seething with rumors and accusations surrounding John Kennedy's death. Some sources in Europe had jumped on the story that Johnson himself had disposed of Kennedy in order to ascend to the presidency. Any investigation that was localized in Texas would be, to put it gently, under suspicion."

From Jaworski's words we can see that Johnson was desperate to deflect any speculation about his own involvement in the assassination, and that he created the Warren Commission in large part because it had become clear that an investigation by Texas officials and the FBI would fail to be convincing to those most needing to be convinced. But, in hindsight, this should always have been obvious. While Warren was purportedly asked to chair the Commission because as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court he had unparalleled credibility with the American public, the truth is that Warren was probably the last person Johnson would want to deliver the message that the Russians were not involved in the assassination, as those likely to believe communist involvement would not believe anything Warren had to say, and considered him pretty much a communist himself. It seems clear then that Johnson drafted Warren onto the commission chiefly to convince those who trusted Warren--the liberals and intellectuals throughout the world who loved Kennedy and were most suspicious of Johnson--that there was no right-wing conspiracy behind the killing. It should be noted, furthermore, that Warren quite possibly pushed Johnson into this by publicly eulogizing Kennedy within hours of the assassination as having "suffered martyrdom as a result of the hatred and bitterness that has been injected into the life of our nation by bigots." Johnson, who counted among his biggest supporters many of these very same bigots, could not have been pleased.  

And so the Warren Commission was born. The participation of the famously liberal Warren appeared to offset the otherwise inexplicable participation of Kennedy's biggest opponent on civil rights, Senator Richard Russell, and a man who Kennedy had fired, former CIA director Allen Dulles. The political make-up of the commission--five Republicans and two conservative Democrats--moreover, assured that no one would follow any suspected right-wing or left-wing conspiracies beyond where Johnson would want them to go. Now this is not to say the Warren Commission would deliberately and consciously cover-up the truth. It seems clear, however, that such a commission, created under such circumstances, and comprising such men, would be unlikely to disagree with the FBI's conclusion that there had been no conspiracy, and would most certainly never push upon the public that perhaps just perhaps their current president was behind the murder of their former president. In his book Real Answers, Gary Cornwell, an assistant counsel to the HSCA (the congressional committee that eventually reviewed the work of the commission) asserted that in order to find a conspiracy you have to at first suspect a conspiracy, and act a little paranoid. The Warren Commission, not surprisingly, refused to act paranoid, even a little. They were, in fact, barely interested in their work. Its members attended less than half its hearings and participated in the questioning of only a small percentage of its witnesses. They relied almost exclusively on inexperienced junior counsel and the FBI, even though they acknowledged in private they didn't trust the FBI.

And there is reason to believe this was all according to plan. In a 1991 article about Oliver Stone's film JFK, former Senator and longtime Washington insider Daniel Patrick Moynihan asserted that the Warren Commission "was Lyndon Johnson at his worst; manipulative, cynical. Setting a chief justice of no great intellect to do a job that a corrupt FBI was well content should not be done well."  

This was not just an old pol letting off steam. Moynihan's comments are justified by the official record. 

This record, furthermore, reflects that Johnson was not alone in his desire to put the past behind him and reassure the public that their president was not a murderer. 

From the boardrooms to the newsrooms, he found plenty of support.

"Sinister" and "Obscene"

On 11-22-1963, shortly before 1:00 PM CST, President John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead in Parkland Hospital, Dallas, Texas. Within moments, his successor, Lyndon Johnson, who was also in the hospital, decided to return to Washington. There was a problem, however. Johnson was concerned with how it would look for him to leave the President's widow behind, and she wouldn't leave without her husband's body. Even worse, Texas State law forbade the removal of a murder victim before an autopsy of the body could be conducted. And so Johnson had the Secret Service deliberately break the law. It is a matter of historical record, then, that among Lyndon Johnson's first decisions as President, one of them was to willfully break the law. It is also a matter of historical record that on this day the Secret Service flew President Kennedy's blood-stained limousine out of Texas as well. This meant that both the best evidence (the body) and half of the crime scene (the limousine) were illegally removed from Texas and analyzed in secret by men under Johnson's direct control.

Now this alone could have raised doubts about Johnson's involvement in the assassination. And this alone could have caused Johnson to create a commission clearing his name. But there was so much more. The sky upon which Air Force One was flying, metaphorically speaking, was the air of suspicion. Congress had been investigating Johnson for corruption. Within months, he could have been forced to resign. But now, with one quick pull of a trigger, in Johnson's home state, no less, President Kennedy had been killed, and Johnson's hold on power had not only been preserved, but amplified a thousand-fold.

Let's put this in its proper perspective. Lyndon Johnson was a real person, and a real politician, with real ambitions. In 1960, he had run for the Democratic nomination for President against Kennedy, and had unleashed a series of vicious attacks on Kennedy when it looked as though Kennedy was gonna win. (Adlai Stevenson was later to say that these were the most vitriolic attacks on Kennedy he'd ever heard.) As part of his campaign strategy, Johnson had even tried to cast doubt on Kennedy's fitness for office.  To do this, Johnson's campaign manager hired private investigators to uncover the truth about Kennedy's health problems. He then began a rumor campaign designed to make people wonder if Kennedy wasn't too sick to serve out his term. (One source, Kennedy aide Kenny O'Donnell, even has Johnson's campaign manager predicting Kennedy would not live out his term.) When things got desperate in the Johnson camp, one of his mouthpieces, India Edwards, publicly proclaimed that "Kennedy was so sick from Addison's disease that he looked like a spavined hunchback." This prompted a response from the Kennedy camp. They issued a series of statements claiming that Kennedy's adrenal dysfunction--which they'd correctly claimed was not what was classically known as Addison's disease--was in fact under control, with only the occasional need for medication. 

But there's no evidence Johnson believed this. Perhaps, when Johnson ultimately accepted Kennedy's offer of the Vice-Presidency, he believed the words of his campaign manager and felt certain that Kennedy was  on borrowed time. If so, then perhaps, just perhaps, by November 1963 he'd grown tired of waiting for Kennedy to die. These thoughts were undoubtedly on the minds of more than a few...

Particularly as Johnson's campaign manager in 1960, the man who'd conducted an investigation into Kennedy's health problems, and who'd predicted Kennedy's imminent demise, was, in 1963, Kennedy's host on his fatal trip to Dallas, the Governor of Texas, John Connally...

Now, I know some will shy from such speculation. They will say, "But Connally was riding right in front of Kennedy and got shot. He's above suspicion." But let's put this in another time and another place. Let's say it's the year 2003, and John McCain is President. Let's say he got elected in 2000 after reluctantly bringing George Bush onto the ticket. And now he's been killed on a trip with Karl Rove, Bush's former campaign manager. And Karl Rove was wounded in the hail of gunfire. And Rove was heard to yell, as Connally, "My God, THEY'RE going to kill us all!" after getting shot. What would you think? Would you blame anyone who thought maybe, just maybe, Rove was in on the assassination? And that Bush was a party to it as well?

Of course not. These are not innocent times, and Bush and Rove are not innocent men. And neither were Johnson and Connally...

The suspicions of Johnson were REAL and realistic. They were the 800-pound gorilla in the room no one wanted to talk about in 1963, even in hushed tones.

And still are... When the History Channel ran an episode of The Men Who Killed Kennedy in 2003, forty years after the assassination, which suggested Johnson's involvement in the assassination, it was pressured by prominent historians and political figures to denounce the episode, and cancel all future airings of the program. This episode was no more inaccurate than other programs on the assassination, but it forced people to think the unthinkable. And so was made to disappear...

As was the "wink"... After President Kennedy's murder, after President Johnson pressured Jacqueline Kennedy, still wearing her husband's blood and brains on her clothes, to stand beside him at a completely unnecessary swearing-in ceremony (an act the General in charge of Air Force One said was "obscene"), Johnson turned to his right, and looked to his long-time political ally, Texas Congressman Albert Thomas. Thomas rewarded him with a wink and a smile. This was captured on film by White House photographer Cecil Stoughton. Stoughton would later tell writer Richard Trask that when he looked at the photo he saw "an enigmatic expression which could be innocent, or sinister, and I have leaned to the latter". Trask himself would note that the negative to Stoughton's photo of the "wink" "may have been excluded from those given over to the Johnson Library, due to what someone may have construed as its picturing what the public might perceive as a seemingly inappropriate gesture" and that it is now, from what he can tell, "missing". 

Trask should be a politician. Kennedy's entire trip to Texas was built around an honorary dinner for Albert Thomas held the night before the assassination. This photo shows Thomas winking at LBJ just as LBJ becomes the most powerful man in the world, shortly after LBJ's predecessor, a man whom he'd routinely and viciously insulted but a few years before, and a man who only came to Texas to honor the terminally-ill Thomas, has been murdered. As a result, people looking at it don't think "Hmmm, what an inappropriate gesture..." No, they think, "Hmmm, I wonder if something happened there that we're not supposed to know about..."

Which brings us back to our time line...

A Tragedy of Errors

Aboard Air Force One, Mrs. Kennedy was given the option of having the President's autopsy performed at Walter Reed army hospital or Bethesda naval hospital. She chose Bethesda. 

At 3:16 PM, shortly after Air Force One left Dallas, however, two of the doctors who'd examined the dead President at the hospital were dragged before the media. This press conference was the beginning of a truly bizarre chain of events surrounding the President's wounds. During the Warren Commission investigation, the exact words of this press conference were debated. By the mid 1970's however a transcript was discovered at the LBJ Presidential Library in Texas.

Dr. Malcolm Perry, who had performed a tracheostomy on the President in an effort to save his life: "Upon reaching his side, I noted that he was in critical condition from a wound of the neck and of the head...Immediate resuscitative measures were undertaken, and Dr. Kemp Clark, Professor of Neurosurgery, was summoned, along with several other members of the surgical and medical staff. They arrived immediately, but at this point the President's condition did not allow complete resuscitation...The neck wound, as visible on the patient, revealed a bullet hole almost in the mid line... In the lower portion of the neck, in front ...Below the Adam's apple." (When asked if a bullet had passed through Kennedy's head) "That would be conjecture on my part. There are two wounds, as Dr. Clark noted, one of the neck and one of the head. Whether they are directly related or related to two bullets, I cannot say...There was an entrance wound in the neck. As regards the one on the head, I cannot say." (When asked the direction of the bullet creating the neck wound) "It appeared to be coming at him." (When asked the direction of the bullet creating the head wound) "The nature of the wound defies the ability to describe whether it went through it from either side. I cannot tell you that." (When asked again if there was one or two wounds) "I don't know. From the injury, it is conceivable that it could have been caused by one wound, but there could have been two just as well if the second bullet struck the head in addition to striking the neck, and I cannot tell you that due to the nature of the wound. There is no way for me to tell...The wound appeared to be an entrance wound in the front of the throat; yes, that is correct. The exit wound, I don't know. It could have been the head or there could have been a second wound of the head. There was not time to determine this at the particular instant."

Dr. William Kemp Clark, who had examined the President's head wound and pronounced him dead: "I was called by Dr. Perry because the President... had sustained a brain wound. On my arrival, the resuscitative efforts, the tracheostomy, the administration of chest tubes to relieve any...possibility of air being in the pleural space, the electrocardiogram had been hooked up, blood and fluids were being administered by Dr. Perry and Dr. Baxter. It was apparent that the President had sustained a lethal wound. A missile had gone in or out of the back of his head, causing extensive lacerations and loss of brain tissue. Shortly after I arrived, the patient, the President, lost his heart action by the electrocardiogram, his heart action had stopped. We attempted resuscitative measures of his heart, including closed chest cardiac massage, but to no avail." (When asked to describe the course of the bullet through the head) "We were too busy to be absolutely sure of the track, but the back of his head...Principally on his right side, towards the right side...The head wound could have been either the exit wound from the neck or it could have been a tangential wound, as it was simply a large, gaping loss of tissue." 

The impact of this press conference was immediate, and the resultant confusion spread rapidly. At 3:32 PM, newsman Robert MacNeil took to the air and told NBC's viewers: "A bullet struck him in front as he faced the assailant." As most of NBC's previous reports had stated that Kennedy was struck in the head, its viewers would undoubtedly have taken from this that Kennedy was struck in the head from in front. Other news reports were even more misleading. A UPI report found in this afternoon's Albuquerque Tribune, on the stands within hours of the press conference, related: "Dr. Malcolm Perry, attendant surgeon at Parkland Hospital who attended President Kennedy, said when he arrived at the emergency room 'I noticed the President was in critical condition with a wound of the neck and head.' When asked if possibly the wounds could have been made by two bullets, he said he did not know" The article concluded "When asked to specify, Perry said the entrance wound was in the front of the head."

Even the great papers got it wrong. An 11-23 New York Times article on the press conference reported: "Mr. Kennedy was hit by a bullet in the throat, just below the Adam's Apple...This wound had the appearance of a bullet's entry. Mr. Kennedy also had a massive gaping wound in the back and one on the right side of the head. However, the doctors said it was impossible to determine immediately whether the wounds had been caused by one bullet or two." The doctors, of course, had never mentioned a gaping wound on Kennedy's back. 

But the nature of Kennedy's wounds was not the only part of the story being mis-reported.

Before Kennedy's death could be confirmed, anxious reporters had already filled the air with guesses and speculation.  The Voice of America, the U.S. Information Agency's worldwide radio network, had initially reported that "Dallas is the scene of the extreme right wing movement," only to withdraw the statement moments later. For some reason, someone in the government was particularly sensitive to the idea that the right wing would be blamed for the shooting. 

The details of the killing were especially muddled. CBS News, whose reporting on the shooting was to become the stuff of legend, reported so many falsehoods and half-truths in the first hour after the shooting that one might wonder why the whole news team wasn't fired. Within a half-hour or so of the shooting legendary newsman Walter Cronkite, repeating some of the early reports coming over the newswire, told the nation: "Some of the Secret Service agents thought the gunfire, however, came from an automatic weapon fired to the right rear of the Chief Executive's car, possibly from a grassy knoll, and that's that knoll to which motorcycle policeman were seen racing and where the huddled figures of a man and a woman were seen on the ground with a crowd surrounding, which suggests of course that perhaps this is where the shots came from. This we do not know as yet, positively." Moments later, Eddie Barker, reporting from Dallas, compounded this mistake, declaring: "The report is that the attempted assassins--we now hear it was a man and a woman--were on the ledge of a building near the Houston Street underpass." Soon afterward, Cronkite told the nation: "Governor Connally was shot, apparently, twice in the chest." After this rush to speculation, however, Cronkite grew more cautious, and stressed that they had unconfirmed reports that Kennedy was dead and unconfirmed reports Connally was in surgery. He then reported that a Secret Service agent had been killed in the line of duty while trying to protect Kennedy, noting that "apparently, this is correct." (Apparently, it wasn't).

But Cronkite's cavalcade of confusion was far from over. Moments later, after reading a report that Governor Connally had said he was hit from the back, Cronkite tried to correlate this information with the information previously received. He told his audience: "Governor Connally could very possibly have been shot in the back with the assassin's bullet still coming from the front of the car. He rode in a small jump seat in the center of the back of the specially-built presidential limousine." (Apparently, Cronkite thought the jump seats faced the side of the limousine.) The cavalcade continued. Not long after receiving word that a witness claimed to see a man fire from the Texas School Book Depository, and while looking at a photo of Kennedy in the motorcade, Cronkite asserted: "The assassin took dead aim. He got the President, apparently, with the first shot in the head, and then Governor Connally with the next two shots." Cronkite failed to explain that CBS News now believed its earlier reports regarding multiple assassins and automatic weapons were inaccurate. He just changed the story as new information came along--whether or not this new information had been confirmed. As much as an hour after the shooting, Cronkite was still reporting that "a Secret Service man was also killed in the fusillade of shots that came apparently from a second floor window." Ironically, he reported this canard just before reporting, affirmatively, that Kennedy had passed. One can only wish he'd got the first part right but was wrong about the second. 

(Should one wonder where CBS got this story that a Secret Service Agent had been killed, one should consider that ABC News reported around this same time that they'd received confirmation from the Dallas Sheriff's office both that a Secret Service agent had been killed and that four shots had been fired at the limousine. Even worse, when one considers the subsequent refusal of the American people to believe the findings of the Warren Commission, was the analysis of Don Goddard, V.P. of ABC News. After explaining that American assassins normally use pistols and make no attempt to escape, he pronounced that "This must have been a very carefully planned terrible tragedy and conspiracy." )

As Air Force One soared back to Washington, America's newspapers only added to the confusion. An 11-22 article rushed out for the Dallas Times Herald reported both that "Bullets apparently came from a high-powered rifle in a building at Houston and Elm" and that a witness said: "the motorcade had just turned onto Houston Street from Main Street when a shot rang out. Pigeons flew up from the street. Then, two more shots rang out and Mr. Kennedy fell to the floor of the car. The shots seemed to come from the extension of Elm Street from just beyond the Texas School Book Depository Building..." Someone reading this article would undoubtedly be confused, and would probably have concluded the President was shot by more than one assassin while riding on Houston Street, instead of Elm. On the other side of the world, The Christchurch Star reported "Three bursts of gunfire, apparently from automatic weapons, were heard." 

Meanwhile, over on NBC, anchorman Frank McGee, after showing his viewers a photo of a sniper rifle being removed from the book depository, told his viewers "The best we can make out now the President's motorcade had really traveled perhaps a few yards beyond this point and that the fatal shots that were fired were fired from behind and struck him in the back of the head." He then added "and then incongruously some way another bullet struck him in the front of the neck." Incongruously, the possibility there was more than one shooter was not to be discussed.  

Amidst this confusion, and with the newly-crowned President in the air, someone got the idea that the public should see a friendly face. At 5:01 PM, grandfatherly ex-President Dwight Eisenhower took to the airwaves and assured the masses huddled before their boob tubes that "Americans are loyal, and it's just this occasional psychopathic accident that occurs, and I don't know what we can do about it." It's unclear if Eisenhower had been following the developments in Dallas, and had already decided that Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the building from which shots were fired, and a suspect in the murder of a Dallas police officer, was a "psychopathic sort of accident." But he certainly prepared the American people to think as much. 

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was no less guilty of spreading half-baked info. Hoover's notes from this day reflect that he called Attorney General Robert Kennedy and told him that the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had run into two police officers a block or two away from the assassination site and had killed one of them in a shoot-out. He also told Kennedy that Oswald had been to Cuba several times. As a solo Dallas policeman had been killed a few miles away from the assassination site, and as Oswald had never been to Cuba, these statements were quite incorrect, and suggest that either Hoover's information or his ability to grasp such information was seriously flawed. 

But Hoover was not the only one seriously out of touch with the most basic facts. More than four hours after the Italian Mannlicher-Carcano rifle used in the assassination was found in the school book depository, and Oswald was arrested in a movie theater without firing a shot, the great Walter Cronkite was still telling his viewers that the rifle found in the depository had been a German Mauser (a story that would not be corrected until the next day), and that Oswald had killed a policeman in a shootout at a theater. 

But the Johnson Administration, apparently, had bigger concerns than the mainstream news media's totally confusing the public. Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade was later to admit that Cliff Carter, one of newly-crowned President Johnson' s closest aides, called him repeatedly on this evening, starting around 5 or 6 o'clock, to make sure that Oswald was not charged with acting as part of a conspiracy. While Johnson was reportedly concerned that Wade would press charges accusing the Russians of conspiring against Kennedy, it seems more than clear that his interference in this matter would lead Wade and the Dallas Police to be less than enthusiastic about pursuing any conspiracy.

Even so, Wade's promise of cooperation was apparently not enough. An 11-14-93 article in the Washington Post revealed that, at roughly the same time Johnson was having Carter contact Wade, he was having another close associate, Homer Busby, contact Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr, and ask Carr to convene a state "court of inquiry" that would supersede the authority of the Dallas Police and the Dallas County District Attorney's office.

But these were not the last of Johnson's power grabs. Shortly after landing in Washington, President Johnson had his own talk with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. According to a Hoover memo, Johnson told him to ignore the inconvenient problem that he had no jurisdiction, and to simply take charge of the investigation. According to Cartha DeLoach, the FBI's liaison with the media, LBJ told Hoover to have a report on his desk in two days, and to use whatever powers the executive branch had to offer to accomplish this task.

Hoover sprang into action. At 8:40 PM CST, the FBI distributed the following teletype to all its field offices: "All offices immediately contact all informants, security, racial and criminal, as well as other sources, for information bearing on assassination of President Kennedy. All offices immediately establish whereabouts of bombing suspects, all known Klan and hate group members, known racial extremists, and any other individuals who on the basis of information available in your files may possibly have been involved." 

CIA Director John McCone also met with Johnson on this night. McCone told the Johnson Library that Johnson's "mood was one of deep distress over the tragedy, and grave concern over how to properly handle the men in the organization whose competence he recognized...he decided to work with the organization and to win its support, and he did so successfully.  Many men who were determined to leave the next morning stayed on and served him loyally and very well--and some to the end of his Administration." McCone failed to mention any concern of Johnson's that Kennedy was killed by an international conspiracy.This would have been the expected topic of conversation.

Around 10:00 PM CST, the FBI sent another teletype to its field offices, this one even more instructive: "The Bureau is conducting an investigation to determine who is responsible for the assassination. You are therefore instructed to follow and resolve all allegations pertaining to the assassination. This matter is of utmost urgency and should be handled accordingly keeping the Bureau and Dallas, the office of origin, apprised fully of all developments." 

By 11:18 PM Dallas Mayor Earl Cabell had had enough. While he'd mostly sat by as a parade of pundits criticized his city for its climate of intolerance and violence, he decided it was time to go on the defensive, and deflect the blame onto Lee Harvey Oswald. He told a national audience "I don't believe this event will hurt Dallas as a city. This was the act of a maniac who could have lived anywhere--a man who belonged to no city." The investigation into Oswald's possible guilt was only hours old, and already public figures were denouncing him as a homeless maniac.

At 11:49 PM CST it was announced that Lee Harvey Oswald had been officially charged with the murder of the President. That's right. Mayor Cabell had pronounced Oswald a "maniac" and guilty of killing Kennedy before Oswald had even been charged with the crime.

All through the night the FBI and DPD worked together in lockstep. The Dallas Police sent much of the physical evidence gathered to the FBI's crime lab. The FBI pursued a few leads of its own. By morning, the FBI had linked Oswald to a rifle found on the sixth floor of his work. They had also examined his background as a former resident of the Soviet Union. 

Sometime the next morning, the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Foy Kohler, met with Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev. According to a State Department cable on the meeting, Kohler told Khruschev the new company line, that Oswald must have been a "madman". Reflecting his concern that those prosecuting Oswald would focus on his alleged "Marxism", and that this would hurt U.S. relations with the Soviets, Kohler offered "While we clearly must be factual and objective in our output, I would hope, if facts permit, we could deal with the assassin as 'madman' with long record of acts reflecting mental unbalance rather than dwell on his political convictions."

At 9:01 AM CST on 11-23 President Johnson called FBI Director Hoover for an update on the investigation. While the tape of this conversation has mysteriously been erased, the remaining transcript reflects that Hoover told Johnson that "The evidence that they have at the present time is not very very strong," and that Hoover then discussed a recent trip that Oswald had made to Mexico City: "We have up here the tape and the photograph of the man who was at the Soviet Embassy, using Oswald's name. That picture and the tape do not correspond to this man's voice, nor to his appearance. In other words, it appears that there is a second person who was at the Soviet Embassy down there." While Hoover seems much more in command of the evidence in this conversation than in the previous day's conversation with Robert Kennedy, by the end of the conversation, he once again displayed his confusion: "I think that the bullets were fired from the fifth floor and the three shells that were found were found on the fifth floor. But he (the sniper) apparently went up to the sixth floor to have fired the gun and throw the gun away and then went out." The rifle and shells were, of course, later determined to have both been recovered from the sixth floor.

Shortly after this call, at 10:20 AM CST, the FBI dispatched another teletype to its field offices, this one telling them to stop pressing for information, and to resume normal activities. "Lee Harvey Oswald has been developed as the principal suspect in the assassination of President Kennedy. He has been formally charged with the President's murder along with the murder of Dallas Texas patrolman J.D. Tippit by Texas state authorities. In view of developments all offices should resume normal contacts with informants and other sources with respect to bombing suspects, hate group members and known racial extremists. Daily teletype summaries may be discontinued. All investigation bearing directly on the President's assassination should be afforded most expeditious handling and Bureau and Dallas advised." Hoover had just told Johnson that there may be someone "using Oswald's name" and engaging in suspicious activity, and yet the FBI sends out a teletype telling its field offices to stop pressing their sources for information? Was Hoover afraid of finding out something he didn't want to know? Even if the case against Oswald looked solid, shouldn't the FBI have pressed its sources for more information? 

Or was Hoover not interested in such information, for his own selfish reasons? Just moments before this teletype went out, Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry, reciting something he'd been told the night before, told a national television audience that the FBI had known for some time that Oswald was dangerous, but that they had failed to inform the local police. This raises the possibility that Hoover didn't want the investigation to expand beyond Oswald because it might cast suspicion on his own agents.

Or perhaps not. In either event, Chief Curry's statement proved too much for the thin-skinned Hoover. Hoover's top aide DeLoach asserts in his book that after hearing Curry's comment Hoover called up his many powerful friends in Texas and asked them to put whatever pressure was necessary on Curry to bring him into line. This approach, apparently, proved successful. Curry would later withdraw his statement. (This proved too little too late for Curry, however. The Dallas PD was refused the assistance of the FBI crime lab for some time afterward and only regained access to those services upon Curry's removal from office.)

Still, Hoover wasn't the only one circling in on the Oswald-did-it-all-by-his-lonesome scenario. Sometime before noon, CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite presented his viewers with the unexpected question of whether Oswald had been aiming at Kennedy, or Governor Connally. While doing so, he read aloud a letter Oswald wrote to Connally, when Connally was Secretary of the Navy, in which Oswald had asked that his "dishonorable" discharge be changed, and had asserted that he would "employ all means to right this gross injustice." This was inaccurate, but fair. Although Oswald had, in fact, received an "undesirable" discharge, and not a "dishonorable" discharge, Oswald himself had misrepresented the discharge in his letter. What was both inaccurate and unfair, however, was Cronkite's misrepresentation of Oswald's complaint. According to Cronkite, Oswald was "dismissed" from the Marines after twice being court-martialed, once for possession of a private firearm, and once for abuse to a non-commissioned officer. Cronkite had thereby painted a picture of Oswald as a  violent malcontent, and had hidden from his viewers that Oswald had in fact been given an honorable discharge from the Marines, and that his discharge status from the Marine Corps Reserves had been changed to "undesirable" only after he had moved to Russia.

After finishing with Hoover, President Johnson next met with Mrs. Kennedy and President Eisenhower. He then made a 12:35 PM CST phone call to Wall Street Attorney Edwin Wiesl. According to the transcript of this conversation in Max Holland's book The Kennedy Assassination Tapes, Johnson asked for Wiesl's help in keeping the economy stable, and alluded to his earlier conversation with Hoover by warning Wiesl "This thing on the...this assassin...may have a lot more complications than you know about...it may lay deeper than you think." What makes this statement especially intriguing is that the transcript of this conversation provided by the LBJ Library and available online has Johnson saying something completely different. The Library's transcript reads: "I may--have a lot more complications--you know about them so--it may lead deeper."

When one considers that the tape of Johnson's earlier conversation with Hoover was inexplicably erased while in the possession of the LBJ Library, and that all that remains of this conversation is a transcript provided by the Library, and that people who've acted out this transcript swear it plays nowhere near the length of the 14 minute gap on the tape, one can't help but wonder what else Johnson and Hoover talked about in that first phone call on 11-23.

There is another phone call purportedly made by Johnson that is equally intriguing. Long-time Dallas researcher and icon Mary Ferrell reported that in the 1970's one of her friends had lunch with Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz. According to this unidentified source, Fritz confided that on 11-23-63 he received a phone call from President Johnson telling him that "You've got your man, the investigation is over."

If this story is true it helps to explain Fritz's subsequent actions. Despite the fact that the only witnesses claiming to see a sniper in the sixth floor window had failed to identify Oswald and that the paraffin test for nitrates on Oswald's cheek, which if present would have suggested that Oswald had indeed fired a rifle, had turned up negative, Fritz, who was chief of the Dallas Police Homicide Bureau, told the press at 2:05 PM CST "that this case is cinched, that this man killed the President. There's no question in my mind about it...We are convinced beyond any doubt that he did the killing." Similarly, the 11-24 New York Times quoted Fritz as saying "We're convinced beyond any doubt that he killed the President."

Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade was obviously part of the "we" mentioned by Fritz. In a morning news conference, when asked by the press to describe Oswald, Wade showed his hand, stating "I can't describe him any other than--the murderer of the President, is about all the way I put on it, but I don't know anything about the accused--his psychological background or anything." It's cute how he calls Oswald "the accused" after describing him as "the murderer." The next day's New York Times quoted Wade as stating "I think we have enough evidence to convict him (Oswald) now." Neither Fritz nor Wade had read the autopsy report, tested Oswald's rifle to see if it was capable of accurately firing the shots, or conducted an interview with anyone in the Presidential limousine or Secret Service back-up car. What few witness statements they had obtained provided conflicting accounts on most every point but one: most of the statements agreed that two of the three shots were fired very close together. As the FBI would soon determine, Oswald's bolt action rifle could not have been fired accurately more than once every 2.3 seconds. 

Which isn't to say the FBI was any less closed-minded. An 11-23-63 memo from Cartha DeLoach to J. Edgar Hoover regarding the FBI's acquisition of the Zapruder film states that the Dallas Special Agent in-Charge, J. Gordon Shanklin, who'd been provided a copy of the film by the Secret Service, "did not believe the film would be of any evidentiary value; however, he first had to take a look at the film to determine this factor." It's almost as if he were apologizing for doing his job.

At 5:10 PM CST Detective CN Dhority of the Dallas Police Department prepared a homicide report on Kennedy's murder. It read "The expired was riding in motorcade with wife and Governor John Connally, and his wife. Witnesses heard gun shot and saw the President slump forward. More shots were heard and the expired fell in his wife's lap. Governor Connally was also shot at this time." While the report, based on the statements of the closest eyewitnesses, is somewhat vague, it is clear on one point. Kennedy reacted to the first shot. Months later, after the possibility was raised that Oswald did not have enough time to pull off the shooting as purported by the FBI and Secret Service, the Warren Commission would propose that perhaps the first shot missed. Over the course of time, it would be submitted, and widely accepted, that the first shot did in fact miss, even though there was little eyewitness support for this miss.

An 11-23 UPI article on Governor Connally's wounds shared the homicide report's account of the shots, stating "The president was shot first. A bullet smashed through his head. Sheriff's deputies who lined the route said there was a pause of several seconds before two quick shots followed the first." This report hit the streets more than 24 hours after the shooting. If the first shot missed, and the third and fatal shot was fired 5 1/2 seconds after the second shot, as most current single-assassin theorists hold, why didn't anyone report this in the days after the shooting? 

Still, virtually every news article from this day reflects some confusion, and that speculation was the rule and not the exception. An 11-23 Canadian Press article found in the Winnipeg Free Press, for example, reports: "At approximately 12:30 p.m. CST, the slow-moving Kennedy motorcade had rounded a downtown corner to enter a freeway. Three shots-rang out. Detective Ed Hicks said one bullet from a 7.65-millimetre Italian-made rifle, fitted with telescopic sights, hit the back of Kennedy's head and emerged from his throat. 'It made a hole about two inches wide at the back of his head,' he said. Another struck Texas Governor John Connally, Jr., who was riding in the open presidential limousine. Another struck a nearby road manhole." Apparently, Hicks had figured out that the supposed sniper's nest was behind Kennedy at the time of the shooting, and had simply reversed the trajectory of the bullet presumed to have entered Kennedy's throat and explode from the back of his head described at the Parkland press conference. An article in the Boston Globe shared this portrayal of the bullet's trajectory, and confirmed the thinking behind it by admitting "The rather meager medical details attributed to Dr. Malcolm Perry, the attending surgeon, described the bullet as entering just below the Adam's Apple and leaving by the back of the head. Since that statement Friday afternoon it is believed from determining the site of the firing that the bullet entered the back of the head first and came out just under the Adam's Apple."

Confusion was so widespread, in fact, that even photo captions were not immune. A UPI photo of the Texas School Book Depository found in the Holland Evening Sentinel, for example, took its cue from an inaccurate report from UPI's Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Merriman Smith and crowed "A German-made rifle was found in the stairway on the fifth floor of the building by Dallas police, with three spent bullets, believed to be the two used to wound Texas Gov. John B. Connally and the one which fatally killed the President." Beyond the stark and stupid fact that the caption claimed a bullet "fatally killed" the President (I mean, how can a bullet kill someone non-fatally?), the caption misled its readers as to the make of the rifle (it was Italian, not German), the location where it was found (it was found near a stairwell, not in a stairwell), the floor on which it was found (sixth, not fifth), and the respective number of bullets believed to have struck Connally and Kennedy.

Another 11-23 UPI article would prove even more confusing in light of subsequent developments. This article attempted to clarify the president's wounds by announcing "An authoritative White House source said one bullet entered Kennedy's head and another penetrated the 'neck and chest.' The source said White House officials did not know until this morning about the second wound." This is more than a bit strange. The wound discovered at the autopsy was a small back wound. The existence of this wound would have been brought to the attention of the White House after the autopsy was completed that morning. While Dr. Humes and his autopsy team had reportedly been unaware of the throat wound described the day before until making a phone call this morning, there is no reason to believe he turned around and called the White House to report his belated knowledge of a wound mentioned in all the morning papers. The neck wound in the story would therefore appear to be a reference to the back wound discovered at the autopsy. Since the Warren Commission would also come to misrepresent this back wound as a "neck" wound, and as this first misrepresentation of the back wound as a neck wound came from an "authoritative White House source" it's not unreasonable to suspect this migration of the wound came under direction of the White House. The use of the word "penetrated," however, implies the bullet did not exit, and since the only entrance mentioned at the press conference the day before was the throat wound, the article implies to its readers, regardless of the White House or FBI's intentions in leaking the story, that the bullet entered Kennedy's throat and continued down into his chest, and that the shot came from the front. Who was this "White House source?" 

An 11-24 UPI article (found in the Dallas Times Herald) helps clarify the confusing article from the day before. This article, apparently based on the the same 11-23 conversation, states "President Kennedy was shot twice yesterday by an assassin, White House sources said yesterday. First reports said the president was killed by one bullet. It was learned today that the information given the White House was that two bullets entered Kennedy's body. Staff doctors in Parkland Hospital in Dallas said only that the sniper's bullet pierced the mid-section of the front part of the neck and emerged from the top of the skull. White House sources said they understood that one bullet hit Kennedy in the neck area. He bent forward, turned his head and was struck in the skull by the second bullet." This confirms that these "White House sources" knew nothing of the back wound, and were revealing only that the President had been hit twice, and not once as originally suggested by Perry and Clark at the 11-22 Parkland press conference. 

These articles are nevertheless interesting in that they suggest the shots came from in front of Kennedy (why else mention that Kennedy turned his head before the head shot other than to explain how a wound on the back of his head could have been caused by someone firing from in front of him?) well after it was apparent to others that, at the precise moment the shots were fired, Oswald's workplace was behind Kennedy. They are also interesting for what they fail to state--that the statements of the sources cited in the article would only have merit if an autopsy had been conducted and its results reported to the White House. I mean, why isn't the "A" word mentioned even once in these articles? Something strange is definitely afoot.

And it keeps getting stranger. On 11-24 The Dallas Morning News reports:  

Photographer Sells Pictures Of Assassination for $25,000 

President Kennedy flinches as the first shot strikes him. 

Mrs. Kennedy takes her husband in her arms.      

The second shot strikes the President in the side of his head, toward the back.  

His head becomes a blur.             

Mrs. Kennedy crawls out over the trunk compartment in the rear of the car trying to escape the line of fire.    

Her husband slumps to the floor.         

A Secret Service agent runs to aid Mrs. Kennedy. 

This historic picture of the assassination of President Kennedy is recorded on 8-millimeter color movie film shot by Abraham Zapruder, dress manufacturer of 3909 Marquette. Perched on a concrete pillar in a plaza a few feet away, Zapruder took perfect pictures of a terrible tragedy. 

Saturday, Dick Strobel of the Associated Press, Los Angeles; Jack Klinge of United Press International, Dallas, and Dick Strolle, Los Angeles representative of Life Magazine, negotiated with Zapruder for still picture rights to his film. Rights finally were sold to Life for more than $25,000, Zapruder told one of the other men who were bidding for the film.

This article, with its reference to a shot striking Kennedy on the side of his head (at the site of the large  head wound)--reveals that the press is entirely clueless about the autopsy results. This is now two days after the autopsy, and no one in America has been told there was 1) a small bullet hole on the back of Kennedy's head, and 2) a small bullet hole on his upper back. These two wounds are the best evidence Kennedy was shot from behind. Instead, the public has been told of a throat wound and a head wound, both of which could have been created by someone firing from in front of the President. 

But forget about the public. What about the Dallas Police, who are still, as of this morning, charged with investigating the crime? Amazingly, even though they could be wasting valuable man hours looking for a second shooter--someone firing from the front--there is no evidence that anyone from Bethesda Hospital or the Federal Government has called them to inform them of the two previously unnoticed wounds discovered at autopsy.This suggests that someone at the federal level has already decided to cut them out of the loop.

Even so, by the morning of 11-24, the papers were full of quotes from Fritz and Wade about Oswald's obvious guilt. Some of the newspapers went a little further than required, however, and misrepresented the evidence against Oswald in a manner that suggests they were far from impartial. A nationally syndicated article for UPI by John V. Young described Oswald in the following manner: "Oswald, a Marine Corps misfit, expert rifleman, and former head of a 'Fair Play for Cuba' committee who defected to Russia for three years, refused to take a lie detector test after police said paraffin tests for gun powder on both his hands were positive. The U.S. Navy disclosed that after Oswald's undesirable discharge from the Marine Corps he wrote a letter to former Secretary of the Navy John B. Connally that he would 'employ all means' to get even for the wrong he felt was done him by the Corps."

The bias in Young's reporting is blinding. First, he describes Oswald as a "misfit" without any citation, with the obvious implication that "misfits" are not to be trusted. Second he describes Oswald as an "expert" rifleman, when in fact Oswald barely qualified as a "marksman" the last time he was tested. "Expert" is the highest level for a Marine Corps rifleman, while "marksman" is the lowest. Third, he describes Oswald as the head of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans, without mentioning that Oswald was its only member. But it gets worse.

Young next states that Oswald "defected to Russia." Oswald, in fact, never officially renounced his U.S. citizenship. He technically, therefore, having announced an intention to defect to Russia, only visited Russia. Young is also unfair in citing Oswald's refusal to take a lie detector test as evidence of his guilt. Oswald had not yet acquired a lawyer, so his taking a lie detector test at this time would have been stupid, to say the least. 

Young's ignorance or bias reaches new heights, however, when he says the paraffin tests were for "gunpowder" and implies that the results of these tests indicated Oswald killed the President. Paraffin tests show positive results for many chemicals, including the components of gunpowder, but are not specific to gunpowder. As a result, the fact that Oswald tested positive on both hands, could simply indicate that he'd handled such a chemical. More likely, however, they reflected that Oswald had handled a pistol, which he had, by his own admission. Young's failure to state that the one test performed which could have indicated Oswald had fired a rifle, the paraffin test of his cheek, had obviously come up negative (or else Curry, Fritz and Wade would have cited it as evidence for his guilt), is further indicative of his bias and/or lack of curiosity. 

His next few sentences confirm this bias. He correctly states that Oswald wrote John Connally after he received an "undesirable discharge." He leaves out, however, that Oswald wrote Connally after his "honorable discharge" from the Marines was blemished by an "undesirable discharge" from the Marine Corps reserves after he moved to Russia. Far worse, while Oswald indeed wrote Connally requesting that his "honorable" status be restored upon his return, and said that he would "employ all means to right this gross mistake or injustice to a bona-fied U.S. citizen and ex-service man", Young offers no reason to believe Oswald's view of righting a mistake or injustice meant killing Connally and/or Kennedy.Young's twisting of Oswald's words into a threat to "get even for the wrong he felt was done him by the Corps" is therefore thorougly without foundation, and his depiction of Oswald as a "Marine Corps misfit" who sought to "get even" with "the Corps" incredibly unfair. One wonders if a spokesman for the Navy presented the evidence to Young in such a manner. If so, this might be taken as an indication that someone in the military chain-of-command had already made the decision to lynch Oswald in the public eye.

Another newspaper story in the 11-24 New York Times gives us more cause for pause. An article on the plans for Kennedy's funeral noted "The body of Mr. Kennedy which had been flown to Washington from Dallas yesterday (sic), was carried into the White House at 4:28 A.M. after being prepared by morticians at the Naval Hospital at Bethesda, MD." What's intriguing about this article is that it stated the exact time the body was brought into the White House but omitted that an autopsy had been conducted on the body at Bethesda. One can only assume the reporters knew an autopsy had been conducted. Certainly they should have suspected as much. So why didn't they say so? The public had a right to know. When President Warren G. Harding died suddenly in 1923 his widow would not allow an autopsy to be performed. Years later a best seller suggested she'd murdered her husband for infidelity. The New York Times should have reported that an autopsy had been performed or, if they really were unaware that one had been performed, demanded to know if one had been performed. The government's initial silence on these matters and the media's apparent lack of interest only fueled suspicion later when it was revealed that the descriptions of the President's wounds in the autopsy report written by military doctors differed greatly from the descriptions of his wounds given by the civilian doctors in Dallas. 

Three items in that Sunday's Times demonstrate the need for clarity on these issues. The first article was an 11-23 AP dispatch attempting to correct the accounts of Kennedy's wounds given at the 11-22 Parkland press conference. While stressing that Kennedy was hit by two bullets, it reported: "White House sources said they understood that one bullet hit Mr. Kennedy in the neck. He bent forward, turned his head and was struck in the skull by the second bullet." A turn of the page, however, brought one face to face with a more substantive article by Dr. Howard Rusk discussing the President's wound. Rusk wrote "The high-velocity bullet that entered through the neck and exited through the base of the skull tore away the bone and brain tissue, striking the vital areas of the brain." As if that wasn't confusing enough, a Polaroid photograph snapped by Mary Moorman "just as President Kennedy slumped after shot," was published alongside Rusk's article. This photo showed the grassy knoll in front of Kennedy. As the Times had already published a number of photos showing their readers that the school book depository where Oswald worked was behind Kennedy, the undeniable message communicated by the proximity of this story and photo was that Kennedy was shot from in front and that the front page stories proclaiming Oswald's guilt were a lie. 

If those articles led someone to suspect there was something not right about the assassination, what happened at 11:20 AM CST that morning should have convinced them there was something positively wrong. While being moved by the Dallas police, Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner with ties to both the Dallas Police and the Chicago Underworld. Oswald died at 1:07 PM. 

At 3:00 PM CST, LBJ aide Walter Jenkins created a memo for the record, quoting J. Edgar Hoover on the shooting. It reads, in part: "Last night we received a call in our Dallas office from a man talking in a calm voice saying he was a member of a committee organized to kill Oswald. We at once notified the Chief of Police and he assured us Oswald would be given sufficient protection...However, this was not done...Ruby says no one was associated with him and denies having made the telephone call to our Dallas office last night...he guessed his grief over the killing of his President made him insane. That was a pretty smart move on his part because it might lay the foundation for a plea of insanity later. I dispatched to Dallas one of my top assistants in hope he might stop the Chief of Police and his staff from doing so damned much
talking on television. They really did not have a case against Oswald until we gave them our information... Oswald had been saying he wanted John Abt as his lawyer and Abt, with only that kind of evidence, could have turned the case around, I'm afraid. All the talking down there might have required a change of venue...The thing I am most concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin ...We have no information on Ruby that is firm, although there are some rumors of underworld activity in Chicago." The Katzenbach mentioned by Hoover is Nicholas Katzenbach. Since Robert Kennedy had stepped aside to take care of his family, Katzenbach had assumed his duties as Attorney General. 

Let's refresh. At the time of his death, Oswald had never confessed. In fact, he'd declared himself a patsy. No one could identify him as the shooter. The paraffin test of his cheek had come up negative. Several witnesses had stated that either shots were fired from someplace other than the school book depository where he worked or that men had raced out of the back of the depository building after the shots had been fired. The films of the assassination had not been studied. The First Lady, the Connallys, and the closest witnesses in the motorcade had not been interviewed. No motive for his purported act had been established. And there was something odd about his trip to Mexico... 

Even so, some of those tasked with investigating Kennedy's killing thought it time to call it quits. Captain Fritz was quoted as saying that, with Oswald's death "the case is cleared." While his closing of the case was undoubtedly premature, at least he didn't make stuff up. An 11-25 New York Times article recounting the evidence against Oswald reported that the paraffin tests showed "particles of gunpowder from a weapon, probably a rifle, on Oswald's cheek and hands." This, of course, was untrue. The results were negative for Oswald's cheek. Disturbingly, the Times article said this information came from Gordon Shanklin, Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas FBI. 

But it wasn't just the Dallas officials and the FBI who were out to lynch Oswald's still-fresh corpse. An 11-24-63 internal memo from Alan Belmont to Clyde Tolson of the FBI reflects that "At 4:15 PM Mr. Deloach advised that Katzenbach wanted to put out a statement, "We are now persuaded that Oswald killed the President, however, the investigation by the Department of Justice and the FBI is continuing." According to Belmont, Deloach was opposed to the idea. 

Meanwhile, at Bethesda Naval Hospital, at 5:00 PM, Dr. James J. Humes turned in the final draft of the President's autopsy report. He'd concluded, after conferring with Dr. Perry the day before and discovering that a small throat wound had been obliterated by a tracheotomy incision, that one bullet entered the President's back and exited his throat, and that a second bullet entered low on the back of the President's skull, broke into pieces, and exited from the top of his skull along the right side. 

A short time later, during a 5:55 PM EST phone call with Whitney Young, Director of the National Urban League, President Johnson hatched a plan. After Johnson complained "Well, I've got to get this funeral behind me and I've got all these heads of state coming," Young suggested that in his upcoming statements Johnson should "point out that...with the death of President Kennedy...that hate anywhere that goes unchecked doesn't stop just for the week." This got Johnson thinking on ways he could exploit Kennedy's death. He told Young "Dedicate a whole page on Hate...hate international...hate domestic...and just say that this hate that produces inequality, this hate that produces poverty...that's why we've got to have a tax bill...the hate that produces injustice...that's why we've got to have civil rights...it's a cancer that just eats at our national existence." Apparently, the only conspirator Johnson seemed interested in pursuing was hate. 

Not everyone shared his disinterest. Oswald's brother Robert, who'd been taken into protective custody by the Secret Service, along with Oswald's wife, mother, and children, would later relate in his book Oswald, "I began to realize there was some difficulty between the Secret Service and the FBI...Gradually the reports and rumors from various sources seemed to fit together. As early as Friday night, I had heard some speculation about the possibility of a conspiracy behind the assassination of the President...On Saturday and Sunday there were rumors in Dallas that the "conspiracy" might involve some Government agency. By Sunday night, I realized that the agency under greatest suspicion was the FBI." 

Hmmm... Perhaps this suspicion had something to do with Johnson's decision to use the FBI as his private police department. A note from aide Clifton Carter to Johnson on this evening reflects that he'd just spoken to Texas Attoney General Waggoner Carr, and that Carr had expressed a willingness to create a court of inquiry that "could be used to clear up any question about the Oswald case in Dallas. He said the FBI could conduct this hearing through him in any manner they cared to complete the record on Oswald." To this Johnson added: "Good idea, but purely a state matter. Can't say President asked for it." Well, this reveals both Johnson's desire to personally oversee the investigation of Kennedy's death, through the FBI, and his even greater desire to hide this desire from the public. Feel free to get suspicious at this point...

That night, Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade once again made clear his own lack of suspicion.  In a taped press conference broadcast at 10:39 PM, he recited the evidence against Oswald.  According to a transcript in a book put out by NBC News, Seventy Hours and Thirty Minutes, he told the press "His fingerprints were found on the rifle. Paraffin tests showed that he had fired a rifle recently." Both statements are, of course, untrue. Oswald's fingerprints were not found on the rifle. Both the Dallas PD and the FBI crime lab found the prints around the trigger guard inadequate to make a match.  While it's purported that Oswald's palm print was lifted from the rifle barrel on the 22nd, the FBI would not even know of this print for days and it would not be matched to Oswald's palm print until the 29th. Even worse, the paraffin tests for Oswald's cheek were negative and suggested, if anything, that he had NOT fired a rifle. 

(Upon further reflection, it's entirely possible Wade was innocent in this matter. The 11/24/63 Wade press conference available on myfoxdfw.com has Wade saying "His fingerprints were found on the gun--I've said that--"(then clarifying for the journalists) "on the rifle." (Someone then asks about the paraffin tests) and Wade replies "Yes, I haven't gotten into that. The paraffin tests showed that he'd recently fired a gun.  It was on both hands. Both hands." (And then clarifying, when asked if this meant a rifle) "A gun." Wade then corrects himself from moments earlier:  "It's a palm print rather than a finger print."  (Then clarifies) "Yes on the gun also." He is then asked on what part of a gun the palm print was found, and replies "Under the--on part of the metal, under the gun." If this is indeed the press conference quoted in Seventy Hours and 30 Minutes at 10:39 P.M. it is not Wade whose behavior should be questioned but NBC's. While Wade does say that fingerprints were found on the rifle, as quoted, NBC failed to note that he later corrected himself. Far worse, he NEVER said the tests indicated Oswald had fired a rifle. Never. If this is indeed the conference quoted by NBC, then it appears this last quote was simply made up by NBC for its book, which just so happened to come out in 1966, just as books by writers Edward Epstein, Mark Lane, and Harold Weisberg were beginning to draw attention, and giving people reason to doubt Oswald's guilt. While it's also suspicious that Wade cited a palm print found on the rifle as evidence, even though the lone palm print found on the rifle had not yet been thoroughly compared to Oswald's palm print, this may also have an innocent explanation. As Lt. Day, the Dallas detective purported to have lifted the palm print from the rifle on the 22nd, would later admit he believed the palm print matched Oswald's "at a quick glance," it seems reasonable to believe he told this to Capt. Fritz of homicide, and that Fritz in turn told this to Wade. If so, it seems reasonable to believe that Wade stated that the palm print matched Oswald's without realizing that Day had only taken a cursory look at this print, and that the FBI crime lab did not even know of its existence.)

On 11-25, the next morning, President Johnson met with Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr, who'd flown in for Kennedy's funeral. In his book, Texas Politics in my Rearview Mirror, Carr describes this meeting as follows (points of interest in italics):  "Before going to the cathedral for the funeral,  I talked with a White House staff member and explained that Texas laws authorized a Court of Inquiry--which I could convene as the Attorney General--to establish the facts surrounding the assassination through a public hearing.  After talking with the President, and getting his approval, the staff member instructed me to call a press conference, and say only that I would hold a Court of Inquiry on the assassination as soon as I returned to Texas. He emphasized that I should limit my remarks to those simple facts and not reveal, under any circumstances, that I had discussed this with the White House or had White House approval. I agreed and and called to make arrangements for what I thought would be a very short speech to a small group of Texas reporters." Carr's words confirm what should already be clear--that Johnson was anxious to avoid any suspicion he was supervising the investigation of Kennedy's murder. They also reveal a related, but less obvious point--that most everyone was looking to him to take charge of the investigation, even though his doing so represented a clear conflict of interest. 

After Carr left the White House, at 10:30 AM EST President Johnson spoke to J. Edgar Hoover about the mounting pressure to create a Presidential Commission. He assured Hoover: "Now we can't be checking up on every shooting scrape in the country, but they've gone to the Post now to get them an editorial, and the Post is calling up and saying they're going to run an editorial if we don't do things. Now we're going to do two things and I wanted you to know about it. One: we believe that the way to handle this as we said yesterday--your suggestion--that you put every facility at your command, making a full report to the Attorney General and then they make it available to the country in whatever form may seem desirable. Second: It's a state matter, too, and this State Attorney General is young and able and prudent and very cooperative with you--he's going to run a court of inquiry which is provided for by a state law and he's going to have associated with him the most outstanding jurists in the country..." Johnson then proposed to Hoover that "any influence you got with the Post, have them point to them that you don't want too many things...and sometimes a Commission that's not trained hurts more than it helps," to which Hoover responded "I don't have much influence with the Post because frankly I don't read it. I view it like The Daily Worker." (The newspaper of the American Communist Party.)

Immediately after talking to Hoover, Johnson talked to influential newspaper columnist Joe Alsop. Johnson tried to build support for his plan. When Alsop questioned Johnson if somebody outside of Texas was gonna look into the shooting, Johnson slapped him down, telling Alsop "this is under Texas law and they take all the involvements and we don't send in a bunch of carpet-baggers. That's the worst thing you could do right now." (Of course, Johnson was not nearly as concerned about Texas law when it required that he allow Texas authorities an inspection of the President's corpse and limousine.) When Alsop began to explain that nobody was lobbying him to create a Presidential Commission, Johnson snapped "They're not lobbying you, they're lobbying me...last night. I spent the day on it...I had to leave Mrs. Kennedy's side at the White House and call and ask the Secret Service and FBI to proceed immediately...I spent most of my day on this thing, yesterday. I had the Attorney General from Texas fly in here. I spent an hour and a half with him yesterday evening. I talked to the Justice Dept. lawyers and to the FBI and the FBI is of the opinion that the wisest, quickest, ablest, most effective way to go about it is for them to thoroughly study it and bring in a written report to the Attorney General at the earliest possible date which they've been working on since 12:30 yesterday." When Alsop proceeded to point out that there were many others demanding some sort of oversight of the investigation, Johnson insisted "My lawyers, though, Joe, tell me that the White House must not ...the President...must not inject himself into local killings." Alsop responded "I'm not talking about an investigative body, I am talking about a body which will take all the evidence the FBI has amassed when they have completed their inquiry and produce a public report on the death of the President." When asked why the FBI couldn't do this itself, Alsop explained "on the left they won't believe the FBI...and the FBI doesn't write very well." Johnson then asked if he meant that Katzenbach should oversee it, and Alsop responded "I just wouldn't put it on Bobby and Nick Katzenbach...I'd have it outside...I think it's unfair to put it on Bobby...it is his own brother's death." To which Johnson agreed: "Not going to touch it on Bobby." From this sprang the Warren Commission. Thus, the Warren Commission was born just as Kennedy's body was buried. The eternal flame by Kennedy's grave was lit at 3:13 PM EST.

After the flame was lit and the funeral was over, however, President Johnson was still so firmly in the dark that he told a crowd of Governors that Texas Governor John Connally, who'd been sitting in front of Kennedy in the limousine and had been wounded in his chest, right wrist, and thigh, had had his left hand blown off by the impact of Oswald's rifle. Even so, the situation was clear enough to Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach that he wrote a memo to press secretary Bill Moyers informing him that "The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin, that he did not have confederates who are still at large, and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial" and, stunningly, "Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off." The investigation into whether or not the man
who murdered Oswald in front of a basement full of cops and cameras, Jack Ruby, was trying to silence Oswald was only beginning, and yet Katzenbach wanted the press to tell the American people Oswald had no confederates! Elsewhere in the memo, Katzenbach mentions the possibility of the President creating a Commission to look into the killings and concludes "We need something to head off public speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort." One can only conclude from this that Johnson at least initially viewed the assassination as a political situation that needed to be controlled, and not as a crime that needed to be solved, and that the Warren Commission was a vehicle to implement this desire. How else could he be certain that the Commission would not conduct hearings of the "wrong sort?"

To be fair, it should be noted that the "speculation of the wrong sort" so feared by Katzenbach had already begun. An 11-25 newspaper column in the St. Louis Democrat by former Major General Thomas Lane, an outspoken right-wing critic of the Kennedy Administration, surmises that, as "the assassination of President Kennedy would jeopardize larger communist interests", "the assassin had orders to shoot Gov. Connally and that he continued to fire until he did so." It then concludes: "In summary, the available information suggests that the communist underground directed the assassination of Gov. Connally; that Lee Harvey Oswald bungled the job and killed President Kennedy by mistake; and that Jack Ruby murdered Oswald to protect himself and the communist underground." (This column is notable not only because it undermines the oft-repeated factoid that the earliest conspiracy theorists were leftists, but because it undermines the oft-repeated argument among leftists that no one on the right would want to kill Kennedy because Kennedy was, at his core, an anti-communist and a hawk. Perhaps Noam Chomsky and others holding this view and believing that, in essence, no one on the right would want to kill Kennedy because he wasn't worth killing, should have ran their "pet theory" anti-theory past the likes of Major General Lane, who so adamantly believed Kennedy was so far to the left that no leftist would want to kill him.)

In any event, that someone with real power had already begun cutting off speculation before Katzenbach could notify Moyers of the administration's plan to do so, however, is made quite clear by this morning's New York Times headlines, which both convicted Oswald without a trial and declared "PRESIDENT'S ASSASSIN SHOT TO DEATH" and cut off speculation about Ruby's motivation by describing him as a "Dallas Citizen" "who admired Kennedy." 

Revealingly, a memo from the FBI's Courtney Evans to his boss Alan Belmont about the Katzenbach memo noted that Katzenbach said it was prepared "after his discussions with the Director (Hoover) yesterday." The memo goes on to say that Katzenbach felt "that this matter can best be handled by making public the results of the FBI's investigation...he was thinking in terms of the end of the week if at all possible." Belmont, in turn, wrote his own memo to William Sullivan, who was leading the investigation into Oswald's Russian contacts. After referring to the investigation as the "Oswald case" as opposed to the investigation of the murder of the President, Belmont wrote "this report should include everything which may raise a question in the mind of the public or the press...this report is to settle the dust, in so far as Oswald and his activities are concerned, both from the standpoint that he is the man who assassinated the president, and relative to Oswald himself and his activities...the Director desires that it be out as quickly as possible." 

But the government wasn't alone in its rush to judgment. Oswald's brother Robert would later reveal that he had difficulty even burying his brother because "One cemetery after another refused even to discuss the possibility of accepting Lee's body" and that "I was astonished by the reactions of the ministers I talked to. The first one, the second one, the third one and the fourth one flatly refused even to consider my request."  One of them told him that he wouldn't perform even a simple service because "Your brother was a sinner." Ultimately, after "The Lutheran minister who had promised to be there at four had not appeared, and the Secret Service received word that he would not be coming out" the Rev. Louis Saunders, who'd come out just to see if he could be of help to the family, performed the service.    

Meanwhile, on television a whole new reign of error began. CBS newsman Dan Rather, after viewing the home movie of the assassination taken by Abraham Zapruder, rushed back to the studio to describe the film. His description was to have many unfortunate consequences.

Dan Rather (slightly edited): "Well, let me tell you then, give you a word picture of the motion picture we have just seen. The President's automobile which was preceded by only one other car containing Secret Service Agents...the President's open black Lincoln automobile made a turn, a left turn off of Houston Street in Dallas onto Elm Street, this was right on the fringe area of the downtown area. This left turn was made right below the window from which the shot was fired...as the car made the turn completed the turn...it got about 35 yards from the base of the building...President Kennedy had just put his right hand up to the side of his right eye, it appeared that he was perhaps brushing back his hair or rubbing his eyebrow...At almost the instant the President put his hand up to his eyebrow...the President lurched forward just a bit, uh, it was obvious he had been hit in the movie but you had to be looking very closely in order to see it. (Note: Rather's description here places the first shot to hit Kennedy around frame 190, where the HSCA and this researcher place this shot. The Warren Commission concluded Kennedy was not hit till around frame 210, one second later. The current scenario presented on TV holds that Kennedy was not hit till frame 224, almost two seconds later.) "Mrs. Kennedy did not appear to be aware that he was hit but Governor Connally in the seat just in front of the President, seemingly heard the shot...or sensed that something was wrong...Governor Connally, whose coat button was open, turned in such a way to extend his right hand out towards the President and the Governor seemed to have a look on his face that might say "What is it? What happened?" and as he turned he exposed his entire shirt front and chest because his coat was unbuttoned...at that moment a shot very clearly hit that part of the Governor. He was wounded once with a chest shot, this we now know..." (Note: Rather's description here implies you can see the bullet erupt through Connally's chest. Neither the FBI, the Secret Service, nor the Warren Commission could positively identify the moment of Connally's wounding. Only in recent years has it become widely accepted that Connally was hit at frame 224, moments before the turn by Connally described by Rather. By relating that Connally's wounding was clearly evident, and that it took place significantly after Kennedy received his initial wounds, Rather gave the public the incorrect impression that a sniper using Oswald's bolt action rifle could easily be responsible for all of the wounds.) "uh, the Governor fell back in his seat...Mrs. Connally immediately fell over the Governor, uh, I say fell, she threw herself over the Governor and at that instant the second shot the third shot total but the second shot hit President Kennedy and there was no doubt there, his head...went forward with considerable violence." (Note: Rather's description here is quite controversial. As Kennedy's head actually goes slightly forward, and then back and to the left with considerable violence, many see his saying that Kennedy went forward with considerable violence as a deliberate lie designed to sell the American people that the fatal shot came from behind. If it is true that Rather was trying to sell the American people the single-assassin scenario, however, it back-fired. Rather's description of the Zapruder film convinced many an American that Connally reacted after Kennedy, and that therefore the Warren Commission's single-bullet theory holding that Kennedy and Connally were hit by the same bullet was in conflict with the Zapruder film.) 

After describing the final sequence of the film where Jacqueline Kennedy climbs out onto the trunk of the limousine, Rather answered a few questions from his fellow newsman. He told them: "it was very clear that the President was hit twice. He was hit, Governor Connally was hit and the Gov...un the President was hit again." When asked the length of the shooting sequence, his answer was surprising: "No more than five seconds and I...am inclined to think slightly less than that perhaps." (Note: when all is said and done, this was perhaps Rather's biggest mistake. By assuming that the fatal head shot was the third shot, and timing the shooting sequence from the first hit to the final hit, without accepting that there could have been a miss, without studying the eyewitness testimony to see that there very likely was a miss, Rather thoroughly misled the American public.) 

But Rather was not the only one making false assumptions. Even the noted leftist Walter Lippman over-stepped the bounds of responsible journalism and assumed not only that Oswald had acted alone, but that he knew why Oswald had acted. While Lippman's column entitled Murder Most Foul angered right-wingers across the country by blaming Oswald's left-wing extremism on the climate created by Dallas' right-wing extremists, the column is just as notable for its bold closure of the case. Lippman asserted that Oswald was "addicted to the fascination of violence in his futile and lonely and brooding existence" and that "No human feeling stayed his hand...For him the government in Washington is a hated foreign power and the President in Washington is an invading conqueror." Lippman concluded, not surprisingly, by telling his readers "I do have much hope in the healing art of Lyndon Johnson" and assured them that "We can turn to him with confidence."

Meanwhile, over in Europe, the international media had done such a good job of spreading the news that Oswald was a lone-assassin that the Nazi war criminal Albert Speer (no relation) wrote about it in his prison diary. He noted the irony that "here only one confused loner was at work, so it seems; he conceived the plan and the assassination was successful. But the attempts on Hitler's life...planned with the precision of a General Staff operation by circumspect, cool-headed people...never did they succeed...." 

On 11-26, another memo from Evans to Belmont quoted acting attorney general Katzenbach as saying "a tremendous responsibility had been placed on the FBI in this instance by President Johnson because this report, which is to be publicized, is for the purpose of assuring the American public and the world as to what the facts are in Kennedy's assassination and setting to rest the many, many rumors that have been circulating." It continued: "Katzenbach noted that it is, of course, more difficult to prove that something did not occur than to prove what actually happened. As a consequence, it is his belief there might have to be some so-called editorial interpretation." Evans concluded with the observation that "a matter of this magnitude cannot be fully investigated in a week's time," to which his boss, J. Edgar Hoover, responded "just how long do you estimate it will take...it seems to me we have the basic facts now." Not surprisingly, given Hoover's reputation for pettiness, Evans' involvement in the case was from this point kept to a minimum, even though his organized crime division should have been the division to look into the history of Jack Ruby and his contacts with organized crime. Instead, the FBI treated Ruby's murder of Oswald as a civil rights violation, and gave much of the investigation over to men who expressed little interest in Ruby's long-time connections to Mafia enforcers Dave Yarras and Lenny Patrick, and his frequent phone calls to Teamster enforcer Barney Baker. 

Elsewhere, as Hoover was boasting about having the basic facts, a memo was sent from Al Rosen, who was to oversee the FBI examination of the physical evidence, to his superior Alan Belmont. Rosen stated "The Secret Service has advised our Baltimore Office that the photographs of the autopsy and x-rays of the President's body would be available to us...It is not recommended that we request these photographs and x-rays through the Secret Service Headquarters at this time as it does not appear we shall have need for this material." When one takes into account that on 11-26 Hoover and his FBI had already assumed jurisdiction over the President's murder from the Dallas Police and were lobbying LBJ not to create the Warren Commission, their refusal to look at the autopsy photos can't help but make one doubt their concern for the truth. 

Other investigative bodies were even less concerned. While that morning's papers touted "Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr announced in Washington last night that his top aids, prominent jurists and enforcement organizations would conduct a court of inquiry to examine in detail the assassination of the President and the killing of the accused murderer" this court of inquiry was in fact little more than a charade designed to convince Texans that their state laws were being observed whilst simultaneously rubber-stamping the FBI's investigation. A memo from Carr to Johnson aid Walter Jenkins found in the Texas Court of Inquiry's files and printed in Barr McClellan's Blood, Money, and Power implores "I want to conduct myself strictly in accordance with your organization. Am I to restrict my calls to Mr. Fortas (i.e., Abe Fortas, Johnson's most trusted adviser) even when I need an opinion from the White House itself, such as now? I will be happy to abide by your desires once I understand them. Although we are working diligently to reach decisions on such matters as this, we are publicly only cooperating with the FBI whenever needed in the making of the Presidential Report and after the report is made we will then proceed to announce details of the Court of Inquiry. Walter, I do hope that the FBI Report can be sent to us directly from either the White House or the Department of Justice so that we may continue to demonstrate to the public that the State of Texas and the Federal Government are working as partners..."

But the FBI and the Attorney General of Texas were not the only ones refusing to do their jobs and actually investigate the assassination of the President. Members of the media, perhaps desperate to communicate an authority on the assassination that they, in fact, were lacking, began making more and more assertions of fact without any factual basis. On 11-26, for example, an article in the New York Times on Governor Connally's improving condition threw in that "The Texas Governor was wounded by the same sniper who assassinated President Kennedy." There was, of course, no way for them to know this. The few small bullet fragments recovered from the governor's wrist could not be linked to the rifle found in the depository.

Other articles were even more deceptive. An 11-26 article by Jim G. Lucas of the Scripps-Howard News Service found in the Washington Star detailed "The Federal Bureau of Investigation has uncovered additional evidence linking Lee Harvey Oswald with the assassination of President Kennedy and the wounding of Texas Gov. John B. Connally...The FBI's additional evidence included: Minute particles of the clothing that Oswald was wearing when arrested 35 minutes after the shooting were found on an Italian-made rifle abandoned on the sixth floor of the Texas school book depository where Oswald was employed. Ballistic tests confirm President Kennedy was killed and Gov. Connally wounded by bullets from that rifle. Oswald's fingerprints--smudged but still identifiable--were on that rifle." Two of these claims, of course, are wrong. The FBI could not make a positive determination that it was Oswald's clothing on the rifle, and could not identify the smudged fingerprints on the rifle as Oswald's. This suggests two possibilities. Either Lucas was getting his info secondhand from someone in the Dallas PD and was pretending he got it from the FBI, or someone in the FBI was once again spreading falsehoods.

Meanwhile, on Wall Street, in what was considered to be a vote of confidence for Johnson, the stock market rallied for its biggest day ever. 

That night, in his private home, President Johnson had a few close aides and confidants over for dinner.  Among the guests were his future choice for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Abe Fortas, and his future choice for Vice-President, Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey's memoirs recount an unusual incident.  As Johnson walked past a photograph of Vietnam's recently-assassinated President, Ngo Dinh Diem, he reportedly offered ""We had a hand in killing him.  Now it's happening here." Humphrey did not know what Johnson meant by this. White House special assistant Ralph Dungan, however, would be more specific.  He told writer Richard Mahoney that within a day or two of Johnson's statements to Humphrey, Johnson told him "I want to tell you why Kennedy died. Divine retribution...divine retribution.  He murdered Diem and then he got it himself."

Other mouths were more controlled than Johnson's, perhaps because they were more controllable. On 11-26, while Johnson was musing about Kennedy getting what was coming to him, Admiral Kenney, the Surgeon General of the Navy, figured out a way to keep whatever it was that, according to Johnson,  Kennedy "got" from being told to the public. He had Capt. John Stover, the Commanding Officer of the U.S. Naval Medical School, where Kennedy's autopsy had been performed, draw up "Letters of Silence" for his subordinates, including Dr.s Humes and Boswell, and made them promise not to talk to the media, or anyone, under penalty of Court  Martial. The letters read: "You are reminded that you are under verbal orders of the Surgeon General, United States Navy, to discuss with no one events connected with your official duties on the evening of 22 November-23 November, 1963. This letter constitutes official notification and reiteration of these verbal orders. You are warned that infraction of these orders makes you liable to Court Martial proceedings under appropriate articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice." (These orders were not rescinded until 1978.)

Perhaps one or more of the recipients of this letter took umbrage, and called someone at the Associated Press to report on this "order of silence". It does seem a coincidence that the very next day, 11-27, the Associated Press reported that the White House was declining to say whether President Kennedy had even received an autopsy. It went on to state "One Washington source said, "There is some doubt whether the fatal bullet was the second shot or third shot. The first shot is believed to have hit the President, but we're not sure about the second and third." 

A more extensive AP article published in the London Free Press added "Several persons here (Dallas) who have seen a strip of color movie taken by a Dallas clothing manufacturer during the assassination say the 15 seconds of film shows how the president was hit in the head by the second of three bullets fired by the assassin." While there may have been professional reasons not to release the autopsy report at this time, particularly since the brain had not yet been examined, it makes no sense that an administration anxious to head off public speculation would fail to acknowledge that an autopsy had even been performed. By way of comparison, the New York Times mentioned that an autopsy had been performed in its first article on Lincoln's death in 1865 (the actual results of this autopsy were discussed in an article by one of the doctors a week later); and discussed President Garfield's upcoming autopsy in its first article after his death in 1881, and the performance of this autopsy the next day. Even more telling, the preliminary results of President McKinley's autopsy were mentioned in articles on the very day of his death in 1901. In none of these prior assassinations was the president's autopsy considered strictly a military matter. In none of these prior assassinations was the president's autopsy--the fact that it occurred and the names of the autopsy surgeons--kept from the public. Perhaps just as telling, in none of these prior assassinations did the media sit around and wait for "official word" that an autopsy had been performed. They checked with their sources and reported what they found.

Apparently, someone in the White House saw how bad this all looked, and decided to end the speculation. The evening papers from 11-27 reported that "the White House disclosed today that a post-mortem examination had been performed on the President's body in Bethesda Naval Hospital." This news came in an AP article written with the help of Dr. James Beyer. Beyer stated that the large head wound reported by the doctors at the Parkland press conference could not have been inflicted by the standard ammunition for Oswald's rifle, and that Dum Dum bullets or hunting ammunition would appear to have been used.

An 11-27 article in the New York Times expressed further doubt about the weapon. It headlined "Tests Show Rifle like Assassin's Might Be Able," and then explained that a firearms expert from the National Rifle Assassination took 11 seconds to fire three shots with a rifle like Oswald's on his first try, and 8 seconds on his second try, and was only able to get his time down below 6 seconds--the time span attributed for the shots that killed the President--when firing without live ammunition. While the subheading reads "Accurate Firing Might Be Possible" it's clear that it also might not. 

Perhaps it isn't a coincidence then, that on this same day, the Chief of Police for Los Angeles called a press conference to discuss the speed at which the rifle could be fired. An article on this press conference in the next day's L.A. Times  reflects: "Lee Harvey Oswald would have required no more than 3 1/2 seconds to murder President John F. Kennedy and wound Texas Governor John Connally, Police Chief William H. Parker said Wednesday. He based his estimate on tests conducted here by police firearms experts with the same kind of cheap Italian-made rifle used in the presidential assassination. The experts simulated what happened in Dallas on Friday, said Parker, by aiming the weapon from an upper story window into a courtyard at police headquarters. An officer found, said the chief, that he could aim the 6.5 mm rifle, accurately, pull the trigger three times and slam the bolt into place twice within the space of 3 1/2 seconds. Three shots were fired by the president's slayer, two at the chief executive and one at the Texas governor. 'But it was only necessary to use the bolt twice,' Parker pointed out. 'It was already set for action before the first shot was fired.'" From there the article drifts into a sea of smoke, with Parker inaccurately offering that that the sniper's vantage point behind the motorcade made any lateral movement of the limousine during the shooting "imperceptible", and then admitting that the rifle in his test was not actually fired (which would mean the shooter did not have to react to any re-coil), and then finally hitting bottom with the nonsensical claim that "Experienced big game hunters tell us that this kind of bolt action rifle can be fired faster than automatics."

Even less coincidental, one might guess, is that the FBI also tested Oswald's rifle on this day, and concluded  that a minimum of 4.6 seconds was needed to fire three shots at a stationary target. It concludes further that an extra second or so would likely have been necessary for Oswald to have fired three times because, unlike the target in the LAPD's test, and the FBI's test, Oswald's target was moving. This discrepancy--the LAPD says Oswald could have done it in 3.5 seconds when the FBI says it would be more like 5.6 seconds--suggests that Parker's claim and press conference was a deliberate minimization of the problem, put out for public consumption. At whose bidding, one can only guess. But it is known that Hoover hated Parker, and considered him a competitor for America's top cop, and that he also resented the CIA, and that the LAPD had a relationship with the CIA. From this, one might assume  Parker's claims were put out on behalf of the CIA. On the other hand, perhaps Parker was simply jealous of all the attention provided the FBI by the assassination,  and was anxious to get some for himself.

If so, his efforts failed. Instead of reporting on Parker's press conference, many newspapers the next day carried an article by Washington insider Les Whitten, on the FBI's tests. Clearly, Hoover wanted this story out. The article reads: "The FBI has run field tests proving conclusively that a rifle such as the one that killed President Kennedy can be fired accurately three times in five seconds. It could not be learned whether these tests were run on the murder weapon itself, now in FBI hands, or on an exact duplicate. The FBI refused comment pending Director J. Edgar Hoover's report to President Johnson on the case, expected Friday. European newspapers have ballooned speculation that no single man could have done the shooting - that the 6.5mm Carcano bolt-action rifle cannot accurately be fired that fast. A Milan paper said, "There must have been more than one attacker." A French journal said a nonautomatic weapon could not have been used alone and an Olympics rifle champion in Vienna said it was "unlikely" one man with one Carcano could have fired the shots that cut down both Kennedy and Texas Gov. Connally. But the FBI tests showed clearly that a rifle equipped with a four-power scope such as that found at the murder scene could readily have hit the President and Connally. The mail order Carcano reportedly was equipped with a "pre-sighted" Japanese scope, thus assuring good shot control. As to comment in one report that only a "true expert" could have done the killing, the Justice Department has received from the U.S. Marines - in which presumed killer Lee Harvey Oswald served - material showing him well-trained as a rifleman. During Oswald's 1956 boot training at San Diego, the material showed, he scored 212 out of a possible 259 in marksman's tests at 200 yards, 300 yards and 500 yards. The President was killed at some 75 yards in a slowly moving car. Oswald's rifle training took up most of 14 full days. A score of 250 would require every shot in a bullseye, or in the "critical area" of a man's silhouette (part of a rapid fire test). The 212 score meant Oswald consistently hit in or close to the bullseye. In 1958, Oswald took a refresher course, scoring 191 out of a possible 250. He was classed as a sharpshooter - a high marine rating - in the first test, and as a marksman, the lowest of three qualifying rankings in the second test. Oswald shot with an M-1 rifle which did not require him to work the bolt as was necessary with the Carcano. But with the Carcano Oswald bought a "pre-sighted" four-power scope that brings the target "so close only an idiot could miss" as one military spokesman commented. Additionally, Oswald's vantage point above the President allowed him to brace the rifle on the window sill. The Marine Corps tests required him to fire standing, kneeling, sitting and lying on the ground - and without any artificial brace such as the sill. The FBI probe is expected to show Oswald the sole killer "beyond reasonable doubt." It is understood that it will not accuse any subversive group - Oswald admitted he was a "Marxist" - of directing the killing, but will point to the indirect role played by Oswald's acceptance of the violent aspect of communism"

Elsewhere on 11-27, President Johnson began doing what all Presidents do in a time of crisis: he wrapped himself in the flag. In a speech before Congress, he made it clear he would continue in Kennedy's steps and use the public sympathy arising from Kennedy's murder to push for the approval of stalled civil rights legislation. He told them, "it is our duty, yours and mine, as the Government of the United States, to do away with uncertainty and doubt and delays and to show that we are capable of decisive action...This is our challenge: Not to hesitate, not to pause, not to turn about and linger over this evil moment, but to continue on our course so we may fulfill the destiny that history has set for us...John Kennedy's death commands what his life conveyed--that America must move forward." While it's probably unfair to assume that one of the doubts Johnson considered everyone's duty to do away with was any lingering doubt they had about him, and his possible role in a coup d'etat, if one harbors such doubts, his words are undoubtedly disturbing. Here was a political figure on the verge of scandal and ruin (On November 22, there had been sworn testimony about Johnson's corruption before a congressional subcommittee investigating the criminal activities of Johnson's protege, Bobby Baker) whose career had been saved by Kennedy's death. And here he was telling Congress and the country that we should not linger over Kennedy's death or, by extension, question the circumstances of his death.