John Fitzgerald Kennedy Timeline
The Most Comprehensive Timeline On John Fitzgerald Kennedy
"It is our task in our time and in our generation,
to hand down undiminished to those who come after us,
as was handed down to us by those who went before,
the natural wealth and beauty which is ours."
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
The principal came on the PA system and announced the death of Kennedy.
It seems like it was just yesterday that I was a five-year-old Irish Catholic boy
coming out of Ascension Grammar School in Elmhurst, Queens, New York City.
A haunting scene of Mothers there to get their children all of them openly weeping.
I will never forget the assassination of my President on Friday, November 22, 1963.
I swore to myself I'd find who was responsible for the assassination of my President.
I finally have.
When I'm asked, who ordered or was behind the assassination of President Kennedy?
My one sentence answer was and still is: It was those who controlled almost all media
back in 1963 (Newspapers, Films, Radio, and especially Television), that relentlessly
put forth the narrative of Lee Harvey Oswald, as the lone gunman, assassinated by
Jacob Leonard Rubenstein, and the single bullet theory, put forth by Arlen Specter.
The assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was followed by the assassinations of, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Francis Kennedy and finally John Lennon. Why is it that so very few seem to put this common denominator together, that all of these men wanted peace?
The Assassination Of John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Who Had The Means, Motive And Opportunity?
One Hundred Sections Proving Treason
The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on Friday, November 22, 1963, was the defining moment of the twentieth century. Not only was our brave and peace seeking President horrifically murdered in broad daylight, in a barbaric coup d'etat; it was also the day that our republic based on democratic principles was permanently annihilated.
My comprehensive website will consist of one hundred sections, with each comprising numerous subsections. Each section with its numerous subsections will contain a compendious overview of the topic and include dozens to hundreds of hotlinks. These links will consist of historical news stories, articles, photographs, quotes, books, letters, audios / videos of interviews, lectures and speeches, films and documentaries.
When all one hundred sections are complete, there will be thousands of pertinent links to edify oneself. With my comprehensive website, I'll show who had the means, motive and opportunity to assassinate the 35th President of the United States, and get away with it. That is, until all 100 sections are completed on: http://November221963.com
Until all 100 sections are completed, this timeline will have links that don't work.
And sometime along the publishing of the 100 Sections - Home will become:
And the web address of this timeline will become:
http://Timeline.November221963.com
This timeline is dedicated to my assassinated President
on the 100th commemoration of his birth, May 29, 2017.
Timeline
February 21, 1871
The United States Isn't A Country - It's a Corporation!
by Lisa Guliani
...The date is February 21, 1871 and the Forty-First Congress is in session. I refer you to the "Acts of the Forty-First Congress," Section 34, Session III, chapters 61 and 62. On this date in the history of our nation, Congress passed an Act titled: "An Act To Provide A Government for the District of Columbia." This is also known as the "Act of 1871." What does this mean? Well, it means that Congress, under no constitutional authority to do so, created a separate form of government for the District of Columbia, which is a ten mile square parcel of land.
What??? How could they do that? Moreover, WHY would they do that? To explain, let's look at the circumstances of those days. The Act of 1871 was passed at a vulnerable time in America. Our nation was essentially bankrupt — weakened and financially depleted in the aftermath of the Civil War. The Civil War itself was nothing more than a calculated "front" for some pretty fancy footwork by corporate backroom players. It was a strategic maneuver by European interests (the international bankers) who were intent upon gaining a stranglehold on the neck (and the coffers) of America.
The Congress realized our country was in dire financial straits, so they cut a deal with the international bankers — (in those days, the Rothschilds of London were dipping their fingers into everyone's pie) thereby incurring a DEBT to said bankers. If we think about banks, we know they do not just lend us money out of the goodness of their hearts. A bank will not do anything for you unless it is entirely in their best interest to do so. There has to be some sort of collateral or some string attached which puts you and me (the borrower) into a subservient position. This was true back in 1871 as well. The conniving international bankers were not about to lend our floundering nation any money without some serious stipulations. So, they devised a brilliant way of getting their foot in the door of the United States (a prize they had coveted for some time, but had been unable to grasp thanks to our Founding Fathers, who despised them and held them in check), and thus, the Act of 1871 was passed.
In essence, this Act formed the corporation known as THE UNITED STATES. Note the capitalization, because it is important. This corporation, owned by foreign interests, moved right in and shoved the original "organic" version of the Constitution into a dusty corner. With the "Act of 1871," our Constitution was defaced in the sense that the title was block-capitalized and the word "for" was changed to the word "of" in the title. The original Constitution drafted by the Founding Fathers, was written in this manner:
"The Constitution for the united states of America"...
The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 (17:46)
The Act Of 1871 (5:14)
The UNITED STATES is a CORPORATION
by Anonymous
September 6, 1888
Joseph Patrick Kennedy (the Father of John Fitzgerald Kennedy) was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the elder son of businessman and politician Patrick Joseph "P. J." Kennedy and Mary Augusta Hickey. He had a younger brother Francis (who died young), and two younger sisters, Mary and Margaret. All four of Joe's grandparents had immigrated to Massachusetts in the 1840s to escape the Irish Holocaust.
July 22, 1890
Countess Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald Kennedy (the Mother of John Fitzgerald Kennedy) was born at 4 Garden Court in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. She was the eldest of six children born to Boston Mayor John Francis "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald (1863 - 1950) and Mary Josephine "Josie" Hannon (1865 - 1964). Her siblings were Mary, Thomas, John Jr., Eunice, and Frederick.
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered... I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
Thomas Jefferson
April 21, 1898 - August 13, 1898
Spanish-American War: Trial Run for Interventionism
by James Perloff
U.S. Secretary of State John Hay called the Spanish-American War of 1898 a “splendid little war.” Superficially, the description seemed apt. After the battleship Maine mysteriously exploded in Havana Harbor, an incident then blamed on Spain, America went to war, our citizens urged to free Cuba from Spanish rule as well as avenge the Maine. Largely a naval war, an American squadron under Commodore George Dewey destroyed the Spanish squadron at Manila; likewise, the U.S. Navy crushed Spain’s Caribbean squadron off Cuba’s port of Santiago. In each engagement, the United States suffered only one fatality. Things went tougher for American troops in Cuba, where malaria and yellow fever proved as daunting as Spanish bullets. But American schoolchildren would thereafter thrill to tales of Teddy Roosevelt and his “Rough Riders,” and of the famed charge up San Juan Hill. Defeated on land and sea, Spain sued for peace. The war lasted less than four months; our fighting forces distinguished themselves with valor; and the United States, acquiring territory from Puerto Rico to the Philippines, emerged as a “world power.”
However, behind victory’s fervor lay deceptions, and principles of the Founding Fathers were discarded, portending future misery for Americans...
November 22, 1910
Israel Killed JFK And Has Ruled America Ever Since.
by VidRebel
...The United States has had three coups if you count the first one as being Jekyll Island in November of 1910. Those first coup plotters met at Jekyll Island and secretly wrote the law that became the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. All of the bankers who met in secret were Rothschild agents. This included Paul Warburg of the Rothschild dominated Kuhn Loeb bank. Nelson Aldrich who was a Senator married into the Rockefeller family. The Rockefellers were created by the Rothschilds as were J P Morgan, the Harrimans and the Bush family. Senator Aldrich was head of the National Monetary Commission created by President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt had become President after the Jews had successfully assassinated President McKinley. They previously had assassinated President Lincoln. John Wilkes Booth was Jewish. But I prefer not to count these earlier assassinations as coups. The remaining members of the Jekyll Island Six were Treasury Department employees. who did what they were told to do.
The first day of those meetings actually occurred in a private railway car on the evening of November 22, 1910. When the Jews took over America’s banking and monetary system in 1913, they took over the country. Not all coups involve tanks in the streets. It was no coincidence that President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, which was the 53rd anniversary of Israel’s earlier coup. President Kennedy had dared to attempt to take America back from the Jews....
December 23, 1913
President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law, thus creating, for the third time in the nation’s history a national central bank. The first two central banks lost their 20 year charters, this act did not include a 20 year charter, or a charter of any duration, so it couldn't be voted out of existence. They got smart the third time around.
On this day our monetary policy was stolen from us by usurious counterfeiters using fraction reserve banking. It was the beginning of the end for the United States. Since this day, these debt slavery Shylock charlatans, have grown evermore embolden in their quest for the complete dominance in every aspect of society and personal life.
by Ellen Brown
...Professor Margrit Kennedy writes that a stunning 35% to 40% of everything we buy goes to interest. This interest goes to bankers, financiers, and bondholders, who take a 35% to 40% cut of our GDP (gross domestic product). That helps explain how wealth is systematically transferred from Main Street to Wall Street. The rich get progressively richer at the expense of the poor, not just because of Wall Street greed but because of the inexorable mathematics of our private banking system.
This hidden tribute to the banks will come as a surprise to most people, who think that if they pay their credit card bills on time and don't take out loans, they aren't paying interest. This, says Dr. Kennedy, is not true. Tradesmen, suppliers, wholesalers and retailers all along the chain of production rely on credit to pay their bills. They must pay for labor and materials before they have a product to sell and before the end buyer pays for the product 90 days later. Each supplier in the chain adds interest to its production costs, which are passed on to the ultimate consumer. Dr. Kennedy cites interest charges ranging from 12% for garbage collection, to 38% for drinking water, to 77% for rent in public housing in her native Germany...
Which 3 Crimes Are In The U.S. Constitution?
Treason, Piracy and Counterfeiting
by Brett Snider
In Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution states; that Congress shall have the power “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measure”
Chart of who "owns" the Federal Reserve
Federal Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence
"Once the government reclaims the power to create money from the banks, it will no longer need to sell its bonds to investors. It will not even need to levy income taxes... government-issued money would actually be less inflationary than the system we have now; and it is precisely because power and money corrupt that money creation needs to be done by a public body, exercised in full view and with full accountability... what has allowed government to be corrupted today is that it is actually run by the money cartel. Big business holds all the cards, because its affiliated banks have monopolized the business of issuing and lending the national money supply, a function the Constitution delegated solely to Congress."
Ellen Brown
The North Dakota Model For Capitalizing Community Banks
by Ellen Brown
...North Dakota is the only state in the union to own its own bank. The Bank of North Dakota (BND) was established by the state legislature in 1919 specifically to free farmers and small businessmen from the clutches of out-of-state bankers and railroad men. Its populist organizers originally conceived of the bank as a credit union-like institution that would provide an alternative to predatory lenders, but conservative interests later took control and suppressed these commercial lending functions. The BND now chiefly acts as a central bank, with functions similar to those of a branch of the Federal Reserve.
However, the BND differs from the Federal Reserve in significant ways. The stock of the branches of the Fed is 100% privately owned by banks. The BND is 100% owned by the state, and it is required to operate in the interest of the public. Its stated mission is to deliver sound financial services that promote agriculture, commerce and industry in North Dakota...
“Here are the simple facts of the great betrayal. Wilson and House knew that they were doing something momentous. One cannot fathom men's motives and this pair probably believed in what they were up to. What they did not believe in was representative government. They believed in government by an uncontrolled oligarchy whose acts would only become apparent after an interval so long that the electorate would be forever incapable of doing anything efficient to remedy depredations."
Ezra Pound in the introduction to Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Eustace Mullins
August 20, 1914
Joseph P. Kennedy buys the house at 83 Beals Street, Brookline, Massachusetts.
October 7, 1914
Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald and Joseph Patrick Kennedy marry.
May 7, 1915
The Lusitania, Woodrow Wilson, and the Deceptions that Dragged America into World War I
by James Perloff
This is a long article. But World War I – which was the first global war, and claimed as many as 65 million lives – has nearly been forgotten about. This article contains many suppressed facts, and I hope you come away from it with a better understanding of how the present connects to the past.The Mighty Lusitania
As discussions crop up of a Third World War possibly arising from tensions in the Middle East or Ukraine, it is apt to examine the First World War, whose 100th anniversary falls this year. America’s entanglement in that war, like so many others, was engineered through a false flag.
In 1915, Britain was at war with Germany. The United States was still neutral. On May 7, the Lusitania, a British ocean liner en route from America to England, was sunk by a German submarine some 12 miles off Ireland’s southern coast. There were 764 survivors, but nearly 1,200 people, including 128 Americans, lost their lives. The Lusitania – which had been the world’s largest ship when launched in 1906 – went down in just 18 minutes after a single torpedo hit. Survivors reported there had been two explosions – a smaller one followed moments later by an enormous one. This was affirmed by the log of the U-20, the submarine which sank her.
The tragedy was portrayed to the public as the wanton slaughter of women and children. It became the subject of a relentless propaganda campaign, including a fabricated claim that German children were given a holiday from school to celebrate the sinking. The Lusitania was the most important in a series of pretexts used to generate the eventual U.S. declaration of war on Germany...
The Sinking of The Lusitania, America’s Entry into World War I, A Bonanza for Wall Street
By Gabriel Donohoe
On this day 99 years ago, a German U-boat sunk the RMS Lusitania off the southern Irish coast with the loss of 1,195 lives, including 128 Americans. 94 children perished, 31 of them mere babies. This incident became the major catalyst for drawing a reluctant America into the European slaughter pens of World War 1.
But was the sinking of the Lusitania one of those unfortunate acts that occur randomly during war or was there a more sinister and deliberate hand at work? lusitania on fire
In a disputed incident like this, one often gets to the truth of the matter by asking the question, “Cui bono?” “Who benefits?” After a detailed examination of the facts, one can only come to the conclusion that it was the banksters who benefitted, and grossly at that...
July 25, 1915
Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr. is born in Hull, Massachusetts. He the oldest child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy.
April 6, 1917
On April 6, 1917, two days after the United States Senate voted 82 to 6 to declare war against Germany, the United States House of Representatives voted of 373 to 50, and the United States formally entered the First World War.
A few years ago out of the blue this idea came to me. It said the day the United States entered the First World War, April 6, 1917, had significance, go check it out. So, I did.
First I found out that April 6, 1917, was on a Friday. Then I checked to see if it happened to be Good Friday, and it was.
So, the day the United States formally entered the First World War, April 6, 1917, was Good Friday. This is not a coincidence, it was done by the same group of mostly Jewish financers who just three years earlier created the Federal Reserve Act.
May 13, 1917 - October 13, 1917
First Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima - May 13, 1917
On May 13, 1917, Lucia dos Santos, Francisco, and Jacinta Marto were, respectively, ten, nine, and seven years old. As we have said, the three children lived in Aljustrel, a hamlet of the township of Fatima.
After three apparitions of the Angel of Portugal in 1916, the children began to receive visits of a luminous Lady who later identified herself as “The Lady of the Rosary.” In Catholic language, “Our Lady of the Rosary” is the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God made man.
The apparitions took place on a small property belonging to Lucia's parents called Cova da Iria, about a mile and a half from Fatima.
The three seers were playing at Cova da Iria on May 13, 1917 when they saw two flashes like lightning, after which they saw the Mother of God above a holm oak. She was, according to the description of Lucia, "a Lady dressed in white, more brilliant than the sun…" Her face, indescribably beautiful, was "neither sad nor happy, but serious," with an air of mild reproach. Her hands, joined together as if she were praying, were resting at her breast and pointing upward. A rosary hung from her right hand.
The seers were so close to Our Lady, about a yard and a half away, that they stood within the light that radiated from her.
by Joe Nickell
What Our Lady Said at Fatima on October 13, 1917
by Antonio A. Borel
The Miracle of the Sun in Fatima October 13, 1917 (5:32)
The Miracle of the Sun (Portuguese: O Milagre do Sol) was an event which occurred on October 13, 1917, attended by a large crowd who had gathered near Fátima, Portugal in response to a prophecy made by three shepherd children that the Virgin Mary, referred to as Our Lady of Fatima, would appear and perform miracles on that date. Newspapers published testimony from reporters and other people who claimed to have witnessed extraordinary solar activity, such as the sun appearing to "dance" or zig-zag in the sky, careen towards the earth, or emit multicolored light and radiant colors. According to these reports, the event lasted approximately ten minutes.
May 29, 1917
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), known in his family as Jack, is born at 83 Beals Street, Brookline, Massachusetts, a wealthy suburb of Boston. He is the second of Rose Kennedy (Fitzgerald) and Joseph Kennedy's nine children. His grandfathers P. J. Kennedy and Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald were both Massachusetts politicians. All four of his grandparents were the children of Irish immigrants. The Kennedy family spent summers at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and Christmas and Easter holidays at their winter home in Palm Beach, Florida.
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy Transformation From 1 to 46 Years Old (2:46)
The Kennedys in Palm Beach, through 1963 (Photographs)
1917 - 1927
John F. Kennedy lived in Brookline for ten years and attended the Edward Devotion School, the Noble and Greenough Lower School, and the Dexter School through 4th grade.
November 2, 1917
As per the Rothschild Zionist promise to the British, to take America into the war, they decide they want something in writing from the British to prove that they will uphold their side of the bargain. The British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour therefore drafts a letter which is commonly known as the, “Balfour Declaration,” which is reprinted below.
Foreign Office November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.
His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour
When the Balfour Declaration was written on November 2, 1917, Palestine was not the legal property British government. It was, as it had been since 1516, a part of the Ottoman Empire. The British captured [stole] Jerusalem on December 9, 1917. The League of Nations formally awarded Britain a mandate over Palestine in 1922.
September 13, 1918
Rosemary Kennedy, born Rose Marie Kennedy, is born at 83 Beals Street, Brookline, Massachusetts. She is the third child and eldest daughter of Joseph and Rose Kennedy.
February 20, 1920
Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy was born at 83 Beals Street, Brookline, Massachusetts. She is the second daughter and fourth child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy.
February 20, 1920
When he was just two years old, John F. Kennedy contracted scarlet fever at his family’s home in Brookline. On that same day, February 20, 1920, his pregnant mother went into labor with his younger sister, Kathleen.
Roberts said it made for a chaotic scene in the Kennedy’s Beals Street colonial, with the family nurse running back and forth from Rose to Jack in separate rooms. At the time, scarlet fever was potentially fatal for children. Fearing that Kennedy might transmit the disease to his newborn sister or his two other young siblings, Joe and Rosemary, the family worked to get him admitted to Boston City Hospital. But first, a priest was summoned to the sickly toddler’s second-floor room to deliver his last rites.
“When you’re delivered last rites in the Catholic faith, they don’t expect you to pull through,” said Jim Roberts of the JFK Historic site.
March 1920
The growth of the Kennedy family made it a necessity to move to a larger home so they sold their Beals Street house to Joe Kennedy's advisor Edward Moore and his family. Joseph P. Kennedy purchases a larger home a few blocks away, located at 131 Naples Road (now 51 Abbottsford Road) in Brookline, Massachusetts. The Kennedy's lived in the Abbottsford Road home until they moved to New York on September 26, 1927.
June 10, 1921
Eunice Mary Kennedy is born at 51 Abbottsford Road, Brookline, Massachusetts. She is the fifth of Rose and Joseph Kennedy’s nine children and their third daughter.
September 12, 1921
John enters kindergarten at the Edward Devotion School, a public elementary school in Brookline, Massachusetts.
May 6, 1924
Patricia Kennedy is born at 51 Abbottsford Road, Brookline, Massachusetts. She is the sixth child and fourth daughter of Rose and Joseph Kennedy.
Fall 1924
Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. and John F. Kennedy enroll at Dexter School, a private school for boys in Brookline, Massachusetts.
November 20, 1925
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy is born at 51 Abbottsford Road, Brookline, Massachusetts. He is the seventh child in the closely knit and competitive family of Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy.
September 1927
Joe Kennedy's business interests prompted the family to move to New York. So, in 1927, the Kennedy family moved to a stately twenty-room, Georgian-style mansion at 5040 Independence Avenue (across the street from Wave Hill) in the Hudson Hill neighborhood of Riverdale, Bronx, New York City. John attended the lower campus of Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys, from 5th to 7th grade.
February 20, 1928
Jean Ann Kennedy is born at St. Margaret's Hospital in Dorchester, Massachusetts. She is the eighth child and youngest daughter of Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy.
1929
Two years later, the Kennedy family moved to 294 Pondfield Road in the New York City suburb of Bronxville, New York, where Kennedy was a member of Boy Scout Troop 2. Kennedy is the first Boy Scout to become President.
July 28, 1929
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier (the Wife of John Fitzgerald Kennedy) was born on July 28, 1929, at Southampton Hospital in Southampton, New York, to Wall Street stockbroker John Vernou "Black Jack" Bouvier III (1891 - 1957) and socialite Janet Norton Lee (1907 - 1989). Bouvier's mother was of Irish descent, and her father had French, Scottish, and English ancestry. Named after her father, Bouvier was baptized at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan; she was raised in the Catholic faith. bHer younger sister Lee was born in 1933.
September 24, 1930
John F. Kennedy, 13, enters the eighth grade at the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut.
Late April 1931
In late April 1931, JFK required an appendectomy, after which he withdrew from the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut and recuperated at home.
September 19, 1931
John F. Kennedy, 14, enters his first year at Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut. Despite his high intelligence and academic potential, Jack earns only mediocre grades. His older brother Joe had already been at Choate for two years and was a football player and leading student.
September 1931 - June 1935
During his Choate years, Kennedy was beset by health problems that culminated with his emergency hospitalization at New Haven Hospital in 1934, where doctors thought he might have leukemia. In June 1934, he was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, the ultimate diagnosis there was colitis.
February 22, 1932
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy is born at St. Margaret's Hospital in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He is the fourth son and youngest of nine children of Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy.
March 9, 1933
The Bankruptcy of America - 1933
Hint: A Lot More Happened Than Just The Confiscation Of The People’s Gold!
[Excerpted from Judge Dale’s The Great American Adventure - Secrets of America.]
by Judge Dale, retired
On March 9, 1933, House Joint Resolution No. 192-10 by the 73rd Congress, was voted into law, which is the Emergency Banking Act. This Act declared the Treasury of the United States, ‘Bankrupt’, which is an impossible feat since the U. S. Treasury was secretly closed by the Congress twelve years earlier in 1921. The Emergency Banking Act succeeded in abrogating America’s gold standard and hypothecated all property found within the United States to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank.
All Sovereign American Citizens residing within the Republic of States suddenly and falsely were expatriated from their Sovereign American status without their knowledge or consent and their labor, souls, children, property, sweat equity and credit became the financial collateral for the public debt, which had then been converted into a Public Trust, which had been scripted after the ancient Roman Trusts.
“Script” money or [negotiable debt instruments] was issued by a private corporation, which is owned by a group of Sabbatean European Jewish Bankers and which is known to everybody as: “The Federal Reserve System.” These promissory notes were called Federal Reserve Notes and our future treatment by the U.S. Government was to be redefined under USC Title 50, ‘The Trading with the Enemy Act’ in which American citizens are defined as, “an enemy of their government” and this is the reason why Lincoln’s Declaration of War is renewed yearly by Congress and the President! In the same year President Roosevelt closed THE VIRGINIA COLONY CORPORATION and opened a new Government Corporation called: THE UNITED STATES, INC...
...Under Regulation 840-10 of the Military Code and sections of the Administrative Procedures Act and the presence of that Military [gold fringed] Flag on display in the Courtroom, instantly creates a state of emergency meaning that, the moment a police officer stopped you in the exercise of your right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the police officer became a belligerent! He is armed and you’re not! He displays a military rank and you’re a civilian and he has now delivered you into a Military Court of Justice with the intent to ‘pillage and plunder’ within the Admiralty jurisdiction of that Military Court, which is also known as ‘The Law of Prize and Captured Property,’ as defined under Title 10, sections 7651 to 7681 of the Code of Military Justice, March 25, 1862.
As mentioned before, The Reconstruction Act included and changed all state officials into having ‘federal foreign standing.’ The 14th amendment deliberately forced and kept them there and section 2 of the Lieber Code instructs that: ‘A victorious army seizes all money and movable property and holds it in trust,’ and this is exactly what the Corporate United States Government and State Governments did and continue to do because they now perceive themselves to be, ‘a victorious army.’
The corporate Congress; the corporate Military Government and their corporate Military Courts of Justice however discovered that they could not gain access to those Public Trusts deposited into the Federal Reserve System, which they had created using our birth registration forms; social security registration forms, licenses, personal property, deeds, promissory notes, equity and credit, without including our individual persons into the bankruptcy of the United States Treasury of 1933. So they cleverly denied our personal Sovereignty and converted our persons into an appellation, which is a corporate fiction or strawman and identified us by writing our birth names all in capital letters. All of our Licenses and documents now reflect this appellation...
...In 1933, this corporate government enticed Americans to voluntarily register for birth certificates, social security, driver’s licenses, voter registration, etc. and enticed us with government benefits to do so. Years later they obligated American’s to register for all of these documents except for voter registration.
These so-called government benefits were no bargain because they belonged to all of us to begin with and over time the largest benefits have been watered down! What most American’s don’t realize is that: No Corporation can operate or fund itself. Corporations require human beings; their credit and sweat equity to finance and operate them! Therefore, everything that the government claims to own actually belongs to “We the Public” and not them! Everything they have been doing is one gigantic fraud and all of it at our expense!
As previously mentioned: These registration programs were instituted so that the Federal Reserve Banks and the Corporate Military Courts of Justice could securitize and monetize the public Trust Accounts. Each Birth Certificate and Social Security Card was eventually converted into a Trust Account and became a government security [like company stocks and bonds] and is marketed as a Mutual Fund. If you own a piece of a Mutual Fund Investment you are actually hedging your money against human collateral...
Strawman - The Real Story Of Your Artificial Person
by Clint Richardson
The Andrew Carrington Hitchcock Show (360) Clint Richardson (1:05:36)
Strawman: The Real Story Of Your Artificial Person
June 19, 1934
by Robert Dallek
Recent assessments of Kennedy's presidency have tended to raise "questions of character"—to view his Administration in the context of his sometimes wayward personal behavior. Such assessments are incomplete. Newly uncovered medical records reveal that the scope and intensity of his physical suffering were beyond what we had previously imagined. What Kennedy endured, and what he hid from the public, both complicates and enlarges our understanding of his character.
...In the winter of 1934 he became very sick and had to be rushed by ambulance to New Haven Hospital for observation. His symptoms included weight loss and a bad case of hives. Doctors feared that he had leukemia and began regularly checking his blood counts. "It seems that I was much sicker than I thought I was," Jack wrote to his classmate Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings after he got out of the hospital, "and am supposed to be dead, so I am developing a limp and a hollow cough." His rectum was "plenty red after the hospital," he complained. "Yours would be red too if you had shoved every thing from rubber tubes to iron pipes up it." By March, Jack's symptoms had largely disappeared, but his doctors remained uncertain about the cause of his difficulties.
In June of 1934, as his junior year at Choate ended, he began feeling ill again, and his parents sent him to the famous Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota. He spent a miserable month there, "the God-damnest hole I've ever seen," he wrote to Billings. By himself at the Mayo and then at nearby St. Mary's Hospital, where he was transferred after two weeks, he maintained his sanity and kept up his hopes for a return to friends and family through a series of such letters. Jack handled what he feared was a life-threatening disease with a biting wit and a refusal to complain openly to anyone but his friend. Judging from the medical tests described in the correspondence and in later medical records, Jack had colitis, which was initially thought to be peptic-ulcer disease. The doctors began by prescribing a diet of bland food preparatory to tests that Jack had hoped would be over in a few days. But the exams lasted much longer. "I am suffering terribly out here," he wrote to Billings. "I now have a gut ache all the time. I'm still eating peas and corn for my food." He expected to be there for at least another twelve days. Two days later he told Billings, "God what a beating I'm taking. I've lost 8 lbs. And still going down ... I'm showing them a thing or two. Nobody able to figure what's wrong with me. All they do is talk about what an interesting case."
"It would be funny," he declared wishfully, "if there was nothing wrong with me. I'm commencing to stay awake nights on that. Still don't know when I'll get home. My last eight meals have been peas, corn, prunes."...
For more see the comprehensive section: Health
June 8, 1935
Kennedy graduated from Choate on June 8, 1935, ranked 64th in a class of 112. For the school yearbook, of which he had been business manager, Kennedy was voted the "most likely to succeed" which he sure did.
September 1935
In September 1935, Kennedy made his first trip abroad with his parents and his sister Kathleen to London intending to study under Harold Laski at the London School of Economics as his older brother had done. Ill-health forced his return to America in October of that year.
October 26, 1935
John Kennedy enters his freshman year at Princeton University,
December 12, 1935
Due to illness, John Kennedy withdraws from Princeton University. Kennedy was then hospitalized for observation at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, afterwards he convalesced further at the Kennedy winter home in Palm Beach.
Spring 1936
Kennedy spent the spring of 1936 working as a ranch hand on the 40,000-acre Jay Six cattle ranch outside Benson, Arizona.
July 26, 1936
“Fifty men have run America, and that’s a high figure.”
Joseph Kennedy, Father of JFK, in the July 26th, 1936 issue of The New York Times
September 28, 1936
Kennedy enrolled at Harvard University, where he produced that year's annual "Freshman Smoker", called by a reviewer "an elaborate entertainment, which included in its cast outstanding personalities of the radio, screen and sports world." He tried out for the football, golf, and swimming teams and earned a spot on the varsity swimming team.
1936
Mary Pinchot Meyer started dating William Attwood in 1935 and, while with him at a dance held at Choate, first met John F. Kennedy in 1936.
See: October 12, 1964
1937
The earliest known recording of future president's voice. John F. Kennedy recording for public speaking class at Harvard, 1937.
Summer 1937
In July 1937, Kennedy sailed to France, taking his convertible, and spent ten weeks driving through Europe.
December 1937 - November 1940
In early December 1937, Roosevelt named Joseph P. Kennedy the new ambassador to the Court of St. James, the United States’ representative to Great Britain. In many respects the ambassadorship represented the pinnacle of Joseph P. Kennedy’s personal success. Accompanied by his wife and children, now numbering nine since the birth in 1932 of the fourth son and last child, Edward M. Kennedy.
Joseph P. Kennedy was greeted with enthusiasm by the British public, and for a while Kennedy and his family were popular celebrities in England. But Kennedy’s tenure as ambassador soon ran into difficulty. European tensions were already running high when he arrived in 1938, and Kennedy’s personal aversion to war put him firmly in the appeasement camp, a position that was losing favor in Britain. When war broke out in 1939, Kennedy’s firm and outspoken commitment to United States neutrality put him increasingly at odds with the British Government, and eventually his own. Kennedy ultimately resigned in November 1940.
June 1938
Kennedy sailed overseas with his father and older brother to work at the American embassy in London, where his father was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's.
1939
As an upperclassman at Harvard University, Kennedy became a more serious student and developed an interest in political philosophy. In his junior year, he made the Dean's List.
Summer 1939
In the Summer of 1939, Kennedy toured Europe, the Soviet Union, the Balkans, and the Middle East in preparation for his Harvard senior honors thesis. He then went to Czechoslovakia and Germany before returning to London on September 1, 1939, the day that Germany invaded Poland. Two days later, the family was in the House of Commons for speeches endorsing the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Germany. Kennedy was sent as his father's representative to help with arrangements for American survivors of the SS Athenia before flying back to the U.S. from Foynes, Ireland to Port Washington, New York on his first transatlantic flight.
September 1, 1939
After numerous attempts by Hitler at trying to broker a peace for East Prussia and the city of Danzig (95% Germanic people), the land stolen from Germany in June 28, 1919, at the Treaty of Versailles, and after these ethnic German are being slaughtered (on purpose to force Hitler to defend his fellow Germans) in these areas, Germany finally goes into Poland to stop the atrocities and take back her rightful land.
For my comprehensive article on this and all of Hitler's Peace Plans read:
by Mark R Elsis
...Hitler did not want war in 1939 -- and certainly not a general or global conflict. He earnestly sought a peaceful resolution of the dispute with Poland over the status of the ethnically German city-state of Danzig and the “Corridor” region, which was the immediate cause of conflict. The sincerity of his desire for peace in 1939, and his fear of another world war, has been affirmed by a number of scholars, including the eminent British historian A. J. P. Taylor. It was, of course, the declarations of war against Germany by Britain and France on September 3, 1939, made with secret encouragement by US President Roosevelt, that transformed the limited German-Polish clash into a larger, continent- wide war...
September 3, 1939
Britain and France declare war on Germany.
October 18, 1939
Lee Harvey Oswald was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 18, 1939, to Robert Edward Lee Oswald, Sr. (1896 - 1939) and Marguerite Frances Claverie (1907 - 1981). Robert Oswald died of a heart attack two months before Lee was born. Lee's elder brother Robert, Jr. (born 1934) was also a former Marine. Through Marguerite's first marriage to Edward John Pic, Jr., Lee and Robert Jr. were the half-brothers of Air Force veteran John Edward Pic (1932 - 2000).
The Actual Conspiracy - Oswald (32:40)
by Michael Parenti
You think you know the story of the JFK assassination?
The government’s story is even more ridiculous then that you know.
For example, here’s what we know for sure about Oswald’s real background:
He was a high level federal government operative.
No debates about it. No “conspiracy theory.” Undeniable evidence.
Who else gets to renounce his citizenship, declare he was taking state secret to Russia, get invited back to the country and have his life subsidized while he dabbled in high profile, highly exhibitionist pantomimes of leftist politics?
For more see the comprehensive section: Lee Harvey Oswald
April 1, 1940
In the early Spring of 1940 John F. Kennedy, 23, completed his Harvard thesis, Appeasement in Munich, about British participation in the Munich Agreement. Then on April 1, 1940, it is published as, Why England Slept.
June 20, 1940
On June 20, 1940, John F. Kennedy graduated from Harvard University cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in government, concentrating on international affair.
July 1940
Why England Slept becomes a bestseller.
1940
Kennedy attempted to enter the Army's Officer Candidate School in 1940, but was medically disqualified (4-F Classification) for his chronic lower back problems.
September 1940
Kennedy enrolled in, and audited classes at, the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
When John F. Kennedy walked the halls of Stanford
by Kate Chesley
John F. Kennedy once briefly audited classes at the Graduate School of Business. Kennedy wrote to a friend: “Have become very fond of Stanford. Everyone is friendly, the gals are quite attractive, and it’s a very good life.”
According to A Chronology of Stanford University and Its Founders, published by the Stanford Historical Society, Kennedy registered as a graduate student for the fall quarter in September 1940. He lived in a cottage behind a house on Mayfield Avenue and took classes in business, economics and political science. He left the campus “around the Christmas holidays.” As a presidential candidate, Kennedy returned to campus in 1960 to deliver a speech to some 4,000 people inside and outside Memorial Auditorium.
November 1940
Joseph P. Kennedy had a personal aversion to war that put him firmly in the appeasement camp, a position that was losing favor in Britain (thanks to warmongering Winston Spencer Churchill). When war broke out in 1939, Kennedy’s firm and outspoken commitment to United States neutrality put him increasingly at odds with the British Government, and eventually his own. Kennedy ultimately resigned as the ambassador to the Court of St. James, the United States’ representative to Great Britain in November 1940.
by Edward Renehan Jr.
Arriving at London in early 1938, newly-appointed U.S. Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy took up quickly with another transplanted American. Viscountess Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor assured Kennedy early in their friendship that he should not be put off by her pronounced and proud anti-Catholicism.
"I'm glad you are smart enough not to take my [views] personally," she wrote. Astor pointed out that she had a number of Roman Catholic friends - G.K. Chesterton among them - with whom she shared, if nothing else, a profound hatred for the Jewish race. Joe Kennedy, in turn, had always detested Jews generally, although he claimed several as friends individually. Indeed, Kennedy seems to have tolerated the occasional Jew in the same way Astor tolerated the occasional Catholic.
Fiercely anti-Communist, Kennedy and Astor looked upon Adolf Hitler as a welcome solution to both of these "world problems" (Nancy's phrase). No member of the so-called "Cliveden Set" (the informal cabal of appeasers who met frequently at Nancy Astor's palatial home) seemed much concerned with the dilemma faced by Jews under the Reich. Astor wrote Kennedy that Hitler would have to do more than just "give a rough time" to "the killers of Christ" before she'd be in favor of launching "Armageddon to save them. The wheel of history swings round as the Lord would have it. Who are we to stand in the way of the future?" Kennedy replied that he expected the "Jew media" in the United States to become a problem, that "Jewish pundits in New York and Los Angeles" were already making noises contrived to "set a match to the fuse of the world."
During May of 1938, Kennedy engaged in extensive discussions with the new German Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Herbert von Dirksen. In the midst of these conversations (held without approval from the U.S. State Department), Kennedy advised von Dirksen that President Roosevelt was the victim of "Jewish influence" and was poorly informed as to the philosophy, ambitions and ideals of Hitler's regime. (The Nazi ambassador subsequently told his bosses that Kennedy was "Germany's best friend" in London.)
Columnists back in the states condemned Kennedy's fraternizing. Kennedy later claimed that 75% of the attacks made on him during his Ambassadorship emanated from "a number of Jewish publishers and writers. ... Some of them in their zeal did not hesitate to resort to slander and falsehood to achieve their aims." He told his eldest son, Joe Jr., that he disliked having to put up with "Jewish columnists" who criticized him with no good reason.
Like his father, Joe Jr. admired Adolf Hitler. Young Joe had come away impressed by Nazi rhetoric after traveling in Germany as a student in 1934. Writing at the time, Joe applauded Hitler's insight in realizing the German people's "need of a common enemy, someone of whom to make the goat. Someone, by whose riddance the Germans would feel they had cast out the cause of their predicament. It was excellent psychology, and it was too bad that it had to be done to the Jews. The dislike of the Jews, however, was well-founded. They were at the heads of all big business, in law etc. It is all to their credit for them to get so far, but their methods had been quite unscrupulous ... the lawyers and prominent judges were Jews, and if you had a case against a Jew, you were nearly always sure to lose it. ... As far as the brutality is concerned, it must have been necessary to use some ...."
Writing to Charles Lindbergh shortly after Kristallnacht, which was a a false flag, in November of 1938, Joe Kennedy Sr. seemed more concerned about the political ramifications stemming from high-profile, riotous anti-Semitism than he was about the actual violence done to the Jews. "... Isn't there some way," he asked, "to persuade [the Nazis] it is on a situation like this that the whole program of saving western civilization might hinge? It is more and more difficult for those seeking peaceful solutions to advocate any plan when the papers are filled with such horror." Clearly, Kennedy's chief concern about Kristallnacht was that it might serve to harden anti-fascist sentiment at home in the United States.
Like his friend Charles Coughlin (a broadcaster and Roman Catholic priest), Kennedy always remained convinced of what he believed to be the Jews' corrupt, malignant, and profound influence in American culture and politics. "The Democratic [party] policy of the United States is a Jewish production," Kennedy told a British reporter near the end of 1939, adding confidently that Roosevelt would "fall" in 1940...
1941
In early 1941, Kennedy helped his father write a memoir of his three years as an American ambassador, afterwards he traveled throughout South America; including Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
September 24, 1941
After exercising for months to strengthen his back, and with the help of the director of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), Kennedy joined the United States Naval Reserve.
John F. Kennedy's Naval Career
John Fitzgerald Kennedy's Naval Career
October 26, 1941
Kennedy was commissioned an ensign on October 26, 1941, and joined the staff of the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C. His older brother, Joe Jr., is already training to be a navy pilot.
December 6, 1941
...It was not until December 6, 1941, the day before Pearl Harbor, that an all-out effort to build an atomic bomb began under the direction of General Leslie Groves. This was what became known as the Manhattan Project...
December 7, 1941
The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, compelling the United States to enter World War II.
To find out what really happened on December 7, 1941, read the excellent article:
Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt’s 9/11
False flags do not stand alone. They are better understood – and more credibly explained to skeptics – when seen in history’s context.
by James Perloff
December 8, 1941
The United States entered World War Two on the Immaculate Conception.
The Immaculate Conception means that Mary, whose conception was brought about the normal way, was conceived without original sin or its stain, that’s what "immaculate" means: without stain. The essence of original sin consists in the deprivation of sanctifying grace, and its stain is a corrupt nature. Mary was preserved from these defects by God’s grace; from the first instant of her existence she was in the state of sanctifying grace and was free from the corrupt nature original sin brings.
FDR Declares War on December 8, 1941, Infamy Speech (7:59)
January 19, 1942 - December 4, 1942
Letters to John F. Kennedy from journalist Inga Arvad. In 1935, as a freelance reporter, Inga Arvad interviewed Hitler, and this connection would color the rest of her life. Arvad was Hitler's guest at the 1936 Summer Olympics, which led to her being investigated by the FBI in America as a potential spy. Hitler had told her that she was a perfect example of Nordic beauty. A photograph of her with Hitler surfaced and the FBI followed her, finding out that she was dating an American ensign, John F. Kennedy, son of the former U.S. ambassador to Britain. Kennedy's prominence led only to greater scrutiny of Arvad and suspicions about her that were never substantiated.
January 15, 1942 - July 1942
From January 15, 1942 through July 1942, John F. Kennedy was assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence field office at Headquarters, Sixth Naval District, in Charleston, South Carolina.
May 9, 1942 - May 11, 1950
Naval Hospital, Chelsea, Massachusetts
This folder contains materials concerning medical treatment John F. Kennedy received at the United States Naval Hospital in Chelsea, Massachusetts (previously known as Naval Hospital at Charlestown and later known as Naval Hospital Boston). Materials in this folder include memoranda, admission reports, examination reports, medical charts, dental records, accounts of Kennedy's medical history, and letters from physicians at the Lahey Clinic in Boston.
July 27, 1942 - September 27, 1942
John F. Kennedy attended Naval Reserve Officers Training School, at Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois.
September 27, 1942 - December 2, 1942
John F. Kennedy voluntarily entered the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Training Center, in Melville, Rhode Island
October 10, 1942
John F. Kennedy was promoted to lieutenant junior grade.
December 2, 1942 - February 23, 1943
His first command was PT-101 from December 7, 1942, until February 23, 1943: It was a PT boat used for training while Kennedy was an instructor at Melville. He then led three Huckins patrol torpedo (PT) boats; PT-98, PT-99, and PT-101, which were being relocated from MTBRON 4 in Melville, Rhode Island, back to Jacksonville, Florida and the new MTBRON 14 (formed February 17, 1943). During the trip south, he was hospitalized briefly in Jacksonville after diving into the cold water to untangle a propeller. Thereafter, Kennedy was assigned duty in Panama and later in the Pacific theater, where he eventually commanded two more patrol torpedo boats.
April 1943 - March 1945
From April 1943 till December 21, 1943, Kennedy was assigned to Motor Torpedo Squadron Two. On April 24, Kennedy took command of PT-109 which was based at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands.
On the night of August 1 - 2, PT-109, on its 31st mission, was performing nighttime patrols near New Georgia in the Solomon Islands with PT-162 and PT-169. Kennedy spotted a Japanese destroyer nearby and attempted to turn to attack, when PT-109 was rammed suddenly at an angle and cut in half by the destroyer Amagiri, costing two PT-109 crew members their lives.
Kennedy gathered his surviving ten crew members including those injured around the wreckage, to vote on whether to "fight or surrender". Kennedy stated: "There's nothing in the book about a situation like this. A lot of you men have families and some of you have children. What do you want to do? I have nothing to lose." Shunning surrender, the men swam towards a small island three miles away. Despite re-injuring his back in the collision, Kennedy towed a badly burned crewman through the water to the island with a life jacket strap clenched between his teeth, and later to a second island, where his crew was subsequently rescued on August 8.
John F. Kennedy and Ensign Leonard Thom, his executive officer on PT-109, were both later awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism and the Purple Heart Medal for injuries.
Why JFK Kept A Coconut Shell In The Oval Office
During this week in 1943, a 26-year-old Kennedy and his crew were marooned on a deserted island and then rescued thanks to two daring men
by Kat Eschner
July 24, 1943 - August 2, 1943
Operation Gomorrah. I wonder who would name it this?
Operation Gomorrah - Bombing of Hamburg
The attack during the last week of July, 1943, Operation Gomorrah, created one of the largest firestorms raised by the RAF and USAAF in World War II, killing 42,600 civilians and wounding 37,000 in Hamburg and practically destroying the entire City. Before the development of the firestorm in Hamburg there had been no rain for some time and everything was very dry. The unusually warm weather and good conditions meant that the bombing was highly concentrated around the intended targets and also created a vortex and whirling updraft of super-heated air which created a 1,500-foot-high tornado of fire, a totally unexpected effect.
Operation Gomorrah was the military codename for the Allied bombing of Hamburg (Battle of Hamburg) during World War II (24 July 1943 - 2 August 1943). The attacks during the last week of July in 1943, created one of the largest firestorms raised by the RAF and USAAF in World War II, killing at least 42,600 civilians (other sources account for up to 125,000 deaths) and wounding over 37,000 in Hamburg and practically destroying the entire city.
September 1, 1943
On September 1, 1943, Kennedy returned to duty, went to Tulagi, and took command of a PT boat converted into a gunboat, the PT-59.
October 10, 1943
Kennedy was promoted to Lieutenant and continued to command the motor torpedo boat when the squadron moved to Vella Lavella.
November 2, 1943
On November 2, 1943, PT-59, which included three former PT-109 crew members, took part with another boat in the successful rescue of 87 marines stranded on two rescue landing craft on the Warrior River at Choiseul Island which was held by the Japanese.
November 18, 1943
Under doctor's orders, Kennedy was relieved of his command of PT-59 on November 18, 1944
December 21, 1943 - Early January 1944
Kennedy left the Solomons on December 21, 1943, and he returned to the United States in early January 1944.
February 15, 1944 - March 1944
John F. Kennedy attended Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Training Center, Melville, Rhode Island. Due to the re-injury of his back during the sinking of PT 109, Kennedy entered a hospital for treatment.
March 8, 1944 - October 30, 1944
On March 8, 1944, Kennedy went to the Submarine Chaser Training Center, Miami, Florida. In May while still assigned to the Center, Kennedy entered the Naval Hospital, Chelsea, Massachusetts, for further treatment of his back injury. Under treatment as an outpatient, Kennedy was ordered detached from the Miami Center on October 30, 1944.
June 12, 1944
PC110 Lt. Kennedy being awarded the Navy Marine Corps Medal
At the Hospital on June 12, 1944, he was presented the Navy and Marine Corps Medal (the Navy's highest non-combat decoration for heroism) for his heroic actions on August 1–2, 1943, and the Purple Heart Medal for his back injury on PT-109, on August 1, 1943 (injured on August 2).
After the war, Kennedy felt that the medal he had received for heroism was not a combat award and asked that he be reconsidered for the Silver Star Medal for which he had been recommended initially. (His father also requested the Silver Star, which is awarded for gallantry in action, for his son). In 1950, The Department of the Navy offered Kennedy a Bronze Star Medal in recognition of his meritorious service, but he would have to return his Navy and Marine Corps Medal in order to receive it. He declined the medal. In 1959, the Navy again offered him the Bronze Star. Kennedy responded, repeating his original request concerning the award. He received the same response from the Navy as he had in 1950. The Navy said his actions were a lifesaving case. Kennedy's two original medals are currently on display at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
John F. Kennedy also received the American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal.
1944 - November 22, 1963
Florence Pritchett met John F. Kennedy in 1944 and began a romantic relationship that lasted for years. Flo, whom young Jack Kennedy spent time with in New York, Washington, Palm Beach, and Havana, was the girl with whom he had the closest relationship. In Kennedy's appointment book for June 28, 1947 there was an entry written by Flo that read: "Flo Pritchett's birthday! send diamonds." Betty Spalding said that for Kennedy, "Over a long period of time, it was probably the closest relationship with a woman I know of."
In 1940 Florence met and married Richard Canning. Soon afterwards she became fashion editor of New York Journal American, a journal owned by William Randolph Hearst. In 1943 Florence divorced Canning. Because of her divorce, and Kennedy was a Roman Catholic with political aspirations, so marriage was out of the question.
In 1947 Florence married Earl E. T. Smith, member of the New York Stock Exchange. The couple had three children. In June, 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Smith as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Cuba. FBI files reveal that over the next two years John F. Kennedy made more than a dozen visits to Cuba in order to meet Florence. Florence also met Kennedy in Miami and Palm Beach, where their homes were conveniently adjoined.
Dorothy Kilgallen managed to obtain a private interview with Jack Ruby. She told friends that she had information that would "break the case wide open". Aware of what had happened to Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe, Kilgallen handed her interview notes to Florence Pritchett Smith. She told friends that she had obtained information that Ruby and J. D. Tippit were friends and that David Ferrie was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. On November 8, 1965, Dorothy Kilgallen, was found dead in her New York apartment. She was fully dressed and sitting upright in her bed. The police reported that she had died from taking a cocktail of alcohol and barbiturates. The notes of her interview with Jack Ruby and the article and book she was writing on the case had disappeared. Florence Smith, died a day later of a cerebral hemorrhage. Her son, Earl Smith III, said that she had been suffering from leukemia.
See: November 8, 1965
For more see the comprehensive section: Witness Deaths
August 12, 1944
On August 12, 1944, Kennedy's older brother, Lieutenant Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., 29, a Navy pilot, was killed after volunteering for a special and hazardous air mission when his explosive-laden PB-44 drone Liberator plane exploded over the English Channel.
Because his eldest brother had been the family's political standard-bearer, and had been tapped by his father to seek the Presidency. His death in 1944 changed that course, and Jack, the second oldest Kennedy child, is now "next in line" for political leadership within the powerful Kennedy family.
The Secret Drone Mission that Killed Joseph Kennedy Jr.
by Ed Grabianowski
In 1944, Joseph Kennedy Jr. (older brother of JFK) took off from a British airfield in a B-24 Liberator filled with 20,000 pounds of explosives. He'd volunteered for the mission. It would be his last.
Kennedy was the eldest of nine siblings, and it was assumed he'd eventually take up the family business [he was to be President of the United States]. However, in 1942 he dropped out of law school to join the U.S. Navy, hoping to become a pilot. In 1943 and 1944 he flew numerous missions in a PB4Y-1 Liberator (the Navy's designation for the B-24 Liberator), completing two tours of duty. Eligible for stateside duty at that point, he instead volunteered for a secret and incredibly dangerous mission: operating some of the first military drone aircraft...
November 6, 1944
Lord Moyne (Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne)
Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne DSO and Bar PC (March 29, 1880 - November 6, 1944) was a British politician and businessman, from the famous Irish Anglican brewing family. He served as the British minister of state in the Middle East until November 6, 1944, when he was assassinated during World War II in Egypt by terrorist group Lehi in a Zionist-Jewish plot. The assassination of Lord Moyne sent shock waves through Palestine and the rest of the world. A member of the Conservative Party, Lord Moyne was opposed to the Palestinian Holocaust.
January - March 1945
Beginning in January 1945, Kennedy spent three more months recovering from his back injury at Castle Hot Springs, a resort and temporary military hospital in Arizona.
February 13, 1945 - February 14, 1945
Dresden, Germany, and the overwhelmingly innocent people in it were turned to ash on Wednesday, February 14, 1945, Ash Wednesday.
Why did the Allies reduce Dresden to rubble?
by Don Harkins
As is so often the case of the history we are taught in schools, the books tell a tale differently than what we can learn from first-hand accounts of those who actually lived through the experience. It is from the memories of common people who survived the Dresden Bombing of February 13-14, 1945, that we can understand why somewhere between 130,000 and 300,000 common people had to die. The truth is the Allies (Churchill's England, Stalin's Russia and Roosevelt's U.S.) mass murdered them.
The Dresden Bombing: An eyewitness account
by Edda West
“The Dresden experience has stayed with me very vividly through my entire life. The media later released that the number of people who died during the bombing was estimated in excess of two hundred and fifty thousand, over a quarter of a million people. This was due to all the refugees who came fleeing from the Russians, and Dresden's reputation as a safe city. There were no air raid shelters there because of the Red Cross agreement."...
March 1, 1945
On March 1, 1945, Kennedy was retired from the Navy Reserve on physical disability and honorably discharged with the full rank of lieutenant. When asked later how he became a war hero, Kennedy joked: "It was easy. They cut my PT boat in half."
April 25, 1945 - June 16, 1945
In April 1945, Kennedy's father, who was a friend of William Randolph Hearst, arranged a position for his son as a special correspondent for Hearst Newspapers; the assignment kept Kennedy's name in the public eye and "exposed him to journalism as a possible career." He worked as a correspondent for several months covering the Potsdam Conference, the United Nations Conference in San Francisco and the 1945 General Election in Britain.
by Peter Janney
...John F. Kennedy and Mary Pinchot Meyer, whom he had first met at an Ivy League prep school dance when she was only 15 years old. Their paths had crossed briefly once again in the Spring of 1945, at the founding conference for the United Nations in San Francisco. (Mary, her new husband Cord Meyer, and John F. Kennedy all attended the conference as journalists reporting on the events there, at the birth of the United Nations.
See the assassination of Mary Pinchot Meyer: October 12, 1964
May 7, 1945
Germany surrenders in World War two.
Hellstorm - Exposing The Real Genocide of Germany (1:30:30)
This is now the completed "full length" documentary of a previous posting here of just the "trailer" for this film by Kyle Hunt. It's truly fantasticin its scope of content and quality of production.. Please share this video to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the single greatest act of terror and of a true "genocidal holocaust" near the very end of World War II.
More people died by way of the RAF (British) fire-bombing of Dresden on February 13 and 14, 1945 (and the 3 following days of subsequent American fighter-plane "strafing")., than in the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined
It is our sacred duty., to not only inform the world about the atrocities committed against the German people, but also to rid our nations of those who carry out and celebrate such slaughter.!!
Winston Churchill told Lord Robert Boothby the following:
"Germany's most unforgivable crime before the Second World War, was her attempt to extricate her economic power from the world's trading system (ie: World-Bankers), and to create her own exchange mechanism (ie: "Honest", non-interest bearing money) which would deny "world finance" of its opportunity to profit."
So., Germany's unwillingness to be looted by the "international bankers" was the true reason that millions and millions of Europeans had to perish.?! The "world's elite"., definitely did not want the "Goyim" (ie: Anglo-Saxon & related peoples) to get any "big ideas", especially after seeing Germany's more than remarkable recovery under National Socialism (ie: one's own nation comes first).
Decades before in 1920, Winston Churchill, had actually written about the subject of Jewish involvement in the "looting" of Germany, already after the end of the first World War., when he wrote the following:
"The same phenomenon (ie: Jewish involvement with left-wing and Communist movements) has been presented in Germany (especially in Bavaria) as far as this madness has been allowed to prey upon the temporary prostration of the German people. And although in all these countries, there are many non-Jews., every bit as bad as the worst of the Jewish revolutionaries., the part played by the latter., in proportion to their numbers., is astonishing."
Churchill also acknowledged the role Jews played in the bringing about of the Soviet terror in writing:
"There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution, by these international, and for the most part atheist Jews. It is certainly a very great one; and it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews (Lenin's paternal grandfather was later found to be a Jew). Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders"
Jewish power was not confined to Germany or the Soviet Union, but could be found all around the world, when Churchill also said:
"Some people like (are fond of) the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are beyond any question., the most formidable and most remarkable race which has appeared in the world.!!"
At some point Churchill became an instrument of this "power". During World War II., Churchill's loyalty was not to the British people (as the majority of the people never wanted war with Germany !) but to the small "tribe" of alien elites., that has been generating wars and reaping "the spoils" for centuries upon centuries.!!
Churchill's true "atrocities" against Germany make him one of the worst villains this world has ever known., along with his comrade., Joseph Stalin *and* FDR..!!
Senator Homer Capeheart spoke the following to the U.S. Senate on Feb. 5, 1946, in which he said:
"Since the end of the war., about 3,000,000 people,, mostly women and children and over-aged men., have been killed in eastern Germany and south-eastern Europe. About 15,000,000 people have been deported, or had to flee from their homesteads, and are on the road. About 25 % of these people., over 3,000,000 have perished / died. About 4,000,000 men and women have been deported to Eastern Europe and Russia as slaves. It seems that the elimination of the German population of Eastern Europe, at least 15,000,000 people, was planned in accordance with decisions made at the "Yalta Conference". Churchill had said to Mikolajczyk when the latter protested during the negotiations at Moscow against forcing Poland to incorporate eastern Germany: "Don't mind the five or more million Germans. Stalin will see to them. You will have no trouble with them.., as they will cease to exist."
Summer 1945
JFK called Hitler 'the stuff of legends':
Secret diary reveals future president's fascination with Hitler when he visited Germany after WW2
The comments were revealed in a diary entry Kennedy wrote in Germany in 1945
JFK traveled the war-torn country as a correspondent with Hearst newspapers
'He had boundless ambition for his country,' the future president said of Hitler
JFK's diary is being auctioned off by his former researcher, Deirdre Henderson
Henderson worked with Kennedy when he was a Senator for Massachusetts
"After visiting these two places, you can easily understand how that within a few years Hitler will emerge from the hatred that surrounds him now as one of the most significant figures who ever lived."
"He had boundless ambition for his country which rendered him a menace to the peace of the world, but he had a mystery about him in the way he lived and in the manner of his death that will live and grow after him."
"He had in him the stuff of which legends are made."
Prelude to Leadership: The European Diary of John F. Kennedy, Summer 1945
July 16, 1945
Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. It was conducted by the United States Army at At 05:29:21 a.m. MWT (± 2 seconds), on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project.
Trinity Blast Opens Atomic Age
The first atomic bomb is tested successfully at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in a remote section of desert near Los Alamos, New Mexico. The instant the bomb detonated at 5:29:21 a.m. that Monday, the atomic age was born, and the world changed forever.
The Trinity test, as it was known, was the culmination of the American effort to win the race against Germany (and, ultimately, the Soviet Union) in building an atomic bomb. A mere three weeks after the test, the United States used atomic bombs to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But prior to the 16th, none of those involved in the project knew if they had built a devastating new weapon or a spectacular dud.
With gallows humor, the Los Alamos physicists got up a betting pool on the possible yield of the bomb. Estimates ranged from zero to as high as 45,000 tons of TNT. Enrico Fermi, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1938 for his work on nuclear fission, offered side odds on the bomb destroying all life on the planet.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project, was under no illusions about what he and his fellow physicists had wrought. The effects of the blast, the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT, moved the intellectual Oppenheimer to quote from the Bhagavad Gita: "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds."
More prosaically, Dr. Kenneth Bainbridge, site director of the Trinity test, said: "Now we are all sons-of-bitches."
August 6, 1945
Killing Women and Children First
by John Zmirak
The 60th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should remind us that so long as the world’s most powerful nations continue to target cities, innocent civilians, with nuclear weapons, our condemnations of ‘terror’ will ring hollow.
The anniversaries passed with little fanfare in America. No nation really likes to remember its crimes. Stories appeared about the bombings in the German and Japanese press-though both nations feel honor-bound to place them in the context of fascist atrocities which provoked them. But with a few exceptions, the American press has done little to remind us what Allied bombers wrought 60 years ago over the skies of Dresden and other German civilian targets, or over Hiroshima and Nagasaki...
Statement by the President, August 6, 1945
Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British "Grand Slam" which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare...
Nuclear Bomb - Hiroshima - August 6, 1945 (2:04)
August 9, 1945
Christianity and the Nagasaki Bomb
by Gary G. Kohls
Though Christianity began as a religion of peace, it soon became a cloak for genocidal violence, such as the incineration of defenseless civilians in Nagasaki, including many Japanese Christians, 71 years ago.
Seventy-one years ago, on August 9, 1945, an all-Christian bomber crew dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki City, Japan, instantly vaporizing, incinerating, irradiating and otherwise annihilating tens of thousands of innocent civilians, men, women and children. Very few Japanese soldiers were affected.
In a nation whose citizens are historically non-Christian (Shintoism or Buddhism are the major religions), a disproportionately large number of the Nagasaki victims were Christian (see below for the history of that reality). The bomb mortally wounded uncountable thousands of other victims who succumbed to the blast trauma, the heat trauma and/or the radiation trauma...
Truman, A-Bombs, and the Killing of Innocents
by Sheldon Richman
August 9, 2013 - Sixty-eight years ago today a president of the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, a city full of innocent Japanese. It was the second time in three days that Harry Truman had done such a thing: He had bombed Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The fatalities in the two cities totaled 150,000–246,000. The victims – mostly children, women, and old men – suffered horrible deaths in the blasts and firestorms. Only shadows remained of those who were vaporized. Many more were injured; others later died from radiation sickness.
1946
1946 British TV Report From Palestine (2:07)
There is even mention of how the Jews at the time were hiding weapons in schools. Now you know where the Palestinians learned this from.
Early 1946
At the urging of Kennedy's father, U.S. Representative James Michael Curley vacated his seat in the strongly Democratic 11th Congressional district in Massachusetts to become mayor of Boston in 1946.
April 26, 1946
John F. Kennedy announces his candidacy for the Democratic nomination to Congress from Massachusetts' Eleventh Congressional District.
June 17, 1946
Kennedy wins the Democratic primary for Massachusetts' Eleventh Congressional District.
July 22, 1946
The Bombing Of The King David Hotel
The King David Hotel explosion of July 22, 1946 (Palestine), which resulted in the deaths of 92 Britons, Arabs and Jews, and in the wounding of 58, was not just an act of “Jewish extremists,” but a premeditated massacre conducted by the Irgun in agreement with the highest Jewish political authorities in Palestine, the Jewish Agency and its head David-Ben-Gurion.
According to Yitshaq Ben-Ami, a Palestinian Jew who spent 30 years in exile after the establishment of Israel investigating the crimes of the “ruthless clique heading the internal Zionist movement,” The Irgun had conceived a plan for the King David attack early in 1946, but the green light was given only on July first. According to Dr. Sneh, the operation was personally approved by Ben-Gurion, from his self-exile in Europe.
Sadeh, the operations officer of the Haganah, and Giddy Paglin, the head of the Irgun operation under Menachem Begin agreed that thirty-five minutes advance notice would give the British time enough to evacuate the wing, without enabling them to disarm the explosion. The Jewish Agency’s motive was to destroy all evidence the British had gathered proving that the terrorist crime waves in Palestine were not merely the actions of “fringe” groups such as the Irgun and Stern Gang, but were committed in collusion with the Haganah and Palmach groups and under the direction of the highest political body of the Zionist establishment itself, namely the Jewish Agency.
That so many innocent civilian lives were lost in the King David massacre is a normal part of the pattern of the history of Zionist outrages: A criminal act is committed, allegedly by an isolated group, but actually under the direct authorization of the highest Zionist authorities, whether of the Jewish Agency during the Palestine Mandate or of the Government of Israel thereafter...
King David Hotel Bombing (35:28)
The King David Hotel bombing was an attack carried out on Monday July 22, 1946 by the militant Zionist underground organization Irgun on the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, which was housed in the southern wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. 91 people of various nationalities were killed and 46 were injured.
November 5, 1946
Results of John F. Kennedy's 1946 U.S. Congressional Election
With the help of his father's campaign financing, John F. Kennedy is elected to his first political office, the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts' 11th Congressional District, in Boston with over 70% of the popular vote.
He is re-elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1948 and 1950.
December 14, 1946
Outstanding Young Man of the Year Award, 1947
This folder contains materials concerning Kennedy’s nomination as one of the ten outstanding young men of 1946 by the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce.
January 3, 1947
John F. Kennedy enters the 80th Congress on January 3, 1947, at the age of 29, and immediately attracts attention (as well as some criticism from older members of the Washington establishment) for his youthful appearance and relaxed, informal style.
1947 - 1953
Kennedy served as a congressman for six years. He established himself as a loyal supporter of President Harry S. Truman. In Congress he advocated progressive taxation, the extension of social welfare and more low-cost public housing. He was also a leading opponent of the Taft-Hartley Bill.
1947
Kennedy was hospitalized in London and diagnosed with Addison’s disease, a serious adrenal disorder that the family didn’t disclose until after his death.
According to Chris Matthew’s biography Jack Kennedy: The Elusive Hero, the doctor who treated him was less than optimistic about his future in a conversation with Kennedy’s friend and travel companion, Pamela Churchill.
According to varying accounts, Kennedy was given last rites by a priest either during his voyage back across the Atlantic Ocean or upon docking in New York. Nasaw writes that upon his return, the young congressman’s father, Joe Kennedy Sr., spread the fake story that his son had suffered a recurrence of the malaria he first contracted during WWII in the Solomon Islands.
May 13, 1948
On May 13, 1948, Kathleen Kennedy, is killed in a plane crash. Her tragic death reminds Jack of his mortality and inspires him to pursue politics with greater fervor and dedication.
May 14, 1948
Truman Adviser Recalls May 14, 1948 US Decision to Recognize Israel
by Richard H. Curtiss
...Most people who knew the Middle East at first hand opposed the partition plan, adopted by the United Nations on November 29, 1947. Patently unfair, it awarded 56 percent of Palestine to its 650,000 Jewish inhabitants, and 44 percent to its 1,300,000 Muslim and Christian Arab inhabitants.
Partition was adopted only after ruthless arm-twisting by the US government and by 26 pro-Zionist US senators who, in telegrams to a number of UN member states, warned that US goodwill in rebuilding their World War II-devastated economies might depend on a favorable vote for partition...
...Marshall and a majority of diplomats at the UN saw a direct UN trusteeship, succeeding the British mandate, as the only solution to halt the bloodshed. Otherwise, they knew, neighboring Arab states would send military units across the border into Palestine the day the British withdrew, in an attempt to reoccupy the Arab towns and villages seized by Jewish forces. The State Department urged Truman not to grant diplomatic recognition to the Jewish state when the British withdrew, but instead to side with rapidly growing sentiment in the United Nations in favor of trusteeship. Truman wavered and, for a time, both sides in a bitter battle for the president's ear thought they had his support.
Forty-four years after these events, Clifford, Truman's principal domestic advisor, has produced his memoir. Written in two parts with Richard Holbrooke, the first part of the memoir was published in the March 25, 1991 New Yorker. It covers events from 1944, when [Clark] Clifford, a 37-year-old lawyer and newly commissioned lieutenant, junior grade, in the naval reserve from St. Louis, MO, Truman's home town, took up duties in the White House, through the decision to recognize Israel on May 14, 1948.
Astonishingly, it confirms the key role of Clifford, Truman's inexperienced domestic political adviser, in overriding the wishes of General of the Armies George C. Marshall, the World War II chief of staff.
Marshall had returned to government to serve as secretary of state to the inexperienced former vice president, who was ill-prepared for the presidency when it was thrust upon him by the sudden death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, just a month before the Allied victory in Europe and four months before the victory over Japan.
A Hasty Decision
Confirming charges by "Arabists" that the decision to recognize Israel was hasty and based upon domestic political considerations, Clifford writes:
"Marshall firmly opposed American recognition of the new Jewish state; I did not. Marshall's opposition was shared by almost every member of the brilliant and now legendary group of presidential advisers, later referred to as the Wise Men, who were then in the process of creating a post-war foreign policy that would endure for more than 40 years. The opposition included the respected Under Secretary of State Robert Lovett; his predecessor, Dean Acheson; the No. 3 man in the State Department, Charles Bohlen; the brilliant chief of the Policy Planning Staff George Kennan; (Navy Secretary James V.) Forrestal; and ... Dean Rusk, then the director of the Office of United Nations Affairs...
"Officials in the State Department had done everything in their power to prevent, thwart, or delay the President's Palestine policy in 1947 and 1948, while I had fought for assistance to the Jewish Agency.
"At midnight on May 14, 1948 (6 pm in Washington), the British would relinquish control of Palestine, which they had been administering under a mandate from the old League of Nations since the First World War. One minute later, the Jewish Agency, under the leadership of David Ben-Gurion, would proclaim the new state...
May 15, 1948
The Nakba did not start or end in 1948
Key facts and figures on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine
...Every year on May 15, Palestinians around the world, numbering about 12.4 million, mark the Nakba, or "catastrophe", referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the near-total destruction of Palestinian society in 1948.
The Palestinian experience of dispossession and loss of a homeland is 69 years old this year.
The creation of Israel was a violent process that entailed the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland to establish a Jewish-majority state, as per the aspirations of the Zionist movement.
Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state. Zionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres...
Al-Nakba (47:24)
by Al Jazeera English
A series on the Palestinian 'catastrophe' of 1948 that led to dispossession and conflict that still endures. "The Nakba did not begin in 1948. Its origins lie over two centuries ago…." So begins this four-part series on the 'nakba', meaning the 'catastrophe', about the history of the Palestinian exodus that led to the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, and the establishment of the state of Israel.
For Palestinians, 1948 marks the 'nakba' or the 'catastrophe', when hundreds of thousands were forced out of their homes.
"The tragedy in Palestine is not just a local one; it is a tragedy for the world, because it is an injustice that is a menace to the world's peace."
Arnold Toynbee, British historian
Since its establishment [theft of Palestine] on May 14, 1948, the [apartheid] State of Israel has fought eight recognized wars, two Palestinian intifadas, and a series of armed conflicts in the broader Arab–Israeli conflict.
Israeli war of independence (November 1947 – July 1949) – Started as 6 months of civil war between Jewish and Arab militias at the end of the British Mandate of Palestine and turned into a regular war after the declaration of independence of Israel and the intervention of several Arab armies. In its conclusion, a set of agreements were signed between Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, called the 1949 Armistice Agreements, which established the armistice lines between Israel and its neighbours, also known as the Green Line.
Reprisal operations (1950s–1960s) – Military operations carried out by the Israel Defense Forces during the 1950s and 1960s. These actions were in response to constant fedayeen incursions during which Arab guerillas infiltrated from Syria, Egypt, and Jordan into Israel to carry out attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers. The policy of the reprisal operations was exceptional due to Israel's declared aim of getting a high 'blood cost' among the enemy side which was believed to be necessary in order to deter them from committing future attacks.
Suez Crisis (October 1956) – A military attack on Egypt by Britain, France, and Israel, beginning on 29 October 1956, with the intention to occupy the Sinai Peninsula and to take over the Suez Canal. The attack followed Egypt's decision of 26 July 1956 to nationalize the Suez Canal after the withdrawal of an offer by Britain and the United States to fund the building of the Aswan Dam. Although the Israeli invasion of the Sinai was successful, the US and USSR forced it to retreat. Even so, Israel managed to re-open the Straits of Tiran and pacified its southern border.
Six-Day War (June 1967) – Fought between Israel and Arab neighbors Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The nations of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Algeria, and others also contributed troops and arms to the Arab forces. Following the war, the territory held by Israel expanded significantly ("The Purple Line") : The West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan, Golan Heights from Syria, Sinai and Gaza from Egypt.
War of Attrition (1967–1970) – A limited war fought between the Israeli military and forces of the Egyptian Republic, the USSR, Jordan, Syria, and the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1967 to 1970. It was initiated by the Egyptians as a way of recapturing the Sinai from the Israelis, who had been in control of the territory since the mid-1967 Six-Day War. The hostilities ended with a ceasefire signed between the countries in 1970 with frontiers remaining in the same place as when the war began.
Yom Kippur War (October 1973) – Fought from October 6 to October 26, 1973 by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria against Israel as a way of recapturing part of the territories which they lost to the Israelis back in the Six-Day War. The war began with a surprise joint attack by Egypt and Syria on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Egypt and Syria crossed the cease-fire lines in the Sinai and Golan Heights, respectively. Eventually Arab forces were defeated by Israel and there were no significant territorial changes.
Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon (1971–1982) – PLO relocate to South Lebanon from Jordan and stage attacks on the Galilee and as a base for international operations. In 1978, Israel launches Operation Litani – the first Israeli large-scale invasion of Lebanon, which was carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in order to expel PLO forces from the territory. Continuing ground and rocket attacks, and Israeli retaliations, eventually escalate into the 1982 War.
1982 Lebanon War (1982) – Began on 6 June 1982, when the Israel Defense Forces invaded southern Lebanon to expel the PLO from the territory. The Government of Israel ordered the invasion as a response to the assassination attempt against Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov, by the Abu Nidal Organization and due to the constant terror attacks on northern Israel made by the Palestinian guerilla organizations which resided in Lebanon. The war resulted in the expulsion of the PLO from Lebanon and created an Israeli Security Zone in southern Lebanon.
South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000) – Nearly 15 years of warfare between the Israel Defense Forces and its Lebanese Christian proxy militias against Lebanese Muslim guerrilla, led by Iranian-backed Hezbollah, within what was defined by Israelis as the "Security Zone" in South Lebanon.
First Intifada (1987–1993) – First large-scale Palestinian uprising against Israel in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Second Intifada (2000–2005) – Second Palestinian uprising, a period of intensified violence, which began in late September 2000.
2006 Lebanon War (summer 2006) – Began as a military operation in response to the abduction of two Israeli reserve soldiers by the Hezbollah. The operation gradually strengthened, to become a wider confrontation. The principal participants were Hezbollah paramilitary forces and the Israeli military. The conflict started on 12 July 2006 and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect on 14 August 2006, though it formally ended on 8 September 2006, when Israel lifted its naval blockade of Lebanon. The war resulted in the pacification of southern Lebanon and in the weakness of the Hezbollah (which suffered serious casualties but managed to survive the Israeli onslaught).
Gaza War (December 2008 – January 2009) – Three-week armed conflict between Israel and Hamas during the winter of 2008–2009. In an escalation of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israel responded to ongoing rocket fire from the Gaza Strip with military force in an action titled "Operation Cast Lead". Israel opened the attack with a surprise air strike on December 27, 2008. Israel's stated aim was to stop such rocket fire from and the import of arms into Gaza. Israeli forces attacked military and civilian targets, police stations, and government buildings in the opening assault. Israel declared an end to the conflict on January 18 and completed its withdrawal on January 21, 2009.
Operation Pillar of Defense (November 2012) – Military offensive on the Gaza Strip.
Operation Protective Edge (July–August 2014) – Military offensive on the Gaza Strip as a response to the collapse of American-sponsored peace talks, attempts by rival Palestinian factions to form a coalition government, the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, the subsequent kidnapping and murder of a Palestinian teenager, and increased rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas militants.
September 17, 1948
Jewish Terrorists Assassinate U.N. Peacekeeper Count Folke Bernadotte
by Donald Neff
It was 47 years ago, September 17, 1948, when Jewish terrorists assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden as he sought to bring peace to the Middle East. His three-car convoy had been stopped at a small improvised roadblock in Jewish-controlled West Jerusalem when two gunmen began shooting out the tires of the cars and a third gunman thrust a Schmeisser automatic pistol through the open back window of Bernadotte's Chrysler. The 54-year-old diplomat, sitting on the right in the back, was hit by six bullets and died instantly. A French officer sitting next to Bernadotte was killed accidentally.
The assassins were members of Lehi (Lohamei Herut Israel—Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), better known as the Stern Gang. Its three leaders had decided a week earlier to have Bernadotte killed because they believed he was partial to the Arabs. One of those leaders was Yitzhak Shamir, who in 1983 would become prime minister of Israel.1
Bernadotte had been chosen the United Nations mediator for Palestine four months earlier in what was the U.N.'s first serious attempt at peacemaking in the post-World War II world. As a hero of the war, when his mediation efforts on behalf of the International Red Cross saved 20,000 persons, including thousands of Jews, from Nazi concentration camps, Bernadotte seemed a natural choice for the post.2 The terms of the mediator's mandate were to "promote a peaceful adjustment of the future situation in Palestine" and to allow him to mediate beyond the terms of the Partition Plan...
Who killed the UN official Count Folke Bernadotte?
Count Folke Bernadotte (Count of Wisborg) was a Swedish diplomat, nephew of King Gustavus V, fluent in six languages, who gained international recognition through his work as head of the Swedish Red Cross during World War II. On May 20, 1948 Bernadotte was appointed mediator of the UN General Assembly, and was immediately faced with the volatile situation in the Middle East. The long-standing conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine escalated after the adoption of the UN partition resolution on November 29, 1947. When Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, five Arab armies invaded Israel.
During the summer of 1948, Count Folke Bernadotte was sent by the United Nations to Palestine to mediate a truce and try to negotiate a settlement. On June 11, Bernadotte succeeded in arranging a 30-day cease-fire. After visiting Cairo, Beirut, Amman and Tel Aviv, he came to the conclusion that the UN partition plan was an “unfortunate” resolution and proposed his own plan.
Bernadotte’s plan called for the Jewish State to relinquish the Negev and Jerusalem to Transjordan and to receive the western Galilee. Bernadotte advocated a total demilitarization of Jerusalem and blamed the Jewish forces for “aggressive” behavior in the city. The boundaries proposed were similar to what had been proposed prior to the partition vote, and had been rejected by all sides. Now, the proposal was being offered after the Arabs had gone to war to prevent partition and a Jewish state had been declared. The Jews and Arabs both rejected the plan. Fighting resumed on July 8, 1948 raging until another cease-fire was arranged July 18th.
LEHI was a Jewish extremist group, also called the “Stern Gang”, engaging in a campaign of “personal terror” against the British in Palestine. When the IDF was established on May 31, 1948, LEHI was disbanded and its members enlisted in the IDF. But in Jerusalem LEHI remained an independent organization, arguing that at the time of the proclamation of independence the city’s fate had not yet been determined.
For LEHI, Count Folke Bernadotte, as UN mediator for “Palestine,” came to symbolize the foreign oppression of the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel. LEHI called Bernadotte a British agent and said he had cooperated with the Nazis in World War II. The organization considered his plan to be a threat to its goal of an independent Israel with expanded territory on both sides of the Jordan River. Bernadotte was assassinated by a LEHI team in Jerusalem on September 17, 1948, an act that resulted in the elimination of the LEHI organization by the Jewish leaders of Israel...
Kennedy is reelected to a second term in the United States House of Representatives for Massachusetts' 11th Congressional District, in Boston.
January 3, 1949
Kennedy enters the 81st Congress on January 3, 1949.
"Played golf with Joe Kennedy (United States Ambassador to Britain). He says that (Neville) Chamberlain (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) stated that America and world Jewry forced England into World War II."
James V. Forrestal
May 22, 1949
by Dave "DC Dave" Martin
World War II had ended less than three years before. It was becoming increasingly apparent that, for all its losses, the big winner of that war had been the Soviet Union and world communism. On March 10, 1948, the body of one of the leading holdouts against the communist advance was found in the courtyard beneath the window of his office. National authorities called the death a suicide, but reports in opposition countries concluded that it had been a murder, a political assassination by the secret police. I am speaking of Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, the last non-communist government minister of Czechoslovakia, which was the last Eastern European country not yet taken over completely by the communists.
...James V. Forrestal was America's first Secretary of Defense. He was also the leading official in the Truman administration opposing the creation and U.S. recognition of the state of Israel. President Truman relieved Forrestal of his position in late March of 1949....
On May 22, 1949, the body of the man generally regarded as the leading government official warning of the communist menace abroad and within the United States government, the nation’s first Secretary of Defense, James V. Forrestal, was found on a third floor roof 13 floors below a 16th-floor window of the Bethesda Naval Hospital. He had been admitted to the hospital, apparently against his will, diagnosed as suffering from “operational fatigue” and kept in confinement in a room with security-screened windows on the 16th floor since April 2, some seven weeks before. The body had been discovered at 1:50 a.m., and the last edition of the May 22 New York Times reported the death as a suicide, although the belt, or sash, of his dressing gown was tied tightly around his neck, a more suspicious happenstance than anything associated with Masaryk’s death....
Before meeting Jim Forrestal I thought we were losing to international Communism because of incompetence and stupidity on the part of our planners. I mentioned that to Forrestal. I shall forever remember his answer. He said, "McCarthy (Joe), consistency has never been a mark of stupidity. If they were merely stupid they would occasionally make a mistake in our favor."
November 7, 1950
Kennedy is reelected to a third term in the United States House of Representatives for Massachusetts' 11th Congressional District, in Boston.
January 3, 1951
Kennedy enters the 82nd Congress on January 3, 1949.
May 1951
Georgetown Town House Where JFK Met Jackie To Hit The Market
by Patrick Roth
The house, which originally dates back to 1895, was rented out to Charles and Martha Bartlett in the 1950s. In May 1951, they threw a dinner party to introduce then-Congressman Kennedy to Bouvier.
The pair bonded over cocktails, chicken casserole and a game of charades, and two years later they got married in Rhode Island.
Home Where Jackie And John Kennedy First Met To Hit Market
by Beckie Strum
The Washington, D.C., house will ask $1.725 million
In the spring of 1951, journalist Charles Bartlett and his wife, Martha, played matchmaker by inviting then-Congressman Kennedy and Bouvier to a brick townhouse they rented on Q Street in Georgetown for an intimate dinner party.
Kennedy took a strong interest in foreign policy and in 1951 toured Europe visiting Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Yugoslavia and West Germany. On his return he told the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that the United States should maintain its policy of helping to defend Western Europe. However, he argued that the countries concerned should contribute more to the costs of the operation. In the autumn of 1951 Kennedy visited the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Indochina, Malaya and Korea. An opponent of colonial empires, Kennedy urged that France should leave Algeria. He also argued for increased financial aid to underdeveloped countries.
Fall 1951
...Jack, then in his third term as a congressman from Massachusetts, include his younger brother on his trip to the Middle East and Asia in the fall of 1951, Jack moaned that Bobby would be “a pain in the ass.” Yet traveling in close quarters for 25,000 miles, including to trouble spots like Vietnam, let Jack see Bobby as a grown man with his own opinions. The brothers met Pakistan’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, just before he was murdered, and they saw India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who Bobby said “didn’t pay the slightest attention to my brother but was just destroyed by my sister Pat.” For Jack, the trip was a quick way to beef up his foreign policy resume; it went deeper for Bobby, who was struck by the human dimension of scenes he witnessed and people he encountered: “These countries were struggling for independence, or had just gained their independence and were trying to right themselves and create a future.” Having Bobby along began as a burden for Jack, but in the end it saved his life. Bobby arranged for his brother to be flown to a US military hospital on Okinawa when an adrenal condition flared up, and he sat at his bedside when Jack’s temperature shot to 107. “They didn’t think he could possibly live,” Bobby remembered. It was the second time priests had given the congressman last rites...
April 7, 1952
John F. Kennedy's Announcement as Candidate for U.S. Senate. After serving three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, Kennedy decided to run for a seat in the U.S. Senate representing Massachusetts against Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the incumbent. Jack Kennedy's younger brother, Bobby, becomes his campaign manager, signaling the birth of an enduring political partnership between the two brothers. His mother and sisters held "Kennedy teas" throughout the state.
July 12, 1952 - July 29, 1952
The 1952 Washington, D.C. UFO incident, also known as the Washington flap, the Washington National Airport Sightings, or the Invasion of Washington, was a series of unidentified flying object reports from July 12 to July 29, 1952, over Washington, D.C. The most publicized sightings took place on consecutive weekends, July 19 - 20 and July 26 - 27. UFO historian Curtis Peebles called the incident "the climax of the 1952 (UFO) flap" - "Never before or after did Project Blue Book and the Air Force undergo such a tidal wave of (UFO) reports."
UFOs over Washington D.C. 1952 (8:13 - start at 1:00)
September 16, 1952
John F. Kennedy wins the Massachusetts Democratic primary for Senate, he ran virtually unopposed.
November 4, 1952
JFK defeats Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. to win election to the United States Senate. In the presidential election, General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his running mate, Richard Nixon, carried Massachusetts by a margin of 208,000 votes over Adlai Stevenson, but Kennedy defeated Lodge by 70,000 votes for the Senate seat. Largely due to Bobby Kennedy's effective strategic planning in the campaign, John F. Kennedy is elected to the United States Senate. Joe Sr., Jack, and Bobby all consider the Senate seat to be a key step in Jack's political ascendancy.
Senator Kennedy enters the 83rd Congress on January 3, 1953. Evelyn Lincoln starts work as the personal secretary for Senator Kennedy.
August 15, 1953 - August 19, 1953
The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup, was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Shah of Iran) on August 19, 1953, orchestrated by the MI6 in the United Kingdom, under the name, Operation Boot, and by the CIA in the United States, under the name, Operation Ajax.
September 12, 1953
Wedding of Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy, Newport, Rhode Island.
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier and John F. Kennedy were married on the morning of September 12, 1953, in St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Newport, Rhode Island. The more than eight hundred guests included many notable individuals. Bouvier is the daughter of John Vernon Bouvier III and Janet Lee Bouvier.
The ceremony was performed by Archbishop Cushing, a friend of the Kennedy family, and he was assisted by four other priests, including the former president of Notre Dame and the head of the Christopher Society. Before the mass, a special blessing from Pope Pius XII was read.
Tenor soloist Luigi Vena from Boston sang Gounod’s Ave Maria.
The reception was held on the terrace of the 300 acre Auchincloss oceanfront estate, Hammersmith Farm, for more than twelve hundred guests. The wedding cake, four feet tall, was ordered by Joseph P. Kennedy. Meyer Davis and his orchestra played under a huge canopy.
April 6, 1954
Senator John F. Kennedy Speaking Against American Involvement In Indochina (:50)
June 18, 1954 - June 27, 1954
The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation carried out by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944–54. Code-named Operation PBSUCCESS, it installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala.
July 1954
by Michael Collins Piper
Perhaps the best-known instance in which Israel used a “false flag” to cover its own trail was in the infamous Lavon Affair in which, in July of 1954, there was a series of bombings in Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt. Among the targets were the libraries of the United States Information Service in both cities. In fact, the bombings were an operation by Israeli Military Intelligence who hoped both Egyptian President Nasser and the outside world would believe the attacks were carried out by militant Egyptian Muslim fundamentalists angry at Nasser’s friendly relations with the U.S. and Britain.
Israel’s ultimate purpose was to destabilize Nasser’s relationships with both the U.S. and Britain and compel the British to withdrawal from their bases on the Suez Canal (although, in fact, in the end, no British targets were bombed, the initial plan notwithstanding).
According to Colonel Benjamin Gibli, Israel’s chief of military intelligence and the senior army officer responsible for sending the final signal to Cairo to initiate the bombings, he had been given his orders by Defense Minister Pinchas Lavon...
The Lavon Affair: How a false-flag operation led to war and the Israeli bomb
by Leonard Weiss
The Lavon Affair, a failed Israeli covert operation directed against Egypt in 1954, triggered a chain of events that have had profound consequences for power relationships in the Middle East; the affair’s effects still reverberate today. Those events included a public trial and conviction of eight Egyptian Jews who carried out the covert operation, two of whom were subsequently executed; a retaliatory military incursion by Israel into Gaza that killed 39 Egyptians; a subsequent Egyptian–Soviet arms deal that angered American and British leaders, who then withdrew previously pledged support for the building of the Aswan Dam; the announced nationalization of the Suez Canal by Nasser in retaliation for the withdrawn support; and the subsequent failed invasion of Egypt by Israel, France, and Britain in an attempt to topple Nasser. In the wake of that failed invasion, France expanded and accelerated its ongoing nuclear cooperation with Israel, which eventually enabled the Jewish state to build nuclear weapons.
October 21, 1954
As Kennedy’s carefully managed political ascent continued, so did his health issues. In 1954, less than two years after being elected to the Senate, doctors recommended that Kennedy undergo back surgery to fuse his spinal disks with a metal plate.
The root of Kennedy’s long-term back problems may have been steroids he took in the late 1930s for intestinal problems, which resulted in the degeneration of his vertebrae, biographer Robert Dallek told The New York Times,
Doctors told Kennedy in 1954 that if he did not undergo the surgery he could be confined to a wheelchair for life. And yet the procedure was still risky due to his adrenal condition. Against the wishes of his father, Kennedy opted for surgery, and nearly paid dearly for it.
After the surgery was performed that fall, Kennedy developed a urinary tract infection. And just as doctors warned, the infection worsened due his Addison’s disease. Kennedy’s temperature spiked and he again went into a coma. And once again a priest was summoned to deliver last rites.
And this time, the news of the Massachusetts senator’s poor health spread nationally. Kennedy’s Senate office secretary was told that he wasn’t except to live through to the morning and a “Kennedy death watch” was reported on television.
“The odds made by the political wise guys were that he wouldn’t live, and that if he did live he’d be a cripple,” Ken O’Donnell, a political adviser and friend of Kennedy, told Matthews. “It became ‘he might not make it.'”
But of course, Kennedy did make it. His recovery, however, was slow.
It wasn’t until two months later, four days before Christmas, that he was flown from the New York City hospital where he underwent the operation to his parents’ home in Palm Beach, Florida. According to Nasaw, Kennedy’s father converted the ground floor of the home into a “makeshift hospital” with rotating shifts of doctors and nurses.
Kennedy spent the next five months at his parent’s home recovering and didn’t return to the Senate until May 1955, after a second back surgery.
His medical issues hardly ended there. Kennedy was hospitalized at least nine different times within the next two years and heavily medicated. However, the young senator was able to turn the narrative to attribute his medical woes to a war injury and used his young, telegenic appearance to propel himself to the presidency within only a few years.
“[Voters] largely knew nothing of his illnesses and chronic pain,” Nasaw wrote. “The were instead presented with the portrait of a superbly healthy young man, an athlete, a veteran, a smiling, affable, dynamic, energetic, youthful, handsome American with a smiling, healthy, athletic wife, parents, brothers, and sisters.”
December 2, 1954
Joseph McCarthy is censured by the U.S. Senate. JFK abstains from voting on the resolution. While Kennedy's father was a strong supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy, McCarthy was also a friend of the Kennedy family. As well, Bobby Kennedy worked for McCarthy's subcommittee, and McCarthy dated Kennedy sister Patricia. In 1954, the Senate voted to censure McCarthy and Kennedy drafted a speech supporting the censure. However, it was not delivered because Kennedy was hospitalized at the time. The speech had the potential of putting Kennedy in the position of participating procedurally by "pairing" his vote against that of another senator. Although Kennedy never indicated how he would have voted, the episode damaged his support among members of the liberal community.
February 11, 1955
Kennedy undergoes a second spinal operation in New York. While convalescing Jackie supposedly asked him to write. Kennedy started to write a history of acts of bravery and integrity by eight heroic American Senators, Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1957.
1955
Jacqueline Kennedy became pregnant for the first time in 1955 but after three months “suffered a miscarriage and learned that carrying and delivering a child would always be difficult for her,” recalled JFK’s friend and adviser Ken O’Donnell.
August 15, 1956
The highlight of the 1956 Democratic Convention (held in the International Amphitheatre on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois August 13 - August 17, 1956) came when Presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson II, in an effort to create excitement for the ticket, made the surprise announcement that the convention's delegates would choose his running mate. This set off a desperate scramble among several candidates to win the nomination. A good deal of the excitement of the vice-presidential race came from the fact that the candidates had only one hectic day to campaign among the delegates before the voting began. The two leading contenders were Senator Kefauver, who retained the support of his primary delegates, and John F. Kennedy, who, as a first term Senator from Massachusetts, was relatively unknown at that point. Kennedy surprised the experts by surging into the lead on the second ballot; at one point he was only 15 votes shy of winning.
However, a number of states then left their "favorite son" candidates and switched to Kefauver, giving him the victory. Kennedy then gave a gracious concession speech. The narrow defeat raised his profile and helped Kennedy's long-term presidential chances, yet by losing to Kefauver he avoided any blame for Stevenson's expected loss to Eisenhower in November. As of 2017, this was the last time any presidential or vice presidential nomination of either the Democratic or Republican parties, went past the first ballot.
August 15, 1956 (Video 32:24)
Kennedy Withdraws His Name From Vice Presidential Nomination Speech
Roll Call for V.P. Nomination. At the 1956 Democratic National Convention, John Kennedy delivered a speech to withdraw his name from the 1956 vice presidential nomination. Presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson II announced that the convention would vote on the vice presidential nominee. Senator Kennedy lost by a small margin to Senator Kefauver.
August 17, 1956
August 23, 1956
On the morning of August 23, 1956, a month before the baby was due, Jacqueline Kennedy awoke and cried out for her mother, she was hemorrhaging. She gave birth to a stillborn infant that she secretly called, Arabella.
November 6, 1956
The incumbent President, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, successfully ran for re-election. The election was a re-match of 1952, as Eisenhower's opponent in 1956 was Adlai Stevenson, a former Illinois governor, whom Eisenhower had also defeated in 1952.
1957
Kennedy gains a plum assignment to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, allowing him to gain valuable political experience and increase his prestige.
February 23, 1957
Before He Was President, John F. Kennedy Came To Springfield To Speak At Jackson Day Banquet
by Brooke Crum
When John F. Kennedy came to Springfield in 1957, he predicted Democratic wins in the next two national elections - but not his own victory in the 1960 presidential election.
Kennedy came to town Feb. 23, 1957, as the main speaker at the Missouri Democrats' Jackson Day banquet at the Shrine Mosque. Jackson Day, which has been renamed Democrat Days of the Ozarks, is an annual gathering of liberals in southwest Missouri.
At the time, Kennedy was a young senator from Massachusetts. This is believed to be the only visit Kennedy ever made to Springfield, according to News-Leader archives.
May 6, 1957
Profiles in Courage is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Biography.
Kennedy was the first Senator to support Algeria's struggle for Independence.
From, JFK’s Embrace of Third World Nationalists
by Jim DiEugenio
...Kennedy started the speech with an understanding tone, observing that many American leaders had chosen not to say anything since this was an internal French matter and France had been America’s first ally. Kennedy then switched gears, noting that a true friend of France would not stand by and watch France tear itself asunder in a futile war, one that would only delay the inevitable.
Kennedy then got to his point: “Yet, did we not learn in Indochina that we might have served both the French and our own causes infinitely better had we taken a more firm stand much earlier than we did? Did that tragic episode not teach us that, whether France likes it or not, admits it or not, or has our support or not, their overseas territories are sooner or later, one by one, inevitably going to break free and look with suspicion on the Western nations who impeded their steps to independence?”
“In these days, we can help fulfill a great and promising opportunity to show the world that a new nation, with an Arab heritage, can establish itself in the Western tradition and successfully withstand both the pull toward Arab feudalism and fanaticism and the pull toward Communist authoritarianism.”
As historian Allan Nevins wrote, no speech by Sen. Kennedy had attracted more attention than this one, and much was negative. Naturally, those he criticized harshly attacked Kennedy: John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower and Nixon. But again, as in 1956, Stevenson and another fellow Democrat, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, also attacked him. Kennedy’s staff collected the many newspaper editorials the speech generated: 90 of the 138 responses were negative.
July 4, 1957
Senator Kennedy Reads The Declaration of Independence (10:39)
This recording of Senator John F. Kennedy reading the entire text of the Declaration of Independence was broadcast by WQXR Radio in New York, on July 4, 1957 as part of the station's observance of the Fourth of July. The recording was broadcast at 9:05 a.m. and at 10:25 p.m. The recording was made in Washington, D.C. in June of 1957.
October 29, 1957
When JFK Had Good Things to Say About Communist Kerala
The former US president also had words of praise for the “Communist” chief minister E.M.S. Namboodiripad.
by The Wire Staff
November 27, 1957
Caroline Bouvier Kennedy is born at Cornell Medical Center, New York.
November 4, 1958
In 1958, Kennedy was re-elected to a second term in the Senate, defeating his Republican opponent, Boston lawyer Vincent J. Celeste, by a wide margin. It was during his re-election campaign that Kennedy's press secretary at the time, Robert E. Thompson, put together a film entitled The U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy Story, which exhibited a day in the life of the Senator and showcased his family life as well as the inner workings of his office. It was the most comprehensive film produced about Kennedy up to that time.
1958
Senator John F. Kennedy writes, A Nation Of Immigrants.
1959
Jack Paar interviews Senator Kennedy on The Tonight Show.
1959
The Story Behind John F. Kennedy’s Favourite Image Of Himself
by Belle Hutton
American fashion and portrait photographer Mark Shaw captured the Kennedys at home in 1959, in a series of unprecedented intimate images
1959
Kennedy’s interest in ending colonialism and supporting the struggle for self-determination (African Independence), which first attracted national attention in the 1950s as a result of his speeches attacking French colonialism in Vietnam and Algeria, extended as well to the struggles for independence in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1958, the State Department first established a Bureau of African Affairs and the following year, Kennedy became chairman of the African Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
1960 - 1962
“The Jack Pack” was the name briefly attributed to a famous group of 1960s entertainers who supported U.S. Senator John F. “Jack” Kennedy (JFK) in his 1960 run for president. “The Jack Pack” moniker was actually a variant of “The Rat Pack,” a nickname for a coterie of Hollywood stars and Las Vegas entertainers that included: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. In 1960, this group was temporarily dubbed “the Jack Pack” by Sinatra when they worked in various ways to support Kennedy’s election bid. Kennedy had socialized with Sinatra and the group on occasion and liked the camaraderie, which later turned to political and financial support on his behalf.
JFK Announces Candidacy For President - January 2, 1960 (Audio 26:55)
Forty-two year old Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy of Massachusetts officially announces his intention to run for the Presidency of the United States. Other major candidates for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination are: Governor Pat Brown of California, Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, and Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota.
Results of 1960 Presidential Election Primaries
Despite his youth, 43-year-old John F. Kennedy captured the Democratic nomination in 1960 and went on to win one of the closest elections in United States history.
January 5, 1960
Listening In: JFK on running for President (2:45)
On January 5, 1960, the journalist James M. Cannon recorded a dinner party conversation at the home of John F. Kennedy, who had declared his candidacy for president three days earlier. Also present were his wife, Jacqueline, and their close friends Ben and Toni Bradlee. The conversation includes fascinating and candid revelations about Kennedy's medical problems, his private reasons for wanting to run, and his worry that he was too introverted to be a natural politician.
March 8, 1960
Kennedy wins the New Hampshire primary, receiving 88% of the vote. This would be the first of 10 primary victories for the Massachusetts Senator.
March 19, 1960 - April 29 1960
Speeches given by Senator John F. Kennedy concerning a proposal for the expansion of Public Law 480, also known as the Food for Peace program.
April 11, 1960
Senator John F. Kennedy campaigning in Charleston, West Virginia (7:57)
Senator John F. Kennedy delivering a campaign speech on the steps in front of the State Capitol.
May 4, 1960
Senators Kennedy and Humphrey hold a televised debate in West Virginia, prior to that state’s primary. Kennedy outperforms Senator Hubert Humphrey.
Kennedy-Humphrey Debate, 1960 West Virginia Primary Debate (59:40)
Senators John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey appeared in a televised debate during the West Virginia primary campaign. The debate was held at the WCHS-TV studio in Charleston, WV. The panelists included WCHS news director Bill Ames, Charleston Gazette publisher Ned Chilton, and WTRF-TV journalist Dale Schussler.
May 10, 1960
Kennedy wins the West Virginia primary, receiving 61% of the vote, and afterward, Humphrey ends his presidential campaign. West Virginia shows that Kennedy, a Catholic, could win in a heavily Protestant state.
May 1, 1960 - February 10, 1962
Gary Powers was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 incident.
On February 10, 1962, Powers was exchanged, along with American student Frederic Pryor, in a well-publicized spy swap at the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin. The exchange was for Soviet KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher, known as "Rudolf Abel", who had been caught by the FBI and tried and jailed for espionage. Powers credited his father with the swap idea.
Was the downing of Gary Powers’ U2 flight sabotage, or a terribly inconvenient accident? After four years of uneventful missions, why had this flight suddenly crashed on Mayday, two weeks before an unprecedented summit scheduled in Paris between Eisenhower and Khruschev, and who exactly authorized the flight on that date?
Years later, the liberal Senator from Arkansas, William Fulbright, who headed the senate hearings on the U2 affair, stated: “I have often wondered why, in the midst of these efforts by President Eisenhower and Khruschev to come to some understanding, the U2 incident was allowed to take place. No one will ever know whether it was accidental or intentional.”
May 16, 1960
U.S.-Soviet Summit Meeting Collapses
In the wake of the Soviet downing of an American U-2 spy plane on May 1, Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev lashes out at the United States and President Dwight D. Eisenhower at a Paris summit meeting between the two heads of state. Khrushchev’s outburst angered Eisenhower and doomed any chances for successful talks or negotiations at the summit.
June 16, 1960
JFK on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar (4:19)
Kennedy was the first presidential candidate to campaign on an entertainment talk show when he appeared on The Tonight Show, Starring Jack Paar.
July 11, 1960 - July 15, 1960
Democratic National Convention, Los Angeles, California (9:38)
The 1960 Democratic National Convention was held in Los Angeles. In the end, the Kennedy-Johnson ticket was assembled. In the week before the convention opened, John F. Kennedy received two new challengers when Lyndon B. Johnson, the powerful Senate Majority Leader from Texas, and Adlai Stevenson II, the party's nominee in 1952 and 1956, announced their candidacies. However, neither Johnson nor Stevenson was a match for the talented and highly efficient Kennedy campaign team led by Robert Kennedy. Johnson challenged Kennedy to a televised debate before a joint meeting of the Texas and Massachusetts delegations; Kennedy accepted. Most observers felt that Kennedy won the debate, and Johnson was not able to expand his delegate support beyond the South. Stevenson was popular among many liberal delegates, especially in California, but his two landslide defeats in 1952 and 1956 led party leaders to search for a "fresh face" who had a better chance of winning.
After Kennedy secured the nomination, he asked Johnson to be his running mate in a move which surprised many. To this day there is much debate regarding the details of Johnson's nomination—why it was offered and why he agreed to take it. Some historians speculate that Kennedy actually wanted someone else (such as Senators Stuart Symington or Henry M. Jackson) to be his running mate, and that he offered the nomination to Johnson first only as a courtesy to the powerful Senate Majority Leader
In Los Angeles, California, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts is nominated for the presidency by the Democratic Party Convention, defeating Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas.
July 14, 1960
Kennedy asked Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson of Texas to be his vice presidential candidate, despite opposition from many liberal delegates and Kennedy's own staff, including his brother Bobby. Johnson was named Kennedy’s running mate by a unanimous vote of the convention.
Senator John F. Kennedy picks Senator Lyndon B. Johnson as running mate (1:51)
July 15, 1960
John F. Kennedy is officially nominated as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate at the Democratic Convention, held in the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California. Kennedy was the first senator since 1920 to be nominated for the presidency by either the Democrats or the Republicans.
Senator Kennedy 1960 Acceptance Speech (Videos)
Kennedy - 1960 Democratic National Convention Acceptance Speech (Audio 22:00)
John F. Kennedy accepts the nomination of the Democratic party to run in the presidential election of 1960. He announces Lyndon B. Johnson as his vice-presidential running mate. The 1960 Democratic National Convention was held in Los Angeles. In the end, the Kennedy-Johnson ticket was assembled and went on to secure an electoral college victory and a narrow popular vote plurality (slightly over 110,000 nationally) in the fall over the Republican candidates Richard M. Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
July 26, 1960
by Ashley Collman
The FBI interviewed a 'high-class Hollywood call girl' named Sue Young in July 1960, according to newly-released records about the JFK assasination
Young told them about a recent conversation she had with a private detective named Fred Otash
She says Otash asked her about her 'participation in sex parties' with then Sen. John F. Kennedy, the actor Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr
Young told Otash that she had 'no knowledge of such activities' and didn't know any other call girls who were present at any such parties
Otash reportedly wanted Young to reach out to Sen. Kennedy for a meeting, so she could record him making 'indiscreet statements'
The private detective implied that a magazine was 'looking for dirt on Kennedy' that they could use before the November 1960 presidential election
For more see the comprehensive section:
http://AffairsAndAllegedAffairs.November221963.com
August 10, 1960
Fair Labor Standards Speech by Senator John F. Kennedy, Delivered in the Senate
Today we begin debate upon the minimum wage bill known as the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1960. The bill has two major purposes. First, it will raise the minimum wage now received by 2 1/2 million workers from $1.10 to $1.25 an hour. Second, it will extend the protection of the Fair Labor Standards Act to 5 million additional employees, chiefly in large-scale interstate retail and service industries, thereby guaranteeing these employees a fair minimum wage and a just premium for overtime...
September 12, 1960
Kennedy's Separation of Church and State Speech Rice Hotel, Houston, Texas. (10:53)
Address of Senator John F. Kennedy to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association
Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy’s major address to a group of Protestant ministers on the religious issue in which he strongly reaffirms his support for separation of church and state. Many Protestants questioned the ability of a Roman Catholic President to make important national decisions independently of the influence of his church. Senator Kennedy answers those questions before an audience of Protestant clergy, many of whom may believe that he can not.
September 26, 1960
John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon participate in the first-ever televised presidential debate. The debate, which showcases Jack's youth and charm, marks a turning point in the campaign. CBS News journalist, Howard K. Smith, moderates.
Kennedy-Nixon First Presidential Debate (58:34)
On September 26, 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon stood before an audience of 70 million Americans, two-thirds of the nation's adult population, in the first nationally televised Presidential debate. This first of four debates held before the end of October gave a national audience the opportunity to see and compare the two candidates, and ushered in a new age of Presidential politics.
October 7, 1960
Kennedy and Nixon participate in the second presidential debate, held in Washington, D.C.; NBC News journalist, Frank McGee moderates.
Kennedy vs. Nixon - Second 1960 Presidential Debate (8:33)
Among the issues discussed was the U-2 incident involving Francis Gary Powers that occurred in May 1960, in the midst of the Cold War.
October 13, 1960
Senator Kennedy and Vice President Nixon debate each other for the third time; former Face the Nation anchor Bill Shadel moderates. Kennedy participates from a New York studio, while Nixon participates from a Los Angeles studio.
Presidential Candidates Debate (60:00) Senator John F. Kennedy (D-MA) and Vice President Richard M. Nixon met via remote link for the third of four presidential debates prior to the 1960 presidential election. Vice President Nixon was in Los Angeles and Senator Kennedy was in New York. The candidates responded to questions from a panel of correspondents. The debate was moderated by Bill Shadel. Other panelists included Frank McGee, Charles Van Fremd, Douglass Cater, and Roscoe Drummond.
October 21, 1960
Kennedy and Nixon participate in the fourth and final presidential debate in New York. This debate centered on foreign policy. ABC News journalist Quincy Howe moderates.
John F. Kennedy vs. Richard Nixon - Fourth Presidential Debate (58:51)
This is the fourth presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon.
October 24, 1960
Senator John F. Kennedy's Remarks at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, IL (9:55)
‘’….but if this is the way we turn out in these strong Republican centers, what is happening to Mr. Nixon all over the United States? This is an important campaign and these are important issues which face our country, and I appreciate your coming here. Prince Bismarck once said that one-third of the students - I guess maybe you better get down there a little - [applause], Prince Bismarck once said that one-third of the students of German universities broke down from overwork, another third broke down from dissipation, and the other third ruled Germany. I do not know which third of the student body of this university is here today, but I am confident I am talking to the rulers of America, in the sense that all educated men and women have the obligation to accept the discipline of self-government.
Mr. Nixon and I campaign for the most important office in the free world, but in my judgment this is more than a contest between Mr. Nixon and myself. It is more than a contest between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. It is a contest between the contented and the concerned, between those who wish to stand still and those who wish to move ahead.‘’
October 28, 1960
He was there: Native recalls Kennedy’s historic NEPA visit
by Michael Clark
John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign swing through Northeastern Pennsylvania — nearly six decades later — is still the watershed political event for tens of thousands of admirers determined to get a glimpse of, or if lucky, a handshake with the young senator who was taking the nation by storm. Indeed, it was Pennsylvania’s huge plurality, a sizable part of it from the anthracite region, that went far in Kennedy’s victory only days later.
November 4, 1960
Speech of Senator John F. Kennedy, Chicago Auditorium.
November 8, 1960
Senator John F. Kennedy is elected the 35th President of the United States, defeating his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon. Kennedy's popular vote margin is only 0.17%, 112,827 votes, and his electoral margin is 84 electoral votes. Nixon won more states, 26 to 22.
The 1960 presidential election is the first to have both candidates born in the 20th century, and the first in which the two most recently admitted states, Alaska (January 3, 1959) and Hawaii (August 21, 1959), participated. The electoral result proves to be the closest since the 1916 presidential election.
This election also features the last time the state of Ohio was on the losing end of the presidential election. From 1964 onward, the candidate who won Ohio won the election nationwide. There were 14 unpledged electors and one faithless elector in the election, all 8 from Mississippi, 6 out of 11 from Alabama, and 1 out of 8 from Oklahoma for the Byrd / Thurmond ticket, and one for the Byrd / Goldwater ticket.
Popular vote: Kennedy 34,220,984 - Nixon 34,108,157
Percentage: Kennedy 49.72% - Nixon 49.55%
Electoral vote: Kennedy 303 - Nixon 219
States carried: Kennedy 22 - Nixon 26
Election Night 1960 NBC-TV Coverage (1:26:17)
November 9, 1960
Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon concedes the presidency to Kennedy.
Kennedy Elected, Nixon Concedes (5:49)
67 million go to polls on election day, Ike votes, JFK and Jackie vote, Nixon and Pat vote in Whittier, Nixon speaks from his election HQ and concedes defeat; Kennedy wins; JFK speaks, to all Americans I say the next 4 years will be difficult, and the supreme national efort will be needed (cut off) (partial newsreel)
November 9, 1960
President Elect Kennedy Acceptance Speech Hyannis Armory (9:31)
John F. Kennedy Acceptance Speech
Hyannis Armory, Hyannis, Massachusetts, November 9, 1960
This is a transcription of this speech made for the convenience of readers and researchers. No textual copies of the speech exist at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, and this short speech appears to be at least partly extemporaneous. This transcription is based on a Boston Globe article from November 9, 1960 and CBS News film footage housed at the library. Because there is no original textual source available to us, efforts have been made to follow John F. Kennedy's spoken words as closely as possible. In some cases this has led to apparent errors, where President-elect Kennedy's grammar becomes somewhat conflicted as he improvises his remarks.
November 25, 1960
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr., named after his father, the President-elect and Mrs. Kennedy's second child and first son. is born at Georgetown University Hospital.
November 1960
President-elect John F. Kennedy And His Family (4:00)
December 2, 1960
President-elect John F. Kennedy And Daughter Caroline Arriving In West Palm Beach, Florida (:41)
President Elect John F. Kennedy arriving aboard his private plane, with his three year old daughter, Caroline in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Dec. 2, 1960. Caroline seems to be pulling her daddy as they head for a waiting car, which will take them to his Palm Beach water front home in Florida. She peers out rear window of car and looks puzzled at all the excitement going on, in West Palm Beach, Florida, as Kennedy glances at her. They were whisked away from the airport to his Palm Beach home.
December 6, 1961
JFK And Eisenhower Meeting During Presidential Transition (1:52)
President-elect John F. Kennedy's visit to the White House to meet with President Dwight D. Eisenhower during the presidential transition.
December 7, 1960 - November 22, 1963
The following 17 pages is an extensive overview because it is the number one motive to assassinated the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
In the future I will devote a compressive section on Dimona / David Ben-Gurion and the never-ending lies and deceitful behavior that Israel have promulgated to obtain hundreds of nuclear weapons and dictate foreign policy of the United States.
I strongly recommend reading the insightful, well documented and in my opinion, the best book on the Kennedy assassination; Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy, written by the late Michael Collins Piper.
Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy (Free .pdf)
Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy (Free .pdf)
Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy (Book)
Final Judgement Lecture [Mossad Connection To JFK Conspiracy] (45:25)
by Michael Collins Piper
In Final Judgment, Piper puts forth the number one motive for the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy; Israel was obsessed on building their covert Dimona nuclear plant, with the aim of obtaining nuclear weapons, and with the proliferation of nuclear weapons being the paramount issue with Kennedy, there was simply no way he was going to let them.
Piper also lays out in detail how the assassination of Kennedy, and the Presidency of Johnson brought about a 180 degree change in the United States policy towards Israel.
See the section: Jewish Lobby
According to author Stephen Green, Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel, 1984, as early as March 5, 1964, Nasser (Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, was the second President of Egypt, serving from 1956 until his death in 1970) told Assistant US Secretary of State Phillips Talbot that 'the US had shifted its policy into more active support of Israel'. Nasser's assessment is supported by intelligence historian Richard Deacon in his book, The Israeli Secret Service (1978). Deacon claims that Johnson's new policy was keeping in line not only with Israel's demands but those of Israel's friends in the CIA: 'President Johnson had already swung away from the tentative pro-Arab stance of the Kennedy Administration which had always been frowned upon by the CIA". Deacon further claimed that Walt Rostow, LBJ's national security advisor, believed that US policy towards Israel would serve as an effective check on Soviet support for Arab countries. Thus, according to Deacon, 'Rostow reflected almost totally the views of the CIA hierarchy'.
Did LBJ dramatically increase aid to Israel? Former Undersecretary of State George Ball commented that, 'The Isreali's were proved right in their assumption that Johnson would be more friendly than Kennedy'. According to author Stephen Green, citing US Agency for International Development data: 'Over the next few years--the first three years of the Johnson administration--the level of foreign aid support to Israel would change both qualitatively and quantitatively. US Government assistance to Israel in FY 1964, the last budget year of the Kennedy administration, stood at $40 million. In FY 1965, this figure rose to $71 million and in FY 1966, to $130 million'.
'More significant, however, was the change in the composition of that assistance. In (JFK's) FY 1964, virtually none of the official US assistance was military assistance; it was split almost equally between development loans and food aid under the PL 480 program. In LBJ's FY 1965, however, 20% of US aid was military in nature, and in FY 1966, fully 71% of all official assistance to Israel came in the form of credits for purchase of military equipment.
'Moreover, the nature of the weapons system we provided had changed. In FY 1963, the Kennedy administration agreed to sell five batteries of Hawk missiles valued at $21.5 million. This however, was an air defense system. The Johnson administration, in FY 65/66, provided Israel with 250 modern (modified M-48) tanks, 48 A-1 Skyhawk attack aircraft, communications and electronic equipment, artillery and recoilless rifles.
'The $92 million in military assistance provided in FY 1966 was greater than the total of all official military aid provided to Israel cumulatively in all the years going back to the foundation of that state in 1948. America has given Israel $17 billion in military aid since 1946, virtually all of which--over 99%--has been provided since 1965'.
It should be noted that Green's book was written in 1984, tens of billions more military aid has been provided by United States taxpayers to Israel since then.
In Kennedy Assassination, Anyone But Mossad is Fair Game for U.S. Media (March 1992)
by Paul Findley (Former Illinois Congressman)
From: Kennedy, The Lobby And The Bomb
by Laurent Guyénot
Kennedy and the AIPAC
In May 1963, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations opened an investigation into the covert activities of foreign agents on U.S. soil, focusing in particular on the American Zionist Council and the Jewish Agency for Israel. The investigation was prompted by a report from the Chairman of that standing Committee, Senator J. William Fulbright, written in March 1961 (declassified in 2010), stating: "In recent years there has been an increasing number of incidents involving attempts by foreign governments, or their agents, to influence the conduct of American foreign policy by techniques outside normal diplomatic channels." By covert activities, including "within the United States and elsewhere," Fulbright was referring to the 1954 "Lavon Affair", where a group of Egyptian Jews was recruited by Israel to carry out bomb attacks against British targets, which were to be blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood so as to discredit Nasser in the eyes of the British and Americans.
The Senate investigation brought to light a money laundering racket through which the Jewish Agency (indivisible from the State of Israel and a precursor to the Israeli Government) was channeling tens of millions of dollars to the American Zionist Council, the main Israeli lobby in the United States. Following this investigation, the Department of Justice, under the authority of Attorney General Robert Kennedy, ordered the American Zionist Council to register as "agents of a foreign government," subject to the requirements of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, involving the close monitoring of its activities.
This attempt to counter Israel’s growing interference in U.S. politics undoubtedly enjoyed the support of the President. At the time when he was still a young journalist covering the United Nations inaugural conference, John Kennedy was troubled by Israel’s ability to buy politicians, up to and including the President himself. By recognizing the State of Israel on May 15, 1948, (just ten minutes after its official proclamation) despite the unanimous disapproval of his government, President Harry Truman not only gained a place in biblical history ("Truman’s historic act of recognition will remain forever inscribed in golden letters in the 4000-year history of the Jewish people”, declared the Israeli ambassador), he also pocketed two million dollars to revitalize his re-election campaign. "That’s why our recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast,” Kennedy told his friend novelist and essayist Gore Vidal.
In 1960, John Kennedy himself received a financial aid offer from the Israeli lobby for his presidential campaign. He decoded Abraham Feinberg’s proposal for his journalist friend Charles Bartlett in the following terms: "We know your campaign is in trouble. We’re willing to pay your bills if you’ll let us have control of your Middle East policy." Bartlett recalls Kennedy’s promise that "if he ever did get to be President, he was going to do something about it." Between 1962 and 1963, he submitted seven campaign finance reform bills but all were defeated by the influential groups they sought to restrain.
All government efforts to stymie the corruption of American democracy by Israeli agents were stopped short by Kennedy’s assassination and his brother’s replacement at the Department of Justice by Nicholas Katzenbach. The American Zionist Council evaded foreign agent status by dissolving and renaming itself American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Ten years later (April 15, 1973), Fulbright commented on CBS: "Israel controls the U.S. Senate. [...] The great majority of the Senate of the U.S. – somewhere around 80 percent – are completely in support of Israel; anything Israel wants Israel gets." AIPAC continued the same practices, dodging any sanction even when its members were caught red-handed in acts of espionage and high treason. In 2005, two AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, were acquitted after having received from a member of the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, Larry Franklin, documents classified as Secret-Defense which they transmitted to a senior Israeli official.
In 2007, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt demonstrated in their book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy that AIPAC and less prominent pro-Israel lobbies were the main cause of the war in Iraq and, more broadly, the determining factor in the foreign policy of the U.S. in the Middle East. Considering that nothing has changed, there is no reason to believe that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu will not also obtain from the United States the destruction of Iran that it consistently clamors for.
On October 3, 2001, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was reported by Kol Yisrael radio to have said to his Foreign Minister Shimon Peres that "We, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it."
His successor Benjamin Netanyahu gave a demonstration of that on May 24, 2011, before the U.S. Congress, when members of both houses stood up to cheer him 29 times, in particular after each of the following remarks: "In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers"; "No distortion of history could deny the 4000- year-old bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish land"; "Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967”; "Jerusalem must never again be divided. Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel.”
Both houses of Congress offer Benjamin Netanyahu 29 standing ovations (2:37)
And again...
Over one quarter of Netanyahu’s speech to Congress consisted of applause and standing ovations
by Ben Norton
US congresspeople got quite the workout on the morning of March 3, 2015. ‘Twas on this fateful day that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party, addressed US Congress, in what one might refer to as an historic occasion, the lector himself saw no problem in proclaiming it to be. To say it was just well received would be to commit the callous crime of understatement. In Netanyahu’s pep rally, rather speech before the US legislative branch, Congress interrupted to applaud 39 times. 23 of these were standing ovations. 10:55 of the 40:30 of Netanyahu’s exhortation consisted of applause. In other words, 27% was Congress applauding and doing standing ovations...
Benjamin Netanyahu Speech to Congress 2015 (43:24)
So, who owns our sold out puppet politicians?
"No American president was more concerned with the danger of nuclear proliferation than John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He was convinced that the spread of nuclear weapons would make the world more dangerous and undermine United States interests."
Avener Cohen, Israel and the Bomb
From: Israeli Nuclear Threats And Blackmail
The Samson Option Still Threatens The World
by Carol Moore
Israel also use plausible deniability of processing hundreds of nuclear weapons while threatening to use the Samson Option. The phrase the “Samson Option” is used to describe Israel’s strategy of massive nuclear retaliation against “enemy” nations should its existence as a Jewish state be jeopardized through military attack. Israeli leaders created the term in the mid-1960s, inspired by the Biblical figure Samson, who destroyed a Philistine temple, killing himself and thousands of Philistine enemies.
Israel refuses to admit officially that it has nuclear weapons - a policy known as “nuclear ambiguity” or "nuclear opacity." This despite government officials inferring repeatedly - and occasionally admitting - the fact. And despite Israeli nuclear whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu making public smuggled photographs of nuclear weapons and production equipment in the 1980s. Israel now may have as many as 400 atomic and hydrogen nuclear weapons, as well as the ability to launch them via long range missiles, submarines and aircraft. It can use them in a second strike even if its military is devastated.
Originally a strategy of last resort retaliation - even if it means Israel’s annihilation - it has developed into being a nuclear bullying strategy to further Israel’s territorial goals through threats and blackmail. Israel has bullied not only Arab and Muslim nations, but the United States and Russia with its Samson Option threats. Mordechai Vanunu has alleged that Israel uses for purposes of blackmail its ability to "bombard any city all over the world, and not only those in Europe but also those in the United States."...
"Most European capitals are targets for our [Israel's] air
force....
We have the capability to take the world down with
us.
And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel
goes under."
Martin Van Creveld, professor of military history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem
From: Samson Option:
Israel’s Plan to Prevent Mass Destruction Attacks
by David Eberhart
Israel’s Military Might
In 1997, Jane’s Intelligence Weekly examined satellite photographs of what it described as an Israeli military base at Kfar Zechariah, concluding academically, “Israel’s nuclear arsenal is larger than many estimates.”
According to Jane’s, the site was said to house about 50 Jericho-2 missiles, believed to have a maximum range of about 3,000 miles with a warhead of about 2,200 pounds.
According to the report, the installation contained nuclear bombs, configured for dropping from bombers.
Furthermore, five bunkers at the site were cited as capable of safeguarding 150 weapons.
“This … supports indications that the Israeli arsenal may contain as many as 400 nuclear weapons with a total combined yield of 50 megatons,” the report concluded.
In 1998 the New York Times reported a Rand Corp. study commissioned by the Pentagon that opined Israel had enough plutonium to make 70 nuclear weapons.
More light was shed on the issue in February of last year when the Israeli Knesset (parliament) held the first public discussion on the country’s nuclear arms program.
Issam Mahoul, an Arab Israeli MP and member of the Hadash (Communist) Party, petitioned that country’s Supreme Court to force the government to permit a parliamentary debate on the forbidden subject.
The upshot of this bold and generally unpopular tactic was an unprecedented televised session of the Knesset at which Mahoul stated that, according to experts’ estimates, Israel had stockpiled huge numbers of nuclear warheads.
This had increased to what he described as the “insane amount of 200-300.” The weapons had been developed with the help of the South African apartheid regime.
Working up a head of rhetorical steam, Mahoul grandly alleged that three new German-built submarines just purchased by Israel were to be fitted with nuclear weapons.
Their stated purpose, he said, was “to cruise deep in the sea and constitute a second strike force in the event that Israel is attacked with nuclear weapons.”
Mahoul also announced what was hardly a news bulletin – Israel was producing “biological warfare” weapons at the government’s Biological Institute in Ness Ziona.
The obstreperous MP concluded that the government’s official policy of “nuclear ambiguity” was the height of self-delusion. “All the world knows that Israel is a vast warehouse of atomic, biological and chemical weapons that serves as an anchor for the Middle East arms race,” he said.
Despite the bristling inventory of nukes, the Israelis have a laudable history of restraint in brandishing, much less using, these most destructive of all weapons of mass destruction.
In fact, for most of the latter half of the 20th century, the Israeli Bomb remained invisible and unacknowledged. Israel’s official position was to neither confirm nor deny its nuclear status, only pledging on the record “not to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East.”
“Should war break out in the Middle East again and should the Syrians and the Egyptians break through again as they did in 1973 [Yom Kippur War], or should any Arab nation fire missiles again at Israel, as Iraq did [in the 1991 Gulf War], a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong possibility.”
Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option
Israel's Dimona facility is still not under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervision, nor has Israel joined the international Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Joining this treaty would place all of Israel's nuclear facilities under IAEA supervision and subject Israel to more often and thorough evaluations of their nuclear facilities. Currently Israel is a member of the UN Nuclear Agency but is not subject to regular IAEA inspections because they are not a signatory to the NPT.
Israel began actively investigating the nuclear option from its inception (actually the theft of Palestine) on May 14, 1948. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has a brief, yet excellent history of the Israeli nuclear weapons program.
Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion is said to have been "nearly obsessed" with Israel obtaining nuclear weapons, feeling that a nuclear arsenal was the only way to counter the Arabs' superiority in numbers, space, and financial resources, and that it was the only sure guarantee of Israel's survival.
Israel started the construction work at the Dimona nuclear plant sometime in late 1957 or early 1958, but amazingly it somehow took the United States intelligence community three years to "discover" the site for what it was, namely, a nuclear site under construction.
This so-called Intelligence failure speaks volumes to power that Israel already possessed over both the United States intelligence and political communities in the late 1950's. There is no other rational explanation. How could Israel hide everything from the Americans until the Dimona reactor was an established fact? If you believe that for almost four years, between 1956 and 1960, this project was hidden due to intelligence failures in the gathering, analysis and inter-agency coordination of various professionals and political figures in Washington, I have a bridge to sell you.
From: The Eisenhower Administration and the Discovery of Dimona:
by Avner Cohen and William Burr
The United States supposedly first became aware of Dimona's existence after U-2 overflights in 1958 captured the facility's construction, but it was not identified as a nuclear site until two years later.
Israel continually lied about their clandestine nuclear project in the Negev desert. The complex was variously explained as a textile plant, an agricultural station, and a metallurgical research facility, until David Ben-Gurion stated in December 1960 that Dimona complex was a nuclear research center built for "peaceful purposes."
When it comes to the textile factory as cover for the Dimona project, researchers from the National Security Archive dug up its origins in a helicopter ride that American Ambassador Ogden Reid took over the Negev desert in September of 1960. Reed asked Addy Cohen of the Israeli Finance Ministry for an explanation for the extensive earthmoving work in the area. Cohen lied, telling Reed it was a textile factory.
Finally, on December 7, 1960, an action on the matter was taken by the United States. The State Department summoned Israeli Ambassador and asked Israel for an explanation. For the first time Dimona was placed on the table. In response to the blunder concerning the late discovery of Dimona the U.S. Intelligence Board (USIB) asked on December 13, 1960, the CIA to prepare a "detailed post-mortem report on why the intelligence community did not recognize this development [Dimona] earlier." On January 31, 1961, eleven days after President Kennedy took office, and in response to his explicit request, the 17-page "post-mortem" report was forwarded to his office.
On January 19, 1961, on the eve of his inauguration, President-elect Kennedy visited the White House, for the last time as a guest, along with his senior team. After 45 minutes of one-on-one conversation with President Eisenhower, the two men walked to the Cabinet Room to join their departing and incoming secretaries of state, defense and treasury to discuss the transition. One of Kennedy’s first questions was about the countries which were most determined to seek the bomb. “Israel and India,” Secretary of State Christian Herter fired back, and added that the newly discovered Dimona reactor, being constructed with aid from France, could be capable of generating 90 kilogram of weapons-grade plutonium by 1963. Herter urged the new president to press hard on inspection in the case of Israel before it introduced nuclear weapons into the Middle East.
From: The First American Visit to Dimona
The issue of the Dimona reactor was among President Kennedy’s top issues immediately after he took office on January 20, 1961. On January 30, Secretary of State Dean Rusk submitted to Kennedy a two-page report about Israel’s atomic energy activities. The next day Kennedy met departing American Ambassador to Israel, Ogden Reid, primarily to be briefed about the matter of Dimona. Reid told Kennedy that an inspection of the Dimona reactor could be arranged, "if it is done on a secret basis."
The memo, and its attached chronology, summarizes the diplomatic exchanges that had taken place between the Eisenhower administration and the Israeli government, saying that "categoric assurances" were obtained from Ben Gurion "that Israel does not have plans for developing atomic weaponry. As to Ben Gurion’s assurances, Rusk states that those assurances "appear to be satisfactory,...although several minor questions still require clarification." Rusk points out, however, that the State Department intended to treat the issue not as a single episode, but as "a continuing subject and it [is] the intention of our intelligence agencies to maintain a continuing watch on Israel as on other countries to assure that nuclear weapons capabilities are not being proliferated." He added that, "at the moment, we are encouraging the Israelis to permit a qualified scientist from the United States or other friendly power to visit the Dimona installation."
Israel's ambassador in Washington Avraham Harman attempted to promote a "calming" version of the Dimona project before the Kennedy administration. It was nothing but "a simple story,” Harman attempted to persuade Assistant Secretary of State Lewis Jones in February 1961, about two months after the project was uncovered. There is plenty of time and no plutonium, Harman told Jones, seeking to convince him that no reactor would be operating for at least two years. The Israelis, Harman said, could not conceive why there should be continuing interest in Dimona in the United States or anywhere else. Talk about unabashed chutzpah.
Kennedy was determined to make good on Ben Gurion’s pledge to the Eisenhower administration for a visit of American scientists to Dimona. Ben Gurion, however, appeared equally determined not to arrange the visit anytime soon. To complicate the problem, Ben Gurion’s domestic political crisis, the Lavon Affair (just another lame obfuscation - the Lavon Affair - an Israeli false flag - occurred in the Summer of 1954), intensified. During February-April 1961 a pattern emerged in which Kennedy would press for a date for the inspection visit, while Israel would invoke Ben Gurion’s domestic problems or the Jewish holidays as reasons for delaying the visit.
By late March 1961, Ben Gurion realized that he could no longer postpone the visit. Myer Feldman and Abe Feinberg persuaded him that a meeting between him and Kennedy, in return for an American visit to Dimona, was necessary to avoid confrontation and save the Dimona project. Ben Gurion asked to set such visit to late May and approved the visit to Dimona against the objections of Foreign Minister Meir, who was, apparently, concerned about the implications of misleading (or just getting caught doing so) the American scientists. Which is just what Israel did, yet again.
On March 28, 1961, Assistant Secretary Jones summoned Ambassador Harman to the State Department and told him that the United States had been faithfully waiting since early January for the promised invitation to visit Dimona, yet no such invitation arrived. He informed the Ambassador that the White House had inquired the previous day when the visit would take place and had requested a report on the matter by 31 March. The American lack of patience with the Israeli delays was evident. Ambassador Harman replied that he had no news about the visit from Jerusalem and doubted whether any action would be possible until after Passover, that is another ten days.
On April 10, 1963, Ambassador Harman informed the State Department that the visit to Dimona was scheduled for the week of May 15. The preparations for the visit moved now to the working level. The United States Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC) selected two of its scientists to conduct the visit: Ulysses Staebler, assistant director of the USAEC Reactor Development Division, and Jesse Croach, a heavy water expert employed by Dupont at the USAEC Savannah River facility.
But even in later April Israel still proposed to have the American visit after the meeting between Ben Gurion and Kennedy (on May 30, 1961, Kennedy met Ben-Gurion at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan). This issue was raised in meetings on May 1 and May 4 between Mordechai Gazit and Armin Meyer, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. In the end Israel reaffirmed the original arrangement and agreed to receive the two American scientists on May 18, 1961.
The available record does not explain why Israel wanted to postpone the technical visit after the meeting so one can only propose a plausible speculation. The Israelis might have thought that the manner in which they would present the Dimona project to the American visits, that is, how much they would reveal about its security aspects, would be dependent on the outcome of discussions between Ben-Gurion and Kennedy, in particular how much room Ben-Gurion would leave to weapons option in his discussions with the Kennedy. It seems that the Israelis did not want to commit Prime Minister Ben-Gurion to a definitive policy line (to be determined by the way the reactor presented to the scientists) but rather to allow him a certain political latitude for his discussions with Kennedy on the purpose of the Dimona project.
Staebler and Croach arrived in Israel on May 17, and three days later, on Saturday May 20, visited Dimona escorted by Professor Ephraim Katzir-Katachalsky and Dimona director Manes Pratt. They were briefed by their Israeli hosts about the deliberation process that led, in 1957, to the decision to expand Israel’s nuclear program through the Dimona project. The Dimona complex was presented to them as a transitory stage in Israel’s ambitious plans to become part of the atomic revolution.
The original report of the American visit to Dimona in May 1961 appears to be missing. Yet on May 26, National Security Advisor, McGeorge Bundy received a two-page memorandum report from the State Department on the scientists’ visit, including "tentative conclusions and opinions," which might be of relevance to President Kennedy for his meeting with Ben Gurion on May 30. In essence, the scientists concluded that the reactor "is of the scope and peaceful character previously described to the United States."The positive report was critical for making the meeting on May 30, between President Kennedy and Prime Minister Ben Gurion, successful.
But in fact, Israel had yet again cleverly deceived both Ulysses Staebler, assistant director of the USAEC Reactor Development Division, and Jesse Croach, a heavy water expert employed by Dupont at the USAEC Savannah River facility.
According to one account by Mossad agent Eitan relayed to British writer Gordan Thomas, among the outlandish schemes used to hide the facility from inspectors was a "bogus control center built over the real one… complete with fake control panels and computer-lined gauges that gave a credible impression of measuring the output of a reactor engaged in an irrigation scheme to turn the Negev into a lush pastureland."
Another version of the "no-nuclear-weapons here" charade was assisted by France, which helped produce video footage of spent reactor fuel being loaded onto French jets, to be supposedly sent to France for reprocessing. The ploy, as reported in the Guardian, was used as evidence by Israel to support its claim that its reactor was not being used to make a bomb. Israeli deceptions to get nuclear weapons knew no ends.
From: Kennedy, Dimona and the Nuclear Proliferation Problem: 1961-1962
by Avner Cohen and William Burr
President John F. Kennedy worried that Israel’s nuclear program was a potentially serious proliferation risk and insisted that Israel permit periodic inspections to mitigate the danger, according to declassified documents published today (April 21, 2016) by the National Security Archive, Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Kennedy pressured the government of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to prevent a military nuclear program, particularly after stage-managed tours of the Dimona facility for U.S. government scientists in 1961 and 1962 raised suspicions within U.S. intelligence that Israel might be concealing its underlying nuclear aims. Kennedy’s long-run objective, documents show, was to broaden and institutionalize inspections of Dimona by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
This collection includes both American and Israeli transcripts of the Waldorf Astoria meeting. One of the transcripts is a previously unknown draft of the Kennedy-Ben-Gurion memcon, which has interesting differences with the final version. The U.S. official memorandum of conversation, declassified and published in the 1990s, was prepared by Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Phillips Talbot (and approved – possibly corrected – by White House Deputy Special Counsel Myer “Mike” Feldman). The Israeli minutes, prepared by Ambassador Avraham Harman, were also declassified in the 1990s and historians have made extensive use of them.
Ben-Gurion provided Kennedy with a rationale and narrative of the Dimona project that was very similar to what the Israeli hosts provided to the AEC team visiting Dimona (albeit in non-technical and more political terms): the Dimona project was peaceful in nature; it was about energy and development. However, unlike during the Dimona visit, Ben-Gurion’s narrative and rationale left a little wiggle room for a future reversal. The prime minister did that by qualifying his peaceful pledge and leaving room for a future change of heart. The Israeli transcript makes Ben-Gurion’s caveat pronounced: “for the time being, the only purposes are for peace. … But we will see what will happen in the Middle East. It does not depend on us” (italics added). The American transcript, by way of rephrasing Ben-Gurion, reveals a similar caveat as well: “Our main – and for the time being – only purpose is this [cheap energy, etc.],” the Prime Minister said, adding that “we do not know what will happen in the future” … Furthermore, commenting on the political and strategic implications of atomic power and weaponry, the Prime Minister said he does believe that “in ten or fifteen years the Egyptian presumably could achieve it themselves” (italics added).
In his draft minutes, Assistant Secretary Talbot notes (in parentheses) that during that part of the conversation, Ben-Gurion spoke “rapidly and in a low voice” so that “some words were missed.” Nevertheless, Talbot thought that he had heard Ben-Gurion making reference to a “pilot plant for plutonium separation which is needed for atomic power,” but that might happen “three or four years later” and that “there is no intention to develop weapons capacity now.” Talbot’s draft was declassified long ago but has been buried in obscurity; it needs to be taken into account by scholars. Notably, the Israeli transcript is even more straightforward in citing Ben-Gurion on the pilot plant issue: “after three or four years we shall have a pilot plant for separation which is needed anyway for a power reactor.”
Days after the meeting, Talbot sat with Feldman at the White House to “check fine points” about “side lines of interest.” There was the key issue of plutonium, about which Ben-Gurion mumbled quickly in a low voice. Ben-Gurion was understood to say something to the effect that the issue of plutonium would not arise until the installation was complete in 1964 or so, and only then could Israel decide what to do about processing it. But this appeared to be incompatible with what the prime minister had said to Ambassador Reid in Tel Aviv in January 1961, namely that the spent fuel would return to the country which provided the uranium in the first place (France). But Israeli affairs desk officer, William R. Crawford, who looked further into the record, suggested that what Ben-Gurion had said was more equivocal and evasive. Upon close examination, Ben-Gurion might have meant to hint in passing that Israel was preserving its freedom of action to produce plutonium for its own purposes. Kennedy may not have picked up on this point, but he, like Talbot, may not have been sure exactly what Ben-Gurion had said.
Intelligence Estimate
The most intriguing – and novel – document in this collection is National Intelligence Estimate 35-61 (document #11a), under the headline “Outlook on Israel,” which was declassified only in February 2015. This NIE left no doubt that the AEC scientists’ impressions from their visit to Dimona had no impact on the way which the intelligence community made its own determination on Dimona’s overall purpose. While the visit clearly helped to ease the political and diplomatic tensions between the United States and Israel over Dimona, and removed, at least temporarily, the nuclear issue as a problem from the bilateral agenda, it did not change the opinion of U.S. intelligence professionals. In their view, while acknowledging the Israeli official narrative of Dimona as peaceful, it was truly about weapons capability. The Dimona complex provided Israel with the experience and resources “to develop a plutonium production capability.” NIE 35-61 reminded its readers that France had supplied “plans, material, equipment and technical assistance to the Israelis.”
Significantly, the intelligence community estimated in 1961 that Israel would be in a position to “produce sufficient weapons grade plutonium for one or two crude weapons a year by 1965-66, provided separation facilities with a capacity larger than that of the pilot plant now under construction are available.” In retrospect, in all these respects, NIE 35-61 was accurate in its assessments and predictions, although no one on the U.S. side knew for sure when Israel would possess the requisite reprocessing facilities. The language about “separation facilities” raises important questions. If Israel was to produce nuclear weapons it would require technology to reprocess spent fuel into plutonium. Whether and when U.S. intelligence knew that Israel had begun work on a secret, dedicated separation plant – larger than a pilot plant – at the Dimona complex has yet to be disclosed. But if the CIA knew about such plans, it may have meant that key information was concealed from AEC scientists who visited Dimona (or perhaps they were instructed to locate such facilities).[3]
Probably lacking secret knowledge of internal Israeli government thinking, the authors of NIE 35-61 may not have fully understood the depth of Israel’s nuclear resolve, or at least, the modus operandi by which Israel proceeded with its nuclear project. They could not be fully clear – both conceptually and factually – on the nature of the Israeli nuclear commitment, i.e., whether Dimona was a dedicated weapons program from the very start, or, alternatively, whether it was set up as infrastructure leading to a weapons capability upon a later decision. At a minimum, however, the authors of NIE 35-61 believed “that the Israelis intend at least to put themselves in the position of being able to produce nuclear weapons fairly soon after a decision to do so.”
Notwithstanding the lack of clarity, the NIE’s findings were incompatible with what Ben-Gurion told Kennedy about the overall purpose of the Dimona project as well as with what he said about Dimona’s plutonium production capacity. Similarly, the NIE was inconsistent with the AEC report whose writers accepted the Israeli narrative and rationale. The bottom line was that as early as 1961 the CIA already knew – or at least suspected – that the Israeli official account of the Dimona project – either by the prime minister or by Israeli scientists – was a cover story and deceptive by nature.
The Second Visit
The AEC visit and the Ben-Gurion Kennedy meeting helped clear the air a bit, but the wary view embodied in the NIE shaped U.S. perceptions of the Dimona project. The Kennedy administration held to its conviction that it was necessary to monitor Dimona, not only to resolve American concerns about nuclear proliferation but also to calm regional anxieties about an Israeli nuclear threat. In this context, the United States did not want to continue to be the only country that guaranteed the peaceful nature of Dimona to the Arab countries. Hence, during the months after the meetings, State Department officials tried to follow up President Kennedy’s interest in having scientists from “neutral” nations, such as Sweden, visit the Dimona plant. The British also favored such ideas but they sought U.S. pressure to induce the Israelis to accept inspection visits by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Kennedy administration believed that IAEA inspections of Dimona were a valid long-term goal but recognized that a second visit by U.S. scientists was necessary if a visit by neutrals could not be arranged.
The talks with the Swedes did not pan out; by June 1962, the Kennedy administration decided to “undertake the responsibility once more.” On September 26, 1962, after “repeated requests over several months,” a second American visit to Dimona finally took place. Until recently little was known about that visit except that Ambassador Walworth Barbour referred to it as “unduly restricted to no more than forty five minutes.” Also, the late professor Yuval Ne’eman, at the time serving as the scientific director of the Soreq nuclear research center and the official host of the American AEC visitors, was cited in Israel and the Bomb to the effect that the visit was a deliberate “trick” (the word “trick” was used but was not cited in the book) he devised and executed to ease American pressure for a second formal visit in Dimona.
Phillips Talbot, who succeeded Jones as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, and as a note-taker at the Kennedy/Ben-Gurion meeting had to make sense of the Prime Minister’s rapid and “low” voice. (National Archives, Still Picture Branch, 59-SO, box 41)
This collection includes archival material that sheds light on the second visit. The key document is a memo, written on December 27, 1962, by deputy director of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs Rodger Davies to Assistant Secretary Talbot on the September visit. It was hiding in plain sight in a microfilm supplement to the State Department historical series, Foreign Relations of the United States. The memo narrated the improvised circumstances of the visit which fit well with the way Ne’eman told the story in the late 1990s. As the two AEC scientists who had arrived to inspect the small reactor at Soreq – Thomas Haycock and Ulysses Staebler – were being driven back from their Dead Sea tour, Ne’eman noted that they were passing by the Dimona reactor and that he could spontaneously “arrange a call with the director.” Notably, Staebler was among the two AEC scientists who had visited Dimona in May 1961, so he must have met director Pratt. It turned out that the director was not there, but the chief engineers gave them a 40-minute tour of the reactor.
The December 27 document reveals that the circumstances of that tour made the AEC visitors feel a little awkward, “not certain whether they were guests of their scientist-host or on an inspection.” They did not see the complete installation, nor did they enter all the buildings they saw, but they believed that what they saw confirmed that Dimona was a research reactor, not a production reactor; and that, from their point of view, made the visit worthwhile and “satisfactory.”
In 1963 President Kennedy was again trying his best to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. He sent at least six letters to Israel Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his successor Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. All to no avail, there was nothing but lies about Israel's nuclear weapons capability and there was never any inspections of Dimona.
Ben-Gurion felt that Kennedy's position of not wanting Israel to developed nuclear weapons threatened the very survival Israel.
John Kennedy: A Martyr Who Worried About The Spread Of Nukes
by Ron Kampeas
The one phenomenon Kennedy feared above all was the proliferation of
nuclear weapons on his watch. He demanded an accounting of the
purpose of the nuclear reactor Israel was building near Dimona. At a
1961 meeting in New York with Ben-Gurion, the prime minister
noticeably mumbled a lot and used terms like “for the time being”
in promising that the reactor would not produce weapons-grade fissile
material.
Kennedy wanted Americans to inspect the plant; Israel kept dodging the requests. In May 1963, Kennedy threatened to isolate Israel unless it let in the inspectors. Neither he nor Johnson ever made good on the threat, and today, Israel’s nuclear capabilities are its worst-kept secret.
by Ron Kampeas
"Israel need not apologize for the assassination or destruction of those who seek to destroy it. The first order of business for any country is the protection of its people."
Washington Jewish Week, October 9, 1997
John F. Kennedy Administration Letter To Israeli PM Ben-Gurion Regarding Visit To Dimona (May 18, 1963)
"I welcome your letter of May 12 and am giving it careful study.
Meanwhile, I have received from Ambassador Barbour a report of his conversation with you on May 14 regarding the arrangements for visiting the Dimona reactor. I should like to add some personal comments on that subject.
I am sure you will agree that there is no more urgent business for the whole world than the control of nuclear weapons. We both recognized this when we talked together two years ago, and I emphasized it again when I met with Mrs. Meir just after Christmas. The dangers in the proliferation of national nuclear weapons systems are so obvious that I am sure I need not repeat them here.
It is because of our preoccupation with this problem that my Government has sought to arrange with you for periodic visits to Dimona. When we spoke together in May 1961 you said that we might make whatever use we wished of the information resulting from the first visit of American scientists to Dimona and that you would agree to further visits by neutrals as well. I had assumed from Mrs. Meir's comment that there would be no problem between us on this.
We are concerned with the disturbing effects on world stability which would accompany the development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel. I cannot imagine that the Arabs would refrain from turning to the Soviet Union for assistance if Israel were to develop a nuclear weapons capability--with all the consequences this would hold. But the problem is much larger than its impact on the Middle East. Development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel would almost certainly lead other larger countries, that have so far refrained from such development, to feel that they must follow suit."...
"I thank you for your letter of May 27 concerning American visits to Israel's nuclear facility at Dimona. I know your words reflect your most intense personal consideration of a problem that is not easy for you or for your Government, as it is not for mine.
"I welcome your strong reaffirmation that the Dimona will be devoted exclusively to peaceful purposes. I also welcome your reaffirmation of Israel's willingness to permit periodic visits to Dimona.
"Because of the crucial importance of this problem, however, I am sure you will agree that such visits should be of a nature and on a schedule which will more nearly be in accord with international standards, thereby resolving all doubts as to the peaceful intent of the Dimona project.
"Therefore, I asked our scientists to review the alternative schedules of visits we and you have proposed. If Israel's purposes are to be clear to the world beyond reasonable doubt, I believe that the schedule which would best serve our common purposes would be a visit early this summer, another visit in June 1964, and thereafter at intervals of six months. I am sure that such a schedule should not cause you any more difficulty than that which you have proposed. It would be essential, and I take it that your letter is in accord with this, that our scientists have access to all areas of the Dimona site and to any related part of the complex, such as fuel fabrication facilities or plutonium separation plant, and that sufficient time be allotted for a thorough examination.
"Knowing that you fully appreciate the truly vital significance of this matter to the future well-being of Israel, to the United States, and internationally, I am sure our carefully considered request will again have your most sympathetic attention."...
The very next day, June 16, 1963, David Ben-Gurion resigns as Prime Minister of Israel for what he describes as personal reasons and chooses Levi Eshkol as his successor.
So, when President Kennedy was pushing extremely hard and not backing down to have inspections at the illegal Dimona nuclear plant, Ben-Gurion resigns, never responding to his letter of June 15, 1963.
Due to the overwhelming evidence in this matter, and long history of false flag incidents which Israel has perpetrated and blamed on others (Lavon Affair, USS Liberty and 911, just to name three), it is my conviction that Ben-Gurion resigned to have plausible deniability for the assassination he ordered on President Kennedy.
For a more detailed list of Israeli false flags please read:
Israel’s Use of False Flags in Global Terrorism
by Michael Collins Piper
On June 26, 1963, Levi Eshkol is elected Prime Minister of Israel.
The Kennedy / Ben Gurion / Eshkol Nuclear Exchange, July 5, 1963
On July 5, 1963, Kennedy sent the new Prime Minister of Israel Levi Eshkol a three page letter. Not since President Eisenhower's message to Ben Gurion, in the midst of the Suez crisis in November 1956, had an American president been so blunt with an Israeli prime minister. Kennedy told Eshkol that the American commitment and support of Israel 'could be seriously jeopardized' if Israel did not let the United States obtain 'reliable information' about Israel's efforts in the nuclear field.
In the letter Kennedy presented specific demands on how the American inspection visits to Dimona should be executed. Since the United States had not been involved in the building of Dimona and no international law or agreement had been violated, Kennedy demands were indeed unprecedented. They amounted, in effect, to American ultimatum.
JFK and Israel's Nuclear Program:
Kennedy Letter to Eshkol Regarding Visits to Dimona (August 26, 1963)
"Your letter of August 19 was most welcome here. I appreciate that this was a difficult decision, yet I am convinced that in generously agreeing to invite our scientists to visit the Dimona complex on the regular basis that was proposed you have acted from a deep wisdom regarding Israel's security in the longer term and the awesome realities which the atomic age imposes on the community of man.
You have suggested that an initial visit take place toward the end of this year in the pre-startup stage. I am asking Ambassador Barbour to keep in touch with you so that the visit can be arranged for at a time when the reactor's core is being loaded and before internal radiation hazards have developed.
The recent overwhelming endorsement of the partial test ban treaty has moved us all a small step in the direction of a more peaceful world. Our purpose must be to continue striving toward the effective control of the power of the atom so that it may be used only for the welfare of man. The spirit you have shown in your letter to me is a clear indication that you share that same high purpose."
From: Mossad And The JFK Assassination
Ben-Gurion was convinced that Israel needed nuclear weapons to insure its survival, while Kennedy was dead-set against it. This inability to reach an agreement caused obvious problems. One of them revolved around Kennedy's decision that he would make America his top priority in regard to foreign policy, and not Israel! Kennedy planned to honor the 1950 Tripartite Declaration which said that the United States would retaliate against any nation in the Middle East that attacked any other country. Ben-Gurion, on the other hand, wanted the Kennedy Administration to sell them offensive weapons, particularly Hawk missiles.
The two leaders thus engaged in a brutal letter exchange, but Kennedy wouldn't budge. Ben-Gurion, obsessed by this issue, slipped into total paranoia, feeling that Kennedy's obstinance was a blatant threat to the very existence of Israel as a nation. Piper writes, "Ben-Gurion had devoted a lifetime creating a Jewish State and guiding it into the world arena. And, in Ben-Gurion's eyes, John F. Kennedy was an enemy of the Jewish people and his beloved state of Israel." He continues, "The 'nuclear option' was not only at the very core of Ben-Gurion's personal world view, but the very foundation of Israel's national security policy."
In one of his final communications with Kennedy, Ben-Gurion wrote: "Mr. President, my people have the right to exist.. . and this existence is in danger." It was at this time that Ben-Gurion demanded that Kennedy sign a security treaty with Israel. Kennedy refused.
Israel's Central Role in JFK Assassination, Who's Who in JFK Assassination
excerpted from the book
Final Judgment:
The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy
by Michael Collins Piper
excerpted from the book
Final Judgment:
The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy
by Michael Collins Piper
excerpted from the book
Final Judgment:
The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy
by Michael Collins Piper
excerpted from the book
Final Judgment:
The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy
by Michael Collins Piper
excerpted from the book
Final Judgment:
The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy
by Michael Collins Piper
excerpted from the book
Final Judgment:
The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy
by Michael Collins Piper
The Mossad Role In The JFK Assassination Conspiracy
by Michael Collins Piper
Thank you and bless you Michael Collins Piper for your insight and courage in pinning the tale on the donkey. May you rest in peace.
Some other books about Dimona and Israel acquiring hundreds of nuclear weapons:
by Avner Cohen
by Seymour M. Hersh
America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel
by Stephen Green
by Andrew and Leslie Cockburm
There's
A Fish In The Courthouse
by Gary Wean
For more see the comprehensive section:
Dimona Nuclear Reactor And David Ben-Gurion
December 20, 1960
What President-elect John Kennedy is planning to propose to Congress will be a test of his strategic guile.
President-elect John Kennedy sat down this evening with Vice-President-elect Lyndon Johnson and the Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn, at his father’s house in Palm Beach, Florida, to decide on the first legislation he will propose to the new Congress and the best strategy to win it.
The two tasks must always go hand in hand in a country where the “Opposition” is no single party but a dominating coalition of like-minded men in both parties. The next session of Congress will test the President’s strategic guile more than usual, because three of the four earliest bills he wants to bring up were strangled in the abortive emergency session of Congress called by Senator Johnson, then the Democratic leader, between the conventions and the election. They were:
Medical care for the aged, to be financed through the social security system;
A depressed areas bill;
A bill for federal aid to education; and
The raising of the minimum wage from $1 to $1.25...
A press conference given by President-elect John F. Kennedy at his father’s house in Palm Beach, Florida. Also attending the press conference are Vice President-elect Lyndon B. Johnson, Senator Mike Mansfield, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Sam Rayburn. President-elect Kennedy begins by announcing Vice President-elect Johnson as Chairman of the President’s Advisory Council on Space. The President-elect, Vice President-elect, Speaker Rayburn, and Senator Mansfield go on to answer questions from the press regarding the economy, the Federal budget, legislation, and potential changes to Congressional regulations.
December 25, 1960
President-elect John F. Kennedy and his wife entering his car after attending Christmas Day mass at St. Edwards Catholic Church, in Palm Beach, Florida.
A Daily Calendar of President Kennedy's Schedule Month by Month
January 9, 1961
Address of President-Elect John F. Kennedy Delivered to a Joint Convention of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The State House, Boston, January 9, 1961. Also know as the "City Upon a Hill" speech.
January 17, 1961
Farewell Address of President Eisenhower, the Military Industrial Complex speech.
Eisenhower Warns Us Of The Military Industrial Complex (2:30)
Eisenhower Farewell Address 'Military Industrial Complex' (Full Speech 16:14)
January 17, 1961
Prime Minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, is assassinated.
From, JFK’s Embrace of Third World Nationalists
by Jim DiEugenio
,,,In July 1960, Lumumba went to Washington to seek help in kicking the Belgians out. When Lumumba arrived, Eisenhower remained on a golfing trip in Newport, Rhode Island. And, it was clear from Lumumba’s discussion with other officials that America was not going to help him expel the Belgians. Then, Lumumba turned to the Russians, who did supply military assistance.
This development played into the hands of CIA Director Allen Dulles, who declared that the “communist” Lumumba must be removed. He was assassinated on January 17, 1961, apparently by a firing squad organized by Belgian officers and Katangan authorities (although his fate was covered up for several weeks).
There are some writers, like John Morton Blum and the late Jonathan Kwitny, who did not believe the timing of Lumumba’s murder to be a coincidence, just three days before Kennedy’s inauguration. It may have been done then because the CIA suspected that Kennedy would side with Lumumba, which, when his new plan for Congo was formulated, was clearly what JFK was going to do.
Kennedy decided to cooperate with Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold at the United Nations to try and save the country’s independence. Kennedy wanted to neutralize any East-West competition, to stop the creation of an economic puppet state in Katanga, and to free all political prisoners. Not knowing Lumumba was dead during the first weeks of his administration, Kennedy meant to restore Lumumba to power. If Lumumba’s death was accelerated to defeat an expected policy change by JFK, in practical terms, it was successful.
January 19, 1961
President-Elect John F. Kennedy Meets With President Dwight Eisenhower (2:38)
President-elect John F. Kennedy meets with President Dwight Eisenhower at the White House to discuss the transition.
January 20, 1961
At age 43, John F. Kennedy takes the oath of office to become the 35th president of the United States. Kennedy is sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. He is the youngest elected president, the first president to be Roman Catholic and of Irish ancestry on both his paternal and maternal sides. All four of his grandparents were the children of Irish immigrants.
In his widely praised inaugural speech, Kennedy speaks these famous words: "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." Kennedy also formally nominates his cabinet and attends the inaugural balls. He is congratulated by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
On January 20, 1961, I was three years and twelve days old. This day was the first memory that that I remember, and it left an indelible imprint on me. My maternal grandparents were both born in Ireland, and the paternal side of my family is also mostly Irish with some German and French (Alsace-Lorraine where my last name Elsis has its derivation). Therefore I am mostly Irish, and was also brought up as a Roman Catholic (that was until I became disillusioned at the age of eight and a third with the hypocrisy of the warmongering Cardinal Spellman, his mother was born a Jew, the daughter of a rabbi, and with what I perceived as the greed of the Church - Yes, I was a smart young boy). What I remember, is the excitement that was in my family home that day. Finally a Catholic who was also Irish had become President of the United Sates.
It's been more than 56 years since President John Fitzgerald Kennedy delivered his inaugural address, and his most famous section still resonates deeply with me now. "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."
This timeline is for my heroic, slain President, and to shine a laser beam on the enemy inside the gates of my country, which the overwhelming populace have been relentlessly fooled by all the media they own, into thinking they are our great allies.
Nantucket Nuclear Bunker Could Be New Kennedy Museum
by Peter Sutters
t the height of Cold War tensions, just after President John F. Kennedy was sworn into office, Nantucket’s small Navy base suddenly took on a much more important mission: sheltering the president and his family from radioactive fallout in the event of nuclear war.
There’s A Cold War-Era Bunker That Was Built To Shelter President Kennedy On Nantucket
by Emily Sweeney
Nantucket officials are considering whether to make a museum out of an underground military bunker that was reportedly built to shelter President John F. Kennedy from a nuclear attack.
Kennedy Bunker On Peanut Island Closing October 22, 2017
by Susan Salisbury
The Port of Palm Beach in Riviera Beach across from Peanut Island owns the 6 acres that are home to the bunker built in 1961 as a top-secret nuclear bomb shelter for Kennedy in case there was a nuclear attack while he was visiting his “Winter White House” - the Kennedy compound on the north end of Palm Beach. The port has leased the bunker to the Palm Beach Maritime Museum since 1992.
January 21, 1961
President Kennedy's remarks at the Swearing-In Ceremonies for his Cabinet (7:20)
The Cabinet is sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren.
January 21, 1961
President John F. Kennedy's first visitor to the White House is former President Harry S. Truman (1:14)
January 21, 1961
President John F. Kennedy at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee (6:21)
The President spoke in the East Room at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.
January 21, 1961
Kennedy issued Executive Order 10914 directing a doubling of the quantity of surplus food distributed to needy families. Kennedy also attends a meeting at the Democratic National Committee and hosts the swearing-in of his cabinet.
Kennedy meets with the poet Robert Frost.
President Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, and Paul B. Fay attend mass at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington, D.C.
January 22, 1961
Kennedy establishes the three-member Government Ethics Committee. Kennedy appoints Hickman Price, Jr. and Roland Burnstan as Assistant Commerce Secretaries.
January 23, 1961
Kennedy meets with several defense, foreign policy, and intelligence advisers, including Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, CIA Director Allen Dulles, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Lyman Lemnitzer. Kennedy nominates Frank Burton Ellis for a federal judgeship on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
January 24, 1961
Kennedy issued Executive Order 10915; Amending Prior Executive Orders to Provide for the Responsibilities of the Director of the Food-for-Peace Program. Kennedy meets with then-former Congressman (later Senator) George McGovern of South Dakota. He is presented plans for what would become the Food for Peace program and designates McGovern Director.
January 24, 1961
Kennedy meets with Democratic legislative leaders, and receives a tour of the shelter areas of the White House from Naval Aide, Cmdr. Tazewell Shepard.
January 25, 1961
Kennedy holds his first regular live televised press conference in the State Department Auditorium. He announces the release of two surviving USAF crewman by the Soviet Union after being captured when their RB-47 Stratojet was shot down on July 1, 1960.
Clip from President John F. Kennedy's first News Conference (2:04)
JFK Holds First Televised News Conference, January 25, 1961
by Andrew Glass
Kennedy meets with Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Oval Office of the White House:
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Lyman Lemnitzer
Chief of Staff of the United States Army General George H. Decker
Chief of Staff of the United States Navy Admiral Arleigh A. Burke
Commandant of the United States Marine Corps General David M. Shoup
Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force General Thomas D. White
January 30, 1961
John F. Kennedy delivers his first State of the Union address to a Joint session of the United States Congress. He asks Congress to include health insurance in the Social Security Program.
President Makes First "State Of The Union" Speech (Video 3:12)
John F. Kennedy State of the Union Address, January 30, 1961 (Audio 43 minutes)
January 1961 - July 1962
The Laos Crisis was a deteriorating political situation that posed a serious concern in United States foreign policy when President John F. Kennedy took office. After the surrender of the Japanese in World War II, the French attempted to reassert dominion over Laos and the rest of French Indochina, which included Vietnam and Cambodia. The Communist Laotian nationalist movement, the Pathet Lao, was an ally of the Vietnamese in the struggle with France. After the French were defeated by the Vietnamese, the Geneva Accords of 1954 established the sovereignty of Laos. Civil war soon broke out, however, as the Royal Lao government, supported by the United States, fought Pathet Lao insurgents, supported by the Communists in neighboring North Vietnam.
President Kennedy holds his second presidential news conference; he announces the establishment of five pilot food stamp distribution projects. He later meets with economic and budget advisers. President Kennedy holds the first meeting of the National Security Council and sends a letter to Defense Secretary McNamara marking the scheduled launch of the USS Sam Houston (SSBN-609) the next day.
President Kennedy meets with NATO Supreme Allied Commander Lauris Norstad, Joint Chiefs Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, and later with his cabinet.
February 2, 1961
Kennedy appoints Burke Marshall as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, David K. E. Bruce as Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
February 2, 1961
Kennedy telegrams the mayors of 297 cities urging an increase in urban renewal activities. President asks Congress for program to help end recession, including food stamps, extended benefits for unemployed workers and welfare payments for their children.
February 3, 1961
President Kennedy meets with Ambassador to Laos Winthrop G. Brown. Kennedy and Paul B. Fay attend the movie Spartacus at the Warner Theater. After meeting with Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary Abraham A. Ribicoff, Kennedy orders money and surplus food totaling $4 million for Cuban refugees in fiscal year 1961.
February 9, 1961
President requests legislation assisting medical and dental colleges and students.
President warns Soviets to avoid interfering with United Nations pacification of the Congo.
February 22, 1961
President Kennedy sent Premier Nikita Khrushchev a letter stating, “I hope it will be possible, before too long, for us to meet personally for an informal exchange of views.” This was the first time either man suggested a diplomatic meeting. Kennedy felt “that if he could just sit down with Khrushchev” the two leaders could work out their inter-state conflicts. From this letter the Vienna summit soon became a reality.
See: June 3, 1961 - June 4, 1961
March 1, 1961
Emphasizing the theme of public service in his inaugural address, President Kennedy issued Executive Order 10924, establishing the Peace Corps on a "temporary pilot basis". Kennedy also sends to Congress a message requesting authorization of the Peace Corps as a permanent organization. He appoints Sargent Shriver to head the organization. President Kennedy holds his fifth presidential news conference. President Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt make a tape recording promoting the Youth Peace Corps. President Kennedy records a message for the American Red Cross. President Kennedy signs into law a joint resolution (H.J. Res. 155) to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first inauguration of Abraham Lincoln on March 4, 1861, (PL87-1).
March 4, 1961
President Kennedy appoints R. Sargent Shriver to head the Peace Corps.
March 4, 1961
President Kennedy dines at the home of his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and meets with Ambassador to the United Kingdom David K. E. Bruce.
March 4, 1961
President Kennedy meets with Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Walter Heller.
March 13, 1961
President John F. Kennedy proposes the Alliance for Progress in Washington DC. President proposes a long-term Alliance for Progress between the United States and Latin America, emphasizing democratic reform and economic development.
March 15, 1961
President John F. Kennedy's 7th News Conference
President calls for long-term Foreign Aid program with new emphasis on self help.
March 23, 1961
President warns Communists that cease fire must precede negotiations for a neutral and independent Laos.
March 28, 1961
President initiates the largest and most rapid defense buildup in United States' peacetime history, doubling Polaris missile program, increasing armed bomber and other missile programs, adding five combat ready divisions and quadrupling anti-guerilla forces.
April 1, 1961
Kennedy meets with Secretary of State Dean Rusk on the Laos crisis.
Kennedy declares parts of eastern Iowa flooded by the Cedar River to be a major disaster area.
April 2, 1961
Kennedy meets with journalists Albert Merriman Smith and Marvin Arrowsmith.
April 2, 1961
The First Family view the film, All in a Night's Work.
April 7, 1961
President Kennedy called on Congress to endorse an international effort to preserve the ancient temples in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. The monuments were threatened by the impending construction of the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River.
April 8, 1961
President John F. Kennedy Meets with Helen Keller
President John F. Kennedy meets with Helen Keller in the Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C.
President Kennedy Meets Helen Keller (:29)
April 8, 1961
President John F. Kennedy's and Harold Macmillan's remarks after their meeting (2:04)
Remarks at the Reading of the Joint Statement Following Discussions With British Prime Minister Macmillan.
President John F. Kennedy:
"We are delighted that I had a chance to see him again after our very satisfactory talk in Florida. Each one of our meetings I think has increased the degree of cohesion which exists and must exist between his country and the United States, and therefore I must say, as these talks come to a conclusion, I think I express the sentiment of all of the Americans who participated, our great appreciation to the Prime Minister, to his Secretary of State, Lord Home, and to the other delegates for another happy milestone in the long series of meetings which have existed between the United States and Great Britain in previous years."
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan:
"This has been a very happy visit. I am delighted that we have been able in your own words, to make a friendship both private and public which I feel certain will be good for both our countries and for the future of all the free world. You, Mr. President, have shown me in particular so many acts of kindness in these days that I really hardly know how to thank you. It has been quite an experience over the last to days. I came to lunch with you at Key West, 3,600 miles altogether - very good lunch it was, though. And then, come a week after, here you have given me helicopters and every possible convenience - taken me boating - and everything. But the point is we have had just friendly talks, sometimes in private and sometimes with our collaborators, which is the basis of confidence that I hope and feel is established between us. And on that friendship I trust that we shall long be able to work for the benefit of our countries and for all the world. I thank you most warmly."
April 12, 1961
On April 12, 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. During the flight, the 27-year-old test pilot and industrial technician also became the first man to orbit the planet, a feat accomplished by his space capsule in 89 minutes. Vostok 1 orbited Earth at a maximum altitude of 187 miles and was guided entirely by an automatic control system. The only statement attributed to Gagarin during his one hour and 48 minutes in space was, “Flight is proceeding normally; I am well.”
Yuri Gagarin - Vostok 1 - April 12 1961 (3:00)
April 15, 1961 - April 20, 1961
A U.S.-sponsored invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs fails. With inadequate support and facing an overwhelming force, the CIA-trained brigade of anti-Castro exiles is defeated in a few days. Kennedy takes responsibility for the disaster.
Unhappy with Fidel Castro and the direction he was taking Cuba in, the United States government under President Eisenhower began plotting Castro's demise. This included assassination plots and also a plan for a CIA-trained group of Cuban exiles to invade the island.
The training of the exiles, which took place in Guatemala, did not achieve sufficient results to launch the invasion before the 1960 U.S. elections, which saw the defeat of Vice-President Richard Nixon to John F. Kennedy. Kennedy had used the "Cuba issue" in his campaign, and inherited a plan which the CIA assured him would succeed. Kennedy and his aides forced some modifications to the plan, to try to ensure that the invasion would not be perceived as led by the United States. This included relocating the landing location to an area known as the "Bay of Pigs."
On April 17, 1961, approximately 1,400 exiles landed at Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) on the southern coast of Cuba. Their mission was to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro by inciting revolt among the Cuban people. They were quickly overwhelmed by Cuban military forces, with many killed and the bulk of the men captured. President Kennedy refused to order additional air strikes, beyond some initial sorties which had failed to disable the Cuban air force, and for this some attribute the operation's failure to Kennedy.
An internal CIA investigation conducted in 1961 and finally declassified in 1998 put the blame squarely on the CIA's shoulders (though it is accompanied by a scathing rebuttal written by Deputy Director Tracey Barnes). In hindsight, the plan seems so unlikely to succeed that some speculate that CIA planners must have counted on some other factor - possibly the simultaneous assassination of Fidel Castro. Or, perhaps the planners were counting on President Kennedy, faced with impending failure, to send in the U.S. military to rescue the situation. Instead, Kennedy accepted a humilating defeat, soon moved to take military operations out of the hands of the CIA, and obtained the resignations of high-level CIA officials including Director Allen Dulles and covert action head Richard Bissell.
April 17, 1961
The Bay of Pigs: On April 17, 1961, 1,400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba.
April 19, 1961
The invasion of Cuba fails and results in a Cuban revolutionary victory. Kennedy's administration is severely embarrassed, so much so that Kennedy supposedly stated he wanted to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the wind."
April 19, 1961
President Kennedy's Remarks to Jacques Yves Cousteau in the Rose Garden (1:34)
Remarks Upon Awarding the National Geographic Society Gold Medal to Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
"I Want To Say that it is a great pleasure and honor to participate in this event sponsored by the National Geographic, which has been a great American institution, and which has advanced our information on a whole variety of horizons in the last years. And I can think of no more felicitous award than this to the Captain. We have learned in the last 60 years how to fly better than the birds - or at least higher and longer. And the Captain has given us a possibility that some day we may swim as well as the fish - or at least deeper. And he is, therefore, one of the great explorers of an entirely new dimension, and I can imagine his satisfaction in having opened up the ocean floor to man and to science. And therefore I present the National Geographic Society Gold Medal Award to Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau, undersea pioneer to earth-bound man, who gave the key to the silent world, April 19, 1961. I congratulate also your wife, the representatives of France, the Ambassador, Mrs. Alphand, and your country, and you, and the Geographic."
The presentation was made in the Rose Garden at the White House. At the conclusion of his remarks the President referred to Hervé Alphand, the French Ambassador, and Mme. Alphand.
President assumes responsibility for failed Bay of Pigs invasion, says policies and procedures will be changed.
April 20, 1961
President Kennedy speech on the Bay of Pigs Invasion (13:24)
President Kennedy spoke to the Society of Newspaper Editors about events in Cuba, which later became known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion. He emphasized that Cuban “patriots” had taken up arms against Fidel Castro’s Revolutionary Government and that the U.S. armed forces were not involved, despite sympathizing with their cause. He also talked about the greater threat of global communist expansion and the American role in resisting such expansion.
For more see the comprehensive section: Bay of Pigs
April 21, 1961
President Kennedy News Conference (33:05)
President Kennedy delivered a press conference. Four days earlier 1500 Cuban exiles had invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. President Kennedy would not respond to media questions about the conflict saying that his statement of the previous day would suffice for now. He announced that the Peace Corps was proceeding with its first project in Tanganyika. He answered questions about the John Birch Society, the space budget, agriculture automation, the hope for a cease-fire in Laos, and other topics.
April 21, 1961 - April 26, 1961
The Algiers putsch, also known as the Generals' putsch, was a failed coup d'état to overthrow French President Charles de Gaulle and establish a military junta. Evidence suggests that Allen Dulles, the United States Director of the CIA, and his numerous contacts deep within the French government, helped orchestrate the plot.
A “Nuclear Coup”? France, the Algerian War and the April 1961 Nuclear Test
by Bruno Tertrais
1960-1966, Algeria: The Generals' Plot Against de Gaulle
by William Blum
Fifty-five Years Ago: Attempt to Overthrow France’s Charles De Gaulle.
JFK Assassination Plot Mirrored In 1961 France: Part 1
French Right Wing, CIA Join Forces Against de Gaulle
by David Talbot
JFK Assassination Plot Mirrored In France: Part 2CIA, Right Wing: No Match for Millions of French Who Love de Gaulle
by David Talbot
JFK Assassination Plot Mirrored In 1961 France: Part 3
Assassination Attempts, Killings on the Streets of Paris, Purges
by David Talbot
April 27, 1961
Address, "The President and the Press," (Audio 19:37)
Before The American Newspaper Publishers Association
Sound recording of President John F. Kennedy’s address to the American Newspaper Publishers Association at a Bureau of Advertising dinner held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. In his speech President Kennedy addresses his discontent with the press’s news coverage of the Bay of Pigs incident, suggesting that there is a need for “far greater public information” and “far greater official secrecy.”
"The President and the Press" (Text)
Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association
"The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society;
and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies,
to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings."
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
May 1, 1961
President signs long-sought Area Redevelopment Act. A bill to aid communities with chronic unemployment.
President John F Kennedy signs the Area Redevelopment Act (:40)
"I want to commend the Members of the House and Senate who've been identified with this issue for a number of years, and they surround me here on both sides. I want to congratulate them and to say that there's no piece of legislation which has been passed which gives me greater satisfaction to sign."
Alan Shepard is launched on Freedom 7 on a sub-orbital spaceflight aboard a Mercury-Redstone rocket, and becomes the first American in outer space, a month after the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had earned the distinction as the first person in space. After roughly four hours of delays, the flight takes off, traveled more than 300 miles, lasts 15 minutes 22 seconds, and reaches an apogee of 187.42 kilometres (116.46 mi), and a maximum speed of 8,277 kilometres per hour (5,143 mph) (Mach 6.94). Shepard came down in the Atlantic Ocean near the Bahamas, where he was picked up by the aircraft carrier Lake Champlain.
Alan Shepard: Mercury Freedom 7 (9:04)
May 8, 1961
Kennedy meets with Alan Shepard at the White House, to congratulate him on becoming the first American in space. He awards him the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in a ceremony on the White House lawn. The six other Mercury Seven astronauts attend the ceremony, the next of which, Gus Grissom, would launch into space less than three months later.
President John F. Kennedy presents medal to Astronaut Alan B. Shepard (:57)
Three days after astronaut Commander Alan B. Shepard became the first American in space, he was awarded with a NASA Distinguished Service Medal by President John F. Kennedy at a Rose Garden Ceremony at the White House. With Shepard were his wife and his parents. Also present were Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and John Glenn. Caroline Kennedy watched from the balcony. Also clips of Louise Brewer Shepard and Jacqueline Kennedy in the Green Room at the Reception following the presentation.
President Kennedy meets NASA Astronauts in his office at the White House (:40)
President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Johnson meet Commander Alan Shepard, Jr., Lt. Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr., Lt. Commander Malcolm S. Carpenser, Captain Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr., Lt. Commander Walter M. Schirra, Jr. and Major Donald K. Slayton in the President's office in the White House after the ceremony in the Rose Garden, where the President presented the Distinguished Service Medal of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to Commander Shepard.
May 16, 1961 - May 18, 1961
Kennedy makes the first international trip of his presidency, traveling to Ottawa, Canada, for a state visit. There he meets with Canadian Governor General Georges Vanier and Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.
President John F. Kennedy's visit to Canada (3:50)
May 17, 1961
Kennedy addresses the Canadian parliament.
President John F. Kennedy and wife Jacqueline in the Canadian Parliament (5:20)
U.S. President John F. Kennedy at the Chamber of the Speaker of the House of Commons where he addresses the Senate and the House of Commons of Canada. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy is conducted to the Speaker's private sitting room.
May 25, 1961
Kennedy in an address to a Joint session of the United States Congress, announces full presidential support for the goal to "commit...before this decade is out, to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" and urges Congress to appropriate the necessary funds, eventually consuming the largest financial expenditure of any nation in peacetime.
John F. Kennedy "Landing a man on the Moon" Address to Congress (Video 3:46)
In an address to a Joint session of the United States Congress on May 25, 1961, Kennedy announces full presidential support for the goal to "commit...before this decade is out, to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" and urges Congress to appropriate the necessary funds, eventually consuming the largest financial expenditure of any nation in peacetime.
President Kennedy Addresses Congress (May 25, 1961) (Audio 45:42)
President Kennedy learned of Rafael Trujillo's (who ruled the Dominican Republic from February 1930 until his assassination in May 1961) assassination during a diplomatic meeting with French President Charles de Gaulle.
President Kennedy Is Said to Have Tried to Stop Assassination of Trujillo
by Nicholas M. Horrock
White House officials under President Kennedy made an abortive, last-minute attempt to stop the assassination of the Dominican Republic dictator, General Rafael Trujillo Molina, according to former intelligence officers and current Government sources.
A cable was sent from the National Security Council, which is the President's arm for directing foreign affairs, to the station chief of the Central Intelligence Agency in Ciudad Trujillo (now Santo Domingo) the day before a group of Dominicans killed General Trujillo in an ambush outside the capital.
It informed the C.I.A. official that the United States could not condone an attempt to overthrow General Trujillo's Government and was based on information from the Dominican Republic that assassination was part of the plot to remove the Trujillo dictatorship...
William C. Bishop, a CIA contract agent, U.S. Army colonel, and confessed political assassin - will assert to assassination researchers in 1990 that one of his CIA assignments was the assassination of Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1961.
Kennedy makes the second international trip of his presidency.
President Kennedy’s Trip to Europe, May 30, 1961 - June 5, 1961
This segment features archival footage covering highlights of President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 trip to Europe. Included are scenes of President and Mrs. Kennedy in Paris, France; President Kennedy meeting over two days with the Soviet Union's Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev in Vienna, Austria; and President Kennedy and meeting British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, in London, England. The footage is narrated by Kennedy Library Director Tom Putnam.
Kennedy addresses North Atlantic Council, and meets with French President Charles de Gaulle in Paris, France.
President John F. Kennedy in Paris, France (9:30)
May 31, 1961
President and Mrs. Kennedy are given a state dinner at the Élysée Palace in Paris.
June 1, 1961
President Kennedy meets with his advisers and with Ambassador to France, General James Gavin.
President Kennedy addresses the staff of the U.S Embassy in Paris, a civic reception at the Hotel de Ville, and the North Atlantic Council.
Meeting with President de Gaulle at the Élysée Palace.
President and Mrs. Kennedy are welcomed by departmental and municipal officials at the Hotel De Ville. The President makes brief remarks.
President and Mrs. Kennedy host a luncheon for President de Gaulle at the American Embassy.
President Kennedy addresses NATO officials and personnel at the NATO Headquarters building at Porte Dauphine.
President and Mrs. Kennedy are given a State Dinner in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles.
June 2, 1961
President Kennedy visits SHAPE headquarters where he is greeted by Supreme Allied Commander Lauris Norstadt and makes brief remarks.
President Kennedy and President Charles de Gaulle conclude three days of discussions at the Élysée Palace. In a joint communiqué both leaders declare that they are in firm agreement on the defense of Berlin.
June 3, 1961
President Kennedy and his party depart Paris.
June 3, 1961
Kennedy meets with Austrian President Adolf Schärf.(3:21)
US President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at a gala dinner in Vienna's palace Schönbrunn. The Austrian government is hosting a banquet for the visiting American and Russian leaders. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy is wearing a dress designed by Oleg Cassini in shell pink silk-georgette chiffon, embroidered with sequins. Nina Khrushchev, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Austrian President Adolf Schaerf, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and U.S. first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, at Schoenbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria. The Vienna State Opera Ballet dances a waltz.
June 3, 1961 - June 4, 1961
President Kennedy meets with Khrushchev of the Soviet Union in Vienna for a the two day summit. The conference fails to resolve conflict over the status of Berlin. The focus of the meeting is disarmament, Germany, Laos and nuclear testing. They fail to agree on certain problems but issue a joint statement that they agrees to "maintain contact on all questions of interest to the two countries and for the whole world." On August 13, 1961, the Soviets start to build a wall between East and West Berlin.
John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev meet at US Embassy, Vienna, Austria (2:43)
The historic first meeting between President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the American ambassador's residence in Vienna, Austria, June 3, 1961.
John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev meets at the Embassy of the USSR (2:16)
The second meeting between President John F. Kennedy meets Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Embassy of the Soviet Union, Vienna, Austria on June 4, 1961.
...In June 1961, Kennedy met with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, Austria. (See a memorandum outlining the main points of conversation between President Kennedy and Khrushchev at their first lunch meeting.) Kennedy was surprised by Khrushchev's combative tone during the summit. At one point, Khrushchev threatened to cut off AlliedUS Information Agency Incoming Telegram access to Berlin. The Soviet leader pointed out the Lenin Peace Medals he was wearing, and Kennedy answered, "I hope you keep them." Just two months later, Khrushchev ordered the construction of the Berlin Wall to stop the flood of East Germans into West Germany.
As a result of these threatening developments, Kennedy ordered substantial increases in American intercontinental ballistic missile forces. He also added five new army divisions and increased the nation's air power and military reserves. The Soviets meanwhile resumed nuclear testing and President Kennedy responded by reluctantly reactivating American tests in early 1962...
June 5, 1961
President Kennedy visits with British Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in London, England.
June 4, 1961 - June 5, 1961 - John F. Kennedy arriving in London (7:21)
June 4, 1961
President and Mrs. Kennedy fly to London for a personal visit at the home of the Radziwills (Lee Radziwill is the sister of Jacqueline Kennedy).
June 5, 1961
President Kennedy and Prime Minister Macmillan meet at London's Admiralty House to review the world situation. Both leaders express satisfaction with the agreement in Vienna on the need for a Laotian cease fire. Both also express "full agreement on the necessity of maintaining the rights and obligations of the allied governments in Berlin."
President and Mrs. Kennedy attend the christening ceremonies of the Radziwill's newborn child in Westminster Cathedral.
President and Mrs. Kennedy are the guests of Queen Elizabeth II for a private dinner in their honor at Buckingham Palace
President Kennedy leaves London for Washington and Mrs. Kennedy remains at her sister Lee Radziwill's home before flying to Greece and then returning to Washington.
June 5, 1961
President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan meet at Admiralty House (:58)
President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy leaving London's Admiralty House with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and wife Dorothy. The Macmillans' entertained the visiting president and his wife to luncheon.
June 5, 1961
President John F. Kennedy's Remarks to the Staff of the US Embassy in London, England (5:51)
Late at night on June 5, 1961, on the plane flight back to Washington from his Vienna meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, a weary President Kennedy wrote down on a slip of paper as he was about to fall asleep, a favorite saying of his from Abraham Lincoln, really a prayer. Presidential secretary Evelyn Lincoln discovered the slip of paper on the floor. On it she read the words: “I know there is a God, and I see a storm coming. If he has a place for me, I believe that I am ready.”
June 6, 1961
Telegram relaying Khrushchev's comments about meeting President Kennedy. Khrushchev commented that President Kennedy was "tough, very forthright and extremely intelligent."
June 6, 1961
President Kennedy delivers a major radio and television report to the American people on his trip to Europe centering on his talks in Vienna with Soviet Premier Khrushchev.
John F. Kennedy report to the American people on his trip to Europe (5:00)
'' I returned this morning from a weeklong trip to Europe and I want to report to you on that trip in full. It was in every sense an unforgettable experience. The people of Paris, of Vienna, of London, were generous in their greeting. They were heartwarming in their hospitality, and their graciousness to my wife is particularly appreciated. We knew of course that the crowds and the shouts were meant in large measure for the country that we represented, which is regarded as the chief defender of freedom. Equally memorable was the pageantry of European history and their culture that is very much a part of any ceremonial reception, to lay a wreath at the Arc de Triomphe, to dine at Versailles, and Schönbrunn Palace, and with the Queen of England. These are the colorful memories that will remain with us for many years to come. Each of the three cities that we visited - Paris, Vienna, and London - have existed for many centuries, and each serves as a reminder that the Western civilization that we seek to preserve has flowered over many years, and has defended itself over many centuries. But this was not a ceremonial trip. Two aims of American foreign policy, above all others, were the reason for the trip: the unity of the free world, whose strength is the security of us all, and the eventual achievement of a lasting peace. My trip was devoted to the advancement of these two aims. To strengthen the unity of the West, our journey opened in Paris and closed in London. My talks with General de Gaulle were profoundly encouraging to me. Certain differences in our attitudes on one or another problem became insignificant in view of our common commitment to defend freedom. Our alliance, I believe, became more secure; the friendship of our nation, I hope - with theirs - became firmer; and the relations between the two of us who bear responsibility became closer, and I hope were marked by confidence. I found General de Gaulle far more interested in our frankly stating our position, whether or not it was his own, than in appearing to agree with him when we do not. But he knows full well the true meaning of an alliance. He is after all the only major leader of World War II who still occupies a position of great responsibility. His life has been one of unusual dedication; he is a man of extraordinary personal character, symbolizing the new strength and the historic grandeur of France. Throughout our discussions he took the long view of France and the world at large. I found him a wise counselor for the future, and an informative guide to the history that he has helped to make. Thus we had a valuable meeting. I believe that certain doubts and suspicions that might have come up in along time - I believe were removed on both sides. Problems which proved to be not of substance but of wording or procedure were cleared away. No question, however sensitive, was avoided. No area of interest was ignored, and the conclusions that we reached will be important for the future - in our agreement on defending Berlin, on working to improve the defenses of Europe, on aiding the economic and political independence of the underdeveloped world, including Latin America, on spurring European economic unity, on concluding successfully the conference on Laos, and on closer consultations and solidarity in the Western alliance. General de Gaulle could not have been more cordial, and I could not have more confidence in any man.''
June 12, 1961
President Kennedy flies back to Washington D.C. from Palm Beach. Kennedy returns on crutches from a rest to meet Italian Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani to begin two days of discussions.
June 20, 1961
President Kennedy meets with Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda of Japan.
President John F. Kennedy Meets with Hayato Ikeda, Prime Minister of Japan
Meeting with the Prime Minister of Japan Hayato Ikeda. (L-R) President John F. Kennedy, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Zentaro Kosaka, Prime Minister Ikeda, United States Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer, interpreter James J. Wickel. Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C.
President John F. Kennedy meets with Hayato Ikeda, Prime Minister of Japan (1:00)
U.S. President John F. Kennedy walks on crutches as he leaves his limousine to board the presidential yacht "Honey Fitz" for a cruise down the Potomac River with Japanese Prime Minister Ikeda, in Washington on June 21, 1961. President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister of Japan Hayato Ikeda aboard President Kennedy's yacht "Honey Fitz." Hains Point, Potomac River, Washington, D.C.
June 23, 1961 - Prime Minister of Japan Hayato Ikeda pays a farewell call on President John F. Kennedy. Yellow Oval Room, White House, Washington, D.C.
June 21, 1961
My mother told a story, says Caroline Kennedy; She was sitting next to Khrushchev at a state dinner in Vienna, on June 3, 1961. She ran out of things to talk about, so she asked about the dog, Strelka, that the Russians had shot into space. During the conversation, my mother asked about Strelka's puppies. Soon after a puppy arrived at the White House, the puppy was Strelka's daughter, Pushinka. Kennedy's letter from June 21, 1961, to Khrushchev thanking him for the gift of Pushinka is one of many letters exchanged between the leaders.
June 28, 1961
The first extremely important step for President John Fitzgerald Kennedy to reign in the Central Intelligence Agency was to issue, National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) NSAM 55, 57 an 57 on June 28, 1961.
Following the failed Bay of Pigs (See April 15, 1961 - April 20, 1961), the failed Algiers putsch against President of France, Charles de Gaulle (See April 21, 1961 - April 26, 1961), and the January 17, 1961, assassination of Prime Minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, just three days before his presidential inauguration (See January 17, 1961).
John M. Newman writes, "The crux of NSAM 55, however, was this: Kennedy charged the Joint Chiefs with responsibility for 'defense of the nation in the Cold War' and 'dynamic and imaginative leadership... of military and paramilitary aspects of Cold War programs.' This mandate was big news, since cold war paramilitary operations were, up to this moment, the exclusive fiefdom of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)."
NSAM 55, 57 and 57 stripped the CIA of its cherished covert operations role, except for small actions. It cut out the red tape that normally would hinder such an endeavor.
Many military historians of the Kennedy era, most notably, John M. Newman and Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty (Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Kennedy) have written that JFK was trying to reign in the power of the CIA throughout most of his abbreviated term in office. Some have wondered, in the context of an evolving Cuba policy and a planned withdrawal from Vietnam, both hot spots for CIA activities, if this may have been the motivation for his assassination.
See: November 28, 1961 - November 29, 1961: JFK fires Allan Dulles. Deputy Director for Plans Richard M. Bissell, Jr., and Deputy Director General Charles Cabell.
President Kennedy signs bill extending Social Security benefits to five million people and permitting people to retire with benefits at age 62.
President Kennedy signs most comprehensive Housing Bill in history, initiating aid to middle income families and mass transportation users, and increasing urban renewal and elderly housing.
June 30, 1961
President John F. Kennedy Signs the Housing Act of 1961 (:30)
President John F. Kennedy signs into law an omnibus housing bill to authorize a thirty-year low interest rate mortgage loan program for moderate income families, and an increase of $300 million for loans for construction of college housing through 1964.
Remarks Upon Signing the Housing Act
I want to express our pleasure in signing S. 1922, the Housing Act of 1961. This bill is the most important and far-reaching Federal legislation in the field of housing since the enactment of the Housing Act of 1949. For the communities of the Nation, large and small, it provides an opportunity for a giant step toward better cities and improved housing. And I think the beneficial effects of this legislation will be felt by every American...
President Kennedy signs bill doubling Federal effort to halt water pollution.
July 12, 1961
President Kennedy meets with President Ayub Khan of Pakistan at the White House.
July 20, 1961
Studies by Once Top Secret Government Entity Portrayed Terrible Costs of Nuclear War
Reports of the Net Evaluation Subcommittee
On the morning of July 20, 1961, while the Berlin Crisis was simmering, President John F. Kennedy and the members of the National Security Council (NSC) heard a briefing on the consequences of nuclear war by the NSC's highly secret Net Evaluation Subcommittee. The report, published in excerpts today for the first time by the National Security Archive, depicted a Soviet surprise attack on the United States in the fall of 1963 that began with submarine-launched missile strikes against Strategic Air Command bases. An estimated 48 to 71 million Americans were "killed outright," while at its maximum casualty-producing radioactive fallout blanketed from 45 to 71 percent of the nation's residences. In the USSR and China, at the end of one month 67 and 76 million people, respectively, had been killed. This was President Kennedy's first exposure to a NESC report, but the secret studies of nuclear war scenarios had been initiated by his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower.
It may have been after this National Security Council briefing, described by Secretary of State Dean Rusk as "an awesome experience," that a dismayed Kennedy turned to Rusk, and said: "And we call ourselves the human race."
From: Did The U.S. Military Plan A Nuclear First Strike For 1963? (Fall1994)
by James Galbraith and Heather Purcell
Recently declassified information shows that the military presented President Kennedy with a plan for a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union in the early 1960s...
...beginning in 1957 the U.S. military did prepare plans for a preemptive nuclear strike against the U.S.S.R., based on our growing lead in land-based missiles. And top military and intelligence leaders presented an assessment of those plans to President John F. Kennedy in July of 1961. At that time, some high Air Force and CIA leaders apparently believed that a window of outright ballistic missile superiority, perhaps sufficient for a successful first strike, would be open in late 1963.
The document reproduced opposite is published here for the first time. It describes a meeting of the National Security Council on July 20, 1961. At that meeting, the document shows, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the director of the CIA, and others presented plans for a surprise attack. They answered some questions from Kennedy about timing and effects, and promised further information. The meeting recessed under a presidential injunction of secrecy that has not been broken until now...
...In 1960, claims of a "missile gap" favoring the Soviets had given the Democrats a critical election theme, and many millions of Americans entered the Sixties feeling intensely vulnerable to the new Soviet ICBM threat. But as Richard Reeves has recently written, intelligence based on satellites launched in August of 1960 soon challenged the campaign assessment and public view. The United States had beaten the USSR to an operational ICBM and enjoyed a clear, and growing, numerical advantage. We were far ahead, and our military planners knew it.
Kennedy was quickly convinced of this truth, which was further confirmed as new satellites brought back new information. Later in 1961, a National Intelligence Estimate came through showing only four Soviet ICBMs in place, all of them on low alert at a test site called Plesetsk. By fall, Defense Undersecretary Roswell Gilpatric would acknowledge in a public speech that U.S. forces (with 185 ICBMs and over 3,400 deliverable nuclear bombs at that time) were vastly superior to those of the Russians...
July 25, 1961
President Kennedy tells nation of determination to deter war in West Berlin, increasing military might and manpower; Soviet deadline for East German Treaty subsequently passes.
August 7, 1961
President Kennedy signs first of three bills creating National Seashore Parks, the first major addition to the National Park System in 16 years. On August 7, 1961, he established the Cape Cod National Seashore.
National Parks Servive milestone: Exploring the National Seashore’s watery roots
by Don Wilding
...The Cape Cod National Seashore was signed into law on Aug. 7, 1961, by Kennedy, who became president seven months earlier. A “Mission 66” hallmark was the visitors center. The Cape now has two visitors centers, Salt Pond in Eastham and Province Lands in Provincetown. The park, with numerous selling points, now draws over 4 million visitors annually...
President Kennedy signs most comprehensive wheat and feed grain bill since 1938, resulting in higher farm income and lower food surpluses.
August 11, 1961
NSAM 65, Joint Program of Action with the Government of Vietnam to Secretary of State Dean Rusk from McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
August 13, 1961 - November 9, 1961
By July 1961 American officials estimated that over 1,000 East German refugees were crossing into West Berlin each day, an economic and demographic drain that, left unchecked, would spell disaster for the East.
The Berlin Crisis was the last major politico-military European incident of the Cold War about the occupational status of the German capital city, Berlin, and of post–World War II Germany. The USSR provoked the Berlin Crisis with an ultimatum demanding the withdrawal of Western armed forces from West Berlin, culminating in the city's de facto partition with the East German erection of the Berlin Wall staring on August 13, 1961.
At Checkpoint Charlie, on October 27, 1961 at 17:00 until October 28, 1961 at about 11:00, a 16 hour standoff between United States and Soviet troops on either side of the diplomatic checkpoint led to one of the tensest moments of the Cold War in Europe. A dispute over whether East German or Soviet guards were authorized to patrol the checkpoints and examine the travel documents of U.S. diplomats passing through led the United States to station tanks on its side of the checkpoint, pointing toward the East German troops just beyond the wall. Concerns that U.S. forces would either attempt to take down the wall or force their way through the checkpoint led the Soviet Union to station its own tanks on the East German side. A wrong move during the face-off could have led to war, and any conventional skirmish between two nuclear powers always brought with it the risk of escalation. Instead, Kennedy made use of back channels to suggest that Khrushchev remove his tanks, promising that if the Soviet Union did so, the U.S. Army would reciprocate. The standoff ended peacefully.
For more see the comprehensive section: Berlin Crisis
August 13, 1961
East Germany, supported by the Soviet Union, begins construction of the Berlin Wall, halting the flow of refugees to the West.
August 17, 1961
The Alliance for Progress was signed at an inter-American conference at Punta del Este, Uruguay, in August 1961. To advance the work of the Alliance, President and Mrs. Kennedy visited Puerto Rico, Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia, while the president joined all six presidents of Central American governments at an unprecedented meeting in Costa Rica. In ceremonies at the White House, the president and first lady honored the presidents of Peru, Brazil, Panama, Colombia, Honduras, Chile, Venezuela and Bolivia, and Governor Muñoz Marín of Puerto Rico.
September - October 1961
President John F. Kennedy - September - October 1961
September 12, 1961 - Meeting with President Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia and President Modibo Keita of Mali.
October 6, 1961 - Meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.
October 7, 1961 - President Kennedy flies to Quonset Point Rhode Island and arrives at Hammersmith Farm, Newport, Rhode Island. The President cruises aboard the Honey Fitz with Jacqueline and Caroline Kennedy.
October 19, 1961 - President Kennedy welcomes President William Tubman of Liberia.
Kennedy Wins Minimum Wage Victory
Making due on his campaign promise of August 10, 1960, President Kennedy signs $1.25 Minimum Wage Bill, expanding coverage by several million for the first time since original passage.
September 18, 1961
Dag Hammarskjöld killed [or Murdered] in a plane crash. President John F. Kennedy called Hammarskjöld "the greatest statesman of our century." Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (July 29 1905 - September 18, 1961) was a Swedish diplomat, economist, and author, who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash on September 18, 1961.
At the age of 56 years and 255 days, Hammarskjöld was the youngest to have held the post. Additionally, he is one of only four people to be awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize and was the only United Nations Secretary-General to die while in office.
He was killed in a Douglas DC-6 airplane crash en route to cease-fire negotiations. Hammarskjöld has been referred to as one of the two best secretaries-general, and his appointment has been mentioned as the most notable success for the UN.
Former United States President Harry Truman said diplomat was on the verge of "getting something done when they killed him."
Evidence may lead to new probe in 1961 death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld
Documents, testimony add weight to case that plane crash was no accident
by Melissa Kent
New evidence to be submitted to the United Nations' General Assembly this week could help shed light on one of the enduring mysteries of the 20th century, namely, was the 1961 death of the second UN Secretary General an accident or an act of murder?
Dag Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash in Ndola, Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, along with 15 others on Sept. 18, 1961.
The 56-year old Swedish diplomat was in Africa to try to unite the Congo, but faced resistance from a number of multinationals, often supported by mercenaries and openly hostile to the UN, who coveted the area's mineral wealth.
The crash has been a source of widespread speculation for decades, which has ramped up thanks to evidence uncovered in the last few years.
That includes testimony from a former U.S. National Security Agency intelligence officer who claims he heard a recording of another pilot attacking the plane, as well as a Belgian pilot who says that he accidentally shot the plane down after being hired to merely divert it....
Dag Hammarskjöld is dead, crash site footage (3:07)
Death (or Murder] of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld. Footage of the crash site near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia
Theory That [Dag] Hammarskjold Plane Was Downed Is Bolstered By U.N. Report
by Alan Cowell and Rick Gladstone
The finding by Judge Mohamed Chande Othman, a senior Tanzanian jurist who was asked by the United Nations to review both old and newly uncovered evidence, gave weight to a longstanding suspicion that Mr. Hammarskjold may have been assassinated.
September 22, 1961
President John F. Kennedy Signs Peace Corps Act
Shortly after his inauguration in January 1961, Kennedy made good on his promise for a new and aggressive foreign policy. On March 1, 1961, he issued an executive order establishing the Peace Corps. As described by Kennedy, this new organization would be an “army” of civilian volunteers, teachers, engineers, agricultural scientists, etc., who would be sent to underdeveloped nations in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and elsewhere to assist the people of those regions.
Making due on a campaign promise made on November 4, 1960. President Kennedy signs a bill committing United States to unprecedented search for economic breakthrough in the conversion of salt water to fresh.
September 22, 1961
President Kennedy signs a bill establishing first Federal program to help combat juvenile delinquency.
September 24, 1961
President John F. Kennedy Arrives at Carlyle Hotel
President John F. Kennedy (center) arrives at the Carlyle Hotel, New York City, New York; Chairman of US Delegation to the Geneva Conference on Disarmament, Arthur Dean, stands right of the President. Also pictured: Secret Service agents, Bill Greer, Bill Payne, and Gerald “Jerry” Behn. Police officers and others observe.
September 25, 1961
President John F. Kennedy's address before the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) (Video 43 minutes)
in New York City (JFK's first of two). In his speech Kennedy addresses the recent death of Secretary-General Hammarskjold, presents six proposals for the new Disarmament Program (announces the United States intention to "challenge the Soviet Union, not to an arms race, but to a peace race"), and provides information on the current crises in Berlin, Germany, Laos, and South Vietnam.
“Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be inhabitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us. It is therefore our intention to challenge the Soviet Union, not to an arms race, but to a peace race, to advance together step by step, stage by stage, until general and complete disarmament has been achieved.”
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Address Before The United Nations General Assembly (Audio 41 minutes)
Sound recording of President John F. Kennedy’s address before the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City. In his speech President Kennedy discusses the recent death of U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, presents six proposals for a new disarmament program, and provides information on the current crises in Laos, South Vietnam, and Berlin, Germany. The President also famously states, “Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.”
John F. Kennedy On Nuclear War And The Threats To World Peace
“Together we Shall Save our Planet, or We shall Perish in its Flames”
Address before the General Assembly of the United Nations, September 25, 1961
by President John F. Kennedy
September 26, 1961
President John F. Kennedy Departs Carlyle Hotel
President John F. Kennedy walks toward a car as he leaves the Carlyle Hotel in New York City, New York. Reporters and photographers observe.
October 6, 1961
JFK urges Americans to build bomb shelters, October 6, 1961
by Andrew Glass
On this day in 1961, President John F. Kennedy advised U.S. families to build bomb shelters to protect themselves from atomic fallout in the event of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. In a speech on civil defense issues, Kennedy assured the public that the government would soon begin providing such protection for every American...
October 6, 1961
President Kennedy meets with Andrei Gromyko, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, 5:00 p.m. (Photographs)
October 7, 1961
President John F. Kennedy met by Caroline at Quonset Point Naval Air Station (:48)
President John Kennedy bends down to greet his daughter, Caroline, who hugs his leg, moments after he arrived at Quonset Point Naval Air Station, Quonset, Rhode Island. Caroline greeted her father when he stepped off his plane and rode in his car to the presidential yacht docked a short distance from the airport. The President and Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy with Caroline, aboard the Honey Fitz.
October 11, 1961
Kennedy ponders the Vietnam situation
At a meeting of the National Security Council, President John F. Kennedy is asked by his advisers to accept “as our real and ultimate objective the defeat of the Vietcong.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated that 40,000 U.S. troops could clean up “the Vietcong threat” and another 120,000 could cope with possible North Vietnamese or Chinese Communist intervention. Kennedy wanted to prevent the fall of South Vietnam to the Communist insurgents, but decided to send General Maxwell Taylor to Vietnam to study the situation. Ultimately, Kennedy would send advisers, helicopters, and other military support to South Vietnam to aid President Ngo Dinh Diem in his fight against the Viet Cong.
October 19, 1961
President Kennedy welcomes President William Tubman of Liberia.
Photograph of President of Liberia William V.S. Tubman
Black and white portrait photograph of William V.S. Tubman, the President of Liberia. The photograph is autographed in green pen "Sincerely, W. Tubman 19-10-61".
Historical Note: This photograph was presented to President John F. Kennedy by William V.S. Tubman, the President of Liberia, during his state visit to the White House on October 19, 1961.
November 28, 1961 - November 29, 1961
Following the failed Bay of Pigs (See April 15, 1961 - April 20, 1961), and the failed Algiers putsch against Charles de Gaulle (See April 21, 1961 - April 26, 1961), CIA Director, Allan Dulles faced increased criticism from President Kennedy.
On November 28, 1961, President Kennedy presented Allan Dulles with the National Security Medal at the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The next day, November 29, the White House released a resignation letter signed by Allan Dulles.
Knowing this, it now becomes beyond quite interesting that Allen Dulles, who was fired by JFK, was not only a member of the Warren Commission, but actually played the leading role in promoting both the single bullet theory and lone gunman narratives.
On January 31, 1962, President Kennedy also forced the resignation of the third man behind Dullas, Deputy Director of the CIA, General Charles Cabell. An interesting fact, on November 22, 1963, the brother of General Charles Cabell, was Mayor Earle Cabell, of Dallas, Texas.
In February 1962, President Kennedy got the resignation of the second man behind Dullas, the Directorate for Plans, Richard M. Bissell, Jr., who was responsible for what became known as the CIA's Black Operations. President John F. Kennedy did not actually sack Bissell. Instead he offered him the post as director of a new science and technology department. This would place him in charge of the development of the SR-71, the new spy plane that would make the U-2 obsolete. Bissell turned down the offer and in February 1962 he left the Central Intelligence Agency and was replaced as head of the Directorate for Plans, by Richard Helms.
For more see the comprehensive section: Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
With More To Come, New JFK Documents Offer Fresh Leads 54 Years Later
by Kevin G. Hall
One particular document from the August [2017] release has created much buzz. It that shows that Earle Cabell, mayor of Dallas at the time of the November 22, 1963, shooting, became a CIA asset in late 1956.
The CIA had withheld the information on grounds that it was not considered relevant. No related documents have been released, but even alone it is important. Cabell’s brother Charles was deputy director of the CIA until he was fired by Kennedy in January 1962.
December 9, 1961
Tanganyika became independent nation (Tanganyika subsequently merged with Zanzibar in 1964 to become Tanzania).
December 13, 1961 - December 25, 1961
White House Christmas Tree, December 13, 1961
President and Mrs. Kennedy with the 1961 White House Christmas tree. White House, Blue Room. Photograph by Robert Knudsen.
Christmas With Kennedy's 1961 (1:42)
President Kennedy's 1961 Christmas Message Still Inspires Today
"Christmas expresses the deepest hopes for a world of peace."
by Caroline Hallemann
"For uncounted millions, Christmas expresses the deepest hopes for a world of peace where love rather than mistrust will flourish between neighbors."
This was before our country was taken over, which became quite evident with the removal of nativity scenes that were soon replaced with a huge menorah in front of the White House during Christmastime.
The War on Christmas (11:08)
President Kennedy renews American commitment to preserve independence of Vietnam.
December 16, 1961 - December 17, 1961
Kennedy makes the third international trip of his presidency. Meets with Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt in Caracas, Venezuela. Then meets with Colombian President Alberto Lleras Camargo in Bogota, Colombia.
December 19, 1961
Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. Suffers Stroke
Palm Beach, Florida (JFK+50) Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., father of President John F. Kennedy, suffered a massive stroke here in Palm Beach today. The elder Kennedy was rushed to St. Mary's Hospital where the stroke was diagnosed. The 73 year old former Ambassador to the Court of St. James was on the golf course at the time he had the stroke.*
The stroke left Joe Sr. paralyzed on the right side of his body & limited his speech to the single long, drawn out word "Nooooooooo". By all indications, however, he remained mentally alert.** Joseph Kennedy spent the 8 years until his death inside an eerie deep freeze sometimes broken by rages, while his sons triumphed...& died by violence."
December 19, 1961 - December 31, 1961
President Kennedy visits his father at St. Mary's Hospital, Palm Beach, Florida. (2:45)
Joseph P. Kennedy, 73, father of the President, suffered a stroke while playing golf and was taken to St. Mary's Hospital, Palm Beach, Florida. President John F. Kennedy returned to Palm Beach, where he and his family had expected to fly down for a family Christmas celebration. Also visiting Joseph Kennedy are his sons Robert and Edward and his son in law, Peter Lawford. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy also visiting almost every day.
December 21 - 22, 1961
Kennedy makes the fourth international trip of his presidency, travelling to Hamilton, Bermuda, where he meets with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
January 1962 - November 1963
President’s Daily Diary - January 1962 - November 1963
January 11, 1962
John F. Kennedy delivers his second State of the Union address
John F. Kennedy State of the Union Address, January 11, 1962 (Audio 32 minutes)
Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union. (Full Text)
“The task must begin at home. For if we can not fulfill our own ideals here, we cannot expect others to accept them.”
“It is the fate of this generation, of you in Congress and of me as President, to live with a struggle that we did not start, in a world that we did not make. But, the pressures of life are not always distributed by choice. And while no nation has ever faced such a challenge, no nation has ever been so ready to seize the burden and the glory of freedom.”
January 29, 1962
The Geneva conference, with the United States, Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom participating, adjourns without reaching an agreement on a nuclear test ban.
January 31, 1962
General Charles P. Cabell Resigns As Deputy Director Of CIA Under Allen Dulles
On April 23, 1953, while still an active air force officer, he was appointed deputy director of the CIA. In 1956, along with the CIA's Richard Bissell, he flew to Bonn, to brief the West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, on the U-2 program. Adenauer allowed U-2 planes, pilots, and support teams to be based at Wiesbaden. He was promoted to full general in 1958.
Cabell became Deputy Director of CIA under Allen Dulles. He was forced by President Kennedy to resign, on January 31, 1962, following the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Cabell's brother, Earle Cabell, was Mayor of Dallas when Kennedy visited that city and was assassinated, on November 22, 1963.
Febraury 1962
Richard M. Bissell, Jr. Directorate For Plans For The CIA Leaves
In February 1962, President Kennedy got the resignation of the second man behind Dullas, the Directorate for Plans, Richard M. Bissell, Jr., who was responsible for what became known as the CIA's Black Operations. President John F. Kennedy did not actually sack Bissell. Instead he offered him the post as director of a new science and technology department. This would place him in charge of the development of the SR-71, the new spy plane that would make the U-2 obsolete. Bissell turned down the offer and in February 1962 he left the Central Intelligence Agency and was replaced as head of the Directorate for Plans, by Richard Helms.
February 3, 1962
Embargo on All Trade with Cuba
By the President of the United States of America Proclamation 3447.
February 6, 1962
President Kennedy Special Message to the Congress on Education.
No task before our Nation is more important than expanding and improving the educational opportunities of all our people. The concept that every American deserves the opportunity to attain the highest level of education of which he is capable is not new to this Administration--it is a traditional ideal of democracy. But it is time that we moved toward the fulfillment of this ideal with more vigor and less delay.
February 10, 1962
American U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers is released by the Soviets in exchange for Soviet Colonel Rudolf Abel, a senior KGB spy who was caught in the United States five years earlier. The two men were brought to separate sides of the Glienicker Bridge, which connects East and West Berlin across Lake Wannsee. As the spies waited, negotiators talked in the center of the bridge where a white line divided East from West. Finally, Powers and Abel were waved forward and crossed the border into freedom at the same moment, 8:52 a.m., Berlin time. Just before their transfer, Frederic Pryor–an American student held by East German authorities since August 1961–was released to American authorities at another border checkpoint.
February 12, 1962
As Commander-in-chief, Kennedy commutes the military death sentence of seaman Jimmie Henderson to life imprisonment, marking the last time in the 20th century that an American president was faced with such a decision.
February 20, 1962
Astronaut John Glenn is launched on Friendship 7 on an orbital space flight aboard a Mercury-Atlas rocket, and becomes the first American to orbit the Earth.
NBC News Re-broadcast coverage John Glenn 1962 Space Flight (5:37)
February 26, 1962
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that segregation in transportation facilities is unconstitutional.
U.S. Supreme Court, Bailey v. Patterson, 369 U.S. 31, Decided February 26, 1962
March 2, 1962
President announces that Soviet resumption of atmospheric nuclear testing makes American testing necessary in late April unless effective treaty is signed.
The main proposal was presented in a document titled "Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba," a top secret collection of draft memoranda written by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The document was presented by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as a preliminary submission for planning purposes. The JCS recommended that both the covert and overt aspects of any such operation be assigned to them.
Operation Northwoods was a proposed false flag operation against the Cuban government, that originated within the U.S. DoD and the JCS of the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or other U.S. government operatives to commit acts of terrorism against American civilians and military targets, blaming it on the Cuban government, and using it to justify a war against Cuba. The plans detailed in the document included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities. The proposals were rejected by the Kennedy administration.
For more see the comprehensive section: Operation Northwoods
March 15, 1962
Statement by President Kennedy Upon Signing the Manpower Development and Training Act.
I have today signed S. 1991, the "Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962." President Kennedy signs first major Federal bill to retrain jobless victims of automation and chronic unemployment.
March 22, 1962
Kennedy signs into law HR5143 (PL87-423), abolishing the mandatory death penalty for first degree murder in the District of Columbia, the only remaining jurisdiction in the United States with a mandatory death sentence for first degree murder, replacing it with life imprisonment with parole if the jury could not decide between life imprisonment and the death penalty, or if the jury chose life imprisonment by a unanimous vote. The death penalty in the District of Columbia has not been applied since 1957, and has now been abolished.
The evidence suggests that JFK and Marilyn Monroe were intimate at least once. On March 24, 1962, JFK and Marilyn Monroe were both guests at Bing Crosby’s house in Palm Springs. JFK had arranged the rendezvous through the actor Peter Lawford, who was married to JFK's sister Pat at the time. According to Marilyn Monroe's biographer Donald Spoto, Marilyn Monroe called her personal masseur, the actor Ralph Roberts, from the same bedroom where JFK was staying at Bing Crosby's house. Roberts, JFK, and Monroe then had a brief conversation about the President's back problems. Spoto later interviewed Ralph Roberts, who clarified what Marilyn Monroe had told him about her sexual experiences with JFK. Later, once the rumor mill was grinding, Marilyn told me that this night in March was the only time of her "affair" with JFK. Of course she was titillated beyond belief, because for a year he had been trying, through Lawford, to have an evening with her. A great many people thought, after that weekend, that there was more to it. But Marilyn gave me the impression that it was not a major event for either of them: it happened once, that weekend, and that was that.
The Details of JFK's "Affair" With Marilyn Monroe Are Way More Chill Than We've Been Told
Multiple Marilyn historians, including respected biographer Donald Spoto, who wrote the 1993 book Marilyn Monroe: The Biography, allege that the most plausible time that Marilyn and JFK could have had a sexual encounter was during a party at Bing Crosby's home in Palm Springs, CA, on March 24, 1962.
by Brittney Stephens
For more see the comprehensive section: Marilyn Monroe
April 5, 1962
President calls for overhaul of Federal transportation policy, emphasizing increased and equal competition instead of regulation; also renews request for urban mass transportation program.
Special Message to the Congress on Transportation (Text)
March 31, 1962 - April 11, 1962
Kennedy goes toe to toe with United States Steel. One of the leading companies in the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned of was United States Steel, a major contractor with the United States military that controlled 25% of the entire steel market. Steelworkers staged a 4-month strike in 1959 during Eisenhower's second term, and Kennedy hoped to avoid a similar flare up during his tenure.
Kennedy was also concerned about potentially rising inflation, so his administration set an informal but well-publicized target of having wage increases and price hikes match productivity increases. Meanwhile, United Steelworkers’ (USW) bargaining over a contract with the nation’s steel companies was getting nowhere, so the Kennedy administration intervened. Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg, a longtime union counsel, mediated the talks. The two sides reached agreement on March 31. The pact, with ten of the nation’s 11 steel companies, called for an increase in fringe benefits worth 10 cents an hour in 1962, but no wage hikes that year. Then-AFL-CIO President George Meany said that in the pact, the union “settled on a wage increase figure somewhat less than the Steelworkers thought they would get.”
Kennedy praised the contract as “obviously non-inflationary” and said both the USW and the steel firms showed “industrial statesmanship of the highest order.” The agreement also implicitly said the companies would not raise prices, as that would be inflationary. But on April 10, Roger Blough, CEO of United States Steel, the largest of the firms, met Kennedy in the Oval Office and told him the company was immediately raising prices by $6 a ton, and that other steel companies would follow. Six other steel companies did raise their prices. The 3.5% hike and being double-crossed enraged the president. What he said in public was biting, but he was even more caustic in private.
In an April 11, 1962 press conference, Kennedy called the price hikes “a wholly unjustifiable and irresponsible defiance of the public interest.” He criticized “a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility.” The executives had “utter contempt” for the United States, Kennedy said.
But after Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, informed United States Steel that a new submarine contract would be given to a smaller steel company that hadn't agreed to the price hike, other industries that had raised prices in response to United States Steel's maneuver quickly withdrew their price hikes, leaving the military-industrial complex smarting from the Kennedy administration's pointed blow.
"My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it until now."
John F. Kennedy, April 1962
May 1, 1962
One thousand members of the Society of Friends had been vigiling for peace and world order outside the White House. Kennedy meets with six Quakers in the Oval Office on May 1, 1962. James W. Douglass wrote: “Kennedy’s dialogue with the Quakers was a hopeful sign of what would come in the last year of his presidency, when he would make a crucial turn toward peace.”
David Hartsough called himself “the token young guy” on a six-person Quaker delegation that met with President Kennedy to discuss world peace and nuclear disarmament at a time when the threat of nuclear war had reached an historic high point. The others invited to the Oval Office made up a who’s who of prominent Quaker peace advocates: Ed Snyder and Samuel Levering, executive secretary and chairperson, respectively, of the Friends Committee on National Legislation; Henry Cadbury, a professor at Harvard Divinity School and the chairperson of the American Friends Service Committee; Dorothy Hutchinson, president of the U.S. section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; and George Willoughby, who had sailed on the Golden Rule into the nuclear testing area in the Pacific.
In an interview with Street Spirit, Hartsough described his meeting with JFK. “Kennedy met with us in his office, sitting in his rocking chair next to the fireplace, and we sat around him, and he listened to us. We told him there was a nuclear submarine that was to be named the William Penn, and that was totally unacceptable.”
Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was a Quaker and a pacifist. Naming a nuclear submarine the William Penn is exactly the same as naming a battleship the USS Gandhi or a jet bomber the St. Francis of Assisi.
Hartsough said, “Kennedy just grinned and told us, ‘I’ll see that it doesn’t happen.’ ” The president was as good as his word, and the nuclear-armed submarine was not named after the Quaker pacifist.
The president’s secretary came in after 25 minutes and said, “Mr. President, your next appointment is here.” Kennedy said, “Tell them to wait, I’m learning something from these Quakers.”
All six members of the Quaker delegation were highly impressed by Kennedy’s listening with an open mind to the radical antiwar values of the delegation, and his evident sincerity in understanding the urgent need to work for world peace.
“I think most important to me was, first, that he listened,” Hartsough said. “He wasn’t just pontificating as if he was the president and we were lowly peons. And, second, we were speaking truth to power in the White House, and Kennedy wasn’t just rejecting it as hogwash.”
See: October 9, 1963 "Wheat Sale: U.S. to Sell Grain to Soviet Bloc."
May 1, 1962
Kennedy signs the Educational Television Facilities Act into law, marking the first time Congress provided major federal aid to public broadcasting.
May 19, 1962
Marilyn Monroe sings Happy Birthday, Mr. President to President Kennedy in Madison Square Garden as part of the President's 45th birthday celebrations (JFK's birthday was on May 29).
Marilyn Monroe - Happy Birthday Mr. President (3:50)
Marilyn Monroe sings Happy Birthday to President Kennedy.
June 28, 1961
National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 55, 56 And 57
http://NSAM_55_56And57.November221963.com
June 29, 1962 - July 1, 1962
Kennedy makes the fifth international trip of his presidency, traveling to Mexico City, Mexico, for a state visit. There he meets with Mexican President Adolfo López Mateos.
Progress through Freedom: The President's Trip to Mexico, 1962: (Video 20 minutes)
Motion picture covering President John F. Kennedy's trip to Mexico beginning in June of 1962. Included are scenes of President Kennedy being welcomed with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy by Mexican President Adolfo Lopez Mateos and delivering remarks, a tour by the First Lady, and shots of local landmarks, scenery, and activities. Presented by: United States Information Service (USIS). Produced in cooperation with Movietone Productions.
Directed by: Leo Seltzer
Written by: Doris Ransohoff
Narrated by: Jose Ferrer
June 29, 1962
President John F. Kennedy's remarks in the National Palace in Mexico City (:59)
Address by the President at a Luncheon Given in His Honor by President López Mateos. ''We in the United States are committed to a better life for our people, for no nation can seek social justice abroad that does not practice it at home. But now, in addition, the United States of America is committed to help fulfill these goals throughout the Americas, to work together with Mexico and all the other nations of the inter-American system, to create a society in which all men have equal access to land, to jobs, and to education - a society in which no man is exploited for the enrichment of a few, and in which every arm of the Government is dedicated to the welfare of all the people. This effort is not a one-way street. We in the United States have much to learn, as well as something to teach.''
Mexico: JFK trip to Mexico City, 1962: June-July
This folder contains materials collected by the office of President John F. Kennedy's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, concerning President Kennedy's visit to Mexico City, Mexico. Materials in this folder include itineraries, a commemorative brochure, a press release announcing the President's schedule, a list of officials accompanying the President, guest lists for events and meetings, suggested remarks for the President to deliver upon arrival, a program from the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico, letters thanking those responsible for making administrative arrangements, and briefing papers concerning the Alliance for Progress, the current state of the Mexican economy, the salinity problem near the lower Colorado River, and possible joint ventures between Mexico and the United States. This folder contains some Spanish-language material
President John F. Kennedy in Mexico, June 29, 30 and July 1, 1962 (2:59)
July 1, 1962
President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Attend Mass in Mexico City (:37)
President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy attending mass at the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe) officiated by Archbishop of Mexico City Miguel Darío Miranda y Gómez in Mexico City, Mexico.
July 1962
President John F. Kennedy - July 1962 (7:55)
July 4, 1962 - President John F. Kennedy visits Independence Hall in Philadelphia and touches the Liberty Bell.
July 10, 1962 - President Kennedy attends the All Star baseball game at Washington D.C. Stadium.
July 17, 1962 - Meeting with Anthony Celebrezze and HEW Secretary Abraham Ribicoff
July 18, 1962 - Presentation of the Robert J. Collier Trophy for outstanding achievement in aviation to four X-15 rocket plane pilots.
July 20, 1962 - Meeting with French Minister of Finance Valery Giscard D'Estaing.
July 22, 1962 - President and Mrs. Kennedy cruise aboard the Marlin accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. John Glenn, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
July 25, 1962 - Meeting with Maxwell Taylor and Lyman Lemnitzer.
July 3, 1962
Algeria becomes a sovereign state. This is five years and one day after Kennedy was the first Senator to supported Algeria's struggle for Independence.
Algerian National Liberation (1954-1962)
The Algerian war for independence began in 1954 and ended in on July 3. 1962 when French President Charles De Gaulle pronounced Algeria an independent country.
July 4, 1962
Kennedy delivered an address at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in which he spoke of the new movement toward interdependence that is transforming the world, and noting that the spirit of that new effort is the same spirit which gave birth to the American Constitution.
JFK Speech at Independence Hall - July 4, 1962 (16:05)
President Kennedy praises the American democratic system which encourages differences and allows for dissent, discusses the enduring relevance of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and addresses the role of the United States in relation to the emerging European Community.
July 10, 1962
President Kennedy attends the All Star baseball game at D.C. Stadium, and throws out the first pitch.
July 12, 1962
President Kennedy couples depreciation reform with tax credit to spur greater investment in plant and industry.
July 26, 1962
Statement by the President Upon Approving the Public Welfare Amendments Bill.
President Kennedy signs the most far-reaching revision of public welfare legislation since enactment in 1935, emphasizing family rehabilitation and training instead of dependency.
August 4, 1962
Marilyn Monroe is assassinated.
August 13, 1962
JFK'S Speech On The State Of The American Economy (Audio 28:23)
Income Tax Cut, JFK Hopes To Spur Economy (2:03)
August 16, 1962
President Kennedy issued National Security Action Memorandum Number 179: U.S. Policy Toward Indonesia.
August 22, 1962
The Plot To Kill Charles de Gaulle
by Christopher Othen
Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry was a French Air Force lieutenant-colonel and military air-weaponry engineer. He was the creator of the Nord SS.10/SS.11 missiles. He attempted to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle on 22 August 1962, following de Gaulle's decision to accept Algerian independence. The attack made international headlines. Bastien-Thiry was the last person to be executed by firing squad in France.
Citroen Helps De Gaulle Survive Assassination Attempt
In August 1962, a group called the OAS (Secret Army Organization in English) plotted an assassination attempt on President De Gaulle, who they believed had betrayed France by giving up Algeria (in northern Africa) to Algerian nationalists. Near dusk on August 22, 1962, De Gaulle and his wife were riding from the Elysee Palace to Orly Airport. As his black Citroen DS sped along the Avenue de la Liberation in Paris at 70 miles per hour, 12 OAS gunmen opened fire on the car. A hail of 140 bullets, most of them coming from behind, killed two of the president’s motorcycle bodyguards, shattered the car’s rear window and punctured all four of its tires. Though the Citroen went into a front-wheel skid, De Gaulle’s chauffeur was able to accelerate out of the skid and drive to safety, all thanks to the car’s superior suspension system. De Gaulle and his wife kept their heads down and came out unharmed.
August 27, 1962 - November 27, 1967
DOJ Orders The American Zionist Council To Register As A Foreign Agent
"Attached hereto is the entire file relating to the American Zionist Council and our efforts to obtain its registration under the terms of the Foreign Agents Registration Act..."
In the early 1960's Israel funneled $5 million (more than $35 million in today's dollars) into US propaganda and lobbying operations. The funds were channeled via the quasi governmental Jewish Agency's New York office into an Israel lobby umbrella group, the American Zionist Council. Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigations and hearings documented funding flows, propaganda, and public relations efforts and put them into the record. But the true fate of the American Zionist Council was never known, except that its major functions were visibly shut down and shifted over to a former AZC unit known as the "Kenen Committee," called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (or AIPAC) in the late 1960's. The following chronology provides links to images of original Department of Justice case files released on June 10, 2008 under a Freedom of Information Act filing.
JFK Orders The American Zionist Council To Register As A Foreign Agent
by John Bruce Campbell
The following demonstrates why there is no legal method in America to overthrow the alien control of the US government by the Zionists (American and Israeli Jews and their Gentile fronts).
During the last year of his life, John Kennedy told his brother, Robert, to force the Zionist lobbyists to register as foreign agents of Israel. He told the attorney general to order the Zionist propagandists to conform to the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA). The purpose of FARA is to insure that the U.S. government and the people of the United States are informed of the source of information (propaganda) and the identity of persons attempting to influence U.S. public opinion, policy, and laws. In 1938, FARA was Congress' response to the large number of German propaganda agents in the pre-WWII U.S.
The principal Israeli agency at the time was the American Zionist Council, formed by Isaiah Kenen in 1951. Here is the timeline of the Kennedy effort to register the AZC: John Kennedy was not successful in his struggle with the Zionists. It’s time to recognize his struggle, which contributed to his assassination, and to read the words he planned to give in Austin the evening of his death: “Neither the fanatics nor the faint-hearted are needed. And our duty as a party is not to our party alone, but to the nation, and, indeed, to all mankind. Our duty is not merely the preservation of political power but the preservation of peace and freedom."
For more see the comprehensive section: Jewish Lobby
September 12, 1962
JFK - We Choose To Go To The Moon (17:48)
Kennedy delivers a speech at Rice University on the subject of the nation's plans to land humans on the Moon. Kennedy announces his continued support for increased space expenditures, saying "we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
"Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, 'Because it is there.' Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."
John F. Kennedy Moon Speech (Video, Audio and Text)
September 26, 1962
President Kennedy signs bill enabling construction of world's largest atomic power plant in Hanford, Washington.
September 30, 1962
Joints Chiefs of Staff Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer is denied another term. Lemnitzer approved the plans known as Operation Northwoods in 1962, a proposed plan to discredit the Castro regime and create support for military action against Cuba by staging false flag acts of terrorism and developing "a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington". Lemnitzer presented the plans to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962. It is unclear how McNamara reacted, but three days later President Kennedy told the general that there was no chance that the United States would take military action against Cuba.
50 Years After JFK Murder, The Finger Finally Points To Pentagon Chief Lemnitzer
Evidence Points to New Suspect as Architect of JFK Murder Plot: Pentagon Chief General Lyman Lemnitzer had Motives, Means, and Track Record, says Gladio expert
To sum up, Lemnitzer had deep ideological and personal motives for killing Kennedy. As NATO commander, he had all the necessary means at his disposal, with the advantage of distance and military discipline to keep it secret. Under him, NATO tried to assassinate President De Gaulle, a head of state who was an ideological and personal adversary, and several other highly respected figures.
Lemnitzer had deep and long-standing Mafia connections, and the contemporary political thriller and film "Seven Days in May" dropped a very broad hint that "Lyman" would lead a coup against Kennedy. Col. Lansdale, who also had scores to settle, was the ideal deputy to carry out the hit on JFK for his general.
by Richard Cottrell
For more see the comprehensive section: Lyman Lemnitzer
September 30, 1962
President Kennedy announces action by Federal Government to carry out court order admitting James Meredith to the University of Mississippi. The U.S. Supreme Court orders the University of Mississippi to admit James H. Meredith, its first African-American student. After Governor Ross Barnett attempts to block the admission, U.S. Marshals escort Meredith to campus while Federalized national guardsmen maintain order. They were met by an angry crowd of students and other local whites who opposed Meredith's efforts to integrate “Old Miss.” The deadly riot that broke out forced President John F. Kennedy to intervene, and the episode helped change the President’s approach to civil rights.
September 30, 1962
Listening In: JFK on Integration in University of Mississippi (2:25)
President Kennedy places a call to Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett during the crisis over the University of Mississippi and James Meredith, an African-American seeking admission to the school. With riots and a death reported, Kennedy negotiates with Barnett amid high tensions.
For more see the comprehensive section: Civil Rights Movement
October 2, 1962
President Kennedy signs United Nations bond issue bill authorizing American participation in financing United Nations peacekeeping operations in the Congo and elsewhere.
October 2, 1962
President John F. Kennedy Signs Bill to Limit Drainage of Wetlands
President John F. Kennedy signs an amendment to the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act to limit the drainage of wetlands in the Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C. Present are Representative Lester R. Johnson (Wisconsin); Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, John P. Duncan, Jr.; Representative Henry S. Reuss (Wisconsin); Senator Eugene J. McCarthy (Minnesota).
October 9, 1962
Uganda's Political History Independence through the 1960s
Uganda gained her independence on October 9, 1962. Since 1894 she was a British protectorate that was put together from some very organized kingdoms and chieftaincies that inhabited the lake regions of central Africa. At independence, Dr. Milton Apollo Obote, also leader of the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) became the first Prime Minister and head of the government.
October 10, 1962
President Kennedy signs first major improvement in Food and Drug laws since 1938, protecting families against untested and ineffective drugs.
Remarks Upon Signing the Drug Reform Bill (Text)
I am pleased to approve this bill, which is designed to provide safer and more effective drugs to the American consumer. Enactment of this legislation will help give the American consumer the protection from unsafe and ineffective drugs. It will also insure that our pharmaceutical industry will be even better equipped to provide us with the best possible drugs to be found anywhere.
October 11, 1962
President Kennedy signs Trade Expansion Act granting unprecedented authority to end American protectionism and build free world economic unity.
Remarks Upon Signing the Trade Expansion Act, October 11,1962 (Audio 3:56)
October 16, 1962 - January 17, 1963
Oil Men And Oil Depletion Allowance is a section that describes the powerful forces within the Texas oil industry and their wanting to keep the oil depletion allowance tax break. For me, this was the third top motive to assassinated Kennedy. Some of those who became extremely wealthy and powerful as a result of discoveries of oil in Texas included, Ross Sterling, Hugh R. Cullen, Sid Richardson and Clint Murchison.
Let me state, I wholeheartedly believe that there is no possible way Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson ordered the assassination of Kennedy. Yes, he despised the Kennedy brothers, and he had long litany of illegal activates including many murders committed by his personal hit man Malcolm Wallace, but he did not order the hit. Something I do find quite interesting is that a fingerprint of Malcolm Wallace was supposedly found in the sniper's nest on the sixth floor of the Dallas School Book Depository. Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson had both foreknowledge of the Kennedy assassination and was an accessory after the fact and that he was deeply involved in the cover-up.
Philip F. Nelson, the author of LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination (2011) has pointed out that the oil depletion allowance, "allowed them to retain 27.5 percent of their oil revenue tax-tree; its loss, according to World Petroleum magazine, stood to cost the industry as much as $300 million in annual profits (in 1962 dollars). The original rationale for such an allowance was that the product that their investments yielded yeas a finite resource that would require continual investments in exploration and recovery in order to extend the flow of raw material; the more the companies produced, the less was available. Recognition of this depletion of the asset was intended as an incentive for finding and recovering more oil fields. (How this particular commodity was materially different from other forms of mining, or commercial ocean fishing, or even farming, was never fully explained, other than perhaps the oilmen having better lobbyists than the others.)"
During the 1960 presidential election Kennedy gave his support for the oil depletion allowance. In October, 1960, he said that he appreciated However, two years later, Kennedy decided to take on the oil industry. On October 16, 1962, Kennedy was able to persuade Congress to pass an act that removed the distinction between repatriated profits and profits reinvested abroad. While this law applied to industry as a whole, it especially affected the oil companies. It was estimated that as a result of this legislation, wealthy oilmen saw a fall in their earnings on foreign investment from 30 per cent to 15 per cent.
On January 17, 1963, President Kennedy presented his proposals for tax reform. This included relieving the tax burdens of low-income and elderly citizens. Kennedy also claimed he wanted to remove special privileges and loopholes. He even said he wanted to do away with the oil depletion allowance.
After the assassination of Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson dropped the government plans to remove the oil depletion allowance. Richard Nixon followed his example and it was not until the arrival of Jimmy Carter that the oil depletion allowance was removed.
From: What They Don’t Tell You About Oil Industry Tax Breaks
…To head off this larger threat, it was clear to John F. Kennedy’s political advisers that he would have to campaign in Texas, along with Florida, in 1963. Kennedy was interested in revoking the oil depletion allowance, a decision that would have meant steep losses for Texas oilmen, and he continued voicing his support for civil rights, always a contentious issue in the South.
President Kennedy demonstrated his willingness to buck big money during the “steel crisis” of April 1962, when he forced a price rollback by sending FBI agents into corporate offices. But Kennedy’s gutsiest, and arguably his most dangerous, domestic initiative was his administration’s crusade against the oil depletion allowance, the tax break that swelled uncounted oil fortunes. It gave oil companies a large and automatic deduction, regardless of their actual costs, as compensation for dwindling assets in the ground.
Robert Kennedy instructed the FBI to issue questionnaires, asking the oil companies for specific production and sales data. “The oil industry, in particular, the more financially vulnerable Dallas-based independents, did not welcome this intrusion. The trade publication Oil and Gas Journal charged that RFK was setting up a “battleground [on which] business and government will collide.”
FBI director Hoover expressed his own reservations, especially about the use of his agents to gather information in the matter. Hoover’s close relationship with the oil industry was part of the oil-intelligence link he shared with [CIA director Allen]Dulles and the CIA. Industry big shots weren’t just sources; they were clients and friends. And Hoover’s FBI was known for returning favors.
One of Hoover’s good friends, the ultrarich Texas oilman Clint Murchison Sr., was among the most aggressive players in the depletion allowance dispute. Murchison had been exposed as far back as the early 1950s, in Luce’s Time magazine no less—as epitomizing the absurdity of this giveaway to the rich and powerful. Another strong defender of the allowance was Democratic senator Robert Kerr of Oklahoma, the multimillionaire owner of the Kerr-McGee oil company. So friendly was he with his Republican colleague Prescott Bush that when Prescott’s son, George H. W. Bush, was starting up his Zapata Offshore [oil] operation, Kerr offered some of his own executives to help. Several of them even left Kerr’s company to become Bush’s top executives.
Lyndon Johnson shared in the prevailing oil belt enmity toward Kennedy. In fact, he was the one person in the White House the oilmen trusted. After Johnson ascended to the presidency, he and newly elected congressman Bush were often allies on such issues as the oil depletion allowance and the war in Vietnam [oil executive Jack] Crichton (close with Bush and head of a secretive Dallas-based, oil-connected military intelligence unit that deeply immersed in aspects of the tragic events of November 22, 1963) was so plugged into the Dallas power structure that one of his company directors was Clint Murchison Sr., king of the oil depletion allowance, and another was D. Harold Byrd, owner of the Texas School Book Depository building...
For more see the comprehensive section: Oil Men And Oil Depletion Allowance
October 16, 1962 - October 28, 1962
For thirteen days in October 1962 the world waited, seemingly on the brink of nuclear war, and hoped for a peaceful resolution to the Cuban missile crisis.
I owe my life, as do tens or hundreds of millions of other people, to President Kennedy, because of his incredible detente in defusing the Cuban missile crisis. As a four year old boy who lived in New York City at the time, during a nuclear exchange it would surely have been hit with multiple warheads.
John F. Kennedy And The Cuban Missle Crisis
Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis
by Karthik Gopalan
On October 16, 1962 President John F. Kennedy received information from his National Security Advisor (NSA), McGeorge Bundy, regarding the Soviet MRBMs, or medium range ballistic missiles, placed in Cuba. The President instantly pulled together a group of 14-15 of his closest advisors known as the EXCOMM, or the Executive Committee of the National Security Council. What followed for the next thirteen days until October 28, 1962 was a series of intense discussions usually held in the Cabinet Room which centered on how to respond to this situation.
October 16, 1962
JFK is shown photographs of Soviet nuclear missile sites being installed in Cuba. To minimize Soviet power in the West, the president initiates a blockade of Cuba the following week. For thirteen days, the Cuban missile crisis will bring the world closer to nuclear war than ever before or after.
October 18, 1962
Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko meets President John F. Kennedy (7:03)
President John F. Kennedy and Soviet minister of foreign affairs Andrei Gromyko meet in the Oval Office. Also present are Soviet deputy minister Vladimir S. Seyemenov and Soviet ambassador to the United States Anatoly F. Dobrynin. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko asserts that Soviet aid to Cuba is purely defensive and does not represent a threat to the United States. President Kennedy do not reveal that he knows of the existence of the missiles. Afterwards Gromyko spoke to the press outside the White House.
October 22, 1962
President Kennedy's address the nation on the Cuban missile crisis and orders a navel quarantine of Cuba to halt Soviet missile buildup and prevent further shipments of nuclear weapons.
October 22, 1962
Listening In: JFK & Eisenhower on the Cold War (1:05)
As President, John F. Kennedy was the ultimate arbiter of American foreign and millitary policy. But there were still a number of former presidents he could consult with, including President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In this phone conversation, Kennedy asks Eisenhower what he believes the chances are that Russia would launch a nuclear weapon if the United States invaded Cuba.
October 26, 1962
JFK Phone Call During The Cuban Missile Crisis (2:520
Both President Kennedy and his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, can be heard in this telephone call, which took place at the height of the tense Cuban Missile Crisis on October 26, 1962.
October 27, 1962
Anatoly F. Dobrynin's Meeting With Robert F. Kennedy, Saturday, October 27, 1962
Reproduced with permission from:
The Cold War International History Project Bulletin Issue 5, Spring 1995
by Jim Hershberg
If the Cuban Missile Crisis was the most dangerous passage of the Cold War, the most dangerous moment of the Cuban Missile Crisis was the evening of Saturday, 27 October 1962, when the resolution of the crisis—war or peace—appeared to hang in the balance. While Soviet ships had not attempted to break the U.S naval blockade of Cuba, Soviet nuclear missile bases remained on the island and were rapidly becoming operational, and pressure on President Kennedy to order an air strike or invasion was mounting, especially after an American l -2 reconnaissance plane was shot down over Cuba that Saturday afternoon and its pilot killed. Hopes that a satisfactory resolution to the crisis could be reached between Washington and Moscow had dimmed, moreover, when a letter from Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev arrived Saturday morning demanding that the United States agree to remove its Jupiter missiles from Turkey in exchange for a Soviet removal of missiles from Cuba. The letter struck U.S. officials as an ominous hardening of the Soviet position from the previous day's letter from Khrushchev, which had omitted any mention of American missiles in Turkey but had instead implied that Washington's pledge not to invade Cuba would be sufficient to obviate the need for Soviet nuclear protection of Castro's revolution.
On Saturday evening, after a day of tense discussions within the "ExComm" or Executive Committee of senior advisers, President Kennedy decided on a dual strategy—a formal letter to Khrushchev accepting the implicit terms of his October 26 letter (a U.S. non-invasion pledge in exchange for the verifiable departure of Soviet nuclear missiles), coupled with private assurances to Khrushchev that the United States would speedily take out its missiles from Turkey, but only on the basis of a secret understanding, not as an open agreement that would appear to the public, and to NATO allies, as a concession to blackmail. The U.S. president elected to transmit this sensitive message through his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who met in his office at the Justice Department with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin.
That meeting has long been recognized as a turning point in the crisis, but several aspects of it have been shrouded in mystery and confusion. One concerned the issue of the Jupiter missiles in Turkey: U.S. officials maintained that neither John nor Robert Kennedy promised to withdraw the Jupiters as a quid pro quo, or concession, in exchange for the removal of the Soviet missiles from Cuba, or as part of an explicit agreement, deal, or pledge, but had merely informed Dobrynin that Kennedy had planned to take out the American missiles in any event. This was the version of events depicted in the first published account of the RFK-Dobrynin meeting by one of the participants, in Robert F. Kennedy's Thirteen Days: A Memoir at the Cuban Missile Crisis, posthumously published in 1969, a year after he was assassinated while seeking the Democratic nomination for president. While Thirteen Days depicted RFK as rejecting any firm agreement to withdraw the Jupiters, this was also the first public indication that the issue had even been privately discussed...
October 27, 1962
The Man Who Saved The World [Vasili Arkhipov] (53:07)
This film explores the dramatic and little-known events that unfolded inside a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine during the Cuban Missile Crisis. While politicians sought a solution to the stand-off, Vasili Arkhipov, an officer aboard the submarine, refused to fire a nuclear torpedo, thus averting disaster. The program combines tense drama with eyewitness accounts and expert testimony about a critical event during the Cold War.
Vasili Arkhipov: Cold War Russian Hero
by Erico Matias Tavares
You may have never heard of Vasili Arkhipov. And yet life as we know it on this planet could have ended if it were not for his crucial intervention during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Cold War started heating up soon after. In July of 1962, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to Cuba's request to place nuclear missiles in Cuba as a deterrent to future US interference, pursuant to the Bay of Pigs invasion debacle a few years earlier. In mid-October, a US reconnaissance airplane produced evidence of medium and long range Soviet ballistic missiles on the site, sending alarm bells ringing in Washington DC.
US President John F. Kennedy promptly established a military blockade to prevent further missiles from entering Cuba and demanded that the missiles be dismantled and returned to the Soviet Union. Over the following days the world came close to the brink of nuclear war as the two blocks vigorously asserted their positions.
Nobody realized at the time just how close to disaster they really were. And that's where Arkhipov would make his decisive contribution to world history.
Arkhipov was second-in-command in the nuclear-armed Foxtrot-class submarine B-59, part of a flotilla of four submarines protecting Soviet ships on their way to Cuba. On October 27, as they approached the US imposed quarantine line, US Navy ships in pursuit started dropping depth charges to force the B-59 to surface for identification - completely unaware that it was carrying nuclear weapons.
The explosions rocked the submarine which went dark except for emergency lights. With the air-conditioning down, temperature and carbon dioxide levels rose sharply. The crew was hardly able to breathe.
Unable to contact Moscow and under pressure from the Americans for several hours, Captain Valentin Savitsky finally lost his nerve. He assumed that war had broken out between the two countries and decided to launch a nuclear torpedo. He would not go down without a fight.
However, unlike the other submarines in the flotilla, the three officers onboard the B-59 had to agree unanimously to launch the nuclear torpedo. As the other officer sided with Savitsky, only Arkhipov stood in the way of launching World War III.
An argument broke out between the three, but Arkhipov was able to convince the Captain not to launch the torpedo. How was he able to prevail under such stressful conditions? He was actually in charge of the entire flotilla and as such was equal in rank to Savitsky. But the reputation he had gained during the K-19 incident may have been the decisive factor in convincing the other officers to abort the launch. That detail may have made all the difference.
The submarine eventually surfaced and awaited orders from Moscow, averting what would have been a nuclear holocaust. The Cuban Missile Crisis ended a few days later.
The Russian Who Saved The Whole World From Devastating Nuclear Disaster
by Rishabh Banerji
We could have been living in a very different present had it not been for a certain Russian sitting inside a nuclear torpedo equipped submarine aimed at the U.S Navy. A world ravaged by nuclear war with generations getting to experience its ripple effect, first-hand. He's the reason why you, I or anyone on this planet perhaps, is alive. Alive to tell the story of Vasili Arkhipov - the man who saved our planet.
October 28, 1962
Phone Call with General Eisenhower during Cuban Missile Crisis (4:24)
Sound recording of a telephone conversation held on October 28, 1962, between President John F. Kennedy and former President Dwight D. Eisenhower. They discuss dealings with Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev for ending the Cuban Missile Crisis. [White House Operator?] connects the call at President Kennedy’s request.
October 28, 1962
After thirteen days of extreme tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Cuban missile crisis is resolved. The United States will pledge not to invade Cuba (and secretly agrees to remove missiles from Turkey), in exchange for the removal of the Soviet nuclear weapons from Cuba.
From: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matter
by James W. Douglass
JFK had to confront the unspeakable in the Missile Crisis in the form of total nuclear war. At the height of that terrifying conflict, he felt the situation spiraling out of control, especially because of the actions of his generals. For example, with both sides on hair-trigger alert, the U.S. Air Force test-fired missiles from California across the Pacific, deliberately trying to provoke the Soviets in a way that could justify our superior U.S. forces blanketing the USSR with an all-out nuclear attack. As we know from Kennedy’s secretly taped meeting with his Joint Chiefs of Staff on October 19, 1962, the Chiefs were pushing him relentlessly to launch a pre-emptive strike on Cuba, and ultimately the Soviet Union. In this encounter the Chiefs’ disdain for their young commander-in-chief is summed up by Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay when he says:
LeMay: “This [blockade and political action] is almost as bad as the appeasement [of Hitler] at Munich…I think that a blockade, and political talk, would be considered by a lot of our friends and neutrals as being a pretty weak response to this. And I’m sure a lot of our own citizens would feel that way too.
“In other words, you’re in a pretty bad fix at the present time.”
President Kennedy responds: “What did you say?”
LeMay: “I say, you’re in a pretty bad fix.”
President Kennedy: [laughing] “You’re in with me, personally.”
As the meeting draws to a close, Kennedy rejects totally the Joint Chiefs’ arguments for a quick, massive attack on Cuba. The president then leaves the room but the tape keeps on recording. Two or three of the generals remain, and one says to LeMay, “You pulled the rug right out from under him.”
LeMay: “Jesus Christ. What the hell do you mean?”
Other General: “…He’s finally getting around to the word ‘escalation.’ If somebody could keep ‘em from doing the goddamn thing piecemeal, that’s our problem…”
The White House tapes show Kennedy questioning and resisting the mounting pressure to bomb Cuba coming from both the Joint Chiefs and the Executive Committee of the National Security Council. At the same time, John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, the two men most responsible for the Cuban Missile Crisis, seemed locked in a hopeless ideological conflict. The U.S. and Soviet leaders had been following Cold War policies that now seemed to be moving inexorably toward a war of extermination.
Yet, as we have since learned, Kennedy and Khrushchev had been engaged in a secret correspondence for over a year that gave signs of hope. Even as they moved publicly step by step toward a Cold War climax that would almost take the world over the edge with them, they were at the same time smuggling confidential letters back and forth that recognized each other’s humanity and hoped for a solution. They were public enemies who, in the midst of deepening turmoil, were secretly learning something approaching trust in each other.
On what seemed the darkest day in the crisis, when a Soviet missile had shot down a U2 spy plane over Cuba, intensifying the already overwhelming pressures on Kennedy to bomb Cuba, the president sent his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, secretly to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. RFK told Dobrynin, as Dobrynin reported to Khrushchev, that the president “didn’t know how to resolve the situation. The military is putting great pressure on him…Even if he doesn’t want or desire a war, something irreversible could occur against his will. That is why the President is asking for help to solve this problem.”
In his memoirs, Khrushchev recalled a further, chilling sentence from Robert Kennedy’s appeal to Dobrynin: “If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power.”
Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita’s son, has described his father’s thoughts when he read Dobrynin’s wired report relaying John Kennedy’s plea: “The president was calling for help: that was how father interpreted Robert Kennedy’s talk with our ambassador.”
At a moment when the world was falling into darkness, Kennedy did what from his generals’ standpoint was intolerable and unforgivable. JFK not only rejected his generals’ pressures for war. Even worse, the president then reached out to their enemy, asking for help. That was treason.
When Nikita Khrushchev had received Kennedy’s plea for help in Moscow, he turned to his Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko and said, “We have to let Kennedy know that we want to help him.”
Khrushchev stunned himself by what he had just said: Did he really want to help his enemy, Kennedy? Yes, he did. He repeated the word to his foreign minister:
“Yes, help. We now have a common cause, to save the world from those pushing us toward war.”
How do we understand that moment? The two most heavily armed leaders in history, on the verge of total nuclear war, suddenly joined hands against those on both sides pressuring them to attack. Khrushchev ordered the immediate withdrawal of his missiles, in return for Kennedy’s public pledge never to invade Cuba and his secret promise to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey – as he would in fact do. The two Cold War enemies had turned, so that each now had more in common with his opponent than either had with his own generals. As a result of that turn toward peace, one leader would be assassinated thirteen months later. The other, left without his peacemaking partner, would be overthrown the following year. Yet because of their turn away from nuclear war, today we are still living and struggling for peace on this earth. Hope is alive. We still have a chance.
...That is how he seemed to regard the situation – that it would soon lead to his own death. JFK was not afraid of death. As a biographer observed, “Kennedy talked a great deal about death, and about the assassination of Lincoln.” His conscious model for struggling truthfully through conflict, and being ready to die as a consequence, was Abraham Lincoln. On the day when Kennedy and Khrushchev resolved the missile crisis, JFK told his brother, Robert, referring to the assassination of Lincoln, “This is the night I should go to the theater.” Robert replied, “If you go, I want to go with you.”
The Other Terrifying Lesson Of The Cuban Missile Crisis
Historians have focused on how John F. Kennedy’s wisdom narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe. They’ve paid less attention to how little we knew about the Soviets’ true intentions.
by George Perkovich
For, until 1992, at a conference in Cuba of American, Soviet and Cuban veterans of the crisis, no Americans knew that the Soviets had deployed more than 100 “tactical” nuclear weapons in Cuba.
The military found the idea of invasion desirable, or at least feasible, because as McNamara told Kennedy, there were “about 8 to 10,000” Soviet “personnel, probably military personnel” in Cuba. As it turned out, this was an “unknown known” - a thing American leaders thought they knew but did not. The Soviets actually had far more troops on the island - 42,000 - which was not revealed until 2008.
Similar harrowing developments were also occurring at sea, even in the days after the crisis seemingly had ended. In brief, Soviet submarines patrolling around Cuba were equipped with nuclear-armed torpedoes, unbeknownst to U.S. officials. When American vessels dropped “practice” depth charges intended to signal the submarines to surface, the submarines’ commanders thought they were under attack. Two of the crews prepared to launch their nuclear-armed torpedoes against American ships, but for different reasons ultimately withheld firing. These crews, when they later returned to Russia after the crisis, were reprimanded for not heroically violating orders and firing. Again, none of this was known by Americans until decades after the crisis.
JFK's 'Secret' Doomsday Map Revealed (Video 1:29 and Text)
An old map of Cuba is up for auction in Boston -- but it's much more than a map.
It's a historic artifact from some of the darkest days of the Cold War, when Washington and Moscow reached a standoff that could have led to a nuclear doomsday.
President John F. Kennedy consulted the map -- which shows dozens of potential military targets across Cuba -- as he was considering whether to launch a US attack during the Cuban missile crisis.
by Thom Patterson
For more see the comprehensive section: Cuban Missile Crisis
November 6, 1962
The 1962 United States mid-term elections were held on November 6, and elected the members of the 88th United States Congress. The election occurred in the middle of Democratic President John F. Kennedy's term. The Republican Party picked up four seats in the House of Representatives, but the Democrats retained strong majorities in both houses of Congress. In the Senate, Democrats won a net gain of four seats from the Republicans, maintaining control of the Senate. Kennedy's brother Ted wins a special election in Massachusetts to represent the state as junior senator, in the seat his brother had held prior to his election as president. In the gubernatorial elections, neither party won a net gain of seats. Notably, 1960 Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon lost the California gubernatorial election to Democratic incumbent Governor Pat Brown by almost 300,000 votes, which many analysts incorrectly predicted to be the end of his political career.
November 20, 1962
Kennedy announces fair housing legislation
President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order 11063, which mandates an end to discrimination in housing. The order, which came during the burgeoning Civil Rights movement, prohibited federally funded housing agencies from denying housing or funding for housing to anyone based on their race, color, creed or national origin.
November 20, 1962
During the President’s news conference (number 45) of November 20, 1962, he begins with an update on the Cuban missile crisis, stating that Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev would withdraw IL-28 bomber planes in Cuba within 30 days and that the naval quarantine of Cuba was lifted as a result of the withdrawal. The President then announces the signing of Executive Order 11063, which prevented discrimination in housing facilities owned or operated by the federal government, and the creation of the Committee on Equal Opportunity in Housing.
President John F. Kennedy's 45th News Conference (30:36)
President John F. Kennedy's forty-fifth news conference was held in the State Department Auditorium at 6 o'clock on Tuesday evening, November 20, 1962.
‘’I have several statements. I have today been informed by Chairman Khrushchev that all of the IL-28 bombers now in Cuba will be withdrawn in 30 days. He also agrees that these planes can be observed and counted as they leave. Inasmuch as this goes a long way towards reducing the danger which faced this hemisphere 4 weeks ago, I have this afternoon instructed the Secretary of Defense to lift our naval quarantine. In view of this action, I want to take this opportunity to bring the American people up to date on the Cuban crisis and to review the progress made thus far in fulfilling the understandings between Soviet Chairman Khrushchev and myself as set forth in our letters of October 27 and 28. Chairman Khrushchev, it will be recalled, agreed to remove from Cuba all weapons systems capable of offensive use, to halt the further introduction of such weapons into Cuba, and to permit appropriate United Nations observation and supervision to insure the carrying out and continuation of these commitments. We on our part agreed that once these adequate arrangements for verification had been established we would remove our naval quarantine and give assurances against an invasion of Cuba.’’
November 21, 1962
Listening In: JFK on Getting to the Moon (4:04)
At an off-the-record meeting held on November 21, 1962 with NASA Administrator James Webb, NASA Deputy Administrator Robert Seamans, and Special Assistant to the President Jerome Wiesner, President Kennedy states clearly that his administration's priority is for the United States to land on the Moon before the Soviet Union.
November 22, 1962
President Kennedy is presented with the Laetare Medal by Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, the president of the University of Notre Dame. The Medal, annually awarded by Notre Dame, is considered the highest award for American Catholics. Kennedy was presented with the award in the Oval Office, by Fr. Hesburgh, who was also a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, the university's executive vice president.
Presentation of University of Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal to President Kennedy
President John F. Kennedy is presented the Laetare Medal for 1961 from the University of Notre Dame. Attending the presentation (L-R): Father Edmund P. Joyce, vice president of the University of Notre Dame; President Kennedy; Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh, president of the University of Notre Dame; three unidentified men; and Representative John Brademas (Indiana). Unidentified man in background. Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C.
November 29, 1963
President John F. Kennedy Speaking at American Pageant of the Arts Dinner (11:35)
President John F. Kennedy spoke in the National Guard Armory in Washington, D.C. Mrs. Kennedy then spoke briefly before introducing Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower who served with her as Honorary Co-Chairman of the National Cultural Center. General and Mrs. Eisenhower participated in the broadcast from Augusta, Georgia.
December 12, 1962
President Kennedy meets with President Jorge Alessandri of the Republic of Chile, have a working meeting to discuss the Alliance for Progress.
President John F. Kennedy with President of Chile, Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez
President John F. Kennedy walks with President of Chile, Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez, through the West Wing Lobby, following their meeting at the White House.
December 12, 1962
President and First Lady at Christmas Reception
President and Mrs. Kennedy pose in front of the White House Christmas Tree during the Staff Christmas Reception. White House, Entrance Hall.
Photograph by Robert Knudsen
December 14, 1962
JFK Address to the Economic Club of New York, December 14, 1962 (Audio 28 minutes)
...However, at that time the income tax rate was 91 percent, which Kennedy wanted to lower to 65 percent.
John F. Kennedy On The Economy And Taxes
The president finally decided that only a bold domestic program, including tax cuts, would restore his political momentum. Declaring that the absence of recession is not tantamount to economic growth, the president proposed in 1963 to cut income taxes from a range of 20-91% to 14-65% He also proposed a cut in the corporate tax rate from 52% to 47%.
JFK Speech On Tax Cuts (8:08)
An excerpt from John F Kennedy's address to the Economic Club of New York on December 14, 1962.
President John F. Kennedy Address To The Economic Club Of New York (Audio 27:31 and Text)
Delivered December 14, 1962, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York
December 17, 1962
This folder contains materials collected by the office of President John F. Kennedy's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, concerning President Kennedy's Christmas message for 1962. In his speech the President discusses the universality of Christmas as a day of peace. Materials in this folder include drafts by economist and Ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith, one of which contains handwritten notations by the President.
December 18, 1962 - December 21, 1962
Kennedy makes the sixth international trip of his presidency, traveling to Nassau, The Bahamas, where he confers with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and concludes an agreement on nuclear defense systems.
Britain's Special Relationship With USA Was 'Saved By Kennedy' In Nuclear Row
by Marco Giannangeli
Britain might well have seen its special relationship with the US downgraded to become merely a “strategically-positioned launchpad for American interests” had it not been for John F Kennedy, according to a new book.
December 25, 1962
Kennedy Slideshow #1 -- Christmas Day With The Kennedys At Palm Beach, Florida
January 2, 1963
Isaiah L. Kenen incorporates the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington, DC.
1963: The Year The Israel Lobby Transcended US Law
by Grant F. Smith
...A half-century after the attempted regulation of Israel lobbies under FARA failed, it is productive to image what might be different today if AIPAC in particular had been properly registered under the Act. When AIPAC director Morris Amitay was caught red-handed mishandling classified missile secrets in 1975, he could have been prosecuted under FARA. When AIPAC and an Israeli diplomat purloined the entire 300-page book of classified trade secrets compiled from 70 U.S. industry groups opposed to unilateral trade concessions for Israel in 1984, they could have been prosecuted for failing to report their clandestine subversion of due process. When in 2005 Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman met with Israeli diplomats during efforts to pass classified information to the press they thought could trigger a U.S attack on Iran, FARA consequences would have awaited them all...
The Kennedys vs Israel’s Lobby
by Grant F. Smith
... Between 1962 and 1963 Senator J.W. Fulbright uncovered a massive network of financial “conduits” moving funds directed by the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem to Israel lobby startup groups across the United States. Even as JFK attempted to place Israel’s Dimona nuclear weapons program under US inspection, RFK ordered the AZC to openly register and disclose all of its foreign funded lobbying activity in the United States...
The Open Secret About The Israel Lobby
by Paul Findley
There is an open secret in Washington. I learned it well during my 22-year tenure as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. All members swear to serve the interests of the United States, but there is an unwritten and overwhelming exception: The interests of one small foreign country almost always trump U.S. interests. That nation of course is Israel...
The Jewish Israel Lobby In The U.S.
AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is Israel's main lobby in the U.S. There are about 126 other political action committees (PAC), listed under deceptive names to hide their actual purpose, that can be mobilized at any time to rain money on any congressman ousting his disobedient opponent who dared criticize any aspect of U.S.-Israeli relationship. No wonder AIPAC is referred to on the Capitol Hill as "The Lobby". Many congressmen (now all ex's), such as the late Fullbright, Findley, and Percy, felt its power when daring to mildly criticize U.S.-Israeli relationship. Such criticism would also induce the wrath of the numerous pro-Israel columnists around the nation's major newspapers, such the New York Times' Safire, A.M. Rosenthal and the more subtle Thomas Friedman, the Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer and George Will, the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby, or the New Republic's Martin Peretz and Steven Emerson...
For more see the comprehensive section: Jewish Lobby
January 10, 1963
Kennedy meets with President-elect Dr. Juan Bosch of the Dominican Republic.
Meeting with the President-elect of the Dominican Republic, Dr. Juan E. Bosch
January 14, 1963
JFK's 1963 State of the Union (45:01)
Kennedy delivers his third (and final) State of the Union address. The President calls for massive tax reduction and tax reform, accurately predicting longest, strongest economic expansion in American peace-time history to that time.
Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union (Text)
by President John F. Kennedy
January 24, 1963
Special Message To The Congress On Tax Reduction And Reform (Text)
by President John F. Kennedy
1) Reduction in individual income tax rates from their present levels of 20 to 91 percent, to a range of 14 to 65 percent--the 14 percent rate to apply to the first $2,000 of taxable income for married taxpayers filing joint returns, and to the first $1,000 of the taxable income of single taxpayers;
(2) Reduction in the rate of the corporate income tax from 52 to 47 percent;
(3) Reversal of the corporate normal and surtax rates, so that the tax rate applicable to the first $25,000 of corporate income would drop from 30 to 22 percent, so as to give particular encouragement to small business;
(4) Acceleration of tax payments by corporations with anticipated annual liabilities of more than $ 100,000, to bring the corporate payment schedule to a current basis over a five-year transition period;
(5) Revision of the tax treatment of capital gains, designed to provide a freer and fuller flow of capital funds and to achieve a greater equity;
(6) Removal of certain inequities and hardships in our present tax structure; and
(7) Broadening of the base of the individual and corporate income taxes, to remove unwarranted special privileges, correct defects in the tax law, and provide more equal treatment of taxpayers--thereby permitting a larger reduction in tax rates than would otherwise be possible and making possible my proposals to alleviate hardships and inequities.
I shall propose a permanent reduction in tax rates which will lower liabilities by $13.5 billion. Of this, $11 billion results from reducing individual tax rates, which now range between 20% and 91%, to a more sensible range of 14% to 65%. $2.5 billion results from reducing corporate tax rates, from 52%--which gives the Government today a majority interest in profits-to the permanent pre-Korean level of 47%.
Celebrating A Time When Tax-Cutting Was The Cause Of Democrats
by James P. Pinkerton
In his message that day, Kennedy was unmistakable in his determination to focus on tax changes: “The revision of our federal tax system on an equitable basis is crucial to the achievement of these goals.”
Kennedy then listed the tax reductions he wanted, including cuts in both personal and corporate tax rates - from 91 percent to 65 percent and from 52 percent to 47 percent, respectively - as well as other changes, almost all of them downward adjustments.
February 5, 1963
John F. Kennedy and People with Intellectual Disabilities
"Mental retardation ranks with mental health as a major health, social, and economic problem in this country. It strikes our most precious asset, our children."
John F. Kennedy
February 7, 1963
Press Conference, February 7, 1963 (31 minutes)
Sound recording of the President’s News Conference of February 7, 1963 (News Conference 48). The President begins the press conference by announcing reappointments of William McChesney Martin, Jr. as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and Mr. C. Canby Balderston as Vice Chairman. Following this statement the President answers questions from the press on a variety of topics including the Cuban Missile Crisis and Soviet military personnel and weapons inspections in Cuba. President Kennedy also answers questions concerning President of France Charles de Gaulle’s blocking of Great Britain from the Common Market and his desire for an independent national deterrent.
February 28, 1963
Special Message on Civil Rights, February 28, 1963
This folder contains a press release of President John F. Kennedy's Special Message to Congress on civil rights, during which he asks Congress to enact legislation protecting all Americans' voting rights, legal standing, educational opportunities, and access to public facilities. The President recognizes that legislation alone cannot solve the country's problems concerning race relations, but notes that these measures are necessary preliminary actions towards the ideal of equality.
A Brief History Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1964
by Robert D. Loevy
On February 28, 1963, President John F. Kennedy sent Congress a strong message on the immediate need for civil rights legislation: "The Negro baby born in America today ... has about one-half as much chance of completing high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day-one-third as much chance of completing college-one third as much chance of becoming a professional man-twice as much chance of becoming unemployed ... a life expectancy which is seven years less-and the prospects of earning only half as much."
March 18, 1963
The Supreme Court rules in Gideon v. Wainwright that states must supply counsel in criminal cases for individuals who cannot afford it.
March 18, 1963 - March 20, 1963
Kennedy makes the seventh international trip of his presidency, traveling to San José, Costa Rica, where he attends the Conference of Presidents of the Central American Republics.
President John F. Kennedy in Costa Rica, March 18-20, 1963 (3:25)
March 18-20, 1963, San José, Costa Rica. President John F. Kennedy attending Conference of Presidents of the Central American Republics. Meetings with Central American business and government leaders during this visit led to the establishment of INCAE.In his opening discourse President Kennedy speaks of strengthening education in Central America. The Declaración de Centroamérica (Declaration of Central America), emitted on the second day of the conference, documents the presidents interests in strengthening institutions that would train and integrate public and private sector leaders in the Central American region. Kennedy met with President of Costa Rica Francisco Orlich during his tour of San Jose.
March 22, 1963
President Kennedy urges final action on Constitutional Amendment outlawing poll tax as a bar to voting; it became the 24th Amendment.
Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Twenty-fourth Amendment (Amendment XXIV) of the United States Constitution prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax. The amendment was proposed by Congress to the states on August 27, 1962, and was ratified by the states on January 23, 1964.
President John F. Kennedy returned to this issue. His administration urged Congress to adopt and send such an amendment to the states for ratification. He considered the constitutional amendment the best way to avoid a filibuster, as the claim that federal abolition of the poll tax was unconstitutional would be moot. Still, some liberals opposed Kennedy's action, feeling that an amendment would be too slow compared to legislation.[10] Spessard Holland, a conservative Democrat from Florida, introduced the amendment to the Senate. Holland opposed most civil rights legislation during his career,[11] and Kennedy's gaining of his support helped splinter monolithic Southern opposition to the Amendment. Ratification of the amendment was relatively quick, taking slightly more than a year; it was rapidly ratified by state legislatures across the country from August 1962 to January 1964.
April 1963
President John F. Kennedy - April 1963 (3:33)
April 3, 1963 British Labour Party Leader Harold Wilson visits Washington for talks with President John F. Kennedy.
April 8, 1963 - President Kennedy opens the 1963 baseball season by throwing out the first ball at D.C. Stadium
April 9, 1963 - President Kennedy signs Proclamation 3517 declaring Winston Churchill an honorary citizen of the United States
April 14, 1963 -The Kennedy family attend church during Easter.
April 29, 1963 - Meeting with Anastas Mikoyan.
April 30, 1963 - John F. Kennedy and Eunice Shriver meeting Grand Duchess Charlotte and Prince Jean of Luxembourg
April 1963
President John F. Kennedy - Easter Vacation in Palm Beach, Florida (3:34)
The President swimming and playing with John Jr., Caroline and the dogs in the swimming pool.
April 3, 1963
Press Conference, April 3, 1963 (30 minutes)
Sound recording of the President’s News Conference of April 3, 1963 (News Conference 53). During this press conference President Kennedy answers questions from the press on a variety of topics including the budget, Soviet troop withdrawal from Cuba, the TFX fighter plane contract, hit and run raids on Cuba by Cuban exiles, an increase in the size of the Peace Corps for Latin America, and the space program.
April 3, 1963
Martin Luther King Jr leads a civil rights drive in Birmingham, Alabama. Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor orders the police to use fire hoses and dogs on demonstrators.
April 4, 1963
White House Rose Garden, ca. April 4, 1963 (Video 11 minutes)
Silent motion picture containing scenes filmed possibly on April 4, 1963, on the grounds of the White House, Washington, D.C., including the South lawn, the Rose Garden, and the East Wing. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Antoinette Bradlee, and other children have a picnic and some of the children play in the fountain and elsewhere. President John F. Kennedy also joins the group.
April 10, 1963
Did Lee Harvey Oswald Shoot at General Edwin Walker?
Oswald was posthumously accused of having shot at Walker in April 1963, largely on the basis of a claim by his widow that he had admitted to the shooting. Against this, the only witness failed to identify Oswald, and the bullet was the wrong type.
On the evening of April 10, 1963, Edwin Walker, a former Army general, was sitting in his study when a bullet entered his house through a window frame and struck the wall close to his head. Dallas police were unable to identify the gunman.
The crime remained unsolved until shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy, when the FBI’s report presumed that Lee Harvey Oswald was the culprit (see Warren Commission Document 1, pp.20–22). The Warren Commission, unable to determine Oswald’s motive for shooting JFK, seized on the attempted shooting of General Walker as evidence of Oswald’s murderous tendencies...
Judyth Baker: Lee Harvey Oswald did not shoot at General Walker
“Did Lee Harvey Oswald shoot at General Edwin Walker months before the Kennedy assassination? As in virtually every Warren Commission conclusion regarding Oswald, it is unsupported by the evidence”.
by Richard Charnin
April 24, 1963
Press Conference, April 24, 1963 (Audio 31 minutes)
Sound recording of the President’s News Conference of April 24, 1963 (News Conference 54). The President begins the press conference by announcing that he would meet with Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts on May 10 and 11. He goes on to say that Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs W. Averell Harriman will travel to Moscow to meet with Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to discuss the situation in Laos. Following the announcements the President answers questions from the press on a variety of topics including the tax cut, Laos, the nuclear test ban treaty, the number of Soviet personnel and troops in Cuba, Scientist John Rock’s recommendation of Government-funded population growth programs, civil rights, and the space program.
May 1963
President John F. Kennedy - May 1963 (2:49)
May 10, 1963 - Meeting with Prime Minister Lester Pearson of Canada, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts
May 12, 1963 - Address to the nation on radio and television on the racial strife in Birmingham, Alabama
May 23, 1963 - President Kennedy at a Democratic Party fund raising event held by as a birthday salute to the President at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
May 31, 1963 - General Mobutu from Zaire visits the White House.
President Kennedy's Schedule - May 1963
May 6, 1963
President Kennedy orders National Security Action Memorandum NSAM 239 to pursue both a nuclear test ban treaty and an urgent reexamination of the possibilities of new approaches to significant measures short of general and complete disarmament which it would be in the interest of the United States to propose in the resumed session of the Geneva Conference.
1) Discussions in the 18 Nation Disarmament Conference at Geneva on both general and complete disarmament and a nuclear test bam treaty have unfortunately resulted in almost no progress. There has been no serious discussion of general and complete disarmament for some time. While discussions of a test ban treaty have shown important developments since the beginning of the 18 Nation Conference, they are now stalled.
2) I have in no way changed my views of the desirability of a test ban treaty or the value of our proposals on general and complete disarmament. Further, the events of the last two years have increased my concern for the consequences of an unchecked continuation of the arms race between ourselves and the Soviet Bloc.
3) We now expect the 18 Nation Disarmament Committee in Geneva to recess shortly for six weeks to two months. I should like the interval to be used for an urgent reexamination of the possibilities of new approaches to significant measures short of general and complete disarmament which it would be in the interest of the United States to propose in the resumed session of the Geneva Conference.
Norman Cousins And The Limited Test Ban Treaty Of 1963
by Lawrence S. Wittner
...Cousins stepped forward in an effort to break the great-power deadlock over a test ban treaty. Asked by Pope John XXIII to speak with Khrushchev in order to improve relations between the Vatican and the Kremlin, the SANE leader arranged to meet with Kennedy in November 1962 before his departure. During their discussion, Cousins inquired if the president wanted him to use the visit to transmit a peace and disarmament message to the Soviet premier. In response, Kennedy urged Cousins to convince Khrushchev that his administration sought peaceful relations with the Soviet Union and that a test ban treaty would provide an important route toward this goal...
For more see the comprehensive section: NSAM 239
May 8, 1963
Press Conference, May 8, 1963 (Audio 30 minutes)
Sound recording of the President’s News Conference of May 8, 1963 (News Conference 55). The President begins the press conference with a statement concerning recent civil rights issues and demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, and urges leaders on both sides of the issue to continue their cooperative efforts to achieve equality. Following this statement the President answers questions from the press on a variety of topics including the situation in Birmingham, Alabama; desegregation of the University of Alabama at Huntsville; a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Pearson; agricultural legislation; tax cuts; and the forthcoming GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) meeting at Geneva.
President Kennedy's Birthday, May 29, 1963
President's Birthday Party, given by White House Staff. President and Mrs. Kennedy, assistants David Powers and Kenneth O'Donnell, others. White House, Navy Mess Hall.
Photograph by Robert Knudsen
May 29, 1963
How John F. Kennedy celebrated his last birthday, May 29, 1963 (Video and Text)
by Peter Grier
JFK's last birthday was classic 'Camelot,' with 'festive yachting suit and dress' and a dash of Hollywood. 'I don’t think I had ever seen the president and Mrs. Kennedy having more fun,' wrote an aide.
May 29, 1963
Remembering JFK’s Last Birthday
by Clint Hill
May 29, 1963, was President Kennedy’s forty-sixth birthday, and it is one of those days that has remained vivid in my memory. At the end of the workday, at around 5:45, President Kennedy walked down to the Navy Mess, where a small group of his staff and Mrs. Kennedy were waiting with a cake. When the president walked in, we yelled, “Surprise!” and as soon as somebody handed him a glass of champagne, we all started singing “Happy Birthday.”
June 4, 1963
President Kennedy issues Executive Order 11110.
Many believe (such as I had, and I umwhittingly helped to promagated this myth - perhaps more than anyone - for this, I am sorry - thanks to Jim Marrs for mistakingly starting this myth) that this EO was the opening salvo to put an end to the uruios counterfiting of the Federal Reserve. It wasn't.
What is true, is that Joseph P. Kennedy understood what the Federal Reserve was and istilled this knowledge into his son, John. He wanted John to take down this cabal. This may have happened if John F. Kennedy lived to have a second term as President.
In 1963, the last $2 an $5 United States Treasury Notes were printed and put into circulation. In 1966 $100 United States Treasury Notes were printed. This was the last time usury free money entered circulation.
EO 11110, Hard Facts Refute `JFK Greenback' Myth
by Michael Collins Piper
The Jewish War on the Kennedys
John DeNugent
by John DiNardo
Israel Killed JFK And Has Ruled America Ever Since.
by VidRebel
The United States has had three coups if you count the first one as being Jekyll Island in November of 1910. Those first coup plotters met at Jekyll Island and secretly wrote the law that became the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. All of the bankers who met in secret were Rothschild agents. This included Paul Warburg of the Rothschild dominated Kuhn Loeb bank. Nelson Aldrich who was a Senator married into the Rockefeller family. The Rockefellers were created by the Rothschilds as were J P Morgan, the Harrimans and the Bush family. Senator Aldrich was head of the National Monetary Commission created by President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt had become President after the Jews had successfully assassinated President McKinley. They previously had assassinated President Lincoln. John Wilkes Booth was Jewish. But I prefer not to count these earlier assassinations as coups. The remaining members of the Jekyll Island Six were Treasury Department employees. who did what they were told to do.
The first day of those meetings actually occurred in a private railway car on the evening of November 22, 1910. When the Jews took over America’s banking and monetary system in 1913, they took over the country. Not all coups involve tanks in the streets. It was no coincidence that President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 which was the 53rd anniversary of Israel’s earlier coup. President Kennedy had dared to attempt to take America back from the Jews.
All three of America’s coups involved Israel. I have defined an Israeli as anyone of Jewish descent who is loyal to Israel. There was no state of Israel in 1910 but there was an ongoing criminal enterprise which could be called Judaism Incorporated. Any educated person whose thoughts have not been contaminated by the Jews should view Israel as the enemy of all mankind.
Today I want to focus on the assassination of JFK as we are now facing the 51st anniversary of our President’s murder without being allowed to conduct a criminal investigation. Voltaire said you know who has power because you are not allowed to criticize them. We could rephrase that in today’s world by saying we know who owns the government by determining who has not been arrested for stealing money by the billions.
The following is from a video made by Michael Collins Piper. He has connected all the dots in the Kennedy assassination and tied them to Israel.
Mordecai Vanunu was the original whistleblower. In 1986 he told the world that Israel had nuclear weapons and published photos of the secret Dimona works in the British press. He said Prime Minister Ben Gurion ordered the assassination of JFK because the President opposed Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Ben Gurion resigned in protest over JFK’s Israeli policies. Vanunu also wrote a letter in 1997 saying that there was even a link between the assassination of Kennedy and Israel’s launching of the 1967 war.
Michael Collins Piper wrote Final Judgement: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination. Michael Collins Piper in this book argued that the Israelis killed Kennedy. Vanunu endorsed Piper’s book.
The Oliver Stone movie JFK was the kosher version of the assassination. Piper does not dispute that Clay Shaw had connections to the CIA. But the film neglects Shaw’s connections to the heart of the Israeli nuclear program. He was also on the Board of Directors of Permindex, a Swiss assassination bureau. Permindex is an Israeli front and was not run by the CIA as Oliver Stone had said. A primary shareholder in Permindex was the Banque De Credit International of Geneva, founded by Tibor Rosenbaum, an arms procurer and financier for the Mossad. That bank was used by Meyer Lansky to launder hot money. Permindex was owned by CMC of Rome, which was founded by a Hungarian Jew named George Mandel who had deep connections with Israel and the Mossad. Mandel was the first man to start rumors about Auschwitz being a death camp. The Chairman of the Board at Permindex was Louis Bloomfield, a Canadian Jew and close associate of Edgar Bronfman. He also had long standing connections with the Rothschilds dating back before WW II.
The Stern family funded Clay Shaw’s defense. They can be traced back to the Purple Gang of Detroit. The Stern family owned WDSU radio and TV stations in New Orleans. Prior to JFK’s assassination they ran stories on Lee Harvey Oswald denouncing him as a member the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. They did not tell the people of New Orleans that this an FBI front group. This gave Oswald the cover of being a Leftist while spying on American liberals. The Stern family was heavily invested in the NUMEC nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, which was the source of Israel’s first nuclear bomb. NUMEC also dumped nuclear waste in Pennsylvania.
Piper said Clay Shaw might have had more to do with CIA-Mossad attempts to assassinate Charles De Gaulle than he did with the assassination of President Kennedy.
Ed Asner played Guy Bannister, the private detective, in the movie JFK. Bannister was a good friend of Kent and Phoebe Courtney. Bannister and the Courtneys were active in conservative politics. But the Courtneys did frustrate the work of people on the Right that the Anti-Defamation League did not like. Joe Pesci played David Ferrie in the movie JFK. He was a pilot and a friend of Lee Harvey Oswald. Bannister, Ferrie and Oswald spied on Leftists in New Orleans. Guy Bannister also was a friend of A. I. Botnick who was the head of the New Orleans ADL office. The Courtneys, Bannister, Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald were actively spying on Leftists in New Orleans for the ADL and Botnick.
The producer of JFK was the Israeli spy Arnon Milchan who sold nuclear triggers to Israel. A J Weberman, an Israeli citizen, was the first to say that District Attorney Jim Garrison had an unpublished manuscript that charged Israel was behind the assassination of President Kennedy.
John King offered Jim Garrison a judgeship to stop his investigation of Clay Shaw. King was a business partner of Bernie Cornfeld whose Investors Overseas Service was a 2.5 billion dollar fraud. It was a subsidiary of Permindex and was linked to Tibor Rosenbaum and the Mossad.
The London Jewish Chronicle denounced President Kennedy’s UN delegation position that displaced Palestinians had the right to return to the land that Israel had illegally taken from them during the 1948 war. The Jewish Chronicle published this in London on November 22, 1963.
Adlai Stevenson, a former Presidential candidate, was the American UN ambassador at the time. Stevenson’s son was also a Senator and opposed Israel’s excesses. He was critical of Israel sinking the USS Liberty in the 1967 war, which killed 34 American sailors.
Lyndon Johnson said he wanted the USS Liberty to sink to the bottom of the Mediterranean even while the Israelis were attacking the ship. LBJ was sleeping with a former Irgun terrorist, Mathilde Krim. Her husband was one of LBJ’s many Jewish advisers.
A JFK researcher once wrote that Piper was on to something in his research linking Israel to the assassination of President. But he said that we had to proceed with caution. Because to be accused of anti-Semitism is about the same as being accused of being a child molester.
Robert Kennedy was the Attorney General in 1963. He gave the American Zionist Council, the predecessor to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), 72 hours to register as a foreign lobby. They formed AIPAC and waited for President Kennedy to be murdered so their legal problems would go away.
Frank Sturgis was an anti-Castro operative who was caught up in the Watergate burglary. He was an Israeli mercenary during the 1948 war. Cuban Intelligence believed Sturgis was in charge of communications for one of the JFK hit teams on November 22, 1963.
Meyer Lansky was key to the establishment of both Las Vegas and the state of Israel. The casinos launder the CIA’s Black Ops money along side Jewish mob money. The real crime boss of Chicago was Meyer Lansky’s partner Hyman Larner. Larner was closely connected with Israel and the Shah of Iran. Lucky Luciano wrote in his biography that his old friend and partner Meyer Lansky took over the mob from him. Sam (Santo) Trafficante of Tampa and Carlos Marcello of New Orleans were both lower level local bosses who were far out ranked by Lansky.
The Bronfman family bought Texas Pacific, an oil company. The Crown family of Chicago who had been part of organized crime bought General Dynamics. The late Sir Edgar Bronfman was given 240 million US dollars a year by organized crime for the right to export heroin from Canada into the US. He was allowed to write this down on his tax returns, which legitimatized his take from the heroin trade. This allowed him to at one time buy 20% of the combined assets of DuPont-Conoco. The Bronfman family has branched out into water privatization through Vivendi, which was exploited of the poor in Third World countries.
Lee Harvey Oswald tested negative for gunshot residue. Piper believes Oswald was in front of the Texas Schoolbook Depository when JFK was killed. There is a photo, which could be of Oswald standing in front of the building. Judyth Vary Baker, a medical researcher, worked with Oswald at the Riley Coffee Company of New Orleans, which was a CIA front run by a retired FBI agent. She was a child prodigy who developed cancer cells in mice that Oswald took to Dr Mary Sherman at LSU to be put in vaccines for Americans. Dr Mary Sherman died under mysterious and to date unsolved circumstances. Ed Haslam wrote a book called Dr Mary’s Monkey about this neglected part of Oswald’s life. Judyth Vary Baker also wrote about her affair with Oswald.
Jack Ruby was connected to two people who were involved in smuggling nuclear triggers to Israel. One was Lawrence Meyers. Piper had corresponded with James Earl Ray. Ray’s brother published a book saying that the Bronfmans and Israel had nothing to do with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. A US intelligent agent helped put the book together.
Piper does not mention that JFK was assassinated on the 53rd anniversary of the first day of the meetings to found the Federal Reserve Bank. That meeting on November 22, 1910 could be considered the first Jewish coup. America’s second Jewish coup was of course the JFK assassination. And the third occurred on 9-11-2001 when Israel took down World Trade Center Towers 1, 2 and 7 with controlled demolitions.
There have been many books written that prove JFK was not killed by a lone assassin. But Michael Collins Piper the first to connect all the dots and trace them back to Israel.
For more see the comprehensive section: Executive Order 11110
June 7, 1963 - June 9, 1963
John F. Kennedy in Los Angeles and Honolulu
President Kennedy attends a Democratic Party fund-raising dinner for 150 members of the President's Club of Los Angeles. President Kennedy addresses a breakfast with Democratic State Committeewomen of California at the Hollywood Palladium. The President calls for enactment of his tax cut and aid-to-education programs. He defends his administration's civil rights record. President Kennedy arrives in Honolulu, Hawaii. President Kennedy addresses the U.S. Conference of Mayors at the Lawn House at the Hawaiian Village Hotel in Honolulu. The President discusses the increased "tempo of the nationwide drive for full equality." He asks the mayors to help guide "along constructive channels the attainment of a peaceful revolution which will not only avoid disaster, but fulfill our highest obligations." The President asks the mayors to adopt a program for local action.
June 10, 1963
American University peace speech. President John Kennedy gave the commencement address at American University. In it, he addressed relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and offers a nuclear test ban treaty (on August 5, 1963, the United States and the Soviet Union sign the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, agreeing not to test nuclear bombs in air, space, or water). He calls on American people to reexamine their attitude toward cold war. In my humble opinion (Mark R. Elsis), this is the greatest speech of President Kennedy, it's also the greatest speech ever given by a United States President, and the most important speech of the 20th century.
John F. Kennedy - Commencement Address at American University in Washington - June 10, 1963 (Text)
Commencement Address At American University - June 10, 1963 (Video 27:05)
by President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
The ceremonies began earlier than expected, so the network cameras missed the first half of the President's prefatory remarks. In his speech the President asks the graduates to re-examine their attitudes towards peace, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War, famously remarking, "If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can make the world safe for diversity." The President also announces that he, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan have agreed to hold discussions concerning a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. Finally, he explains that the United States will not conduct atmospheric nuclear tests on the condition that other countries uphold this same promise.
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/BWC7I4C9QUmLG9J6I8oy8w.aspx
The Soviet press, which was accustomed to censoring United States government statements, published the entire speech all across the country. Soviet radio stations broadcast and rebroadcast the speech to the Soviet people. In response to Kennedy’s turn toward peace, the Soviet government even stopped jamming all Western broadcasts into their country.
Nikita Khrushchev was deeply moved by the American University Address. He said Kennedy had given “the greatest speech by any American President since Roosevelt.”
“At American University on June 10, 1963, President Kennedy proposed an end to the Cold War.”
Norman Cousins, editor Saturday Review
"After the American University address, John Kennedy and Nikita Krushchev began to act like competitors in peace. They were both turning. However, Kennedy's rejection of Cold War politics was considered treasonous by forces in his own government. In that context, which Kennedy knew well, the American University address was a profile in courage with lethal consequences. President Kennedy's June 10, 1963 call for an end to the Cold War, five and one-half months before his assassination, anticipates Dr. King's courage in his April 4, 1967, Riverside Church address calling for an end to the Vietnam War, exactly one year before his assassination. Each of those transforming speeches was a prophetic statement provoking the reward a prophet traditionally receives. John Kennedy's American University address was to his death in Dallas as Martin Luther King's Riverside Church address was to his death in Memphis."
James Douglass, "JFK and the Unspeakable," p. 46
As a Peacemaker John F. Kennedy Understood the Potential of the Human Spirit
by George Cassidy Payne
John F. Kennedy was no saint. But the man was a prophet. He knew that our shared hopes and experiences are more than what keeps us apart. In his most important speech-the one that likely got him killed a little more than five months later-Kennedy charted the only course that has a future. Speaking at an American University commencement- and cleverly addressing the Soviet Union head on- the president stated with heroic conviction:
"Today, should total war ever break out again—no matter how—our two countries would become the primary targets. It is an ironic but accurate fact that the two strongest powers are the two in the most danger of devastation. All we have built, all we have worked for, would be destroyed in the first 24 hours.... [W]e are both devoting massive sums of money to weapons that could be better devoted to combating ignorance, poverty, and disease. We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counterweapons."
June 11, 1963
Thich Quang Duc Self-Immolation (2:20)
Thich Quang Duc was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on June 11, 1963. Quang Duc was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngô Ðình Diem. Photographs of his self-immolation were circulated widely across the world and brought attention to the policies of the Diem government. John F. Kennedy said in reference to a photograph of Ðuc on fire, "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of the monk's death.
The burning monk, 1963
..The self-immolation was done in protest to the South Vietnamese Diem regime’s pro-catholic policies and discriminatory Buddhist laws. In particular this was a response to the banning of the Buddhist flag, just 2 days after Diem had held a very public ceremony displaying crosses; earlier in his rule he had dedicated Vietnam to Jesus and the Catholic Church. The growing resentment of Buddhists under Diem was one of the underlying issues of South Vietnam, and eventually led to a coup to put in place a leader who would not alienate Buddhists, who made up 70-90% of Vietnam’s population...
The Burning Monk - 1963 (1:27)
See: November 1, 1963 - November 2, 1963
Kennedy sends the Alabama National Guard to the University of Alabama to protect two African-American students who won a court order to attend the college.
That evening in a televised address to the nation, Report to the American People on Civil Rights, Kennedy defined the civil rights crisis as moral, as well as constitutional and legal. He announced that major civil rights legislation would be submitted to the Congress to guarantee equal access to public facilities, to end segregation in education, and to provide federal protection of the right to vote.
Report to the American People on Civil Rights, June 11, 1963 (Video 14 minutes)
CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) motion picture excerpt of President John F. Kennedy's full radio and television report to the American people on civil rights. See "Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963: Item 237." In his speech the President responds to the threats of violence and obstruction on the University of Alabama campus following desegregation attempts, explaining that the United States was founded on the principle that all men are created equal and thus, all American students are entitled to attend public educational institutions, regardless of race. He also discusses how discrimination affects education, public safety, and international relations, noting that the country cannot preach freedom internationally while ignoring it domestically. The President asks Congress to enact legislation protecting all Americans' voting rights, legal standing, educational opportunities, and access to public facilities, but recognizes that legislation alone cannot solve the country's problems concerning race relations.
John F. Kennedy's 'finest moment' (10:22)
For more see the comprehensive section: Civil Rights Movement
June 12, 1963
Medgar W. Evers, civil rights leader and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) field secretary for Mississippi, is assassinated In the driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. The murder of Evers happens the very day after President Kennedy addressed the nation about civil rights.
Medgar Evers Assassination (4:31)
June 19, 1963
Special Message to the Congress on Civil Rights and Job Opportunities.
To the Congress of the United States:
Last week I addressed to the American people an appeal to conscience--a request for their cooperation in meeting the growing moral crisis in American race relations. I warned of "a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety" in many parts of the country. I emphasized that "the events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them." "It is a time to act," I said, "in the Congress, in State and local legislative bodies and, above all, in all of our daily lives."
In the days that have followed, the predictions of increased violence have been tragically borne out. The "fires of frustration and discord" have burned hotter than ever...
Until this year, President Kennedy has tackled civil rights by issuing executive orders, launching investigations, and enforcing existing laws. On February 28, he sends a Special Message to Congress outlining a plan dealing with racial discrimination. But Congress takes no action.
In the spring, a weeks-long series of civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama result in thousands of people arrested and jailed, many of them young schoolchildren. When Eugene “Bull” Connor, Birmingham’s notorious city commissioner, uses police dogs and fire hoses against demonstrators, the violence is broadcast on television and seen in news photos around the globe, and ignites protests across the country. The crisis compels the administration to speed up the drafting of comprehensive civil rights legislation.
On May 29, with the intention of sending a bill to Congress, Kennedy begins a series of meetings to get input and support from governors, civil rights groups, business executives, religious leaders, educators, women’s organizations, and others. On June 11, in a nationally televised address, he promises to send a bill to Congress, and on June 19 he does just that...
June 22, 1963
President Kennedy meets with civil rights leaders to review results of efforts to end segregation, stress the responsibility of leaders to stay within the law, and to discuss the nature of proposed civil rights legislation.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
President Kennedy is out on a political limb. He’s committed his administration to a major new civil rights bill, which he outlines in a nationally-televised address on June 11, 1963. The following week, he submits the bill to Congress. But its passage is very much in doubt, and he needs all the support he can get. Now he’s learned that civil rights and labor organizations are planning a big demonstration in the capital this summer, which they are calling "The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom." Kennedy is afraid that it will hurt rather than help his chances of getting the bill through Congress.
On June 22, the same day he’s scheduled to leave on an important European trip, the President has a pre-arranged meeting with civil rights leaders. A. Philip Randolph, the respected black labor leader is there. He’s the driving force behind the proposed March. Martin Luther King Jr. is also present and has joined Randolph in supporting the demonstration. The president tells the group he doesn’t want “a big show in the capital” that could jeopardize passage of the bill...
In the early 1960s, the fundamental prize sought by the civil rights movement was something that African Americans had never known: full legal equality.
When John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, African Americans throughout much of the South were denied the right to vote, barred from public facilities, subjected to insults and violence, and could not expect justice from the courts. In the North, black Americans also faced discrimination in housing, employment, education, and many other areas. But the civil rights movement had made important progress, and change was on the way...
June 23, 1963 - July 2, 1963
Kennedy makes the eighth and final international trip of his presidency.
President Kennedy’s Trip to Europe, June 23-July 2, 1963 (Video 8:40)
This segment features archival footage covering highlights of President John F. Kennedy’s European trip in the summer of 1963. Included are scenes from of President Kennedy in West Berlin; President Kennedy arriving in Ireland and his visit to the Kennedy Homestead; and President Kennedy meeting Pope Paul VI at the Vatican. The footage is narrated by Kennedy Library Director Tom Putnam.
June 23, 1963 - June 25, 1963
Kennedy visits Cologne, Frankfurt, and Wiesbaden, West Germany; he also holds meetings with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and other officials.
June 25, 1963
President John F. Kennedy's Address at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt. (2:31)
Address in the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt.
''The first task of the Atlantic Community was to assure its common defense. That defense was and still is indivisible. The United States will risk its cities to defend yours because we need your freedom to protect ours. Hundreds of thousands of our soldiers serve with yours on this continent, as tangible evidence of that pledge. Those who would doubt our pledge or deny this indivisibility--those who would separate Europe from America or split one ally from another--would only give aid and comfort to the men who make themselves our adversaries and welcome any Western disarray.
The proposal before us is for a new Atlantic force. Such a force would bring strength instead of weakness, cohesion instead of division. It would belong to all members, not one, with all participating on a basis of full equality. And as Europe moves towards unity, its role and responsibility, here as elsewhere, would and must increase accordingly. Let it not be said of this Atlantic generation that we left ideals and visions to the past, nor purpose and determination to our adversaries. We have come too far, we have sacrificed too much, to disdain the future now. And we shall ever remember what Goethe told us, that the "highest wisdom, the best that mankind ever knew" was the realization that "he only earns his freedom and existence who daily conquers them anew."
June 25, 1963 - June 26, 1963
President John F. Kennedy in Frankfurt, June 25-26, 1963 (2:23)
President Kennedy visits Allied and American troops at Fliegerhorst Barracks near Hanau after which he drives to Frankfurt. President Kennedy signs the Golden Book and makes remarks at Romerburg in Frankfurt upon signing the Golden Book. President Kennedy addresses German government officials and invited guests at the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt, site of the first free German Parliament in 1848. The President says "The future of the West lies in the Atlantic partnership." President Kennedy meets with Ludwig Erhard, expected successor to Chancellor Adenauer. President Kennedy makes remarks at a reception in his honor given by Hesse state president Georg Zinn in the Kurhaus in Wiesbaden.
June 26, 1963
Kennedy visits West Berlin, and delivers his now-famous speech to an enormous crowd at Schoneberger Rathaus in the Rudolph Wilde Platz. Kennedy's stirring words on freedom excite the crowd: "All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, Ich bin ein Berliner."
President John F Kennedy's visit to Germany in June 23-26, 1963 (Part 1) (9:44)
June 23, 1963 President Kennedy arrives at the Wahn Airport between Bonn and Cologne in West Germany. The President is welcomed by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. They attend Mass at Cologne Cathedral.
President John F Kennedy's visit to Germany in June 23-26, 1963 (Part 2) (10:46)
President Kennedy continues his visit in West Germany
President John F Kennedy's visit to Germany in June 23-26, 1963 (Part 3) (9:38)
President Kennedy in West Berlin. ''Ich bin ein Berliner'' speech
June 26, 1963 - June 29, 1963
Kennedy visits Dublin, Wexford, Cork, Galway, and Limerick, Ireland.
President John F Kennedy's visit to Ireland in June 26-29, 1963 (Part 1) (10:39)
President Kennedy arriving in Dublin Airport.
President John F Kennedy's visit to Ireland in June 26-29, 1963 (Part 2) (10:36)
President Kennedy in Dunganstown, New Ross, Co. Wexford. Kennedy Homestead.
President John F Kennedy's visit to Ireland in June 26-29, 1963 (Part 3) (9:32)
President Kennedy continues his trip in Ireland and takes of for Britain.
June 28, 1963
President Kennedy addresses the Oireachtas Éireann, the national parliament of Ireland, at Leinster House in Dublin, Ireland.
June 28, 1963
President Kennedy's Address Before the Irish Parliament in Dublin, Ireland (17:15)
President Kennedy and Taoiseach Sean Lemass entering the Dáil Éireann Chamber where the President makes a speech to both houses of the Oireachtas. President John F. Kennedy spoke in Leinster House before a joint session of the Seanad and the Dail. Kennedy spoke to both Dáil Éireann and of Seanad Éireann on 28th of June, 1963. In his speech the President discusses the historic relationship between Ireland and the United States, the numerous contributions to society made by Americans of Irish descent, and commends the representatives on Ireland's social, political, and economic advancements following the Famine.
June 29, 1963
President John F. Kennedy's Remarks at Shannon Airport Upon Leaving (5:31)
President John F. Kennedy’s final remarks in Ireland. Large numbers turn out at Shannon Airport in the hope of getting a glimpse of President Kennedy before he leaves for the UK. Already behind in his schedule President Kennedy says farewell to the people of Ireland before boarding Air Force One to the UK. Police and photographers surround President Kennedy, as he meets the Bunratty Castle Singers.
June 29, 1963 - June 30, 1963
Kennedy travels to the United Kingdom for an informal visit with the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan at his home in West Sussex, England.
June 29, 1963 - June 30, 1963
President Kennedy Meets Macmillan - Technicolor (2:51)
June 29, 1963 - June 30, 1963
President John F. Kennedy's visit to Britain, June 29-30, 1963 (5:20)
President John F. Kennedy arrives at Gatwick Airport in London for a private visit at Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's country home, Birch Grove, Sussex, England. They fly by helicopter to Macmillans country home. Kennedy attends Mass at a nearby Catholic church. Later he departs from Gatwick. Next destination is Milan.
June 29, 1963 - June 30, 1963
President John F. Kennedy visits Harold Macmillan, Birch Grove House, Sussex (2:06)
In 1963, at the height of the Cold War, President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan met at Birch Grove, Macmillan's country house in Sussex. The brief 24 hour visit is often overlooked by the history books, but their time together in the English countryside cemented their relationship and a unique Anglo-American friendship. Birch Grove acted as the stage for the talks between the two men, with all the comings and goings of an international Cold War summit. After just 24 hours Kennedy would leave England never to return.
June 30, 1963
President John F. Kennedy attending Mass at Our Lady of the Forest, Forest Row (:49)
President John F. Kennedy attended Mass at Our Lady of the Forest Church in Forest Row, East Sussex, England. President Kennedy's car stopped in the church courtyard and the President stepped out. He was greeted by Father Charles P. Dolman on the entrance before going inside.
July 1, 1963 - July 2, 1963
Kennedy visits Naples and Rome, Italy, where he meets with Italian President Antonio Segni, and with officials of The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
July 1, 1963 - July 2, 1963
President John F. Kennedy's visit to Italy, July 1-2, 1963 (10:58)
President Kennedy arrives at Fiumicino Airport in Rome, where he is welcomed by President Antonio Segni and Premier Giovanni Leone. Kennedy visit Pope Paul VI at the Vatican together with his sister Eunice Shriver.
July 2, 1963
Kennedy has an audience with the newly elected Pope Paul VI at the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City.
July 2, 1963
President John F. Kennedy visits Pope Paul VI in the Vatican City (1:14)
U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Archbishop Gennaro Verolino, secretary of the Vatican Ceremonial Congregation, in the courtyard of St. Damasus of the Vatican Palace. Pope Paul VI spreads arms in welcoming gesture as he receives President John F. Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic President of the United States, for their historic meeting in the Apostolic Palace. Kennedy was ushered into the private library of the newly-crowned Pontiff for a talk presumably centering on their mutual hopes for world peace.
July 2, 1963
President John F. Kennedy meets Pope Paul VI in the Vatican (4:49)
President John F. Kennedy, sister Jean Smith and American Secretary of State Dean Rusk are received by Pope Paul in the Vatican. This is the only meeting of a Roman Catholic U.S. President and a reigning Pope.
July 1963
July 1963 with JFK in Hyannis (19:20)
Family life at the JFK compound during July of 1963
July 18, 1963
Kennedy presents latest in series of administrative and legislative programs to stabilize United States balance of payments and stem outflow of gold.
July 24, 1963
President John F. Kennedy greets members of the American Legion Boys Nation (1:50)
President John F. Kennedy greets the delegates to the 18th Annual American Legion Boys Nation in the Rose Garden of the White House. He congratulated Richard J. Stratton, 17, of Leland, Illinois, who had just been elected President of Boys Nation. Among the delegates is future President Bill Clinton (starting at 39 seconds).
July 25, 1963
To make due on his American University promise to get a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, President Kennedy selected Averell Harriman, an experienced diplomat known and respected by Khrushchev, to resume negotiations in Moscow. An agreement to limit the scope of the test ban paved the way for a treaty. By excluding underground tests from the pact, negotiators eliminated the need for the on-site inspections that worried the Kremlin. On July 25, 1963, after only 12 days of negotiations, the two nations agreed to ban testing in the atmosphere, in space, and underwater. The next day, in a television address announcing the agreement, Kennedy claimed that a limited test ban" is safer by far for the United States than an unlimited nuclear arms race."
Within six weeks after the American University Address, the president had done an end run around the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He negotiated the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty without consulting them, because they opposed it.
Kennedy was fiercely determined but not optimistic that the Test Ban Treaty be ratified by the defense-conscious Senate. In early August, he told his advisers that getting Senate ratification of the agreement would be “almost in the nature of a miracle.” He said if a Senate vote were held right then it would fall far short of the necessary two-thirds.
Kennedy initiated a whirlwind public education campaign on the treaty, coordinated by Saturday Review editor Normal Cousins, who directed a committee of activists. By the end of August, the tide of congressional mail had gone from fifteen to one against a test ban to three to two against.
In September public opinion polls showed a turnaround. 80 percent of the American people were now in favor of the Test Ban Treaty. On September 24, 1963, the Senate approved the treaty by a vote of 80 to 19 – 14 more than the required two-thirds. No other single accomplishment in the White House gave Kennedy greater satisfaction.
July 26, 1963
Address to the Nation on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, July 26, 1963 (Video 26 minutes)
President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C., delivering a radio and television address to the American people on the passage of a treaty banning atmospheric nuclear weapons tests, later known as the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) or Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT). In his speech the President explains that the treaty will strengthen national security, lessen the risk and fear of radioactive fallout, reduce world tension by encouraging further dialogue, and prevent acquisition of nuclear weapons by nations not currently possessing them. The President emphasizes that while the treaty does not eliminate the threat of nuclear war, a limited test ban is safer than an unlimited arms race.
July 26, 1963
JFK's "Nuclear Test Ban Treaty" Speech To The Nation (25:38)
August 5, 1963
After more than eight years of difficult negotiations, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, agreeing not to test nuclear bombs in air, space, or water.
August 7, 1963
Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, the President and Mrs. Kennedy's last child, is born five-and-a-half weeks prematurely at the Otis Air Force Base Hospital in Bourne, Massachusetts. Shortly after birth, he develops symptoms of hyaline membrane disease, now called infant respiratory distress syndrome.
August 9, 1963
Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, the President and Mrs. Kennedy's last child, dies at Boston Children's Hospital from a lung ailment only two days after his birth.
Details you didn't know about the death of JFK's son, Patrick
by IrishCentral Staff
August 9, 1963
Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for fighting in New Orleans. His
arrest occurred when Oswald was handing out pro-Castro leaflets on
Canal Street. The man Oswald got into the altercation with was Carlos
Bringuier, a strongly anti-Castro Cuban exile and head of the New
Orleans chapter of the Directorio Revoionario Estudiantil, the DRE,
an exile group with well-known ties to the CIA's JM/WAVE program.
by John Simkin
Carlos Bringuier was born in Cuba on June 22, 1934. He studied at the University of Havana where he qualified as a lawyer in 1957. An opponent of Fidel Castro and his government he moved to Guatemala in 1960. He also lived in Argentina before arriving in the United States in February, 1961.
Bringuier joined the Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE), a militant right-wing, anti-Communist, anti-Castro, anti-Kennedy, group. Bringuier, based in New Orleans, was placed in charge of DRE publicity and propaganda.
On August 9, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald was handing out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets when he became involved in a fight with Bringuier. Oswald was arrested and on August 12th, he was found guilty and fined $10. While in prison he was visited by FBI agent, John L. Quigley. Five days later Oswald debated the issue of Fidel Castro and Cuba with Bringuier on the Bill Stuckey Radio Show.
Investigators discovered further links between Bringuier and Oswald. Bringuier was found in possession of a book, Guidebook for Marines, owned by Oswald. On Oswald's leaflets given out in New Orleans, was the address 544 Camp Street, New Orleans. This was also the address of the office used by Bringuier. It was also around the corner from 531 Lafayette Street, which housed the detective agency run by Guy Bannister, another man accused of being involved in the assassination...
August 14, 1963
Although then-Senator John F. Kennedy's 1957 speech calling for
independence for Algeria from France had helped pave the way for that
end result, newly-won Algerian freedom came at great cost. Israel was
actively seeking to undermine the new regime. On August 14, 1963 the
government of Algerian premier Ben Bella accused Israel of plotting
to topple the new Arab regime. The Algerian authorities captured 20
Algerians and 10 foreigners who were engaged in a conspiracy to bring
down the government. "Those foreigners are nearly all
Israelites," declared the Algerian information minister. "We
are led to believe that we are facing a plot with far-flung
ramifications and that behind it is the hand of Israel which is
trying to oppose the march of our revolution. "Ben Bella has
made clear the Algerian position on the enclave of imperialism called
Israel but which is really Palestine. It is not strange that they are
trying to interfere in our internal affairs."
August 28, 1963
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom attracts 250,000 people to the nation's capital in support of civil rights legislation. After rousing songs, heartfelt prayers, and inspirational speeches by nine other civil rights leaders at the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., addressed a sweltering but energized crowd in the afternoon heat culminating in the now-famous, "I Have A Dream" speech. The event exceeded all expectations; it was a powerful and peaceful demonstration for equality and justice. Following the event, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the nine other civil rights leaders of the "Top Ten" met with President Kennedy.
I Have A Dream (17:27)
by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
Probably the most famous speech of the 20th century by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Wednesday, August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. "I Have A Dream" is the popular name given to the public speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when he spoke of his desire for a future where blacks and whites, among others, would coexist harmoniously as equals.
King's delivery of the speech on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement.
Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters, the speech is often considered to be one of the greatest and most notable speeches in history and was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of scholars of public address.
I Have A Dream (Text)
by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963
August 30, 1963
Kennedy becomes the first United States president to have a direct phone line to the Kremlin in Moscow. The “hotline” was designed to facilitate communication between the president and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.
September 15, 1963
The Birmingham Church bombing. On September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, a church with a predominantly black congregation that served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls were killed and many other people injured; outrage over the incident and the violent clash between protesters and police that followed helped draw national attention to the hard-fought, often dangerous struggle for civil rights for African Americans.
Birmingham Bombing (Sixteenth Street Baptist Church)
The bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was one of the deadliest acts of violence to take place during the Civil Rights movement and evoked criticism and outrage from around the world. On the morning of September 15, 1963, as the congregation's children prepared for annual Youth Day celebrations, a bomb exploded in the stairwell of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church killing four girls and injuring dozens of others in the assembly. In the aftermath of the bombing, riots and violent demonstrations broke out throughout Birmingham, resulting in the death of two young African American boys. Following a tainted investigation by the FBI, Robert Chambliss, an active member of the Ku Klux Klan, was arrested and charged with murder and the possession of dynamite without a permit. Chambliss was acquitted of murder charges until 1977 when the reopening of the case resulted in his conviction, fourteen years after the bombing. In recent years, two additional conspirators, Thomas Blanton and Robert Cherry, have been tried and convicted for their roles in the church bombing. The bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which previously served as a central meeting place and staging ground for Civil Rights activities, was intended to stall the progression of the Civil Rights movement; however, the tragedy had the opposite effect, galvanizing support and propelling the movement forward.
Klan Bombing of Birmingham Church 1963 (3:53)
Haven to the South's most violent Ku Klux Klan chapter, Birmingham was probably the most segregated city in the country. Dozens of unsolved bombings and police killings had terrorized the black community since World War II. On Sunday, 15th September, 1963, a white man was seen getting out of a white and turquoise Chevrolet car and placing a box under the steps of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Soon afterwards, at 10.22 a.m., the bomb exploded killing Denise McNair (11), Addie Mae Collins (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Cynthia Wesley (14). The four girls had been attending Sunday school classes at the church. Twenty-three other people were also hurt by the blast.
September 18, 1963
Eulogy For The Young Victims Of The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing
by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
September 18, 1963, Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama
Delivered at funeral service for three of the children -Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, and Cynthia Diane Wesley - killed in the bombing. A separate service was held for the fourth victim, Carole Robertson.
President Kennedy address before the United Nations General Assembly (JFK's second and last) stating various specific recommendations, including “My fellow inhabitant of this planet: Let us take our stand here in this Assembly of nations. And let us see if we, in our own time, can move the world to a just and lasting peace.”
He proposes additional cooperation with Soviet Union, including outer space exploration. The United States and the Soviet Union subsequently agree on outer space disarmament move.
Address Before the 18th General Assembly of the United Nations, September 20, 1963 (Audio 29 minutes)
Sound recording of President John F. Kennedy’s address to the 18th General Assembly of the United Nations. In his speech the President discusses the recently signed treaty banning atmospheric nuclear weapons tests (later known as the Partial Test Ban Treaty or Limited Test Ban Treaty), remarking that peace may be attainable when two nations with incompatible ideologies successfully negotiate. The President famously asks, "Space offers no problems of sovereignty…Why, therefore, should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition?" President Kennedy also explains that the task of maintaining peace and decreasing global tension must be shared by all nations. He proposes ways for the United Nations to increase and improve their efforts in developing countries, specifically focusing on health.
Address at 18th U.N. General Assembly, September 20, 1963 (Text)
This folder contains materials collected by the office of President John F. Kennedy's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, concerning President Kennedy's address to the 18th General Assembly of the United Nations. In his speech the President discusses the recently signed treaty banning atmospheric nuclear weapons tests (later known as the Partial Test Ban Treaty or Limited Test Ban Treaty), remarking that peace may be attainable when two nations with incompatible ideologies negotiate with each other. The President famously asks, "Space offers no problems of sovereignty…Why, therefore, should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition?" President Kennedy also explains that the task of maintaining peace and decreasing global tension must be shared by all nations. He proposes ways for the United Nations to increase and improve their efforts in developing countries, specifically focusing on health, human rights, agriculture, communication, and the environment. Materials in this folder include drafts by Special Assistant to the President and speechwriter Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., a press copy, and a reading copy of the speech with handwritten notations by the President, in addition to memoranda from Schlesinger and Adlai Stevenson, Ambassador to the United Nations.
President John F. Kennedy, address to the United Nations, September 20, 1963 (2:02)
"Finally, in a field where the United States and the Soviet Union have a special capacity, in the field of space, there is room for new cooperation, for further joint efforts in the regulation and exploration of space. I include among these possibilities a joint expedition to the moon. Space offers no problems of sovereignty; by resolution of this Assembly, the members of the United Nations have foresworn any claim to territorial rights in outer space or on celestial bodies, and declared that international law and the United Nations Charter will apply. Why, therefore, should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction, and expenditure?"
See: November 12, 1963
Joint Moon Mission With USSR
http://JointMoonMissionWithUSSR.November221963.com
September 20, 1963
CIA, JFK Assassination Revealed And Richard Case Nagell (1:30:43)
Dark Journalist Interviews Dick Russell
In this exciting new Dark Journalist episode he is joined by best-selling author Dick Russell, who co-authored several volumes on American conspiracy with Jesse Ventura. He also wrote the ultimate classic volume on the JFK Assassination, "The Man Who Knew Too Much."
In this rare, exclusive interview, Russell recounts tracking down retired CIA agent and super-spy Richard Case Nagell. Nagell told Russell that he became an intelligence triple agent and was sent to penetrate Russian intelligence. The Russians wanted him to stalk a young intelligence officer named Lee Harvey Oswald who had lived in Russia, and who they feared was being set up as a patsy in an assassination plot to pin the blame on the Soviets.
by Dick Russell and Lachy Hulme
Dick Russell’s book, The Man Who Knew Too Much, tells the story of Nagell being recruited by the Soviet KGB to kill Lee Harvey Oswald and thereby prevent JFK’s assassination.
Richard Case Nagell had been a US Army counterintelligence officer from 1955 to 1959. He was assigned to Field Operations Intelligence (FOI), which he later described as “a covert extension of CIA policy and activity designed to conceal the true nature of CIA objectives”. During his training in Japan, Nagell was familiarized with “simple and intricate weapons to be used in assassinations”. He was also “advised that in the event I was apprehended, killed or compromised during the performance of my illegal FOI duties, the Department of the Army would publicly disclaim any knowledge of or connection with such duties, exercising its right of plausible denial”.
In the late fifties, Nagel’s role as a double agent in liaison with Soviet intelligence allowed his path to converge with that of Lee Harvey Oswald. Both men worked in a counterintelligence operation with the code name “Hidell”, which Oswald later used as part of his alias, “Alek James Hidell”.
Assigned by the KGB to monitor Lee Harvey Oswald, Nagell became involved in New Orleans and Texas with Oswald and two Cuban exiles using the “war names” “Angel” and “Leopoldo” in what he saw was a large operation to kill JFK. He identified Angel’s and Leopoldo’s CIA-financed group as Alpha 66. (Leopoldo and Angel were also the names given by the two men who showed up with “Leon Oswald” in September 1963 on the doorstep of Sylvia Odio, the daughter of imprisoned anti-Castro organizer, Amador Odio.)
Alpha 66 was a group of Cuban exile paramilitaries who were directed by David Atlee Phillips, Chief of Covert Action at the CIA’s Mexico City Station. In early 1963, Phillips deployed Alpha 66 in attacks on Russian ships in Cuban ports to draw JFK into a war with Cuba.
In September of 1963, Nagell was ordered by the KGB to convince Oswald that he was being set up by Angel and Leopoldo as the assassination patsy – or, if that failed, to murder Oswald in Mexico City. Nagell met with Oswald in New Orleans and warned him, but Oswald was evasive and unresponsive to Nagell’s appeals to quit the assassination plot.
Rather than carry out the KGB’s order to kill Oswald, Nagell sent a registered letter to J. Edgar Hoover on September 17, 1963, warning of the president’s impending assassination. The FBI later denied any knowledge of such a letter.
Having put his warning on record, Nagell then decided to remove himself from any possible role in the assassination plot. He had little choice. His CIA case agent had suddenly cut him off to sever his connection to the Agency. If Nagell had followed his KGB orders to terminate Oswald, he would be viewed by the CIA as a traitor. If he went along with the plot to kill Kennedy, he would be a traitor to his country as well as his KGB handlers.
On September 20, 1963, Nagel walked into a bank in El Paso TX and calmly fired two shots from a Colt .45 pistol into a plaster wall just below the bank’s ceiling. He then went outside and waited in his car until a police officer came to arrest him. When questioned by the FBI, Nagell made only one statement: “I would rather be arrested than commit murder and treason.”
In 1967 as a federal prisoner in Springfield, Missouri, Nagell contacted New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and offered to turn over a secret tape recording of a meeting of Oswald, Angel and Arcacha, planning the assassination of President Kennedy. When Nagell learned, however, that Garrison’s staff member and intermediary revealed he had been a CIA officer, he withdrew the offer.
For the rest of his life, Richard Case Nagell kept his secrets to himself, fearful for the safety of his family, and survived three attempts on his life in the late 1960s.
On October 31, 1995, the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB) mailed Nagell a letter seeking access to documents he claimed to have had about a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy, and wanted a sworn deposition as well. Nagell’s friend and biographer, Dick Russell, believed that “if an official government body ever took him seriously”, Nagell “would probably cooperate”.
On November 1, 1995, the day after the ARRB letter was mailed, Richard Case Nagell was found dead in the bathroom of his Los Angeles home. The autopsy concluded that he died of a heart attack, but his niece said he had no history of heart problems and that his health had been good until a week and a half before his death when his equilibrium suddenly failed and he fell and required hospitalization. Concerned and suspicious, Nagell had phoned his niece and asked neighbors to check on him every day.
Nagell had, however, entrusted his niece with the knowledge of a purple trunk in which he had stored “what everybody is trying to get ahold of”. Robert Nagell, Richard’s son, discovered in his father’s house after his death the address of a Tucson, Arizona storage unit, and drove immediately to the site but found only family items and no purple trunk. While Robert was racing to Tuscon to retrieve the evidence of an assassination conspiracy, his own house in California was being broken into and ransacked.
50 Reasons For 50 Years - Episode 07 - Richard Case Nagell (5:34)
Author Dick Russell recounts the cryptic story of intelligence operative Richard Case Nagell and his links to the Kennedy assassination.
Richard Case Nagell, The Man Who Knew Too Much
by Dick Russell
In April of 1994, which was about a year and a half after my book came out, I came down the stairs one day and heard my answering machine going – and recognized this voice. Picked it up, and sure enough, it was Richard Nagell. He had received some documents I’d sent him, including the Hensen document, and some CIA files about his notebook names. And was calling me, and talking as if no time had passed. Just commenting on these documents, talking about the description of Elrod Henson and the CIA document, the Laredo codename that fit somebody that he’d run into at the time…
“And then, as the conversation went on, it began to seem very strange to me, because he hadn’t even mentioned the fact that I’d written this book, this massive book about him. And finally – I’d also written him a number of letters when I was putting the book together, hoping that he would get back in touch with me at that time. So I said, ‘Dick, I’m really glad to hear from you. But,’ I said, ‘I wrote you a number of letters over the last few years.’ And he said, ‘Oh, really? I think maybe I’ve gotten one or two of them.’ And I said, ‘You are aware that I’ve written a huge, unauthorized biography of you…?’ And he said he had no idea.
“I had sent him the book. And obviously he had never received it – I think he was telling me the truth. He began going on about how the Post Office was still checking on his mail, and somebody was running off with stuff, and he had no idea… “So I said, ‘I can’t believe none of your friends wouldn’t have told you that this book was out.’ He said, ‘Well, I don’t have that many friends, and the ones I do don’t speak – a lot of them don’t even speak English.
The Life and Death of Richard Case Nagell
In 1975, on the eve of the HSCA, Jim Garrison stated quite succinctly, “Richard Nagell is the most important witness there is.” Nagell occupies a prominent place in Garrison’s memoir On the Trail of the Assassins. Bud Fensterwald, after the HSCA, in 1981, stated pretty much the same: “Nagell is probably the only vital individual who knew the details of the assassination and is still alive.” Amazingly, there is no record of the Warren Commission ever having interviewed Nagell. This in spite of the fact that there is a December 1963 FBI memo stating that he had met Oswald in Texas and Mexico City. This in spite of the fact that Nagell wrote at least two letters to the Commission telling them he had knowledge of both Oswald and the conspiracy well in advance of the assassination.
For more see the comprehensive section: Foreknowledge
September 23, 1963
In September public opinion polls showed a turnaround. 80 percent of the American people were now in favor of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. On September 23, 1963, the Senate approved the treaty by a vote of 80 to 19, this is 14 more than the required two-thirds. No other single accomplishment in the White House gave Kennedy greater satisfaction.
The Limited Nuclear Test Ban treaty was signed in Moscow on August 5, 1963, by US Secretary Dean Rusk, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, and British Foreign Secretary Lord Home, one day short of the 18th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Over the next two months, President Kennedy convinced a fearful public and a divided Senate to support the treaty. The Senate approved the treaty on September 23, 1963, by an 80 - 19 margin. Kennedy signed the ratified treaty on October 7, 1963.
The treaty:
Prohibited nuclear weapons tests or other nuclear explosions under water, in the atmosphere, or in outer space.
Allowed underground nuclear tests as long as no radioactive debris falls outside the boundaries of the nation conducting the test.
Pledged signatories to work towards complete disarmament, an end to the armaments race, and an end to the contamination of the environment by radioactive substances.
President Kennedy signs first major program assisting construction of higher education classrooms.
President Kennedy Legislative Summary: Education
September 25, 1963 - October 2, 1963
Allegedly, Oswald departed from New Orleans about noon on September 25, 1963, and arrived in Mexico City at 10 a.m. on September 27, 1963. On Wednesday morning October 2, 1963, Oswald left Mexico City on a bus bound for the United States.
There is no conclusive evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was in Mexico City.
The Fourteen Minute Gap
Mexico City
Silvia Odio
The Framing Of Oswald
The Fourteen Minute Gap
President Lyndon Baines Johnson: Have you established any more about the visit to the Soviet embassy in Mexico in September?
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover: No, that’s one angle that’s very confusing, for this reason. 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.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, informing President Lyndon Baines Johnson of an Oswald impersonation. This call occurred at 10:01 am on the morning of November 23, 1963, less than 24 hours after the assassination, while Oswald was still alive in a jail cell in Dallas. This phone call itself appears to have been erased.
The Fourteen Minute Gap (Part I of II) (6:32)
November 23, 1963, 10:01 a.m.
Less than 24 hours earlier, President John F. Kennedy was murdered in the streets of Dallas. As a nation reels with shock and confusion, President Lyndon Johnson receives a telephone call from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, updating him on the progress of the investigation. The recording of that conversation would later be destroyed. Only a transcript survives. A story of cover-up and denial that continues to this day, The Fourteen Minute Gap explores researcher Rex Bradford's discovery of the erasure, the shocking revelations of that call, and his attempt to get that discovery out to the national media.
The Fourteen Minute Gap (Part II of II) (8:09)
by Rex E. Bradford
During Watergate, one of the more important events was the discovery of an “eighteen minute gap” on one of the Nixon tapes. This erasure, reportedly performed by Presidential secretary Rose Mary Woods on Nixon’s orders, created quite a stir when revealed. It was never determined what in fact had been erased, which added to the mystery of the affair.
This article presents my discovery of a second such tape erasure, this one of a phone conversation conducted between President Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover less than 24 hours after the assassination of President Kennedy. The erasure in this case is about 14 minutes in length, somewhat shorter than the Nixon gap. The Johnson tape is different in one other significant respect - a transcript of the conversation survived the erasure. It is in my view the true “smoking gun” tape of modern American history.
First, some background. At last November’s JFK Lancer conference in Dallas, former military intelligence officer and history professor John Newman gave an electrifying presentation. In this talk, he discussed in detail the existence, post-assassination, of the famous “Oswald” Mexico City tapes. One of the most astonishing documents to surface in this regard was a transcript of a phone call between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and the new President Lyndon Johnson. This call occurred at 10:01 AM on the morning of November 23, 1963, less than 24 hours after the assassination, while Oswald was still alive in a jail cell in Dallas. The most explosive portion of this transcript is reproduced below:
LBJ: Have you established any more about the visit to the Soviet embassy in Mexico in September?
Hoover: No, that’s one angle that’s very confusing, for this reason - 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.
Fact 1: Lee Harvey Oswald was impersonated in phone calls and visits to the Soviet embassy in Mexico city, including links to Kostikov, a known KGB agent in 'Department 13', the KGB's division responsible for assassinations, just weeks prior to the assassination of JFK.
Fact 2: The FBI director Hoover along with President Johnson and other top officials in the US Government were aware of this the day after the assassination of JFK.
Fact 3: There was no subsequent investigation by any US Government agency to discover the motive behind this impersonation or the impersonator despite the photographic evidence and taped phone calls available.
Fact 4: The Warren Commission (WC) ignored the whole affair in their Warren Report.
Fact 5: The routinely recorded conversation where Hoover first mentions this to Johnson the morning after the JFK assassination was suspiciously erased.
Mexico City
The Chicago Tribune, quoting a November 25th report from the Mexico Newspaper, Excelsior says today that Lee Harvey Oswald crossed the border at Laredo, Texas on September 26th and drove to Mexico City. The United States customs service at Laredo confirms the crossing. A spokesman says, ”There are records to establish this.” The records also show Oswald reentered the United States on October 3rd.
The New York Herald-Tribune reports: U.S. Customs official Oran Pugh says that Oswald had been checked by U.S. Immigration officials on entering and leaving Mexico; Pugh admits that this is not the usual procedure but that “U.S. Immigration has a folder on Oswald’s trip.” The Warren Report will not mention the newspaper stories in the sections which deal with Oswald's trip to Mexico City.
The CIA, Mafia, Mexico - and Oswald, Part 1
by Peter Dale Scott
Deep history differs from history in two respects. First, it is an account of suppressed events, at odds with the publicly accepted history of this country. (One might say that history is the record of politics; deep history, the record of deep politics.) Second, deep history is often restored from records which were themselves once repressed. In short, deep history is a reconstructed account of events denied by the public records from which history is normally composed.
A key example concerns a tape of someone calling himself “Lee Oswald,” discussing in a phone call to the Soviet Embassy about having met a consul there by the name of Kostikov, a KGB agent. As we shall see, this tape should have been preserved and investigated as a prime piece of evidence to frame Oswald as an assassin.
We have documentary evidence, initially suppressed, that one day after the President’s murder this tape was listened to by FBI agents in Dallas, who determined that the speaker was in fact not Lee Harvey Oswald. Yet almost immediately this event was denied by other reports, including cables claiming - falsely - that the tape had already been destroyed before the assassination.
Oswald. Mexico, and Deep Politics: Revelations from CIA Records on the Assassination of JFK
by Peter Dale Scott
Peter Dale Scott has written extensively on the Kennedy assassination and other dark corners of the American political scene. His encyclopedic knowledge enables him to connect the dots among the players, the organizations, and the unacknowledged collusions - the deep politics - of our often troubled political system.
Deep Politics on Oswald, Mexico, and Cuba, originally published in 1995, narrows the focus of Scott’s earlier Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. Scott delivers the most detailed treatment yet of the mysterious sojourn of Lee Harvey Oswald (or someone using his name) to Mexico City in the fall of 1963. Was this trip a key aspect of the framing of Oswald, was it an approved intelligence operation, or was it perhaps both?
It is now known that allegations of Communist conspiracy in the wake of the JFK assassination, emanating mostly from Mexico City, caused Lyndon Johnson to put together a “blue ribbon commission” to investigate what happened in Dallas. Scott explains through meticulous research and analysis exactly why LBJ would want the Warren Commission to rush to a conclusion, and the far-reaching political ramifications of the commission’s public findings.
Scott’s analysis suggests the evidence from Mexico City was part of a frame-up, making Deep Politics on Oswald, Mexico, and Cuba an essential piece of research and analysis, shedding new light on the Communist conspiracy allegations behind the JFK assassination.
Kennedy Assassination and the CIA (Video 1:19:03)
John Newman talked about declassified documents and codenames related to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Cuba, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
This was part of “The Warren Report and the JFK Assassination: A Half Century of Significant Disclosures,” a conference marking the 50th anniversary of the release of the Warren Report,
https://www.c-span.org/video/?321703-3/kennedy-assassination-cia
John Newman at the "November in Dallas" JFK Lancer Conference
Transcript by Joe Backes and Debra Conway
John Newman brought several hefty packets of document transparencies, along with two slide trays full of scanned document slides for the Conference audience.
by John Newman
From the acclaimed author of JFK and Vietnam comes a book that uncovers the government's role in the Kennedy assassination more clearly than any previous inquiry. What was the extent of the CIA's involvement with Lee Harvey Oswald? Why was Oswald's file tampered with before the assassination of John F. Kennedy? And why did significant documents from that file mysteriously disappear? Oswald and the CIA answers these questions, not with theories, but with information from the primary sources themselves—ex-agents, officials, and secret records. To look at the Oswald file is to look at the most sensitive CIA operation of the Cold War. The story is as alarming as it is tragic; the lies and manipulations it reveals led directly to Kennedy's murder. Oswald and the CIA is a gripping journey to the darkest corners of the CIA.
Wiretapping in Mexico City, Double Agents, and the Framing of Lee Oswald
by Bill Simpich
Six weeks before Dallas, these CIA officers wrote two misleading memos about Lee Harvey Oswald
by Bill Simpich
Dan Hardway: Investigating The JFK Assassination Then And Now (1:20:40)
Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City (Video 1:23:50)
Edwin Lopez and Dan Hardway talked about their time in the late 1970s working for the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, and a report they co-wrote entitled, “Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City.” This was part of “The Warren Report and the JFK Assassination: A Half Century of Significant Disclosures,” a conference marking the 50th anniversary of the release of the Warren Report
Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City aka the Lopez Report
by Dan Hardway and Edwin Lopez for the House Select Committee on Assassinations
Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City: The Lopez-Hardway Report
by Dan Hardway (Author) and Edwin Lopez (Contributor)
Among the most important and revelatory of the declassified JFK assassination records is the House Select Committee on Assassinations' suppressed report on Lee Harvey Oswald's alleged trip to Mexico City in the fall of 1963. First available in 1993, and now with fewer blacked-out "redactions," this volume discusses one of the most mysterious and important matters of the Kennedy murder.
Unlike most such government reports, the Lopez-Hardway Report brims with unanswered questions and suspicions of a CIA cover-up. In this report, the Committee questions the CIA's assertions that no photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald was obtained by surveillance cameras, that CIA had no knowledge of Oswald's contact with the Cuban Embassy before 11/22/63, and that tapes of a person calling himself Lee Harvey Oswald were "routinely erased" prior to the murder of President Kennedy.
These tapped phone calls connected Oswald to a suspected Soviet assassination expert, and raised alarm bells in Washington DC. With evidence suggesting that Oswald was impersonated in Mexico City, the question is raised--who would frame Oswald in such a way as to make it look like the KGB or Castro killed JFK?
2003 Release: Oswald, The CIA, And Mexico City ("Lopez Report")
The "thirteenth appendix" to the HSCA Report on the JFK assassination is a staff report entitled "Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City." This report describes what the Committee learned about Lee Oswald's trip to Mexico City less than two months prior to the assassination. Questions it grapples with include why the CIA was apparently unable to obtain a photo of Oswald from any of its photographic surveillance stations (and instead produced a photo of a "Mystery Man" who was clearly not Oswald), whether Oswald was impersonated in Mexico City, and what credibility to attach to any of the indications and allegations of Communist
Oswald in Mexico City
The Fourteen Minute Gap - A short documentary about an erased Presidential phone call in which Johnson and Hoover a Mexico City impersonator.
Oswald's Visits to the Cuban and Soviet Embassies - Discusses the Oswald embassy visits and the resulting CIA cable traffic.
The Mexico City Tapes - Focuses on recorded telephone conversations of a man using Oswald's name, who was apparently not Oswald.
Valeriy Kostikov and Comrade Kostin - Examines the KGB Department 13 "wet affairs" connection and the curious letter written to a "Comrade Kostin."
Photo Surveillance and the Mystery Man - Looks at the man caught on surveillance cameras, apparently originally thought to be Oswald.
Stories of Communist Conspiracy in Mexico City
Discusses the arrest of Cuban Consulate worker Sylvia Duran, the allegations of Gilberto Alvarado Ugarte, Pedro Gutierrez Valencia, and Elena Garro de Paz, and another event involving suspected Cuban intelligence agent Luisa Calderon.
The JFK Files: New Light on Oswald and Mexico City
Those with a stake in avoiding the truth about John F. Kennedy’s assassination want you to believe Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone nut. If you won’t accept that, they have a fallback position: “It’s even worse. He was working for the commies.”
That “alternative” scenario revolves around a purported Oswald trip to Mexico City in the months before Kennedy’s death, when he allegedly visited Soviet and Cuban missions, met with a handler and sought his escape path to his beloved USSR.
There’s just one problem with this narrative. It probably isn’t true.
Clearly something very strange was going on in Mexico City in the months leading up to JFK’s assassination. A man claiming to be Lee Oswald, who apparently looked nothing like him and could barely speak Russian, was making what can only be described as attention-grabbing trips to the Soviet and Cuban consuls. Both the CIA and the FBI were well aware of this during the immediate aftermath of the assassination.
So ask yourself this question: Why would someone who wasn’t Oswald pretend to be Oswald and run around visiting Soviet and Cuban embassies? Could it be that someone was trying to set up Oswald to make it look like he was working with the “commies” to kill Kennedy? If anyone wanted an excuse to start a war with Cuba and the Soviets, this was an opportunity served on a silver platter.
Here’s a follow up question: Why aren’t we hearing more about this in the mainstream media? Instead, we’re hearing the same game-plan story that was trotted out in November 1963 — if Oswald wasn’t a lone-nut, then the Cubans and the Soviets were behind it. Anything but the possibility that powerful Americans conspired to violently remove a sitting president.
“A Little Incident In Mexico City”
Seven weeks before the assassination, Lee Oswald appears to have been impersonated in Mexico City, in a way that implied Soviet or Cuban involvement in the assassination.
The FBI learned on the afternoon of the assassination that it had not been kept fully informed by the CIA of Oswald’s activities in Mexico City. To remedy this, two sets of evidence were sent by the CIA station in Mexico City to the FBI in Dallas, arriving early on the morning of 23 November:
At least one tape recording of a phone call by a man claiming to be Oswald. Several photographs of the only non–Hispanic man to enter the Soviet compound on the date of Oswald’s meeting there with Kostikov.
FBI agents in Dallas made an unexpected and ominous discovery: neither the voice on the recording nor the man in the photographs matched the man who was in custody. Someone had impersonated Oswald in Mexico City.
The New JFK Files Reveal How The CIA Tracked Oswald
Agency Personnel Read The Assassin’s Mail In Russia And Observed His Activities In New Orleans
The latest batch of JFK assassination files, released December 15, illuminate a story that the CIA still denies: the surveillance of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in the years before he shot and killed President John F. Kennedy.
by Jefferson Morley
Who is the man featured above, photos of whom were caught by surveillance cameras and rushed to Dallas from Mexico City on the evening of the Kennedy assassination? Was he the man calling the Soviet Embassy on tapped phone lines using Oswald's name, which the FBI determined did not match the voice of the actual Lee Harvey Oswald? And were these phone calls meant to tie Oswald to purported KGB assassin agent Valeriy Kostikov, about whom a strange letter signed by Oswald would later appear?
Mexico City became a hornet's nest of conspiracy allegations in the wake of JFK's murder, much of it related to Oswald's trip to that city several weeks earlier and his visits to the Cuban and Soviet embassies. The now-declassified CIA reporting of that trip is at odds with the participants' memories and has striking internal contradictions.
Communist conspiracy stories included that of Gilberto Alvarado Ugarte, Elena Garro de Paz, and Pedro Gutierrez Valencia, all of whom told of Oswald being seen with Cubans and in some cases being paid by them. Factoring into some of these stories was Sylvia Duran, the woman who had dealt with Oswald's visa requests and had been arrested, interrogated, and beaten by Mexican authorities in the days after the Kennedy assassination. Other allegations included the idea that Cuban Embassy employee Luisa Calderon had expressed foreknowledge of the assassination over a tapped phone line.
Do these stories add up to a Cuban conspiracy to kill JFK? Or are they all post-assassination "provocations" meant to create that impression? Or are they something yet different, echoes of a pre-assassination framing of Oswald to tie him to Cuba and the Soviet Union?
Silvia Odio
Silvia Odio - The Odio Incident - Who were the three men who visited Silvia Odio in late September of 1963, one of whom was introduced as "Leon Oswald"? Silvia Odio is the daughter of a Cuban refugee who was jailed for his attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro in 1962.
The Odio Incident (2:04)
On 25th September, 1963, Sylvia and Annie Odio had a visit from three men who claimed they were from New Orleans. Two of the men, Leopoldo and Angelo, said they were members of the Junta Revolucionaria. The third man, Leon, was introduced as an American sympathizer who was willing to take part in the assassination of Fidel Castro. After she told them that she was unwilling to get involved in any criminal activity, the three men left.
Two days later, Leopoldo phoned Odio and told her that Leon was a former Marine and that he was an expert marksman. He added that Leon had said "we Cubans, we did not have the guts because we should have assassinated Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs".
Odio became convinced that after the assassination of John F. Kennedy that Leon was Lee Harvey Oswald.
Lee Harvey Oswald & Sylvia Odio (9:14)
1966 Radio Show Excerpt With Wesley Liebeler
50 Reasons For 50 Years - Episode 06 - The Sylvia Odio Incident (4:57)
Author Jim DiEugenio discusses a strange visit to Sylvia Odio's Dallas apartment in late September 1963.
Silvia Odio was born in Cuba in 1937. Her father was involved in the struggle against Fulgencio Batista. However, he disagreed with Fidel Castro about certain issues and in 1962 he was arrested and sent to the Isle of Pines. Soon afterwards Odio left Cuba and settled in Dallas. Odio became active in the anti-Castro movement and helped form an organization called Junta Revolucionaria.
On 25th September, 1963, Odio had a visit from three men who claimed they were from New Orleans. Two of the men, Leopoldo and Angelo, said they were members of the Junta Revolucionaria. The third man, Leon, was introduced as an American sympathizer who was willing to take part in the assassination of Fidel Castro. After she told them that she was unwilling to get involved in any criminal activity, the three men left.
The following day Leopoldo phoned Odio and told her that Leon was a former Marine and that he was an expert marksman. He added that Leon had said “we Cubans, we did not have the guts because we should have assassinated Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs”. It is believed that Bernardo De Torres was Leopoldo and Edwin Collins was Angelo.
Odio became convinced that after the assassination of John F. Kennedy that Leon was Lee Harvey Oswald. Odio gave evidence to the Warren Commission and one of its lawyers commented: "Silvia Odio was checked out thoroughly... The evidence is unanimously favorable... Odio is the most significant witness linking Oswald to the anti-Castro Cubans."
The author, Anthony Summers, suggests that the visit had "been a deliberate ploy to link Junta Revolucionaria, a left-wing exile group, with the assassination"
Sylvia Odio vs. Liebeler and The La Fontaines
by Jim DiEugenio
Gaeton Fonzi's interview with Silvia Odio for the Church Committee, reproduced here, reveals that the Warren Commission was intent on covering up conspiracy, as Wesley Liebeler baldly asserted to her.
Just declassified at the National Archives is the record of Gaeton Fonzi's interview with Silvia Odio for the Church Committee. We choose to reprint it here in full for two reasons. First, because it is interesting to note the actions of one Wesley Liebeler, UCLA law professor, in his apparent attempt to discredit her. There are still some who believe today that the Warren Commission was actually a fairly neutral body that was just tricked and lied to by the FBI and CIA. We find this an untenable position. We think the Commission, from top to bottom, was prejudiced against Oswald from its inception.
For more on Silvia Odio see the comprehensive section: Foreknowledge
by Rex Bradford
"The CIA advised that on October 1, 1963, an extremely sensitive source had reported that an individual identified himself as Lee Oswald, who contacted the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City inquiring as to any messages. Special Agents of this Bureau, who have conversed with Oswald in Dallas, Texas, have observed photographs of the individual referred to above, and have listened to a recording of his voice. These special agents are of the opinion that the above-referred-to individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald."
The paragraph shown above comes from an FBI memo sent to both the White House and the Secret Service on November 23, 1963, the day after President Kennedy's assassination. It was a follow-up to a phone call at 10:01 AM, in which Director Hoover informed Lyndon Johnson of the same fact. Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of Kennedy held in police custody in Dallas, had been impersonated in phone calls to the Soviet Embassy in Mexio City.
The fact that Oswald was impersonated less than two months prior to the Dallas shooting was obviously important news. What made the revelation even more stunning was that, in one such call, "Oswald" referred to a previous meeting with a Soviet official named Kostikov. Valeriy Kostikov was well-known to the CIA and FBI as a KGB agent operating out of the Embassy under official cover. But, far more ominously, the FBI's "Tumbleweed" informant had previously tipped off the U.S. that Kostikov was a member of the KGB's "Department 13," involved in sabotage and assassinations.
An otherwise inexplicable impersonation episode takes on an entirely new meaning in this light. The calls from the Oswald impersonator made it appear that Oswald was a hired killer, hired by the Soviet Union no less. This was a prescription for World War III.
Perhaps the perfect plan was foiled by the fact that Oswald was captured, allowing the FBI to interrogate him and compare his voice to the tapes of these tapped phone calls, which were apparently flown up from the CIA's Mexico City Station on the evening of November 22. In any case, what should have been a hot lead to sophisticated conspirators was instead quickly buried—by November 25, FBI memos made no more mention of tapes, only transcripts. The CIA has maintained to this day that the tapes were routinely recycled prior to the assassination, and no tapes were ever sent. But the evidence that the tapes did exist and were listened to is now overwhelming, and includes several FBI memos, a call from Hoover to LBJ which appears to have been suspiciously erased, and even the word of two Warren Commission staffers who say they listened to the tapes during their visit to Mexico City in April 1964!
Back in November 1963, with the knowledge that it wasn't Oswald in these calls to the Soviet Embassy tightly held, and with witnesses coming forward to claim seeing Oswald take money to kill Kennedy from Cuban operatives, a cover-up went into high gear. Lyndon Johnson used the fear of nuclear war, bandying about the figure "40 million Americans" who would die in a nuclear exchange. Even though he knew of the impersonation, Johnson used this false scare to press men like Richard Russell and Earl Warren onto a President's Commission which another Commissioner, John J. McCloy, said was to "settle the dust."
The Mexico City story, which involves far more than the telephone tapes and remains truly mysterious in many ways, is not the only element in the setup of Oswald. Whether he was part of a murder conspiracy or just a "patsy," Oswald was set up for the role as lone gunman. Several incidents prior to the assassination painted him as a "Red" assassin, including his test-drive at a car dealership in Dallas and an episode at a shooting range. In both cases, the Warren Commission showed that Oswald could not have been present, and thus dismissed the claims. They should have instead asked, who was there pretending to be Oswald?
The frameup also included the planting of Commission Exhibit 399, the "magic" bullet which matched Oswald's rifle, and the laydown of that junky weapon and matching shells near the so-called "sniper's nest" in the Book Depository. While the pre-assassination Oswald setup events are the most interesting, because they are inherently part of the assassination plot, post-assassination coverup activities also served to frame Oswald for the murder, and to hide his connections to the intelligence community. Essays in this topic area include discussion of the circumstantial evidence that ballistics evidence was tampered with in order to support the lone gunman answer. And the medical cover-up writings on this site abound with examples of such manipulation.
But the most important setup was the incriminating connection to a planted Communist conspiracy. This episode is important because it helps explain why men like Earl Warren might engage in a coverup. It also narrows the field of potential conspirators considerably. In 1963 these intelligence activities were kept under extremely tight wraps. So who knew that the Embassy phone lines were tapped? Who knew that Kostikov was involved in assassinations and that this fact was known to the U.S.? Who knew that this phony Red connection would scare the government into a coverup?
For more see the comprehensive section: Mexico City
September 26, 1963
John F. Kennedy's Remarks at Hanford Electric Generating plant, Hanford, WA (15:10)
President John F. Kennedy addresses crowd, and initiates groundbreaking of the N-Reactor at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, Richland, Washington, September 26, 1963, two month before he was assassinated.
In his opening words the President referred to U.S. Senators Henry M. Jackson and Warren G. Magnuson and to Governor Albert D. Rosellini of Washington; Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall; U.S. Senator Frank E. Moss of Utah; U.S. Representatives AI Ullman of Oregon and Chet Holifield of California; and Atomic Energy Commissioner Gerald F. Tape. Later the President referred to Owen Hurd, Managing Director of the Washington Public Power Supply System; Glenn Lee and Don Pugnetti, publisher and managing editor, respectively, of the Tri-City Herald of Richland, Wash.
At the close of his remarks the President broke ground for the new Hanford nuclear generating plant, the world's largest, by means of a new device. Using a pointer tipped with uranium from the first Hanford reactor he caused a radiation counter on the speakers' stand to close a relay, thereby setting in motion a 60-foot crane and breaking ground for the new plant.
Remarks at the Hanford, Washington, Electric Generating Plant (Text)
September 27, 1963
Have You Seen John F Kennedy In Red Slippers Feeding A Deer?
by Kate Hickey
The photo was taken by Cecil Stoughton, a Military Aide to the President who was with him during his “Conservation Tour of Western States”. Kennedy had stayed in a cabin at the Lassen Volcanic National Park, California, for just one night.
Autumn - November 22, 1963
From, Kennedy’s Last Act: Reaching Out to Cuba
by Peter Kornbluh
Secret United States - Cuban talks. The talks between Cuba and the U.S. began, ironically, around Washington’s bald act of aggression, the paramilitary invasion at Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs). In the aftermath of Cuba’s victory over the CIA-backed brigade, the President and his brother, Robert Kennedy sent a lawyer named James Donovan to negotiate the release of over 1,000 captured brigade members. During the course of several negotiating sessions in the fall of 1962, Donovan brokered a deal to supply Cuba with $62 million in food and medicine in return for the release of the prisoners. He not only won their freedom but the trust of Fidel Castro as well.
In the spring of 1963, Donovan returned to Havana several times to negotiate with Castro the release of two dozen Americans, three of them were CIA operatives that were imprisoned in Cuban jails on charges of spying and sabotage. During the course of their meetings, Castro for the first time raised the issue of restoring relations. Given the acrimony and hostility of the recent past, “how would the U.S. and Cuba go about it,” he asked Donovan.
“Do you know how porcupines make love?,” James Donovan replied. “Very carefully. And that is how you and the U.S. will go about this issue.”
When Donovan’s report on Castro’s interest in talks to normalize relations reached the desk of President Kennedy, the White House began considering the possibility of a “sweet approach” to Castro. Top aides argued that the U.S. should demand that Castro jettison his relations with the Soviets as a pre-condition to any talks. But the President overruled them; he instructed his top aides to “start thinking along more flexible lines” in negotiating with Castro, and made it clear, according to declassified White House documents, that he was “very interested” in pursuing this option.
On his last trip to Cuba in April 1963, Donovan introduced Castro to a correspondent for ABC News named Lisa Howard who had traveled to Havana to do a televised special on the Cuban revolution. She replaced Donovan as the central interlocutor in a protracted secret effort to set up the first serious face to face talks on better relations. When she returned from Cuba, the CIA met her in Miami and debriefed her on Castro’s clear interest in improved relations. In a top secret memorandum that arrived on the desk of the president, CIA deputy director, Richard Helms, reported that “Howard definitely wants to impress the U.S. Government with two facts: Castro is ready to discuss rapprochement and herself is ready to discuss it with him if asked to do so by the U.S. Government.”
Predictably, the CIA adamantly opposed any dialogue with Cuba. The agency was institutionally invested in its on-going efforts to covertly roll back the revolution. In a secret memo rushed to the White House on May 1, 1963, CIA Director John McCone requested that “no active steps be taken on the rapprochement matter at this time” and urged only the “most limited Washington discussions” on accommodation with Castro.
But in the fall of 1963, Washington and Havana did take active steps toward actual negotiations. In September Howard used a cocktail party at her East 74th Street Manhattan townhouse as cover for the first meeting between a Cuban official, UN Ambassador Carlos Lechuga, and a U.S. official, deputy UN Ambassador William Attwood. Attwood told Lechuga that there was interest at the White House in secret talks, if there was something to talk about. He also noted that “the CIA runs Cuba policy.” Following that meeting, Castro and Kennedy used Howard as an intermediary to began passing messages about arranging an actual negotiation session between the two nations.
On November 5, Kennedy’s secret taping system in the Oval Office recorded in a conversation with his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, on whether to send William Attwood, who was serving as a deputy to U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson at the United Nations, to Havana to meet secretly with Castro. Attwood, Bundy told the President, “now has an invitation to go down and talk to Fidel about terms and conditions in which he would be interested in a change of relations with the U.S.” The president is heard agreeing to the idea but asking if “we can get Attwood off the payroll before he goes” so as to “sanitize” him as a private citizen in case word of the secret meeting leaked.
On November 14, Howard arranged for Attwood to come to her home and talk via telephone to Castro’s top aide, Rene Vallejo, about obtaining the Cuban agenda for a secret meeting between in Havana with the Cuban commandante. Vallejo agreed to transmit a proposed agenda to Cuba’s UN ambassador, Lechuga, to give to the Americans. When Attwood passed this information onto Bundy at the White House, he was told that when the agenda was received, “the president wanted to see me at the White House and decide what to say and whether to go [to Cuba] or what we should do next.”
“That was the 19th of November,” Attwood recalled. “Three days before the assassination.”
Kennedy’s Final Act
But Kennedy also sent another message of potential reconciliation to Castro. His emissary, a French journalist named Jean Daniel, had met with Kennedy in Washington to discuss Cuba. Kennedy gave him a message for Fidel Castro: Better relations were possible, and the two countries should work toward an end to hostilities. On November 22, Daniel passed that message to Castro, and the two were discussing it optimistically at Castro home over lunch, when Castro received a phone call reporting that Kennedy had been shot. “This is terrible,” Castro told Daniel, realizing that his mission had been aborted by an assassins’ bullet. “Everything is changed. Everything is going to change.” “There goes your mission of peace.” Castro then accurately predicted: “They are going to say we did it.”
Amidst the ongoing controversies over conspiracy theories, what is lost in the historical discussion of the assassination is that John F. Kennedy’s very last act as president was to reach out to Castro and offer the possibility of a different bilateral relationship between Havana and Washington. Fifty years later, the potential Kennedy envisioned for co-existence between the Cuban revolution and the U.S. has yet to be realized. As part of commemorating his legacy, his vision for a détente in the Caribbean must be remembered, reconsidered, and revisited.
by John Simkin
Lisa Howard died at her home at East Hampton, Long Island, on July 4, 1965. It was officially reported that she had committed suicide. Her name is rarely mentioned in list of suspicious deaths. The reason for this is that it is only recently been discovered that she was an important figure in the events of 1963.
I Was With Fidel Castro When JFK Was Assassinated
by Jean Daniel
It was around 1:30 in the afternoon, Cuban time. We were having lunch in the living room of the modest summer residence which Fidel Castro owns on magnificent Varadero Beach, 120 kilometers from Havana. For at least the tenth time, I was questioning the Cuban leader on details of the negotiations with Russia before the missile installations last year. The telephone rang, a secretary in guerrilla garb announced that Mr. Dorticós, President of the Cuban Republic, had an urgent communication for the Prime Minister. Fidel picked up the phone and I heard him say: “Como? Un atentado?” (“What’s that? An attempted assassination?”) He then turned to us to say that Kennedy had just been struck down in Dallas. Then he went back to the telephone and exclaimed in a loud voice “Herido? Muy gravemente?” (“Wounded? Very seriously?”)
He came back, sat down, and repeated three times the words: “Es una mala noticia.” (“This is bad news.”)
Now it was nearly 2 o’clock and we got up from the table and settled ourselves in front of a radio. Commandant Vallero, his physician, aide-de-camp, and intimate friend, was easily able to get the broadcasts from the NBC network in Miami. As the news came in, Vallero would translate it for Fidel: Kennedy wounded in the head; pursuit of the assassin; murder of a policeman; finally the fatal announcement: President Kennedy is dead. Then Fidel stood up and said to me: “Everything is changed. Everything is going to change. The United States occupies such a position in world affairs that the death of a President of that country affects millions of people in every corner of the globe. The cold war, relations with Russia, Latin America, Cuba, the Negro question… all will have to be rethought. I’ll tell you one thing: at least Kennedy was an enemy to whom we had become accustomed. This is a serious matter, an extremely serious matter.”
The Intra-Administration War in Vietnam
by Arthur Krock
Published by The New York Times, on October 3, 1963.
The Central Intelligence Agency is getting a very bad press in dispatches from Vietnam to American newspapers and in articles originating in Washington. Like the Supreme Court when under fire, the C.I.A. cannot defend itself in public retorts to criticisms of its activities as they occur. But, unlike the the Supreme Court, the C.I.A. has no open record of its activities on which the public can base a judgment of the validity of the criticisms. Also, the agency is precluded from using the indirect defensive tactic which is constantly employed by all other Government units under critical file.
This tactic is to give information to the press, under a seal of confidence, that challenges or refutes the critics. But the C.I.A. cannot father such inspired articles, because to do so would require some disclosure of its activities. And not only does the effectiveness of the agency depend on the secrecy of its operations. Every President since the C.I.A. was created has protected this secrecy from claimants—Congress or the public through the press, for examples—of the right to share any part of it.
With High Frequency
This Presidential policy has not, however, always restrained other executive units from going confidentially to the press with attacks on C.I.A. operations in their common field of responsibility. And usually it has been possible to deduce these operational details from the nature o the attacks. But the peak of the practice has recently been reached in Vietnam and in Washington. This is revealed almost every day now in dispatches from reporters—in close touch with intra-Administration critics of the C.I.A.—with excellent reputations for reliability.
One reporter in this category is Richard Starnes of the Scripps-Howard newspapers. Today, under a Saigon dateline, he related that, "according to a high United States source here, twice the C.I.A. flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge . . . [and] in one instance frustrated a plan of action Mr. Lodge brought from Washington because the agency disagreed with it." Among the views attributed to United States officials on the scene, including one described as a "very high American official . . . who has spent much of his life in the service of democracy . . . are the following:
The C.I.A.'s growth was "likened to a malignancy" which the "very high official was not sure even the White House could control . . . any longer." "If the United States ever experiences [an attempt at a coup to overthrow the Government] it will come from the C.I.A. and not the Pentagon." The agency "represents a tremendous power and total unaccountability to anyone."
Disorderly Government
Whatever else these passages disclose, they most certainly establish that representatives of other Executive branches have expanded their war against the C.I.A. from the inner government councils to the American people via the press. And published simultaneously are details of the agency's operations in Vietnam that can come only from the same critical official sources. This is disorderly government. And the longer the President tolerates it—the period already is considerable—the greater will grow its potentials of hampering the real war against the Vietcong and the impression of a very indecisive Administration in Washington.
The C.I.A. may be guilty as charged. Since it cannot, or at any rate will not, openly defend its record in Vietnam, or defend it by the same confidential press "briefings" employed by its critics, the public is not in a position to judge. Nor is this department, which sought and failed to get even the outlines of the agency's case in rebuttal. But Mr. Kennedy will have to make a judgment if the spectacle of war within the Executive branch is to be ended and the effective functioning of the C.I.A. preserved. And when he makes this judgment, hopefully he also will make it public, as well as the appraisal of fault on which it is based.
Doubtless recommendations as to what his judgment should be were made to him today by Secretary of Defense McNamara and General Taylor on their return from their fact-finding expedition into the embattled official jungle in Saigon.
The Intra-Administration War In Vietnam, by Arthur Krock, a very close friend of the Kennedy Family, published by The New York Times, on October 3, 1963.
...One reporter in this category is Richard Starnes of the Scripps-Howard newspapers. Today, under a Saigon dateline, he related that, "according to a high United States source here, twice the CIA flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Herny Cabot Lodge [and] in one instance frustrated a plan of action Mr. Lodge brought from Washington because the agency disagreed with it."
Among the views attributed to United States officials on the scene, including one described as a "very high American official who has spent much of his life in the service of democracy" are the following: The CIA's growth was "likened to a malignancy" which the very high official was not sure even the white house could control "any longer." "If the United States ever experiences an attempt at a coup to overthrow the government, it will come from the CIA and not the Pentagon". The agency "represents a tremendous power and total unaccountability to anyone."
October 3, 1963
White House Oval Office, President Kennedy’s Rocking Chair and Desk
From: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matter
For at least a decade, JFK’s favorite poem had been Rendezvous, a celebration of death. Rendezvous was by Alan Seeger, an American poet killed in World War One. The poem was Seeger’s affirmation of his own anticipated death.
The refrain of Rendezvous, “I have a rendezvous with Death,” articulated John Kennedy’s deep sense of his own mortality. Kennedy had experienced a continuous rendezvous with death in anticipation of his actual death: from the deaths of his PT boat crew members, from drifting alone in the dark waters of the Pacific Ocean, from the early deaths of his brother Joe and sister Kathleen, and from the recurring near-death experiences of his almost constant illnesses.
He recited Rendezvous to his wife, Jacqueline, in 1953 on their first night home in Hyannis after their honeymoon. She memorized the poem, and recited it back to him over the years. In the fall of 1963, Jackie taught the words of the poem to their five-year-old daughter, Caroline.
I have thought many times about what then took place in the White House Rose Garden one beautiful fall day.
On the morning of October 5, 1963, President Kennedy met with his National Security Council in the Rose Garden. Caroline suddenly appeared at her father’s side. She said she wanted to tell him something. He tried to divert her attention while the meeting continued. Caroline persisted. The president smiled and turned his full attention to his daughter. He told her to go ahead. While the members of the National Security Council sat and watched, Caroline looked into her father’s eyes and said:
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air –
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath –
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
God knows ‘twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear….
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.
After Caroline said the poem’s final word, “rendezvous,” Kennedy’s national security advisers sat in stunned silence. One of them said later the bond between father and daughter was so deep “it was as if there was ‘an inner music’ he was trying to teach her.”
JFK had heard his own acceptance of death from the lips of his daughter. While surrounded by a National Security Council that opposed his breakthrough to peace, the president once again deepened his pledge not to fail that rendezvous. If God had a place for him, he believed that he was ready.
President Kennedy signs the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. This is the first disarmament agreement of the nuclear age. Kennedy states: "with our courage and understanding enlarged by this achievement, let us press onward in quest of man's essential desire for peace."
President Kennedy Signs Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1:36)
For more see the comprehensive section: Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
October 9, 1963
"Wheat Sale: U.S. to Sell Grain to Soviet Bloc." At the Presidential News Conference, Kennedy makes remarks concerning the wheat surplus in America, and the new agreement to sell off the wheat to the Soviet Union. He states that although this act does not alter the Soviet trade policy, it is still a good step forward in better foreign relations.
From: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matter
Why He Died and Why It Matters: In the final weeks of his presidency, President Kennedy took one more risky step toward peace. It can be seen in relation to a meeting he had the year before with six Quakers who visited him in his office. One thousand members of the Society of Friends had been vigiling for peace and world order outside the White House. President Kennedy agreed to meet with six of their leaders. I have interviewed all three survivors of that meeting with the president 47 years ago. They remain uniformly amazed at the open way in which President Kennedy listened and responded to their radical Quaker critique of his foreign policy. Among their challenges to him was a recommendation that the United States offer its surplus food to the People’s Republic of China. China was considered an enemy nation. Yet it was also one whose people were beset by a famine.
Kennedy said to the Quakers, “Do you mean you would feed your enemy when he has his hands on your throat?”
The Quakers said they meant exactly that. They reminded him it was what Jesus had said should be done. Kennedy said he knew that, and knew that it was the right thing to do, but he couldn’t overcome the China lobby in Washington to accomplish it.
Nevertheless, a year and a half later in the fall of 1963, against overwhelming opposition, Kennedy decided to sell wheat to the Russians, who had a severe grain shortage. His outraged critics said in effect to him what he had said to the Quakers: Would you feed an enemy who has his hands on your throat?
Vice President Lyndon Johnson said he thought Kennedy’s decision to sell wheat to Russia would turn out to be the worst political mistake he ever made. Today JFK’s controversial decision “to feed the enemy” has been forgotten. In 1963, the wheat sale was seen as a threat to our security – feeding the enemy to kill us. Yet JFK went ahead with it, as one more initiative for peace.
The violent reaction to his decision was represented on Friday morning, November 22, 1963, by a threatening, full-page advertisement addressed to him in the Dallas Morning News. The ad was bordered in black, like a funeral notice.
Among the charges of disloyalty to the nation that the ad made against the president was the question: “Why have you approved the sale of wheat and corn to our enemies when you know the Communist soldiers ‘travel on their stomach’ just as ours do?” JFK read the ad before the flight from Fort Worth to Dallas, pointed it out to Jacqueline Kennedy, and talked about the possibility of his being assassinated that day.
“But, Jackie,” he said, “if somebody wants to shoot me from a window with a rifle, nobody can stop it, so why worry about it?”
See: May 1, 1962, Kennedy meets with six Quakers in the Oval Office.
October 9, 1963 - October 10, 1963
Lee Harvey Oswald was ostensibly being closely tracked by the CIA as well as by the FBI because he was a recent defector and a self-proclaimed revolutionary. But, as President Kennedy prepared to visit Dallas, something curious occurred within this surveillance labyrinth.
On October 9, 1963, Oswald was suddenly removed from the FBI “FLASHLIST”, the bureau’s index of suspicious individuals to be kept under close watch. FBI officials took this surprising step despite Oswald’s suspicious behavior in Mexico City. The day after the FBI took Oswald off its watch list, the CIA also downgraded him as a security risk.
On October 10, 1963, four senior counterintelligence officials who reported to Angleton and Helms signed off on a curious cable to the CIA station chief in Mexico City, assuring him there was no reason to be concerned about Oswald because his stay in the Soviet Union had a “maturing effect” on him.
October 11, 1963
On October 11, 1963, President Kennedy issued National Security Action Memorandum 263, In NSAM 263 he orders that 1,000 U.S. military personnel be withdrawn from Vietnam by the end of 1963, and that the bulk of U.S. personnel be taken out by the end of 1965. Kennedy decided on his withdrawal policy, against the arguments of most of his advisers, at a contentious October 2 National Security Council meeting. When Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was leaving the meeting to announce the withdrawal to the White House reporters, “the President called to him, ‘And tell them that means all of the helicopter pilots, too.’”
In fact, it would not mean that at all. After JFK’s assassination, his withdrawal policy was quietly voided (See November 21, 1963 NSAM 273 Draft and November 26, 1963, NSAM 273). In light of the future consequences of Dallas, it was not only John Kennedy who was murdered on November 22, 1963, but 58,000 other Americans and over three million Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians.
From, Exit Strategy: In 1963, JFK Ordered A Complete Withdrawal From Vietnam
by James K. Galbraith
... A more thorough treatment appeared in 1992, with the publication of John M. Newman’s JFK and Vietnam. Until his retirement in 1994 Newman was a major in the U.S. Army, an intelligence officer last stationed at Fort Meade, headquarters of the National Security Agency. As an historian, his specialty is deciphering declassified records, a talent he later applied to the CIA’s long-hidden archives on Lee Harvey Oswald.
Newman’s argument was not a case of “counterfactual historical reasoning,” as Larry Berman described it in an early response. It was not about what might have happened had Kennedy lived. Newman’s argument was stronger: Kennedy, he claims, had decided to begin a phased withdrawal from Vietnam, that he had ordered this withdrawal to begin. Here is the chronology, according to Newman:
(1) On October 2, 1963, Kennedy received the report of a mission to Saigon by McNamara and Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The main recommendations, which appear in Section I(B) of the McNamara-Taylor report, were that a phased withdrawal be completed by the end of 1965 and that the “Defense Department should announce in the very near future presently prepared plans to withdraw 1,000 out of 17,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Vietnam by the end of 1963.” At Kennedy’s instruction, Press Secretary Pierre Salinger made a public announcement that evening of McNamara’s recommended timetable for withdrawal.
(2) On October 5, Kennedy made his formal decision. Newman quotes the minutes of the meeting that day:
The President also said that our decision to remove 1,000 U.S. advisors by December of this year should not be raised formally with Diem. Instead the action should be carried out routinely as part of our general posture of withdrawing people when they are no longer needed. (Emphasis added.)
The passage illustrates two points: (a) that a decision was in fact made on that day, and (b) that despite the earlier announcement of McNamara’s recommendation, the October 5 decision was not a ruse or pressure tactic to win reforms from Diem (as Richard Reeves, among others, has contended3) but a decision to begin withdrawal irrespective of Diem or his reactions.
(3) On October 11, the White House issued NSAM 263, which states:
The President approved the military recommendations contained in section I B (1-3) of the report, but directed that no formal announcement be made of the implementation of plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.
In other words, the withdrawal recommended by McNamara on October 2 was embraced in secret by Kennedy on October 5 and implemented by his order on October 11, also in secret. Newman argues that the secrecy after October 2 can be explained by a diplomatic reason. Kennedy did not want Diem or anyone else to interpret the withdrawal as part of any pressure tactic (other steps that were pressure tactics had also been approved). There was also a political reason: JFK had not decided whether he could get away with claiming that the withdrawal was a result of progress toward the goal of a self-sufficient South Vietnam.
The alternative would have been to withdraw the troops while acknowledging failure. And this, Newman argues, Kennedy was prepared to do if it became necessary. He saw no reason, however, to take this step before it became necessary. If the troops could be pulled while the South Vietnamese were still standing, so much the better.4 But from October 11 onward the CIA’s reporting changed drastically. Official optimism was replaced by a searching and comparatively realistic pessimism. Newman believes this pessimism, which involved rewriting assessments as far back as the previous July, was a response to NSAM 263. It represented an effort by the CIA to undermine the ostensible rationale of withdrawal with success, and therefore to obstruct implementation of the plan for withdrawal. Kennedy, needless to say, did not share his full reasoning with the CIA.
(4) On November 1 there came the coup in Saigon and the assassination of Diem and Nhu. At a press conference on November 12, Kennedy publicly restated his Vietnam goals. They were “to intensify the struggle” and “to bring Americans out of there.” Victory, which had figured prominently in a similar statement on September 12, was no longer on the list.
(5) The Honolulu Conference of senior cabinet and military officials on November 20–21 was called to review plans in the wake of the Saigon coup. The military and the CIA, however, planned to use that meeting to pull the rug from under the false optimism which some had used to rationalize NSAM 263. However, Kennedy did not himself believe that we were withdrawing with victory. It follows that the changing image of the military situation would not have changed JFK’s decision.
(6) In Honolulu, McGeorge Bundy prepared a draft of what would eventually be NSAM 273. The plan was to present it to Kennedy after the meeting ended. Dated November 21, this draft reflected the change in military reporting. It speaks, for example, of a need to “turn the tide not only of battle but of belief.” Plans to intensify the struggle, however, do not go beyond what Kennedy would have approved: A paragraph calling for actions against the North underscores the role of Vietnamese forces:
7. With respect to action against North Vietnam, there should be a detailed plan for the development of additional Government of Vietnam resources, especially for sea-going activity, and such planning should indicate the time and investment necessary to achieve a wholly new level of effectiveness in this field of action. (Emphasis added.)
(7) At Honolulu, a preliminary plan, known as CINCPAC OPLAN 34-63 and later implemented as OPLAN 34A, was prepared for presentation. This plan called for intensified sabotage raids against the North, employing Vietnamese commandos under U.S. control—a significant escalation.5 While JCS chief Taylor had approved preparation of this plan, it had not been shown to McNamara. Tab E of the meeting’s briefing book, also approved by Taylor and also not sent in advance to McNamara, showed that the withdrawal ordered by Kennedy in October was already being gutted, by the device of substituting for the withdrawal of full units that of individual soldiers who were being rotated out of Vietnam in any event.
(8) The final version of NSAM 273, signed by Johnson on November 26, differs from the draft in several respects. Most are minor changes of wording. The main change is that the draft paragraph 7 has been struck in its entirety (there are two pencil slashes on the November 21 draft), and replaced with the following:
Planning should include different levels of possible increased activity, and in each instance there be estimates such factors as: A. Resulting damage to North Vietnam; B. The plausibility denial; C. Vietnamese retaliation; D. Other international reaction. Plans submitted promptly for approval by authority.
The new language is incomplete. It does not begin by declaring outright that the subject is attacks on the North. But the thrust is unmistakable, and the restrictive reference to “Government of Vietnam resources” is now missing. Newman concludes that this change effectively provided new authority for U.S.–directed combat actions against North Vietnam. Planning for these actions began therewith, and we now know that an OPLAN 34A raid in August 1964 provoked the North Vietnamese retaliation against the destroyer Maddox, which became the first Gulf of Tonkin incident. And this in turn led to the confused incident a few nights later aboard the Turner Joy, to reports that it too had been attacked, and to Johnson’s overnight decision to seek congressional support for “retaliation” against North Vietnam. From this, of course, the larger war then flowed.
Another excellent in-depth article on NSAM 263 and NSAM 273:
The Kennedy Assassination And The Vietnam War (1971)
by Peter Dale Scott
October 22, 1963
Abuse of Psychiatry In The Kennedy Assassination
by David Martin
The old Soviet Union was notorious for its corruption of the psychiatric profession and its use of psychiatric hospitals to imprison and neutralize its dissidents. It is an easy profession to abuse by wielders of corrupt authority, and those meeting that description have apparently not been immune to the temptation in the United States. The following grotesque little vignette comes from Phillip Nelson’s extraordinary and very persuasive new book, LBJ, the Mastermind of the JFK Assassination.* All of Nelson’s references for the story are to Noel Twyman’s earlier, but very hard to find book, Bloody Treason.
Exactly one month before JFK was assassinated, a cryptographic code operator working for the U.S. Army Ordinance [sic] in Metz, France, tried to alert his superiors, all the way up to Robert F. Kennedy, that John F. Kennedy would be assassinated in November, in Texas. An FBI report dated April 9, 1964, confirmed that Eugene B. Dinkin, entrusted with the military’s highest Crypto clearance, predicted “that a conspiracy was in the making for the ‘military’ of the United States, perhaps combined with an ‘ultra right wing economic group’.” He discovered the plot as he routinely processed messages between the plotters (i.e., Bill Harvey and/or Guy Bannister [sic] and QJ/WIN, a hit man of French origin, associated with the Antoine Guerini Mob headquartered in Marseilles, France. A number of known hit men were part of this gang, some known variously as Carlos Rigal, Victor Michael Mertz, Michel Roux, Lucien Sarti, or Jean Soutre).
His mistake was letting certain of his superiors know about his discovery and that he was preparing to leak this information despite his sworn oath of secrecy; evidently, he felt that there was a higher duty owed to his country than to knowingly participate, by omission, in the murder of the president. Dinkin heard through the grapevine that he was going to be locked up as a psychotic and decided to go AWOL, taking a train to Geneva, Switzerland, where he found reporters in the pressroom of the United Nations office to whom he told his story. From there he went on to Luxembourg, where he reported it to several embassies and finally on to Germany where he reported it to Overseas Weekly where he was talked into turning himself in.
At that point, the grapevine rumor came true. His reward for trying to save the president’s life was to be committed to a psychiatric hospital. By December 5, 1963, he had been brought back to Washington DC and put into Walter Reed Hospital where he was given strong drugs and electric shock treatment. He was forced to admit that he was only looking for attention; whenever he said otherwise, he was given an electric shock. “Dinkin said that he feigned cooperation and professed understanding of his unfortunate mental condition being ‘schizo-assassination prognostication’.” Dinkin discussed his treatment with his mother, who then wrote Robert Kennedy on December 20, 1963, stating, among other things, that “Col. Dickson and Lt. Col. Black came into the orderly room of his company and phoned psychiatrist Col. Hutson and gave him a direct order to find him psychologically unfit to handle security information, and to write a paranoiac evaluation. He claims this to be a frame up.”
In a civil action lawsuit in 1975, Dinkin stated that the information he intercepted revealed that “blame would then be placed upon a Communist or Negro, who would be designated the assassin, and believing that the conspiracy was being engineered by elements of the military, I did speculate that a military coup might ensue. I did request of the Attorney General that he dispatch a representative of the Justice Department to Metz, France to discuss this warning.”
Either [James Jesus] Angleton’s tentacles reached deeply enough to intercept Dinkin’s letter to Robert F. Kennedy or military superiors familiar with Johnson’s plan caught it; it is possible that RFK simply ignored it after being reassured that Dinkin was a nut. In any event, it got Richard Helms’s attention who alerted a number of others in a classified memo, which stated, “All aspects of this story were known, as reported above, by U.S. military authorities and have been reported by military attaché cable through military channels.”
The CIA was coincidentally running its Operation MK/ULTRA (owned by Allen Dulles and operated by Richard Helms) at the same time, which involved psychological warfare, mind control, and hypnosis with a little LSD experimentation mixed in; the evidence presented by author Twyman indicates that Dinkin was quickly swept into that program as soon as he was institutionalized. It was within this same program that [Lee Harvey] Oswald was possibly groomed for his adventures in the Soviet Union and beyond.
On Solving History's Greatest Murder Mystery : The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
by Noel Twyman
Allegations of PFC Eugene Dinkin
Private First Class Eugene Dinkin was a cryptographic code operator stationed in Metz, France. On November 4, 1963 he went AWOL from his unit, and entered Switzerland using forged travel orders and a false Army identification card. On November 6, he appeared in the Press Room of the United Nations in Geneva and told reporters he was being persecuted. He also told reporters that "they" were plotting against President Kennedy and that "something" would happen in Dallas. After Kennedy was murdered, a friend of Dinkin's named Dennis De Witt told military authorities that Dinkin had predicted Kennedy's assassination for November 28, and later changed the date to November 22.
Dinkin was arrested on November 13 and placed in a psychiatric hospital, and latered transferred to Walter Reed, where he underwent various psychological tests before eventually being released. His allegation reached the White House on November 29, and went to the Warren Commission in April of 1964.
Eugene B. Dinkin Is A Key To JFK’s Assassination
by Steven Hager
Dinkin was an army code operator stationed in Mertz, France, when he intercepted a message between a CIA-operative (probably Harvey) who had contacted French mafia in Marseilles to recruit their top assassin (who had the CIA code name QJ/WIN ) for a plot against President Kennedy. Apparently this plot already had the support of some Pentagon brass and a right-wing group in Texas (Murchinson and the Hunt brothers, no doubt). Apparently, some top assassins from a number of secret societies were being recruited. Dinkin made the mistake of telling one of his superiors about this message, as well as his plans to alert the world in order to stop this attempt to kill the President.
Pretty soon, word came down that Dinkin was about to be declared mentally ill, so he went AWOL and escaped into Switzerland, where he attempted to alert the press at a United Nations function. He also sent a letter to Robert Kennedy outlining the plot. Keep in mind, this all happened just days before the assassination, and Dinkin was already telling people the exact date and place the assassination was due to happen.
U.S. Army Pfc. Eugene Dinkin Intercepted Cable About JFK Assassination
by Tim King
He was 1963's incarnation of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning; Dinkin intercepted cables in France and tried to prevent Kennedy's death.
Tosh Plumlee says Dinkin's revelations were common knowledge among government agents. He says many assassination reports had been circulating around Miami and Texas the past few months prior to November 1963. "Everyone knew about the Army's Private Eugene B. Dinkin report to the Pentagon and his allegations," Plumlee said, adding, "That is the reason that they launched a team from the Pentagon, because of information received from Private Dinkin."
While his perspective was somewhat limited, Tosh was part of the CIA team that flew to Dallas hoping to thwart the assassination. "When we got to Dallas there were a total of 8 people. I didn't know exactly what they were doing, that is my problem all these years with all of these researchers, they think I know all of the people, I was a pilot. This was the third or fourth time we were sent out to try to prevent assassinations on JFK."
For more see the comprehensive section: Foreknowledge
October 24, 1963
President Kennedy signs the bill launching first major national drive against mental illness and mental retardation.
President Kennedy’s Remarks to the National Association for Retarded Children (1:43)
The President spoke at a luncheon at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.
"In spite of the dramatic discoveries in medicine, the number of mentally retarded is increasing. Whooping cough, diphtheria, scarlet fever, have all but been eliminated, but every year 126,000 children are born who are or who will become retarded. Parents frequently must face decisions in hospitals of what therapy should be adopted to preserve a child's life, knowing that that therapy may bring about mental retardation or blindness. Almost 5,000 of these children are so severely retarded that they will never be able to care for their own needs. This tragic human waste which, of course, affects not only the child but the family which is involved, can and must be stopped.
I think we have an obligation of country, especially a country as rich as ours, especially a country which has so much money to spend on so many things which may be desirable, but may be not essential in every case--we certainly should have the resources to spend to make a major effort to see if we can block this, stop it, and cure it."
President Kennedy signs the Maternal and Child Health and Mental Retardation Planning Amendment to the Social Security Act, the first major legislation to combat mental illness and retardation and hands pen to his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
October 24, 1963
Cora Lacy Frederickson was an insurance executive's wife and a prominent figure in downtown lunch clubs. On October 24, 1963, Mrs Frederickson assaulted U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson at Dallas' Memorial Auditorium Theater. Stevenson first approached a screaming Mrs. Frederickson merely to ask her about the source of her anger. In response, she struck the ambassador over the head with her "Down with U.N." picket sign. Mrs. Frederickson was arrested, but Stevenson didn't press charges.
A Month Before JFK's Assassination, Dallas Right Wingers Attack Adlai Stevenson
by Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis
Extremists in Dallas created volatile atmosphere before JFK’s 1963 visit
by Scott K. Parks
...But those symbols were mere smudges on the national snapshot of Dallas, compared with the attack on U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson II on Oct. 24, 1963, a month before Kennedy's assassination.
The story goes like this: When Walker heard that Stevenson was coming to Dallas to deliver a speech at Memorial Auditorium commemorating U.N. Day, he scheduled a "U.S. Day" celebration one day earlier at the same downtown locale.
Walker, speaking to 1,000 people, called his gathering a "symbol of our sovereignty," then added: "Tomorrow night, there will stand here a symbol of the communist conspiracy and its United Nations."
During Stevenson's U.N. Day address, a heckler stood up in the audience and began shouting into a bullhorn. He was later identified as a founder of the National Indignation Convention, another right-wing Dallas group that had supported Walker in his failed run for governor.
Police escorted the heckler from the auditorium, but the trouble had just begun.
After the speech, a hostile crowd of about 100 protesters surrounded the ambassador outside the auditorium. Many carried signs denouncing the U.N. - signs that had been stored at Walker's home, according to Payne, the Dallas historian.
Stevenson tried to reason with the protesters. Suddenly, one woman conked him on the head with her sign. A man spat on him. After police broke through the crowd to rescue him, Stevenson was heard to say, "Are these human beings or are these animals?"
Once again, the spotlight shone on Dallas. "A City Disgraced," read the headline in Time magazine.
The Dallas Morning News, in an editorial headlined "Our Apologies," defended the ambassador's right to deliver his speech and admonished demonstrators for their crude manners. The editorial ended with words that, read today, are chilling: "The President of the United States will be here in November. We trust he will be welcomed and accorded the respect and dignity that go with the office he represents."
October 31, 1963
President John F. Kennedy's 63rd News Conference (6:27)
Q. Mr. President, just shortly after the Bay of Pigs I asked you how you liked being President, and as I remember you said you liked it better before the event. Now you have had a chance to appraise your job, and why do you like it and why do you want to stay in office 4 more years?
THE PRESIDENT. Well, I find the work rewarding. Whether I am going to stay and what my intentions are and all of the rest, it seems to me it is still a good many, many months away. But as far as the job of President goes, it is rewarding. And I have given before to this group the definition of happiness of the Greeks, and I will define it again: it is full use of your powers along lines of excellence. I find, therefore, the Presidency provides some happiness.
Q. Mr. President, there have been persistent reports in recent days that the State Department is negotiating with the Junta in the Dominican Republic looking toward a resumption of full diplomatic relations. Are these reports true, and is there some basis on which we would be willing to recognize the present Junta?
THE PRESIDENT. Well, there have been conversations in the Dominican Republic to see what assurances can be given regarding the restoration of democratic rule, constitutional rule in the Dominican Republic. We have a charge d'affaires there, and quite obviously we are interested in that restoration. Those assurances are of free elections, so we are continuing to carry out these discussions, although actually they are relatively informal, and they have reaped no harvest as yet. But that would be our policy to attempt to see if we can resume relations with the Dominican Republic under assurances of a restoration of constitutional government. As yet we have had no success.
He was at his witty best in his response of Goldwater:
''Well, as I have said before, I think it would be unwise at this time to answer or reply to Senator Goldwater. I am confident he will be making many charges even more serious than this one in the coming months, and in addition, he, himself, has had a busy week selling TVA and giving permission to or suggesting that military commanders overseas be permitted to use nuclear weapons, and attacking the President of Bolivia while he was here in the United States, and involving himself in the Greek election. So I thought it really would not be fair for me this week to reply to him.''
November 1, 1963 - November 2, 1963
The South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his adviser, his younger brother Ngô Ðình Nhu are arrested and assassinated. The Unites States backed coup overthrows the government of South Vietnam, replaces it with a military dictatorship.
The Assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem
by Peter Kross
The brutal murder of the president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, and his powerful brother and adviser, Ngo Dinh Nhu, on November 2, 1963, was a major turning point in the war in Vietnam...
...The first coup effort against Diem originated in August 1963, when CIA officer Colonel Lucien Conein met secretly with a number of high-ranking South Vietnamese military officers, including Generals Duong Van Big Minh, Tran Van Don, Le Van Kim and Tran Thien Khiem. Conein was a veteran of the World War II Office of Strategic Services and was on good terms with Diem. It was his job to act as an intermediary between the plotters and the U.S. embassy. During the initial meeting, Minh spoke about assassinating both Diem and Nhu. When Ambassador Lodge learned of this he cabled Washington. Upon receiving the report of the clandestine meeting, Kennedy responded by declaring that there was no turning back.
In his discussions with the insurgent generals, Conein meanwhile told them that the United States could not be of any help during initial action of assuming power of state. It would be entirely their own action, win or lose. At the end of August the Kennedy administration sent another, more forceful message to the coup plotters, saying that the United States would support a coup if it had a good chance of succeeding, but it would not permit the participation of U.S. forces. The president also told Ambassador Lodge that it was fine if Washington initiated action to suspend further aid to the Diem regime.
According to the Assassinations Report issued by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1975, the initial coup plan failed because the Generals did not feel ready and did not have sufficient balance of focus. If Diem did not realize at that point that his hold on power was fleeting, a series of public pronouncements from Washington should have allayed any doubt. On September 8, David Bell, the director of the Agency for International Development, told a television reporter that Congress might cut off further aid to Diem if radical changes were not carried out. On September 12, Senator Frank Church, with President Kennedy’s approval, introduced a resolution in the Senate condemning the South Vietnamese government for its repressive measures and calling for aid to be cut off.
In October 1963, Secretary McNamara and General Taylor arrived in Saigon on a fact-finding mission. After meeting with President Diem, they recommended to President Kennedy that the United States work with Diem but hold back further financial and political support. They also proposed a 1,000-man troop withdrawal by the end of the year. Their most important concern was that no actions resulting in a coup take place at that time.
On October 3, however, Conein made contact with General Minh, who told him that a new coup was in the offing and asked for American support if it succeeded. In their discussion Minh revealed that the plan included the assassinations of both Diem and Nhu. On October 5, 1963, according to the Assassinations Report, the unnamed acting chief of the CIA station in Saigon cabled Washington that he had recommended to Ambassador Lodge that the United States not set ourselves irrevocably against the assassination plot.
Also according to the Assassinations Report, CIA Director John McCone later stated that after a meeting with both the president and Attorney General Robert Kennedy, he believed that President Kennedy agreed with his recommendation to assemble all pertinent intelligence on the coup plot, despite the fact that the president had great reservations about Diem. McCone further said that during his talk with President Kennedy they did not discuss assassination specifically, only whether or not the United States should let the coup go ahead or try to stop it. McCone left the meeting believing that the president concurred with the CIA director’s hands-off recommendation.
In Saigon, Conein met secretly with General Don, one of the coup plotters, telling him that the United States was opposed to any assassinations. The general responded, All right, you don’t like it, we won’t talk about it anymore.
On October 28, Don told Ambassador Lodge that he would tell him of the plans for the coup before it took place. Lodge called Washington, reporting that he could do nothing to stop the coup. Washington hurriedly replied, telling Lodge to try to talk the generals out of going ahead with the coup. By that point neither Lodge nor any other American official in Washington or Saigon could exert any more influence over the generals. The coup was on.
In the pre-dawn darkness of November 1, 1963, ARVN soldiers loyal to the generals took up positions around Saigon. They took over police headquarters and radio stations and began to move on the presidential palace. The coup leaders gave only a four-minute warning to the U.S. embassy, allowing Ambassador Lodge no time to react. When they confronted Diem, the plotters demanded that he resign and guaranteed him and the Nhus safe exit from the country. Diem called Lodge, who said that the United States could take no action.
General Minh called Diem and told him that if he did not resign immediately the presidential palace would be attacked. When Diem did not respond, the plotters launched an air attack on the presidential palace just before dark. In the early hours of November 2, Diem finally called General Don and offered to surrender if his party received safe passage out of the country. Don agreed to the terms, but Diem did not inform Don of his whereabouts.
Diem and Nhu had escaped through a secret tunnel under the presidential palace and had made their way to Cholon, the Chinese district of Saigon. In circumstances that are still unclear today, Diem and Nhu were tracked down and taken into custody by forces loyal to the plotters. A little while later Diem and Nhu were killed inside an armored personnel carrier while they were being transported to the joint general staff headquarters building.
.When President Kennedy heard the news, he reacted with shock to the deaths of Diem and his brother. Their murders had not been in the script...
CIA Assassinated President Of The Republic Of Vietnam
Betrayed Ally Of The United States Of America
LBJ Admits Murder of Diem (:20)
Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge informed President Kennedy of Diem's assassination after the fact. The reason Kennedy wanted to shatter CIA into a thousand pieces. They created the Bay of Pigs, and the Cuban missile crisis, which almost caused a nuclear winter. They overthrew other governments and Kennedy didn't want CIA calling shots and making him dance as their puppet. The CIA's response: They shattered Kennedy's brain in a thousand pieces in Dealey Plaza. And who was the driver of the limousine when Kennedy was murdered? The best witness of all was Jackie Kennedy. She said that Greer had not acted during the crucial moment, that he might just as well have been Miss Shaw” (the children’s nanny), and if Greer had hit the gas “Jack might still be alive.” Greer’s son indicated that his father was one of those people who had no respect for John F. Kennedy. Greer was a servant for JFK’s rival Henry Cabot Lodge for many years, and was a Northern Irish Protestant in an era where the Protestant-Catholic hatred was palpable. When Greer’s son was asked “what did your father think of JFK?”, the son was silent. When the question was repeated, Greer responded: “Well, we’re Methodists ... and JFK was Catholic.”
See: November 4, 1963, President Kennedy records a personal memo about the assassination of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem.
For more see the comprehensive section: Assassination Of Ngô Brothers
November 2, 1963
The Chicago plot. Chicago was originally where Kennedy was to be assassinated. Had the plan succeeded, Thomas Arthur Vallee would have been the famous alleged assassin whose name would be remembered forever, rather than Lee Harvey Oswald.
On November 2, 1963, Kennedy was set to appear at the Army / Air Force football game in Chicago at 11:40 a.m. At the Chicago Secret Service Bureau, Special Agent in Charge, Maurice Martineau, informed agents about reports of assassins on October 30. Martineau was repeating a tip from the FBI, in which an informant identifying as "Lee" talked about a four-man sniper team of "rightwing para-military fanatics" with high-powered rifles, who would shoot at Kennedy as his motorcade was driving from O'Hare down the Northwest Expressway, around a slow loop off the highway exit of what is now ironically known as the JFK Expressway.
The tip from "Lee" wasn't the only one. A landlady at a Northside boarding house called the FBI after she saw four men check into the house, each with a scoped rifle, and carrying a map of Kennedy's motorcade route. The FBI then called the Secret Service office in Chicago, who searched for the riflemen. Two of the would-be assassins were found and detained for several hours for questioning, while the other two got away. The names of the two would-be presidential assassins are still unknown to this day, as the Department of the Treasury, which oversees the Secret Service, mysteriously destroyed all records of the Chicago plot when the Assassinations Records and Review Board asked for them in 1995, more than three decades after the incident.
In the meantime, the Secret Service had to respond to another tip about an ex-Marine named Thomas Arthur Vallee, who had been reportedly talking about shooting the president when he came to Chicago. Vallee was a paranoid schizophrenic, a disaffiliated member of the famously right-wing, anti-Communist John Birch society, collected guns, and was described as a loner. As a Marine in the Korean War, Vallee was injured by a mortar blast, was subsequently committed to several mental institutions, and received full disability benefits from the Veterans Administration. Like Oswald the expat turncoat, Vallee the mentally disabled fit the preferred profile of the lone wolf presidential assassin.
Vallee's apartment was raided in his absence, and FBI agents found an M1 rifle, a carbine rifle, and 2500 rounds of ammunition. The Secret Service instructed Chicago Police to put 24-hour surveillance on Vallee and "get him off the street." Vallee was pulled over and arrested by Chicago Police Department officers Daniel Groth and Peter Schurla on the morning of November 2, as his 1962 Ford Falcon made its way toward the expressway on Kennedy's motorcade route. The officers cited a missed turn signal as the result of the arrest. Upon seeing a hunting knife in the front seat of the Falcon, they charged Vallee with carrying a concealed weapon, and a search of his trunk yielded 300 rounds of ammunition.
Vallee's connections to Unites States intelligence soon came out. His New York license plates read 31-10RF. NBC Chicago employee Luke Christopher Hester learned of the arrest and asked Hugh Larkin, his father-in-law, to have a background check done on the plates by his former colleagues in the New York Police Department. The plates came back "frozen," meaning that only United States intelligence agencies could retrieve the classified information associated with Vallee's registration.
Officers Groth and Schurla went on to have prominent intelligence careers. Groth led the December 4, 1969, raid on Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, who were both assassinated by police. Hampton was just 21, and Clark was 22. The families of Hampton and Clark, as well as Black Panthers who survived the raid, would successfully sue Daniel Groth and local, state, and federal agencies in 1983 for a $1.85 million settlement. While under Oath, Groth admitted that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI specifically requested the raid on Hampton. Officer Schurla became a high-level intelligence officer at the Chicago police headquarters.
Like Oswald, Vallee also worked on the CIA's top-secret U-2 planes in Japan. Vallee told investigative journalist Edwin Black that his U-2 work was at Camp Otsu, but that he also helped the CIA train Cuban exiles to kill Fidel Castro at a CIA base in Levittown, Long Island. Oswald did similar work at a CIA training camp in Lake Pontchartrain, close to New Orleans. Vallee worked near a third floor window at IPP Litho-Plate, at 625 West Jackson Boulevard, directly above where the presidential motorcade would pass. Oswald worked on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD), in front of where the Dallas motorcade would pass. It isn't hard to see how the CIA blazed a path for both men to be set up as scapegoats in their elaborate plot to assassinate JFK.
For more see the comprehensive section: Chicago Plot
November 4, 1963
Listening In: JFK on Vietnam (4:05)
President Kennedy records a personal memo about the assassination of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem, only to be interrupted by his son, John F. Kennedy, Jr. The light tone he strikes with his son stands in stark contrast to his words about the [CIA] overthrow of Diem and his brother, which clearly upset him.
November 6, 1963
...Later, in 1975, two House subcommittees held public hearings on issues relating to the treatment of assassination records. These were the House Judiciary Committee's Civil and Constitutional Rights Subcommittee (Edwards Committee) that investigated the destruction of the so-called "Hosty note" which Lee Harvey Oswald had left at the FBI Dallas field office for Special Agent James Hosty on November 6, 1963.
After the assassination, Hosty destroyed the note on the instructions of his superior, Special Agent in Charge J. Gordon Shanklin. Its existence remained unknown outside the FBI for 12 years. The Government Information and Individual Rights Subcommittee of the Government Operations Committee (Abzug Committee) examined issues of access and openness relating to Warren Commission records...
Destruction of the Oswald Note
In 1975, the allegation surfaced that the FBI had destroyed a note delivered to it by Lee Harvey Oswald, just one or two weeks prior to the assassination of President Kennedy. An internal FBI investigation failed to find any records relating to this, but interviews of Dallas Field Office personnel established that an Oswald visit and note dropoff had occurred.
The House Judiciary Committee heard testimony from several relevant witnesses, as did the contemporaneous Church Committee. The results of this were:
Oswald definitely did visit the Dallas Field Office a week to two weeks prior to the assassination, looking for Agent Hosty, who had recently visited his wife Marina.
When told that Hosty was not in, Oswald left a note in an envelope which was unsealed.
The note contained some sort of threat, but accounts varied widely as to whether Oswald threatened to "blow up the FBI" or merely "report this to higher authorities."
Within hours after Oswald's murder on 24 Nov 1963, Hosty destroyed the note and a memorandum which Special-Agent-in-Charge Gordon Shanklin had ordered written on November 22.
Hosty maintained that Shanklin, head of the Dallas Field Office, had ordered him to destroy the note. Shanklin denied ever having heard of the note until 1975, though Assistant Director William Sullivan did recall the incident. The House Select Committee on Assassinations reviewed the incident and did not find Shanklin's denial credible.
The movie JFK added a new twist based on rumors which have never been substantiated. In the film, New Orleans DA Jim Garrison wonders why the FBI would destroy a note which would tend to confirm Oswald's violent character, and presents his staff with an alternative: "This is just speculation, people, but what if the note was describing the assassination attempt on JFK?"
...In March, 1963, Hosty was ordered to keep Lee Harvey Oswald under observation. Soon afterwards Hosty received a message from the FBI's Washington office that Oswald was subscribing to the Daily Worker, the newspaper of the American Communist Party.
In June, Hosty heard from FBI headquarters that Oswald was in New Orleans, and requested information on him. Hosty visited the home of Ruth Paine to discover where Oswald was living. He spoke to both Paine and Marina Oswald about Oswald. When Oswald heard about the visit he went to the FBI office in Dallas. When told that Hosty was at lunch Oswald left him a message in an envelope.
The contents of the envelope has remained a mystery. A receptionist working at the Dallas office claimed it included a threat to "blow up the FBI and the Dallas Police Department if you don't stop bothering my wife." Hosty later claimed it said: "If you have anything you want to learn about me, come talk to me directly. If you don't cease bothering my wife, I will take appropriate action and report this to the proper authorities."
Soon after Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Hosty was called into the office of his superior, Gordon Shanklin. Hosty was asked about what he knew about Oswald. When Oswald was shot dead by Jack Ruby two days later, Shanklin ordered Hosty to destroy Oswald's letter.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation I discovered that Hosty's name and phone number appeared in Oswald's address book. J. Edgar Hoover was worried that this indicated that Oswald had been working closely with the FBI. That he might have been an FBI informant on the activities of left-wing groups such as the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Instead of passing Oswald's address book to the Warren Commission, the FBI provided a typewritten transcription of the document in which the Hosty entry was omitted...
Assignment: Oswald by James P. Hosty, Jr.
by George W. Bailey
Former FBI Agent’s Book Reveals Some Surprises
I’ve read that FBI Special Agent James P. Hosty’s book, Assignment: Oswald, published in 1996 and now out of print, offers some surprising background details on the early turbulent days of the FBI’s investigation of the Kennedy and Tippet murders. Hosty’s account spares no one in this frank description of the events and personalties that shaped the early days of the JFK assassination investigation. James Hosty does a good job at recounting the chaotic scenes in the Dallas FBI headquarters and later, the Dallas Police Department with the gaggle of photographers and newsmen, the chain smoking, coffee swilling detectives, the banging and clanging of the teletype machines and typewriters, to the short fuses of overworked men enduring sleepless nights fueled by caffeine and adrenaline.
Early on Hosty makes this sobering assessment of being in the FBI:
“With time, my idealism waned, and I accepted the hard fact that law enforcement is basically gray. I also came to understand that one of our jobs was to protect the Bureau’s image at all costs, even if it ran roughshod over individuals or principles.”
A candid disclosure to say the least. And therein, lies the problem with the FBI investigating crimes. Their approach will have political angle to it. Hosty clearly illustrates this later when his boss Gordon Shanklin, who he describes as a “damn good man” orders him to destroy evidence in the case. Not once but twice, with a third time implied. And why? So as to eliminate any embarrassment to the prestige of the FBI and hence, J. Edgar Hoover since both were viewed as one and the same at the time. It should also be noted that Hoover’s early comments immediately after the assassination were that the FBI had no foreknowledge about Oswald, but in fact, they had a file on him starting the year of his defection to the Soviet Union in 1959. They kept him under tight surveillance by the time he landed back in America in June of 1962 to just a few days before the assassination in 1963...
November 8, 1963
President Kennedy arrives and departs Hotel Carlyle, New York City, N.Y. (1:33)
President John F. Kennedy arrives and departs Hotel Carlyle in New York City before his Address on the foreign aid program at the dinner of the Protestant Council of the City of New York, Hilton Hotel. President Kennedy is picked up by Mayor of New York City Robert F. Wagner and wife Susan Wagner.
by Jeane MacIntosh
...By 1953, when the then-Boston senator wed New York native Jacqueline Bouvier, Kennedy’s Manhattan base was a suite on the 34th floor of The Carlyle hotel, which would become known as “the New York White House.”...
November 8, 1963
Remarks by President Kennedy at the Dinner of the Protestant Council of the City of New York (Audio 22 minutes)
Sound recording of President John F. Kennedy’s remarks to the Protestant Council of the City of New York during a ceremony presenting the 1963 Family of Man Award to President Kennedy. In his speech the President explains that robust foreign and domestic aid programs are an essential method for reducing and eliminating the problems that afflict the international “human family” such as poverty, malnutrition, and political instability.
November 9, 1963
“I guess you thought I was kidding when I said Kennedy would be killed from an office building with a high-powered rifle.” On the morning of November 9, 1963, two weeks before JFK was assassinated, right-wing extremist Joseph Milteer was in a Miami hotel room talking with Willie Somerset, an undercover police informant who happened to be wearing a wire.
Joseph Milteer
Threat In Miami : The Milteer Tape (5:13)
JFK Assassination Former FBI Agent Don Adams On Joseph Milteer (4:45)
Thirteen days before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, a man named Joseph Milteer was tape recorded telling Miami police informant William Somersett that the murder of Kennedy was "in the working," that the best means of killing Kennedy was "from an office building with a high-powered rifle," and that "they will pick up somebody within hours afterwards, if anything like that would happen just to throw the public off."
Joseph Milteer Is A Key To The JFK Assassination
by Steven Hager
On the morning of November 9, 1963, two weeks before JFK was assassinated, right-wing extremist Joseph Milteer was in a Miami hotel room talking with Willie Somerset, an undercover police informant who happened to be wearing a wire. This conversation was turned over to the FBI immediately, although it would not surface publicly until four years later. Here is what Milteer had to say: [Killing Kennedy] “was in the working” and would be accomplished “from an office building with a high-powered rifle”….that could be “disassembled” to get it into the building and they will “pick someone up within hours if anything like that happened just to throw the public off.” Milteer also mentioned “the Cubans” were involved.
In fact, an even earlier assassination attempt had been planned for Chicago on November 2, but that plot had been foiled by someone named “Lee.” Coincidentally, two of the men involved in the Chicago plot were former Marines who’d been stationed at Atsuki, the same base where Lee Harvey Oswald was likely programmed by MKULTRA-style brainwashing.
Maybe you know Frank Sturgis was accused by Marita Lorenz of driving a car with high-powered rifles and scopes in the trunk from Miami to Dallas right before the assassination.
I’d imagine Milteer attended some sort of celebration later that day. Clint Murchison held a big one on his ranch...
A Miami Police Informant, A Prophetic Racist And Fresh Questions About JFK’s Death
by Dan Christensen
For more see the comprehensive section: Foreknowledge
November 9, 1963
Watch Rare Footage Of JFK Playing With His Children Just A Week Before His Death
by Adam Rathe
The clip is part of the HBO documentary The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee.
NSAM 271 Cooperation With The USSR On Outer Space Matters
Memorandum For The Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
I would like you to assume personally the initiative and central responsibility within the Government for the development of a program of substantive cooperation with the Soviet Union in the field of outer space, including the development of specific technical proposals. I assume that you will work closely with the Department of State and other agencies as appropriate.
These proposals should be developed with a view of their possible discussion with the Soviet Union as a direct outcome of my September 20 proposal for broader cooperation between the United States and the USSR in outer space, including cooperation in lunar landing programs. All proposals or suggestions originating within the Government relating to this general subject will be referred to you for your consideration and evaluation.
In addition to developing substantive proposals, I expect that you will assist the Secretary of State in exploring problems of procedure and timing connected with holding discussions with the Soviet Union and in proposing for my consideration the channels which would be most desirable from our point of view. In this connection the channel of contact developed by Dr. Dryden between NASA and the Soviet Academy of Sciences has been quite effective, and I believe that we should continue to utilize it as appropriate as a means of continuing the dialogue between the scientists of both counties.
Commentary on NSAM #271 and NASA
by Nathan Gant
...But almost immediately after the UN speech, it was NASA which became uncooperative. There was serious foot-dragging within their upper ranks. For example, Dr. Robert C. Seamans(Associate NASA Administrator) had (privately) threatened to resign rather than cooperate in a joint US-USSR lunar flight. Moreover, a former head of NASA's moon flight program, Dr. B. Holmes, publically stated in an ABC television interview in Sept. 1963 that a Soviet-American mission to the moon would be, "a very costly, very inefficient, probably a very dangerous way to execute the program."
On the other hand, on Sept. 29, 1963, the Soviet responses to his speech were all quite favorable. See the NY Times article(included as file NYT1.TXT). Later on Oct. 25, 1963, at a Kremlin press conference in another positive response to Kennedy's joint space initiative, Premier Krushchev emphasized that there would not be any kind of 'moon race' against the Americans. And really from that point on, the Soviet govenment no longer made any sort of plans for a lunar landing on its own...
National Security Action Memorandum No. 271
Memorandum For The Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Subject: Cooperation with the USSR on Outer Space Matters
For more see the comprehensive section: Joint Moon Mission With USSR
November 14, 1963
JFK Press Conference - Subject: Vietnam (1:32)
After all, it's their war. They're the ones that will have to win it or lose it.
November 15, 1963?
Sergei Khrushchev said his father talked to him about a week before Kennedy’s assassination on the president’s idea for a joint lunar mission. Nikita Khrushchev had broken ranks with his rocket scientists, and thought the Soviet Union should accept Kennedy’s invitation to go to the moon together, as a further step in peaceful cooperation.
In Washington, Kennedy acted as if he already knew about Khrushchev’s hopeful change of heart on that critical issue. JFK was already telling NASA to begin work on a joint U.S.-Soviet lunar mission. On November 12, 1963, JFK issued his National Security Action Memorandum 271, ordering NASA to implement, as he put it, my “September 20 proposal for broader cooperation between the United States and the USSR in outer space, including cooperation in lunar landing programs.”
That further visionary step to end the Cold War also died with President Kennedy. As you know, the U.S. went to the moon alone. U.S. and Soviet rockets continued to be pointed at their opposite countries rather than being joined in a project for a more hopeful future. Sergei Khrushchev said, “I think if Kennedy had lived, we would be living in a completely different world.”
November 15, 1963
President Kennedy visits the family home in Palm Beach.
November 16, 1963
President Kennedy visits Cape Canaveral. Ten days after his visit, the cape was renamed Cape Kennedy. Today it is known as the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral.
President John F. Kennedy visits the Saturn Missile Control Center. (2:51)
President John F. Kennedy traveled from Palm Beach to Cape Canaveral, Florida on this Saturday morning, where he visited Pad B at Complex 37 and was briefed by Wernher von Braun on the Saturn rocket booster.
Watch JFK Tour NASA 6 Days Before His Assassination (Video and Text)
by Allison McNearney
JFK Visits NASA for the Last Time. Shortly before his assassination, President Kennedy visited Cape Canaveral to inspect NASA's efforts to put a man on the moon – a goal Kennedy set in his first year in office.
November 17, 1963
President Kennedy returns to Palm Beach. He is scheduled to visit Tampa, Miami and several cities in Texas in the coming week.
President Kennedy arrives at MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa. His first stop is Al Lopez Field, where he delivers a speech. He then travels to the State Chamber of Commerce meeting and delivers another speech at a meeting at the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory. Then he flies to Miami to speak at a Democratic rally at the airport and at the Inter-American Press Association in Miami Beach. He returns to Washington late in the evening.
Lyndon Johnson Wanted Jackie To Ride In His Limo Not JFK's
by Robert Morrow
Here is a fuller, more complete quote of George Smathers who spoke with Kennedy on November 18, 1963. It comes from the Kennedys, on PBS "American Experience." Apparently, Johnson wanted to ride with Kennedy, which is quite strange if LBJ knew there would be snipers and a kill zone in the parade. Then, apparently, Lyndon Johnson was lobbying hard to have Jackie ride with him ... I think the first move was a ploy and the second demand was the real goal. You can watch the film clip online at PBS, the Kennedys, at the 1:44:30 mark of the video at PBS.
Lyndon Johnson Wanted Jackie To Ride In His Limo Not JFK's
by Robert Morrow
...Lyndon Johnson wanted Jackie Kennedy to ride in his limo in the motorcade ... or rather his Lincoln convertible. And, also on the day of the assassination, Johnson was also pleading/demanding that his friend John Connally be put in his car and his hated enemy Ralph Yarborough moved to the kill zone in JFK's car.
JFK's good friend and Florida Senator George Smathers is the source for the very revealing information that LBJ wanted Jackie to ride in his car.
Just before John Kennedy headed to Dallas he had a conversation with his good friend Florida Senator George Smathers; here is how it went:
JFK: “Gee, I really hate to go to Texas. I gotta go to Texas next week and its just a pain in the rear end and I just don’t want to go, I wish I could get out of it.
George Smathers: I said “Well, what’s the problem?”
JFK: “Well, you know how Lyndon is, Johnson wants Jackie to ride with him, and all these fights were going on…. I hate to go into all that mess and I hate to go and I wish I could think of a way to get out of it.”
Transcript from PBS "American Experience - The Kennedys Part II - The Sons"
Sen. George Smathers, U.S. Congress 1946-1968: I came back to Washington with the President. He was lying down. They had a bed in the Air Force One for him to lie on. So he said, Gee, I really hate to go to Texas. I got to go to Texas next week and its just a pain in the rear end and I just don't want to go. I wish I could get out of it. And I said, Well, what's the problem? He said, Well, you know how Lyndon is. Lyndon was Vice President. Lyndon wants to ride with me, but John Connally is the governor and he wants to ride and I think that protocol says that he's supposed to ride and Johnson wants Jackie to ride with him. And Connally was, at that time, a little bit jealous of Lyndon and Lyndon was a little jealous of him, so its all these fights were going on. He said, I just don't want to go down in that mess. I hate to go. I wish I could think of a way to get out of it.
November 19, 1963
...But there was another case where Kennedy did the same, the giant island archipelago of Indonesia, which the Netherlands had colonized since the late 1500s. After World War II, a guerrilla war challenged a restoration of colonialism and Indonesia won its independence in 1949. But, as with Katanga in Congo, the Dutch decided to keep control of the eastern island of West Irian because of its wealth.
In 1958, the Dulles brothers tried to overthrow Achmed Sukarno, the nationalist president of Indonesia, but the coup attempt failed. The shoot-down of American pilot Allen Pope exposed the coup as being organized and run by the CIA. Sukarno kept Pope imprisoned after the change of administrations.
President Kennedy invited Sukarno to the U.S. for a state visit. He wanted to discuss the release of Pope, so he asked CIA Director Allen Dulles for the report on how Pope was captured. Dulles gave him a redacted copy. But even in this form, Kennedy discerned what had happened. He exclaimed, “No wonder Sukarno doesn’t like us very much. He has to sit down with people who tried to overthrow his government.”
Because of Kennedy’s different view of the issues at hand, he was able to achieve a much improved relationship with Indonesia. He secured the release of Pope, put together a package of non-military aid for Indonesia, and finally, with the help of Robert Kennedy and veteran diplomat Ellsworth Bunker, West Irian was released by the Netherlands and eventually returned to Indonesia.
Kennedy’s diplomatic opening to the fiery third-world leadership of President Sukarno of Indonesia. Sukarno was “the most outspoken proponent of Third World neutralism in the Cold War.” He had actually coined the term “Third World.” The CIA wanted Sukarno dead. It wanted what it saw as his pro-communist “global orientation” obliterated. During Eisenhower’s presidency, the CIA repeatedly tried to kill and overthrow Sukarno but failed.
Kennedy, however, chose to work with Sukarno, hoping to win him over as an ally, which he did. Sukarno came to love Kennedy. The U.S. president resolved what seemed a hopeless conflict between Indonesia and its former colonial master, the Netherlands, averting a war. To the CIA’s dismay, in 1961 Kennedy welcomed Sukarno to the White House.
Most significantly, three days before his assassination (November 19, 1963), President Kennedy said he was willing to accept Sukarno’s invitation to visit Indonesia the following spring. His visit to Indonesia would have dramatized in a very visible way Kennedy’s support of Third World nationalism, a sea change in U.S. government policy.
Kennedy’s Indonesian policy was also killed in Dallas, with horrendous consequences. After Lyndon Johnson became president, the CIA finally succeeded in overthrowing Sukarno in a massive purge of suspected Communists that ended up killing 500,000 to one million Indonesians.
November 19, 1963
Sends a presidential statement to be read at the Centennial Ceremony in Gettysburg National Military Park, where Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.
November 20, 1963
President Kennedy discusses the prospect of a single global commercial space communications system. He transmits to Congress an annual report on the United Nations. He signs a bill authorizing medals commemorating the founding of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (his last bill). That evening Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy host a cocktail party at the White House.
November 20, 1963
One of the most well-known stories of foreknowledge in the Kennedy assassination is that of Rose Cherami (often spelled "Cheramie"), whose real name was Melba Christine Marcades.
On November 20, 1963, Cherami was struck by a car on Highway 190 near Eunice, Lousiana. She told police Lt. Francis Fruge she had been traveling with two men from Florida to Dallas, as part of a drug run, but had been thrown out of the Silver Slipper Lounge after an argument, after which she had been run over. After exhibiting drug withdrawal symptoms, Fruge took her to Jackson East Louisiana State Hospital.
On the journey there, Fruge later told the HSCA, Rose Cherami told the story of her companions and the argument, and then when asked about her business in Dallas, she said she intended to "number one, pick up some money, pick up her baby, and kill Kennedy." She reportedly subsequently told hospital nurses, moments before JFK was killed, that the murder was about to happen.
A few days later, she told Fruge that Oswald was a friend of Jack Ruby, for whom she said she worked as a stripper and dope runner. Dr. Victor Weiss, who treated Cherami, told Jim Garrison's investigators in 1967 that he had heard Rose's predictions about the Kennedy assassination. In his testimony to the HSCA Dr. Weiss was clear that he had heard this before Kennedy's assassination, though the initial 1967 contact report notes that "Dr. Weiss states that he doesn't recall whether this was told to him before or after the assassination."
While working for the Garrison investigation, Lt. Francis Fruge tracked down the owner of the Silver Slipper Lounge, Mac Manual. Manual remembered the incident clearly, and picked out as Rose's companions mug shots of Cuban exile Sergio Arcacha Smith and a man Fruge remembered as "Osanta" (Emilio Santanta?).
On September 4, 1965, Rose Cherami was again a victim of a car accident. This time her skull was crushed and she was killed, near Big Sandy, Texas.
ARRB: Witnesses Verified Cheramie Story (4:28)
Narrated by Jim DiEugenio.
ARRB documents indicate that an intern at the Louisiana State Hospital named Wayne Owen, told his hometown newspaper in Wisconsin that he and other interns at the hospital learned of the assassination of JFK BEFORE it occurred and that they were told that one of the men involved in the killing was a man named "Jack Rubenstein".
Louisiana State Hospital was the place where Rose Cheramie made her plea to stop the assassination.
by John Simkin
Rose Cheramie (Cherami) was found unconsciousness by the side of the road at Eunice, Louisiana, on November 20, 1963. Lieutenant Francis Frugé of the Louisiana State Police took her to the state hospital. On the journey Cheramie said that she had been thrown out of a car by two gangsters who worked for Jack Ruby. She claimed that the men were involved in a plot to kill John F. Kennedy. Cheramie added that Kennedy would be killed in Dallas within a few days. Later she told the same story to doctors and nurses who treated her. As she appeared to be under the influence of drugs her story was ignored.
Following the assassination, Cheramie was interviewed by the police. She claimed that Lee Harvey Oswald had visited Ruby's night club. In fact, she believed the two men were having a homosexual relationship.
Rose Cheramie was found dead on 4th September, 1965. At first it appeared she had been involved in a road accident. Later it was argued that she had been shot in the head before being run over by by a car in order to disguise the original wound. However, the Louisiana State Police Memo reported: "Cheramie died of injuries received from an automobile accident on a strip of highway near Big Sandy, Texas, in the early morning of September 4, 1965.
Rose Cheramie: How She Predicted the JFK Assassination
by Jim DiEugenio
On November 20, 1963, Lt. Francis Fruge of the Louisiana State Police received a phone call from Moosa Memorial Hospital in Eunice. A Mrs. Louise Guillory, the hospital administrator told him that there was an accident victim in the emergency ward. Guillory knew that Fruge worked the narcotics detail and she felt that the woman was under the influence of drugs.
Fruge immediately left for the hospital. When he got there he encountered a middle-aged white female sitting down in the waiting room outside emergency. There were no serious injuries; only bruises and abrasions. She was only partly coherent. But Moosa was a private hospital and since the woman seemed bereft of funds, Guillory had called Fruge to see what he could do to help. The woman identified herself to Fruge as Rose Cheramie.
Fruge had no choice at the time except to place Cheramie in the Eunice City Jail. He then went out to attend the Eunice Police Department's Annual Ball. About an hour later a police officer came over to the function and told Fruge that Cheramie was undergoing withdrawal symptoms. Fruge came back and, after recognizing the condition, called a local doctor, Dr. Derouin, from the coroner's office. Derouin administered a sedative via syringe to calm her down. The doctor then suggested that she be removed from the jail and taken to the state facility in Jackson. After Fruge agreed, Derouin called the facility at about midnight on the 20th and made arrangements for her delivery there. Afterwards, Fruge called Charity Hospital in Lafayette and ordered an ambulance for the transport to the hospital.
Fruge accompanied Cheramie to the hospital. And, according to his House Select Committee deposition, it was at this point that Rose began to relate her fascinating and astonishing tale. Calmed by the sedative, and according to Fruge, quite lucid, she began to respond to some routine questions with some quite unusual answers. She told him that she was en route from Florida to Dallas with two men who looked Cuban or Italian. The men told her that they were going to kill the president in Dallas in just a few days. Cheramie herself was not part of the plot but apparently the men were also part of a large dope ring with Rose since Cheramie's function was as a courier of funds for heroin which was to be dropped off to her by a seaman coming into the port of Galveston. She was to pick up the money for the drugs from a man who was holding her child. It seemed a quite intricate dope ring since she was then to transport the heroin to Mexico. The two men were supposed to accompany her to Mexico but the whole transaction got short-circuited on Highway 190 near Eunice. In the confines of a seedy bar called the Silver Slipper Lounge, Cheramie's two friends were met by a third party. Rose left with the two men she came with. But a short distance away from the bar, an argument apparently ensued. And although some have written that she was thrown out of the vehicle and hit by an oncoming car, according to Fruge, Rose said that the argument took place inside the Silver Slipper, and that the two men and the manager, Mac Manual, threw her out. While hitchhiking on the 190, she was hit by a car driven by one Frank Odom. It was Odom who then delivered her to Moosa. As Fruge so memorably recalled to Jonathan Blackmer of the HSCA, Cheramie summed up her itinerary in Dallas in the following manner: "She said she was going to, number one, pick up some money, pick up her baby, and to kill Kennedy." (p. 9 of Fruge's 4/18/78 deposition)...
The Strange and Revelatory Saga of Rose Cheramie
by Robert Riversong
“We’re going to kill President Kennedy when he comes to Dallas”
Colonel Morgan of the Louisiana State Police phoned Captain Will Fritz of the Dallas Police to tell him about Cheramie’s prediction of the assassination, the confirmed parts of her story, and that the Chief of Customs in Houston was holding her for further questioning. When Morgan had hung up from his conversation with Fritz, he turned to the other officers in the room and said “They don’t want her – they’re not interested”. By that time, Oswald had been captured and the Dallas Police wanted no further witnesses.
The Chief Customs Agent called the FBI to pass on the information received from Cheramie, but was told they did not want to question her.
Cheramie may, in fact, have been shot in the head before Moore found her on the highway and been left there along with the suitcases to create an accident to cover the murder. Records at Gladewater Hospital describe a “deep punctate stellate” (starlike) wound to her right forehead. Dr. Charles A. Crenshaw commented in his book, JFK: Conspiracy of Silence, that “The wound in Cheramie’s forehead as described, according to medical textbooks, occurs in contact gunshot wounds – that is, when a gun barrel is placed against a victim’s body and discharged. It is especially applicable to a gunshot wound of the skull…”
Cheramie’s autopsy “cannot be found” according to the authorities. Because of the suspicious conditions and unanswered questions surrounding her death, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison wanted to exhume Cheramie’s body, but the local Texas authorities refused to cooperate.
Todd C. Elliot - Author of “A Rose by Many Other Names (37:24)
Rose Cherami and the JFK Assassination
by Todd C. Elliott
For more see the comprehensive section: Foreknowledge
The Last Two Days, November 21 and 22, 1963 (Video 19 minutes)
Motion picture covering highlights of the final two days in the life of President John F. Kennedy. President Kennedy makes scheduled public appearances and delivers remarks, including his last public words, and interacts informally with crowds that greet him in San Antonio, Houston, Fort Worth, and Dallas, Texas. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Governor John Connally, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson make appearances with President Kennedy. Also included is a brief segment as the late President's body is returned to the White House on November 23, 1963. Portions of the soundtrack include radio narration of the assassination of President Kennedy, and a live recording of Judge Sarah Hughes swearing in Lyndon B. Johnson as 36th President of the United States. Produced by: Naval Photographic Center, 1211-69. Photographed by Thomas M. Atkins, Robert L. Knudsen.
November 21, 1963
President Kennedy asks economic advisors to prepare “War on Poverty” program for 1964.
by Thomson Gal
Homer Echevarria - Taking Care of Kennedy
On November 21, 1963, a government informant named Thomas Mosley was negotiating the sale of machine guns to a Cuban exile named Echevarria. In the course of the transaction, Echevarria said that "we now have plenty of money - our new backers are Jews" and would close the arms deal "as soon as we [or they] take care of Kennedy." The next day, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.
Mosley, an ATF informant, reported his conversation to the Secret Service, and that agency quickly began investigating what it termed "a group in the Chicago area who may have a connection with the JFK assassination." Echevarria was a member of the 30th November group, associated with the DRE with whom Oswald had dealings the previous summer. Mosley said the arms deal was being financed through Paulino Sierra Martinez and his J.G.C.E., Sierra interestingly was connected to Bobby Kennedy's effort to unite various exile groups, through Harry Ruiz Williams.
The Secret Service investigation was soon taken over by the FBI. The FBI quickly dropped the case, leaving this explosive statement unresolved. The Warren Commission received the Secret Service reports but did not direct the FBI to take any action in the matter.
Worth noting is that in 1995, the Secret Service destroyed presidential protection survey reports for some of Kennedy's trips during the fall of 1963, including the cancelled Chicago trip planned for the beginning of November.
For more see the comprehensive section: Foreknowledge
JFK researcher Matthew Smith has discussed his conversations with Wayne January for many years now, and I wanted to put this story out for comment.
In his book “Conspiracy: The Plot To Stop The Kennedys” (CTPTSTK) he goes into much more detail than he did in his previous book “JFK: The Second Plot”. For one thing he could actually name Mr. January since he had passed away by the time of this book (2005), whereas, in the earlier book (1992) he did not have permission to do so.
The company January was a partner in, Royal Air Service Inc., was wrapping up the selling off of large aircraft. This was part of a top-secret government program that was interested in developing radar mapping for low-level flying by such planes as the F-111 fighter-bomber.
At the time of our story they only had one DC3 left to sell off to finish the contract. This final plane was sold in mid-November by January’s partner and the owner showed up on November 18 to sign for it. January told Mr. Smith he was a very well-dressed gentleman. January said “he was about six feet tall, fair complexioned, brown hair, and late thirties to early forties. His haircut was short, military type, and wore slacks and a sport shirt.” January also said, “he had no particular accent.” January said later on he found out he was an Air Force Colonel who specialized in the type of plane being specialized.
This Colonel brought along an experienced pilot with him to check the plane over from top to bottom before he sale would be finalized. This is where it gets interesting!
Quote on
He was born in Cuba, he said, and had been a senior pilot in Fidel Castro’s air force. Recruited by the CIA, he had flown for it at the Bay of Pigs, when the CIA-led invasion had been routed. He talked to January, and as the day passed, they became friends. The next day, Wednesday, November 20, the day January had encounter with the “hippie” –type CIA agents, they became relaxed and even friendlier. It was the following day that the anti-Kennedy feeling in the air became apparent. January told me, “[There] seemed to be an air of anxiety because the radio and television were spending a lot of time [discussing] the President’s visit to Dallas. Many people were displeased with the President’s policies and politics in general.” It was about ten o’clock in the morning when a friend of January’s up to the plane and stayed talking for over an hour. He added his own unhappiness with the president to what was going about. “I really didn’t pay any attention” said January, “for I just considered him to be rambling with his mouth like everybody else.”
After his friend left, January asked the CIA pilot if he would like to eat some lunch. The pilot said he did but that he did not want to leave the plane, making the excuse that they were a little behind with preparations. January obligingly went over to the restaurant and bought sandwiches for them both. They settled down leaning against the plane’s landing wheels and chatted. Then there was a pause, January told me.
It was now between 12:30 and 1:00 PM. The CIA pilot looked at January and said, “They are going to kill your president.”
“What do you mean?” January asked.
“I mean they are going to kill your president,” replied the pilot.
“You mean President Kennedy?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think that? Why would anyone want to do that?”
January told me the CIA pilot, with a somber face, said, “I was a mercenary pilot, hired by the CIA. I was involved in the Bay of Pigs planning strategy which was operated by the CIA. I was there involved with many of my friends when they died, when Robert Kennedy talked John Kennedy out of sending in the air cover which he’d agreed to send. He canceled the air support after the invasion was launched. Many, many died. Far more than was told. I don’t all that was going on, but I do know that there was an indescribable amount of hurt, anger, and embarrassment to those that were involved in the operation.”
“Is that why they will kill the President?” January asked.
The CIA pilot replied, “They are not only going to kill the President. They are going to kill Robert Kennedy and any other Kennedy that gets in their position.”
January told me that the pilot did not say what the position was. He said to the CIA pilot, “To be honest with you – and myself – I take what you have said with a grain of salt. Not meaning to insult you or hurt you in any way, it’s just too far fetched for me to believe. If I mentioned anything like that to the world, they would put me out of aviation as a nut, and ruin my reputation as a businessman.” The pilot’s only answer was, “You will see!”
“I have to say,” said January, “I had no answer to that. I could understand his feelings for the friends he lost, but I could not understand the matter-of-fact statements he had uttered, neither the certainty that was in his voice.” The conversation was dropped for a while, favoring small talk. Then the pilot came back with, “They want Robert Kennedy real bad.”
“What for?”
He said, “Never mind. You don’t need to know. Let’s get this job done, time is running out. My boss wants to return to Florida: he thought we would be through today. I told him we would be finished tomorrow by early afternoon.” Tomorrow was November 22, 1963.
Nothing else was said,. We just worked late to finish our job.
The next day January said it was a normal day and as they were finishing the job he got told of the President’s shooting by a Texas Ranger Captain who happened to be a friend of his.
I did not know how to handle the situation. I knew the pilot was not involved (there are man ways to be involved – RC) because he was with me. Then I could not help myself: I had to ask him if he knew what had happened. He told me the man on the fuel truck had told him what had happened. There was a long pause, a sadness in the air, and then he said, “It’s all going to happen just like I told you.”
Matthew Smith believes this DC3 flew out of Red Bird that day with the complete team that had murdered JFK. He surmised it went from Dallas to Houston, and he also believes David Ferrie’s “ice skating” trip to Houston was really to fly this plane form Houston to its ultimate destination.
He tried to trace this plane and did learn that the number (N-17888) had been tied to a DC3 after initially being told a different type plane had that number and the DC3 never “existed.”
He also found out that the plane had been purchased by the Houston Air Center. Mr. Smith then contacted a former CIA Agent out of Houston and asked him if he would check this out for him. The former CIA Agent said the Houston Air Center was a “CIA front.”
For more see the comprehensive section: Foreknowledge
President Kennedy begins his tour of Texas. His destinations are San Antonio, Houston, Fort Worth, Dallas and Austin. In San Antonio, President Kennedy gives a dedication speech for U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base. In Houston, he attends at testimonial dinner at the Rice Hotel, honoring Congressman Albert Thomas. At 11:35 p.m., the First Couple arrives at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, after being cheered by thousands of well-wishers lined on the route towards the West Freeway, despite the late time and rainy weather.
Wanted For Treason - A Handbill Circulated On November 21, 1963 In Dallas, Texas. Around 5,000 copies were distributed around Dallas in the days before President Kennedy’s November 22, 1963 visit, accused Kennedy of a range of offenses, from being “lax” on Communism, to “appointing anti-Christians to Federal office,” to lying to the American people about his personal life. General Edwin A. Walker, a Texan who served in World War II and the Korean War, had resigned his Army post in 1961 after a Kennedy-ordered investigation found that he had violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activity on the job. The Warren Commission investigation tracked these flyers to Walker’s aide Robert Surrey. Surrey had overseen the distribution of the sheets in the days prior to JFK’s arrival; members of Walker’s organization, acting on his behalf, placed them under windshield wipers and in newspaper racks.
John F. Kennedy's Remarks in Houston at a Dinner Honoring Albert Thomas (11:54)
President John F. Kennedy spoke at the Coliseum in Houston at a Dinner Honoring Representative Albert Thomas. His opening words referred to Representative and Mrs. Albert Thomas of Texas, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, and to Governor John B. Connally, Senator Ralph W. Yarborough, and Representative Bob Casey, all of Texas.
JFK's humor, Houston (:46)
President John F. Kennedy's motorcade through San Antonio, Texas (6:19)
President John F. Kennedy's motorcade makes its way from the San Antonio International Airport to downtown. Shortly after the arrival, the Democratic Party dignitaries and members of the press followed the presidential car in a motorcade to Brooks Air Force Base. The route took them down Broadway to Houston Street then south on St. Mary’s Street and Roosevelt Avenue to Military Drive. Following the ceremony at Brooks, the President and his entourage went to Kelly Air Force Base, where they left for Houston.
President John F. Kennedy's motorcade travels past Brackenridge High School. Hundreds of schoolchildren lined San Antonio streets during President John F. Kennedy's visit to San Antonio. Following the ceremony at Brooks, the President and his entourage went to Kelly Air Force Base, where they left for Houston.
President Kennedy's aide Dave Powers rare film from San Antonio, Texas (1:23)
Dave Powers, a presidential aide, mostly captured the Kennedys arriving and departing from Texas airports and traveling in motorcades. This is a clip from President John F. Kennedy and wife First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's departure from San Antonio International Airport to Brooks Air Force Base, Kelly Air Force Base , San Antonio, Texas. The president's limousine slowed and he sort of stood and waved at the students and catholic nuns as the motorcade drove away. Kennedy and his party would later depart from Kelly Air Force Base.
Perhaps the most powerful evidence indicating that select Senior Administration Officials and Senior Military personnel may have had foreknowledge of the plot to assassinate the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, is found in the draft of National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) Number 273. There are several smoking guns, but the one that initially stands out as the most obvious is the date of the draft, which was subsequently signed by McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President for National Security. The draft was written and dated November 21st, 1963 less than 24 hours before the assassination.
Strangely, this NSAM #273, which began the change in Kennedy's policy toward Vietnam, was drafted on November 21, 1963, the day before Kennedy died. It was not Kennedy's policy. He would not have requested it, and would not have signed it. Why would it have been drafted for his signature on the day before he died; and why would it have been given to Johnson so quickly? Johnson had not asked for it. On November 21, 1963 Johnson had no expectation whatsoever of being President.
See: October 11, 1963
The Day Before JFK Was Assassinated
by Timothy Noah
During a November 21, 1963, stopover with Kennedy in San Antonio, Johnson suffered another setback. Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough, a Democrat, was feuding with Texas Governor (and fellow Democrat) John Connally. Kennedy wanted Johnson to put an end to it; winning Texas in 1964 would be difficult enough without a Democratic party driven by conflict. To resolve the matter, Johnson had to talk to Yarborough. But Yarborough refused–in full view of reporters–to ride in a motorcade with Johnson. A headline in the next morning’s Dallas News would read, “Yarborough Snubs LBJ.” Connally, Johnson felt, was also treating him disrespectfully, and later, in a Houston hotel room, Caro writes in “The Passage of Power,” “there were, perhaps for the first time since Kennedy had been elected, loud, angry words directly between the president and the vice president.”
The Party At Clint Murchison Home The Evening Of November 21, 1963
There was a party and afterwards a very late (12:30 a.m.) closed door meeting at the home of Clint Murchison on the evening of Thursday, November 21, 1963. There were at lease four witnesses that have gone on record about this party and then late night meeting, Helen Thomas, Penn Jones, Madeline Brown and May Newman. Also, Val Imm, the society editor for the now-defunct Dallas Times Herald, attended the party and unwittingly documented one of the most significant gatherings in American history. James Tague was also confident in his research that the party and meeting occurred.
Chapter Eighty-Two - Clint Murchison's Party (Part 1)
by James Tague
Chapter Eighty-Two - Clint Murchison's Party (Part 2 - Helen Thomas)
by James Tague
Madeleine Brown, on the television program, A Current Affair (February 24, 1992)
On Thursday night, November 21, 1963, the last evening prior to Camelot's demise, I attended a social at Clint Murchison's home. It was my understanding that the event was scheduled as a tribute honoring his long time friend, J. Edgar Hoover (whom Murchison had first met decades earlier through President William Howard Taft), and his companion, Clyde Tolson.
Val Imm, the society editor for the now-defunct Dallas Times Herald, unwittingly documented one of the most significant gatherings in American history. The impressive guest list included John McCloy, Richard Nixon, George Brown, R. L. Thornton, H. L. Hunt and a host of others from the Suite 8F group.
The jovial party was just breaking up when Lyndon made an unscheduled visit. I was the most surprised by his appearance since Jesse had not mentioned anything about Lyndon's coming to Clint's. With Lyndon's hectic schedule, I never dreamed he could attend the big party. After all, he had arrived in Dallas on Tuesday to attend the Pepsi-Cola convention. Tension filled the room upon his arrival.
The group immediately went behind closed doors. A short time later Lyndon, anxious and red-faced, reappeared I knew how secretly Lyndon operated. Therefore I said nothing... not even that I was happy to see him. Squeezing my hand so hard, it felt crushed from the pressure, he spoke with a grating whisper, a quiet growl, into my ear, not a love message, but one I'll always remember: "After tomorrow those goddamn Kennedy's will never embarrass me again, that's no threat, that's a promise."
The Clint Murchison Meeting (1:21:26)
Interview with Madeleine Duncan Brown
The Men Who Killed Kennedy - Lyndon Johnson (First Part Clint Murchison's Party)
According to journalist Helen Thomas, those who were at that private meeting the night before the assassination included:
Vice President Lyndon Johnson
J. Edgar Hoover
Clyde Tolson - J. Edgar Hoover's boyfriend and Associate Director of the FBI
Richard M. Nixon
Edward Clark - Johnson’s attorney, and the secret boss of Texas
H. L. Hunt
George Brown - Brown and Root
John McCloy - Chairman Chase Manhattan Bank and member of Warren Commission
John Connally
Cliff Carter - National Director of the Democratic National Committee
Clint Murchison Sr.
Carlos Marcello - Head of New Orleans Mafia
Joe Civello - Head of Dallas Mafia
Earle Cabell - Mayor of Dallas and brother of General Charles Cabell who was Deputy Director of the CIA until he was fired by Kennedy
Robert L. Thornton - Former Dallas Mayor
Amon G. Carter Jr. - Owner of the Fort Worth Star Telegram newspaper
Bill Decker - Sheriff of Dallas County
Malcolm Wallace, Hitman for LBJ
Jack Ruby
And others...
When Kennedy was slaughtered, Russia’s Khrushchev was literally crying, fearing nuclear war. Cuba’s Castro worried and feared an US invasion and gave an impressive speech the next day deconstructing the CIA’s deception provocation for war. Meanwhile at Clint Murchison’s home, their family maid May Newman describes the scene: “The mood in the Murchison family home was very joyous and happy. For a whole week after champagne and caviar flowed, every day of the week. But I was the only one in that household at that time that felt any grief for his assassination."
The Men Who Killed Kennedy, The Guilty Men, Episode 9
For more see the comprehensive section: Oil Men And Oil Depletion Allowance
There are 114 pages of information for Friday, November 22, 1963, and another 100 pages of information from Saturday, November 23, 1963, to early 2018.
November 22, 1963
"It is interesting, but not surprising, to note that
in all
the words written and uttered about the Kennedy
assassination,
Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, has
never been mentioned."
Paul Findley, Former United States Congressman, March 1992
The number one motive for the assassination of the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was for Israel to acquire nuclear weapons. At the same time, Israel was desperate to keep their all powerful Lobby from ever having to register as agents of a foreign government, and finally, to buy every United States politician, so they could dictate foreign policy.
The second and third top motives, the military industrial complex (Kennedy was pulling out of the Vietnam War - NSAM 263 - October 11, 1963) and the oil depletion allowance, were about money.
If one follows the money it leads us directly to the Jewish controlled banks (especially our counterfeiting central bank, the Federal Reserve). These same top Jewish financiers were the major interlocking shareholders of the biggest defense companies. The same goes for the oil depletion allowance, the major interlocking shareholders of the largest oil companies were once again, the same top Jewish financiers.
To all of the writers and researchers on the Kennedy assassination who have come to the conclusion that he was assassinated by the military industrial complex and the CIA; I ask, how can you not then follow the tens of billions of dollars that was made from the Vietnam War?
The usurious bank loans made billions of dollars or more per year off the Vietnam War. So much money was spent on that needless war that on August 15, 1971, Nixon is forced to temporally take the United States off of the gold standard, and therefore puts an end to the Bretton Woods system (almost 46 years later we are still off the gold standard). There was also an awful lot of money made off the heroin in Southeast Asia. Ending the oil depletion allowance would have cost big oil about $300 million per year.
How has every Kennedy writer and researcher not come to this very basic conclusion?
Israel most likely now possesses at least 500 nuclear weapons, and perhaps as many as 1,000. This is more than enough to cause a nuclear winter, and the end of mankind. Spokespeople for Israel have stated that if threatened they will use the Samson option.
So, is Israel using their vast nuclear arsenal to blackmail and control not only the United States, but every country on Earth?
For more see the comprehensive section: Motives
An excellent timeline. 292 pages, of which 98 pages are on November 22, 1963 and 194 pages on November 23, 1963 to October 26, 2017.
by Ira David Wood III
The JFK Assassination Chronology
An excellent timeline of 131 pages, from January 19, 1961 to November 21, 1963.
Compiled by Ira David Wood III
The JFK Assassination: A Researcher’s Guide
An great book with an excellent 226 page timeline.
by Don Becker
JFK Assassination Timeline (November 22, 1963 - November 24, 1963)
A very good timeline.
by L.D.C. Fitzgerald
November 22, 1963: Death of the President
Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas.
Lyndon Baines Johnson on the morning of November 22, 1963 to Madeleine Brown: "His snarling voice jolted me as never before - "That son-of-a-bitch crazy Yarborough and that goddamn fucking Irish mafia bastard, Kennedy, will never embarass me again." I managed to say, "I'm looking forward to tonight," when he blasted out even louder, "I've got about a minute to get to the parking lot to hear that bastard!", and he slammed down the phone. I was startled ... an uneasiness gripped me over Lyndon's actions and temper."
Madeleine Duncan Brown, Texas in the Morning, p. 167
Lyndon Johnson And The Assassination Of JFK
by John Simkin
...Several writers have pointed out that LBJ was the main beneficiary of Kennedy’s death. He was also involved in persuading Kennedy to visit Texas. At the time there was a bitter dispute going on in the Democratic Party in Texas. Johnson and John Connally were seen as the leaders of the right-wing faction, whereas Ralph Yarborough led the liberal wing committed to civil rights (so much so that Connally and Johnson accused him of being a communist). Conservatives were also concerned that Yarborough was having a growing influence on Kennedy’s views on civil rights. (Yarborough was the only member of the Senate representing a former Confederate state to vote for every significant piece of civil rights legislation during the 1950s and 1960s).
Johnson and Connally went back a long way. Connally had ran all of Johnson’s election campaigns. In 1948 Connally was accused of fraud when he discovered at the last moment the existence of 200 votes for Johnson from Jim Wells County. It was these votes that gave Johnson an eighty-seven-vote victory.
On the morning of the assassination Johnson attempted to get the seating arrangements changed. For some strange reason he wanted Connally to be in his car and for Yarborough to go with Kennedy. This was a surprising idea as this would have given extra status to his political opponent. Connally clearly was not part of the conspiracy as he insisted in going in Kennedy’s car.
by John Simkin
According to Evelyn Lincoln (JFK's secretary) LBJ put JFK under a lot of pressure to visit Texas in November, 1963. At the time there was a bitter dispute going on in the Democratic Party in Texas. Johnson and John Connally were seen as the leaders of the right-wing faction, whereas Ralph Yarborough led the liberal wing committed to civil rights (so much so that Connally and Johnson accused him of being a communist). Conservatives were also concerned that Yarborough was having a growing influence on Kennedy’s views on civil rights.
Johnson and Connally went back a long way. Connally had ran all of Johnson’s election campaigns. In 1948 Connally was accused of fraud when he discovered at the last moment the existence of 200 votes for Johnson from Jim Wells County. It was these votes that gave Johnson an eighty-seven-vote victory.
Jim Bishop (The Day Kennedy Was Shot, pages 60-61) claimed that there was a fight between JFK and LBJ regarding the seating in the motorcade. According to Michael Benson (Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination – page 489) Craig Zirbel made this claim in The Texas Connection (page 254). However, it does not appear in my edition of the book.
I think the story came originally came from William Manchester (Death of a President). Manchester claims that LBJ and JFK had a loud argument in their last meeting together. According to Manchester, only LBJ and JFK knew what the argument was about, except that it was apparently about "the state's political feud," and Yarborough's name was heard several times by people outside the room.
However, in his book, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye (1972 - page 21) Kenneth O’Connell argues that this row was not about the seating in the motorcade. When JFK arrived in Texas it was arranged for him to attend a dinner at Governor Connolly’s mansion. Ralph Yarborough discovered he had not been placed at the head table with Kennedy. He was further infuriated by the decision not to invite Yarborough’s wife to the dinner. Yarborough blamed Johnson for this snub. When the party arrived in San Antonio, Yarborough refused to ride in the same car with Johnson. Kennedy was furious about this dispute (after all, he was visiting Texas in order to heal the divisions between Yarborough and Connally supporters. Kennedy applied pressure on Connally and Yarborough and his wife got to sit on the head table. By the time of the motorcade in Dallas, Yarborough and Johnson were willing to sit together in the car.
The original story appeals to those who believe LBJ knew about the proposed assassination attempt. John Connally was a close friend (he was involved in several of LBJ’s corrupt activities). At the same time he hated Yarborough for his liberal views on civil rights. If he knew about the assassination attempt, he would rather have had Yarborough sitting next to him. Of course, it could be argued that LBJ might have wanted Connolly killed as he knew a lot of his secrets.
Anyway, it is unlikely that LBJ could have believed that Connolly
could be persuaded to give up his seat in the presidential car.
Connolly, not Yarborough, was the host.
There is another theory
on this subject. LBJ and Connolly knew about the assassination
attempt but expected it to take place later. This helps explain
Connolly comments when the firing started. Something on the lines of
“They are trying to kill all of us”. This implies that he
believed that there was only one target that day in Dallas.
After the assassination Yarborough claimed that he had smelt gunpowder as his limo approached the triple underpass.
In 1964, his Republican opponent was George H.W. Bush (see the involvement of "Poppy" Bush at November 22, 1963, 1:45 p.m. CDT) who attacked Yarborough as a left-wing demagogue and for his vote in favor of the Civil Rights Act. Yarborough denounced Bush as an extremist to the right of Barry Goldwater. It has since been found that John Connally was covertly aiding Bush instead of party nominee Yarborough.
For more see the comprehensive section: Lyndon Baines Johnson
In today’s issue of Life magazine, Clint Murchison’s lawyers, Bedford Wynne and Thomas Webb, are named as members of the “Bobby Baker Set.” Wynne is under federal investigation regarding government funds he is receiving through a Murchison family corporation, some of which have ended up as payoffs (via Thomas Webb) to the law firm of Bobby Baker. [Baker is LBJ’s right hand man. Murchison’s empire overlaps with that of Mafia financial expert Meyer Lansky and Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa.]
On this date, Clay Shaw is in San Francisco. Clay Shaw, was eventually charged by New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison in the JFK assassination, has a relationship with the CIA. Besides being a contact of the CIA’s Domestic Contact Division, a 1967 memo released in 1992 notes that Shaw has been granted a covert security approval in December 1962 for “Project QKENCHANT.” Another person approved for this same project is E. Howard Hunt, of Watergate fame, he is also reportedly in Dallas.
On this date, Desmond FitzGerald, a senior CIA officer, meets today with (AM/LASH) Rolando Cubela in Paris, France. FitzGerald delivers assurance of full support of the U.S. government in the overthrow of the Castro regime, which includes the murder of the highest officials. FitzGerald presents Cubela with a deadly pen which, when filled with poison, can be used to murder Castro. The pen is a hypodermic needle so thin that the victim will not feel its insertion. (By March 1964, FitzGerald will have been promoted to chief of the CIA’s Western Hemisphere Division.)
John McCone’s executive assistant Walt Elder sees Desmond Fitzgerald during the weekend, and FitzGerald tells Elder he has met with Rolando Cubela. He does not tell him that he gave him a poison pen to be used against Castro, nor that he pretended to be an emissary of Bobby Kennedy’s (Richard Helms had told him not to worry, that he would approve that lie). No mention of assassination was made.
But Elder gets the distinct impression that FitzGerald is
particularly upset this weekend. Evan Thomas, in his book The Very
Best Men, paints the following scene: ‘Elder was struck by
FitzGerald’s clear discomfort. “Des was normally
imperturbable,
but he was very disturbed about his involvement.” The normally
smooth operator was “shaking his head and wringing his hands. It
was very uncharacteristic. That’s why I remember it so clearly,”
Elder said in 1993. He thought FitzGerald was “distraught and
overreacting.”
On this date, Aristotle Onassis is in Germany for the christening of his newest ship “The Olympic Chivalry.”
Of Historical Note: The official White House transcripts of what President Kennedy said each day continue with this note: “After the breakfast at the Texas Hotel in Forth Worth the President flew to Love Field in Dallas. There he acknowledged greeters for a brief period and then entered an open car. The motorcade traveled down a 10-mile route through downtown Dallas on its way to the Trade Mart, where the President planned to speak at a luncheon. At approximately 12:30 (CST) he was struck by two bullets fired by an assassin. The President was declared dead at 1 P.M. at the Parkland Hospital in Dallas.”
Almost all times are Central Standard Time (CST) till Air Force One lands at Edwards Air Force Base at 5:59 p.m. EST. After this, when dealing with occurrences in Washington D.C. times are Eastern Standard Time (EST), and when dealing with occurrences in Dallas times are CST.
12:00 a.m. CST, Nine of the twenty-eight Secret Service men who were in Dallas with the president the day he was assassinated had been out drinking at Pat Kirkwood’s bar the Cellar Door in Fort Worth, Texas. (Pat Kirkwood is a licensed pilot and owns a twin-engine plane. He will fly to Mexico hours after JFK’s assassination.) Several of the women serving liquor to the agents are also strippers from Jack Ruby’s Carousel Club. (The Carousel Club in Dallas sits across the street from the Hotel Adolphus at 13121/2 Commerce Street, upstairs from a delicatessen. The outdoor walls are covered with provocative photos of scantily clad burlesque dancers, offering a glimpse of what can be viewed inside for a $2 cover charge.)
Three of the Secret Service agents riding a few feet from the president in the follow-up car had been, by their own accounts, up very late and drinking, an activity prohibited in the Secret Service rulebook.
Bob Schieffer, night police reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram remembers “... the waitresses wore underwear. That was their business attire, as it were, and people sat around on cushions on the floor.”
The Drunken Truth About the JFK Assassination
by Susan Cheever
... Three days after reluctantly taking the job, Warren learned that Secret Service agents had been out on the town socializing and drinking until early morning the day of the assassination.
The revelation came not from depositions but from a radio report followed up by a December 2 newspaper column in The Washington Post by Drew Pearson, the establishment journalist (and close friend of Chief Justice Warren) well known for speaking truth to power.
Pearson wrote that the Secret Service agents had visited the Fort Worth Press Club after midnight and that six of them had proceeded to an offbeat place called the Cellar Coffee House. Some of the agents were out until nearly three a.m. and “one of them was reported to have been inebriated,” Pearson wrote.
Pearson explained that his information had come to him through Thayer Waldo, a Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter who didn’t think his editors would dare publish a story casting aspersions against Secret Servicemen or the Fort Worth club owners, employees and patrons.
“Obviously men who have been drinking until nearly three a.m. are in no condition to be trigger-alert or in the best physical shape to protect anyone,” Pearson wrote about the Secret Service agents in the Kennedy motorcade.
Abraham Lincoln’s bodyguard, John Parker, was taking a break at a bar across the street when John Wilkes Booth approached the presidential box and fired a single, mortal shot...
12:30 a.m. CST, Marina Oswald notices that her husband, Lee, is still awake.
12:50 a.m. CST, President Kennedy arrives at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth.
1:29 a.m. CST, Tony Cuesta and Filipe Vidal Santiago inspect Dealey Plaza.
2:00 a.m. CST, Seven Secret Service agents are still drinking at “The Cellar.”
2:15 a.m. CST, Mary Lawrence, head waitress at the Lucas B&B Restaurant, which is two doors down from the Vegas Club, says she is positive that Lee Harvey Oswald enters the restaurant and tells her and the night cashier that he is waiting for Jack Ruby. When Ruby enters the restaurant, the two men sit together and talk for over a half an hour and then leave. A week and a half after the assassination, Mary will receive a phone call from an unknown man who says, “If you don’t want to die, you better get out of town.” This is yet another sighting of a second Oswald.
3:30 a.m. CST, The Secret Service men at “The Cellar” are joking about how several firemen are the only ones left guarding the President at the Hotel Texas, in Fort Worth.
5:00 a.m. CST, One Secret Service agent is at "The Cellar." All agents have to report for duty at 8:00 a.m. in the morning, three hours from now. Bob Schieffer remembers: "While there, we were joined by some Secret Service agents from Kennedy's detail. They were off-duty, but they wanted to go. They weren't drinking. But we managed to see the dawn come up and see the sun rise in Fort Worth before we left the place."
Lee Harvey Oswald has been awake most of the night, not able to sleep, finally dozing off about this time. Marina avoided him last night - soaking in a bath for an hour before coming to bed.
6:15 a.m. CST, Mrs. Marie Tippit has made breakfast for her husband, Dallas Police officer JD Tippit, who routinely leaves the house no later than 6:15 a.m. each day. She, too, has a hectic schedule. To make extra money, she is baby-sitting a boy during the day and other children during the evening. The Tippits have three children of their own: Charles Allan, born in 1950; Brenda, born in 1953; and Curtis, born in 1958. Officer Tippit is no stranger to tough situations while on duty. Once, a suspect’s gun failed to fire. He has also been stabbed in the knee with a knife. His wife loved the therapy recommended by the doctor – dancing. So the couple has made regular visits to a Dallas dance club, where they have lovingly embraced while dancing to Bob Wills’ “Faded Love.”
6:30 a.m. CST, Testimony Of Robert G. Vernon
Assassination Records Review Board
November 18, 1994, Hearing in Dallas, Texas.
Mr. Plumlee testified to the U.S. Senate Committee and to Truth, Truth, Truth, Incorporated, that on the morning of November 22nd, 1963, he was a co-pilot on a top secret flight supported by the CIA. Mr. Plumlee's flight left Florida on November 21, 1963, and stopped in New Orleans and Houston before heading into Dallas, Texas, during the early morning hours of November 22nd, 1963.
Mr. Plumlee testified that Felippo Socko, alias John Roselli, a known Mafia/CIA double operative was onboard the plane to Dallas. Mr. Plumlee stated that Mr. Roselli departed the plane at Dallas Garland Airport shortly after 6:30 a.m. on the morning of November 22nd, 1963. Mr. Plumlee testified that he was informed that the flight was an abort mission, and that their assignment was to stop the assassination attempt on Kennedy's life.
Mr. Plumlee testified that he was told this by his superior officers, and he has identified those officers. Mr. Plumlee testified that he was present in Dealey Plaza on the South Knoll at the time of the assassination.
6:40 a.m. CST, Marina Oswald awakens to feed her baby, Rachel, and checks on her other child, June.
6:55 a.m. CST, Cabinet members and their wives board a plane at Hickman Airport enroute to Japan.
7:00 a.m. CST, President Kennedy’s valet, George Thomas, awakens the President - who is asleep in Suite 850 of the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth.
While showering this morning, President Kennedy takes off his Saint Jude and Saint Christopher Medals and leaves them hanging on the shower head. When later “sweeping” the room, Secret Service agent Ron Pontius finds the medals and puts them in his pocket, with intentions of returning them to President Kennedy after the Dallas motorcade. Pontius eventually gives the medals to Marty Underwood who, at last report, still retains them.
In Dallas, seventeen men line up before Deputy Chief W. W. Stevenson. The patrolmen are told that their function will be to “seal” the Trade Mart in preparation for Kennedy’s visit. Two thousand, five hundred people are expected to attend this event which is scheduled for 12:30 p.m.
J.D. Tippit reports for duty. (According to one source, Tippit’s wife - Marie - visits a neighbor later this morning in tears be cause “on that morning Officer Tippit has told her he wanted a divorce to marry someone else.”
Some researchers have pointed out the fact that J. D. Tippit closely resembles JFK - so much so that some members of the Dallas Police force often jokingly call Tippit “Jack” and “JFK.” This similarity has led some reserchers to advance the theory that it is Tippit’s body in the autopsy photographs proporting to show the body of JFK. Additionally, Tippit’s head wounds and JFK’s head wounds are in
almost identical locations - again leading some researchers to advance the theory that X-rays of Tippit’s skull were later substituted for JFK’s. It will also be noted that Tippit’s body is taken from the murder scene before the arrival of police and is subsequently taken to two hospitals.
Two Secret Service agents are at Fort Worth Police Headquarters examining two limousines which have been rented for the Kennedy's and the Secret Service to use during the four-mile drive from the Hotel Texas to Carswell Air Force Base.
7:05 a.m. CST, James Files picks up Johnny Roselli at the Dallas Cabana Hotel. They drove to a pancake house in Fort Worth. Johnny Roselli meets with Jack Ruby.
7:08 a.m. CST, President Kennedy skims the headlines of The Dallas Morning News.
Nixon predicts President Kennedy may drop Vice President Johnson from the Presidential ticket in 1964.
Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry appears on local television and announces that the President will be in Dallas today and that Dallas wants no incidents. Curry concludes by asking all good citizens to please report to the Dallas Police Department anyone who has voiced violent opinions against the President or who has boasted, publicly or privately, of plans to demonstrate today.
7:10 a.m. CST, As President Kennedy dresses this morning in Fort Worth, Texas, he dons his underwear and a surgical corset. He laces it tightly, then pulls a long elastic bandage over his feet and twists it so that it forms a figure eight. He then slips it up over both legs. Finally, it is adjusted over his hips where it supports the bottom of his torso, while the back brace holds the lower spine rigid.
The Warren Commission notes that JFK’s back brace is six inches wide and only waist high, no higher than the navel.
About a thousand people are already waiting in a parking lot, in the rain, across from the Hotel Texas in anticipation of a speaking appearance by President Kennedy.
Lee Harvey Oswald is still asleep ten minutes after his alarm goes off. Marina wakes him. He rushes to dress in order to leave for work at this time. He tells his wife that she should buy new shoes for baby June.
7:15 a.m. CST, Lee Harvey Oswald leaves his home to go to work at The Texas Book Depository Building. Marina says he leaves his wedding ring and by some reports, his wallet on the bedroom dresser.
The first officer on the Tippit murder scene was Dallas Police Sergeant Kenneth H. Croy, who arrived as the ambulance was picking up Tippit’s body. Croy told an interviewer that an unknown man handed him Oswald’s wallet right after his arrival. The witnesses who preceded Croy at the crime scene were adamant that no one dropped a wallet anywhere in the vicinity.
All supporters of the official story have a hard time with the wallet discovered at the scene of Tippit’s murder. It is the main out of place artifact. It would normally be written off as a confused event from stressed out men, functioning on a bewildering and tragic day. But, there is the WFAA-TV film crew at the Tippet murder scene with Dallas Policemen examining a billfold. The event is recorded on 16mm film, in black and white, just two over minutes with no audio.
For more see the comprehensive section: J. D. Tippit
The Dallas police also state that they found a wallet on Oswald following his arrest. There is no indication that Oswald used two or three wallets.
This is cited by some as evidence that he intended to shoot JFK. He does leave home wearing his U. S. Marine Corps signet ring and an identification bracelet with the name “Lee” inscribed on it. He will be wearing both of these items at the time of his arrest. Dallas Police detectives who will later search Ruth Paine’s home do not list a wedding ring or any kind of ring on their inventory sheets. A wedding ring was not photographed with other items of evidence on the floor of the Dallas Police station, nor was it listed on the joint Dallas Police/FBI inventory of Nov. 26, 1963.)
LHO walks one block east from the Paine house and pokes his head into
the back door of Linnie Mae Randle’s home, looking for her brother
Buell Frazier for a ride to work.
Both Randle and Frazier will
later agree that they observed LHO place a package in the backseat.
Both are adamant that the package is far too small to be even a
broken-down Mannlicher Carcano rifle. Mrs. Essie Mae Williams,
Linnie Mae Randle’s mother, will tell the FBI that LHO was NOT
carrying a brown bag or anything else in his hands.
Note on Ruth Paine: In an eventual statement from Lee Oswald’s widow, Marina. She is asked why she cuts off contact after the assassination with Ruth Paine, the woman she is living with, and in whose house much incriminating evidence against Oswald will be found. Marina’s answer: “I was advised by the Secret Service not to be connected with her.....she was sympathisizing with the CIA. She wrote letters over there....” In corroboration for Marina’s statement are released documents showing that Ruth Paine’s sister worked for the CIA, and her father was an informant to it.
7:23 a.m. CST, Oswald is driven to work by Buell Wesley Frazier. They don’t talk very much during the trip. When asked what the package in the backseat is, Frazier testifies that Oswald answers: “Curtain rods.” This is the package in which Oswald supposedly carries the “broken down” assassination rifle. This bag is carried between his armpit and cupped hand into the Texas School Book Depository.
No one sees it come into the building. The rifle, broken down, can not fit under Oswald’s armpit and cupped hand -- as Frazier testifies he carries it. The “Bag” is homemade -- out of brown wrapping paper supposedly taken from the TSBD. The Warren Commission does not indicate its reasoning as to when and where Oswald fashioned the paper bag from materials taken from the Texas School Book Depository. Presumably he did so only after the motorcade route become known on Tuesday, November 19, 1963, and before departing for Irving after work on Thursday. According to the Commission’s findings, Oswald must have carried the paper bag concealed on his person when he accompanied Frazier to Irving on Thursday. Frazier saw no paper bag or any sign that Oswald had concealed on his person the six-foot length of wrapping paper necessary to construct a bag consisting of two sheets, each about three feet long, sealed at the edges. Oswald’s fingerprints will not be found on the brown paper bag.
Te curtain rods: Researchers have posed the question that, if Oswald did indeed carry curtain rods into the Texas School Book Depository this morning -- what happened to them? Wouldn’t they have been left in the building following Oswald’s exit immediately after the assassination? Dallas Police will eventually possess photographs of curtain rods that were dusted for fingerprints, but there is no information on the photos identifying where they were found. Following the assassination, Counsel Jenner and Secret Service Agent Joe Howlett accompany Mrs. Ruth Paine to her garage and find two curtain rods on a shelf. The rods are measured and found to be 27 1/2 inches long. Mrs. Paine maintained that only those two curtain rods had been stored in the garage and that consequently Oswald did not take curtain rods from the premises on the fatal morning. Her husband, however, is not certain of the number of curtain rods which had been stored in the garage, before or after the assassination.
The Warren Commission will conclude the following: “During the morning of November 21, Oswald asked Frazier whether he could ride home with him that afternoon. Frazier, surprised, asked him why he was going to Irving on Thursday night rather than Friday. Oswald replied, “I’m going home to get some curtain rods [to] put in an apartment.” The two men left work at 4:40 p.m. and drove to Irving. There was little conversation between them on the way home. Mrs. Linnie Mac Randle, Frazier’s sister, commented to her brother about Oswald’s unusual midweek return to Irving. Frazier told her that Oswald had come home to get curtain rods, It would appear, however, that obtaining curtain rods was not the purpose of Oswald’s trip to Irving on November 21. Mrs. A. C. Johnson, his landlady, testified that Oswald’s room at 1026 North Beckley Avenue had curtains and curtain rods, and that Oswald had never discussed the subject with her. In the Paines’ garage, along with many other objects of a household character, there were two flat lightweight curtain rods belonging to Ruth Paine but they were still there on Friday afternoon after Oswald’s arrest. Oswald never asked Mrs. Paine about the use of curtain rods, and Marina Oswald testified that Oswald did not say anything about curtain rods on the day before the assassination. No curtain rods were known to have been discovered in the Depository Building after the assassination.”
Frazier recalls that Oswald is wearing a “gray, more or less flannel, wool-looking type of jacket.” Linnie Mae Randle says “to the best of her recollection Oswald was wearing a tan shirt and gray jacket.”
7:30 a.m. CST, In Suite 850, the president dresses in a two-button, blue-grey suit, white shirt and dark blue tie. He sits down to a room service breakfast of eggs and goes over the day’s activities with Kenny O’Donnell, a top aide, and David Powers, special assistant and assistant appointments secretary.
J. W. “Dub” Stark, owner of the Top Ten Record Shop at 338 W. Jefferson Blvd. in Oak Cliff says that Oswald is waiting at his store when Stark arrives at about this time. Stark says that Oswald buys a ticket to the Dick Clark Show and leaves by bus. Stark says that Officer J.D. Tippit is not in the store at this time. [J.D. Tippit will reportedly be seen in this same store at 1:11 p.m.. He will reportedly make a phone call and then leave hurriedly.] Dub Stark says that Oswald returns a short time later and buys another ticket to the Dick Clark Show. This time, Officer J.D. Tippit is in the store, but does not speak with Oswald. This is yet another sighting of a second Oswald.
7:55 a.m. CST, Oswald and Wesley Frazier arrive at the parking lot next to the Texas School Book Depository. It is raining. Oswald leaves the car and walks ahead of Frazier into the building. Oswald is out of Frazier’s sight for a few moments before he enters the building. Those who see Oswald enter the Texas School Book Depository will later say he does not enter the building carrying a package. Wesley Frazier tells Police that Oswald carries a long package into the Texas School Book Depository, but PSE (Psychological Stress Evaluator) tests indicate that he is lying.
There are 13 employees working on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository today, laying a tile floor. The floor crew starts work in the west end of the large room which constitutes the 6th floor -- working eastward. Little by little, the cardboard boxes of school books are being inched toward the front windows of the building. Oswald begins filling orders involving books published by Scott Foresman & Company. Two employees working on this floor have facial resemblances -- Billy Nolan Lovelady and Lee Harvey Oswald.
8:01 a.m. CST, Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit, in police car #10, leaves the police station for patrol.
The following people see Lee Harvey Oswald in the Texas School Book Depository: Wesley Frazier, Bonnie Ray Williams, Danny Arce, Roy Truly and Jack Dougherty.
8:15 a.m. CST, President Kennedy calls James Chambers Jr., president of the Dallas Times Herald and asks “Can you get me some Macanudo cigars? They don’t have any over here in Fort Worth.” Chambers says “Sure.” President Kennedy then says “Well, get me about a half a dozen.” Chambers never gets to give the cigars to President Kennedy.
Jack Ruby is reportedly seen by Dallas police officer Hansen on the Harwood sidewalk by City Hall where Dallas police officers assemble to get their assignments for President Kennedy’s visit.
8:30 a.m. CST, Secret Service agent Sorrels meets Agent Kinney and Agent George W. Hickey, Jr. outside hotel in Dallas. They then drive out to Love Field.
Lee Harvey Oswald reportedly enters a Jiffy store located at 310 S. Industrial. Fred Moore, the store clerk says “identification of this individual arose when he asked him for identification as to proof of age for purchase of two bottles of beer. Moore said he figured the man was over 21 but the store frequently requires proof by reason of past difficulties with local authorities for serving beer to minors. This customer said, sure I got ID and pulled a Texas drivers license from his billfold. Moore said that he noted the name appeared as Lee Oswald or possibly as H. Lee Oswald. As Moore recalled, the birth date on the license was 1939 and he thought it to have been the 10th month.” This is yet another sighting of a second Oswald.
8:40 a.m. CST, While going downstairs in the Hotel Texas, President Kennedy sees his driver, Muggsy O’Leary and tells him: “Mary Gallagher wasn’t here last night to help Jackie. Mary hasn’t any business in motorcades. She’s supposed to reach hotels before we do, and so far she’s batting zero. Get her on the ball.”
8:45 a.m. CST, President Kennedy is speaking before breakfast in a square across Eighth Street, accompanied by Congressman Jim Wright, Senator Yarborough, Governor Connally and Vice President Johnson. Kennedy is praising Fort Worth’s aviation industry.
JFK's "Parking Lot" Speech In Fort Worth, Texas (10:29)
President John F. Kennedy, less than four hours before he was killed by an assassin's bullets, gave this brief speech in a rain-soaked parking lot outside the Hotel Texas in downtown Fort Worth, Texas, at 8:45 AM (Central Standard Time) on the morning of Friday, November 22, 1963.
JFK In Fort Worth, Texas, On 11/22/63 (1:08:57)
JFK's last two speeches of his life, from Fort Worth, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Plus, extensive TV coverage from Fort Worth's Hotel Texas prior to President Kennedy's final speech.
President Kennedy's speech at the breakfast of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce.
Photos: JFK's Forgotten Final Speeches
by Timothy Bella
8:53 a.m. CST, President Kennedy tells the crowd that Jackie is “organizing herself,” she hears him say this from her bed in the hotel.
9:00 a.m. CST, (New Orleans) The last day of Carlos Marcello’s deportation trail begins in a packed courtroom.
(Texas) SS agents Sorrels, Kinney and Hickey arrive at Love Field airport just outside of Dallas. They go directly to the garage and relieve the police of the security of the cars to be used in the motorcade. Both cars are washed, cleaned and checked outside, inside and underneath for security violations.
Lee Harvey Oswald reportedly returns to the Jiffy Store. Oswald returns to buy two pieces of Peco Brittle at five cents each which he consumes on the premises. Moore remarks to him (Oswald) in the form of a question, Candy and beer? as he considers this to be an odd combination. The man seems to be nervous while in the store pacing the aisles as he eats the candy. This is yet another sighting of a second Oswald.
At the urging of his secretary, Abraham Zapruder goes home to get his new move camera in order to film the motorcade of President Kennedy which he plans to see later in the day.
President Kennedy enters the Grand Ballroom of the hotel in Fort Worth by going through the kitchen. He is to address the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce and special, invited guests. He asks Agent Duncan where Mrs. Kennedy is. “Call Clint Hill,” he says. “I want her to come down to breakfast.”
9:02 a.m. CST, President Kennedy confers with Governor John Connally about Senator Yarborough’s refusal to ride with Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson yesterday. (It is Governor Connally who has postponed President Kennedy’s visit to Texas several times; it is Connally who feels that a Kennedy-Johnson ticket might be defeated in Texas in 1964, and there is considerable political risk in being seen with JFK.)
9:05 a.m. CST, President Kennedy arrives at a breakfast sponsored by the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce.
According to Death Of A President by William Manchester, this is the time Richard Nixon leaves Dallas on American Airlines Flight 82. Nixon is legal counsel for Pepsico and has allegedly been in Dallas to attend a company meeting. (CIA agent Russell Bintliff will tell the Washington Star in 1976 that Pepsico had set up a bottling plant in Laos in the early 1960s that did not make Pepsi, but rather converted opium into heroin. One of the immediate consequences of the President Kennedy assassination will be the escalation of American involvement in Vietnam, in theory providing the alleged Pepsico plant with a great deal more business.)
Nixon's Three Stories Of Where He Was On November 22, 1963
by Col. L. Fletcher Prouty
9:10 a.m. CST, President Kennedy takes his place in the hotel’s Grand Ballroom for the scheduled speech, the First Lady arriving amid loud applause 15 minutes later. After the speech, Roy Kellerman, the Secret Service agent in charge of the trip, is advised by Kenny O’Donnell that the presidential limousine should have its bubbletop off if it’s not raining in Dallas.
9:15 a.m. CST, Ruth Paine says this is the time she takes her daughter, Lynn, to the dentist and then runs errands. She has left the television set on for Marina Oswald - who says she watches it all morning without getting dressed.
9:22 a.m. CST, Secret Service agent Clint Hill advises Mrs. Kennedy that President Kennedy expects her downstairs in the Ballroom.
9:25 a.m. CST, Jackie Kennedy appears at the breakfast wearing a pink suit and pill box hat. She is warmly received.
9:55 a.m. CST, At the Texas Hotel in Fort Worth, President Kennedy and Jackie have returned to Suite 850. President Kennedy informs Kenny O’Donnell that the Presidential party will leave at 10:40. Jackie asks: “We have a whole hour?” JFK asks her if she is enjoying the trip. “Oh, Jack,” she replies “campaigning is so easy when you’re President.”
10:00 a.m. CST, Why JFK Died In Dallas
by Tracy Mueller
One of Kennedy's loudest opponents was Ted Dealey, the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, which printed a full-page advertisement [Welcome Mr Kennedy To Dallas] attacking the president. Dealey had also previously flown to the White House to confront Kennedy directly.
John and Jackie Kennedy return to their suite at the Hotel Texas at 10 a.m. In forty-five minutes they will leave for Dallas. Kennedy's aide Kenny O'Donnell comes into the suite with a copy of the Dallas Morning News. The president skimmed the headlines earlier, but didn't look through the whole paper. O'Donnell shows him the fullpage advertisement denouncing him on page 14. Kennedy reads every word, grimacing. Finished, he hands the paper over to Jackie for her inspection.
He shakes his head and says to O'Donnell: "Can you imagine a paper doing a thing like that?"
Then he turns to Jackie: "Oh, you know, we're heading into nut country today."
Kennedy begins pacing around the hotel room. He stops in front of his wife: "You know, last night would have been a hell of a night to assassinate a President."
She gives him a look.
"I mean it," he continues. "There was the rain, and the night, and we were all getting jostled. Suppose a man had a pistol in a briefcase."
He points at a wall with his finger and pretends to shoot: "Then he could have dropped the gun and the briefcase and melted away in the crowd."
A few weeks earlier, he'd met in the White House with Jim Bishop, the author of "The Day Lincoln Was Shot." Kennedy said his feelings about assassination were similar to Lincoln's: "Any man who is willing to exchange his life for mine can do so."
And now, the ad in Dealey's paper has brought back to the surface a reality he tries to suppress there are people in America who would like to see him dead. He walks over to a window and looks outside.
"It would not be a very difficult job to shoot the president of the United States," he muses aloud. "All you'd have to do is get up in a high building with a highpowered rifle with a telescopic sight, and there's nothing anybody could do."
WELCOME MR. KENNEDY TO DALLAS...
Above is an on-line copy of the hate-JFK ad that appeared in the Dallas Morning News (published by the Dealey family) on November 22, 1963 - just hours before JFK was assassinated in Dealey Plaza (named after George Dealey, the 1885 founder of the Dallas Morning News).
"...In 1963 the Dallas Morning News was published by a man named Ted Dealey - son of the original founder. When criticized for it later, Dealey said that before agreeing to print the John Birch Society ad, he'd read it meticulously and approved it, arguing that it 'represented what the Dallas Morning News have been saying editorially' ... When President Kennedy woke up that morning in Fort Worth, Texas the Dallas Morning News was delivered with his coffee. His face turned grim and he shook his head, commenting that it was unimaginable that a paper could do such a thing. He handed it to Jackie saying, "We're heading into nut country today."
"During the 13 minute flight from Fort Worth to Dallas, JFK was in the tail-end compartment talking about the Texas press to the men who where gathered there. 'It's bad', he said, holding one newspaper aloft to Kellerman, Hill, and McHugh. 'What's worse, it's inaccurate.' "Godfrey came in and said, 'If you think that's bad, Mr. President, wait till you see the Dallas News.' 'I have seen it,' Kennedy said heavily. He paced forward along the corridor outside his bedroom and paused in the doorway. On a narrow bench outside, O'Donnell was sitting with Connally... Kennedy didn't enter the discussion. He had left that to his lieutenants. Besides, his mind was still on the morning papers. 'What kind of journalism do you call the Dallas Morning News?' he fumed at Ken. 'You know who's responsible for that ad? Dealey. Remember him? After that exhibition he put on in the White House I did a little checking on him. He runs around calling himself a war correspondent, and everybody in Dallas believes him.' The President added a highly derogatory statement about the publisher..."
For more see the comprehensive section: Welcome Mr. Kennedy To Dallas
Also at 10:00 a.m. CST, All traffic into the Dealey Plaza area, including the railroad yard, is supposedly cut off by the Dallas police.
Three radio operators report for duty at Dallas Police Headquarters. Two of them man Channel One of KKB 364, and one mans Channel Two.
Two Secret Service agents leave the hotel in Fort Worth to drive to Dallas (36 miles) in order to set up the presidential seal, flags, and President Kennedy s prosthetic chair at The Trade Mart.
The White House switchboard has been set up in Dallas at the Sheraton Hotel - near the Southland Life Building in the downtown district.
At approximately ten o’clock this morning, Harold Norman (a worker in the Texas School Book Depository) will later testify: “Junior Jarman and myself were on the first floor looking out towards Elm Street. Oswald walked up and asked us, ‘What is everybody looking for? What is everybody waiting on?’ So we told him we were waiting on the President to come boy. He put his hand in his pocket and laughed and walked away. I thought maybe he’s just been happy that morning or something.”
The Warren Commission will determine that Lee Harvey Oswald does not bring his lunch to work with him today, even though it is alleged (at a later interrogation session) that he says he did. If Lee Harvey Oswald did not bring his lunch to work, this is the time he might have purchased a sandwich from a caterer who stops by the TSBD about this same time every morning.
Vice President Johnson introduces his sister to JFK in the President’s Forth Worth hotel suite.
In Dallas, Jack Beers - photographer for the Dallas Morning News arrives at Love Field. It is raining and still very overcast. Beers sees many placards with things printed on them such as “Let’s Bury King John,” “Onward J.F.K.,” “Help JFK Stamp Out Democracy.” Beers discusses the limo’s bubble top with a Secret Service agent. The agent explains that the top is stowed in the trunk of the car. The bubble has to be assembled by hand in case it is needed.”
Front page headlines of The Dallas Morning News state: “Storm Of Political Controversy Swirls Around Kennedy on Visit.”
10:02 a.m. CST, President Kennedy confers with Governor John Connally.
Between this time and noon today, Michel Roux attends classes with Leon Gachman’s son, Arnold, amid a multitude of witnesses in Ft. Worth, Texas.
10:30 a.m. CST, Two important Secret Service reports regarding possible assassination attempts against President Kennedy have now been transmitted to other field offices. The only field office not to receive these two reports is the office in Dallas, Texas.
Sheriff Bill Decker calls plainclothes men, detectives and warrant men into his office, tells them that President Kennedy is coming to Dallas and that the motorcade will come down Main Street. Decker advises his employees to stand out in front of the building but to take no part whatsoever in the security of the motorcade. Uniformed policemen lining the motorcade route in downtown Dallas are instructed to stand with their backs to the crowd and to face the motorcade.
Similarly, Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry told his officers to end supervision of Friday’s crowd at Houston and Main, a block short of the ambush, on the pretext that traffic would begin to thin out there. In his later book, JFK Assassination File, Curry stated that he was following the orders of the Secret Service.
This order is not used in any other city and violates standard Presidential security measures since it does not allow the police to watch either the crowds or the buildings along the route. Further, the Dallas Police have decided to officially end their security supervision for the motorcade one block short of the full route. This unsupervised block includes Dealey Plaza. Also, this morning, hours prior to the assassination of President Kennedy, the CIA turns a photograph over to the FBI which reports to show Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City leaving a suspect embassy (the CIA at one time implied it is the Cuban Embassy and at another time asserts it is the Soviet Embassy.) The photo, as since proved, is not Oswald.
The 112th Military Intelligence Group at 4th Army Headquarters at Fort Sam Houston is told to “stand down” rather than report for duty in Dallas, over the protests of the unit commander, Col. Maximillian Reich. Nevertheless, Lt. Colonel George Whitmeyer, the commander of the local Army intelligence reserve, will be in the police pilot car which will precede the motorcade in Dallas, and an Army Intelligence officer is with FBI agent James Hosty 45 minutes before the parade, on Main Street.
It will be later revealed that the 112th MI Group, which maintains an office in Dallas, had possessed a file on a man named “Harvey Lee Oswald,” identifying him as a pro-communist who had been in Russia and had been involved in pro-Castro activities in New Orleans.
This military file erroneously gives Oswald's address as 605 Elsbeth, the same mistake found on Jack Revill's list. Apparently military intelligence is swift in providing Dallas police with information on Oswald, the man who will come to be labeled as the lone assassin of President Kennedy. It is a fact that several Dallas police officers also serve in various military reserve units and are therefore in close contact with military intelligence. Information on Oswald apparently comes from the 112th MIG's operations officer, Lt. Col. Robert E. Jones, who is stationed at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
Testifying to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, Jones will say that on the afternoon of the assassination he receives a call from his agents in Dallas advising that a man named A.J. Hidell has been arrested. (This is most interesting because, while Oswald did carry some cards identifying him as Hidell, no mention is made of this in the media today indicating a close relationship between the M.I. agents and Dallas Police.) Jones will testify that he begins a search of his intelligence indexes and locates a file on A.J. Hidell which cross-references into one for Lee Harvey Oswald. He says he then contacts the FBI in both San Antonio and Dallas with his information.
The files on Hidell and Oswald give detailed information about his trip to Russia as well as pro-Castro activities in New Orleans. Jones says he had become aware of Oswald in the summer of 1963 when information had been passed along by the New Orleans Police Department regarding his arrest there. He says the 112th MIG took an interest in Oswald as a possible counterintelligence threat. The House committee, remarking on how quickly the military found files on Oswald, will state: "This information suggested the existence of a military intelligence file on Oswald and raised the possibility that he had intelligence associations of some kind."
The Warren Commission will specifically ask to see any military files regarding Oswald but will never be shown the files mentioned by Jones or any others. In 1978, when the House Select Committee on Assassinations learns of these files and requests them from the military, they will be told the files have been "destroyed routinely" in 1973.
Even more troublesome is the military's file on A.J. Hidell. Jones states that Hidell is an alias used by Oswald, which accounts for the fact that the two files were cross-indexed. However, nowhere in the vast documentation of Oswald's life did he ever actually use A.J. Hidell as an alias - the exceptions being when he mail-ordered the rifle allegedly used to kill Kennedy and the pistol allegedly used to kill Officer Tippit using the name Hidell and the use of the name Hidell on Fair Play for Cuba literature.
This raises two possibilities. Either military intelligence had some independent knowledge of Oswald's purchase of the weapons which took place long before he arrived in New Orleans (Were they monitoring his Dallas post office box?) or someone, perhaps even Oswald himself, informed the military of his purchases. In either event it appears that the U. S. military knew more about Oswald and his weapons than has yet been made public.
by L. Fletcher Prouty
Photographic Research by Richard E. Sprague
I have always been concerned about the failure of the Secret Service to act in accordance with their long-established and highly professional standard operating procedures on Kennedy's Texas trip. We know that the Secret Service does not have the numbers to permit it to cover every possible avenue and angle of danger; but what we also know is that over the years it has keen the practice of the Secret Service to call upon trained elements of the Armed Forces and other technical assistance to flesh out their strength in compliance with "Protection" policy.
In 1963 there was in Washington, D.C. the 113th Army Intelligence Unit, which was highly trained for this purpose. A counterpart of this unit was the 112th at 4th Army Headquarters at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The 112th had a detachment, the 315th, in San Antonio. Its commanding officer, among others, complained bitterly that his unit was not used in protection along with the Secret Service after he had keen told that the services of his unit would not be needed. On more than one occasion he called his headquarters and called Washington to correct this "oversight." Like the old dog, he and his men had keen well trained and they were ready to go into action. It takes strong and deft control from the top to keep a unit out of the action for which it has been trained.
After the assassination, some of the men of the 112th dug into the unit's files and found that they had note cards on a Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas. I do not know what other records they had; but failure to utilize this unit and its files was part of the conspiracy and an indication of how far up the hand of the conspirators went.
Not only did the Secret Service disregard experienced and qualified assistance from the Armed Forces, but they did not act in accordance with their own time-tested regulations. I recall, when we walked down Avenida Reforma in Mexico City before Eisenhower's trip, being told that if we found a place where Eisenhower could not be properly protected, the Secret Service "manual" stated that the "President's car must maintain not less than 44 mph until clear of any danger zones." I joked with the Secret Service officer about the "44 mph." Why not "45 mph" or "50 mph." He answered that tests had determined that a car traveling 44 mph was going fast enough to guarantee all but 100 percent assurance that the President would be safe. It was Secret Service men working under the provisions of the same manual who let the President's car creep around that corner at Dealey Plaza at 8-9 mph. Why?
Also, as we looked up at the high buildings on Mexico City's main street, he told me that agents would check and secure each floor and each window of each building. This is not as big a job as it may seem. The Secret Service knows the exact timing of the movements of the President and they see to it, using radios and men on rooftops, that his progress is covered all the way. This is their business and they are good at it.
But in Dallas, for some strange reason, someone picked a dangerous turn in the road. The procession passed slowly to the right, and then it turned slowly to the left, and all of the time the President's car was right under hostile windows. How simple and how correct it would have keen for Secret Service men, aided by all of the Armed Forces required, to have checked those buildings, to have sealed any unused floors (such as that famous deserted sixth floor), and then to have shut all of the front windows. Then, by placing a radio-equipped man in the Plaza, all he would have had to do was to watch if a single window opened. If it did, he would call to the man on the roof and have someone dispatched to check that window, and with that same call he would have alerted the whole force, especially those with the President's party.
This chronology and theme need not be pursued further here. What is important is to point out that trained and experienced organizations such as the Secret Service and the Army were somehow given instructions not to take part. In bureaucratic terms alone this is hard to do. Each organization fights for its prerogatives and for its role. Yet someone ordered them to stand down. The power to keep units from operating automatically would have to have been extreme and must have originated close to the top. Someone had to put out the word to the Secret Service and through them to the Army; and then that same power was able to rebuff repeated attempts to right that wrong.
Recognition of this fact leads to the delineation of the origin and source of the conspiracy, which was strong enough to directly influence the role of major government organizations even before the President was shot. I have spoken with men of these units. Many had keen trained at Fort Holabird, the Army's top intelligence school. There can be no interpretation of this suppression of the forces created to protect the President other than that it was a part of the whole conspiracy...
Also at 10:30 a.m. CST, FBI informant, William Augustus Somersett receives a call in Miami from Joseph Milteer in Dallas stating that President Kennedy will be there later that day and will not be visiting Miami again. Milteer then hangs up the phone and reportedly joins the crowd gathering near the corner of Elm Street in Dealey Plaza.
J.D. Tippit and Anglin take a coffee break at the Rebel Drive-In.
10:40 a.m. CST, President Kennedy’s motorcade leaves the Texas Hotel for Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth in order to make the thirteen-minute flight to Dallas. There will be 36 people aboard Air Force One - not including the crew. Air Force One is a customized Boeing 707 familiar to most Americans through the media. Although the plane is maintained and flown by select U.S. Air Force personnel, it appears on the exterior identical to a commercial 707 except for the legend “United States of America” painted in large white letters above the windows on either side. The craft has been officially designated #26000 and bears the Secret Service code name “Angel.”
11:00 a.m. CST, President Kennedy’s motorcade leaves the Hotel Texas to drive to Carswell Air Force Base.
Julia Ann Mercer, twenty-three years old, is driving west on Elm Street. A few yards beyond the triple underpass, Miss Mercer’s car is blocked from continuing by a green pickup truck parked partly on the curb. Mercer waits as long as three minutes during which a man removes a package that she believes is a rifle wrapped in paper. The young man walks up the embankment in the direction of the grassy knoll area in Dealey Plaza. This is the last time she sees him. She will later identify the driver of the truck as Jack Ruby.
Two patrolmen - E.V. Brown and Joe Murphy - also observe this stalled pickup truck. According to them, it contains three construction workers. One of the patrolmen testifies that he assists in helping them get the truck moving again. “There were three
construction men in this truck, and he took one to the bank building to obtain another truck in order to assist in moving the stalled one.
The other two men remained with the pickup truck along with two other officers. Shortly prior to the arrival of the motorcade, the man he had taken to the bank building returned with a second truck, and all three of the men left with the two trucks, one pushing the other.”
Note: Gerald Posner will eventually write that “the Mercer story was fully discredited by December 9, 1963 ... subsequent investigation revealed that the truck, which had stalled, belonged to a local construction company; it had three men inside, and they did take tools from the rear of the truck to fix it. They were under constant surveillance by three Dallas policemen.” (Some of the information for this entry was also taken from PROBE Sept.- Oct. 1999)
Robert MacNeil of NBC News remembers: “We were seven minutes behind schedule leaving for Dallas. Our press bus ran straight up to the press plane, a Pan Am Boeing 707. We raced aboard and immediately taxied out for the takeoff. As soon as the doors were closed, the stewardesses began dispensing the Bloody Marys that were traditional on press planes. The flight lasted eight minutes.”
Julius Hardee will tell The Dallas Morning News that he sees three men on top of the Triple underpass this morning carrying either shotguns or rifles. Whether these men are police officers or not will never be determined. Hardee claims he reported the incident to the FBI but no report about the incident has yet surfaced.
According to Jack Ruby, this is the time he goes to Tony Zoppi’s office to pick up Weimar brochure. Secret Service agents Sorrels, Kinney and Hickey drive the motorcade cars (this includes the Presidential limousine) to the area at Love Field where the President is to be met when he arrives on Air Force One.
11:03 a.m. CST, Six members of the President’s cabinet leave Honolulu for Japan by plane. Copies of their speeches have already been sent ahead. Some of these speeches will be printed in newspapers following the assassination as though nothing had occurred. It is highly unusual, if not unheard of, for so many members of the Presidential cabinet to be away from the nation’s capitol at a given time.
11:10 a.m. CST, The presidential party arrives at Carswell Air Force Base for the 30-mile flight to Dallas.
President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy leave Fort Worth, Texas (1:00)
JFK Says Goodbye To Fort Worth (Photographs)
Fort Worth Motorcade and Departure from Carswell AFB for Dallas Love Field
Limousines and cars holding politicians, reporters, and photographers lined up outside the Hotel Texas. Presidential aides made certain that Senator Yarborough rode in the limousine with Vice President and Mrs. Johnson to present the appearance of a united party. President and Mrs. Kennedy shared a limousine with Governor Connally. At 11:00, the motorcade turned slowly north onto Main Street moving towards the Tarrant County courthouse. The street was lined with a cheering, waving populace. The motorcade turned west on Belknap, north onto Jacksboro Highway, then west again along River Oaks Boulevard where school children waved banners. Air Force One awaited their arrival at Carswell Air Force Base. Air Force Two was the first to depart. Thanking law enforcement officers and shaking hands with onlookers, the President turned and waved to his Fort Worth supporters as he and Jackie boarded Air Force One for the 13-minute flight to Dallas Love Field.
According to Jack Ruby, he is now talking to a salesman about the owner of the Castaway Club.
11:15 a.m. CST, Photographer James W. Altgens walks over to the triple underpass where Main, Elm, and Commerce Streets travel under the railroad tracks. Two uniformed police officers assigned from the Traffic Division, J. W. Foster and J. C. White, are stationed on top of the underpass. Foster comes over and challenges Altgens - asking if he is a railroad employee. Altgens says “No,” shows him his press tag, and explains that he has a Department of Public Safety ID card, and is assigned by AP to take some photos of the motorcade. The officer is adamant that this is private property, and no one but railroad personnel are permitted in the area. The officer does not deny access to the area for security reasons, but with the fact that it is private property.
It is speculated that Police officer J.D. Tippit goes home for lunch at about this time.
11:25 a.m. CST, Air Force One takes off from Fort Worth. The pilot,
Colonel James Swindal, asks permission to fly at seven thousand feet
and is permitted the request. During the flight to Dallas, President
Kennedy goes over the morning’s Intelligence Checklist. A CIA
analyst has included in this report a copy of the bullfighter’s
verse that President Kennedy recited at State on October 16, 1962,
just after he was told about the missiles in Cuba: “Bullfight
critics ranked in rows, Crowd the enormous Plaza full; But only one
is there who knows, And he’s the man who fights the
bull.”
According to another publication, this verse is
included in the first CIA Intelligence Report given to Vice President
Johnson by the CIA after he became President.
JFK, Presidential Party Fly From Fort Worth To Dallas
by Frank Heinz
After a breakfast at the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, the president's motorcade departs the Hotel Texas for Carswell Air Force Base at about 11 a.m.
In the motorcade are the president, the first lady, Vice President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, along with Texas Gov. John Connally, Sen. Ralph Yarborough, JFK adviser Kenneth O'Donnell and strategist Larry O'Brien.
11:30 a.m. CST, At their home in Miami Beach, Florida John Martino and his wife Robbyn are talking about going to the Americana for lunch. An announcement comes over the radio concerning President Kennedy’s trip to Texas. According to Robbyn, John Martino then tells her: “They’re going to kill him. They’re going to kill him when he gets to Dallas.” (Martino is a CIA-Mafia operative)
For more see the comprehensive section: Foreknowledge
Jerry Coley, a thirty-year old employee of the Dallas Morning News, and a friend, Charlie Mulkey, leave the Morning News building sometime before 11:30 a.m. and head toward Dealey Plaza, looking for a good vantage point to watch the motorcade. They finally take up a position near the entrance of the old county jail on Houston Street, a short distance from the Texas School Book Depository.
J.D. Tippit arrives home for lunch. A few hours ago, Mrs. Tippit received a call from the nurse at her son’s school, telling her he was vomiting and needed to come home. So Tippit’s son, Allen, is at home when his father comes home for lunch. “I made J.D. a sandwich, and he had some fried potatoes with it,” Mrs. Tippit remembers. When Officer Tippit leaves to return to duty, his wife and oldest son turn on the television in hopes of hearing details about the visit of the president, for whom both the Tippits have reportedly voted.
Sixteen-year-old Amos Euins, a ninth grader at Franklin D. Roosevelt, leaves school in order to head downtown Dallas to see the motorcade. His mother drives him downtown, but has to leave him there because she has to go to work.
11:35 a.m. CST, Air Force Two lands at Love Field. Vice President Lyndon Johnson and Mrs. Johnson are aboard this plane. They disembark and, as is the routine, prepare to greet JFK when his plane arrives.
At 11:38 a.m. CST, President Kennedy, his wife Jacqueline, and the rest of the presidential entourage lands at Love Field on Runway 31, in northwest Dallas aboard Air Force One after a very short thirteen minute flight from nearby Carswell Air Force Base, west of Fort Worth. For President Kennedy, landing at Dallas completes 75,682 miles of travel in Air Force One -- approximately three times around the world in one year. During the nine months prior to this day, the Secret Service has received more than four hundred threats on the President’s life.
Mrs. Connally will recall: “There was a tremendous roar when the plane put down and the door opened and out stepped Mrs. Kennedy, who looked beautiful, just like everybody expected, and then th handsome young President coming out behind her. I get goose pimples now thinking about it. It really was an exciting moment in our life.”
Kennedy arrives at Love Field November 22 1963 (28:07)
President Kennedy arrives at Love Field November 22 1963. Coverage from WFAA (ABC) channel 8. Channel 8 fed the arrival to the three other local stations.
by Frank Heinz
The Presidential motorcade did not leave Love Field until approximately seventeen minutes later. The president then proceeded in a long motorcade from Love Field through downtown Dallas, and end at the Dallas Business and Trade Mart. The presidential motorcade stopped twice so President Kennedy could shake hands with some Catholic nuns, then some school children. The motorcade was scheduled to enter Dealey Plaza at 12:25 p.m., followed by a 12:30 p.m. arrival at the Dallas Business and Trade Mart so President Kennedy could deliver a speech and share in a steak luncheon with Dallas government, business, religious, and civic leaders and their spouses. Invitations that were sent out specify a noon start time to the luncheon.
JFK Motorcade Love Field To Dealey Plaza To Parkland November 22, 1963 (30:50)
A chronological and unbiased collection of original film footage, some NEWLY discovered; Includes news reports and still photos, as John F Kennedy travels from Love Field in Dallas Texas through Dealey Plaza, and onto Parkland Hospital. This short documentary uses film footage and news reels from the time to show the entire motorcade ride and the immediate aftermath of the crime scene and investigation on November 22, 1963. Includes film footage from the secret service car and shows a secret service officer obviously gesturing as to why he is being called off the President's Limo. Also of interest is the immediate discovery of a German Mauser rifle at the book depository.
For more see the comprehensive section:
Assassination: Love Field To Parkland Hospital
Motorcade Lineup Change
by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace
...The Secret Service had been lining up the automobiles for the upcoming parade through the streets of the city. Each car was tagged with a small square of paper bearing a number which indicated the planned position of that particular car in the motorcade. Kennedy was to ride in the open 1961 Lincoln Continental limousine marked with the number "7." But the limousine was placed 2nd in line, due apparently to a mix-up.
When the parade started, the Lincoln (sans bubble-top because of Kennedy's own request to leave it off if the weather was nice) was preceded by a 1963 Ford sedan bearing Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry and other local officials. Directly behind the presidential limousine was the Secret Service's follow-up car a 1959 Cadillac. Although the press vehicle (usually directly in front of the President's car to facilitate photographing the President) was numbered "6," it was lined up last (14th) in the motorcade. For this reason the photographers in that vehicle were unable to photograph any footage of the assassination that was about to occur--footage that would have been of great evidential value...
No Secret Service Agents On Rear Bumper And No Bubble Top
"History" Corrected 35 Years Later By Primary Sources
JFK Did Not Order Secret Service Off Dallas Limousine
Kennedy Never Ordered Security Stand-Down Or Bubble-Top Removal
Presidential Security Mysteriously "Stripped" And Otherwise Compromised For Fatal Motorcade
Secret Service Ignoring Of Advance Warning Of Threats Documented
by Vincent M. Palamara
Gerald Blaine, The Kennedy Detail
Review by Vince Palamara
Although very well written, along with some nice photographs, as well, The Kennedy Detail is really a thinly veiled attempt to rewrite history ... and absolve the agents of their collective survivor's guilt .... In the eyes of those from the Kennedy detail, the assassination was the act of TWO "lone men": Oswald, who pulled the trigger, and JFK, who set himself up as the target, writes Vince Palamara.
The Kennedy Detail Movie Is Dead - "Survivor's Guilt"
by Vince Palamara
Secret Service Complicity in the Assassination of JFK.
by Professor Joseph Valvano
... As stated within the Secret Service Manuel for the protection of a President, it was standard SS protection to have a SS agent on each side of the motorcar and on each side of “back bumper”of the Presidential Limousine, but “Commander” Emory Roberts prevented any SS agents from taking their protective positions by ordering ALL agents to be in the Secret Service follow-up car, thereby effectively removing ALL Secret Service protection from the sides and the back of JFK’s motorcar. If SS agents had been in their proper positions on sides and on the back bumper of the Presidential limousine, their presence there could have possibly effectively blocked gunshots fired at JFK from the sides and/or the rear of the motorcar. Why was this action done when it violated standard SS protection of the President in Dallas?...
JFK Did Not Order The Agents Off His Limousine
Farewell America: The Plot to Kill JFK
Chapter 14 - Secret Service
by James Hepburn
Farewell America: The Plot to Kill JFK
JFK Assassination: Secret Service Stand Down (2:55)
Watch as the two secret service men assigned to protect president Kennedy's motorcade are ordered to stand down just minutes before entering Dealey Plaza. They are obviously not happy about being given these orders. It brings up another question: Where was NORAD on 9/11, who was in charge and why?
Would It Have Saved JFK? Jim Lehrer on the Mystery of the Bubble Top
by Eleanor Clift
Fifty years ago Jim Lehrer was in Dallas as a young reporter. Now he’s written a novel that explores what might have happened if the Secret Service had kept the bubble top on JFK’s limo.
Missing Person Between Greer And Kellerman
The Kennedy Limousine: Dallas 1963 (Bottom of page 164 of: Murder in Dealey Plaza)
by Douglas Weldon, J.D.
It was standard practice that someone occupy the front seat of Kennedy's limousine during motorcades. Major General Ted Clifton was one such person. Another person was Presidential aide General Godfrey McHugh. Both of these persons were in Dallas during the assassination. On this date, Godfrey McHugh was placed in the back of the motorcade. He later acknowledged that this was unusual. This was the first time he was advised not to ride in the car, "so that attention would be focused on the President." Obviously, if anyone had occupied such a position in the front seat, a shot at Kennedy through the windshield into his throat would have been an impossibility.
Gems From The 26 Volumes: Seth Kantor On The "Dead" Secret Service Agent
by Vince Palamara
...In addition, Godfrey McHugh was told, for the first time, to please not ride in the limousine, as he and / or Ted Clifton often did; however, both the Secret Service and (recently) Ken O'Donnell have been blamed for this, although McHugh earlier had mentioned only the SS to CFTR radio in 1976, years before the Ralph Martin book...
Motorcade Route Change
16 Questions On The Assassination
by Bertrand Russell
...The President’s route for his drive through Dallas was widely known and was printed in the Dallas Morning News on November 22. At the last minute the Secret Service changed a small part of their plans so that the President left Main Street and turned into Houston and Elm Streets. This alteration took the President past the book depository building from which it is alleged that Oswald shot him. How Oswald is supposed to have known of this change has never been explained. Why was the President’s route changed at the last minute to take him past Oswald’s place of work?...
November 22, 1963 (Friday) Timeline
...“The entire front page of the morning paper [Dallas Morning News DMN] of the day of the assassination was devoted to the President's visit and to the political situation in which it was being made. Buried in the body of one of these stories was some text the Report could and did use to connote something sinister on Oswald's part: "On the morning of the President's arrival, the Morning News noted the motorcade would travel through downtown Dallas onto the Stemmons Freeway, and reported 'the motorcade will travel slowly so that crowds "can get a good view" of the President and his wife.' "This planted the idea that Oswald knew all about the slow pace and found assurance of a better target because of it. Of course, the Report in this quotation does not find it necessary to use the exact language, "Main and Stemmons Freeway," as the route to the place of the luncheon meeting, with no mention of Elm Street. And what the Report totally suppresses is the major reference to the route on the front page of that issue of that paper. Headed "Presidential Motorcade Route," there is a map showing the entire route, beginning at the airport. This map shows the motorcade would not leave Main Street from the time it got on it until it reached the Triple Underpass. It showed the motorcade was not going to turn off into Elm Street, as it did. And it further showed that the planned route included an illegal turn into the Stemmons Freeway, the turn the Report infers could not be made because it was against regulations. And as though to answer the as yet unasked question, as though it knew the future significance of its front-page map, the paper marked the point of the only turn from Main Street with an arrow labeled "Triple Underpass."” (Weisberg, Whitewash)
The Warren Commission published a cropped photocopy of the front page of the Dallas Morning News of 11/22/1963 (CE 1365); the blanked-out section was of a map showing the motorcade route as heading straight down Main St, without turning onto Elm. Officer J.M. Smith later testified that he knew of nothing that would have prevented the motorcade from going straight down Main and then onto Stemmons Freeway. (H 7 538-539) Most of the Depository employees who were questioned on this matter say that they didn't learn of the exact motorcade route until Friday morning. (H 3 178,209)...
by Bernice Moore
The original route, which was to take the motorcade straight down Main Street, was printed on the front page of the November 22, 1963 early edition of the Dallas Morning News...
Also at 11:38 a.m. CST, J. Edgar Hoover receives a telephone call from Dwight D. Eisenhower with news that he has heard from his friend Fred Friendly at CBS that “a campaign to undermine the FBI and me is forming.” There is no further elaboration of this message, but Hoover urges Eisenhower to have Friendly call him for an interview so that Hoover can “set the record straight.”
11:40 a.m. CST, Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry meets President Kennedy at Love Field. JFK is impressed with the turnout and exclaims, “This doesn’t look like an anti-Kennedy crowd.”
Police Ban (Channel 2) -- Curry asks for a weather report. Is told that it should be “fair” for most of the day. Report of large crowds gathering along the route.
Dallas Policeman (motorcycle escort), Marrion L. Baker: “When we got to the airport, our sergeant instructed me that there wouldn’t be anybody riding beside the President’s car.” Baker receives these instructions about five minutes before the motorcade leaves Love Field.
Billy Joe Martin, another motorcade officers, reports that the four motorcycle officers covering the Presidential limousine are ordered that under no circumstances are they to leave their positions “regardless of what happened.” Martain will eventually explain to the Warren Commission that the Secret Service told them that they didn’t want anyone riding past the President’s car and that they were to ride to the rear. (6H293) Martin allegedly tells his girlfriend Jean Hill, “Johnson’s Secret Service people came over to the motorcycle cops and gave us a bunch of instructions...They also ordered us into the damndest escort formation I’ve ever seen. Ordinarily, you bracket the car with four motorcycles, one on each fender. But this time, they told the four of us assigned to the President’s car there’d be no forward escorts. We were to stay well in back and not let ourselves get ahead of the car’s rear wheels under any circumstances. I’d never heard of a formation like that, much less ridden in one, but they said they wanted the crowds to get an unrestricted view of the President. Well, I guess somebody got an ‘unrestricted’ view of him, all right.”
Bonnie Ray Williams and Billy Lovelady testify that they see Oswald on the fifth floor, waiting impatiently for them to send one of the elevators back up so he can come down. The scenario is that the employees race the elevators to the first floor. Charles Givens sees Lee Harvey Oswald standing at the gate on the fifth floor as the elevator goes by.
Photographer James W. Altgens arrives at the intersection of Main and Houston Streets where he remains until the motorcade arrives.
11:45 a.m. CST, Charles Givens, an employee at The Texas Book Depository Building and a known narcotics user with a police record, later testifies that he works on the sixth floor until this time, then goes downstairs. As his elevator passes the fifth floor,
he sees Lee Harvey Oswald. Givens, according to his testimony, then realizes he has left his cigarettes on the sixth floor and takes the elevator back upstairs to get his jacket with the cigarettes in it. He sees Oswald, clipboard in hand, walking from the southeast corner of the sixth floor toward the elevator. (It is physically impossible for Givens to see Oswald, as he testifies he did, unless without any reason for doing so he walked far to the east of the elevator. It has been suggested that Givens, a black man with a drug record, was pressured into his story by the Dallas police. Givens, like Oswald, was missing from the Book Depository Building after the assassination.)
John Stevens Rutter Lawrence will state in a Secret Service document that he is walking north on Akard Street from Commerce to Main when his attention is called to a man walking in the opposite direction on the same side of the street ... carrying a rifle. The man is about 6’5” tall, and weighs about 250 pounds or more. He appears to be a professional football type and very muscular. He has dirty blond hair and wears it in a short crew cut. The man is in his 30s and is wearing a light colored business suit and white business shirt. When Lawrence’s report eventually comes to light, someone has
scribbled the name “Hemmings?” at the bottom of the document. [Gerry Patrick Hemming] Hemming will claim to have refused offers made to him to kill JFK . He will state that he had nothing to do with the assassination.
11:50 a.m. CST, Charles Givens now observes Lee Harvey Oswald reading a newspaper in the domino room where the employees eat lunch. This room is on the first floor of the Book Depository Building. (He will later deny testifying to this fact.)
William Shelley will testify that he sees Oswald on the first floor when he [Shelly] “came down to eat lunch about ten to twelve.”
Philip Ben Hathaway, age 28, a testifies: “We were walking down Commerce up to Main and Main to Akard and while we were walking up Akard towards Main Street we passed a man who was carrying a rifle in a gun case. I saw this man walking towards me, walking towards Commerce, and took particular attention to him because of his size. I am 6’5” and weigh 200 pounds. This man was very tall, approx [sic] 6’6” or 6’7” over 250 pounds, very thick and big through the chest, in his 30’s, dirty blonde hair worn in a crew cut. He was wearing a grey colored business suit with white dress shirt, fair complexion. I remarked to my friend that there was a guy carrying a gun in all this crowd and made the remark that he was probably a secret service man. I could very easily identify this man if I ever saw him again. The gun case was holding a rifle because I could tell there was a gun in it as it was a combination leather and cloth gun case and without a gun, it would have been limp, but it was heavy and he was carrying it by the handle and the barrel of the gun was up at a 45 degree angle. It was beige or tan leather and olive drab material.”
11:51 a.m. CST, J.D. Tippit returns to duty after having lunch at home with his wife, Marie. Tippit radios he is back in service from lunch, and starts driving back toward his Patrol District.
11:55 a.m. CST, President Kennedy's motorcade leaves Love Field (5 minutes late). The motorcade being 5 minutes late is something rarely noted and quite important, for it exonorates Lee Harvey Oswald. The motorcade was scheduled to pass the Book Depository at 12:25 pm., so he would have had to be ready to shoot President Kennedy well before 12:25 p.m. Oswald did not have time to get into position to do the shooting. He was in the lunch room at 12:15 p.m. and Bonnie Ray Williams was on the 6th floor, alone, until 12:20 p.m.
Marty Underwood says: “They had a hell of a fight there for about five minutes that day, before they started the motorcade. I don’t mean a fight, but ... . .” (Concerning the bubble top for the Presidential limo) “ ... Jackie wanted it up and Kenny O’Donnell wanted it up, and Governor Connally wanted it up. He (JFK) wanted people to see Jackie ...” “We were getting ready to start the motorcade and Connally, Kenny O’Donnell, and Dave Powers and everybody talked to Kennedy and said, look, let’s put the bubble top up. And he said, ‘No this is Jackie’s first trip and the people love her, and I’m going to keep it down.’ It was his idea all the way.”
Agent Sam Kinney, however, admits to Vince Palamara that it was his sole responsibility for the removal of the bubbletop -- a decision he has lived with, with some regret for over thirty years now. Richard Greer, son of the late Bill Greer, told me of his father’s guilt over this decision of the Secret Service. Three agents -- Sam Kinney, Bob Lilly and Thomas Kelley -- stated that the bubbletop, although not bulletproof, may have at least deflected a bullet or, at the very least, somewhat hampered a gunman’s view via the sun’s glare off its surface.
As the motorcade begins, film footage from ABC television’s Dallas/ Fort Worth affiliate WFAA shows SS agent Henry J. Rybka being recalled by shift leader (and commander of the follow-up car detail) Emory P. Roberts. As the limo begins leaving the area, Rybka’s confusion is made clear as he throws his arms up several times before, during, and after the follow-up car passes him by, despite Secret Service agent Paul E. Landis making room for Rybka on the running board of the car.
In 1991, Marty Underwood gives an interview to researcher Vincent Palamara in which he says that the CIA, the FBI, and the mafia “knew (JFK) was going to be hit” on 11/22/63 - this information came from his direct contacts with CIA officer Win Scott, the
Mexico City Station Chief during Oswald’s visit to that region [Oswald did not visit Mexico City]. Additionally, Underwood stated that, eighteen hours before Kennedy’s murder, “we were getting all sorts of rumors that the President was going to be assassinated in Dallas; there were no if’s, and’s, or but’s about it.” When Underwood told President Kennedy about these disturbing reports, the President merely said, “Marty, you worry about me too much.”
The motorcade is spread over a half mile. Leading it is Deputy Chief Lumpkin in his “pilot car.” In the motorcade’s lead car are: Chief Jesse Curry, Sheriff Bill Decker, Special Agent Forrest Sorrels and Agent Winston Lawson. (Chief Curry seems more talk ative than usual.) The lead car has four motorcycles in front of it to trim the curbside crowds. Three car lengths behind the lead car is the presidential limo. Agent William Greer is driving. Sitting next to him is Roy Kellerman. Behind them in jump seats are Gov. and Mrs. Connally -- then JFK and Mrs. Kennedy. Behind JFK’s Lincoln are four motorcycles. They have been ordered not to pull up on the President unless he is endangered. Following JFK’s limo is the Secret Service car - a 1955 Cadillac 9-passenger convertible. Sam Kinney drives; Emory Roberts mans the communications set. Mrs. Kennedy’s guardian, Clint Hill, stands in the forward position of the left running board. John Ready has the opposite position on the right. Behind them stands Bill McIntyre and Paul Landis. Glen Bennett and George Hickey occupy two thirds of the back seat. Also riding with the Secret Service are Kenneth O’Donnell and Dave Powers.
Secret Service agent Bennett is sitting behind presidential aide Dave Powers. During the return trip to Washington aboard Air Force One, Bennett writes down his impressions. He describes having seen a bullet enter the president’s back “about four inches down from the right shoulder,” which is consistent with the placement of holes in Kennedy’s clothing. Researcher David S. Lifton mistrusts Bennett’s account as simply a fabrication to corroborate the results of the autopsy. To support this theory, he presents photographs taken at the time of the assassination showing everyone in Bennett’s car facing forward except Bennett, whose head is turned to the right as he
looks at the crowd of people lining the route.]
Next comes a rented 1964 Lincoln 4-door convertible, occupied by the Lyndon Johnsons and Ralph Yarborough. In the front seat is Rufus Youngblood, LBJ’s agent. Hurchel Jacks of the Texas Highway Patrol is driving LBJ. This car is followed by another Secret Service car called Varsity. Next, comes a Mercury with Mayor and Mrs. Earle Cabell. Behind them is the press pool car consisting of four men who, if a news story breaks, will get it on the wires as a “flash.” LBJ’s Secret Service bodyguard, Rufus Youngblood, testifies: “The Vice President was asking me if we were running on time, and so forth. And so he asked me how much further, and I would call back to our followup car and ask them how many more miles and so forth.”
Local television coverage does not include the major portion of the
motorcade. The sound portion describes the welcome to the President,
but the camera remains in the interior of the Dallas Trade Mart.
Additionally, it is standard practice that someone occupy the front
seat of JFK’s limousine during motorcades. Major General Ted
Clifton is one such person. Another person is Presidential aide
General Godfrey McHugh. Both of these persons are now in Dallas. On
this date, Godfrey McHugh is placed in the back of the motorcade. He
will later acknowledge that this is unusual. This is the
first
time he is advised not to ride in the car, “so that attention would
be focused othe President.” All overpasses have been cleared of
spectators except in Dealey Plaza.
Jesse Curry will later testify: “In the planning of this motorcade, we had more motorcycles lined up to be with the President’s car, but the Secret Service didn’t want that many.”
Question: ‘Did they tell you why?”
Curry: “We actually had two on each side but we wanted four on each side and they asked us to drop out some of them and back down the motorcade, along the motorcade, which we did.”
Hugh Sidey, White House correspondent for Time remembers: “I was [in one of the press buses] behind the driver, and to be honest I was bored. It was just another motorcade.”
Governor John Connally will recall: “Dallas did have one sign, there was a fellow up on an old house, like a turn of the century house, badly needing paint, I recall very well, he had a sign up on this balcony that said, “Kennedy, go home.” But, it was on the left side of the car as we were traveling in the motorcade and the President was on the right side in the back seat, and I hoped he didn’t see it, but he finally turned to Nelly and me and said, “Did you all see that sign? I said, “Yes, Mr. President, but we were hoping you didn’t.” He said, “Well, I saw it. Don’t you imagine he’s a nice fellow?” And, I said, “Yes, I imagine he’s a nice fellow.” But that was about the only thing we saw, and frankly, there was less of that than I thought.”
Bobby Hargis, riding a motorcycle in the motorcade remembers that, on Cedar Springs, the president startles everyone by leaping out of the car to shake hands with some of the hundreds who are pushing forward for a closer look. “The Secret Service liked to had a conniption fit when he did that,” says Mr. Hargis. At that moment, he felt
an eerie sense of dread wash over him. “They was hoppin’ around like cats on a hot roof. It freaked ‘em out big time. You could tell how nervous they were.”
12:00 p.m. - 1:22 p.m. CST, Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) Timeline
12:00 Noon CST, Bonnie Ray Williams returns to the sixth floor to eat his lunch. He has brought fried chicken in a paper bag. He does not see Lee Harvey Oswald or Douglas Givens on the sixth floor.
Eddie Piper, an employee at The Texas Book Depository, sees Oswald on the first floor of the building. According to Piper, Oswald tells him “I’m going up to eat.” Oswald then goes to the second floor and buys his lunch from one of the vending machines.
Richard Carr, a steelworker, notices a man in a window on the seventh floor of the Book Depository Building. The man is wearing a brown suit coat.
Jack Ruby is seen sitting in an office at the Dallas Morning News by newspaper employee Wanda Walker.
Cambridge News Phone Call
12:05 p.m. CST,
British Newspaper Got Anonymous Call 25 Minutes Before JFK Assassination
by Kim Hjelmgaard
Twenty-five minutes before John F. Kennedy was assassinated, a British newspaper received an anonymous tip about "some big news" in the United States, according to the trove of more than 2,800 documents released late Thursday by the National Archives. The mystery call was made to a senior reporter at the Cambridge News, a paper that serves the East Anglia area of eastern England, on Nov. 22, 1963, at 6:05 p.m. local time. Kennedy was shot shortly afterward, as he rode in a presidential motorcade in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 p.m. CST. Dallas is six hours behind Britain. "The caller said only that the Cambridge News reporter should call the American Embassy in London for some big news and then hung up," the memo from the CIA's James Angleton to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover said.
Memo Written To The Director Of The FBI
Newly Released CIA Memo Suggests Foreknowledge Of JFK Assassination
by George Payne
If the American intelligence community intended to suppress any file that would appear as a smoking gun to JFK assassination researchers, they made a huge blunder when they released a memo from the CIA to FBI that says a senior reporter at Cambridge Evening News was told to call the American embassy for some “big news” about 25 minutes before John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The memo, dated Nov. 26, 1963, says, “After the word of the president’s death was received, the reporter informed the Cambridge police of the anonymous call, and the police informed MI5. The important point is that the call was made, according to MI5 calculations, about 25 minutes before the president was shot.”
In fact, the memo was first discovered by a lawyer, Michael Eddowes, who devoted much of his life searching for the truth behind Kennedy’s murder. Eddowes, who died in 1992, believed that the anonymous caller was a British-born Soviet agent named Albert Osborne. According to Eddowes’ theory, the Soviet Union wanted the American leaders and populace to view the assassination as a conspiracy. Enddowes is said to have identified this spy by the alias of John Howard Bowen, a man who knew Lee Harvey Oswald on a personal basis.
As intriguing as this speculation may be, what is indisputable is that whoever placed the call knew what they were doing. This brazen act seized the attention of very powerful individuals in Washington. The memo was from none other than the CIA’s legendary counterintelligence guru James Angleton, and it was written to FBI director Hoover. Dated four days after the president’s death, the memo cryptically states that “similar anonymous phone calls of a strangely coincidental nature have been received by persons in the U.K. over the past year.”
For more see the comprehensive section: Foreknowledge
Shortly after Noon, Lee Harvey Oswald will be seen on the south side of the 1st floor of the Texas School Book Depository (facing Elm St.) by Bill Shelley and Eddie Piper.
12:06 p.m. CST, JFK stops the motorcade to shake hands with children and others at Lemmon and Lomo Alto. He stops again a few blocks later after seeing a nun and a group of children.
The Oxnard Phone Call
12:07 p.m. CST, "The President is going to be killed."
The Oxnard Riddle Explained
by Greg Parker
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t28-the-oxnard-riddle-explained
by Ron Ecker
In my opinion, the Oxnard call, made just minutes before the assassination, is prima facie evidence of a conspiracy. Someone in the Oxnard area had foreknowledge of the assassination. Coincidence can be ruled out. Not only did the caller say that JFK would die at 10:10 am (12:10 Dallas time), but later in the call she amended the time, saying JFK would die at 10:30 (the exact time of the assassination). It’s as if someone in the Oxnard area was actually tracking the progress of the motorcade, with the caller taking into account the delay in arriving at a known kill zone. [The Presidential motorcade was running five minutes late when it arrived in Dealey Plaza at 12:30 CST]
The woman was in full control of her faculties. She stated that he would die at 12:10 - somehow she knew that didn't happen and immediately after that time expired, she amended it to 12:30. Either she was psychic, or she was in radio contact with someone in Dallas involved in the plot. I know which I believe.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/21910-the-oxnard-call
Commission Document 1107 - FBI Gemberling Report of 15 May 1964 re: Assassination of Pres. Kennedy (5 Volumes)
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11503#relPageId=107&tab=page
A telephone company executive says that a woman caller is overheard whispering: “The President is going to be killed.” Ray Sheehan, manager of the Oxnard division of General Telephone Co., says the caller “stumbled into our operator’s circuits,”perhaps by misdialing. Sheehan says the woman “seemed to be a little bit disturbed.” Besides predicting the President’s death, he says, she “mumbled several incoherent things.” Sheehan says the call was reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Los Angeles, but not until after the President had been shot. Until then, he says, it appeared to have been just another crank call Sheehan says there was no way to trace the call. All he could say was that it originated in the Oxnard-Camarillo area, some 50 miles north of Los Angeles. (The FBI in Los Angeles decline to comment.) Sheehan says one telephone supervisor called another onto her line to verify what she was hearing. He said both supervisors heard the woman say the President would be killed. Sheehan says the call was received at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time. The President was shot in Dallas shortly after 10:30 a.m. Pacific time. Sheehan says he doesn’t think the caller was ever connected with another party. He says she may not have known she had the supervisors on the line and may have been just talking to no one in particular.
For more see the comprehensive section: Foreknowledge
12:14 p.m. CST, Police Ban (Channel 2) Curry reports that motorcade is just turning onto Turtle Creek. The speed of the motorcade is 12 MPH. Officers check in on radio, reporting that crowds are good and everything is in good shape along the way.
Michel Roux and Arnold Gachman are having lunch at this time in a Ft. Worth cafe, surrounded by witnesses. It is in this cafe that Roux and Gachman will hear about the assassination.
In Washington, Edwin Guthman, former Pulitzer Prize-winning Seattle Times
reporter and close Kennedy friend, is having lunch with a congressman from Seattle on Capitol Hill.
12:15 p.m. CST, Arnold Rowland, a bystander in the Plaza, asks his wife if she would like to see a Secret Service agent. He points to a window on the sixth floor where he has noticed “a man back from the window -- he was standing and holding a rifle ... we thought momentarily that maybe we should tell someone, but then the thought came to us that it is a security agent.” The man Rowland sees in not stationed in the now famous sixth floor window, but in the far left-hand window. Rowland also spots a second figure at the famous right-hand window. This second man is dark complexioned, and Rowland thinks he is a Negro.
Windows along the motorcade are not systematically being watched by law enforcement personnel since no order has been given (as eventually confirmed by Dallas policeman Perdue Lawrence), although it was agent Lawson’s “usual instructions” to do so. The Dealey Plaza triple underpass will not be cleared of spectators (as Lawson himself later testifies that he was trying to wave them off shortly before the shooting begins). In addition, ambulances (such as the one on standby for President Kennedy that was called to Dealey Plaza five minutes before Kennedy arrived to pick up an alleged “epileptic seizure” victim) have been called to this same area on false alarms in the days and weeks before November 22, as ambulance driver Aubrey Rike will eventually testify.
Assembly Of The Rifle: The FBI will later report that it takes six minutes to assemble a Mannlicher-Carcano, using a dime (since no tools will be found). This leaves 4 to 9 minutes for Lee Harvey Oswald alone to have moved all of the 50-pound boxes into position to form “the sniper’s nest.”
Mrs. R. E. (Carolyn) Arnold, secretary to the vice-president of the Book Depository, goes into the lunchroom on the second floor and sees Oswald sitting in one of the booth seats on the right hand side of the room. He is alone and appears to be having lunch.
The motorcade will pass the building in just fifteen minutes. The FBI will alter Arnold’s report to say that she merely glimpsed Lee Harvey Oswald in the hallway. If Carolyn Arnold is correct, Lee Harvey Oswald is obviously not the man holding a rifle in the sixth floor window - seen at precisely this same time by Arnold Rowland.
John Powell, one of many inmates housed on the sixth floor of the Dallas County Jail, watches two men with a gun in the sixth floor window of the Book Depository Building. He claims he can see them so clearly that he even recalls them “fooling with the scope” on the gun. Powell says, “Quite a few of us saw ‘em. Everybody was trying to watch the parade and all that. We were looking across the street because it was directly straight across. The first thing I thought is, it was security guards ... I remember the guys.”
Mrs. Carolyn Walther notices two men with a gun in an open window at the extreme right-hand end of the Depository on the fifth floor. One of the men is wearing a brown suit coat. “It startled me, then I thought, ‘Well, they probably have guards, possibly in
all the buildings,’ so I didn’t say anything.”
Ruby Henderson sees two men standing back from a window on one of the upper floors of the Book Depository. She particularly notices that one of the men “had dark hair ... a darker complexion than the other.”
Lee E. Bowers, Jr., a railroad employee who is perched in a fourteen-foot railroad switching tower overlooking the parking lot behind the stockade fence, sees a black 1957 Ford enter the lot. Bowers believes the driver is holding a microphone or perhaps a mobile telephone. The car leaves the lot around 12:20.
Tom Dillard, the chief news photographer of the Dallas Morning News, sees two men in the arched windows (6th floor) of the Texas School Book Depository as the car he is riding in turns the corner from Main onto Houston.
Seven eyewitnesses report seeing a man wearing a white or light-colored shirt. Six witnesses (and perhaps as many as 40 inmates) see TWO men on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Four witnesses say the second man is wearing dark clothing or a brown coat. Most of the witnesses say the man wearing the white shirt looks like Lee Harvey Oswald.
When Lee Harvey Oswald is confronted by Marion Baker in the 2nd floor lunchroom of the Texas School Book Depository - moments after the shooting - Lee Harvey Oswald will be wearing a long-sleeved brown shirt.
Gordon Arnold, a young army soldier, wants to get a good view of the motorcade in order to use his movie camera. As he approaches the overpass bridge, he is rebuffed by a plain clothes man identifying himself as CIA. Arnold then moves off to a spot near the grassy knoll where he will watch the motorcade. (AP photographer James Altgens has also been denied permission to be on the bridge.) And yet, thirteen railroad employees of the Union Terminal are allowed on the bridge. Police officers White and Foster, are assigned places at the East and West sides of a bridge than runs North-South. Access to the overpass bridge may have been limited to those with photography equipment.
Roy Truly prepares to leave the Texas School Book Depository for lunch in the company of Orchus Virgil Campbell. The two men decide to delay their departure, however, in order to see the motorcade pass the building.
Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig is standing [as ordered by Sheriff Decker at 10:30 this morning] with other officers in front of the court house at 505 Main Street. Decker has ordered his men to observe but to take no part in the motorcade. Observing the motorcade route,Craig remembers thinking to himself: “There were no officers guarding the intersections or controlling the crowd. My mind flashed back to the meeting in Decker’s office that morning, then back to the lack of security in this area.” Referring to the expected arrival of the Presidential motorcade, Deputy Sheriff Jim Ramsey, standing near Craig, remarks: “Maybe somebody will shoot the son of a bitch.”
12:17 p.m. CST, A young man described as wearing green Army fatigues suddenly collapses at 100 N. Houston, near the front door of the Texas School Book Depository. He apparently is suffering some sort of seizure. An ambulance is called at 12:19 P.M. to take him to Parkland Hospital. Parkland never records a patient registering at this time. This “emergency” results in the opening of a route directly and exactly to Parkland Hospital (“cut all traffic for the ambulance going to Parkland”) -- not for the President, who will be shot only midway through this “emergency”, but for the man with the “epileptic seizure.” “Patient” is later identified as Jerry B. Belknap. He dies in 1986.
Photographer James W. Altgens sees a man having an epileptic fit and watches as an ambulance arrives to pick the man up. Altgens also notices about a dozen people on top of the railroad bridge. He thinks to himself, “What the heck are all those people doing up there,” at the spot where he was not allowed to stay and take his pictures. “And just as the ambulance was clearing the triple underpass, you could see the red lights as the motorcade cut onto Main Street.”
J.D. Tippit checks out in the 4100 block of Bonnieview at Kiest. He radios the dispatcher and says “be out of the car for a minute, 4100 block of Bonnie View.”
In the motorcade, SS agent Clint Hill moves four times from the forward position of the left running board of the follow-up car to the rear step of the Presidential automobile and back again - due to crowd surges along the route.
Governor and Mrs. Connally will later recall:
Governor Connally: Mrs. Kennedy appeared to be much more relaxed, much more in the spirit of things. She was smiling more, obviously more at ease, but one little thing, the Sun was bright. It had come out bright and beautiful. The sky was beautiful, the clouds had dispersed and she put on her dark glasses. What did he say?
Mrs. Connally: He said, “Take your glasses off, Jackie.”
Governor Connally. “Take your glasses off, Jackie.” She kept them off for awhile and she just unconsciously put them back on.
Mrs. Connally: You could hear him again saying, “Take your glasses off, Jackie.”
Governor Connally: This happened a third time. Then, I think she finally left them off.
12:18 p.m. CST, Howard Brennan arrives near the TSBD to watch the motorcade and shortly after sees a man in the sixth floor window.
12:20 p.m. CST, Bonnie Ray Williams, left the 6th floor after finishing his lunch and using the elevator joined co workers on the 5th floor to watch the motorcade.
12:25 p.m. CST,
Dead Phones & No Electrical Power
by James Tague
The JFK Assassination, Part 6: The TSBD’s Electricity
by Randall F. McElroy III
...Four witnesses, two policemen and two employees of the TSBD, said that the elevator was not working. Another employee says that it was not moving, which is different from saying that it was not working but at least does not contradict this idea. Geneva Hine was an employee at the TSBD, and her testimony to the Warren Commission can be found here (quote on page 395). Miss Hine. Yes, sir: I was alone until the lights all went out and the phones became dead because the motorcade was coming near us and no one was calling so I got up and thought I could see it from the east window in our office. This excerpt of the Alyea film shows the elevator in motion at 0:36. This video shows a light on in the entrance to the TSBD at the 2:03 mark. This same light is not on a few minutes prior in the Altgens photo, taken during the assassination. This is consistent with Geneva Hine’s testimony. What does this all add up to? It’s mighty strange that the power wasn’t working when somebody on the sixth floor was busy assassinating the president. This could be a lucky coincidence for the shooter (or team, or however it played out), making it even less likely that somebody would come upstairs in time to witness the act. It becomes more eerie when one learns that the building was owned by D.H. Byrd, an associate of Lyndon Baines Johnson...
Geneva Hine, the only employee in the Depository’s second floor offices, observes the electrical power and telephone system go dead. She tells the Warren Commission, “I was alone until the lights all went out and the phones became dead because the motorcade was coming near us and no one was calling so I got up and thought I could see it from the east window in our office.” The Warren Commission will not question a single TSBD employee, including building manager Roy Truly, about the mysterious interruption of electric or telephone service, nor will they ask the location of the electric and telephone service panels. Moments after the shooting, Geneva Hine knocks on the door of Southwestern Publishing (Room 203 in the TSBD). She sees a woman through the opaque glass, hears her talking on the phone, and continues knocking on the door, but the woman never answers. Researcher John Armstrong questions why a telephone was working in one office when electrical service and phone service went dead everywhere else in the TSBD. The woman using the phone, Mrs. John L. (Carol) Huges, was not questioned by the Warren Commission.
Researcher Richard Gilbride: “I've been wondering about a power stoppage of the elevators for several years, but can't rigorously prove it. What got me started was Geneva Hine's statement that "the lights all went out and the phones became dead because the motorcade was coming near us." I believe she is talking about the Lucite display buttons on the phone carriages that signal an incoming call; there was no switchboard; she was manning the 2nd-floor central-office phones as a favor to the other office girls, since she'd seen the President before. At least 2 ("lights"- plural) phone calls went dead simultaneously. I have to wonder whether a voltage spike or power surge (which also occurs in a negative sense- a negative spike or sudden loss of power) brought about this temporary loss of power to the phones. This could occur if the phone's electrical line was physically close to a strongly-changing electrical line. Then the fundamental force of induction comes into play. A changing current in one line can induce a current to change in a neighboring line, if it is close enough.
There were 2 elevator outages noted: 1) the front passenger elevator wasn't working when Victoris Adams and Sandra Styles tried it on the 4th floor; at 12:31, in my opinion 2) Luke Mooney took the west freight elevator from the 1st to the 2nd floor, and Adams got on, somewhere between 12:45 and 12:50. But the elevator's power then cut out and they had to use the stairs. IF the front passenger elevator and rear freight elevators were tied into the same circuit, the 12:31 passenger elevator outage may mean the freight elevators were shut off at this time as well. The passenger elevator was newly-installed, built during renovations to the vacant warehouse, once the Sexton grocery company moved out of 411 Elm Street. The freight elevators had been in use for years and years. The main junction box for the freight elevators was undoubtedly somewhere just beneath them, in the basement at the rear of the building. It may have been a 440-volt feed, to provide ample power for the elevators. The installation of a passenger elevator required either its own separate junction box, or a cable running along the wall or ceiling to connect with the box for the freight elevators. It's true that, if the outer corrugated-metal gate wasn't shut closed, the west freight elevator couldn't be summoned- riding empty on its own. With the outer gate open, this elevator could still be ridden up & down if, as a safety feature, the inner wooden-slat gate was rolled down. So we may picture Truly yelling up the shaft, 50 seconds after the assassination, and Dougherty standing on the elevator platform at the 5th floor, with the inside gate shut, ignoring Truly, waiting for the power to get turned on. He'd then just press a button for a floor on the control panel inside. It wasn't necessary to cut off the elevator's power, but may have been incorporated into the assassination planning, a precautionary overkill.”
Electrical Power Events: Geneva Hine's phone system lights go off, just before 12:30. Was this a power outage or just no calls at that time?; Truly and Baker are unable to get an elevator down from the 5th floor less than a minute after the shots. Sandra Styles said she and Vicky Adams tried the passenger elevator in front, but when it did not work, they went to the backstairs. The West elevator has power when Mooney gets on the 1st floor, then loses power on the 2nd floor, 12:33-12:36. Who cut power to elevator at that precise moment? Select Elevator circuits and possibly the phone system circuit were reported off, but I have seen no report of all power to the TSBD being off, which would have happened if the Main Circuit breaker was thrown. The 3 elevators would have been on their own dedicated circuits, as would the phone system. The evidence supports the possibility that selected circuits may have been turned on/off at various times just before and after 12:30. This rules out random fuse failure (or circuit breakers being tripped) and supports the notion of manipulation of the power circuits.
12:29 p.m. CST, the presidential limousine entered Dealey Plaza after a 90-degree right turn from Main Street onto Houston Street. Over two dozen known and unknown amateur and professional still and motion-picture photographers captured the last living images of President Kennedy. Just before 12:30 p.m. CST, Kennedy was riding on Houston Street and slowly approached the Texas School Book Depository head-on. The presidential motorcade was traveling about 11 mph.
There are 62 pages of information for 12:30 p.m. CST:
“You know, when he was shot, he had such a wonderful expression on his face…[Then] he looked puzzled…he had his hand out. I could see a piece of his skull coming off. It was flesh-coloured, not white. He was holding out his hand – and I can see this perfectly clean piece detaching itself from his head…”
As the presidential limousine gathered speed, Mrs. Kennedy believed she cried: “I love you, Jack…I kept saying, ‘Jack, Jack, Jack’…All the ride to the hospital, I kept bending over him saying, ‘Jack, Jack, can you hear me? I love you, Jack.’ I kept holding the top of his head down, trying to keep the…” She could not finish the sentence.
Jacqueline Kennedy
12:30 p.m. CST, shots are fired. According to witnesses, the shooting began shortly after the limousine made the sharp left-hand 110 degree turn from Houston onto Elm Street.
WFAA-TV Live Coverage of The Assassination of President Kennedy Part 1 (12:30 P.M - 1:30 P.M C.S.T) (1:00:00)
WFAA-TV Live Coverage of The Assassination of President Kennedy Part 2 (1:30 P.M - 2:30 P.M) (1:00:00)
WFAA- TV Live Coverage of The Assassination of President Kennedy Part 3 (2:30 P.M - 3:44 P.M) (1:14:56)
WFAA- TV Live Coverage of The Assassination of President Kennedy Part 4 (1:01:26)
Assassination Witnesses
216 Witnesses to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
Sorted by Source of Shots
by Stewart Galanor
216 Witnesses to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
Sorted by Source of Shots
by Stewart Galanor
59 Witnesses: Delay on Elm Street
From: Murder in Dealey Plaza - start on page 129
by Vincent Palamara
by Richard Charnin
Witnesses And Suspects In Dealey Plaza
Mary Moorman Describes What She Saw On November 22, 1963 (3:01)
Jean Hill Describes What She Saw In Dealey Plaza On November 22, 1963 (3:02)
The Witnesses: Lee Bowers, Jr. (6:43)
Bill And Gayle Describe What They Saw In Dealey Plaza On November 22, 1963 (10:12(
Roger Craig Describes What He Saw In Dealey Plaza On November 22, 1963 (4:45)
Abraham Zapruder Describes What He Saw In Dealey Plaza On November 22, 1963 (3:46)
Orville Nix Describes What He Saw In Dealey Plaza On November 22, 1963 (4:26)
James Tague Describes What He Observed In Dealey Plaza On November 22, 1963 (4:09)
S.M. Holland Describes What He Observed In Dealey Plaza On November 22, 1963 (9:52)
Richard Dodd Describes What He Observed In Dealey Plaza On November 22, 1963 (3:31)
J. C. Price Describes What He Saw In Dealey Plaza On November 22, 1963 (3:37)
James Simmons Describes What He Observed In Dealey Plaza On November 22, 1963 4:38)
JFK Assassination Interview Ed Hoffman (1:56)
For more see the comprehensive section: Assassination Witnesses
The Assassination of John F. Kennedy and its Coverage on Radio and Television
President Kennedy's last seconds traveling through Dealey Plaza were recorded on silent 8 mm filmOffsite Link for the 26.6 seconds before, during, and immediately following the assassination. This famous film footage was taken by garment manufacturer and amateur cameraman Abraham ZapruderOffsite Link, in what became known as the Zapruder filmOffsite Link. Frame enlargements from the Zapruder film were published by Life magazineOffsite Link shortly after the assassination. The footage was first shown publicly as a film at the trial of Clay ShawOffsite Link in 1969, and on television in 1975. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, an arbitration panel ordered the U.S. government to pay $615,384 per second of film to Zapruder's heirs for giving the film to the National Archives. The complete film, which lasts for 26 seconds, was valued at $16 million.
Zapruder was not the only person who photographed at least part of the assassination; a total of 32 photographers were in Dealey Plaza. Amateur movies taken by Orville NixOffsite Link, Marie MuchmoreOffsite Link (shown on television in New York on November 26, 1963), and photographer Charles Bronson captured the fatal shot, although at a greater distance than Zapruder. Other motion picture films were taken in Dealey Plaza at or around the time of the shooting by Robert Hughes, F. Mark Bell, Elsie Dorman, John Martin Jr., Patsy Paschall, Tina Towner, James Underwood, Dave Wiegman, Mal CouchOffsite Link, Thomas Atkins, and an unknown woman in a blue dress on the south side of Elm Street.
Still photos were taken by Phillip WillisOffsite Link, Mary MoormanOffsite Link, Hugh W. Betzner Jr., Wilma Bond, Robert Croft, and many others. The lone professional photographer in Dealey Plaza who was not in the press cars was Ike AltgensOffsite Link, photo editor for the Associated PressOffsite Link in Dallas.
An unidentified woman, nicknamed the Babushka LadyOffsite Link by researchers, might have been filming the Presidential motorcade during the assassination. She was seen apparently doing so on film and in photographs taken by the others.
Location Of Photographers And Cameramen In Dealey Plaza
JFK Assassination Zapruder Stabilized Motion Panorama HD (1:55)
JFK Assasination - The Orville Nix Film (2:10)
JFK Marie Muchmore Film, Elm Street Sequence (1:18)
For more see the comprehensive section: Videos
For more see the comprehensive section: Abraham Zapruder And The Zapruder Film
Assassination Photographs
The Man in the Doorway identified
by Larry Rivera
OIC Chairman Larry Rivera has done a final revision of his historic overlay study regarding the Altgens photo. He spells out the reasons for the revision below, which is followed by the paper itself in its entirety. This is the latest and the greatest: Oswald's face fits over Doorman's like a glove.
JFK: Judyth Vary Baker cements Oswald in the Doorway
by Jim Fetzer with Judyth Vary Baker
JFK - Altgens Photo 6 Colorized: Bullet Hole Clearly Visible In Windshield (3:16)
Clint Hill climbs on to the JFK limousine, with Jacqueline Kennedy still on the trunk.
Notice the bullet hole (white spot) in the windshield, just to the left of rearview mirror and rear antenna.
Am I the first to see the bullet hole through the windshield in this photograph?
The Altgens photo is vast and sprawling, encompassing many figures, but there are strange and anomalous features in one particular part of it, the area in and around the doorway of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD). And, all of the anomalies center around the figure whom we refer to as Doorway Man or Doorman. That area can't represent more than 5% of the whole photograph, but, it is where you will find a gathering of motley figures whom Ralph refers to, affectionately, as "The Addams Family."
For more see the comprehensive section: Photographs
The Rabbinic Curse And The Kennedys
by Timothy Fitzpatrick
“`Nothing in the universe is coincidence,’ Rabbi Meir Yeshurun of the Kabbalah Center in Boca Raton, Florida, told a reporter for The Palm Beach Post. ‘Somebody in the [Kennedy] family did something to open the family to this negative energy, and that has been plaguing the Kennedys for decades.’ According to a story that is told in mystical Jewish circles . . . [JFK’s father] Joseph Kennedy . . . returned to the United States aboard an ocean liner that was also carrying Israel Jacobson, a poor Lubavitcher rabbi, and six of his yeshiva students, who were fleeing Germany. . . . “A notorious anti-Semite, Kennedy complained to the captain that the bearded, black-clad Jews were upsetting the first class passengers by praying on the Jewish high holy day of Rosh Hashanah . . . In retaliation, or so the story goes, Rabbi Jacobson put a curse on Kennedy, damning him and all his male offspring to tragic fates.. . . “. . . It is a curious fact that the very same people who scoff at the concept of Kismet, or fate, find it difficult to dismiss the concept of curses . . . [The Kennedy family] made the fatal mistake of thinking of themselves as divine.”
Edward Klein, former Editor-in-Chief of The New York Times Magazine, writing in the opening pages of The Kennedy Curse (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2003)
The Assassination Of John F. Kennedy
A great resource on the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Sections include: Important Figures in the Case, Important Witnesses, Investigators, Researchers and Journalists, Possible Conspirators, Organizations and Operations, Reports on the Assassination, Kennedy Assassination Issues, Primary Sources: Key Issues, Primary Sources: Theories and Student Activities.
Primary Sources: Assassination of JFK
by John Simkin
An Overview of the Assassination of JFK
by John Simkin
November 22, 1963: Death of the President
Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas.
An excellent overview of Lee Harvey Oswald's life and the many spooks around him:
The Fingerprints of Intelligence
Chapter 19 of: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
by David Talbot
After returning to New Orleans with his mother in 1954, the fifteen-year-old Oswald hooked up with the Civil Air Patrol, a group of young men interested in learning how to fly. The military auxiliary group, which was founded during World War II to help defend America’s coastlines against German and Japanese attack, not only trained future pilots, it inculcated the patriotic Cold War values of the time. Among its founders was David Harold Byrd, a right-wing Texas oilman and defense contractor. Byrd also owned the Texas School Book Depository, the Dallas warehouse where Oswald would be hired in the fall of 1963 and allegedly establish a sniper’s lair on the sixth floor of the building. It was just one of the many curiosities that marked the life of Lee Harvey Oswald...
...But if Oswald was not acting as a paid operative, he was being acted upon. By early 1961, when Oswald notified the U.S. embassy in Moscow that he wanted to return to America, he was the subject of an enormous amount of secret paperwork in the deep recesses of the CIA, FBI, State Department, and Office of Naval Intelligence.
Years later, Richard Schweiker, the Republican senator from Pennsylvania who was one of the first legislators to try to unravel the mystery of Lee Harvey Oswald, while serving with the Church Committee, eloquently summed up the strange malleability of Oswald’s life. “Everywhere you look with him,” said Schweiker, “there are the fingerprints of intelligence.”
Oswald’s reentry into the United States was absurdly easy, considering his treasonous track record. He had tried to renounce his citizenship; he had declared his intention to betray his country by handing over some of its most zealously guarded military secrets; he had lived as if he were a Soviet citizen for well over two years. And to top it off, he was bringing back with him a Russian wife, Marina, who had been raised by an uncle who was a KGB officer...
For more see the comprehensive section: Lee Harvey Oswald
Limousine Almost Stopped Or Stopped Twice And The Secret Service Inactions
The Presidential limousine, SS-100-X, almost stopped or stopped twice. The first time was when Will Greer, the Secret Service agent driver, almost missed the 110 degree left turn from Houston Street on to Elm Street. These frames aren't in the Zapruder film. The second was when the Presidential limousine was in the kill zone.
For more on SS-100-X see the comprehensive section: Limousine SS-100-X
59 Witnesses: Delay on Elm Street (Starts on page 129 of: Murder in Dealey Plaza)
by Vincent Michael Palamera
https://www.krusch.com/books/kennedy/Murder_In_Dealey_Plaza.pdf
The Secret Service and the Failure to Protect President Kennedy
by Vincent Michael Palamera
Grassy Knoll Shots? Limousine Slowdown?
by Donald E. Wilkes Jr.
Wiretapping in Mexico City, Double Agents, and the Framing of Lee Oswald
by Bill Simpich
When everything is put together, the conduct of Secret Service agents Roy Kellerman and William Greer is very troubling.
...Given this background, I am very troubled by the conduct of Secret Service agents Roy Kellerman and William Greer, who rode in the front seat of the presidential limousine on November 22. I don’t like accusing anyone without strong and telling evidence, and this is an instance where no one item of evidence will tell the story. Given that four million pages were released in the late nineties, and Palamara's eighty Secret Service interviews have been conducted only since the eighties, the role of the Secret Service has to be reviewed as if it was the first time.
When Palamara reported that the tall buildings were not checked in Dallas - which violated the Secret Service guideline that mandated inspection whenever the motorcade route was one that had been used in the past, as was the case here - the hairs went up on the back of my neck. U. E. Baughman, the former chief of the Secret Service referred to this as a rigid rule.
After reviewing the various roles they have played, I believe that Greer and Kellerman deserve close scrutiny. Although I am not an expert on this aspect of the case, Vince Palamara has studied the Secret Service for many years. Although Palamara describes himself as a great admirer of the Secret Service, he considers Greer to be a prime suspect. For the reasons set forth below, I am concerned about several Secret Service officers, including Greer and Kellerman.
The way to stop an assassination attempt is to immediately protect the body of the President, like Agent Rufus Youngblood who hurled his body on top of Vice President Lyndon Johnson. Many assassination cases involve a breakdown in security, and this case is no exception.
Just look at the Zapruder film. Greer was JFK’s driver. Greer was trained to accelerate and swerve if the President was in danger, but he did just the opposite. The consensus of 59 witnesses indicates that Greer slowed down the limousine after the first shot was fired, and that Greer accelerated after he looked back twice at the President and the last shots were fired.
The best witness of all was Jackie Kennedy. She said that Greer had not acted during the crucial moment, that he might just as well have been Miss Shaw” (the children’s nanny), and if Greer had hit the gas “Jack might still be alive.” Greer’s son indicated that his father was one of those people who had no respect for John F. Kennedy. Greer was a servant for JFK’s rival Henry Cabot Lodge for many years, and was a Northern Irish Protestant in an era where the Protestant-Catholic hatred was palpable. When Greer’s son was asked “what did your father think of JFK?”, the son was silent. When the question was repeated, Greer responded: “Well, we’re Methodists ... and JFK was Catholic.”
Roy Kellerman was the assistant special agent in charge of security, the Secret Service's #3 man for the White House Detail and the agency's official in charge of the entire Texas journey. Although the Warren Report stated that Kellerman sent a tentative schedule for the trip on November 8, Kellerman claimed that he was not even informed of the assignment until November 17. On the 22nd, Kellerman was in the front seat, while William Greer drove the limousine.
The Secret Service informaed the Warren Commission that there were “two general principles in emergencies involving the President. All agents are so instructed.” The first principle was to shield JFK with his body at the first sign of danger. Kellerman barely moved a muscle during the seven seconds of shooting. The second principle was to “remove the President as quickly as possible from known or impending danger.” Only after the fatal head shot seven seconds later did Greer hit the accelerator. Why?
Kellerman admitted that Connally’s position between him and the President did not present a serious obstacle. Greer was reduced to telling Jackie Kennedy how sorry he was that he never swerved the car. Granted, even trained agents can freeze in a confusing situation such as this ambush. It is also well-documented that a number of Secret Service agents had been drinking in the early morning hours before the assassination. But there are more problems.
Did JFK’s limousine come to a stop amid the gunfire?
...Thanks to Doug Horne’s interview with Dino Brugioni, the CIA’s leading photo analyst, I have had to revisit my previous skepticism. Brugioni viewed the Zapruder film not long after it was delivered to the CIA on November 23, 1963, and he recalls seeing imagery that does not appear in the film that is now in the National Archives.
Many will scoff at such statements as conspiratorial foolishness.
Yet Brugioni is a highly credible source, to say the least. He headed the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center for decades. He has no conceivable interest in fostering doubts about the authenticity of the Zapruder film and every reason not to. Yet his cogent and detailed comments do exactly that. Those who scoff at the idea that the film was altered need to address Brugioni’s comments.
Horne argues that the alteration of the film removed images of the presidential limousine making a brief but definite stop when the shots rang out. Horne argues these frames depicted JFK hit by gunfire from multiple directions. He says they were removed from the film when it was process at Kodak’s “Hawkeyeworks” R&D lab, in Rochester, New York, the weekend after JFK’s assassination.
While I knew that many eyewitnesses said the limousine had come to a stop amid the gunfire, I assumed these accounts were shaped by the “time slowing down” phenomenon that witnesses to surprising events often report....
Walter Cronkite Mentioned the JFK Limo Stopping on Elm Street 22 Minutes After the Assassination
by Douglas P. Horne
The Muchmore film suggests frames were removed from the Zapruder film (3:33)
The Hidden History of an Enigmatic Agency
by Philip H. Melanson
Police Said that JFK's Limousine Stopped Completely
The U.S. Secret Service Murdered JFK
by Ronald Barbour
...Agent Winston G. Lawson of the Secret Service Presidential Detail in the company of Agent Sorrells of the Dallas field office drove the proposed Kennedy motorcade route on November 14, 1963, and thus were well aware of the dog leg at Dealey Plaza that had to be taken at slow speed that exposed President Kennedy and his party to gun fire coming from the high rise structures in the area.
Secret Service agents assigned to the Kennedy motorcade were allowed to drink the night before into the early hours of November 22, 1963 with the knowledge of their superior officers. Secret Service regulations state clearly that “On Call” agents be alcohol free at least 24 hours in advance of a protective mission. This did not happen, nor were the hung over agents replaced with sober agents for the fateful day.
On November 19, 1963, the Dallas “Times Herald” and other local newspapers printed the exact route the Kennedy motorcade would take on November 22, 1963. It is certain that the Secret Service was aware of this breach of security, yet they did nothing to modify or change the Kennedy motorcade route. This was another major error on the part of Agents Lawson and Sorrells.
Agents Greer and Kellerman – the driver of the Kennedy limousine and his supervisor – froze when the three shots were fired by Oswald in Dealey Plaza. Agent Greer stopped the car briefly and looked back to the passenger compartment where President Kennedy was being killed and Governor Connally seriously wounded. This was in complete disregard of Secret Service regulations that required the car to speed up and make evasive moves to throw off the aim of an sniper in case of an assassination attempt. Agent Kellerman is recorded as freezing when the shots rang out. It was only when Agent Hill jumped aboard to keep Mrs. Kennedy in the car did Agent Greer put on the gas and exited the kill zone.
The actions of Agent Emory P. Roberts are highly suspect. At Love Field where the Kennedy motorcade begin that fateful day, This was highly irregular and another violation of Secret Service regulations. So unusual was this move one of the bodyguards is filmed holding out his hands as if to ask, “why?” Later when the shots were fired in Dealey Plaza, Agent Roberts ordered his men not to leave the back up car. This order was disobeyed by Agent Hill who managed to keep Mrs. Kennedy from climbing out of the presidential limousine. This was the only heroic action displayed by the Secret Service that fateful day.
Agent Kellerman and “The Battle of Kennedy's Body.” The actions of Agent Kellerman went from passive to aggressive when he and a Secret Service detail with drawn guns stole the body of President Kennedy and the blooded limousine from Texas authorities, who had jusdiction over the evidence of the homicide. This made detailed analysis of the crime scene very difficult....
For more see the comprehensive section: Secret Service
Are The Shots From The Sixth Floor Of The Texas School Book Depository Possible?
by John Simkin
Craig Roberts was a U.S. Marine sniper. In 1994 he wrote a book, Kill Zone: A Sniper Looks at Dealey Plaza. Here are two passages which I believe reading in some detail.
(1) Unlike Oswald, who failed to qualify on the rifle range in Boot Camp, and who barely qualified "Marksman" the lowest of three grades-on a later try, I was a trained and combat-experienced Marine sniper. I had spent a year in Vietnam, during which time I had numerous occasions to line up living, breathing human beings in the crosshairs of my precision Unertl scope and squeeze the trigger of my bolt-action Model 70 Winchester and send a .30 caliber match-grade round zipping down range.
Here I was, a professional police officer and writer, looking down at the most famous ambush site in history through the eyes of a sniper. A strange feeling came over me. A feeling of calm, dampening my anger. The trained investigator inside me surfaced and took over my emotions. I began to scrutinize what my senses were absorbing.
First, I analyzed the scene as a sniper. In the time allotted, and in the distance along the street in which the rounds had impacted the target from first report to final shot, it would take a minimum of two people shooting. There was little hope that I alone, even if armed with the precision equipment I had used in Vietnam, would be able duplicate the feat described by the Warren Commission. So if I couldn't, I reasoned, Oswald couldn't.
Unless he had help.
I looked at the engagement angle. It was entirely wrong. The wall of the building in which the windows overlooked Dealey Plaza ran east and west. By looking directly down at the best engagement angle-which was straight out the window facing south-I could see Houston Street. Houston was perpendicular to the wall and ran directly toward my window. This is the street on which the motorcade had approached and would have been my second choice as a zone of engagement. My first choice was directly below the window, at a drastic bend in the street that had to be negotiated by Kennedy's limousine. It would have to slow appreciably, almost to a stop, and when it did, the target would be presented moving at its slowest pace. The last zone of engagement I would pick would be as the limo drove away toward the west-and the Grassy Knoll. Here, from what I could see, three problems arose that would influence my shots. First, the target was moving away at a drastic angle to the right from the window, meaning that I would have to position my body to compete with the wall and a set of vertical water pipes on the left frame of the window to get a shot. This would be extremely difficult for a righthanded shooter. Second, I would have be ready to fire exactly when the target emerged past some tree branches that obscured the kill zone. Finally, I would have to deal with two factors at the same time: the curve of the street, and the high-to-low angle formula-a law of physics Oswald would not have known.
Even if I waited for the target to pass the primary and secondary engagement zones, and for some reason decided to engage instead in the worst possible area, I still had to consider the fact that Oswald made his farthest, and most difficult shot, last. I estimated the range for this shot at between 80 and 90 yards. It was this final shot that, according to the Warren Commission, struck Kennedy's head.
As an experienced sniper, something else bothered me. Any sniper knows that the two most important things to be considered in selecting a position are the fields of fire, and a route of escape. You have to have both. It is of little value to take a shot, then not be able to successfully get away to fight another day. Even if the window was a spot that I would select for a hide, I had doubts about my ability to escape afterwards. According to what little I had read, the elevator was stuck on a floor below at the time in question, and only the stairway could have been used as a means of withdrawal. And there were dozens of people-potential witnesses-below who would be able to identify anyone rushing away from the scene. Not good.
But Oswald was not a trained or experienced military sniper. He was supposed to be little more than some odd-ball with a grudge. And for whatever reason, had decided to buy a rifle and shoot the President of the United States. Or so the Warren Commission would have us believe.
(2) Knoll and the Picket Fence, which I had purposely saved for last. I walked up the slope and around the fence, arriving in a parking lot that was bordered on the northwest by train tracks. I walked the length of the fence, stopping at a spot on the eastern end.
I looked over the fence at Elm Street and froze. This is exactly where I would position myself if I wanted the most accurate shot possible considering the terrain I had explored. It had some drawbacks-it was close to witnesses, and prone to pre-incident discovery-but the advantages far outweighed the disadvantages for a determined assassin. The target vehicle would be approaching instead of moving away, thereby continually decreasing the range; the shot would be almost flat trajectory, making the down-angle formula a mute point; the deflection (right/left angle) would change little until the car passed a freeway sign on the north curbline; and finally, it offered numerous escape route possibilities. Behind me, to the north and west, was a parking lot full of cars, a train yard full of boxcars, and several physical terrain features to use as cover during withdrawal. It was by far the best spot.
Looking almost due east, across the grassy open park-like Plaza, I could see two multi-story office-type buildings approximately the same height as the Depository. The roof tops of either building would be excellent firing positions for a trained rifleman with the proper equipment, and would be the places I would select if I wanted the best possible chance of not being detected in advance. Without going to the roofs of each, I could not determine the accessibility of escape routes. But for firing platforms, they were ideal.
Then, considering the possibility of multiple-snipers (which meant a conspiracy), I had to ask myself how I would position the shooters to cover the kill zone in front of the Grassy Knoll?
My military training once again took over. I would use an area within the Plaza that would afford the best kill zone for either a crossfire or triangulated fire. Simply put, I would position my teams in such a way that their trajectory of fire converged on the most advantageous point to assure a kill. In the military, single snipers are seldom used. Normally, the smallest sniper team consists of two men, a sniper and his spotter/security man. Even in police SWAT teams, a marksman has an observer who is equipped with a spotting scope or binoculars to help pick and identify targets and handle the radio communications.
In this case, I would position at least one team behind the Picket Fence (more if I wanted to secure the rear against intruders), another on one or both of the two office buildings (which I later found to be the Dallas County Records Building and the County Criminal Courts Building), and possibly a team on a building across the street north of the Records Building known at the time as the Dal-Tex building. I would have never put anyone in the School Book Depository with so many locations that were much more advantageous unless I needed diversion. If I did, it would be a good place for red herrings to be observed by witnesses.
by William Orchard
[Interesting, but the throat entry wound occurred from a bullet that entered through the front windshield. It was fired from South side of Dealey Plaza by the underpass. Read:]
The Kennedy Limousine: Dallas 1963 (Starts at page 139 of: Murder in Dealey Plaza)
by L. Fletcher Prouty
Photographic Research by Richard E. Sprague
The reason for the assassination was to control the power of the presidency.
How was the Warren Commission kept from investigating and seeing evidence? This is the real issue. This is a crime to top the crime.
...On December 9, 1963, the FBI reported that three shots had been fired and that two hit the President and that one hit John Connally. The FBI says there were no other shots. The FBI was less specific than the Secret Service. The FBI was wrong.
Then, much later, on September 27, 1964 (ten months after the crime), the Warren Commission issued its report along with twenty-six huge volumes of random data. This report states that there were three shots. The Warren Commission was wrong.
According to the Warren Commission, the first shot, the "miracle bullet" designed and dreamed up by one of its lawyers (Arlen Specter), is one of the most fascinating contrivances of our generation. Forced to account for a series of unrelated events, Arlen Specter came up with a weird solution. He says the first bullet hit JFK, passed through the muscle of his upper back exited from his lower throat, traveled a few feet in the air, changed course, and entered Connally's back, plunged through his body, broke about five inches of one of his right rib bones, came out again, and then slammed into his right wrist, where it broke two more bones, exited again, and then pierced his thigh and ended its strange journey embedded in his thigh bone.
An interpretation of this thesis, based on photographic and medical evidence, means the bullet would have had to have made a right and upward turn upon leaving JFK's throat, paused in midair for more than two seconds, made a left and steep downward turn as it entered Connally's back, made a right and upward turn as it left Connally's chest, passed through Connally's wrist in the direction backward from the way his wrist was facing, made another left and downward turn, then wound up in Connally's left thigh.
Right here we see the brazen, "To Hell with the Public" character of the Commission report. Can you imagine some lawyer, even the persuasive and imaginative Specter, selling that bullet and its bumble-bee flight to any jury of intelligent Americans? The Commission was stuck with a "three bullet" crime because the Secret Service and the FBI had both reported three bullets, because there were only 6.8 seconds of shooting[1], as proven precisely by a film of the event made by Abraham Zapruder, and because the character who planted the shells at the "Oswald lair" had only put three there. Furthermore, if they were going to stick with the "lone assassin" solution, they were faced with the hard task of making it appear feasible that Oswald alone could have gotten off just three bullets in 6.8 seconds, let alone four, five, or six...
...As if this were not fantasy enough, and as if this were not carrying their "To Hell with the Public" role far enough, the Commission reports that this same miracle bullet was found forty-five minutes later in the Parkland Hospital more than three hectic miles from the scene of the murder. It was on a stretcher which "somebody" presumed Connally had been lying on.
This is the stuff of the Commission solution and this is what we have been asked and forced to believe for the past eleven years. Any ballistics expert worth his gunpowder would shrink from the task of developing the theory of that bullet. Pictures of that undamaged bullet show it as clean as a brand-new slug. It looks as though it had hardly been fired at all, let alone having traveled through two men, broken three bones, and lodged in a fourth.
I have worked with the CIA and military officials in testing special rifles. I have seen countless bullets fired into gelatin and paraffin to simulate body hits on humans. I have seen goats shot under controlled conditions to show what impact will do. In my own experience, admittedly limited, I have never seen an undamaged slug, no matter what substance it had been fired into, except when fired carefully into cotton.[4] But even then there are scars, lines, and even deformity. The "Specter Miracle Bullet" does not even show that much damage.
There is no point in dwelling on this in more detail here except for the most important fact that, if any of the major Commission conclusions are shattered, then the whole house of cards comes down and the whole Commission solution is exploded. And because this solution is wrong, then Lee Harvey Oswald was not the lone assassin, and because he was not the lone assassin, there was a conspiracy.
This incredulous miracle bullet, then, is the key to opening the whole can of worms. Let's look at bullet Number Two, the one which hit a curb and injured bystander James Tague. The Secret Service and the FBI ignored it and the Commission passed over it lightly. Now, if you were told that the assassin missed the President and that the bullet hit a curb; and if you were told that the assassin fired from high above from the sixth floor, you would not have been wrong to have concluded that this errant bullet hit the curb on the far side of the street beside the President's car. Wrong!
This bullet hit the curb on the far side of the next street and more than twice as far away as the car was from the sixth-floor window. The President's car was traveling down Elm Street, and Tague was standing on Main Street. If that bullet was fired by Oswald in the first window, then he missed JFK by twenty-one feet on the right and thirty-three feet overhead and the shot went 260 feet rather than ninety feet. This is a fantastic and unbelievable miss for a man who was supposedly able to fire the "Specter Miracle Bullet" on his first try and then to knock the entire right side of the President's head off with his third shot after pumping two bullets into that ancient single-shot rifle in 6.8 seconds!
It is much more plausible to believe that this missed shot was fired from a point much lower down and on a line with the nick on the curbstone and the President's head. In other words, a near miss. This would have placed the gunman's lair somewhere in the adjacent Dal Tex Building, perhaps under the second-floor fire escape. This establishes a second lair, a second gun, and a second "mechanic."
Lyndal Shaneyfelt, the FBI's ballistics and photographic expert, took this picture from the spot where the shot that missed hit the curb. By sighting back to the sixth floor window, the degree of miss can be seen. By sighting directly over JFK's position, the top of the white car in the center lane, anyone can see where the shot came from: the second floor window of the Dal Tex building.
It is not hard to find another shot that Oswald could not have made. The Zapruder film clearly fixes the time of the first shot at frame Z-189. Also, the Zapruder film clearly fixes the location of the car -- and thus the President -- at Z-189.
There were broken white lines on the road and it can be shown exactly where the car was at the time of each shot by its position relative to these lines. Knowing this, it is possible to draw a line from the precise position of the President at Z-189 up to the Oswald "lair." In this process, another unexplained oversight of the Commission is discovered. There is a huge oak tree in front of the Book Depository building. In November 1963 that tree was so large that it made it impossible for anyone to have lined up a shot from the Oswald window at the President at Z-189.
The earliest time a shot could line up with the President was at Z-210. At that time the tree was no longer in the way. What did the Warren Commission think? Apparently, nothing. It ignored the tree.
This is Phil Willis' fifth photo, showing JFK approaching sign; Zapruder in background on grassy knoll pedestal, camera at eye. Willis said he snapped photo in reaction to hearing first shot. Photo was sanpped at Z-202, confirming Z-189 was time of first shot. A similar photo taken by Hugh Betzner confirms the timing of this shot. The trajectory of that first bullet did not correspond to a line from the President to that lair. In fact, the medical evidence, statements from the doctors at Parkland Hospital, as well as other evidence indicates that the shot came from the front. So there had to be a third mechanic.
At this point it is important to make certain that we have laid all of this out with reasonable credibility. I have been working on this problem since 1963. Many others have been working that long doing very specialized and very detailed work.
This series of frames from the Zapruder film show that JFK's right hand is still falling and clenched as he emerges from behind the sign (up to frame Z-225). Note the drastic change in his position: hands, head, elbows, shoulders, and arms (between Z-225 and Z-227) in just 2/18 of a second. This indicates a second shot striking him in the back at Z-225...
...It is astounding to learn that in their entire work the Commission was permitted to see only twenty-six of these pictures, and that the FBI limited its examination to some fifty of the 510. The Commission principals interviewed only four of the thirty professional photographers and saw only about a dozen of their several hundred photographs. Here was evidence enough to arouse the interest and curiosity of any investigator. How could all of this vital, most essential evidence have been kept from the Commission? Today, one of the members of this Commission is President of the United States. He is an intelligent and IMG#s 17-20: Zapruder frames showing final and fatal shot striking JFK at Z-313 experienced man. How could it have been arranged so that men such as Gerald Ford did not have the chance to see all of these photographs? In all there were more than 25,000 frames of pictures exposed within that crucial hour at Dealey Plaza. (This includes the frames of movie camera film, some of which have been so vitally important when studied frame by frame.)
This sequence of Zapruder frames shows that the final and fatal shot striking JFK at Z-313, which caused an enormous explosion, drove his head and upper body back and to his left until he bounced off the rear seat cushion at Z-321. The acceleration back to the left in the first two frames following Z-313 have been calculated by Josiah Thompson in Six Seconds in Dallas at more than 75 feet per second per second. The shot came from the grassy knoll, right to front.
Consider what real professionals can do with such evidence. It is possible to build a time-phased chronological moving panorama of all events on Dealey Plaza from five minutes before the murder to ninety minutes after it. Sprague and his associates have done this. It reveals some amazingly accurate sequences. For example, there is the "umbrella" man.
As the President's car rounds the corner from Houston Street turning left onto the fatal Elm Street, pictures show a man near a road sign, right next to where the President was killed. This man is holding a closed umbrella in a walking-cane position. It was high noon and no rain. No one else at Dealey Plaza had an umbrella.
As the shots are fired, this man is seen in several pictures with his umbrella open and over his head (some sort of signal). Then other pictures show him later with the umbrella lowered to his side. Although everyone else runs from the scene and races around in the excitement, the umbrella man stays there calmly, looking around. He is one of the last to leave the scene.
This man shows up on a number of photographs. His actions certainly do arouse suspicion, and yet the Commission did not see these pictures, did not know about this strange man. He was never queried or identified in any way. This is no ordinary oversight. This is a strange and dangerous subversion of justice. Who did this? How could such evidence have been withheld from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and other singularly respected men who were serving with him? It begs credulity to attribute such gross errors to oversight. How was this Commission kept from investigating and "seeing" such things? This is the real issue...
...These two photos are enlargements of the two photos found in the garage. The line where Oswald's real head was glued onto the two photos of another man's body at the chin line can be seen. A whole series of mistakes was made by the team who did this work. One of the most obvious is the way the shadow under Oswald's nose in the two photos tilts with his head. This shows that the same head photo was glued on at two different angles. These fake photos taken with a camera that didn't belong to Oswald were accepted as totally valid by the Warren Commission and the FBI. Marina Oswald was forced by the assassination team to testify that she took these two photos...
...Kennedy had been in Miami in September 1963. Prior to that, a Miami police informer had uncovered the existence of a plot to kill JFK either in Miami or in some other city. The Miami police, in accordance with good practice, turned this information over to the FBI and the FBI informed the Miami Police that they had turned that information over to the Secret Service. When JFK went to Miami, he was well protected to and from the airport because he traveled by helicopter. This was the beginning of the plot and from that time on the FBI and the Secret Service should have been on maximum alert. Why weren't they? Who pulled them off the job? Certainly not Oswald. Certainly not Castro. Certainly not Khrushchev.
Before that time, plans were being made to have Kennedy visit Texas "for political purposes." In accordance with this plan, Eugene Zuchert, then Secretary of the Air Force, had suggested, perhaps unwittingly, that JFK should visit San Antonio and make a speech at the opening of an Air Force medical facility at Brooks Air Force Base. With this first step planned, someone else suggested that JFK should visit Fort Worth. A bitter multi-billion-dollar contest over the award of the TFX (F-111) airplane had ended with the contract being given to the General Dynamics Corporation's facility in that city. The idea was that it would make good sense for Kennedy to make political hay out of the "good will" that Fort Worth might have for the President. JFK went from San Antonio to Fort Worth.
Considering Texas politics, it would not have been right for the President to go to Fort Worth and not go to Dallas; so plans were made for the President to mend fences there, too, and there were a lot of anti-Kennedy fences in Dallas at that time. This was done despite the warnings from Miami and the Miami police. Jerry Bruno, Kennedy's advance man, went to Dallas. Kenneth O'Donnell, another Kennedy aide, worked on the trip, too. But somehow, after their initial work, the plans were changed. By whom? Who selected that unusual and devious route around Dealey Plaza? It was not Bruno or O'Donnell.
Then things began to get complicated. Someone decided that the Vice-President, Texan Lyndon B. Johnson, should go to Dallas with the President, and that he and his friend John Connally should be in the procession with Kennedy and other Democratic bigwigs. Also, someone else saw to it that another useful tool -- Richard M. Nixon -- should be in Dallas that day. Indoctrination and near-complicity is an excellent form of discipline, spelled BLACKMAIL. Here we must stop and begin another analysis.
The Secret Service was founded on June 23, 1860. It is an old, proud, and highly professional organization. I have traveled to foreign countries and have worked in support of the Secret Service. I am familiar with its operating procedures. I am familiar with what is called "Protection" in its most elaborate sense. I was at the Cairo Conference and the Teheran Conference, both in 1943. I participated in actions designed to safeguard the lives of the chiefs of state who attended those conferences. I traveled to Mexico City during the tenure of President Eisenhower as part of a mission to prepare for the security of his visit there. I was in Lima, Peru in 1964 while that city went through more than three months of preparation for a de Gaulle visit by the famous "gorillas" whose skilled work kept Charles de Gaulle alive in the face of repeated attempts on his life.
Because of my familiarity with these highly skilled and meticulous organizations, I have been doubly concerned over some of the events that did not take place in San Antonio, Fort Worth, and Dallas during and before the visit by Kennedy in 1963. This is of extreme significance. It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. It is even harder to keep an old dog from doing his old tricks.
How could it have happened that the Secret Service, contrary to all good sense and all professional "Protection" practice, permitted the President and the Vice-President to be in close proximity in the same city, in the same procession? This is unheard of. The Secret Service dates back more than a century and they had never permitted that to take place before. Why this time?
Here we must go back to our scientific and systematic perusal of the thousands of pictures available about this incident. One of the most remarkable and important pictures taken of the entire 25,000 was one taken by James Altgens, a professional photographer from the Associated Press. (See photo 8.) By cross-referencing this remarkable photograph with the Zapruder film chronology, it is possible to determine that this picture was taken 3.6 seconds after the first shot was fired and 3.2 seconds before the last shot.
This is very important. This picture clearly shows JFK beginning to clench his fists. It shows Jackie's gloved hand holding his left arm just above the wrist (she begins to sense something is wrong). It shows Connally sitting directly in front of JFK just beginning to turn to the rear as if to see what the trouble was. Then it shows a carload of Secret Service men immediately behind the Presidential car, and save for three of those eight men, one would say that they were, at that moment, unconcerned and more or less unaware that anything was happening. The three men are looking to the rear either because they had been looking to the rear, as they are supposed to do at all times, or because they may have heard something from that direction.
But then events in the third car show something quite startling. The third car was the Vice-President's automobile. The driver and Lady Bird Johnson are smiling and unconcerned at 3.6 seconds into the assassination; Lyndon and his bodyguard are sitting in their seats in this photo, but are partially obscured by the edge of the car on the left.
Then we look at the fourth car in the procession. This was the Secret Service car following the Vice-President. Here we can see that a Secret Service agent by the name of Jerry Kivett has already opened the door of that car and that he is preparing to jump out -- all by 3.6 seconds.
This one indelible record of a fragment in history tells a truer story than all twenty-six volumes of the Warren report. It is possible to place the first shot at Zapruder film frame 189 and the Altgens photograph at Z-255. It is interesting to note that nearly one half of the background of the Altgens photo is filled with that huge oak tree we mentioned earlier. It has keen carefully researched that a rifleman in the Oswald window could not possibly have shot at the President through that tree and thus could not have fired at the President until at least Z-210. In fact, under the prevailing physical conditions, no one could have fired from that window.
As important as this Altgens photograph is, it was found that it had been severely cropped when it was tucked into the Warren report. Why did someone go to that trouble? Here again is the tricky hand of the conspiracy reaching into the Commission chambers.
We have wandered a little because of the extreme importance of that Altgens photo. Our objective was to show the seriousness of the Secret Service oversight in permitting the President and Vice-President to be under the same guns.
These were not the only oversights. I have always been concerned about the failure of the Secret Service to act in accordance with their long-established and highly professional standard operating procedures on Kennedy's Texas trip. We know that the Secret Service does not have the numbers to permit it to cover every possible avenue and angle of danger; but what we also know is that over the years it has keen the practice of the Secret Service to call upon trained elements of the Armed Forces and other technical assistance to flesh out their strength in compliance with "Protection" policy.
In 1963 there was in Washington, D.C. the 113th Army Intelligence Unit, which was highly trained for this purpose. A counterpart of this unit was the 112th at 4th Army Headquarters at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The 112th had a detachment, the 315th, in San Antonio. Its commanding officer, among others, complained bitterly that his unit was not used in protection along with the Secret Service after he had keen told that the services of his unit would not be needed. On more than one occasion he called his headquarters and called Washington to correct this "oversight." Like the old dog, he and his men had keen well trained and they were ready to go into action. It takes strong and deft control from the top to keep a unit out of the action for which it has been trained.
After the assassination, some of the men of the 112th dug into the unit's files and found that they had note cards on a Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas. I do not know what other records they had; but failure to utilize this unit and its files was part of the conspiracy and an indication of how far up the hand of the conspirators went.
Not only did the Secret Service disregard experienced and qualified assistance from the Armed Forces, but they did not act in accordance with their own time-tested regulations. I recall, when we walked down Avenida Reforma in Mexico City before Eisenhower's trip, being told that if we found a place where Eisenhower could not be properly protected, the Secret Service "manual" stated that the "President's car must maintain not less than 44 mph until clear of any danger zones." I joked with the Secret Service officer about the "44 mph." Why not "45 mph" or "50 mph." He answered that tests had determined that a car traveling 44 mph was going fast enough to guarantee all but 100 percent assurance that the President would be safe. It was Secret Service men working under the provisions of the same manual who let the President's car creep around that corner at Dealey Plaza at 8-9 mph [much slower or stopped]. Why?
Also, as we looked up at the high buildings on Mexico City's main street, he told me that agents would check and secure each floor and each window of each building. This is not as big a job as it may seem. The Secret Service knows the exact timing of the movements of the President and they see to it, using radios and men on rooftops, that his progress is covered all the way. This is their business and they are good at it.
But in Dallas, for some strange reason, someone picked a dangerous turn in the road. The procession passed slowly to the right, and then it turned slowly to the left, and all of the time the President's car was right under hostile windows. How simple and how correct it would have keen for Secret Service men, aided by all of the Armed Forces required, to have checked those buildings, to have sealed any unused floors (such as that famous deserted sixth floor), and then to have shut all of the front windows. Then, by placing a radio-equipped man in the Plaza, all he would have had to do was to watch if a single window opened. If it did, he would call to the man on the roof and have someone dispatched to check that window, and with that same call he would have alerted the whole force, especially those with the President's party.
This chronology and theme need not be pursued further here. What is important is to point out that trained and experienced organizations such as the Secret Service and the Army were somehow given instructions not to take part. In bureaucratic terms alone this is hard to do. Each organization fights for its prerogatives and for its role. Yet someone ordered them to stand down. The power to keep units from operating automatically would have to have been extreme and must have originated close to the top. Someone had to put out the word to the Secret Service and through them to the Army; and then that same power was able to rebuff repeated attempts to right that wrong.
Recognition of this fact leads to the delineation of the origin and source of the conspiracy, which was strong enough to directly influence the role of major government organizations even before the President was shot. I have spoken with men of these units. Many had keen trained at Fort Holabird, the Army's top intelligence school. There can be no interpretation of this suppression of the forces created to protect the President other than that it was a part of the whole conspiracy...
Umbrella Man, Clint Hill’s run and the Zapruder Film
by Staffan H Westerberg and Pete Engwall
...Some things we know happened, and those are important to hang on to when you navigate through what seems to be a sea of disinformation. Let’s start with a peculiar paint job. Some time during the morning hours of the 22nd of November 1963 someone had painted three broad yellow markings on the curb across Elm Street from the Stemmons Freeway sign. These markings were unusual, over 45 feet apart and with a white line to mark off the end on both sides. We know they had been painted recently since a few spectators had caught paint on their shoes. The question becomes why had someone painted these markings? What could possibly have been the reason to paint three yellow markings on a Friday morning towards the end of November? And why was it done in that particular spot, exactly where the President would meet his death only hours later?
When you align all theses strange circumstances side by side it looks convincingly suspicious: A man pumping an umbrella, a man with a fist in the air and a walkie-talkie, newly painted yellow markings on the curb - it all suggests something out of the ordinary was going on. Further more, the Dallas Police had mysteriously tried to keep people off the lawn across the street, as if they knew it would be a dangerous place for the public to be standing...
...So if pumping an umbrella and a fist in the air had nothing to do whether Kennedy was dead or not, what other meaning could it have had? We can imagine his role could have been getting the limo to stop. And here are some major points as to why that could be the case: Number one; according to nearly 60 witnesses the limo slowed down to a near or a complete stop just before Kennedy was hit deadly in the head. Number two; according to the Zapruder film the back of Kennedy’s head blew out before the car passed the second yellow marking, which would indicate the limo stopped between two of the three yellow markings. Number three; the evidence supporting an altered film, or perhaps even more likely a totally fabricated film, is overwhelming, see Doug Horne and John Costella’s work. Number four; Clint Hill’s description of his actions doesn’t correlate with what can be seen in the Zapruder film. Number five; neither Secret Service driver Bill Greer’s recollection of what he did, and when he did it, is neither supported with what the Zapruder film shows. Number six; the fact that the Dark Complected Man pumped a fist in the air, which is a sign of stop in the Infantry, and the fact that the limo actually stopped at that spot, simply cannot be a coincidence, in our opinion...
... Again, let us focus on the Umbrella Man and Dark Complected Man. If they had the task of stopping the vehicle, then that in it self would have other consequences. First and foremost, they were likely part of a plan. In the other end of the spectrum we have the Zapruder film; the likelihood of the film not being planned in advance would be very slim, in our opinion. John Costella, among other experts, has proven that the Zapruder film is not only a fake film, his research also make us sense that a large effort must have gone into the plot, which leads us to believe that the film cannot have been a last-minute-idea and a hastily-put-together-operation going on only that weekend. It is inconceivable that all the strange actions surrounding the film only were the result of a coincident and not part of a plan. There is simply too much evidence pointing to a planned limo stop, and who can believe that the coup-planners would send several shooters to firing positions around Dealey Plaza without comprehend the ramifications of such a decision? They knew Kennedy would be hit from different directions and a film would most probably show that. Both the planning of several shooters and a planned limo stop are therefore very strong suggestions that the Zapruder film was no coincident, common sense tell us that it had to have been planned in advance.
Subsequently, if the film was a planned event, it couldn’t have been left to chance that Abraham Zapruder had to drive home to get his camera. This also means that we do not trust Marilyn Sitzman’s testimony.
But why would they want a film of the event? For one thing, a car stop would definitely throw suspicion on the Secret Service. Another thing is of course that shots from different directions revealed there was a conspiracy. Because of this, a film would triumph over what any witness would claim to have seen. No matter where you enter this circle of logic, it will bring you to the realization that the film must have been planned in advance. Just like the autopsy. Actually, the Z-film and the autopsy are the best evidence – and they were both pre-planned falsifications...
...John Costella has proven that some physical parts of the Zapruder film are impossible and shows severe manipulation: The Sign Mistake; when scientists removed the pincushion effect from the film, the Stemmons Freeway sign gave them a surprise: it bent and twisted as it traveled across the bottom of the film. When the pincushion effect is removed, a real sign would just sit there, and line up with the background. The Blur Mistake; Zapruder frame 232 is sharp in the foreground as well as in the background, which means that it probably was created by cutting and pasting together real photographs and film frames of the assassination. The Fast Forward Mistake; all four people in front of the Kennedy’s lurch forward when the car is speeding up, which would be physical impossible. These three examples show that the extant film is not genuine.
Doug Horne on the other hand has proven that the chain of custody and the chain of events concerning the film are based on lies. His research show without a doubt that the Secret Service brought the original film to Hawkeye Works in Rochester, New York, followed by NPIC in Washington, where they worked on producing two sets of briefing boards. Horne has also conducted interviews with people closely connected to the film that crucial weekend, people that could have seen the camera original and would report that it was not compatible with the extant film.
Either way you look at it, together both Costella and Horne’s masterful work has proven that the extant film most definitely is a fraud and would not be admissible in a U.S. Court of Law...
... We know agents like Clint Hill, John Ready and others allegedly went out drinking at the nightclub the Cellar Door in Fort Worth until the wee hours in the morning; some of them stayed out until after 5am. It is also “known” that the Secret Service knew the threats were piling up against JFK, they also knew they were going to visit perhaps the most dangerous city in the whole country, which meant there was definitely a risk of someone taking a shot at JFK, since he had received several death threats from Dallas. A motorcade through Dallas also meant that the President’s bodyguards were equally at risk. Further more, agents of the White House Detail didn’t usually go out and boozing the night before they had to be on alert. This whole thing seems staged in some weird way. We know they – allegedly - went out, and we know that their boss James Rowley pardoned them afterwards, even if he should have fired them all, which was common practice. We also know the Warren Commission almost gave them a 10+ (on a scale from one to ten) considering the protection work they did that day. It all seems very upside-down and clearly propaganda.
Did the Secret Service agents go out drinking on purpose, just to get an alibi for poor reaction the next day, or what? It is a valid question. Was this whole thing just to create some sort of a “human blunder” that they could blame on after the fact?...
... “The President is dead, they were out drinking and it is all very shameful, they all feel bad about it, perhaps they could have reacted faster had they not gone out drinking, but don’t blame them, they are only human, they feel bad enough as it is…”
If Clint Hill knew what was about to happen the day after, he would most likely never go out and get drunk - unless of course if he was ordered out and it was part of a plan that he and the other agents were engaged in a make-believe operation?
If Clint Hill were kept in the dark about the event, would he still go out and drinking the day before the President and the First Lady would go through a hostile town like Dallas?
Also, if Clint Hill didn’t know what was about to take place in Dealey Plaza the next day, wouldn’t he act faster and run much earlier than until after Kennedy’s head were blasted out?
If Clint Hill was not part of the plot to kill President Kennedy, why would he lie about the running, the limo stop and why would he first say the hole was in the back of JFK’s head and then later on say it was on the side, like he did for Swedish TV in 2014?
We believe that most of the so-called party at the Cellar Door never happened the way the story has been told. We don’t believe any of Kennedy’s guards got even remotely drunk the night before. Perhaps the party story was created just as a precaution to have something to fall back on, sort of a safety valve, in case the Secret Service as an organization would receive large amounts of criticism after the murder of the President? In that case the blame could be placed upon those that had attended the party. There is a big difference between getting fired from the job and put to death in the electric chair.
Returning to Mrs. Kennedy’s actions. Motorcycle patrolman Bobby Hargis told a reporter in the early 1970s that the Presidential limousine was at a stand still on Elm Street and it looked to him as Jackie Kennedy tried to get away from the bullets. Hargis also felt that that’s why Clint Hill ran to the limo – to keep her from getting off!
The vast majority of the research community seems to believe that she climbed back there to retrieve a piece of her husband’s skull. This “fact” has become one of those sacred cows. But if the car had stopped cold on the street and bullet after bullet hit her husband, wouldn’t the most logical scenario be that her instinct told her to get out? When asked by the Warren Commission she didn’t remember ever being on the trunk of the car, let alone why she had climbed up there. Perhaps, she first tried to get out of the passenger door but the jump seat was in the way?
If the limo stood still this scenario is of course very plausible; who wouldn’t want to avoid getting killed? Had the limo really gone at the speed the Zapruder film will have you believe it did, then it is less likely Mrs. Kennedy would have thought about getting off. Subsequently, if the film had been planned in advance, what would it mean if the First Lady suddenly got out of the car and started wandering around in the street? That, we think would be hard to cover up and conceal no matter how many films they had to work with. Maybe Clint Hill received an order from Emory Roberts not to move, but when Jackie decided to get out Hill was given the order to stop her? Maybe Hill’s run to the SS100X just was something lucky they could use in the film as “Secret Service action”?...
...Another thing is that the Dallas Police and the Dallas Sheriffs Department were not involved in any security functions as the president passed through Dallas that day. However, they had orders to keep people off the grass between Main and Elm Street - precisely the spot where the assassination would take place. That cannot be easily explained. Also, why weren’t people like Gordon Arnold allowed to film the president from the Grassy Knoll? Are there any valid reasons? We know the Press bus was canceled, something almost unique, and reporters and photographers had to travel way behind the president where they would be totally in the dark of the unfolding event.
Still, alleged press photographer James Altgens had curiously enough chosen the ultimate spot to photograph the president as he was being killed. Of all places to pick from, why was Mr. Altgens standing in front of the limousine as Kennedy was being hit with bullet after bullet? Coincidence? Were there equally many other “press photographers” stationed along the parade route through Dallas? We don’t believe so, at least we haven’t seen any evidence of that. Somehow, one cannot help feeling that they were all assembled in Dealey Plaza, sort of like a Coliseum where the president’s limousine had to pass through, an arena that would turn into a horrifying killing zone. What are the odds of that?
Anyone who started filming up on Houston Street, only to keep filming from the lawn, people like Maria Muchmore and Orville Nix, were most likely not part of an assassination plot. Zapruder, on the other hand, was stationary at a spot, on top of a pedestal, that seemed off limits to other members of the public, not for a second do we believe he was just another spectator with a camera. In the Zapruder film it is also clear that someone had decided how far down on Elm Street people were allowed to stand and observe the president; the line was just after the Stemmons Freeway sign, it seems.
Is it not strange that there were so many amateur photographs taken from the murder scene, footage that immediately came under the control of the authorities, but hardly any photos from professional photographers (besides Altgens)? Consequently, the films, and photos that were returned showed damage at just about the same time and place. Stains, creases and damage all occurred with precision and certainly not in a random pattern. In the end, the fake reality they tried to create wouldn’t manage to hide the traces of a well-planned Coup d’état.
Watch a Bullet Missing JFK's Head (2:32)
Photos 19 & 20 - Go to video " Zapruder Film Slow Motion (Higher Quality) at 0:17 you can see the same bullet in the same location but this video does not show a trace but it has a blurred image of something going thru the air. On photo 20 set up a full screen and clearly see the air that has mass being disturbed by the tip of the bullet forming an ellipse, it's proportionally the size of a bullet, it's coming from the direction of the Uniformed Men. Odds 1 in 1 triillion. It's a mistery with such film speed of 18 frames/sec. and bullet traveling at 2000 fps it would reveal a straight copper line of about 111 feet long, assuming there is enough light exposure, at 36 frames/sec.about half 55.5 feet long, now to see a 3 inches (real 3cm) copper bullet with high resolution it would require a fast camera of about 8000 frames /sec. All laws of physics are applied to prove that it seems not to be a bullet, if there was no ellipse it would be hard to believe. It has a high probability to be a bullet.
Bullet Hole In Windshield Is Throat Entry Wound
The Kennedy Limousine: Dallas 1963 (Starts at page 139 of: Murder in Dealey Plaza)
by Douglas Weldon, J.D.
Doug Weldon 1999 Assassination of John F. Kennedy Research Windshield cover-up. (2:27:14)
Testimony and evidence for a bullet hole in the windshield of the Limousine that JFK was assassinated in on November 22, 1963. . “The Kennedy Limousine: Dallas 1963”
Photographic Evidence of Bullet Hole in JFK Limousine Windshield ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’
by Douglas P. Horne
In 2009, I believed I had discovered new evidence in the JFK assassination never reported by anyone else: convincing photography of the through-and-through bullet hole in the windshield of the JFK limousine that had been reported by six credible witnesses. I revisited that evidence today, and am more convinced than ever that the bullet hole in the limousine windshield is what I am looking at in those images. But the readers of this piece don’t have to take my word for it, you can examine the images yourself, and make up your own minds. The evidence is contained in one of the banned, suppressed episodes of Nigel Turner’s The Men Who Killed Kennedy, episode 7 in the series, called “The Smoking Guns,” which was aired in 2003, and then removed from circulation by The History Channel in response to intense political pressure by former LBJ aides Jack Valenti and Bill Moyers.
The One Paragraph You Need To Read From The JFK Assassination Files That May Change Everything
by Tyler Durden
...the "Surgeon General's Report" on the assassination stated that the first bullet entered the President's throat below the adams apple, clearly showing that two persons were involved with the first shot being fired from the bridge across the park way in front of the car. To further substantiate this, POTITO said there was a bullet hole in the wind shield of the President's Limo.
JFK - Altgens Photo 6 Colorized: Bullet Hole Clearly Visible In Windshield (3:16)
The JFK Assassination - Official Complicity
Official Irresponsibility, Neglect or Complicity in Failing to Protect JFK
from JFK: Conspiracy of Silence
by Charles Crenshaw and Gary Shaw
...At 12:30 PM on November 22, after taking two unusually tight turns which require the motorcade to slow to a crawl (normal procedure requires a minimum speed of 44 mph), with no flanking motorcycle cops, no Secret Service agents on the rear bumper of the President’s car, and no typical security preparations such as sealing building windows, shots ring out from Dealey Plaza and the President’s head explodes. In the Warren Report, this is attributed to President Kennedy’s desire to be accessible to his constituents, but all cited agents later acknowledged that Kennedy was very cooperative with the Secret Service and never interfered in their jobs, and the normal high security measures were employed at every other motorcade route on the Texas tour.
After JFK was had last rites and was declared dead at 1:00 PM, Dr. Vernon Stembridge, chief of surgical pathology at Parkland Hospital, and Dr. Sidney Stewart, Parkland resident in pathology, were explaining, politely but forcefully, to Secret Service agents and Presidential staff that, pursuant to Texas law, there would be an autopsy performed on Kennedy’s body before it left the hospital (at that time, killing a President was not a federal offense and fell solely under state homicide statutes). The “men in suits” responded, even more forcefully, that they had orders to take the President’s body back to Washington DC and there would be no Texas autopsy. Talking turned to shouting, hand-waiving and finger-pointing. The doctors stormed out of the room, as it was difficult to win an argument with men with guns.
At 1:25 PM, Justice of the Peace Theron Ward arrived at Parkland Hospital, but his attempts to enter the emergency door were blocked by Secret Service agents. The judge was forced to go around to the front entrance and make his way back to the emergency room, where he was confronted by Dallas Coroner and forensic pathologist Dr. Earl Rose, who had already given orders to ready an operating room for an autopsy he thought could be completed in 45 minutes.
Walking up to, but not through, the door of Trauma Room 1 where Kennedy’s body lay, Justice Ward’s Secret Service escort, Agent Kellerman, asked him to release the body into Secret Service custody. Theron called Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade, who told him that a “missile” (bullet) must be taken into custody, and then called Dallas Police Chief Curry to confirm that. The judge, ignoring the legal advice, simply points to the exit, breaching Texas law and the normal rules of investigative procedure and chain of custody, allowing Agent Kellerman to leave with the body.
A phalanx of guards poured into Trauma Room 1 as the coffin was being rolled out with Kennedy’s body, surrounded it and escorted it towards the emergency room exit. A man in a suit, leading the group, was carrying a submachine gun. In the main hallway, Dr. Earl Rose, chief of forensic pathology, confronted the men in suits. Agent Roy Kellerman, the man with the gun, said sternly “My friend, this is the body of the President of the United States, and we are going to take it back to Washington.”
Dr. Rose replied, “No, that’s not the way things are. When there’s a homicide, we must have an autopsy.” Kellerman barked, “He’s the President and he’s going with us”. “The body stays”, responded Rose with equal intensity, whereupon Kellerman took a stance and brought the firearm into shooting position and the rest of the men in suits draped their coattails behind the butts of their holstered pistols.
Kellerman stated, “My friend, my name is Roy Kellerman. I am special agent in charge of the White House detail of the Secret Service. We are taking President Kennedy’s body back to the capitol”, and Rose responded, “You are not taking the body anywhere. There’s a law her and we’re going to enforce it.”
Admiral George Burkley, the White House Medical Officer, said “Mrs. Kennedy is going to stay exactly where she is until the body is moved. We can’t have that…he’s the President of the United States”. “That doesn’t matter”, replied Dr. Rose rigidly. “You can’t lose the chain of evidence.”
“Goddammit, get your ass out of the way before you get hurt”, screamed another of the men in suits. Another snapped, “We’re taking the body, now”. Dr. Kemp Clark, Director of Neurological Surgery at Parkland, wanted to detain the coffin, but the men in suits clearly had their marching orders and would not be deterred by the requisites of either medicine or law. The casket was loaded into a hearse, with Jacqueline in the back seat, and the President’s body left for Air Force One, on which Jackie would stay with the coffin except for the short swearing-in ceremony for LBJ. Somewhere high over the United States, the new President receives information – not from Dallas but from the White House situation room – that the assassination is the act of one lone individual and that no conspiracy exists.
While JFK was being declared dead and illegally removed from Parkland Hospital and the state of Texas before an autopsy could be performed, a medical student at Parkland had been outside the emergency room entrance with another student and noticed a bullet hole in the windshield of the President’s limousine. Upon overhearing her comment about the hole, a Secret Service agent jumped in the car and sped away. A hole in the windshield would suggest a shot fired from in front of the motorcade and would conflict with the lone gunman story. The vehicle had also been partially cleaned while parked there, a clear violation of the rules of protection of evidence.
At midnight, the limousine, which had been flown to DC and brought to the White House garage, was examined by FBI and Secret Service agents. Several bullet fragments and a three-inch piece of the President’s skull are removed as evidence. A small hole just left of center in the windshield, as well as a dent in the chrome molding above the windshield are noted. FBI agents state that the dent was made by a bullet fragment. The bullet fragments are not marked for identification but were allegedly linked to Oswald’s rifle six months later by a Secret Service agent and a White House staffer. Such broken chain of custody of evidence makes it inadmissible in any court.
Three days after the assassination, Carl Renas, head of security for the Ford Motor Company, drives the limousine, helicopters overhead, from Washington to Cincinnati, noting that the dent in the chrome windshield trim was clearly “a primary strike” and “not a fragment”. The limousine was taken to Hess and Eisenhart in Cincinnati, where the chrome molding was replaced. The Secret Service told Renas to “keep your mouth shut”, and Renas recalls thinking at the time that “something is wrong”.
The limousine was eventually rebuilt, bullet-proofed and had incorporated into it every possible protective device. However, President Johnson refused to use it until its color was changed from Kennedy midnight blue to standard black. Not only was the evidentiary value of the vehicle destroyed in the process, but so was its historical value.
At 7:00 PM on November 22, President Kennedy’s body was transferred from the casket to the eight-foot long autopsy table in the morgue of Bethesda Naval Hospitcal. There are no less than 28 people present in the room, including the President’s personal physician, agents from the FBI and Secret Service, the commanding officer of the Medical Center and the Surgeon General of the Navy. Commander J. J. Humes, the Director of Laboratories of the National Medical School, chooses Dr. J. T. Boswell, chief of pathology, and Dr. P. A. Finck, chief of wound ballistics pathology of the Armed Forces Institution of Pathology at Walter Reed Medical Center, to assist him in the autopsy. In spite of their impressive titles, none of the three was a practicing forensic pathologist or had special expertise in examining bullet wounds.
The 1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that the postmortem examination was fraught with errors, including:
The President’s body was taken out of the hands of those responsible for investigation of the death and autopsy – Texas authorities.
Those performing the autopsy had insufficient training and experience to evaluate a death from gunshot wounds.
Physicians who treated the President at Parkland Hospital were not consulted before commencing the autopsy.
Circumstances at the time of autopsy were not controlled by the pathologist.
Proper photographs were not taken.
The President’s clothing was not examined.
The autopsy procedures were incomplete because:
External examination failed to accurately locate the wounds
The bullet tracks were not dissected to determine their course through the body
The angles of the bullet tracks were not measured relative to the body axis
The brain was not properly examined and sectioned
The report was incomplete, inaccurate, and prepared without reference to photographs
Other wounds on the body were not localized with reference to fixed body landmarks so as to permit reconstruction of trajectories.
In addition to the noted procedural mistakes, there were significant inconsistencies between what was observed at Parkland Hospital by the best trauma team in the region which dealt with gunshot wounds on a daily basis, and what was reported in the official autopsy.
At Parkland, the wound to the right side of the President’s head is a large, gaping hole extending all the way around to the back of the head. At Bethesda, the back of the President’s head is intact, with only a small puncture wound just to the right of midline near the base of the skull. The large gaping hole is only on the upper right side.
At Parkland, a small wound of entry is seen in the President’s throat just below the Adam’s apple and slightly enlarged to accommodate the tracheal tube. At Bethesda, this wound becomes a three-inch wide gash.
At Bethesda, pathologists discover a wound in the President’s upper back near the spine. Parkland doctors were not aware of this wound, since in their frantic attempts at resuscitation, they never turned the body over to examine his back (that would have been done, of course, during the routine course of postmortem examination).
Two FBI agents present during the President’s autopsy, James Sibert and Francis O’Neil, receive and sign a receipt for a “missile removed during the examination of the body”. The receipt is in the official record, but the bullet itself has never been entered into evidence.
Captain David Osborne, Chief of Surgery at Bethesda, was also present during the autopsy, and recalls seeing an “intact slug” fall out on to the autopsy table as the President’s clothing was moved. If the “magic bullet” passed through the President’s neck to injure Connally, and another had enough momentum to shatter his skull and produce a major exit wound, it’s not apparent which bullet this one might be.
The House Select Committee chose to verify the original Warren Commission findings concerning the medical and ballistics evidence, despite missing and poor quality autopsy photographs, unverified X-rays, missing tissue slides of the wound areas, lack of probe or dissection of the wounds, no sectioning of the brain, and the burning of the original autopsy notes by Commander Humes, chief pathologist, in his home fireplace the Sunday following the assassination.
November 24, 1963
Were these following calls made by Jack Ruby?
2:15 AM, Sheriff’s Officer Perry McCoy receives a telephone call from a “white male” who tells him that Oswald is going to be killed during his transfer from city jail to the county jail, and that he’s informing him so that none of deputies would get hurt.
2:20 AM Police Lieutenant Billy Grammar receives a telephone call from an unidentified caller who says “You know me”. The caller describes in detail the plans for Oswald’s transfer and tells the Lieutenant that other arrangements should be made or “We’re going to kill Oswald right there in the basement”. The voice of the caller is familiar to Grammar, but he can’t put a name or face to it. The threat is taken seriously and a report is filed with Chief Curry.
2:30 AM, an unnamed employee of the local FBI office receives a telephone call from an anonymous male, speaking in a calm and mature voice, who advises that he represented “a committee…we are going to kill the man who killed the President”.
3:20 AM, Dallas Police Captain W. B. Frazier receives a call from FBI agent Milton Newsom informing him that an anonymous threat to kill Oswald was received at the Dallas FBI office.
7:00 AM, the Dallas police begin preparations for transferring Oswald out of the Dallas city jail. The basement is cleared and guards are stationed at the ramps leading into the garage.
9:30 AM, Minister Ray Rushing arrives at City Hall and takes the elevator to the third floor. While on the elevator, he meets and talks with Jack Ruby. The minister is one of four witnesses who testified that they had seen Ruby in or near the police building between 8:00 and 11:00 AM.
10:35 AM, Ira Walker, WBAP (Fort Worth) television technician is inside the station’s news van outside City Hall, when Jack Ruby comes up to the window and asks “Has he been brought down yet?”
11:17 AM, Jack Ruby walks from City Hall to the nearby Western Union office where he sends a $25 money order to Little Lynn, one of his strippers. This behavior mimics a similar event two days earlier when Ruby made a small transaction that was time-stamped prior to showing up at Oswald’s first press conference with a gun in his pocket. This later serves as his defense against premeditation.
Upon returning to the City Hall building, Ruby enters through an unguarded door, goes down one flight of stairs to the basement, crosses the parking area and joins the group of policemen and reporters awaiting Oswald’s transfer. As if on cue, Oswald, handcuffed to Detectives Leavelle and Graves, enters the basement area, and an unmarked car backs into position to pick him up. Ruby crouches and, holding his .38 Colt Cobra tightly in an “assassin’s grip” in his right hand, fires one shot point blank into Oswald’s left midsection, and Oswald crumbles to the floor, crying out in pain.
Officers tackled, disarmed and arrested Ruby, taking him to a fifth-floor cell, where they noticed him acting “very hyper” and “sweating profusely”. Ruby requested and was given a cigarette. When word came up that Oswald was dead, and Detective Don Archer says “It looks like it’s going to be the electric chair for you”, Ruby became calm and ceased perspiring. Archer then asked Ruby if he wanted another cigarette, but his reply was “I don’t smoke”. It was apparent that Ruby’s life depended on the death of Oswald. He later tells the police that his intention was to shoot Oswald three times.
11:30 AM, Dallas Police Lieutenant Billy Grammar, is sleeping off his all-night shift when he’s suddenly awakened by his wife to tell him that a man named Jack Ruby just shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Then a face appears to match the familiar voice he had heard on the phone warning him that Oswald would be shot, as he had spoken with Ruby just a week before.
11:32 AM, Lee Harvey Oswald was delivered to Parkland Hospital and prepped for surgery, with three bottles of blood and fluid pouring in to his extremities. His abdomen was opened up and the surgical team found that the single bullet had ruptured the aorta, the vena cava, shattered the spleen, and slashed through the stomach, pancreas, kidney, and liver. Three liters of blood spilled out on the floor. As major bleeding was brought under control, Dr. Charles Crenshaw, the head of the surgical team, was called out to take a call. A voice on the other end said “This is President Lyndon Johnson. How is the accused assassin?” Johnson stated “I want a deathbed confession. There’s a man in the operating room who will take the statement. I will expect full cooperation in this matter”. There was, in fact, a large unknown man in scrubs standing in the operating room with a gun in his back pocket. Soon afterward, Oswald’s heart failed and Dr. Crenshaw told the man with the gun “There won’t be any deathbed confession today. The man disappeared as silently as he had arrived and was never seen again. The surgical team opened Oswald’s chest and attempted to restart the heart, but he was pronounced dead at 1:07 PM.
With Oswald’s death, the great cover-up became official, and the Coup d’Etat was complete.
Bullet holes in the limousine and extra bullets in Dealey Plaza (9:48)
12:30:40 p.m. CST, Police Radio. Bill Decker orders officers to the "Railroad track area just North of Elm."
12:31:15 p.m. CST, Lee Harvey Oswald, The Coke, The Shirt, And Marrion Baker's Testimony
So..."Where was Oswald from 11:50 to 12:35 p.m. on the day of the assassination?"
Michael T. Griffith (excerpt)
"Oswald was at the sniper's nest on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting, then how is it he was seen by the building manager and a pistol-waving police officer less than 90 seconds afterwards on the second floor, standing in the lunchroom with a Coke in his hand, giving every appearance of being perfectly calm and relaxed? (The manager was Roy Truly and the policeman was Officer Marrion Baker.)
Jim Moore and other lone-gunman theorists assume that Oswald bought the Coke after the encounter with the manager and the policeman. However, the available evidence indicates Oswald purchased the Coke before the second-floor encounter. Oswald had no reason to lie about when he bought the Coke. When he mentioned the Coke-buying during his questioning, he did so in passing, and he could not have known the important role the timing of this detail would subsequently play in the investigation.
I agree with what David Lifton has said on this subject: The original news accounts said that when Baker first saw Oswald, the latter was drinking a Coke. This seemingly minor fact was crucial, because if Oswald had time to operate the machine, open the bottle, and drink some soda, that would mean he was on the second floor even earlier than the Commission's reconstructions allowed. In a signed statement Officer Baker was asked to make in September 1964, at the tail-end of the investigation, he wrote: "I saw a man standing in the lunchroom drinking a coke." A line was drawn through "drinking a coke," and Baker initialed the corrected version. [Dallas] Police Captain Will Fritz, in his report on his interrogation of Oswald, wrote: "I asked Oswald where he was when the police officer stopped him. He said he was on the second floor drinking a Coca Cola when the officer came in." If I were a juror, I would have believed Oswald already had the Coke in hand, and indeed, had drunk some of it, by the time the officer entered the lunchroom.
1) Testimony Includes A Coke:
Mrs Robert A Reid, a TSBD Clerical Supervisor... described eating her lunch in the second floor lunchroom about noon, then going downstairs to see the motorcade. After Kennedy was shot, she was frightened, and ran up the front stairs to her second floor office.
Mr. Belin: "And then what did you do?"
Mrs. Reid: "Well, I kept walking and I looked up and Oswald was coming in the back door of the office. I met him by the time I passed my desk several feet and I told him: 'Oh, the President has been shot, but maybe they didn't hit him.' ..... He had gotten a coke and was holding it in his hands ..... The only time I had seen him in the office was to come and get change and he already had his coke in his hand ..... "
Mrs Reid saw Lee Oswald after Baker and Truly saw him. Reid also said that Lee's coke bottle was full. We cannot prove when the coke was purchased from her account. Griffith, however, tells us that a Warren Commission counsel also said Baker saw a coke in Lee Oswald's possession: "During a radio program on December 23, 1966, Albert Jenner, a former senior WC counsel, said that when Baker saw Oswald in the lunchroom, Oswald was holding a Coke in his hand. Said Jenner, "the first man this policeman saw, was Oswald with a bottle of Coke."
Now, why would he do that? Is it true that this coke might have become a "myth" by then, as Oswald-did-it theorists maintain? But if so, how? And why would a Warren Commissioner senior counsel bring it up? Griffith goes on to say: "The fact that Oswald was holding a Coke when Baker confronted him in the lunchroom was one of the details that Chief Jesse Curry of the Dallas police mentioned to reporters the day after the shooting."
OOPS! Jesse Curry was mentioning all sorts of evidence against Lee Oswald. Who told Curry just one day after the shooting that Baker saw Lee Oswald with a coke in his hand? This was the earliest account of the coke's existence -- and Curry connects it firmly with Baker: "When Jesse Curry retired as police chief of Dallas, Texas, he wrote a book called "JFK Assassination File." In a 1969 interview for the Dallas Morning News around the time of publication, Curry stated, "We don't have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did. Nobody's yet been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand."
Griffith adds that "As late as ten days later this detail was still being reported in major newspapers, such as theWashington Post."
We can consider the early statement by Curry as too important to dismiss. Griffith next argues that: "Oswald simply could not have made it to the second floor without first being seen by Roy Truly, who was running ahead of Patrolman Baker. The Dallas police descriptions of the rifle in its hiding place indicate that the alleged murder weapon was very carefully stashed under and between a stack of book boxes at the opposite end of the sixth floor from where the shots were supposedly fired. It is reasonable to assume Oswald would have attempted to wipe his fingerprints off the rifle (at least those parts of the rifle he had just handled while firing it). Someone wiped off the Carcano before it was "discovered" because the FBI found no identifiable prints on it when it examined the weapon on November 23. This would mean that in less than 90 seconds Oswald squeezed out of the sniper's nest, ran all the way to the opposite end of the sixth floor, wiped off the rifle (at least those parts that he would have just handled while firing it), carefully hid it under and between some boxes, ran down four flights of stairs to the second floor (actually eight small flights), went through the foyer door, and then made his way to the lunchroom, yet did not appear the least bit winded or nervous when seen by the manager and the policeman. And, if we add the Coke-buying, Oswald's alleged journey becomes even more implausible.
The WC's own reenactments of Officer Baker's encounter with Oswald indicated that it occurred no more than 75 seconds after the shots were fired. There is no way Oswald could have done everything the Commission said he did and still have made it to the lunchroom in time to be seen by Baker and without being seen by Truly."
Today we are told that Lee could not have made it down those stairs and across that hall and into that room, door closed even in 90 seconds. Some dishonest "time trials" have been made with athletes who ran down simulated stairway lengths (but not even built the same way)--which have been criticized elsewhere for their rigged results. But even those rigged trial runs could not get around the startling testimony we now have from Victoria Adams; "The girl on the stairs":
"On November 22, 1963, a young Victoria Elizabeth Adams stood behind a fourth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. She watched as John Kennedy was murdered in the streets below. Then, with a co-worker in tow, she ran down the back stairs of the building in order to get outside and determine what had happened. At that precise moment, her life changed forever. Unbeknownst to her but certainly in the forefront of the government's thinking was the fact that if Miss Adams was telling the truth, then she had descended those stairs at the same time Lee Oswald would have been on them as he made his escape from the sixth floor sniper's nest."
Yet Miss Adams saw no one. And even though the stairs were old, wooden, and very creaky under any weight, she heard no one on them.
Her story presented obvious problems for the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Oswald was the sole assassin. When Miss Adams was called to testify before a Commission attorney, she was quickly discredited, humiliated, and eventually branded a liar. Behind closed doors she pleaded with the government to conduct time tests of her actions if she wasn’t believed. She begged the government to question her co-workers, particularly the woman who had accompanied her down the stairs, if she was felt to have been inaccurate.
But she was ignored.
And so, knowing the truth of what she had done and now fearing for her life because of it, she went into hiding and became willing to die with that private knowledge.
Intrigued by what little was available about Miss Adams, the author went in search of her. It took him 35 years to eventually find this elusive witness. Along the way, many of the rumors and speculations surrounding the JFK assassination were finally put to rest. And in the end, the truth of what Miss Adams did was discovered. This is an important story, unique in this mess surrounding the Kennedy assassination and buried for decades. It is an account the government did not want us to hear, and actually went to the extreme of fabricating evidence in order to prevent us from hearing it."
These are the words written for the book, The Girl On The Stairs, by author Barry Ernest.
And if Lee wasn't on the stairs, he was in that room. The door was closed...Lee had to walk across the room, insert coins, wait for the coke to roll down, open the coke... and he was not seen crossing a wide hallway from stairs on the other side of that wide hallway, before entering the lunchroom. Lee Oswald was not on the 6th floor 90 seconds earlier. He did not go down those stairs. Curry himself said Baker had seen Lee with a coke just a day after the assassination. Or should we believe that the words were accidentally written down in haste by somebody taking an oral deposition, which then needed correction by Baker himself?
Probably the most shameful batch of lies about Lee Oswald were written in the book Marina and Lee by Priscilla Johnson McMillan, who has been linked to the CIA. She went out of her way to impress upon readers, who would be unaware of her intentions, but which would plant the image in their head, that Lee had no coke in his hands, for she wrote, on p. 531: "When Baker and Truly reached the second-floor landing, Baker caught a glimpse of someone in the lunchroom. Revolver in hand, he rushed to the door and saw a man 20 feet away walking to the far end of the room. The man was empty-handed."
The way Baker was questioned by Dulles (and by Belin) for the Warren Commission was absolutely shameful, as an attempt was made to get Baker to say Lee Oswald wore the same shirt in the TSBD that he was wearing when arrested. This was important because a bus transfer ticket, obtained from his pocket due to Lee's 'escape by public transit', would not have been in a different shirt. The ticket had to be planted because it has not a single crease in it and was never tested for fingerprints, unlike so many other pieces of evidence. To get Baker to say it was the same shirt was essential, but the poor man just wasn't cooperating very well. The persistence of Dulles is shocking as he tried to get around Lee's "escape by car" as seen by officer Roger Craig, which meant a conspirator was involved...
Barry Ernest: The Girl on the Stairs (1:27:09)
Barry Ernest, author of The Girl on the Stairs, is interviewed by Black Op Radio host Len Osanic. (Black Op Radio Show No. 635: June 20, 2013) This is the story of Victoria Adams who was on the northwest corner stairway at the time the Warren Commission alleges that Lee Harvey Oswald was dashing down the stairs from the sixth floor after killing John F. Kennedy. With Victoria was Sandra Styles, but the Commission chose not to interview Sandra to corroborate Vicky's statement.
Accidental History: The Girl On The Stairs, by Barry Ernest
Reviewed by Joseph E. Green and Jim DiEugenio
For more see the comprehensive section: Girl On The Stairs
12:31 p.m. CST, Dallas police dispatcher, Channel 2, is informed of the shooting in Dealey Plaza. Parkland Hospital is advised to stand by.
12:34 p.m. CST, United Press International reports that "three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade today in downtown Dallas."
12:35 p.m. CST, Channel 2 dispatcher is told that shots came from the Texas School Book Depository.
Dallas Trade Mart - November 22, 1963 - Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (5:31)
JFK's Never-Delivered Speech From Dallas (Full Text Of Dallas Trade Mart Speech)
by President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
12:37 p.m. CST, Dallas Police Sergeant Harkness reports he has a witness, Howard Brennan, who had pinpointed the 6th floor window.
Who Saw Lee Harvey Oswald in the TSBD Sixth-Floor Window?
Official interviews and statements, quoted below, show that ten named witnesses outside in Dealey Plaza noticed suspicious activity on an upper floor of the TSBD from about 12:15 until the time of the shooting:
4 witnesses saw a man in a window, holding a gun.
2 witnesses saw a man in a window, but no gun.
4 witnesses saw a gun in a window, but no gunman.
Oswald at Window? - Chapter 7 of: Presumed Guilty
by Howard Roffman
Hard as the Commission tried to make tenable that Oswald carried his rifle to work on November 22, it tried even harder to place him at the southeast corner window of the Depository's sixth floor, the putative source of the shots. This was the location at which a man with a gun had been seen, and to which Oswald had unlimited access. In accordance with the official story, Oswald's guilt hinges on this one point, he had to have been at the window to have fired some or all of the shots.
The first evidence discussed in this section of the Report concerns the fingerprints left by Oswald on two cartons located next to the "assassin's" window. As was noted in chapter 2, the Commission used this evidence to place Oswald at the window at some time. In doing this, it read an unfair and improper meaning into limited data. The presence of Oswald's prints on these objects indicates only that he handled them and does not disclose exactly when or where he did so. I noted that Oswald could have touched the cartons prior to the time they were moved to the southeast corner window. The fingerprints were the only "physical evidence" the Commission could offer to relate Oswald to that specific window (R140-41). Since the fingerprint evidence in fact does not relate Oswald to the window, it is important to note that no physical evidence placed Oswald at the window at any time...
12:38 p.m. CST, the limousine arrives at Parkland Memorial Hospital. President Kennedy is taken Parkland Hospital Trauma Room #1. Dr. Malcolm Perry, assistant professor of surgery at UT Southwestern and a vascular surgeon on the Parkland staff, was the first to treat Kennedy and he performed a tracheotomy, followed by a cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Other doctors and surgeons who gathered worked frantically to save the president's life, but his wounds were too severe. Personnel at Parkland Hospital Trauma Room #1, who treated the President, observed that the president's condition was "moribund", meaning he had no chance of survival upon arrival at the hospital. "We never had any hope of saving his life," Dr. Perry said.
Parkland Hospital on November 22, 1963. (3:38)
JFK Assassination - JFK Limo Enroute To Parkland (:28)
Doctors and Nurses at Parkland Hospital, Throat Entry and Right Rear Head Blowout
JFK - The Medical Cover Up (1:16:29)
While serving as chief analyst of military records at the Assassination Records Review Board in the nineties, Douglas Horne examined serious anomalies in the medical evidence in the JFK case.
In this film, Horne draws on his book "Inside the ARRB" to present a comprehensive overview of the missing, altered and fraudulent evidence that indicates a cover-up by multiple agencies of the government. Their mission - to hide the true nature of President Kennedy's wounds and purge all trace of a conspiracy.
JFK And The Doctors At Parkland
What did JFK’s doctors think about his wounds?
McClelland recounts when he was shown the JFK autopsy photos in 1988. He agreed the photos showed the president’s wounds as he saw them on November 22, 1963. The only exception, said Dr. McClelland, was the photo that showed the right rear JFK’s head. He said that a flap of scalp had been pulled over Kennedy’s fatal wound changing the appearance of the wound.
“That’s where there was a massive hole in the back of his head,” McClelland said. “I looked at that hole from 18 inches for about 12 minutes.”
Dr. Malcolm Perry - First surgeon to attend to President Kennedy at Parkland Memorial Hospital (2:28)
Malcolm Oliver Perry was the first doctor to attend to President of the United States John F. Kennedy at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963 after Kennedy was shot while riding in an open car.
When John F. Kennedy was shot on November 22, 1963, he was taken to Parkland Hospital. Perry was the first doctor to attend to Kennedy, performing a tracheotomy over the small wound in Kennedy's throat. Perry also rendered aid to Texas Governor John Connally, who was travelling in the car with Kennedy and was also shot.
Perry stated three times at a press conference later that day that Kennedy's neck wound appeared to be an entrance wound. However, when interviewed by the Warren Commission, Perry said that he now believed that a "full jacketed bullet without deformation passing through the skin would leave a similar wound for an exit and entrance wound and with the facts which you have made available and with these assumptions, I believe that it was an exit wound."
JFK Assassination Interview With Parkland Hospital Doctor Charles Crenshaw (10:44)
Parkland Memorial Hospital Doctors: President John F. Kennedy's head wound (1:41)
JFK Assassination Three Part Interview With Parkland Hospital Dr Robert McClelland 2013 (33:05)
What Did the Parkland Doctors Really Say?
by Russell Kent
The Right Rear Blow -out of Kennedys' head is Documented.
For more see the comprehensive section: Parkland Hospital Trauma Room One
12:39 p.m. CST, Reporter Gary Delaune made the first announcement "This KLIF Bulletin from Dallas: Three shots reportedly were fired at the motorcade of President Kennedy today near the downtown section. KLIF News is checking out the report, we will have further reports, stay tuned."
12:40 p.m. CST, Walter Cronkite announces "Here is a bulletin from CBS News. In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting. More details just arrived. These details about the same as previously: President Kennedy shot today just as his motorcade left downtown Dallas. Mrs. Kennedy jumped up and grabbed Mr. Kennedy, she called "Oh, no!"; the motorcade sped on. United Press says that the wounds for President Kennedy perhaps could be fatal. Repeating, a bulletin from CBS News, President Kennedy has been shot by a would-be assassin in Dallas, Texas. Stay tuned to CBS News for further details."
12:44 p.m. CST, Fourteen minutes after the shooting, a 12:44 pm radio call in Dallas gave a description of a man with a rifle on the 6th floor of the Texas Book Depository. This radio call was based on the report of an “unknown white man’s” report to police inspector Herbert Sawyer. “Slender white male about 30, five feet ten, 165”. The dispatcher Murray Jackson relied on this description, providing it again at 12:47, 12:49, 12:55 and 1:08, offering it as “all we have” prior to the shooting of Tippit at 1:09 p.m., [Tippit was shot between 1:04 p.m. and 1:06 p.m. CST].
12:49 p.m. CST, Captain Talbert giving orders on Police radio. "Have that cut off on the back side will you? Make sure nobody leaves there". (Referring to the Texas School Book Depository)
12:51 p.m. CST, Dallas Police Homicide Chief William Fritz calls in to the dispatchers office from his post at the Trade Mart to ask if JFK will still be going to the site. He is told, "It's very doubtful."
12:57 p.m. CST, Father Oscar L. Huber of Dallas’ Holy Trinity Church administers last rites to President Kennedy.
12:58 p.m. CST, Dallas police discover three shells and a shield of cartons near the southeast corner window of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
1:00 p.m. CST, Parkland hospital. Darrell Tomlinson discovers the stretcher bullet (Magic Bullet) CE 399 which rolls out from under a mat when stretcher bumps the wall.
Although President Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:00 p.m. CST, the official announcement would not come until more than half an hour later. After receiving word of the president's death, acting White House press secretary Malcolm Kilduff entered the room where Vice President Johnson, who was constitutionally now the President, and his wife were sitting. Kilduff approached them and said to Johnson, "Mr. President, I have to announce the death of President Kennedy. Is it ok with you that the announcement be made now?" The new president ordered that the announcement be made only after he left the hospital. When asking that the announcement be delayed, Johnson told Kilduff: "I think I had better get out of here.. .before you announce it. We don't know whether this is a worldwide conspiracy, whether they are after me as well as they were after President Kennedy, or whether they are after Speaker (John W.) McCormack, or Senator (Carl) Hayden. We just don't know."
Kennedy's Lost Trade Mart Speech Brought To Life, To Be Given November 22, 1963
John F Kennedy's Lost Speech Brought To Life (Audio and Text)
The 46-year-old was on his way to the Dallas Trade Mart to address the Citizen's Council when he was shot and killed on 22 November 1963. Edinburgh company CereProc used audio and text from 831 of his speeches to recreate his words from that day. They were able to reproduce all 2,590 words from the 20-minute speech.
JFK’s Real Message From Beyond The Grave – Don’t Believe Everything You Hear
by John Naughton
Last week, 55 years on, we finally got to hear what Kennedy’s audience might have heard. In an extraordinary piece of technical virtuosity, a team of sound engineers pulled 116,777 sound units from 831 of the president’s speeches and radio addresses. These units were then split in half and analysed for pitch and energy and used to create the best approximation of JFK reading the text that was achievable, given the recordings with which they had to work.
JFK's Never-Delivered Speech From Dallas (Full Text)
by President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Following is the text of the speech that John F. Kennedy was scheduled to give at the Trade Mart in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Kennedy was assassinated before he reached the destination.
1:03 p.m. CST, A roll call of employees at the book depository finds Oswald missing.
1:06 p.m. - 1:09 p.m. CST, The Murder Of J.D. Tippit
by S.R. Dusty Rohde
On November 22nd, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by what was once described as “a flurry of bullets” while riding in his Presidential motorcade in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. Within the hour, Dallas police patrolman, “J.D. Tippit ”would be gunned down in the streets of Oak Cliff (a Dallas suburb) in what could only be described as, in the style of a “professional execution”.
The Dallas PD and Warren Commission would later claim both deaths were related and that “Communist sympathizer” Lee Harvey Oswald killed both men. Lee Harvey Oswald, without legal representation or a single day in court, was quickly “Branded” (with full intent) by the Warren Commission as the “Lone Assassin” and “Cop Killer”.
...The evidence in the case of J.D. Tippit is in direct conflict with this assessment of Oswald. Truth be told, evidence indicates that Oswald’s alleged “guilt” is suspect, well beyond “reasonable doubt”, as defined in Courts of Law. In reviewing the case of Tippit’s murder, one quickly discovers a deliberate and methodical manipulation of evidence. Manipulation which appears to have been done (at least in part) by the Dallas Police Department. A manipulation designed to lay the blame for J.D. Tippit’s murder at Oswald’s feet, but is it truth?
Government agencies have tried every which way to represent Lee Harvey Oswald as “running” away from shooting of the President, with a weapon, at the Tippit murder scene and on foot. Why? Because they needed to demonstrate “Motive, Means and Opportunity” to charge Oswald as Tippit’s killer AND link him to the assassination. The Warren Commission declared that Oswald shot J.D. Tippit at 1:15 or 1:16 pm.
Well let me tell all of you something. If Lee Harvey Oswald shot J.D. Tippit at either 1:15 or 1:16 pm, he shot a dead man! Oswald shot a dead man, because J.D. Tippit’s “legal and lawful” time of death, on his Death Certificate, recognized by any court in this country….is 1:15pm! Yes, you read right, 1:15 pm.
The insert shown above is taken from the actual Certificate of Death, Tippit’s name was misspelled, but the document clearly shows the time and date of death. There is no way Lee Harvey Oswald shot a “living” J.D. Tippit at either 1:15 or 1:16 pm. That statement by the Warren Commission was an outright lie. A lie expressed for the sole purpose of deceiving the American public. The Warren Commission had the Tippit documents in their hands, they knew the “legal” time of death, they knew Oswald couldn’t have shot Tippit at 1:15 or 1:16 pm, and yet they still chose to tell the lie. J.D. Tippit could not have been shot at 1:16, his legal and lawful time of death is as recorded, 1:15pm. Why does that matter? Before Tippit was pronounced “dead” at the hospital, he had to be removed from the ambulance, wheeled to the ER, transferred off of the ambulance gurney onto the hospital bed. Doctors had to do a quick scan, then attempt to clear an airway and possibly administer CPR in the attempt to save Tippit’s life, all “before” declaring the man officially dead.
Parking the ambulance, unloading the gurney with Tippit’s body, wheeling it to the ER and Doctor’s and Nurses attempting to save Tippit’s life would have taken at the bare minimum, one minute……more likely two. Now, starting with Tippit’s “lawful” time of death….let’s do a little math. Subtract the “one minute” from 1:15, and you have a time of 1:14. Between 1:14 and 1:15, Tippit arrived at Methodist Hospital and staff attempted to save his life. It’s not rocket science folks….just simple math.
Now, according to Google Maps, it takes 5 minutes (in “NO” traffic) to travel from 410 E. 10th Street to the Methodist Hospital if using Beckley. This is the shortest possible route. Would driving the ambulance “in traffic”, running with “lights and sirens” be faster? As a former Fire Fighter and ambulance driver, I would say not. It would likely take about the same amount of time or slightly longer. We would drive at faster speeds between intersections but also slow to a crawl when approaching the intersections to prevent any collisions with ongoing traffic. Two other possible routes are listed for travelling to the Methodist Hospital from 410 E. 10th Street, but both would take an even longer span of driving time. For the sake of argument and any doubters, I will here again use the shortest route and shortest amount of time noted; This is shown highlighted in red on the following chart. The chart showing a distance of travel being 1.4 miles is the shortest route. I don’t however know with certainty that the ambulance driver chose to drive the shortest route, they very well may have taken a longer route. The three possible routes are shown on the chart below.
So, to reiterate, I’m going to use the shortest and fastest possible route, with the shortest amount of time wasted for the Tippit time line. So, subtracting the travel time of “5 minutes” from our previous results of “1:14 pm”…..we arrive at a time of 1:09, 1:09 pm being the time that the ambulance left the murder scene at 410 E. 10th Street. Now, from this point, we have to use a little common sense. By that, I mean that the ambulance wasn’t already at the murder scene when Tippit was killed, somebody had to call for it. The person who requested a call for the ambulance (by using his radio) was a taxi cab driver, a man and murder witness by the name of “William W. Scoggins”. Before Mr. Scoggins made the call for the ambulance, he had to have a reason for the request in the first place. That reason, was seeing J.D. Tippit shot in front of his eyes, which obviously happened BEFORE 1:09 pm. Each of the described actions takes time to unfold, this isn’t hard to understand. According to Scoggins testimony, he saw Tippit’s vehicle come to a stop and saw Tippit get out of the vehicle. He saw Tippit grabbing at his stomach (after being shot) and falling to the street. The shooter then ran around the opposite side of the car and shot Tippit in the head. Scoggins hid behind his cab and saw the shooter running past him, with his face turned away from him. He heard the man say either “poor dumb cop” or “poor damn cop”. Scoggins also apparently saw the shooter stop and unload his gun. As the shooter continued on, Scoggins radioed his dispatcher to request an ambulance be sent to the scene. The dispatcher in turn would have to make a telephone call to request the ambulance and provide pertinent information, like the location the ambulance was needed and the reason for the request. That person would have to notify the ambulance crew to send them on their way.
Remember now, during each of these steps, the clock is ticking. Once all of this was done, the ambulance crew would still have to drive to the scene, in traffic. They would still have to find Tippit, position the ambulance, unload the gurney, roll it over to Tippit, load Tippit onto the gurney, wheel the gurney to the ambulance, and place the gurney and Tippit inside the ambulance, all… before 1:09 pm. I need to stop here and give a brief personal history. During my time as a Fire Fighter, I filled several roles over the years. I was sent to a specialized school for the specific training of driving Fire Department vehicles in extreme conditions. Upon completing this course, I was assigned to the position of “Driver Trainer” in the Fire Department in which I worked. I was assigned for a couple of years on our ambulance….and have loaded and unloaded patients to emergency rooms many times. As a Fire Fighter, I also filled the role of “ARO” (Alarm Room Operator) and ATC (Air Traffic Controller) on a regular basis. So I have a fair idea of what is involved in emergency situations and transportation. Now, for these events to have transpired, from the moment Scoggins saw Tippit shot, to the ambulance crew loading Tippit, would have taken time. I’m going to be very generous and say that these events would have taken a minimum of three minutes from start to finish. If we subtract those three minutes from 1:09 pm, we arrive at a time of 1:06pm, the real time that J.D. Tippit was shot. Coincidentally, the time of 1:06 for the shooting happens to match the stated time of the shooting in Helen Markham’s testimony. The only witness who was outside at the same time, every day she went to work.
Mrs. Markham makes two separate inferences in her comments. The first being that the shooting was 6 or 7 minutes after 1pm. This coincides with our time line of 1:06pm. Then she also indicates that the shooting was “before” 1:15, which is affirmed by the official time of death of 1:15 pm. So where does this lead us?
According to Warren Commission calculations and witness testimony, Lee Harvey Oswald arrived at his rooming house at 1:00 pm. His landlady, Mrs. Earlene Roberts, stated that Oswald was at the rooming house for no more than “three or four minutes”, before walking out of the door.
Here again, I’ll be generous….and use the shortest amount of time mentioned by Mrs. Roberts, as the time Oswald stayed in the rooming house or three minutes. This results in the time of Oswald’s leaving as 1:03 pm. The distance to the Tippit murder scene was 9/10th’s of a mile. Tippit was shot at 1:06 pm. During my four years in High School, I was in Track and Field, as a cross country, long distance runner. I can tell you with certainty, that no one, in the history of man can run that distance in three minutes, including any of the current or past world record holders, much less walk it in three minutes. The Warren Commission of course claimed that it took Oswald much longer to walk the distance (see below).
According to the claim shown above, the Warren Commission just proved Lee Harvey Oswald was innocent! If LHO didn’t get to 10th and Patton until shortly after 1:15pm, he didn’t shoot Tippit, because Tippit is at this very moment at the Methodist Hospital being declared officially and “legally” dead! No matter how the WC attempted to manipulate the lie, it just doesn’t work. Oswald did not walk to the Tippit murder scene at 1:15 pm, and he didn’t shoot J.D. Tippit at 1:15pm. He didn’t walk 9/10th’s of a mile in 3 minutes and he didn’t run 9/10th’s of a mile in 3 minutes. None of these things happened, this information is not hearsay, it is documented evidence, and my friends,… that’s fact!
Does this information absolve Lee Harvey Oswald of possible guilt? No. What it does do is demonstrate very clearly and without exception that there is indeed an abundance of “reasonable doubt”. In reality….the evidence goes beyond reasonable doubt, all the way to absolute certainty, that events did not unfold as the Warren Commission has claimed. If we are to ever uncover the truth, it will not be done by building upon a foundation of lies.
The Murder Of J.D. Tippit, Part II
by S.R. Dusty Rohde
Joseph McBride on J. D. Tippit (25:11)
Joseph McBride is the author of Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit.
He discusses J.D. Tippit's troubled life and his murder on November 22nd, 1963.
This presentation was given at the Coalition on Political Assassinations' 50th Anniversary Conference in Dallas (November 24th, 2013).
My Search For The Killers Of President John F. Kennedy And Officer J. D. Tippit
by Joseph McBride
My Search For The Killers Of President John F. Kennedy And Officer J. D. Tippit
by Joseph McBride
Additional facts on the Tippit shooting. (55:23)
Segments from an interview with Joseph McBride performed by Len Osanic.
The Warren Commission tells us that Oswald also killed Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit.
The official records prove this charge False also.
Incident At The El Chico Restaurant – Oak Cliff, Dallas 2 pm 11/22/63
by William Kelly
Looking at the Tippit Case from a Different Angle
by Staffan H Westerberg and Pete Engwall
The events that took place before the actual killing of JFK were likely very carefully planned and executed. However, there must also have been an escalation of intensity as soon as JFK was shot and until they arrested the patsy – the time between 12:30pm and 1:51pm. After the shots in Dealey Plaza, many things had to fall into place and properly work to cover up the crime. A new reality, a fake reality, had to be created, one that was good enough to fool all the observers and a shocked nation. Just think about it, they had killed the President but not yet completely gotten away with it.
“Operation Control Oswald”
First of all, they had to be able to control Lee Harvey Oswald, and they had to control him the entire time and then at the exact moment, apprehend him. With Dallas Police under their control, the men behind the coup could always fix the time on events to fit the final verdict. For instance, if Tippit was killed at 1:04 in reality, they could easily change it to 1:16 without any real opposition. But Oswald running around the streets and perhaps being seen by a bus full of senior citizens three miles away could be very hazardous to the chain of events, not to mention the fact that he could get into a random accident or disappears altogether. For those reasons alone, they had to control him every step of the way.
So when Deputy Sheriff Roger Dean Craig told the Warren Commission he saw Oswald get into a Nash Rambler station wagon on Elm Street at 12:40-45 outside the Book Depository, that’s when the moment of final control started. From then on they made sure they knew Oswald’s exact position and even took him to the place of his arrest. Consequently Oswald couldn’t be allowed to remain in the Book Depository. The murder of JFK lacked hard evidence against him; it didn’t materialized until the following Monday. Because of this we will argue that Officer Craig most certainly saw Oswald leave in the Rambler.
There was something very peculiar going on when a ticket cashier 3 miles away from the crime scene could call the police at a moment when the phone lines to the Dallas Police must have been overloaded, only to have them send between 20-30 cops including the second assistant D.A. Bill Alexander to the movie theatre because a suspicious person walked in without paying for a ticket. Especially when the police modus operandi was totally different as they arrested three armed men in the railroad yard close to Elm Street at approximately the same time. That arrest was handled by two police officers that behaved extremely casual...
Jim Garrison: Interview with Playboy 8:
The Murder of Officer J.D. Tippit, and the “Second” Oswald
...The Warren Commission’s own chronology of Oswald’s movements also fails to allow him sufficient time to reach the scene of Tippit’s murder from the Book Depository Building. The clincher, as far as I’m concerned, is that four cartridges were found at the scene of the slaying. Now, revolvers do not eject cartridges, so when someone is shot, you don’t later find gratuitous cartridges strewn over the sidewalk — unless the murderer deliberately takes the trouble to eject them...
...The Warren Commission’s conclusion was made in spite of the evidence and not because of it. To determine if Oswald’s gun had fired the bullets, it was necessary to call in a ballistics expert who would be able to tell if the lines and grooves on the bullets had a relation to the barrel of the revolver. The Commission called as its witness FBI ballistics expert Cortlandt Cunningham, and he testified, after an examination of the bullets taken from Tippit’s body, that it was impossible to determine whether or not these bullets had been fired from Oswald’s gun.
Yet, on the basis of this expert testimony, the Warren Commission concluded with a straight face that the bullets were fired not only from Oswald’s gun but “to the exclusion of all other weapons.” They simply chose to ignore the fact that revolvers don’t eject cartridges and that the cartridges left so conveniently on the street didn’t match the bullets in Tippit’s body...
...I hesitate to use the words “second Oswald,” because they tend to lend an additional fictional quality to a case that already makes Dr. No and Goldfinger look like auditors’ reports. However, it is true that before the assassination, a calculated effort was made to implicate Oswald in the events to come.
A young man approximating Oswald’s description and using Oswald’s name — we believe we have discovered his identity — engaged in a variety of activities designed to create such a strong impression of Oswald’s instability and culpability in people’s minds that they would recall him as a suspicious character after the President was murdered.
In one instance, a man went to an auto salesroom, gave his name as Lee Oswald, test–drove a car at 80 miles an hour — Oswald couldn’t drive — and, after creating an ineradicable impression on the salesman by his speeding, gratuitously remarked that he might go back to the Soviet Union and was expecting to come into a large sum of money. Parenthetically, the salesman who described this “second Oswald” was subsequently beaten almost to death by unknown assailants outside his showroom. He later fled Dallas and last year was found dead; it was officially declared a suicide.
In another instance, this “second Oswald” visited a shooting range in Dallas and gave a virtuoso demonstration of marksmanship, hitting not only his own bull’s–eye but the bull’s–eyes of neighboring targets as well, thus leaving an unforgettable impression of his skill with a rifle. The real Oswald, of course, was a mediocre shot, and there is no evidence that he had fired a rifle since the day he left the Marines. Consequently, the fact that he couldn’t hit the side of a barn had to be offset, which accounts for the tableau at the rifle range.
I could go on and on recounting similar instances, but there is no doubt that there was indeed a “second Oswald.” Now, the Warren Commission recognized that the individual involved in all these activities could not be Lee Oswald; but they never took the next step and inquired why these incidents of impersonation occurred so systematically prior to the assassination.
As it turned out, of course, the organizers of the conspiracy needn’t have bothered to go to all this trouble of laying a false trail incriminating Oswald. They should have realized, since Oswald was a “self–proclaimed Marxist,” that it wasn’t necessary to produce any additional evidence to convict him in the eyes of the mass media; any other facts would simply be redundant in the face of such a convincing confession of guilt.
A New Look At The Tippit Shooting
by John Armstrong
...The Tippit shooting, like the Kennedy assassination, has befuddled researchers for years. One of the main problems has been witness testimony placing Oswald in different places at the same time. Was Oswald in the 6th floor window or the 2nd floor lunchroom of the TSBD at the time of the assassination? Did Oswald leave Dealey Plaza in William Whaley's cab or in a Rambler Station Wagon? Was Oswald sitting in the Texas Theater or shooting Officer Tippit at 1:15 PM? If Oswald was in the Dallas Jail at 2:00 PM, who was the man, identified as "Lee Harvey Oswald," driving a red Ford Falcon on West Davis Street in Oak Cliff-a car with license plates that belonged to J.D. Tippit's best friend?
Other questions remain unanswered. Why were the spent cartridges given to Officer Poe at the scene of the Tippit shooting not identified by him four months later? Was there enough time for Oswald to have walked from 1026 N. Beckley to 10th & Patton? Why did some witnesses identify Oswald as Tippit's killer while others did not? The questions seem to multiply. The Warren Commission carefully chose a few select witnesses and questionable evidence to support their conclusion that Oswald shot Tippit. But when all of the evidence surrounding the Tippit shooting is properly examined, a far different picture emerges...
...Jack Ruby telephoned a friend on November 22nd and asked if he would "like to watch the fireworks." Unknown to Ruby, his friend was an informant for the criminal intelligence division of the Internal Revenue Service. He and Ruby were standing at the corner of the Postal Annex Building at the time of the shooting. Minutes after the shooting Phil Willis, who knew Jack Ruby, saw and photographed a man who looked like Ruby near the front of the School Book Depository...
The empty shells obtained and initialed by Officer Poe at the scene of Tippit's murder were apparently not the same shells the Warren Commission held as evidence. When the Commission's shells were shown to Poe months later, he could not find and identify the marks he remembered making. Two .38 Remington-Peters and two .38 Winchester-Western hulls were found. But only one Remington-Peters slug and three Winchester-Western slugs were removed from Tippit's body. The .38 revolver taken from Oswald had been rechambered (slightly enlarged) to accept .38 Special cartridges. When discharged through a rechambered weapon, .38 Special cartridges "bulge" in the middle and are noticeably "fatter" than cartridges fired in an unchambered revolver. The empty cartridges, found in the National Archives, appear normal in size, indicating that they were fired in an original .38 revolver-not in a rechambered revolver such as the one taken from Harvey Oswald at the Texas Theater. The revolver taken from Oswald at the Texas Theater was not the gun used to kill Tippit. The Warren Commission tells us that Oswald ordered the .38 pistol from Seaport Traders in Los Angeles, via REA Express. But they have never explained how REA Express delivered the pistol C.O.D. to P.O. Box 2915 in Dallas. Who would deliver a gun C.O.D. to a post office box? Who paid REA? How were they paid? Who signed for the delivery? These riddles have yet to be answered...
Barry Ernest Finds Witnesses Who Exonerate Lee Harvey Oswald
Accidental History: The Girl on the Stairs
by Barry Ernest
Reviewed by Joseph E. Green and Jim DiEugenio
Barry then visited the scene of policeman J. D. Tippit’s shooting. Here, he meets a witness that no agent of government had talked to, a Mrs. Higgins who lived nearby. She offered him some very important information. She had heard the shots and ran out her front door to see Tippit lying in the street. Barry asked her what time it was. She said it was 1:06. He asked her how she recalled that specific time. She said because she was watching TV and the announcer said it. So she automatically checked her clock when he said it and he was right. Barry concludes that it was not possible that Oswald could have traversed the distance from his apartment to the scene of Tippit’s murder in time to do the shooting. (p. 58) This is when she heard the shots. She also said she got a look at a man running form the scene with a handgun. When Barry asked her what he looked like she replied it was definitely not Oswald. (p. 59)
Barry then timed the Commission’s story on how long it would take Oswald to get to the Texas Theater from 10th and Patton, the Tippit murder scene. This, the Commission said, took 24 minutes. Yet it was shorter by a third than Oswald’s walk from his apartment to 10th and Patton. Yet it took twice as long for Oswald to traverse? (ibid) The Commission says it took Oswald 24 minutes to walk that distance. It took Barry ten minutes.
The Wallet...The Stumbling Block
All supporters of the Official Story have a hard time with the wallet discovered at the scene of Tippit’s murder. It is the main out of place artifact. It would normally be written off as a confused event from stressed out men, functioning on a bewildering and tragic day. But, there is the WFAA-TV film crew at the Tippet murder scene with Dallas Policemen examining a billfold. The event is recorded on 16mm film, in black and white, just two over minutes with no audio.
Myers struggles with this issue just as Bugliosi did in Reclaiming History, regulating the incident to his End Notes on the accompanying CD-ROM. Bugliosi wrongly concluded it was Tippet’s wallet. Once again, finding something troubling that creates a conflict with his narrative, Myers shoots an air ball and states at the end of his examination, that the wallet is a mystery. He clearly wants it to go away as it could represent an attempt to frame of Oswald for the crime.
The found wallet was largely unknown till retired FBI agent James Hosty mentioned it in his 1995 book, Assignment Oswald. He says he was told of the wallet with Oswald’s ID in it by fellow agent Robert Barrett. In turn, Barrett said he learned of it from Dallas police captain W. R. Westbrook at the Tippet murder location. Westbrook is seen in the TV film footage examining a wallet in the company of several other Dallas police officers. Barrett says he was asked by Westbrook if he knew a Lee Oswald or an Alek Hidell. He did not. This was due to the number if ID's in the wallet.
One troubling issue is where did this wallet come from? It was seen by no one at the murder scene, either police officers, reporters, or the ambulance crew. The source is apparently an anonymous bystander that handed it over to reserve sergeant Kenneth Croy. Eventually it made its way to captain Westbrook. Myers states that Croy is the only police officer on the scene that can corroborate Barrett. He further states that in a 2009 interview, Croy told him that there were seven ID’s but not one had Oswald’s name on them. However, long-time researcher Jones Harris, who interviewed Croy in 1990, told me that Croy never made such a statement to him, and Croy said he never examined the contents of the wallet. Never the less, this odd comment by Kenneth Croy appears to be a flimsy attempt to discredit Robert Barrett’s account of what happened. Which in itself is hard to do since Barrett has proven himself over time to be an honest individual whose story never changed.
It is worrisome however, that captain Westbrook, other police officers at the scene, and agent Barrett left out the wallet in all of their collective reports. In his interview with Barrett, Jones Harris told me he had queried why he did not mentioned the wallet episode in his report. Barrett replied, “What was the point Mr. Harris, after all, the man [Oswald] is dead.” Harris did not press the point, understanding the constraints that Barrett was under at the time and was still under as a government agent. Harris had felt for a long time that things went wrong with the game plan at 10th and Patton.
Myers alleged to have interviewed Robert Barrett in 1996. If so, why didn’t he ask Barrett why he didn’t document the wallet in his official report? Or, why he stood by the report as accurate when testifying to the Church Committee in 1975? We don’t know because Myers never tells the reader why. Also, Myers hints that Westbrook didn’t tell Barrett about the Oswald/Hidell ID’s till latter that day in headquarters. But that is not what Barrett told researcher Jones Harris about this incident (nor his fellow agent Hosty). Barrett told Harris that it occurred right there at the murder scene that day. Later, Harris related this in a conversation with Myers, who after a long pause, expressed shock that Harris had interviewed Barrett. According to Harris, he felt certain at the time that Myers had not interviewed Barrett. Harris always felt it was important to talk directly to the people involved rather than depend on government documents, because documents can be manipulated.
Myers includes a detailed macro shot of the wallet (from the National Archives) taken from Oswald upon his arrest and a frame from the WFAA-TV footage. Myers attempts to tell the reader how different both wallets are. That’s a quite a stretch since the frame from the footage is badly blurred. He goes on to say the TV footage wallet doesn’t show enough wear, has square corners as opposed to rounded, and other differences that are really hard to see because of the blur. It is apparent however, that the coin zipper is visible in both images.
Eventually, Myers’ Jedi mind tricks fail to be convincing. He will admit that Tippit’s wallet is black and found with his things at the Methodist hospital as is documented in police reports–the TV footage wallet is a light color (brown, as seen in Myers' photo and documented) as is Oswald’s arrest wallet. He will admit a wallet is being examined at 10th and Patton by numerous Dallas police officers. Ultimately, Myers abandons any hope of resolving the issue. The wallet completely and utterly disappears from the point of documentation and the mind of man.
The only good thing about this episode is there will always be the film footage to show that wallet being examined in the hands of police officers at 10th and Patton.
Who found the wallet? And when did they find it?
Here’s the story insofar as it is known.
The first officer on the Tippit murder scene was Dallas Police Sergeant Kenneth H. Croy, who arrived as the ambulance was picking up Tippit’s body. Croy told an interviewer that an unknown man handed him Oswald’s wallet right after his arrival. The witnesses who preceded Croy at the crime scene were adamant that no one dropped a wallet anywhere in the vicinity.
The wallet wound up in the hands of Captain Pinky Westbrook. FBI agent Bob Barrett recalled that Westbrook turned to him at the scene and asked, ‘You ever heard of a Lee Harvey Oswald?’ I said, ‘No, I never have.’ He said ‘How about an Alek Hidell?’ I said, ‘No. I never have heard of him either,'” Barrett explained.
“Why would they be asking me questions about Oswald and Hidell if it wasn’t in that wallet?”
Why does the wallet matter?
The wallet contained what is the only known instance of Oswald carrying identification under the alias of “Alek Hidell.” The two sets of identification cards found in the wallet are key evidence in the JFK case.
Kennedy was killed on Friday Nov. 22. By the next day, it was worldwide news that the rifle that was used in the shooting of President Kennedy was purchased by mail order with a postal money order made out by “A. Hidell” and listing Oswald’s PO box as the place for pick-up.
Oswald and “Hidell” were now tied by the rifle and the wallet to JFK’s murder, less than two hours after the event.
“Why would they be asking me questions about Oswald and Hidell if it wasn’t in that wallet?”
In custody, Oswald denied that he was the owner of the rifle found at the Texas School Book Depository where he worked and where several people saw one and possibly two gunmen. The gun had been ordered in the name of “Hiddel.”
For the FBI man, Barrett said the wallet made the case against Oswald a “slam dunk.”
Yet the Dallas authorities never wrote a report about any wallet found at the Tippit murder scene. Perhaps that was oversight. Perhaps not.
by John Armstrong
In November, 1997, I gave a presentation at the JFK Lancer conference in Dallas entitled "Harvey and Lee." I briefly mentioned an Oswald wallet found at the scene of the Tippit murder:
"Dallas Police Captain Westbrook found Oswald's brown wallet next to where Tippit had fallen and showed it to FBI Agent Barrett. It seems unbelievable that a man would leave his wallet next to a policeman he has just shot. But Barrett insists Oswald's wallet was found at the Tippit murder scene. If Tippit's assailant was the man who impersonated Harvey Oswald for the previous two months, then the wallet was intentionally left at the scene of the Tippit shooting. Perhaps this was Lee Oswald's last act of setting up Harvey as a "patsy." If so, it left Lee with no identification."
The Witnesses: Warren Reynolds (3:45)
Warren Reynolds worked at a car lot one block from the Tippit murder scene. He heard shots and saw a man with a gun who he followed and then lost. Although he reported what he saw to the Dallas Police on November 22nd, he wasn't interviewed by the FBI until January 1964. Two days after his FBI interwiew, Reynolds was shot in the head by an unknown assailant. Before he was shot, Reynolds would not identify Oswald as the man he saw, after he recovered from his wounds, Reynolds identified Oswald.
by Penn Jones, Jr.
Warren Reynolds was minding his used car lot on East Jefferson Street in Oak Cliff in Dallas, when he heard shots two blocks away. He thought it was a marital quarrel. Then he saw a man having a great difficulty tucking "a pistol or an automatic" in his belt, and running at the same time. Reynolds gave chase for a short piece being careful to keep his distance, then lost the fleeing man. He didn't know it then, but he had apparently witnessed the flight of the killer (or one of the killers) of patrolman Jefferson David Tippit. Feeling helpful, he gave his name to a passing policeman and offered his cooperation. Television cameras zeroed in on him, got his story, and made him well known. Warren Reynolds, the amiable used car man, was making history. Reynolds was not questioned until two months after the event. The FBI finally talked to him in January 1964. The FBI interview report said, " . . . he was hesitant to definitely identify Oswald as the individual." Then it added, "He advised he is of the opinion Oswald is the person." Two days after Reynolds talked to the FBI, he was shot in the head. He was closing up his used car lot for the night at the time. Nothing was stolen. Later after consulting retired General Edwin Walker (the man Oswald allegedly shot at before he assassinated President Kennedy), he told the Warren Commission Counsel that Oswald was definitely the man he saw fleeing the Tippit murder scene. A young hood was arrested for the murder attempt. Darrell Wayne Garner had called a relative bragging that he shot Reynolds. But Garner had an alibi, Nancy Jane Mooney, alias Betty McDonald, who said Garner was in bed with her at the time he was supposed to have shot Reynolds. Nancy Jane had worked at Jack Ruby's Carousel Club. Garner was freed. Nancy Jane was picked up a week later for fighting with a girlfriend. She was arrested for disturbing the peace. The girlfriend was not arrested. Within hours after her arrest, Nancy Jane was dead. Police reports said she hanged herself with her toreador pants. Reynolds and his family were harassed and threatened. But upon giving the Warren Commission a firm identification of Oswald as being the Tippit murder fugitive, he said, "I don't think they are going to bother me any more."
Mark Lane Talks On The " Reliable " Witness Mrs. Helen Markham Recorded In 1964 (13:10)
J.D. Tippit Assassination Witness Helen Markham (2:54)
Acquilla Clemons Describes What She Saw In Oak Cliff On November 22, 1963 (4:09)
Ted Callaway J.D. Tippit Murder Witness Television Interview 1964 (2:41)
For more see the comprehensive section: J. D. Tippit
1:12 p.m. CST, The shells were not found until 1:12. Even after the rifle was found a little later, no one was able to tie the gun or shells to Oswald until early the next morning after visiting Klein’s Sporting Goods in Chicago, where “Alex Hidell” had mail-ordered the Mannlicher-Carcano found on the sixth floor. Nor was Oswald noticed as missing from the Depository until well into the afternoon.
1:22 p.m. CST, Jean Hill in live television report states she heard shots from the Knoll.
JFK Assassination rarely seen November 22, 1963 Jean Hill interview (2:13)
Radio Interviews With Mary Moorman And Jean Hill On November 22, 1963 (7:11)
1:22 p.m. CST, Boone, Craig and Weitzman discover a rifle they identify as a 7.65 Mauser concealed between boxes on the 6th floor. This 7.65 Mauser rifle was mentioned on all news for many hours, till the assassins rifle was then changed to the Mannilcher-Carcano.
7.65 Mauser
Roger Craig talks about the 7.65 Mauser found in the Texas School Book Depository after the JFK assassination. See the news reports you never saw again after the lying started.
The Mauser 7.65 Rifle - Various news agencies reported the rifle to be a Mauser, until the correction was made late Friday, November 22, 1963.
A Mauser, is a Mauser, is a Mannlicher-Carcano
by George W. Bailey
The Assassinations Record Review Board (ARRB) in 1995 uncovered an FBI Field Office Dallas (89-43-1A-122) envelope. It was dated December 2, 1963, and detailed the contents (since missing) of a 7.65mm shell found in Dealey Plaza after the assassination. This recovered evidence was unknown until the ARRB uncovered it. Unfortunately, it did not contain the 7.65mm shell and the outside of the envelope listed it as having no value and was destroyed. Destruction of material evidence by the FBI? Did they even bother take fingerprints off of it? Or, were there in too big of a rush?
One can see from this 7.65mm shell affair how deeply entrenched the lone gunman dogma is at this juncture. Yes, dismiss the evidence if there is only one shooter. But if there is a conspiracy, with multiple shooters, then the recovered shell has greater implications for it. But they don’t think like that. Ironically, the spent cartridge is of the same caliber as the recovered Mauser. With these people the evidence doesn't matter as much as the carefully constructed narrative. Just like it didn’t matter when Gerald Ford moved Kennedy’s back would up to his neck and stated that lie as a fact to the American people...
The "Snipers Nest" - 50 Reasons For 50 Years - Episode 17
Host Len Osanic tries to account for numerous inconsistencies in the record of key physical evidence found - or said to be found - on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building.
The Condition of the Sixth-Floor Mannilcher-Carcano Rifle
The experts from the US Army and the FBI who had tested the rifle discovered that it was actually not usable in its original state:
Shims had to be applied to the telescopic sight before the rifle could be aimed.
Even after the telescopic sight had been repaired, it proved unreliable and inaccurate.
The condition of both the bolt and the trigger pull meant that the rifle could not be aimed accurately.
The rifle discovered on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository could not have caused any of the wounds to Kennedy, Connally or Tague, except by accident.
A group of Dallas Police Department detectives, including Will Fritz, Seymour Weitzman, Roger Craig, Eugene Boone and Luke Mooney searched the Texas School Book Depository soon after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. On the sixth floor they discovered a rifle hidden beneath some boxes. The detectives identified it as a 7.65 Mauser. District Attorney Henry M. Wade, in a television interview, told the nation that the rifle was a Mauser. It was the FBI who announced that the officers had been mistaken. According to them it was a 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano, an Italian bolt-action rifle used in the Second World War. All the detectives agreed to change their mind about the rifle except Roger Craig.
The Rifle in the Building - Part III: The Accused
The Mannlicher-Carcano C2766 rifle was brought into the Book Depository and taken to the sixth floor in some way at some time prior to 1:30 P.M., November 22, when it was found hidden in a stack of boxes near the sixth-floor stair landing. For the "lone assassin-no conspiracy" theory to be valid, the only man who could have brought the rifle into the building is Lee Harvey Oswald.
The Commission's conclusion that Oswald brought the rifle into the Depository demands premeditation of the murder. According to the Report, Oswald deliberately lied to co-worker Frazier about his reason for returning to Irving the day before the assassination and constructed a paper sack on or before Thursday, November 21, for the purpose of carrying his rifle into the building (R137).
by Walter F. Graf and Richard R. Bartholomew
[Editor's Note: The authors present a definitive study establishing the existence of conspiracy in the death of JFK revolving about a seemingly minor matter of evidence --a rifle clip--that contaminates the ballistic evidence. George Michael Evica has characterized this study as one of the most important in the history of the case.]
Evidence the Rifle in the Window was not a Carcano
Some spectators at Houston and Elm Streets, however, did see a rifle being fired in the direction of the President's car from the easternmost window of the sixth floor on the south side of the building. Other witnesses saw a rifle in this window immediately after the assassination. (Warren Report, page 61)
Wiretapping in Mexico City, Double Agents, and the Framing of Lee Oswald
Chapter 6: The Set-Up and the Cover-Up
by Bill Simpich
The humanitarian weapon
It’s even less likely that anyone used the Mannlicher-Carcano later found near the sixth floor stairwell to fire at anything. This rifle is what Oswald supposedly used to kill JFK and wound Connally by firing three shots from behind the president’s car in the motorcade. It’s hard to imagine why Oswald would have used it – it was a mail order weapon ordered under the name of Oswald’s supposed chief of the New Orleans Fair Play for Cuba Committee, Alex Hidell. Of all the rifles in the world, what assassin would use a rifle that would maximize chances of getting caught?
This rifle was hardly an assassin’s choice – the Mannlicher-Carcano was a World War I relic best known as the “humanitarian weapon” during World War II because it never killed anybody on purpose - MCs could be purchased for three dollars each in lots of 25. On the day the rifle was found, the firing pin was found to be defective or worn-out, the telescopic sight was not accurately sighted, and no ammunition clip was officially reported. Without an ammunition clip, a gunman would have to hand-load cartridges. Firing three bullets in a few seconds would be impossible. Although the rifle was found near the sixth floor crime scene, I don’t think the rifle was used to shoot the President. I think it was used as a throw-down weapon with throw-down shells to frame the man called Oswald who worked on the sixth floor. Oswald always proclaimed his innocence. Why would he needlessly leave incriminating evidence at the crime scene?
The Dallas police investigators quickly came to a consensus that there were no more than three shots. Given the short time involved, four shots would indicate more than one shooter. Hoover wanted this to be a one shooter case, focusing on the shooter in custody. The question was how to show that three shots emanated from the sixth floor window. The evidence photos CE 510 and CE 716 do not show three shells on the sixth floor – they show two shells and one live round. The Dallas police inventory reflects this reality, listing “two spent 6.5 hulls” and “one live round”. The FBI report of the photographing of this evidence states the same, unreleased until many months after the Warren Report.
I think that whoever planted the evidence at the scene was hedging their bets as to whether the official story from this location was going to be “two shots” or “three shots”. The tableau was left in an ambiguous manner to leave room for the story to change if needed. Hedging his bets as well, homicide chief Will Fritz said he kept one of the shells to use for comparison checks to find out how where the shells were obtained. This makes no sense – the live round found at the scene would be the best way to conduct a comparison. The sheer audacity of titling these photos as “three cartridge cases” and “three shells” is stunning to this day. Whoever did it should have gone to prison.
Lee Harvey Oswald Did Not Buy A 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano
by John Armstrong
According to the Warren Commission Lee HARVEY Oswald left his job at Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall on the morning of March 12, walked 9 blocks to the downtown post office, purchased a postal money order, and then mailed the money order to Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago. But the letter was postmarked 10:30 am, while company time records show that Oswald never left his job. He worked continuously from 8:00 am through 12:15 pm on 9 different printing jobs.
The Warren Commission never pointed out that the letter to Klein's was time stamped 10:30 am, while company time records showed that Oswald never left work.
Oswald Did Not Purchase a Rifle from Kleins
by John Armstrong
For nearly 50 years the public has been confused and purposely misled by a systematic and continuous barrage of disinformation relating to the assassination of President Kennedy. This began with the illusion that Oswald was the lone assassin. This illusion was created by the Warren Commission, based upon altered and fabricated FBI reports and documents, and continued with the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and was continuously promoted with an endless stream of Oswald-did-it books and made-for-TV documentaries. Over the years numerous books were written about the life of Lee Harvey Oswald by his mother, his widow, and his brother--people who allegedly knew Oswald better than anyone. But these books in particular are filled with inaccuracies and were designed and promoted to fool and confuse the public about the life and background of Lee Harvey Oswald.
The majority of Americans believe the assassination of President Kennedy was the result of a conspiracy and few believe that Oswald was the lone assassin. Many of these people have been hoping for a "smoking gun" to emerge that would solve the JFK mystery once and for all. But even though a single "smoking gun" is an illusion, there are many, many "smoking guns" and they have been there for years--right before our eyes. These "smoking guns" are often overlooked and misunderstood because they seem insignificant and inconsequential. They consist of numerous unexplained events, confusing and misleading pieces of information, fabricated evidence, incomplete testimony, and outright lies that have never been thoroughly investigated or properly explained. By studying the small details and contradictions, we slowly begin to understand their meaning and their purpose. By linking these details together, piece by piece, what emerges is the larger than life "smoking gun" that has eluded us for so long. As my good friend and long-time JFK researcher Malcolm Blunt has said to me again and again, "the devil is in the details." Study these details, the minute details, again and again, and you most certainly will learn and understand the devils who were behind the assassination of President Kennedy.
Two of the most misunderstood "smoking guns" in the assassination are, ironically, the rifle and pistol allegedly ordered and purchased through the mail by Oswald. If Oswald did not purchase the weapons recovered by the Dallas Police, then how could he have killed JFK and Officer Tippit? These two "smoking guns" will not show us who was behind the assassination, but they will clearly show that the FBI deliberately manipulated crucial pieces of evidence in order to frame Oswald. And they will show how the Warren Commission used FBI reports, testimony from FBI officials, and documentation acquired by the FBI in a blatant and deliberate attempt to "prove" that Oswald purchased and used an old Italian-made rifle to murder President Kennedy and the pistol to murder Dallas Police Officer Tippit. Both the FBI and the Warren Commission intentionally ignored anything and everything that would have exonorated Oswald. Now, let's look at some of the details carefully, piece together what really happened with the rifle and pistol, and find out how and why we were misled.
For more see the comprehensive section: 7.65 Mauser
1:25 p.m. CST, Captain Fritz is given Oswalds name and address and description by Roy Truly, then later returns to police HQ. When he arrives Oswald is already there.
1:27 p.m. CST, Walter Cronkite announces "We just have a report from our correspondent Dan Rather in Dallas that he has confirmed that President Kennedy is dead. There is still no official confirmation of this. However, it's a report from our correspondent, Dan Rather, in Dallas, Texas."
At 1:33 p.m. CST, Malcolm Kilduff entered a nurses' classroom at the hospital filled with press reporters and made the official announcement: “President John F. Kennedy died at approximately 1:00 CST today, here in Dallas. He died of a gunshot wound to the brain. I have no other details regarding the assassination of the president.”
In the opening and lead story by journalist Tom Wicker in the Saturday, November 23, 1963 edition of The New York Times is conclusive evidence of The Conspiracy. On page 2 Wicker reports Acting White House Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff’s press conference at Parkland Hospital at 1:33 p.m. (Central Standard Time). Kilduff said: “President John F. Kennedy died at approximately one o’clock Central Standard Time here in Dallas. He died of a gunshot to the brain, Dr. Burkey told me.” (Burkey was Kennedy’s personal physician) “It was a simple matter at the time of a bullet right through the head.”(Kilduff raised his right arm and used his right index finger to point to the entrance wound in the right temple.) This is shown in the last second of the following video: Malcolm Kilduff announces the death of President John F. Kennedy.
In the second column on page 2, Wicker wrote this: “Later in the afternoon, Dr. Malcolm Perry, an attending surgeon, and Dr. Kemp Cark, Chief of neurosurgery at Parkland Hospital gave more details: Mr. Kennedy was hit by a bullet in the throat, just below the Adam’s apple, they said. 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 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.”
Malcolm Kilduff announces the death of President John F. Kennedy (2:47)
At 1:33 pm in a Parkland Memorial Hospital classroom White House Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff made the official announcement to reporters that President Kennedy had died at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas Texas.
1:36 p.m. CST, Shoe store manager Johnny Brewer spots Oswald acting suspicious in front of his store, six blocks west of the shooting scene.
1:37 p.m. CST, Brewer is drawn to the sidewalk as a police car speeds past and sees Oswald slip into the Texas Theater up the street.
1:38 p.m. CST, Brewer walks up the street and alerts Texas Theater ticket-taker Julia Postal to the suspicious man. Brewer enters the theater to make sure the man is still there.
1:38 p.m. CST, (2:38 p.m. EST) Cronkite remarked on fearful concerns of demonstrations in Dallas similar to the attack of U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson in Dallas the previous month. At that moment, a CBS News employee seen in the background pulled off a sheet from the AP News ticker. He quickly relayed it (off-camera) to Cronkite, who put on his glasses, took a few seconds to read the sheet, and made the announcement: “From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official: [reading AP flash] 'PRESIDENT KENNEDY DIED AT 1 P.M. (CST),' 2:00 Eastern Standard Time, some thirty-eight minutes ago.” After reading the flash, Cronkite took off his glasses so he could consult the studio clock, which established the lapse in time since Kennedy had died. He paused briefly and replaced his eyeglasses, visibly moved for a moment. Cronkite continued: “Vice President Johnson... (clears throat) ...has left the hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where he has proceeded. Presumably, he will be taking the oath of office shortly and become the thirty-sixth president of the United States.” There was a sense of irony to CBS' coverage of the assassination. On September 2, 1963, Kennedy gave an interview with Cronkite, helping CBS inaugurate network television's first half hour evening newscast.
JFK assassination: Cronkite informs a shocked nation (1:50)
"As The World Turns" was airing on CBS the afternoon of November 22, 1963, when Walter Cronkite broke in to tell the nation that President Kennedy had been shot. Coverage then went back to the soap opera, but not for long. Charles Osgood reports on how America learned of the shooting of a president.
1:42 p.m. CST, Brewer returns to the front of the theater. He is certain the man is still inside. Julia Postal calls police.
1:45 p.m. CDT, George Herbert Walker Bush, now president of Zapata Offshore and chairman of the Harris County Republican Organization, which supports Barry Goldwater, calls the FBI to report a threat on President Kennedy’s life. Bush advises the FBI that a man named James Parrott has been talking of killing President Kennedy when he comes to Houston. Tomorrow, FBI agent W. T Forsyth will report that he “Orally furnished information to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency about the reaction of the Cuban community in Miami to President Kennedy’s assassination.”
Did George H.W. Bush Witness JFK Assassination?
FBI files, newspaper ad and curious photos raise questions
Despite his claims to the contrary, there is documentary evidence that George H. W. Bush was in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and was affiliated at that time with the CIA, despite protests that he was not associated with the agency until President Gerald R. Ford appointed him director in 1976.
Two FBI memos and a photograph of a man standing outside the Texas School Book Depository are among the intriguing items addressed in Jerome Corsi’s new book “Who Really Killed Kennedy”.
JFK Jr. Told The World Who Murdered His Father - But Nobody Was Paying Attention
by John Hankey
I’ll quote the relevant part. It’s a statement from Roger Craig, winner of the deputy of the year award for Dallas in 1960, and one of the most honest men working that day in Dallas. He’s an amazing and heroic fellow, worthy of all the time you could take looking into his background and character. And here, in the following passage, he is describing a conversation he had with Jim Garrison, and he says,“Jim also asked me about the arrests made in Dealey Plaza that day. I told him I knew of twelve arrests, one in particular made by R. E. Vaughn of the Dallas Police Department. The man Vaughn arrested was coming from the Dal-Tex Building across from the Texas School Book Depository.
The only thing which Vaughn knew about him was that he was an independent oil operator from Houston, Texas. The prisoner was taken from Vaughn by Dallas Police detectives and that was the last that he saw or heard of the suspect.”
Please notice that, in speaking to Jim Garrison, Craig says “in particular”. Apparently he and Vaughn thought this was the most significant arrest made that day; pretty amazing given that E.Howard Hunt was arrested in the rail yard behind the grassy knoll. And the only thing Craig knew about this “particular” arrestee was that he had exactly the same singular CIA-cover, “an independent oil operator from Houston, Texas”, that George Bush had used that same day in his contact with the FBI.
There is a also photograph of what very much looks like George H. W. Bush in front of the Texas School Book Depository shortly after of the assassination of President Kennedy.
With regard to George H. W. Bush and the assassination of President Kennedy, Joseph McBride found this FBI memo in 1988. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover wrote this memo seven days after the assassination, naming George Bush as a CIA officer. The last, and most crucial paragraph, is very hard to read. The following is a transcription: “The substance of the forgoing information was orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency and Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency on November 23, 1963, by Mr. V.T. Forsyth of this Bureau.”
Note: In Dallas today, the concept of Republican and Democrat is painfully giving way to the ideology of Conservative against Liberal. Texas Democrats are at bitter odds with each other - creating the perfect climate for the far Right to enter the arena virtually unchallenged. The headlines of today’s Dallas Morning News read: “Storm of Political Controversy Swirls Around Kennedy Visit,” and “Split State Party Continues Feuds.” In the 1960 election the Kennedy-Johnson ticket lost in Dallas while managing to carry Texas only by a disturbingly small margin. The “Kennedy camp” clearly realizes that Vice President Johnson may very well be a liability on the ‘64 Democratic ticket - particularly in light of the scandals now swirling around him. (LBJ must also be equally aware of this political reality.) In fact, though few realize it on this date, Dallas is already well on its way towards evolving into a seat of extreme conservative philosophy and burgeoning Republican politics. Besides Vice President Johnson, it is historically significant that Texas will also eventually send two more presidents to the White House - both from the same family: Bush - and both will be inextricably connected to oil interests as well as the Republican party. Both men - father and son - will also take the United States to war in the Middle East. While many influential Texans are today extremely apprehensive about the ramifications of a possible “Kennedy legacy” [Jack, Bobby, Ted], it is the “Bush dynasty” that will eventually emerge to take control.
For more see the comprehensive section: George H. W. Bush
1:46 p.m. CDT, Fifteen police officers surround the movie theater, and four officers are needed to subdue Lee Harvey Oswald inside.
1:47 p.m. CST, Numerous police squads arrive at the front and back doors of the Texas Theater.
1:49 p.m. CST, Johnny Brewer, guarding the back door of the Texas Theater, lets officers in and points out Oswald sitting on the lower floor, third row from the back.
1.51 p.m. CST, Dallas police report that Lee Harvey Oswald is in custody.
2:00 p.m. CST, The Magic Bullet, CE 399, is handed to Secret Service Agent Richard Johnson at Parkland Hospital by Chief of Parkland Hospital security O.P. Wright.
About 2 p.m. CST, Oswald arrived at the Dallas Police Department building, where he was questioned by Detective Jim Leavelle about the shooting of Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit. When Captain J. W. Fritz heard Oswald's name, he recognized it as that of the book depository employee who was reported missing and was already a suspect in the assassination of President Kennedy.
by John Simkin
Timeline Of The Life Of Lee Harvey Oswald
by W. Tracy Parnell
What Was Lee Harvey Oswald's Alibi?
Oswald seems to have claimed to have been on the first floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Two colleagues, James Jarman and Harold Norman, place him there no more than seven minutes before the shooting.
How and why the Warren Commission framed Lee Harvey Oswald
A factual account based on the Commission's public and private documents
by Howard Roffman
Patsy For CIA / Secret Service Assassination Coverup Of John F. Kennedy
Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 – November 24, 1963) was an American man who, according to four government investigations,[n 1] killed John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, using a firearm in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.
A former U.S. Marine who had briefly defected to the Soviet Union, Oswald was initially arrested for the shooting murder of police officer J. D. Tippit, on a Dallas street approximately 40 minutes after Kennedy was shot. Suspected in the assassination of Kennedy as well, Oswald denied involvement in either killing. Two days later, while being transferred from police headquarters to the county jail, Oswald was mortally wounded by nightclub owner Jack Ruby in full view of television cameras broadcasting live.
In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy, a conclusion also reached by prior investigations carried out by the FBI and Dallas Police Department...
JFK - Oswald - Assassination Timeline
Faulty Evidence: Problems With The Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald
by Michael T. Griffith
In 1964 the Warren Commission (WC) concluded that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, and that there was no conspiracy involved in the killing. The Commission asserted that Oswald shot JFK from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) Building in Dallas, Texas, with an Italian-made 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano rifle at 12:30 P.M. on November 22, 1963.
WC defenders maintain that the case against Oswald is airtight, and that were he to stand trial today he would be found guilty of the assassination.
Critics of the WC, on the other hand, assert that Oswald was framed, that the case against him is flawed at almost every point, and that an impartial jury would acquit him in a trial where the normal legal standards of evidence were applied. In their view, not only is there far more than a reasonable doubt about Oswald's guilt, but the available evidence shows he did not shoot the President. Most WC critics also believe that Kennedy was killed as the result of a conspiracy.
In 1992 the American Bar Association conducted two mock Oswald trials. The first trial ended in a hung jury. In the second trial the jury acquitted Oswald.
The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the problems with the case against Lee Harvey Oswald.
...Conclusion
The problems with the case against Oswald considered herein are but a handful of those that could be discussed. There are substantive questions about the validity or significance of virtually all of the other items of evidence that supposedly identify Oswald as JFK's assassin.
It is often difficult to judge how a jury will decide a case. I cannot say for sure that a particular jury would acquit Oswald of President Kennedy's murder. However, I can say that the case against Oswald is woefully lacking in substance.
Was Oswald posing as a Communist as a cover while actually working as a spy for the CIA? The following is a quick look at some of the evidence pointing to Oswald's involvement with spy work:
His childhood -- a bright loner who read a wide range of books and was drawn to unpopular ideas, attracted by spy stories (the TV show "I Led Three Lives" and Ian Fleming's James Bond novels were among his favorites) -- perfectly fits the profile of persons most desired for intelligence work.
Oswald's Marine career is checkered with inconsistencies and unexplained events that suggest secret intelligence training.
His assignment to Atsugi base in Japan, which housed a large CIA facility.
Oswald's incredible ability with the Russian language. Several Russians, including his wife, said he spoke like a native, yet this high-school dropout reportedly taught himself Russian from books.
The fact that several persons -- including a former CIA paymaster, Oswald's Marine roommate, and fellow Marine Gerry Patrick Hemming -- have suggested that Oswald worked for U.S. intelligence.
The manner in which Oswald traveled so easily in and out of Russia as well as the unaccounted-for funds he used suggests intelligence guidance.
The ability of this American "defector" to leave the Soviet Union with his Russian-born wife at a time when most Russians were being denied exit permits.
The ease with which this would-be defector obtained passports both in 1959 and 1963.
The fact that Oswald wrote a lengthy report on his activities in Russia and, later, made a detailed report to the FBI concerning his Fair Play For Cuba activities in New Orleans.
Oswald's notebook contained the word "microdots," a common spy technique of photographically reducing information to a small dot.
Oswald's nonbinding "defection" to Russia fits perfectly the profile of an Office of Naval Intelligence program to infiltrate American servicemen into the Soviet Union during the late 1950's.
One of Oswald's closest contacts, George DeMohrenschildt, was himself an intelligence operative, first for the Nazis and later for the CIA.
One of the strongest pieces of evidence for Oswald's involvement in spy work concerns a small Minox camera found among his effects by Dallas Police. Information developed by the Dallas Morning News in 1978 revealed the camera was not available to the public in 1963. It may have been spy equipment issued to Oswald. This evidence was so explosive that the FBI tried to get Dallas detectives to change their reports regarding the camera and also kept photos taken by Oswald hidden for nearly fifteen years.... Detective Rose told the Dallas Morning News: "[FBI agents] were calling it a light meter, I know that. But I know a camera when I see it.... The thing we got at Irving out of Oswald's seabag was a Minox camera. No question about it. They tried to get me to change the records because it wasn't a light meter. I don't know why they wanted it changed, but they must have had some motive for it." The motive may have been that the existence of the camera pointed to Oswald's intelligence connections.... The three-inch-long German-made camera was famous for being used by spies on both sides during World War II.
Excerpted from the book:
Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy
by Jim Marrs
Jim Marrs On Lee Harvey Oswald's Innocence (21:09)
Timeline of Doubt: How We Got From JFK to JFK, and Beyond
The Last Words Of Lee Harvey Oswald
Compiled by Mae Brussell
From the time of Oswald's arrest to his own assassination at the hands of Jack Ruby, no formal transcript or record was kept of statements made by the alleged killer. It was said that no tape recordings were made of Oswald's remarks, and many notes taken of his statements were destroyed.
Oswald recognized FBI agent James Hosty and said, "You have been at my home two or three times talking to my wife. I don't appreciate your coming out there when I was not there. . . .
I observed a rifle in the Texas School Book Depository where I work, on Nov. 20, 1963. . . . Mr. Roy Truly, the supervisor, displayed the rifle to individuals in his office on the first floor. . . . I never owned a rifle myself.
3:54 P.M. NBC newsman Bill Ryan announced on national television that "Lee Oswald seems to be the prime suspect in the assassination of John F. Kennedy."
I want that attorney in New York, Mr. Abt. I don't know him personally but I know about a case that he handled some years ago, where he represented the people who had violated the Smith Act, [which made it illegal to teach or advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government] . . . I don't know him personally, but that is the attorney I want. . . . If I can't get him, then I may get the American Civil Liberties Union to send me an attorney."
"Can I get an attorney?. . . I have not been given the opportunity to have counsel. . . .
11:20 - 11:25 P.M. Lineup for Press Conference; Jack Ruby Present When newsmen asked Oswald about his black eye, he answered, "A cop hit me." When asked about the earlier arraignment, Oswald said "Well, I was questioned by Judge Johnston. However, I protested at that time that I was not allowed legal representation during that very short and sweet hearing. I really don't know what the situation is about. Nobody has told me anything except that I am accused of murdering a policeman. I know nothing more than that, and I do request someone to come forward to give me legal assistance." When asked, "Did you kill the President?" Oswald replied, "No. I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question. . . . I did not do it. I did not do it. . . . I did not shoot anyone."
1:35 A.M. Arraignment: State of Texas v. Lee Harvey Oswald for the Murder with Malice of John F. Kennedy. Well, sir, I guess this is the trial. . . . I want to contact my lawyer, Mr. Abt, in New York City. I would like to have this gentleman.
10:30 A.M.-1:10 P.M. Interrogation, Capt. Will Fritz's Office "I said I wanted to contact Attorney Abt, New York. He defended the Smith Act cases in 1949, 1950, but I don't know his address, except that it is in New York. . . . I never owned a rifle.
(When arrested, Oswald had FBI Agent James Hosty's home phone and office phone numbers and car license number in his possession.)
I didn't shoot John Kennedy. . . . I didn't even know Gov. John Connally had been shot. . . . I don't own a rifle. . . . I didn't tell Buell Wesley Frazier anything about bringing back some curtain rods. I did carry a package to the Texas School Book Depository. I carried my lunch, a sandwich and fruit, which I made at Paine's house. . . . I had nothing personal against John Kennedy."
1:10 - 1:30 P.M. Lee Harvey Oswald Visited by Mother, Marguerite Oswald, and Wife, Marina Oswald.
3:30 - 3:40 P.M. Robert Oswald, Brother, in Ten-Minute Visit.
3:40 P.M. Lee Harvey Oswald Calls Mrs. Ruth Paine "This is Lee. Would you please call John Abt in New York for me after 6:00 P.M. The number for his office is ___________, and his residence is _______________ . . . . Thank you for your concern."
6:00 - 6:30 P.M. Interrogation, Captain Fritz's Office "In time I will be able to show you that this is not my picture, but I don't want to answer any more questions. . . . I will not discuss this photograph [which was used on the cover of Feb. 21, 1964 Life magazine] without advice of an attorney. . . . There was another rifle in the building. I have seen it. Warren Caster had two rifles, a 30.06 Mauser and a .22 for his son. . . . That picture is not mine, but the face is mine. The picture has been made by superimposing my face. The other part of the picture is not me at all, and I have never seen this picture before. I understand photography real well, and that, in time, I will be able to show you that is not my picture and that it has been made by someone else. . . .
I never kept a rifle at Mrs. Paine's garage at Irving, Tex. . . . We had no visitors at our apartment on North Beckley. . . . I have no receipts for purchase of any gun, and I have never ordered any guns. I do not own a rifle, never possessed a rifle.
It is possible that on rare occasions I may have handed one of the keys to my wife to get my mail, but certainly nobody else. . . . I never ordered a rifle under the name of Hidell, Oswald, or any other name. . . . I never permitted anyone else to order a rifle to be received in this box. . . . I never ordered any rifle by mail order or bought any money order for the purpose of paying for such a rifle. . . . I didn't own any rifle. I have not practiced or shot with a rifle.
Oswald was told that an attorney offered to assist him, and he answered, "I don't particularly want him, but I will take him if I can't do any better, and will contact him at a later date.
I did not kill President Kennedy or Officer Tippit. If you want me to cop out to hitting or pleading guilty to hitting a cop in the mouth when I was arrested, yeah, I plead guilty to that. But I do deny shooting both the President and Tippit."
11:21 A.M. Lee Harvey Oswald Was Fatally Wounded by Jack Ruby
Wiretapping in Mexico City, Double Agents, and the Framing of Lee Oswald
by Bill Simpich
Bill Simpich on the Framing of Lee Harvey Oswald (2:30:09)
Bill Simpich is the author of State Secret: Wiretapping in Mexico City, Double Agents, and the Framing of Lee Oswald. He discusses the role of counterintelligence in the assassination of President Kennedy and subsequent cover-up.
JFK: Proving The Warren Commission Was A Hoax And Oswald Was Framed
by Richard Charnin
It takes just one of the following to prove that the Warren Commission was a Hoax and Oswald was framed.
One witness killed to prevent him or her from talking.
One witness killed to keep others from talking.
One bullet more than the three the WC claimed were fired.
One brain of JFK to be missing.
One eyewitness who definitely heard shots from the Grassy Knoll.
One eyewitness who definitely saw a shooter at the Grassy Knoll.
One person to order that Dallas police stand-down.
One person with fake Secret Service credentials at the Grassy Knoll.
One journalist to lie about JFK’s head movement.
One government agency to withhold evidence from investigators.
One person with the power to control the investigation.
One photo of Oswald in front of the TSBD at 12:30 to be tampered with.
One Zapruder frame to be switched or deleted to hide the limo full stop.
One conspirator on his death bed (EH Hunt) to claim Johnson was responsible for the “Big Event”.
One Parkland doctor describing entrance wounds in the neck and 5.5 inches below the collar in the back.
One of 44 Parkland and autopsy witnesses describing a massive exit wound in the back of the skull.
One fingerprint of LBJ hit man Mac Wallace on the TSBD 6th floor
One cop (Roger Craig) to identify a 7.65 Mauser on the 6th floor
One cop (Baker) seeing Oswald on the 2nd floor with a coke just 90 seconds after the shots were fired.
One Oswald note to the Dallas FBI (Hosty) destroyed because it may have revealed a plot to kill JFK.
One set of Dr. Humes original autopsy notes description of JFK’s wounds.
One autopsy photo tampered with to hide JFK’s exit wound.
One meeting on November 21 in Dallas attended by Hoover, Johnson, Hunt, Murchison, Nixon, etc.
One photo of Poppy Bush standing in front of the TSBD.
One photo of Gen. Landsdale walking near the three tramps.
One witness (Carolyn Arnold) claiming Oswald was on the first floor of the TSBD at 12:25pm.
One WC member (Ford) to admit he raised the location of JFK’s back wound 5.5 inches.
One HSCA chairman (Sprague) fired for wanting to subpoena the CIA.
One HSCA chairman (Blakey) to admit a CIA cover up years later.
One WC lawyer (Specter) forced to create the physically impossible Single Bullet Theory.
One paraffin test to show that Oswald did not fire a rifle on November 22, 1963.
One mob-connected friend (Rubenstein) of the Dallas police to silence Oswald.
One Dallas police chief (Fritz) to fail to record Oswald’s interrogation.
One Sheriff (Craig) to hear that Tippit was shot at 1:06 pm on the radio.
One tampered photo of Oswald’s face superimposed on another body.
One Johnson mistress to claim LBJ said JFK would be taken care of.
One retired Police chief to say: “We don’t have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did. Nobody’s yet been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand.”
One eyewitness (Sylvia Odio) to testify that she and her sister identified Oswald as one of three men who came to her Dallas home on September 25, 1963.
One JFK limo with a bullet entry hole in the windshield.
One Oswald girl friend (Judyth Baker) hired by leading cancer expert Dr. Alton Ochsner to document working with Oswald (“Me and Lee”) and David Ferrie (“David Ferrie”) in New Orleans on a secret project to kill Castro.
The Many Faces Of Lee Harvey Oswald (49:48)
The one who created the intelligence legend that was Lee Harvey Oswald might lead us to the men behind the death of President Kennedy.
There has been much controversy over the guilt or innocence of Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Now, prepare for more controversy as New York Times Best-selling author Jim Marrs and award-winning photo analyst Jack White take you on a mind bending tour of evidence indicating that more than one Oswald existed in 1963.
See for yourself the inconsistencies within government records and examples of impersonation. Laced with dramatic reenactments, this documentary presents a wide array of documents and photographs that will leave you wondering who was the man killed by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby two days after the JFK assassination.
Marina Oswald and the JFK Assassination
Marina Oswald was obliged, under the discreet threat of deportation from the United States, to co–operate in making a case against her late husband:
She claimed that Lee Oswald had practised firing a rifle before the assassination.
She claimed that Lee Oswald had attempted to assassinate General Edwin Walker several months before the killing of President Kennedy.
She claimed that Lee Oswald had intended to assassinate Richard Nixon on a visit to Dallas early in 1963.
The unreliability of Marina Oswald’s testimony was recognised by the Warren Commission. In a memo to the Commission’s General Counsel, J. Lee Rankin, one of the Commission’s attorneys, Norman Redlich, wrote that “neither you nor I have any desire to smear the reputation of any individual. We cannot ignore, however, that Marina Oswald has repeatedly lied to the [Secret] Service, the FBI, and this Commission on matters which are of vital concern to the people of this country and the world” (HSCA Report, Appendix vol.11, p.126).
According to CE 325 (WCHE, vol.16, p.917), Marina Oswald may have received $132,350 during this period by selling the rights to her story to various media outlets. The more inventive conspiracy theorists have speculated that some of this largesse was an indirect reward for incriminating Lee Oswald. As an indication of what $132,350 was worth in the early 1960s, Lee Harvey Oswald’s $1.25 an hour job at the Texas School Book Depository would have earned him roughly $3,000 per year.
For more see the comprehensive section: Lee Harvey Oswald
2:04 p.m. CST, President Kennedy's body was removed [stolen] from Parkland Hospital and driven straight to Air Force One. The removal occurred subsequent to a ten to fifteen-minute angry confrontation between Secret Service agents with Parkland Hospital doctors and Medical Examiner Dr. Earl Rose, along with a justice of the peace.
The removal of President Kennedy's body was illegal, as it was done before a forensic examination could be performed by the Dallas coroner, which was Texas state law. The assassination of the president was, at that time, listed on the books as a state-level crime and not a federal one, and as such legally occurred under Texas jurisdiction.
In a 1992 interview published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Earl Rose (Rose was the medical examiner for Dallas County, Texas, at the time of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and he performed autopsies on J. D. Tippit, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby) said, "The law was broken" and that " Texas autopsy would have assured a tight chain of custody on all the evidence." In 2003, Rose said he still believed that he and his staff should have been allowed to perform the post-mortem examination of Kennedy and that many conspiracy theories about the assassination would have been quelled had he examined the President.
The First Step in the JFK Cover-Up
by Jacob G. Hornberger
...After President Kennedy was declared dead by physicians at Parkland, he was placed into a casket. A team of Secret Service agents then began removing the casket from Parkland with the intent of taking it to Love Field, where President Johnson was waiting for it to take it back to Washington.
There was one big problem, however. Texas law required an autopsy of the body to be conducted by an official medical examiner. Therefore, the Dallas medical examiner, Dr. Earl Rose, informed the Secret Service team of Texas law and advised them that the body wasn’t going anywhere until the autopsy was conducted.
The Secret Service team informed Rose that he was not going to conduct an autopsy and that they were going to take the body out of the hospital. Rose stood in the way and made it clear that he did not intend to permit the body to be removed from the hospital without the autopsy having been conducted.
At that point, the Secret Service agents opened their suit jackets and brandished their guns. Amidst a tremendous amount of screaming, yelling, and cussing, the Secret Service team began shoving people as they forced their way out of the hospital with the casket...
The Assassination Of President John F. Kennedy On November 22, 1963, At Dallas, Texas
Statement of Special Agent Paul E. Landis, Jr., United States Secret Service, concerning his activities and official duties on November 22, 1963.
...Sometime around 12:37 p.m. we arrived at Parkland Memorial Hospital. I immediately ran to the left rear side of the President's car, reached over and tried to help Mrs. Kennedy up by taking hold of her shoulders. She did not want to let go of President Kennedy whose head she held in her lap and she was bending over him. She said something like, "No, I want to stay with him!"
Agent Hill had in the meantime opened the left rear door of the Presidential Convertible, stepped inside and took Mrs. Kennedy by the arm. She released the President and someone said, "Cover up his head." Agent Hill took off his suit coat and covered up the President's head. I also remember Mr. Powers leaning in the car and saying, "Oh, No! Mr. President! Mr. President!"
By this time someone was lifting the President's body out of the right side of the car. Agent Hill helped Mrs. Kennedy out of the car, and I followed. Mrs. Kennedy's purse and hat and a cigarette lighter were on the back seat. I picked these three items up as I walked through the car and followed Mrs. Kennedy into the hospital.
The President's body was taken directly to an Emergency Room, and I think I remember Mrs. Kennedy following the people in but coming out almost immediately. The door to the Emergency Room was closed and I stayed by Mrs. Kennedy's side. Someone, in the meantime, had brought a chair for Mrs. Kennedy to sit in and she sat just outside of the Emergency Room. There were several people milling around and with the help of a nurse we cleared all unauthorized personnel out of the immediate area.
Someone came out of the Room that the President was in and asked if anyone knew his Blood Type. ASAIC Kellerman and SA Hill immediately reached for their wallets. ASAIC Kellerman gave the man the information first.
At one point someone else came out of the President's Room again and said he was still breathing. Mrs. Kennedy stood up and said, "Do you mean he may live?" No one answered.
Most of the time while in the hospital I stayed right next to Mrs. Kennedy. Twice, I believe, she went into the Room where the President was; however, I remained outside by the door. A short time later I still remember several people standing around, and I asked a doctor for help in clearing the area.
At approximately 2:00 pm the President's body was wheeled from the hospital in a coffin into an ambulance. Special Agent Andrew Berger drove the ambulance; ASAIC Kellerman and ATSAIC Stout were in the front seat. Mrs. Kennedy, Admiral Burkley, and Agent Hill rode in the rear of the ambulance with the President's body.
I rode in the Follow-up car behind the ambulance which departed the hospital at 2:04 pm.
2:05 p.m. CST, Detective Jim Leavelle questions Oswald.
2:20 p.m. CST, Captain Will Fritz arrives and takes over the interrogation of Oswald.
2:14 p.m. CST, the President's body arrived at Love Field Airport and several Secret Service agents immediately carried it on board U.S. Air Force No. One via the rear door. I followed on board behind Mrs. Kennedy and then moved to the forward section of the plane. I witnessed the swearing in of President Johnson at 2:39 pm in the center compartment on board Air Force #1, and at 2:47 pm departed Love Field Airport, Dallas, Texas, via Air Force No. One, with Mrs. Kennedy and the body of the late President Kennedy.
Upon our arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., at 5:58 p.m. EST. I helped carry the late President Kennedy's coffin from Air Force #1. The body was placed in an ambulance which departed Andrews Air Force Base at approximately 6:10 pm, driven by Special Agent William Greer. ASAIC Kellerman, Admiral Burkley, and I rode in the front seat of the ambulance. Mrs. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy rode in the rear of the ambulance with President Kennedy's body.
The above party arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Bethesda, MD., at approximately 6:55 p.m. Special Agent Hill and I escorted Mrs. Kennedy to the 17th Floor where we immediately secured the area. Only hospital personnel assigned to the area, Kennedy family members and friends, and authorized personnel were allowed in the area.
I only left the 17th Floor twice while Mrs. Kennedy was there. Once, to find ASAIC Kellerman in the hospital morgue and give him a telephone message from Chief Rowley. The other time was to find a White House driver.
3:56 a.m., on November 23, 1963, Mrs. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy departed Bethesda Naval Hospital via ambulance, accompanying the late President John F. Kennedy's body to the White House. Special Agent William Greer was driving and ASAIC Kellerman accompanied. Special Agent Clinton Hill rode in the first limousine behind the ambulance and I rode in the second limousine.
The above Party arrived at the White House at 4:24 am.
2:18 p.m. CST, JFK's casket placed aboard Air Force One at Love Field Airport.
2:25 p.m. CST, Oswald interrogation in Office of Captian Will Fritz.
2:30 p.m. CST, J. Edgar Hoover calls Robert Kennedy to inform him that the killer was an ex-marine who defected to the Soviet Union and was also known to be a procommunist nut.
Around or just before 2:30 p.m. CST, Who Were the Three Tramps in Dealey Plaza?
Plenty of people were mistakenly named as the three tramps before the discovery in 1992 of their arrest records revealed that they were in fact just three ordinary tramps who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Soviet Reaction to the Assassination of JFK (1:19)
CBS newsman Walter Cronkite gives the Soviet reaction to the assassination of President Kennedy according to Soviet commentator Valentin Zorin.
Air Force One From Love Field To Andrews Air Force Base
Air Force One Audio Recordings
These four segments comprise the extant recordings of transmissions to and from Air Force One on its flight from Dallas to Andrews Air Force Base on November 22, 1963. Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as the new President prior to the airplane's departure, and this flight carried the Presidential party back to Washington.
Of particular interest to the assassination are the curious references to instructions for a ramp to be brought to the right-hand side of the airplane upon its arrival at Andrews AFB, for the deplaning of the "First Lady." This side of the airplane was in total darkness against a fence; the casket and Presidential party, including Mrs. Kennedy, debarked from the well-lit left side of the airplane. Coupled with Richard Lipsey's suppressed HSCA interview, in which he discussed his arranging for a "decoy hearse," along with Navy personnel's story about two hearses and two caskets, these transmissions add weight to the argument that Kennedy's body was under the control of the military and not in the casket along which Mrs. Kennedy rode to Bethesda.
The Dallas Coup: Stealing JFK's Body - How it was Done (6:27)
AF 1 Radio Transmissions November 22, 1963. With Subtitles. (2:06:51)
Newly Found Tapes From Air Force One On Day JFK Died (3:31)
by Garrett M. Graff
The flight home from Dallas after John F. Kennedy was assassinated and Lyndon Johnson became president.
Part II: In the Air
by Garrett M. Graff
Aboard Air Force One,during one of America’s most searing, perilous moments, a government was formed and a presidency begun.
by Chris Jones
From noon to dusk on November 22, 1963, history went dark, locked inside the closed and crowded cabin of Air Force One. Fifty years later, what happened after JFK died has fully come to light.
President Johnson Speaks To Rose Kennedy (2:36)
Following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, President and Mrs. Johnson placed a telephone call and offered their condolences to Mrs. Rose Kennedy, mother of the late President.
The Lost Tapes: A Call To JFK's Mother (1:14)
JFK Assassination: Air Force One Transmission on November 22, 1963 - Part 1 (1:24)
JFK Assassination: Air Force One Transmission on November 22, 1963 - Part 2 (1:17)
Congressman Albert Thomas gives a wink back at a quickly-smiling LBJ as he is being sworn in to be the 36th President of the United States onboard Air Force One, while the grief-stricken Jacqueline Kennedy stands next to him.
2:38 p.m. CST, Once back at Air Force One, and only after Mrs. Kennedy and President Kennedy’s body had also returned to the plane, Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in by Sarah T. Hughes as the thirty-sixth President of the United States of America.
Federal District Judge Sarah Tilghman Hughes (Audio 3:44)
Sarah T. Hughes became a national figure as a result of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, after which she administered the oath of office to Lyndon Johnson aboard Air Force One at Love Field.
President Lyndon B. Johnson Sworn in Aboard Air Force One
President Lyndon B. Johnson takes the oath of office aboard Air Force One at Love Field in Dallas, Texas, following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Left to right: Assistant Press Secretary, Malcolm Kilduff (holding dictating machine, partially out of frame); media liaison, Jack Valenti; Judge Sarah T. Hughes (administering oath); Representative Albert Thomas (Texas); Secretary to President Johnson, Marie Fehmer (mostly hidden in back); First Lady Lady Bird Johnson; Dallas Police Chief, Jesse Curry (face hidden by President Johnson’s raised hand); President Johnson; President Kennedy’s personal secretary, Evelyn Lincoln (mostly hidden); Representative Homer Thornberry of Texas (behind Mrs. Lincoln); former first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy; White House Secret Service agents, Roy Kellerman and Thomas “Lem” Johns (both standing in doorway); Mrs. Kennedy’s Press Secretary, Pamela Turnure (partially hidden in back); Representative Jack Brooks (Texas); Deputy Director of Public Affairs for the Peace Corps, Bill Moyers (in back); President Kennedy’s physician, Admiral Dr. George G. Burkley (on edge of frame).
2:47 p.m. CST, Air Force One airborne.
For more see the comprehensive section: Air Force One
2:50 p.m. CST, Dallas police take a paraffin test of Oswald’s hands and right cheek. Test is positive for hands; negative for the face. They lie and tell the media and public Oswald failed this test.
After the assassination, Oswald underwent a test that was routinely carried out on those suspected of having fired a gun. Liquid paraffin wax was spread on his hands and his right cheek. When hardened, the paraffin wax would extract from deep in the pores of his skin any fine residues given off by the firing of a gun, even if he had washed his skin in the meantime.
Barium and antimony, which are found in gunpowder residues, are also found in several common substances such as printing ink, which Oswald certainly had handled on the morning of the assassination. The presence of these substances is not sufficient evidence of having fired a gun, but their absence is sufficient evidence of having not fired a gun.
In other words: Firing a gun would deposit barium and antimony on parts of the skin close to the gun. If barium and antimony were found on Oswald’s skin, they may have been deposited by the firing of a gun. But they may instead have been deposited by other means: for example, the handling of books. If barium and antimony were not found on Oswald’s skin, he almost certainly did not fire a gun.
Three Tests Proved Oswald’s Innocence
Test 1: Spectrographic Analysis
Oswald’s paraffin casts were subjected to two analyses. Spectrographic analysis, the method normally used by the police, showed evidence of barium and antimony on Oswald's hands, but not on his cheek.
Test 2: Neutron Activation Analysis on Oswald
Spectrographic analysis was considered sufficiently reliable for criminal investigations, but in this case a more incisive test was also used. Neutron activation analysis, which is capable of identifying the presence of substances in quantities much too small to be captured by spectrographic analysis, also showed no incriminating quantities of residues on Oswald’s cheek.5 The result was reported in an internal Warren Commission memo: “At best, the analysis shows that Oswald may have fired a pistol, although this is by no means certain. … There is no basis for concluding that he also fired a rifle.”
Test 3: Controlled Neutron Activation Analysis
In order to check the validity of the neutron activation analysis of Oswald’s paraffin casts, a controlled test was made. Seven marksmen fired a rifle of the same type as that found on the sixth floor. The standard paraffin test was administered, and the paraffin casts were subjected to neutron activation analysis. All seven subjects showed substantial amounts of barium and antimony on their hands and, more importantly, on their cheeks.
The absence of significant quantities of residues on Oswald’s cheek meant that he almost certainly had not fired a rifle that day.
Summary of Results from Oswald's Paraffin Tests
Additional Pools Of Blood Were Found In Dealey Plaza (34:52)
Combined segments from an interview with Mr. Jerry Coley performed by Len Osanic on Black Op Radio. This version of the interview is somewhat edited and shortened. The actual pool of blood was found near the top, opposite the spot behind the fence from which many people believe at least one shot was fired.
3:01 p.m. CST, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote a memo to his assistant directors in which he stated, "I called the Attorney General at his home and told him I thought we had the man who killed the President down in Dallas, at the present time"
3:30 p.m. CST, Police officers arrive at the residence of Michael and Ruth Paine.
3:54 p.m. CST, NBC Newsman Bill Ryan announces on national television that "Lee Oswald seems to be prime suspect in the assassination of John F. Kennedy."
4:00 p.m. CST, Situation room of the White House communications center informs Lyndon Johnson that the assassination is the act of one lone individual and that no conspiracy exists.
4:05 p.m. CST, Oswald taken to first Lineup for Helen Markham, witness to Tippit murder. (While waiting outside the lineup room, Oswald is searched, and five bullet cartridges are found in his pockets.).
“The Curious Case of the American Bakeries Pay Voucher”
by Trish Fleming and Zach Jendro
...Oswald was transported to the police station after his arrest, where he was finally searched, two hours later, at approximately 4:10 PM. Among the items he was carrying (including bullets and a bus transfer), was a pay stub voucher, which was found in his pocket, for the Cushing’s Bakeries division of American Bakeries (located in Dallas), dated Monday, August 22, 1960.[17] In the life of Lee Oswald, employment with the bakeries at that time would have been impossible; for, according to the official account, he was reported to be in the Soviet Union during this period...
4:20 p.m. CST, Oswald is returned upstairs for further questioning in Captain Fritz' office.
Andrews Air Force Base To Bethesda Naval Hospital
5:59 p.m. EST, Air Force One arrived at Andrews Air Force Base (AFB) near Washington, D.C. The television networks made the switch to the AFB just as the plane touched down.
Arrival of the Kennedy Party from Dallas on November 22, 1963 (9:19)
On this clip on the evening of November 22, 1963, the clip starts will Bill Ryan in New York. Then Frank McGee announces that the plane has arrived at Andrews Air Force Base. This was a little after 6 pm EST on November 22, 1963 (Approximately 6:05 pm EST). Robert Abernethy reports from Andrews Air Force Base. Dave Powers, Kenny O'Donnell, Larry O'Brien help take the casket off the lift, then the casket is put in a Navy Ambulance and drives away to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.
JFK - Color Footage Of JFK's Casket Arriving (5:30)
After President Kennedy's brother, Robert Kennedy, boarded the plane, Kennedy's casket was removed from the rear entrance and loaded into a light gray US Navy ambulance for its transport to the Bethesda Naval Hospital for an autopsy and mortician's preparations. When Jackie Kennedy stepped off the plane with her brother-in-law, her pink suit and legs were still stained with her husband's blood. All that long afternoon and into the early morning hours of the next day, the widow objected to leaving her husband's body, except for the swearing in of Johnson. She also refused to change out of her blood-stained suit; Lady Bird Johnson, in her audio diary, quoted Mrs. Kennedy as saying "I want them to see what they have done to Jack."
Shortly after the ambulance with the casket and Mrs. Kennedy departed, President Johnson and the First Lady exited Air Force One. They were led to a podium clustered with microphones where Lyndon Johnson made his first official statement as president of the United States: “This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me, it is a deep, personal tragedy. I know the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best; that is all I can do. I ask for your help and God's.”
President Johnson's Remarks at Andrews AFB following the JFK Assassination (1:12)
The LBJ Library
President Johnson's remarks at upon arrival at Andrews Air Force Base following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, November 22, 1963. MP 2105.
President Johnson himself ordered the arrival to be televised live. While en route to Washington from Dallas, he and Kilduff told the other assistant press secretary, Andrew Hatcher, that he was going to make his statement and that he wanted the arrival to be televised live. As the new president boarded his helicopter, he said that Mrs. Kennedy was in his heart and remarked about the presidency, and recounted, "Then the door of the helicopter slammed shut behind me and thus ended a tragic chapter in American history.
I [Paul E. Landis, Jr.] helped carry the late President Kennedy's coffin from Air Force One. The body was placed in an ambulance which departed Andrews Air Force Base at approximately 6:10 pm, driven by Special Agent William Greer. ASAIC Kellerman, Admiral Burkley, and I rode in the front seat of the ambulance. Mrs. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy rode in the rear of the ambulance with President Kennedy's body.
The above party arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Bethesda, MD., at approximately 6:55 p.m. Special Agent Hill and I escorted Mrs. Kennedy to the 17th Floor where we immediately secured the area. Only hospital personnel assigned to the area, Kennedy family members and friends, and authorized personnel were allowed in the area.
I only left the 17th Floor twice while Mrs. Kennedy was there. Once, to find ASAIC Kellerman in the hospital morgue and give him a telephone message from Chief Rowley. The other time was to find a White House driver.
Casket And Body Wrapping Changed From Parkland To Bethesda
Best Evidence The Research (36:28)
Best Evidence: The Research Video is a 37 minute documentary film based on filmed interviews which I conducted in October, 1980. The main purpose in making this film was to document, on video, the basic accounts of the key witnesses that appear in Best Evidence, accounts I had received via telephone interviews.
It was Marshall McLuhan who said: The medium is the message.
In 1980, I realized, after hearing these accounts over the telephone, that they belonged on film, to be fully appreciated-and that's why I made the Best Evidence Video.
Some background may be in order here. The manuscript for Best Evidence was submitted on April 1, 1980. The central thesis of my book was that JFK's body-the most important evidence in the case against Oswald- had been covertly intercepted between the time of his murder in Dallas, Texas, and the time the body arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital for the autopsy. Wounds had been altered; and bullets removed. At Bethesda, the body no longer reflected the true "medical facts." In effect, the diagram of the Dealey Plaza shooting had been changed.
My publisher, Macmillan, was quite excited by my work, and wanted to see it in print as soon as possible. An ambitious publishing schedule was planned, so that the books would be in the stores by January, 1981.
Meanwhile, although I was proud to have interviewed a number of key witnesses to the autopsy-who had been under orders not to talk-I was concerned that my interviews were conducted over the telephone, whereas a television news program like "60 Minutes" might re-interview the same witnesses on film, and attempt --through tricky editing-- to impeach their credibility. From my telephone interviews, I was aware that these witnesses provided accounts which established that the President's body left Dallas wrapped in sheets and inside an elegant (400 lb.) bronze ceremonial coffin, but arrived at Bethesda in a body bag, inside a 60 pound aluminum shipping casket.
I suggested we reinforce the credibility of these accounts by filming the witnesses, before they realized the importance of their stories-i.e., before the appearance of the book.
In 1980, it was not possible to go to Best Buy, purchase a camera, and be an "oral historian." A film crew consisted of a sound man and a camera man; a director was needed, and then there was me-I had worked out the questions for each witness, designed to elicit responses which could be compared with one another, in the editing room, to bring out the main message in the book-that clearly, something had changed between Dallas and Bethesda.
In the space of four days, we flew around the country to interview four witnesses who appeared in the film: to Gainesville, Florida, for Paul O'Connor, the Bethesda medical technician; to Pittsburgh, Pa., for Jerrol Custer, the X-ray technician; to Dallas, Texas for Aubrey Rike, the funeral attendant who placed the body in the original casket; and mid-state Illinois, for Dennis David, who was a first class or E-6 Petty officer and was chief of the day for the U.S. Navy Medical School at the Bethesda naval medical center. Dennis David knew about the arrival of two ambulances, one of which - functioning as a decoy - had an empty casket. All of this was explained (to David) as a "security measure".
Upon returning to New York, I rented an editing room and Arnon Mishkin, a talented news editor, shaped and fashioned the film until we had a 21 minute "core" documentary which conveyed the key message: President Kennedy's body did not make an uninterrupted journey from Dallas to Bethesda. Excerpts from the 21 minute film were used on my book tour, after publication.
In 1989, I was contacted by Richard Foos, the head of Rhino Video, in Santa Monica, California. He put up additional funds to create "front" and "back" bookends for the core 21-minute film, and the 37 minute home-video documentary was born.
Best Evidence: The Research Video was released in 1989 to very favorable reviews. In December 1991 when Oliver Stone's JFK was released, the Best Evidence Research Video was re-released. In all, it sold about 50,000 copies in VHS format.
Best Evidence: The Research Video is a copyrighted video. But with my permission, and through the assistance of Alan Lennard, I am making it available on YouTube, so that anyone can see the accounts of these critically important witnesses, and understand what happened to President Kennedy's body sometime during the six-hour period following the Dallas murder.
I am convinced that if it can be determined who was responsible for the covert interception and alteration of President Kennedy's body, we would as a practical matter essentially know the answer to the question: who killed President Kennedy?
David S. Lifton
December 27, 2013
Los Angeles, California
Summary
President Kennedy's body was placed in an ornamental bronze casket soon after he was declared dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital, Dallas. Mrs. Kennedy accompanied this casket on the flight to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and then in a navy ambulance for the 18-mile drive to the Bethesda Naval Hospital, where the autopsy was performed.
Air Force One touched down at Andrews AFB at approximately 6:00 PM, and the navy ambulance arrived at the Bethesda Naval Hospital at approximately 6:55 PM. FBI Agents James Sibert and Francis O'Neill were in the third vehicle of the cortege. They assisted in the removal of the casket from the navy ambulance and its placement in the Bethesda morgue anteroom just prior to 7:17 PM.
An all-service honor guard was on hand at Andrews AFB to formally receive the casket. After placement of the casket in the ambulance, the honor guard traveled to Bethesda by helicopter in order to again formally receive the casket and move it from the ambulance into the morgue. Organizer of the honor guard, Lieutenant Samuel Bird, in his subsequent report, stated that the casket was moved from the ambulance to the morgue at 8:00 PM.
Late in the afternoon of 11/22/63, Marine Sergeant Roger Boyajian received orders to organize a ten-man security detail and to report to Admiral Calvin Galloway at Bethesda Naval Hospital. In an after-action memorandum, Sgt. Boyajian stated that his security detail reported to Admiral Galloway at approximately 6:00 PM and formed a security cordon to allow unloading of a casket and its carriage into the morgue at approximately 6:35 PM.
Thus, official reports describe deliveries of President Kennedy's body to the Bethesda morgue at three distinct times over a period of approximately an hour and twenty-five minutes.
These events, elucidated many years ago by David Lifton, have been rejected by many as bizarre and too complex to have been carried out successfully. Here I will provide proof of their occurrence -- using sources generated and made available by the Assassination Records Review Board -- and discuss their implications...
5:30 p.m. CST, Secrete Service Agent Richard Johnson hands bullet 399 to SS Chief Rowley at Executive building in Washington D.C.
6:20 p.m. CST, Oswald taken to second lineup, and yells to reporter's in hallway, "I didn't shoot anyone."
6:16 p.m. CST, JFK Assassination ~ Carcano Rifle November 22, 1963, 6:16 PM (1:03)
Lieutenant J.C. Day with Oswald's Carcano Rifle at 6:16 PM on November 22, 1963.
6:30 p.m. CST, Lineup for Witnesses Cecil J. McWatters, Sam Guinyard, and Ted Callaway.
6:35 p.m. CST, Oswald is returned upstairs for question.
Autopsy At Bethesda Naval Hospital - November 22, 1963, 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. EST
A cover-up preautopsy was preformed sometime between 6:35 p.m and 8 p.m.
What James Jenkins saw: revelations from a witness to JFK’s autopsy
He spoke about the condition of JFK’s brain: “Jenkins stated that the standard incisions in the cranium required to remove the brain — a ‘skull cap’ (his term for a craniotomy) — were not done, because they were not necessary. He thought this might be explained by prior incisions, meaning that some surgery had been done prior to the autopsy [emphasis added by Horne]. He recalled that the damage to the top of the cranium was much more extensive than the damage to the brain itself, which he found unusual. Jenkins recalled Dr. Boswell asking if there had been surgery at Parkland Hospital. He recalled Dr. Humes saying: ‘The brain fell out in my hands,” as he removed the brain from the body.'”
Altered History: Exposing Deceit and Deception in the JFK Assassination
In this 5-part video (six hours and thirty-four minutes), Douglas P. Horne, who served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board and who is the author of the five-volume book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence and much more in the Assassination of JFK, discusses deceit and deception in the official autopsy of John F. Kennedy.
Inside the Assassination Records Review Board:
by Douglas Horne
Douglas Horne, Inside the ARRB
There is much of value [in this book], if you are willing to spend a lot of time sifting through five volumes. If it had been half as long, it might have been twice as good. Jim DiEugenio's review of Inside The ARRB originally appeared in four installments. These have been combined into a single article here for convenience.
Written by James DiEugenio
JFK - The Medical Cover Up (1:16:29)
While serving as chief analyst of military records at the Assassination Records Review Board in the nineties, Douglas Horne examined serious anomalies in the medical evidence in the JFK case.
In this film, Horne draws on his book "Inside the ARRB" to present a comprehensive overview of the missing, altered and fraudulent evidence that indicates a cover-up by multiple agencies of the government. Their mission - to hide the true nature of President Kennedy's wounds and purge all trace of a conspiracy.
by Jacob G. Hornberger
The Ongoing Kennedy Casket Mystery
by Jacob G. Hornberger
A few hours later, the plane landed at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C. The casket was removed from the plane and placed into an automobile in which the deceased president’s wife Jacqueline was riding. The automobile slowly made its way to Bethesda Naval Hospital. It arrived in the front of the hospital at 6:55 p.m. and the casket was officially carried into the morgue at 8:00 p.m. (after another unofficial secret entry into the morgue at 7:17 p.m.) In the meantime, Mrs. Kennedy was escorted into the hospital to a VIP waiting lounge.
There was one big problem, however, one that Mrs. Kennedy was unaware of: The expensive, heavy, ornate casket which she thought contained the body of her husband didn’t. Unbeknownst to her, her husband’s body had secretly been removed from the Parkland casket and placed into a body bag and a cheap shipping casket similar to those used by the U.S. military in the Vietnam War.
That cheap shipping casket, with the president’s body inside it, was secretly placed into a black hearse containing a team of men in suits, who secretly transported the casket to the back of the Bethesda facility, where the morgue was located.
A waiting team of soldiers carried the cheap shipping casket, with the president’s body in it, into the morgue at 6:35 p.m., even while Mrs. Kennedy was still slowly traveling from Andrews Air Force Base to the Bethesda facilities under the assumption, erroneous as it was, that her husband’s body was still inside the expensive, heavy, ornate casket that was riding in the back of her car.
How do we know this happened? Because it was witnessed by several Navy and Marine enlisted men who were there and saw it happen.
Moreover, their eyewitness accounts are buttressed by two documents that were discovered in the 1990s by the Assassination Records Review Board,
Dr. Cyril Wecht on JFK’s Murder: A “Coup d’état in America”
At the center of Dr. Wecht’s examination is what has become known as the “single-bullet theory” — or the “magic bullet,” as it is known to its detractors: the theory that one bullet can account for the multiple wounds (besides the headshot) of both JFK and Governor Connally. According to Dr. Wecht, the conclusions of the Warren Commission rest entirely on the single-bullet theory. If that theory fails, then there had to be more than one gunman. This, in turn, leads to questions about the history of the United States since 1963 that many people would rather not pursue.
With both passion and meticulous attention to detail, Wecht dissects the Warren Commission’s conclusions. Moving beyond the medical evidence, he then utters words unexpected from any former American elected official, and particularly powerful coming from a person with his credentials: “What we witnessed…my friends, in plain, plain English — was [a] coup d’état in America. The overthrow of the government. That’s what this case was all about.”
How Five Investigations Into JFK’s Medical / Autopsy Evidence Got It Wrong
by Gary L. Aguilar, MD and Kathy Cunningham
by Dr. Cyril Wecht
by John Simkin
50 years later, Wecht continues to poke holes in report on JFK assassination
by David Conti
"On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald" (Part 18) (Cyril Wecht) (24:59)
Dr. Cyril Wecht - JFK Lancer Conference (11/19/2016) (1:11:14)
A Case for Conspiracy with Dr. Cyril H. Wecht (1:58:07)
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza presented an engaging program featuring renowned forensic pathologist, consultant and author Dr. Cyril H. Wecht. In this two-part presentation, Museum Curator Stephen Fagin led Dr. Wecht in conversation on his remarkable career and longtime interest in the assassination. Wecht then delivered a multimedia lecture on key areas of the Warren Commission’s 1964 investigation, including President Kennedy’s autopsy and the controversial single bullet theory.
Dr. Wecht began researching the Kennedy assassination when he was invited to speak before the 1965 meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. More than half a century later, Wecht continues to lecture and give media interviews on the assassination. As a distinguished elder statesman of the assassination research community and current chairman of the Citizens Against Political Assassinations organization, Wecht remains an outspoken critic of the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
Disclosures in the JFK Assassination Medical Evidence
by William Law
The
James Curtis Jenkins Revelations at JFK Lancer Confirm a Massive
Medical Cover-up in 1963
by Douglas P. Horne, author of Inside the Assassination Records Review Board
(former Chief Analyst for Military Records, Assassination Records Review Board)
The Mysterious Death Of Number Thirty-Five (50 Minutes)
Director: Braddon Mendelson and Screenplay: Pat Speer) (2008)
(19) Jefferson Morley, The Man Who Did Not Talk (November, 2007)
"The only caution I have in the photographic record concerns the JFK autopsy material," says Richard Trask, a photo archivist in Danvers, Massachusetts who has the world's biggest collection of JFK assassination imagery, and has written two books on the subject. "That is an area that always makes me pause. What was happening during the autopsy if there was a cover-up or just incompetence, I don't know. It is the only area of the JFK story that I have some doubts about."
As well he should. The JFK medical evidence is worse than a mess -- it is a documented national scandal that awaits decent news coverage. The new evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt that the photographic record of Kennedy's autopsy has been tampered with by persons unknown. The sworn testimony and records developed by the Assassination Records Review Board in the late 1990s allow no other conclusion.
Among the key post-Stone revelations in the JFK medical evidence:
Autopsy photographs of Kennedy's body are missing from government archives, according to sworn testimony from doctors and medical technicians involved in the autopsy. The origins of other autopsy photos in the collection cannot be determined.
Two FBI agents who took notes during the autopsy gave detailed sworn testimonies rejecting the so-called single bullet theory which girds the official story that Oswald alone killed Kennedy.
Dr. James Humes, the chief pathologist at JFK's autopsy, admitted under oath that he destroyed a first draft of his autopsy report. Humes had previously only admitted to destroying his original notes.
Dr. Gary Aguilar, a San Francisco ophthalmologist who has written about the autopsy, is emphatic. "The medical evidence is really stark evidence of a cover-up in my view," he says. "The story is so extraordinary that it is hard for some people, especially in mainstream media organizations, to come to grips with it. There's just no doubt that there were very strange things going on around the president's body that weekend." Sounds like a paranoid fantasy? More than a few of the people who participated in the JFK autopsy have sworn to it.
Saundra Kay Spencer was a technician at the Navy's photographic laboratory in Washington. She developed the JFK autopsy photos on the weekend after Kennedy's death. She kept her oath of secrecy for 34 years. When she spoke to the ARRB in 1997, Spencer displayed the efficiency of a career military woman. She was well prepared with a sharp memory for the details of her involvement in the amazing events of November 22-24, 1963. Her testimony, after reviewing all the JFK autopsy photographs in the National Archives, was unequivocal. "The views [of JFK's body] we produced at the [Naval] Photographic Center are not included [in the current autopsy collection]," she said. "Between those photographs and the ones we did, there had to be some massive cosmetic things done to the President's body."
FBI agent Francis O'Neill was present during the autopsy and took notes. In 1997, he also viewed the photographs. Referring to an autopsy photograph showing the wound in the back of Kennedy's head, O'Neill said, "This looks like it's been doctored in some way. I specifically do not recall those -- I mean, being that clean or that fixed up. To me, it looks like these pictures have been. . . . It would appear to me that there was a -- more of a massive wound. . ." O'Neill emphasized he was not saying the autopsy photographs themselves had been doctored but that the wounds themselves had been cleaned up before the photograph was taken.
James Sibert, another FBI agent present at the autopsy, had a similar reaction to the photos. "I don't recall anything like this at all during the autopsy," he said under oath. "There was much -- well, the wound was more pronounced. And it looks like it could have been reconstructed or something, as compared with what my recollection was."
What both men were objecting to was the lack of a big hole in the back of JFK's head which would be somewhat indicative of a so-called blowout wound caused by a shot from the front.
The retired FBI agents were especially scathing about the single bullet theory positing that one bullet caused seven non-fatal wounds in Kennedy and [Texas] Governor Connally and emerged largely undamaged on a hospital stretcher.
They took notes on the autopsy as Dr. Humes examined Kennedy's body. Both said the autopsies concluded the bullet that hit Kennedy in his back had not transited his body. But chief pathologist Humes took another view in his autopsy report, writing that the bullet had emerged from Kennedy's throat and gone on to strike Governor Connally. But Humes's credibility is undermined by the ARRB's discovery that he destroyed not only his notes, but also his first draft of the autopsy report without ever revealing its contents or even existence.
Sibert later told a JFK researcher of the single bullet theory: "It's magic, not medicine."
For more see the comprehensive section: Autopsy
6:30 p.m. CST, Police conduct the second lineup at city hall. Ted Callaway, Sam Guinyard, identify Oswald as Tippit's killer. Bus driver Cecil McWatters identifies Oswald as the man who got on his bus shortly after the assassination.
7:05 p.m. CST, Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with "murder with malice" in the killing of Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit.
7:50 p.m. CST, Secrete Service Chief Rowley sends Magic bullet CE 399 to FBI laboratory.
7:50 p.m. CST, Oswald taken to third lineup for Witness J.D. Davies.
7:55 p.m. CST, Oswald yells at reporters in hallway "I'm Just A Patsy!"
7:56 p.m. CST, Third interrogation of Oswald in Captain Fritz's Office.
11:00 p.m. CST, Oswald "Talked to" by FBI Agent M. Clements and Police Officer John Adamcik.
11:20 p.m. CST, Oswald is taken to press conference. Oswald is asked if he is a member of The Free Cuba Committee, Jack Ruby standing up the back. Oswald is asked by a reporter "Did you kill President Kennedy?" Oswald replies, "No I have not been charged with that. In fact nobody has said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about that is when the newspaper reporters asked me that question." Oswald is told by a reporter, "That you have been charged" (with the murder of Kennedy.) Oswald looks stupid as he is lead away.
11:26 p.m. CST, Oswald was charged with the murder of President Kennedy in the furtherance of a Communist conspiracy. (he reference to a Communist conspiracy was soon dropped from the language of the murder charge, reportedly on orders from someone in the White House.
11:45 p.m. CST, The Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was released to the FBI and forwarded to Washington where it was examined on the morning of November 23 by Sebastian F. Latona, supervisor of the Latent Fingerprint Section of the FBI's Identification Division.
Three Great Men Died That Day: JFK, C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley
On November 22, 1963, three towering figures of the 20th century died. John F. Kennedy is the one that we all remember, but let’s consider the others.
by John Garth
Eisenhower Speaks About Murder of JFK on November 22, 1963 (5:21)
Former President Dwight Eisenhower is interviewed as he leaves a meeting at the United Nations in New York City on November 22, 1963. With his unique perspective on national and international events & history, he gives a commentary to the reporters about the present and the future of this nation.
Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson: "The tragedy of this day is beyond any instant comprehension.'' Stevenson spoke at the White House following the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas.
From: JFK at 100
by Paul Craig Roberts
...The assassination of President Kennedy was an enormous cost to the world. Kennedy and Khrushchev would have followed up their collaboration in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis by ending the Cold War long before the military/security complex achieved its iron grip on the US government. Israel would have been denied nuclear weapons, and the designation of the Israel Lobby as a foreign agent would have prevented Israel’s strong grip on the US government. In his second term, JFK would have broken the CIA into a thousand pieces, an intention he expressed to his brother, Robert, and the Deep State would have been terminated before it became more powerful than the President.
A Zionist Looks At Final Judgment
by Barry Chamish
Piper mentions the well-known fact that Jack Ruby met with "Israeli journalists" at the Dallas police station the night before he finished off Oswald. Possibly enforcing Piper's claims, many of my correspondents have pointed out to me that in Leah Rabin's biography, she notes that her husband Yitzhak was in Dallas on November 22, 1963. And Rabin, himself, admitted that he was in Cambodia the next year inspecting an Israeli "experimental farm." Yes, Rabin could have been one of the "journalists" and yes, the farm could have been growing poppies.
The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK, and Malcolm X
by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease with an indroduction by Judge Joe Brown
What Castro Knew About Lee Harvey Oswald [This is classic CIA disinformation.]
by Douglas Caddy
In November 1963, Cuban intelligence officer Florentino Aspillaga was posted in a little hut near a Cuban beach where he operated listening equipment trained on Miami and CIA headquarters in Virginia. On the morning of November 22, 1963, Mr. Aspillaga, who would defect to the U.S. in 1987, said that he was ordered "to stop all your CIA work, all your CIA work." He was instructed to "put all of my equipment to listen to any small detail from Texas. They told me Texas." Did Castro know that Lee Harvey Oswald was about to assassinate President Kennedy? Brian Latell, a veteran CIA Cuba analyst who spent 15 hours interviewing Mr. Aspillaga for his newly revised "Castro's Secrets," (Palgrave MacMillan), makes a strong case that he did.
by William Kelly
... while former CIA officers Brian Latell and Bob Baer have tried to pin the Dealey Plaza tail on Castro, without success.
Latell's case rests mainly on a Cuban defector who claims to have worked at the Cuban-Soviet listening post they set up on the north shore that was similar to the one the NSA and Australians have in the Outback desert and the subject of some of the first previously secret records released under the JFK Act.
This defector claims that on November 22, 1963 Castro himself ordered them to focus their electronic ears on Texas to pick up the Air Force One Radio communications, and that is proof of Castro's foreknowledge of the assassination! Now that's bad logic. That's evidence of Castro's foreknowledge of Kennedy's itinerary - something anyone who read the papers or listened to the news knew. And if they did pick up the AF1 radio transmissions and recorded them, we'd like to have a copy because our government seems to have lost ours.
November 23, 1963
JFK's Assassination: The Aftermath
TV And Radio Reports From November 23-26, 1963
12:10 a.m. CST, Lee Oswald Press Conference (1:33)
12:30 a.m. CST, Dallas DA Henry Wade's Late-Night Press Conference (4:14)
Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade answers questions from newsmen in this press conference that took place at Dallas City Hall late on the night of President Kennedy's assassination.
Did Dallas DA Henry Wade know Jack Ruby? (:40)
Dallas DA Henry Wade is asked point blank if he knew Jack Ruby. He denies it. But Nancy Hamilton, a former bartender for Ruby, tells Mark Lane that Wade was a Dallas official who "frequented" Ruby's bar.
12:35 a.m. CST, Oswald is taken to the 4th floor ID Bureau, fingerprinted, and photographed.
1:10 a.m. CST, Oswald is returned to his cell.
1:30 a.m. CST, Oswald is taken back to the ID Bureau.
1:35 a.m. CST, Oswald officially told that he has been charged with J.F.K.'s murder.
3:00 p.m. CST, FBI Special Agent Vince Drain transports the gun and all other evidence to Washington D.C.
3:45 a.m CST, Jack Ruby and the Fair Play for Cuba Commitee.
At 3:45 A.M. Arnold Clyde Gaydosh saw and talked to Ruby on the 3rd floor of the Dallas Times Herald Building as Ruby was working on ads for the temporary closing of his Vegas and Carousel Clubs. A short while later (4:00 a.m. November 23) Arthur Weatherwax and Roy A. Pryor saw Ruby in the composing room and talked with him. They said Ruby appeared in good spirits and told Pryor during a press confrence, when District Attorney Henry Wade said that Oswald was a member of an (sic) anti-Castro organization, he (Ruby) had corrected Wade and told him it was a pro-Castro organization.
There are several serious questions raised by Ruby's outburst.
1) What was Ruby doing there in the first place? He wasn't a reporter but he pretended that he was a reporter to gain entrance to the midnight "press conference".
2) What compelled him to correct the Dallas DA? What the hell did he care if Wade placed Oswald in the wrong organization? Was Ruby's outburst merely a signal to Wade that he was there with his .38 Colt in his pocket?
3) He called Henry Wade by his first name when he corrected the DA. He must have known the DA pretty well to call him "Henry".
4) How did Jack Ruby know the difference between The Fair Play for Cuba Committee, (pro Castro) And the Free Cuba Committee (anti Castro) Only those actually involved in the overthrow of Castro would be likely to know the difference. Was Jack Ruby one of the "associates" in the firm of Guy Bannister and Associates? According to Gordon Novel Ruby was an "associate" of Guy Bannister.
Kennedy's body was prepared for burial by embalmers from Gawler's Funeral Home in Washington, who performed the embalming and cosmetic restoration procedures at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
JFK'S Body Arrives At The White House On November 23, 1963 (24:14)
Sid Davis Reports for Westinghouse Broadcasting
At 3:56 a.m. EST, on November 23, 1963, Mrs. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy departed Bethesda Naval Hospital via ambulance, accompanying the late President John F. Kennedy's body to the White House. Special Agent William Greer was driving and ASAIC Kellerman accompanied. Special Agent Clinton Hill rode in the first limousine behind the ambulance and I rode in the second limousine.
The body of President Kennedy was returned to the White House at about 4:30 a.m., the casket is placed in the East Room of the White House, where it stays under honor guard for 24 hours. Mrs. Kennedy declared that the casket would be kept closed for the duration of the viewing and funeral. Mrs. Kennedy, still wearing the blood-stained raspberry-colored suit she wore in Dallas, had not left the side of her husband's body since his death (except for when Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States onboard Air Force One). Only after the casket was placed in the East Room, draped with black crepe, did she retire to her private quarters.
Mrs. Kennedy requested that two Catholic priests remain with the body until the official funeral. A call was made to The Catholic University of America, and Msgr. Robert Paul Mohan and Fr. Gilbert Hartke, two prominent Washington, D.C., priests, were immediately dispatched for the task.
A Mass was said in the East Room at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, November 23. After the Mass, other family members, friends, and other government officials came at specified times to pay their respects, including former U.S. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower. The other surviving former U.S. president at the time, Herbert Hoover, was too ill to attend, and was represented by his sons, Herbert Hoover Jr., who also attended the funeral, and Allan Hoover, who went to the services in the rotunda.
Across the street from the White House, in Lafayette Park, crowds stood in the rain, keeping a vigil and paying quiet respects. It rained all day in Washington, befitting the mood of the nation.
10:00 a.m. CST, Oswald phones Ruth Paine and asks to speak to Marina Oswald. Ruth tells him she is not here.
10:01 a.m. CST, The Fourteen Minute Gap
by Rex E. Bradford
President Lyndon Baines Johnson: Have you established any more about the visit to the Soviet embassy in Mexico in September?
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover: No, that’s one angle that’s very confusing, for this reason - 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.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, informing President Lyndon Baines Johnson of an Oswald impersonation. This call occurred at 10:01 am on the morning of November 23, 1963, less than 24 hours after the assassination, while Oswald was still alive in a jail cell in Dallas. This phone call itself appears to have been erased.
For more see the comprehensive section: Mexico City
10:30 a.m. CST, Interrogation of Oswald, Capt Fritz's office.
11:35 a.m. CST, Oswald is returned to his cell.
12:05 p.m. CST, Oswald appears before the media in the basement.
12:20 p.m. CST, Oswald is returned to his cell.
12:35 p.m. CST, Oswald is taken to Fritz' office for questioning.
1:10 p.m. CST, Oswald visited by Mother, Margurite, and Wife Marina.
1:30 p.m. CST, Oswald is formally arraigned for the murder of JFK.
1:40 p.m. CST, Oswald tries unsuccessfully to contact Attorney John Abt.
2:15 p.m. CST, Oswald appears in another lineup for Witness William Scoggins and William Whaley.
2:45 p.m. CST, Fingernail scrapings and hair samples are obtained from Oswald with his permission.
3:30 p.m. CST, Robert Oswald visits Lee for 10 Minutes. Lee tells Robert, "Don't believe all the so called evidence."
3:40 p.m. CST, Lee Oswald calls Ruth Paine and asks her. "Would you please call John Abt (Lawyer) in New York for me after 6:00 pm."
At 4:45 p.m EST, President Johnson issued Proclamation 3561, declaring November 25, the day of the funeral service, to be a national day of mourning.
5:30 p.m. CST, Oswald speaks to H. Louis Nichols, President of the Dallas Bar Association, for five minutes.
6:00 p.m. CST, Oswald is taken again for questioning.
6:00 p.m. CST, Interrogation in Capt Fritz's Office, Oswald is shown the backyard photo of him with gun. "That picture is not my mine. The picture has been made by superimposing my face. The other part of the picture is not me at all, I have never seen this picture before. I understand photography real well, and that in time, I will be able to show you that this is not my picture and that it was made by someone else."
7:15 p.m. CST, Oswald is returned to his cell.
On November 23, 1963, Fidel Castro broadcast a statement on Cuban radio in which he labeled the Kennedy assassination “a Machiavellian plot against our country” to justify “immediately an aggressive policy against Cuba…built on the still warm blood and unburied body of their tragically assassinated President.” Oswald, he stated, may have been “an instrument of the most reactionary sectors that have been planning a sinister plot, who may have planned the assassination of Kennedy because of disagreement with his international policy. At the time of this dramatic statement, Castro knew something about Kennedy’s international policy that the rest of the world did not: at the time of his assassination Kennedy was actively exploring a rapprochement with Cuba, and working secretly with Castro to set up secret negotiations to improve relations. In November 1963, Cuba had no reason to assassinate Kennedy because they were engaged in back channel diplomacy that could possibly lead to normalized relations. Indeed, at the very moment Kennedy was killed, Castro was meeting with an emissary (French journalist named Jean Daniel) Kennedy had sent to Havana on a “mission of peace.”
Castro On JFK Murder November 23, 1963 (Audio)
This is an audio book-style reading of Fidel Castro's remarks about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Castro made these statements on November 23, 1963.
by Fidel Castro
Narration by John Hawkes
Castro On JFK Murder November 23, 1963 (Text)
"The following is the text of a speech/commentary delivered by Fidel Castro on Cuban radio and TV, Saturday evening, November 23, 1963, one day after the assassination of President Kennedy. The speech gives the reader insight into the immediate analysis of the assassination which a political expert such as Castro was able to make. This English translation of the speech was released by the Cuban delegation to the United Nations in 1963. It is here reproduced with minor editing of grammar and punctuation."
by Fidel Castro.
Khrushchev calls Kennedy death "a heavy blow"
Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev said today the death of President Kennedy "is a heavy blow to all people who hold dear the cause of peace and Soviet-American cooperation." -- In a cable to President Johnson, Khrushchev expressed the "indignation of Soviet people against the culprits of this base crime."
Khrushchev described the late president as a "person of broad outlook who realistically assessed the situation and tried to find ways to negotiate settlements of the international problems which now divide the world."
"The Soviet government and the Soviet people share the deep grief of the American people over this great loss and express the hope that the search for setline the disputable issues, a search to which President J.F. Kennedy made a tangible contribution, would be continued in the interests of peace, for the benefit of mankind," he said...
Teary-eyed Khrushchev signs JFK condolences book (1:12)
Khrushchev cut short a tour of Ukraine and returned to Moscow by train. He then went to Spasso House, the residence of the U.S. ambassador. There, he signed a book of condolences and met with Ambassador Foy Kohler. He called the assassination "a heavy blow to all people who hold dear the cause of peace and Soviet-American cooperation."
Khruschev's Tribute To President Kennedy 1963 (Video and Text)
Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union, USSR.
CU Still photograph of President John F Kennedy. CU Various Soviet newspapers showing the news of President Kennedy's assassination. CU Photograph of President Kennedy. VS Nikita Khruschev and Andrei Gromyko visiting US Ambassador F Koler in Moscow. They both sign a book of condolence in the Embassy and observe a minutes silence. Good CU Khruschev looking sad. CU American Marine in uniform. VS American golden eagle and flag draped in black. MS Mr Khruschev and Mr Gromyko being greeted at entrance to embassy by Ambassador Koler. VS Crowds outside American Embassy in rain, official cars leave.
(Lave.) Old record suggests that material dates from around 23/11/1963.
Items found on President Kennedy’s desk, November 23, 1963
This folder is part of an addition to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Papers, and consists of items that were recovered by the National Archives and Records Administration on behalf of the Kennedy Presidential Library from the estate of Robert L. White. Items in this folder include an approximate schedule for the President for November and December, and a telephone directory for the Carlyle Hotel. Of note is a letter from President Kennedy’s secretary Evelyn Lincoln to Robert L. White dated November 4, 1991.
11:00 p.m., Dallas homicide Captain Will Fritz receives a person-to-person telephone call from LBJ and is ordered to stop his investigation. Fritz had continued to pursue his investigation in spite of interference and opposition from federal authorities, because “You have your man”. The Captain had ignored those requests, but felt he could not ignore a presidential order.
November 24, 1963
The JKF Assassination and the Coming 50th Anniversary
by Richard Edmondson
...Particularly interesting are comments made by Rubenstein / Ruby just after his arrest as well as later to his defense lawyer, William Kunstler.
After Ruby had finally seized the opportunity to kill Oswald at 11:21 a.m. on Sunday morning, the 24th, he blurted out that he and others were going to be:“the cause of the death of 25 million Jews,” meaning, if the investigators could figure it out.
Later Ruby says to his defense lawyer William M. Kunstler that he killed Oswald “for the Jews.” On each of the occasions Kunstler talked to him, Jack Ruby repeated that "I did this that they wouldn’t implicate Jews."
My Life as a Radical Lawyer, by William Kunstler, 1994, p. 158)
During Kunstler’s last visit Ruby handed him a note in which he reiterated that his motive was to: "Protect American Jews from a pogrom that could occur because of anger over the assassination."
Jack Ruby had a long-standing relationship with the major crime syndicates. On his prison death bed, when a friend asked him to tell the truth before he dies, Ruby said: "Listen, you know me well, and you know that I am a reasonable businessman. I wouldn’t have done it if I did not have to."
Were these following calls made by Jacob Leonard Rubenstein aka Jack Ruby so he didn't have to carry out the contracted hit? Being in the mafia for decades, Ruby knew that if he carried out the contracted hit on Oswald, he would most likely be killed too. So, I think perhaps these phone calls were indeed made by Ruby, to get out of the contracted hit he was given.
The Dallas Sheriff, the Dallas Police and the Dallas FBI all had the pertinent information that the caller described in detail the plans for Oswald’s transfer and tells the Lieutenant that other arrangements should be made or “we’re going to kill Oswald right there in the basement”. The caller also stated "you know me", and the vast majority of the Dallas Police knew who Ruby was.
So, why didn't the Dallas Sheriff, the Dallas Police and the Dallas FBI change the transfer place and time for Oswald?
2:15 a.m. CST,, Sheriff’s Officer Perry McCoy receives a telephone call from a “white male” who tells him that Oswald is going to be killed during his transfer from city jail to the county jail, and that he’s informing him so that none of deputies would get hurt.
2:20 a.m. CST, Police Lieutenant Billy Grammar receives a telephone call from an unidentified caller who says “You know me”. The caller describes in detail the plans for Oswald’s transfer and tells the Lieutenant that other arrangements should be made or “We’re going to kill Oswald right there in the basement”. The voice of the caller is familiar to Grammar, but he can’t put a name or face to it. The threat is taken seriously and a report is filed with Chief Curry.
2:30 a.m. CST, an unnamed employee of the local FBI office receives a telephone call from an anonymous male, speaking in a calm and mature voice, who advises that he represented “a committee…we are going to kill the man who killed the President”.
3:20 a.m. CST,, Dallas Police Captain W. B. Frazier receives a call from FBI agent Milton Newsom informing him that an anonymous threat to kill Oswald was received at the Dallas FBI office.
by Sam Webb
Jack Ruby gunned down suspect Lee Harvey Oswald, 24, at point blank range two days after the assassination
The FBI Received A Death Threat Against Oswald The Day Before He Was Murdered.
The FBI's Dallas office received a call "from a man talking in a calm voice," who identified himself as a member of a committee that intended to kill Oswald, according to a transcript of remarks made by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover on November 24, 1963.
7:00 a.m. CST, the Dallas police begin preparations for transferring Oswald out of the Dallas city jail. The basement is cleared and guards are stationed at the ramps leading into the garage.
9:30 a.m. CST, Minister Ray Rushing arrives at City Hall and takes the elevator to the third floor. While on the elevator, he meets and talks with Jack Ruby. The minister is one of four witnesses who testified that they had seen Ruby in or near the police building between 8:00 and 11:00 a.m.
9:30 a.m. CST, Oswald is signed out of jail in anticipation of a transfer to the county facility.
9:30 a.m. CST, Lee Harvey Oswald is interrogation in Capt Fritz's Office.
10:00 a.m. CST, Jack Ruby received a phone call from Little Lynn wanting money.
10:15 a.m. CST, ack Ruby took his dog Sheba and left apartment.
In 1954 Senator moved to Dallas where he worked as a traveling salesman. Later he sold picture postcards. In 1962 Senator moved in with Jack Ruby. He paid no rent but in return he did occasional work in Ruby's Carousel Club. According to the attorney, Jim Martin, Senator was "overwhelmed with fear" after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and talked about leaving Dallas.
Senator told the Warren Commission that on 24th November, 1963, that Ruby received a phone call from Little Lynn, a Carousel stripper who lived in Fort Worth, at about 10.20 a.m. that morning. Ruby left the apartment soon afterwards. When Ruby testified before the commission he told Arlen Specter that he told Senator that morning that he intended to kill Lee Harvey Oswald. This is supported by the fact that Senator phoned Jim Lawyer, a Dallas lawyer, five minutes before Ruby shot Oswald.
10:45 a.m. CST, Jack Ruby drove down Main Street so he could see wreaths at the spot where President Kennedy was assassinated.
11:10 a.m. CST, Dallas Police prepare for Oswald's transfer to County Jail.
11:15 a.m. CST, The Oswald transfer party leaves Fritz' office after a final round of questions.
11:15 a.m. CST, Inspector Thomas J. Kelly Secret Service, has final conversation with Oswald.
11:17 a.m. CST, Jack Ruby wires money order at Western Union Office - some 350 feet from Dallas police department.
On Sunday, November 24, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald was being led through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters toward an armored car that was to take him to the nearby county jail. At 11:21 a.m. CST, Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby (Jacob Leonard Rubenstein) stepped from the crowd and shot Oswald at close range in the abdomen.
After few minutes of delay to wait for an ambulance to arrive, Oswald was taken unconscious to Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where doctors tried to save President Kennedy's life two days earlier. Oswald died at 1:07 p.m. Oswald's death was announced on a TV news broadcast by Dallas police chief Jesse Curry.
A network television pool camera was there to cover the transfer of Oswald and was broadcasting live; millions of people who were watching on NBC witnessed the shooting as it happened live and on other networks within minutes afterward. The assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald is the first murder to ever be broadcast on live television.
On November 24, after driving into town with his two pet dogs and sending an emergency money order to one of his employees, Ruby walked to the nearby Dallas police headquarters, where he made his way to the basement via either the Main Street ramp or a stairway accessible from an alleyway next to the Dallas Municipal Building. At 11:21 am CST, while authorities were escorting Oswald through the police basement to an armored car that was to take him to the nearby county jail, Ruby stepped out from a crowd of reporters and fired his .38 revolver into Oswald's abdomen, fatally wounding him. Ruby was immediately subdued by agents and police as he reportedly yelled "You killed the president, you rat!"
The House Select Committee on Assassinations in its 1979 Final Report opined: Ruby's shooting of Oswald was not a spontaneous act, in that it involved at least some premeditation. Similarly, the committee believed it was less likely that Ruby entered the police basement without assistance, even though the assistance may have been provided with no knowledge of Ruby's intentions… The committee was troubled by the apparently unlocked doors along the stairway route and the removal of security guards from the area of the garage nearest the stairway shortly before the shooting… There is also evidence that the Dallas Police Department withheld relevant information from the Warren Commission concerning Ruby's entry to the scene of the Oswald transfer.
When Ruby was arrested immediately after the shooting, he told several witnesses that he had helped the city of Dallas "redeem" itself in the eyes of the public, and that Oswald's death would spare "…Mrs. Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial." At the time of the shooting, Ruby said he was taking phenmetrazine, a central nervous system stimulant.
Ruby's explanation for killing Oswald would be "exposed … as a fabricated legal ploy", according to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. In a private note to one of his attorneys, Joseph Tonahill, Ruby wrote: "Joe, you should know this. My first lawyer Tom Howard told me to say that I shot Oswald so that Caroline and Mrs. Kennedy wouldn't have to come to Dallas to testify. OK?"
Another motive was put forth by Frank Sheeran, allegedly a hitman for the Mafia, in a conversation he had with the then-former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. During the conversation, Hoffa claimed that Ruby was assigned the task of coordinating police officers who were loyal to Ruby to kill Oswald while he was in their custody. As Ruby evidently mismanaged the operation, he was given a choice to either finish the job himself or forfeit his life.
Ex-Flame Says Jack Ruby 'Had No Choice' But To Kill Oswald
...Why did Ruby kill Oswald? "He had no choice," Raven said. When I asked her to explain why he "had no choice," she replied only, "Jack had bosses, just like everyone else." Raven says she believes "he was instructed on what he needed to do, therefore he did it. And when the opportunity presented itself he went ahead and took it."
For more see the comprehensive section: Jacob Leonard Rubenstein aka Jack Ruby
At 2:45 p.m. the same day, an autopsy was performed on Oswald in the Office of the County Medical Examiner. Announcing the results of the gross autopsy, Dallas County medical examiner Earl Rose said: "The two things that we could determine were, first, that he died from a hemorrhage from a gunshot wound, and that otherwise he was a physically healthy male." Rose's examination found that Ruby's bullet entered Oswald's left side in the front part of the abdomen and caused damage to his spleen, stomach, aorta, vena cava, kidney, liver, diaphragm, and eleventh rib before coming to rest on his right side.
Henry Wade's Press Conference On November 24, 1963 (24:52)
On Sunday afternoon about 300,000 people watched a horse-drawn caisson, carry Kennedy's flag-covered casket down the White House drive, past parallel rows of soldiers bearing the flags of the 50 states of the Union, then along Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Rotunda to lie in state.
In the public viewing, tens of thousands lined up in near-freezing temperatures to view the casket. Over the span of 18 hours, 250,000 people, some waiting for as long as 10 hours in a line up to 10 persons wide that stretched 40 blocks, personally paid their respects as Kennedy's body lay in state. Capitol police officers politely reminded mourners to keep moving along in two lines that passed on either side of the casket and exited the building on the west side facing the National Mall.
The original plan was for the rotunda to close at 9:00 p.m. and reopen for an hour at 9:00 the next morning. Because of long lines police and military authorities decided to keep the doors open. At 9:00 p.m., when the rotunda was supposed to close, both Jacqueline Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy returned to the rotunda again.[63][64] More than half the mourners came to the rotunda after 2:45 a.m., by which time 115,000 had already visited. Military officials doubled the lines, first to two abreast, then to four abreast. NBC broadcast uninterrupted coverage of the people passing through the Capitol rotunda during the overnight hours.
After Lee Harvey Oswald was shot, President Lyndon Baines Johnson called Parkland Hospital. Phyllis Barlett, Chief Telephone Operator for Parkland Hospital remembers the call: “The call came in and said “hold the line for the President,” and for a second I was still thinking Kennedy, and I didn’t… I was kind of taken aback for a minute and a few seconds. It was just a matter of a second, that’s when he came on in a loud voice and said: “This is Lyndon Johnson. Connect me to the accused assassin’s doctor.” It sounded the same as it had been on newscasts when I would hear him speak.”
Ms. Barlett then put the president through to an office adjoining the operating room, where Dr. Charles Crenshaw was urgently called to answer the phone. He recalls: “I picked up the phone and it was there that I heard this voice like thunder that stated: “This is President Lyndon B. Johnson.” And he asked: “How is the accused assassin doing?” I was so startled the only thing that I could say was: “He is holding his own. He has lost a lot of blood.” He said, “Would you take a message to the chief operating surgeon?” It was more of an order than a question. “There is a man in the room, I would like for him to take a deathbed confession.” And all of a sudden the phone went off. I returned to the operating room, I tapped Dr. Shires on the shoulder, he looked at me like “What are you talking about?” Everyone was working feverishly in the operating room trying to correct the wounds there. I said, “Guess who I have been talking to? The President of the United States called and he wants that man over there to take a deathbed confession.” And Shires looked at me like I was crazy. And we both realized that Lee Harvey Oswald, had he survived, would not have been able to give any testimony until two or three days after the procedure. But still in all, the President had called and I did relay the message.”
November 24, 1963 - November 30, 1963
Walkthrough: Formation of the Warren Commission
...in the 1990s more evidence emerged regarding secret information tying Oswald, or an Oswald impersonator, to Castro and to a Soviet assassination expert based in Mexico City. President Johnson used the fear of "40 million Americans" dying in a nuclear exchange to force a reluctant Senator Russell onto the Commission, and made Earl Warren finally say yes when told about "a little incident in Mexico City."
Shortly after Oswald's murder by Jacob Leonard Rubenstein, there is a very telling phone call made by Yale Law School Dean (1955 - 1966) Eugene Rostow (and then U.S. undersecretary of State for President Lyndon Johnson) and Bill Moyers (a special assistant to President Johnson, and then White House Press Secretary in the Johnson administration). In this call, Eugene Rostow suggests a President Commission to Bill Moyers. Rostow tells Moyers he has talked to Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach three times that day (November 24, 1963), and suggests "a commission of seven or nine people, maybe Nixon." [According to Eugene Rostow, a former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the Johnson Administration, Resolution 242 gives Israel a legal right to be in the West Bank.]
Shortly after 1 p.m., Katzenbach was watching television at home with a friend when Jack Ruby stepped out of the crowd in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters and shot Lee Harvey Oswald dead, an act that guaranteed that the truth about the Kennedy assassination never would be established beyond a reasonable doubt.
Although the exact time of this call is missing [how convenient] from the White House daily diary, it is possible to identify the period during which the call was made. Rostow refers to the killing of Oswald, so the call had to be after 2:07 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the time Oswald was pronounced dead. The call appears in the White House daily diary prior to a conversation at 4:40 p.m., between President Johnson and Governor Pat Brown of California." There is a memorandum however which clearly indicates that Rostow called the White House well before 4:00 p.m., EST.
According to Donald Gibson, the author of The Kennedy Assassination Cover-up, Eugene Rostow played an important role in the creation of the Warren Commission. He argues that "this Commission would have been more accurately named the Rostow Copmmission or the McCloy-Dulles Commission."
The release of the White House telephone transcripts, thirty years after the assassination, make it possible to now construct a much more complete account of the Warren Commission's origins. Those transcripts tell the story that Katzenbach hinted at in his 1978 testimony, a story LBJ had also hinted at in 1971. Had the appropriate questions been asked of Katzenbach in 1978, it is at least possible that Katzenbach himself would have filled in some of the gaps left in the record for over three decades.
It appears that the idea of a Presidential commission to report on the assassination of President Kennedy was first suggested by Eugene Rostow, Dean of the Yale Law School, in a telephone call to LBJ aide William Moyers during the afternoon of November 24, 1963. Although the time of this call is missing from the White House daily diary, it is possible to identify the period during which the call was made. Rostow refers to the killing of Oswald, so the call had to be after 2:07 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, the time Oswald was pronounced dead. The call appears in the White House daily diary prior to a conversation at 4:40 P.M, between President Johnson and Governor Pat Brown of California." There is a memorandum which clearly indicates that Rostow called the White House well before 4:00 p.m., EST.
Rostow told Moyers that he was calling to make a suggestion that a "Presidential commission be appointed of very distinguished citizens in the very near future." Rostow recommended that such a commission be Bi-partisan and above politics - no Supreme Court justices but people like Tom Dewey and Bill Story from Texas and so on. A commission of seven or nine people, maybe Nixon, I don't know, to look into the whole affair of the murder of the President because world opinion and American opinion is just now so shaken by the behavior of the Dallas Police that they're not believing anything."
Rostow does not explain how he has determined the nature of world or American opinion within minutes or an hour or so of the murder of Oswald. As we saw in the preceding chapter, the Dallas police were a model of objectivity and open mindedness compared to Alan Belmont of the FBI and at least much of the major media.
Rostow also said that he had already spoken "about three times" that day to Nick Katzenbach but he was making his suggestion directly to Moyers because of his uncertainty that Katzenbach would pass it on. Rostow explains that Katzenbach "sounded too groggy so I thought I'd pass this thought along to you".
It is highly probable that it was Rostow's call(s) that Katzenbach was referring to in his 1978 testimony when he said that he was "sure" that he had talked to "people outside the government entirely who called me."
Apparently Rostow was making his suggestion in the context of discussions with at least one other person. He said to Moyers: "Now, I've got a party here. I've [or We've] been pursuing the policy, you know, that people need to come together at this time."
[How could anyone be having a party the day of the wake?]
Rostow does not identify the individual or individuals with whom he has been talking.
Moyers briefly interrupted this line of discussion by stating his concern that recent events were undermining the credibility of U.S. institutions. He then returned to Rostow's suggestion, saying: "All right. Now, your suggestion is that he [President Johnson] appoint a Special Commission of distinguished Americans, primarily in the field of law, I presume to look into the whole question of the assassination."
Rostow says "That's right and a report on it" and then the conversation ended with Moyers assuring Rostow that he will discuss this with President Johnson." Rostow acted very quickly on what was a momentous decision and he did so even though he had no obligation or responsibility to do anything.
In Volume III of the Hearings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, there is a copy of a memo written by LBJ aide Walter Jenkins to the President which reports on a phone conversation that Jenkins apparently had with J. Edgar Hoover." According to the memo, Hoover said over the phone that: "The thing I am concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin. Mr. Katzenbach thinks that the President might appoint a Presidential Corrunission of three outstanding citizens to make a determination."
Hoover goes on to state misgivings about the idea of a commission. It is, of course, of interest that Hoover and, apparently, Katzenbach already have Oswald as the assassin. Did Rostow discuss this with the "groggy" and insufficiently active Katzenbach? The timing of this memo is of immediate interest.
The time on the memo is 4:00 P.M., November 24. Hoover has already spoken with Katzenbach and received from him information concerning the idea of a commission. Apparently, Hoover spoke with Katzenbach prior to 4:00 P.M. We now have a considerably shorter time frame.
Oswald died at 2:07 Eastern Standard Time. Before 4:00 Katzenbach had spoken with Hoover about a commission. Katzenbach was acting as a result of his conversation(s) with Rostow. We are now down to something well under one hour and fifty-three minutes for Rostow to hear of Oswald's death, consider all the factors, discuss it with at least one other person, and begin to act. The entire time span for Rostow's actions is almost certainly less than ninety minutes, allowing only twenty or so additional minutes for him to talk to Katzenbach and for Katzenbach to talk to Hoover. We don't know who was with Rostow at the time of Oswald's death. Did Rostow act as an individual or was he representing a collective decision when he moved so rapidly to have a Presidential commission established? This probably cannot be answered in a definite way without a candid statement from Rostow and, perhaps, others. There are, however, indications in the events of November 25 to 29 that Rostow and then Katzenbach were acting on behalf of a group of people.
As we have seen, the idea of a commission was suggested to at least two people close to LBJ, Bill Moyers and Walter Jenkins, on the afternoon of the 24th. The suggestion was relayed to LBJ by someone before 10:30 A.M. the next day, November 25. This is clear from the transcript of Johnson's phone conversation with J. Edgar Hoover at 10:30.
From, Gene Kelly
What was Walter Rostow's reason for influencing world opinion... his stake in the outcome? I think it was the Middle East, JFK's policy towards aid to Israel (including nuclear weapons), and countering Soviet influence in the region at the time.
Rostow argued that LBJ needed a commission because “world opinion and American opinion is just now so shaken by the behavior of the Dallas Police that they do not believe anything.” This was disingenuous, and not the real reason. if you examine later actions during LBJ's term, the Rostow brothers are front and center, steering foreign policy towards military and economic support for Israel and American oil interests in the Middle East.
In June 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War, one of LBJ's closest advisers was Walter Rostow, a so-called "Zionist zealot" and his Special Assistant for National Security Affairs. Rostow has been described as a "sinister, Svengali-like figure" (see Peter Hounam, "Operation Cyanide"). This related to the June 8, 1967, USS Liberty ship attack, which was believed to be a set up (e.g. Gulf of Tonkin incident) to blame the Egyptians and a pretext to bring the U.S. into the 1967 Six Day War on Israel's side. Rostow was instrumental in steering LBJ towards which way the U.S. might respond to hostilities in the Middle East. Rostow was known as a hawk who believed in the Vietnam War (see David Milne's "America's Rasputin: Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War"). These following are excerpts on Rostow from Wikipedia:
In August 1954 Rostow and fellow CIA-connected MIT economics professor Max Millikan convinced Eisenhower to massively increase U.S. foreign aid for development as part of a policy of spreading American-style capitalist economic growth in Asia and elsewhere, backed by the military.
While working as national security adviser, Rostow became involved in setting the United States' posture towards Israel. Although he supported military and economic assistance to Israel, Rostow believed that increased public alignment between the two states could run counter to United States’ diplomatic and oil interests in the region.
The followup call to LBJ about setting up a blue ribbon panel by journalist Joseph Alsop is also interesting. During his conversation with LBJ, he name-drops Dean Acheson. Alsop is tied to the ‘Georgetown Set’ that included Acheson, Richard Bissell, Stewart Alsop (his brother), Tracy Barnes, Philip Graham, Clark Clifford, Walt Rostow, Eugene Rostow, Cord Meyer, James Angleton, Averill Harriman, John McCloy, John Sherman Cooper, and Allen W. Dulles. Quite a list of JFK plot suspects. Alsop had also collaborated in 1960 with Philip Graham to persuade Kennedy to make Lyndon Johnson, instead of Stuart Symington, his running-mate.
See: November 25, 1963, Katzenbach Memo.
November 24, 4:00 p.m. - Phone call between FBI Director Hoover and White House Aide Walter Jenkins. Hoover began by reporting that "There is nothing further on the Oswald case excerpt that he is dead." At the end of the call, Hoover noted the need to have "something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin," and that (Assistant Attorney General) "Katzenbach thinks that the President might appoint a Presidential Commission of three outstanding citizens to make a determination."
November 25, 10:40 a.m. - Phone call between President Johnson and Joseph Alsop. Influential Washington Post columnist Joe Also strongly advises LBJ to accept the idea of a Presidential Commission. When Johnson persists in wanting local authorities and the FBI to handle what he calls a "local killing," Alsop snaps that "well, in this case it does happen to be the killing of the President." Alsop warns Johnson to "get ahead of" the Post and repeatedly invokes the name of Cold War icon Dean Acheson as one of the people behind the Commission idea. Johnson says he will call Acheson, though no such call is in the available recordings.
November 26, 1963 - November 28, 1963 - There is something of a gap in materials relevant to the decision-making regarding the Presidential Commission. On November 25th, President Johnson is against the idea, but by the November 28th he is lobbying support for it. Johnson's change of mind occurred sometime in this intervening period. I wonder how many times President Johnson and his advisor Abraham "Abe" Fortas talked between November 26th and November 28th? A Washington Post editorial highlighting the need for a national solution to the crisis did appear on the 26th. The following day, LBJ addressed a joint session of Congress, urging the nation to "let us continue" the work begun during the Kennedy presidency. That afternoon, LBJ had a short meeting with Robert Kennedy. But exactly how and when he swung in favor of the Commission idea is not known.
November 28, 3:21 p.m. - Phone call between President Johnson and Senator James Eastland. Johnson feels out Judiciary Committee head Eastland on the planned Congressional hearings and then discusses the idea of a Commission including members of Congress. Eastland agrees to cut short his Committee's investigation, saying "we can work it out," to which LBJ responds: "You can handle your Committee. O.K. Much obliged."
November 29, 11:30 a.m. - Phone call between President Johnson and Congressman Hale Boggs. LBJ discusses the Presidential Commission idea with Louisiana Congressman Hale Boggs. See also this later call at 1:11PM.
November 29, 1:15 p.m - Phone call between President Johnson and his advisor Abraham "Abe" Fortas, a Jewish man (1 in 1,000 odds and his parents were Orthodox Jews). LBJ and Abe Fortas bandy about several names as possible Commissioners. After mentioning some possibilities include General Norstadt and James Eastland, at the end of the call LBJ selects the seven Commissioners named later that day to serve on the President's Commission.
A little about the Presidential advisor, Abraham "Abe" Fortas. In 1965, President Johnson persuaded Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg to resign his seat to become the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations because the President wanted Abe Fortas for that position. Johnson thought that some of his reforms (the "Great Society") could be ruled unconstitutional by the Court and felt that Fortas would let him know if that was to happen. Johnson and Fortas did collaborate while Fortas was an Associate Justice. Abe Fortas co-wrote Johnson's 1966 State of the Union speech.
Fortas remained an associate justice, but in 1969, a new scandal arose. Fortas had accepted a US$20,000 = US$130,617 in 2017 dollars retainer from the family foundation of Wall Street financier Louis Wolfson, a friend and former client, in January 1966. Fortas had signed a contract with Wolfson's foundation. In return for unspecified advice, it was to pay Fortas $20,000 a year for the rest of Fortas's life (and then pay his widow for the rest of her life). Wolfson was under investigation for securities violations at the time, and it was alleged that he expected that his arrangement with Fortas would help him stave off criminal charges or help him secure a presidential pardon. He asked Fortas to help him secure a pardon from Johnson, which Fortas claimed that he did not do. Fortas recused himself from Wolfson's case when it came before the Court and had earlier returned the retainer but not until Wolfson had been indicted twice.
Fortas resigned from the Court in disgrace on May 14, 1969. In 1970, Louis Wolfson surreptitiously taped a private telephone call with Fortas. The transcript of this call was disclosed by Wolfson's lawyer, Bud Fensterwald, to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in 1977. The Washington Post subsequently published several excerpts from the transcript, including language suggesting that Fortas might indeed have spoken with LBJ about a pardon for Wolfson, but there is no evidence that it was a quid pro quo rather than a voluntary intervention for a friend. Wolfson was convicted of violating federal securities laws later that year and spent time in prison.
November 29, 1:40 p.m. - Phone call between President Johnson and FBI Director Hoover. Almost immediately, LBJ calls Hoover to run by him the seven names of "this proposed group that they're trying to put together on this study of your report." Hoover gives a "good man" to most names, though he is "not as enthusiastic about McCloy." LBJ does not even mention Warren, the head of the Commission.
November 29, afternoon - Phone calls between President Johnson and Commission appointees. Having decided on the final set of names, Johnson had these phone calls with those being appointed to the Commission:
Richard Russell, 4:05 p.m.
Allen Dulles, 5:43 p.m.
John Sherman Cooper, 5:45 p.m.
Gerald Ford, 6:52 p.m.
November 29, time unknown - Phone call between President Johnson and Abe Fortas. LBJ and Fortas work out the wording of the an announcement of the President's Commission.
November 29, time unknown - FBI Memo from Belmont to Evans. This internal FBI memo about the forthcoming Commission was written before Earl Warren had agreed to serve, and contains some other interesting background material.
November 29, 5:41 p.m. - Another relevant taped conversation is the call President Johnson made to Allan Dulles on November 29, 1963, to advise him that he would be on the Commission. This is one of the shortest calls that LBJ had to make to the potential members of the Commission. Unlike others who were reluctant to serve, Dulles expressed no reluctance, the call only lasted approximately a minute and thirty or so seconds, but Johnson appears to try to repeat the arguments he made to others anyway.Neither Dulles nor LBJ mention Robert Kennedy or his possible involvement in Dulles selection.
The conversation opens with LBJ apologetically advising Dulles:
LBJ: I have some unpleasant news for you.” Dulles says,
“Yes.” LBJ goes on, “We are going to name very shortly a presidential commission made up of seven people … as a study group to go into this FBI report … in connection with the assassination of our beloved friend, and you’ve got to go on that for me.”
Dulles responds: “Because I can really serve you,”
“I know you can, ”LBJ interrupts. “I know you can, not any doubt about it. Just get ready now to go in there and do a good job. America’s got to be united in this hour.”
At this point the tape becomes somewhat garbled and hard to understand as Dulles says something about his “previous job.” LBJ’s response is garbled as well but he can be heard to say “you always do a good job as I found out long ago.”
Dulles, in raising his previous job, is expressing a concern that his service as the director of the CIA would disqualify him from service on the commission. Many consider that he did so based on a concern that it could serve as a basis for adverse propaganda. On the other hand, it could be that he knew, especially considering the circumstances of his departure from the job (JFK told him to resign), that he had a serious conflict of interest that should prevent his serving. The nature of the basis of his concern is not apparent from the conversation. No one at the time, however, raised Dulles apparent conflict of interest.
Is there a countervailing theory as to how Dulles got on the Warren Commission? In his book, Brothers, David Talbot says that Allen Dulles lobbied to be appointed to the Warren Commission.
David Talbot returned to this issue in his recently published book, The Devil’s Chessboard: “The Dulles camp itself made no bones about the fact that the Old Man aggressively lobbied to get appointed to the commission. Dick Helms later told historian Michael Kurtz that he ‘personally persuaded’ Johnson to appoint Dulles. According to Kurtz, Dulles and Helms ‘wanted to make sure no agency secrets came out during the investigation…. And, of course, if Dulles was on the commission that would ensure the agency would be safe. Johnson felt the same way, he didn’t want the investigation to dig up anything strange.
Audio of LBJ and Allen Dulles, phone call November 29, 1963, 5:41 p.m.
November 29, 8:55 p.m. - Phone call between President Johnson and Richard Russell. In this fascinating call, the last of the day, Johnson tells Russell that he has named him to the Commission over Russell's objections, because "you've got to lend your name to this thing" and because "we've got to take this out of the arena where they're testifying that Khrushchev and Castro did this and did that and kicking us into a war that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour..." LBJ also tells Russell the story of how Warren turned him down repeatedly, until Johnson "pulled out what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City."
November 29 - November 30 - Exective Order 11130. Announced on the 29th but executed on November 30, Executive Order 11130 appointed the Commission, named its members, and described its purpose and powers.
LBJ Phone Calls - November 1963, This set of transcripts, along with selected audio recordings, were made during the November days immediately following the assassination of President Kennedy. Some of them concern the formation of the so-called "Warren Commission", which was formally announced on November 29, 1963.
A few phone calls with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover discuss the early results of FBI investigations into the death of President Kennedy. The first of these, recorded at 10:01 a.m. on November 23, less than 24 hours after the assassination, appears to have been erased. A transcript survived the apparent erasure, in it, Hoover tells Johnson that tapes of Oswald contacting the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City don't match the voice of the living Oswald. Hoover says "it appears that there is a second person who was at the Soviet Embassy down there."
Warren Commission-Related Telephone Calls
November 24, 1963 - November 25, 1963
The assassination of President Kennedy not only removed the head of state but also incapacitated the head of the Justice Department, Robert Kennedy. Nicholas Katzenbach, the Assistant Attorney General, was to play an important role in the early development of official responses to the assassination.
Katzenbach wrote this memo by hand on the evening of Sunday, November 24, a few hours after Lee Harvey Oswald had been shot dead by Jack Ruby. A typed version was prepared the following morning, November 25 1963, the day of the Kennedy funeral, Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach sent the memo, titled "Memorandum for Mr. Moyers" (known as the Katzenbach Memo) to Bill Moyers of the new Johnson White House. He had begun writing it the day earlier, within hours after Oswald's death at the hands of Jack Ruby. Thanks to Eugene Rostow talking to Katzenbach three times that day (November 24, 1963) pushing [outlining this memo = cover-up] for a Presidential Commission.
The second paragraph stated: "The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial."
Given that the authorities could not possibly by November 25 know these things to be true, and Katzenbach later admitted he knew very little at this stage, the memo is clearly advocating a political course irrespective of the truth of the assassination.
Katzenbach's memo advocated a public FBI report to satisfy this "objective," though he noted the possible need for "the appointment of a Presidential Commission of unimpeachable personnel to review and examine the evidence and announce its conclusions." He ended by advocating a quick public announcement to "head off speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort."
To many observers, the Katzenbach memo provides the blueprint for the cover-up which followed.
Knowing this, why was Eugene Rostow, a Jewish man (1 in 1,000 odds) and one who was extremely loyal to Israel, pushing so hard for a Presidential Commission? So that it would "head off speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort." It seems quite clear, to cover-up the true facts of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Eugene Rostow died of heart failure on November 25, 2002, 39 years to the day of the Katzenbach Memo.
"Memorandum for Mr. Moyers" (known as the Katzenbach Memo)
It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy's Assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad that all the facts have been told and that a statement to this effect be made now.
1. 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.
2. Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis for rebutting thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing conspiracy to blame it on the Communists. Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too pat-- too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.). The Dallas police have put out statements on the Communist conspiracy theory, and it was they who were in charge when he was shot and thus silenced.
3. The matter has been handled thus far with neither dignity nor conviction. Facts have been mixed with rumour and speculation. We can scarcely let the world see us totally in the image of the Dallas police when our President is murdered.
I think this objective may be satisfied by making public as soon as possible a complete and thorough FBI report on Oswald and the assassination. This may run into the difficulty of pointing to in- consistencies between this report and statements by Dallas police officials. But the reputation of the Bureau is such that it may do the whole job.
The only other step would be the appointment of a Presidential Commission of unimpeachable personnel to review and examine the evidence and announce its conclusions. This has both advantages and disadvantages. It think it can await publication of the FBI report and public reaction to it here and abroad.
I think, however, that a statement that all the facts will be made public property in an orderly and responsible way should be made now. We need something to head off public speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort.
Nicholas deB. Katzenbach
Deputy Attorney General
November 25, 1963
The last of the hundreds of thousands of mourners passed through Capitol Rotunda at 9:05 a.m. EST.
Over one million people lined the route of the funeral procession, from the Capitol back to the White House, then to the Requiem Mass at St. Matthew's Cathedral, and finally the late president was buried at to Arlington National Cemetery. Tens of millions more followed the funeral on television.
Although JFK never specified where he wanted to be buried, most of his family and friends assumed he would have chosen a plot in his home state of Massachusetts. Because JFK was a World War II veteran, he qualified for a plot at Arlington National Cemetery, but he also deserved a special site befitting his presidential status. The spring before he was assassinated, President Kennedy had made an unscheduled tour of Arlington and had remarked to a friend on the view of the Potomac from the Custis-Lee Mansion, reportedly saying it was so magnificent I could stay forever. After the assassination, the friend who accompanied JFK to Arlington that day relayed the comment to the president’s brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, who suggested the site to Jacqueline Kennedy. Jackie, who was responsible for the final decision, toured the site on November 24 and agreed. “He belongs to the people,” she said.
November 25, 1963
Lee Harvey Oswald was buried on the same day as JFK, his remains going into the ground at the Rose Hill Cemetery in Fort Worth. There were few mourners, and finding a minister to preside proved difficult.
November 26, 1963
NSAM 273 is signed, which reversed the pullout from Vietnam that Kennedy ordered on October 11, 1963, with NSAM 263.
Was JFK's Vietnam Policy Changed After His Assassination (Video 33:26)
by Greg Burnham
See October 11, 1963 and November 21, 1963
November 27, 1963
President Johnson's Address To Congress (47:11)
President Johnson spoke to a joint session of Congress following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He reflected on Kennedy’s legacy in office and pledged to continue to honor the country’s obligations.
President Lyndon B. Johnson Address Before A Joint Session Of The Congress (Text)
November 29, 1963 - November 30, 1963
On November 29, 1963, one week after the Kennedy assassination, President Lyndon Baines Johnson announces the Warren Commission to investigate [cover-up] the assassination. On November 30, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order 11130, which appoints the Commission, names its members, and describes its purpose and powers.
See: September 24, 1964 - September 27, 1964
December 2, 1963
Adlai Stevenson reaffirming Kennedy's joint US-USSR Space Flight Proposal (3:05)
On 2 December 1963, Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson told the Political Committee of the U.N. that President Lyndon B. Johnson had instructed him to reaffirm the John F. Kennedy proposal for a joint Soviet-American expedition to the moon. Without referring to the political storm in Congress over the idea of any proposals for joint flight ventures, Stevenson said, "If giant steps cannot be taken at once, we hope that shorter steps can. We believe there are areas of work, short of integrating the two national programs, from which all could benefit." Therefore, he suggested that "we should explore the opportunities for practical cooperation...."
A Mauser, is a Mauser, is a Mannlicher-Carcano
by George W. Bailey
The Assassinations Record Review Board (ARRB) in 1995 uncovered an FBI Field Office Dallas (89-43-1A-122) envelope. It was dated December 2, 1963, and detailed the contents (since missing) of a 7.65mm shell found in Dealey Plaza after the assassination. This recovered evidence was unknown until the ARRB uncovered it. Unfortunately, it did not contain the 7.65mm shell and the outside of the envelope listed it as having no value and was destroyed. Destruction of material evidence by the FBI? Did they even bother take fingerprints off of it? Or, were there in too big of a rush?
One can see from this 7.65mm shell affair how deeply entrenched the lone gunman dogma is at this juncture. Yes, dismiss the evidence if there is only one shooter. But if there is a conspiracy, with multiple shooters, then the recovered shell has greater implications for it. But they don’t think like that. Ironically, the spent cartridge is of the same caliber as the recovered Mauser. With these people the evidence doesn't matter as much as the carefully constructed narrative. Just like it didn’t matter when Gerald Ford moved Kennedy’s back would up to his neck and stated that lie as a fact to the American people.
See: November 22, 1963 1:22 p.pm. CST
December 5, 1963
The remains of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy and that of a stillborn sister, whom Jacqueline Kennedy called Arabella, were re-interred on December 5, 1963, alongside their father at Arlington National Cemetery, and later again (March 14, 1967) moved to their permanent graves in Section 45, Grid U-35.
December 22, 1963
Limit CIA Role To Intelligence an op-ed by former President Harry S. Truman, published only in its early edition, by The Washington Post, on December 22, 1963 - page A11.
I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency, CIA. At least, I would like to submit here the original reason why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency during my Administration, what I expected it to do and how it was to operate as an arm of the President.
... But there are now some searching questions that need to be answered. I, therefore, would like to see the CIA be restored to its original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President, and that whatever else it can properly perform in that special field, and that its operational duties be terminated or properly used elsewhere.
We have grown up as a nation, respected for our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.
Truman's True Warning On The CIA
by Ray McGovern
National security secrecy and a benighted sense of “what’s good for the country” can be a dangerous mix for democracy, empowering self-interested or misguided officials to supplant the people’s will, as President Truman warned...
Fifty years ago, exactly one month after John Kennedy was killed, the Washington Post published an op-ed titled “Limit CIA Role to Intelligence.” The first sentence of that op-ed on December 22, 1963, read, “I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency.”
Are Presidents Afraid Of The CIA?
by Ray McGovern
The Washington Post published the op-ed on December 22, 1963, in its early edition, but immediately excised it from later editions. Other media ignored it. The long hand of the CIA?
Truman wrote that he was “disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment” to keep the President promptly and fully informed and had become “an operational and at times policy-making arm of the government.”
December 31, 1963
Madeleine Duncan Brown was a mistress of Lyndon Johnson for 21 years and had a son with him named Steven Mark Brown in 1950. Madeleine mixed with the Texas elite and had many trysts with Lyndon Johnson over the years, including one at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, Texas, on New Year's Eve 1963. In the late evening of December 31, 1963, just 6 weeks after the JFK assassination, Madeleine asked Lyndon Johnson:
"Lyndon, you know that a lot of people believe you had something to do with President Kennedy's assassination."
He shot up out of bed and began pacing and waving his arms screaming like a madman. I was scared!
"That's bull___, Madeleine Brown!" he yelled. "Don't tell me you believe that crap!"
"Of course not." I answered meekly, trying to cool his temper.
"It was Texas oil and those _____ renegade intelligence bastards in Washington." [said Lyndon Johnson] [Texas in the Morning, p. 189]
February 7, 1964 - February 9, 1964
Eleven weeks to the day of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, February 7, 1964, John Lennon and The Beatles landed at 1:20 p.m. in Queens, New York City, at the newly named John F. Kennedy Airport. They were greeted by over 3,000 screaming fans.
Two days later, on Sunday, February 9, 1964, John Lennon and The Beatles performed the first of two consecutive Sunday evening appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. The first broadcast drew an estimated 74 million viewers, at the time a record for an American television program. Beatlemania had officially started, and the 79 day mourning of our slain President had finally come to an end.
March 14, 1964
On March 14, 1964, Ruby was convicted of murder with malice, for which he received a death sentence. Ruby’s conviction was overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on the grounds that the venue should have been changed to a Texas county other than the one in which the high-profile crime had been committed. Because Ruby's conviction was overturned, and his retrial was pending at the time of his death, he died technically unconvicted.
April 23, 1964
Bill Hunter worked as a reporter for the Long Beach Independent Press Telegram. He was involved in the investigation of the killing of President John F. Kennedy. On 24th November, 1963, Hunter and Jim Koethe of the Dallas Times Herald interviewed George Senator. Also there was the attorney Tom Howard. Earlier that day Senator and Howard had both visited Jack Ruby in jail. That evening Senator arranged for Koethe, Hunter and Howard to search Ruby's apartment.
It is not known what the journalists found but on 23rd April 1964, Hunter was shot dead by Creighton Wiggins, a policeman in the pressroom of a Long Beach police station. Wiggins initially claimed that his gun fired when he dropped it and tried to pick it up. In court this was discovered that this was impossible and it was decided that Hunter had been murdered. Wiggins finally admitted he was playing a game of quick draw with his fellow officer. The other officer, Errol F. Greenleaf, testified he had his back turned when the shooting took place. In January 1965, both were convicted and sentenced to three years probation.
Jim Koethe decided to write a book about the assassination of Kennedy. However, he died on 21st September, 1964. It seems that a man broke into his Dallas apartment and killed him by a karate chop to the throat. Tom Howard died of a heart-attack, aged 48, on 27th March, 1965
May 8, 1964
Gary Underhill was born in Brooklyn on 7th August, 1915. He graduated from Harvard in 1937 and during the Second World War he served with the Military Intelligence Service (6 July 1943 to May 1946). After leaving the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) he worked on specific projects for the Central Intelligence Agency. He was also military affairs editor for Life Magazine.
After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Underhill told his friend, Charlene Fitsimmons, that he was convinced that he had been killed by members of the CIA. He also said: "Oswald is a patsy. They set him up. It's too much. The bastards have done something outrageous. They've killed the President! I've been listening and hearing things. I couldn't believe they'd get away with it, but they did!"
Underhill believed there was a connection between Executive Action, Fidel Castro and the death of Kennedy: "They tried it in Cuba and they couldn't get away with it. Right after the Bay of Pigs. But Kennedy wouldn't let them do it. And now he'd gotten wind of this and he was really going to blow the whistle on them. And they killed him!"
Underhill told friends that he feared for his life: "I know who they are. That's the problem. They know I know. That's why I'm here. I can't stay in New York."
Gary Underhill was found dead on 8th May 1964. He had been shot in the head and it was officially ruled that he had committed suicide. However, in his book, Destiny Betrayed, James DiEugenio claimed that the bullet entered the right-handed Underhill's head behind the left ear.
June 19, 1964
When Ted Kennedy’s Plane Crashed
by Eric Randall
Fifty years ago, the young Senator was seriously injured returning to Massachusetts just months after President Kennedy’s death.
Near Southhampton, Massachusetts
June 19, 1964
...The Weather Bureau said visibility was less than 2 and a half miles and conditions were "marginal" even for an instrument landing by a plane. Shortly after 11 at night, and just before landing at Barnes Municipal Airport in Westfield, Massachusetts, the twin-engine plane made a sharp right turn.
"My first thought," he said later, "was that the plane had been hit by lightning." He looked cautiously about. "I saw black things outside my window," he recalled. "I could see car lights, but the plane then began a steep climb.”
Then the plane went down in the apple orchard atop a hill about three miles short of the runway...
July 19, 1964
John F. Kennedy birthplace, at 83 Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, is dedicated a national landmark.
JFK remembered at his birthplace in Brookline (1:32)
Visitors pay tribute and look for comfort at the birthplace of John F. Kennedy, a house in Brookline which is now the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site.
August 2, 1964 - August 4, 1964
Case Closed: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident
by Carl Otis Schuster
This article by Capt. Carl Otis Schuster, U.S. Navy (ret.) originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Vietnam magazine. A National Security Agency report released in 2007 reveals unequivocally that the alleged August 4, 1964, attack by North Vietnam on U.S. destroyers never actually happened.
In the first few days of August 1964, a series of events off the coast of North Vietnam and decisions made in Washington, D.C., set the United States on a course that would largely define the next decade and weigh heavily on American foreign policy to this day. What did and didn’t happen in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2 and 4 has long been in dispute, but the decisions that the Johnson Administration and Congress made based on an interpretation of those events were undeniably monumental.
While many facts and details have emerged in the past 44 years to persuade most observers that some of the reported events in the Gulf never actually happened, key portions of the critical intelligence information remained classified until recently.
In late 2007, that information was finally made public when an official National Security Agency (NSA) history of signals intelligence (SIGINT) in Vietnam, written in 2002, was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. With that report, after nearly four decades, the NSA officially reversed its verdict on the events of August 4, 1964, that had led that night to President Lyndon Johnson’s televised message to the nation: “The initial attack on the destroyer Maddox, on August 2, was repeated today by a number of hostile vessels attacking two U.S. destroyers with torpedoes…. Air action is now in execution against gunboats and certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam which have been used in these hostile operations.”
The next day, the president addressed Congress, seeking the power to “to take all necessary measures in support of freedom and in defense of peace in Southeast Asia.”
A joint resolution of Congress dated August 7, 1964, gave the president authority to increase U.S. involvement in the war between North and South Vietnam and served as the legal basis for escalations in the Johnson and Nixon administrations that likely dwarfed what most Americans could have imagined in August 1964...
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident Declassified (8:39)
Lyndon Johnson - Report on the Gulf of Tonkin Incident (5:55)
August 4, 1964, President Johnson reports to Congress and the American people on the now infamous Gulf of Tonkin incident.
September 21, 1964
Jim Koethe worked as a reporter for the Dallas Times Herald. He was involved in the investigation of the killing of President John F. Kennedy. On 24th November, 1963, Koethe and Bill Hunter of the Long Beach Press Telegram interviewed George Senator. Also there was the attorney Tom Howard. Earlier that day Senator and Howard had both visited Jack Ruby in jail. That evening Senator arranged for Koethe, Hunter and Howard to search Ruby's apartment.
It is not known what the journalists found but on 23rd April 1964, Bill Hunter was shot dead by Creighton Wiggins, a policeman in the pressroom of a Long Beach police station. Wiggins initially claimed that his gun fired when he dropped it and tried to pick it up. In court this was discovered that this was impossible and it was decided that Hunter had been murdered. Wiggins finally admitted he was playing a game of quick draw with his fellow officer. The other officer, Errol F. Greenleaf, testified he had his back turned when the shooting took place. In January 1965, both were convicted and sentenced to three years probation.
Jim Koethe decided to write a book about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. However, he died on 21st September, 1964. It seems that a man broke into his Dallas apartment and killed him by a karate chop to the throat. Tom Howard died of a heart-attack, aged 48, on 27th March, 1965.
September 24, 1964 - September 27, 1964
The Warren Commission publishes a report [cover-up] with its findings and was presented to President Johnson on September 24, 1964, and made public three days later. It concluded that President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and that Oswald acted entirely alone. It also concluded that Jack Ruby also acted alone when he killed Oswald two days later. The Commission's findings have proven controversial and have been both challenged and supported by later studies.
27 Warren Commission Counsel And Staff Members
19 Of The 27 (70.37%) Warren Commission counsel and staff members were Jewish. The mathematical chance of this occurring is; 1 in 391,576,005,273,123,200.
Because of my extensive research on Holocaust Revisionism throughout the years and knowing the fact that around 75% of the counsel and staff members at the Nuremberg Trials were Jewish.
"You know how I have despised anti-Semitism. You know how strongly I feel toward those who preach intolerance of any kind. With that knowledge - you will understand when I tell you that this staff is about seventy-five percent Jewish. Now my point is that the Jews should stay away from this trial - for their own sake. For - mark this well - the charge 'a war for the Jews' is still being made and in the post-war years it will be made again and again. The too large percentage of Jewish men and women here will be cited as proof of this charge. Sometimes it seems that the Jews will never learn about these things. They seem intent on bringing new difficulties down on their own heads. I do not like to write about this matter - it is distasteful to me - but I am disturbed about it. They are pushing and crowding and competing with each other and with everyone else."
Thomas J. Dodd, September 25, 1945 (from a letter to his wife, he wrote when he was the US prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials)
I had this most insightful thought. Why don't I research and find out just how many counsel and staff members on the Warren Commission were Jewish. Well I did just that. I went one by one through all 27 and I found; out of the 27 Warren Commission counsel and staff members, 19 were Jewish. This equals 70.37%.
The chance of being a Jewish male in the United States in 1963 was about 1 in 100. The mathematical chance for 19 Jewish American males being counsel and staff members out of 27 on the Warren Commission is, 1 in 391,576,005,273,123,200. The name for that number is a quadrillion, so it was a 1 in 392 quadrillion chance.
Here are the 27 Warren Commission counsel and staff members:
General counsel:
James Lee Rankin
Assistant counsel:
Francis W. H. Adams
Joseph A. Ball
David W. Belin - Jewish
William T. Coleman, Jr. - Jewish
Melvin Aron Eisenberg - Jewish
Burt W. Griffin
Leon D. Hubert, Jr. - Jewish
Albert E. Jenner, Jr. - Jewish
Wesley J. Liebeler - Jewish
Norman Redlich - Jewish
W. David Slawson - Jewish
Arlen Specter - Jewish
Samuel A. Stern - Jewish
Howard P. Willens - Jewish
Staff:
Philip Barson - Jewish
Edward A. Conroy
John Hart Ely - Jewish
Alfred Goldberg - Jewish
Murray J. Laulicht - Jewish
Arthur J. Marmor
Richard M. Mosk - Jewish
John J. O'Brien
Stuart R. Pollak - Jewish
Alfredda Scobey
Charles N. Shaffer, Jr. - Jewish
Lloyd L. Weinreb - Jewish
So, how did this Jewish impossibility of 1 in 391,576,005,273,123,200 happen?
For more see the comprehensive section:
27 Warren Commission Counsel And Staff Members
Also, almost no one knows of the five Jewish members on the Warren Commission that somehow miraculously all came to the conclusion of the single bullet theory simultaneously. The totally preposterous single bullet theory, which was used to prove a lone gunman was responsible and therefore no conspiracy, was put forth by Arlen Spector (later a five-time United States Senator from Pennsylvania) and four other Jewish members of the Warren Commission.
"Warren Commission staff lawyer Norman Redlich was asked by author Vincent Bugliosi in 2005 whether Specter was the sole author of the single bullet theory and he said, 'No, we all came to this conclusion simultaneously.' When asked who he meant by 'we', he said, 'Arlen, myself, Howard Willens, David Belin, and Mel Eisenberg.' Specter did not respond to Bugliosi's request for a clarification on the issue." Bugliosi, p. 301 - 306.
Did you get that?
The chance of being a Jewish male in the United States in 1963 was 1 in 100. For somehow five men, all Jewish, to come up with the single bullet theory, what is the likelihood of that? Well it is 1 in 10,000,000,000. Yes, a one in ten billion chance.
And then this 1 in 10,000,000,000 possibility -- they "simultaneously" come to the same conclusion for the assassination, the single bullet theory.
What is the chance now? One in infinity.
But this Jewish cover story gets much more outlandish, because the corrupt single bullet theory also uses an indestructible magic bullet as the single bullet.
The single magic bullet, known as "Warren Commission Exhibit 399" (also known as "CE 399"), caused the non-fatal wounds to the President Kennedy and all the wounds to Governor Connally. This adds up to a total of seven entry and exit wounds.
According to the Jewish single bullet theory, a three-centimeter-long copper-jacketed lead-core 6.5×52mm Mannlicher–Carcano rifle bullet fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository passed through President Kennedy’s neck and Governor Connally’s chest and wrist and embedded itself in the Governor’s thigh.
That means this magic bullet traversed 15 layers of clothing, 7 layers of skin, and approximately 15 inches of tissue, struck a necktie knot, removed 4 inches of rib, and shattered a radius bone.
The magic bullet was then found on a gurney in the corridor at the Parkland Memorial Hospital, in Dallas, after the assassination (Did Jack Ruby put it there?). The Warren Commission found that this gurney was the one that had borne Governor Connally.
After inflicting all of this damage to President Kennedy and Governor Connally, the magic bullet was found in nearly pristine condition. Its copper jacket was completely intact, the nose appeared normal and the tail was compressed laterally on one side. Also, quite incredibly the magic bullet contained no traces of blood or tissue when examined under a microscope.
For more see the comprehensive section: Single Bullet Theory
Much has been written on the Warren Commission and how it blatantly covered-up the assassination of the 35th President of the United Sates, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. For me, 16 Questions On The Assassination by Bertrand Russell, from September 6, 1964, is a great an early (published just three weeks before the Warren Commission) article showing the insolent hypocrisy of this "body of holy men appointed to pronounce the truth."
I just went through this article and found 17 Questions:
1) Why were all the members of the Warren Commission closely connected with the U.S. Government?
2) If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security?
3) If the Government is so certain of its case, why has it conducted all its inquiries in the strictest secrecy?
4) Why did the Warren Commission not establish a panel to deal with the question of who killed President Kennedy?
5) Why have so many liberals abandoned their own responsibility to a Commission whose circumstances they refuse to examine?
6) Why did the authorities follow many persons as potential assassins and fail to observe Oswald's entry into the book depository building while allegedly carrying a rifle over three feet long?
7) Why was the President's route changed at the last minute to take him past Oswald's place of work?
8) How did Oswald manage to shoot the President in the front from behind?
9) Why has the medical evidence concerning the President's death been altered out of recognition?
10) What is the evidence to substantiate the allegation that the President was shot from behind?
11) Why has the F.B.I. refused to publish what could be the most reliable piece of evidence in the whole case?
12) How is it that millions of people have been misled by complete forgeries in the press?
13) Why was the result of the paraffin test altered before being announced by the authorities?
14) Why was the only description of Tippitt's killer deliberately omitted by the police from the affidavit of the sole eye-witness?
15) Why was Oswald's description in connection with the murder of Patrolman Tippitt broadcast over Dallas police radio at 12:43 p.m. on November 22, when Tippitt was not shot until 1:06 p.m.?
16) The rifle which the police "produced" was almost 3½ feet long. How was it possible for Earl Warren to forecast that Marina Oswald's evidence would be exactly the reverse of what she had previously testified?
17) How does a District Attorney of Wade's great experience account for all the extraordinary changes in evidence and testimony which he has announced during the Oswald case?
For more on this cover-up, see the comprehensive section: Warren Commission
October 12, 1964
Mary Pinchot Meyer, who was intimate with JFK from 1961 to 1963, is assassinated. Her diary concerning the JFK assassination is supposedly never found. James Jesus Angleton was found in Mary's home by her sister Tony and her husband Ben Bradlee when they went looking for diary after Anne Truitt (whom I spoke with personally) told them about it.
With her loving help, John Fitzgerald Kennedy sought to bring peace on Earth, for this, Mary Pinchot Meyer was one of the greatest women of the twentieth century.
Meyer was shot to death on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath on October 12, 1964, just after the release of the Warren Commission Report, whose conclusions Meyer challenged. Meyer’s long history of criticism of the CIA, the timing of her killing, the CIA’s wiretapping of her phone, and the effort by CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton to retrieve Meyer’s diary immediately after her death have prompted investigation of possible CIA involvement in her murder. Additionally, Army personnel records for prosecution witness Lt. William L. Mitchell, released in 2015 and 2016 under the Freedom of Information Act, corroborate his ties to the intelligence community. CIA involvement has also been suggested by the phone call that was placed by top Agency official Wistar Janney to Ben Bradlee, hours before the police had identified Meyer’s body. The man accused of the murder, Ray Crump, Jr., was acquitted at trial in July, 1965. The murder remains officially unsolved.
Pinchot Meyer visited John F. Kennedy at the White House in October 1961 and their relationship became intimate. Pinchot Meyer told Ann and James Truitt she was keeping a diary. Timothy Leary later claimed Pinchot Meyer influenced Kennedy's "views on nuclear disarmament and rapprochement with Cuba." In an interview with Nina Burleigh, Kennedy aide Myer Feldman said, "I think he might have thought more of her than some of the other women and discussed things that were on his mind, not just social gossip." Burleigh wrote, "Mary might actually have been a force for peace during some of the most frightening years of the cold war..."
In a 2008 interview with author Peter Janney for his book Mary's Mosaic, journalist and Kennedy intimate Charles Bartlett emphasized the serious nature of Pinchot Meyer's romance with the late president, stating, "That was a dangerous relationship. Jack was in love with Mary Meyer. He was certainly smitten with her, he was heavily smitten. He was very frank with me about it."
In October 1963, one month before his assassination, Kennedy wrote a letter to Mary Meyer, imploring her to join him for a tryst. The unsent letter, written on White House stationery and retained by Kennedy's personal secretary Evelyn Lincoln, sold in June 2016 at auction for just under $89,000. The letter reads: "Why don’t you leave suburbia for once – come and see me – either here – or at the Cape next week or in Boston the 19th. I know it is unwise, irrational, and that you may hate it – on the other hand you may not – and I will love it. You say that it is good for me not to get what I want. After all of these years – you should give me a more loving answer than that. Why don’t you just say yes." The letter is signed "J."
An excellent book on the assassination of Mary Pinchot Meyer:
by Peter Janney (Author), Dick Russell (Foreword)
Peter Janney on the JFK Assassination (28:02)
Who really murdered Mary Pinchot Meyer in the fall of 1964? Why was there a mad rush by CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton to locate and confiscate her diary? What in that diary was so explosive? Had Mary Meyer finally put together the intricate pieces of a plan to assassinate her lover, President John F. Kennedy, with the trail ultimately leading to the CIA? And was it mere coincidence that Mary was killed less than three weeks after the release of the Warren Commission Report?
The Murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer (48:45)
Murder Of JFK Lover Mary Meyer (16:54)
William Pepper talks about Mary Pinchot Meyer by Paul DeRienzo (3:00)
Mary's Mosaic and the Dealey Plaza Cleanup Crew
Book Review by William Kelly
As soon as she learned of her sister’s death, Toni Bradlee told her husband about the diary, and Ben Bradlee went to Mary’s apartment only to find CIA officer James Jesus Angleton trying to lockpick the door to get in. He too was after the diary.
By the time Peter Janney got on the story, others had been before him, including Leo Damore, who had investigated and wrote about the Ted Kennedy incident at Chappaquiddick, and Damore said he had the diary and obtained a phone call confession from William L. Mitchell, a jogger who was at the scene of the murder.
While official investigators arrested a black man – Ray Crump, who was fishing nearby, his defense attorney Dovey J. Roundtree convinced the jury he was “not guilty,” which led Damore to focus on Mitchell.
Damore, who claimed to have the diary and that he obtained a confession from Mitchell, talked to his attorney on the phone the day before he allegedly killed himself, yet another victim of the still busy Dealey Plaza Cleanup Crew.
October 14, 1964
Nikita Khrushchev is ousted as both premier of the Soviet Union and chief of the Communist Party after 10 years in power. He was succeeded as head of the Communist Party by his former protégé Leonid Brezhnev, who would eventually become the chief of state as well.
February 21, 1965
Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965 at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. The subsequent murder trial convicted three men, Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler, and Thomas 15X Johnson. For most commentators (e.g., Breitman), Malcolm’s death left a number of questions unanswered. Not only did the trial fail to definitively answer who murdered Malcolm, it also failed to answer who sponsored the assassination. The prosecution team quickly assumed the involvement of the Nation of Islam (NOI), and failed to track leads that did not match their assumptions. Focused solely on winning the case as they defined it, the prosecution worked with the circumstantial evidence they had without attempting to find hard facts or the real motive behind the assassination. To their discredit, the defense teams shared part of the blame; they failed to introduce evidence or raise questions that would seriously weaken the prosecution’s case. Proponents of various theories have since attempted to solve some of the questions left unanswered, by positing the involvement of not only the Nation of Islam but also other groups with possible motives and means, including the Harlem Drug Lords, the New York Police Department (NYPD), the CIA, and the FBI.
March 27, 1965
Tom Howard was born in 1917. After qualifying as a lawyer he settled in Dallas. Jack Ruby murdered Lee Harvey Oswald on 24th November, 1963. Ruby asked Howard if he would take the case. Howard had a good record and none of his clients had been executed.
On 24th November, 1963, Bill Hunter (Long Beach Independent Press Telegram) and Jim Koethe (Dallas Times Herald) interviewed George Senator. Also there was the attorney Tom Howard. Earlier that day Senator and Howard had both visited Jack Ruby in jail. That evening Senator arranged for Koethe, Hunter and Howard to search Ruby's apartment.
It was Howard who came up with the idea that Ruby should say in court that he killed Oswald because he "couldn't bear the idea of the President's widow being subjected to testifying at the trial of Oswald". Howard told friends he intended to put Ruby on the stand. Howard planned to argue that killing Oswald was like "another nigger murder case" and after pleading guilty to murder without malice would get "five years in prison at most". Ruby was not convinced by this approach and replaced Howard with Melvin Belli.
On 23rd April 1964, Bill Hunter was shot dead by Creighton Wiggins, a policeman in the pressroom of a Long Beach police station. Wiggins initially claimed that his gun fired when he dropped it and tried to pick it up. In court this was discovered that this was impossible and it was decided that Hunter had been murdered. Wiggins finally admitted he was playing a game of quick draw with his fellow officer. The other officer, Errol F. Greenleaf, testified he had his back turned when the shooting took place. In January 1965, both were convicted and sentenced to three years probation.
Jim Koethe decided to write a book about the assassination of Kennedy. However, he died on 21st September, 1964. It seems that a man broke into his Dallas apartment and killed him by a karate chop to the throat.
Tom Howard died of a heart-attack, aged 48, on 27th March, 1965.
July 4, 1965
by John Simkin
Lisa Howard died at her home at East Hampton, Long Island, on July 4, 1965. It was officially reported that she had committed suicide. Her name is rarely mentioned in list of suspicious deaths. The reason for this is that it is only recently been discovered that she was an important figure in the events of 1963.
Mary’s Mosaic and the Dealey Plaza Cleanup Crew
Book Review by William Kelly
Forget the mysterious deaths of witnesses and suspects that Penn Jones kept track of in his Forgive My Grief series, don’t bother with the London Sunday Times’ actuary that mathematically calculated the odds of so many subjects would die, as promoted at the end of the movie Executive Action, and ignore the suspicious deaths of Marilyn Monroe, Dorothy Kilgallon and Lisa Howard, all of whom were victims of the same MO – Modus Operandi.
November 8, 1965
Dorothy Kilgallen is assassinated. Dorothy Kilgallen was the only reporter to ever obtain a private interview with Jack Ruby. She told friends that she had information that would "break the case wide open". The notes of her interview with Jack Ruby and the article and book she was writing on the case disappeared.
Kilgallen began to tell friends that she was close to discovering who assassinated Kennedy. According to David Welsh of Ramparts Magazine Kilgallen "vowed she would 'crack this case.' And another New York show biz friend said Dorothy told him in the last days of her life: "In five more days I'm going to bust this case wide open." Aware of what had happened to Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe (both killed), Kilgallen handed a draft copy of her chapter on the assassination to her friend, Florence Pritchett Smith. Florence Pritchett Smith, died one day later of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Please see the section: Witness Deaths. The HSCA would use obfuscation and factual omission in an attempt to refute an actuary’s calculation of 100,000 trillion to 1 odds of 18 material witness deaths in the three years following the assassination. If the odds were essentially correct, it would force the HSCA to conclude a conspiracy. The HSCA statistician claimed, incorrectly, that it was impossible to determine a known universe of witnesses. There was a defined universe of an estimated 1100 witnesses who were called in 1964-78 to testify: 552 by the Warren Commission, the others at the Garrison/Shaw trial, Church Senate hearings and HSCA. At least 67 died (46 unnaturally). The probability of 46 unnatural deaths is 4.9E-45 (this is less than 1 in a Trillion Trillion Trillion).
An excellent book on the assassination of Dorothy Kilgallen:
The Reporter Who Knew Too Much:
The Mysterious Death of What's My Line TV Star and Media Icon Dorothy Kilgallen
by Mark Shaw
January 3, 1967
As the date for his new trial was being set, Jack Ruby became ill in his prison cell and was taken to at Parkland Hospital, where died of a pulmonary embolism from lung cancer. He was buried beside his parents in the Westlawn Cemetery in Norridge, Illinois.
March 14, 1967
The Kennedy family and Arlington officials chose to move JFK’s grave in order to construct a safer, more stable eternal flame and to accommodate the extensive foot traffic caused by tourists. The final resting place, which is only a few feet from the original site, took 2 years to construct, during which time JFK’s body was secretly moved on March 14, 1967, and re-interred in a private ceremony attended by Jackie, his brothers Edward and Robert, and President Lyndon Johnson. The bodies of two of the couple’s children (Patrick Bouvier Kennedy and that of a stillborn sister, whom Jacqueline Kennedy called Arabella) who died were also moved to the new site. The makeshift propane gas line was replaced with a permanent natural gas line and furnished with a continuous electronic flashing spark that reignites the flame in case it is extinguished by rain or wind. The Kennedy family chose Cape Cod granite flagstones to surround the flame. They also paid the costs of the original burial, but the federal government funded construction of the final site and appropriates money for the plot’s upkeep.
JFK Exhumation March 14, 1967 (14:04)
March 1, 1967 - March 1, 1969
Jim Garrison And The Trial Of Clay Shaw
Jim Garrison is an American hero of the highest order, for being the only person to bring a trial for the assassination of President Kennedy.
On March 1, 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested and charged New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy, with the help of David Ferrie and others.
On January 29, 1969, Shaw was brought to trial in Orleans Parish Criminal Court on these charges. On March 1, 1969, a jury took less than an hour to find Shaw not guilty. To date, it is the only trial to be brought for the assassination of President Kennedy. In 1979, Richard Helms, former director of the CIA, testified under oath that Clay Shaw had been a part-time contact of the Domestic Contact Service of the CIA.
Jim Garrison On The JFK Assassination (1988) (1:59:31)
Jim Garrison was District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana. He investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, His trial against Claw Shaw was the only one ever in the President's murder.
The JFK Assassination: The Jim Garrison Tapes (1992) (1:31:03)
The story of Orleans Parish District Attorney Jim Garrison and his search for the truth in the JFK assassination and how the federal government worked to destroy that effort. A sad saga of the death of the United States of America; the Constitution; and a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Director and Writer: John Barbour
Jim Garrison Response - Kennedy Assassination (27:05)
July 15, 1967, New Orleans DA Jim Garrison NBC Response - Kennedy Assassination
In 1967, NBC's Frank McGee, the "respected" veteran news journalist presented an "NBC White Paper," "The JFK Conspiracy: The Case Of Jim Garrison" (Documentary) on New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. This "White Paper," pointed out many of the investigative practices by Garrison and his office, regarding changes that Garrison brought against New Orleans business man Clay Shaw. Shaw was charged with conspiracy in the murder of President Kennedy. The "White Paper," was so demeaning and slanderous to Mr. Garrison and his office, that the Federal Communications Commission demanded that NBC give the New Orleans District Attorney equal time. This ruling by the FCC was unprecedented in Network Television history. So on Saturday July 15, 1967 Mr. Garrison got his equal time to set the record straight and answer all those slanderous statements by NBC.
"The JFK Conspiracy: The Case Of Jim Garrison" (57:45)
On June 19, 1967, NBC-TV aired "The JFK Conspiracy: The Case Of Jim Garrison", a one-hour special documentary program which probes New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's case against businessman Clay Shaw. On March 1, 1967, Garrison's office arrested Shaw on a charge of conspiracy to murder President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
"Shoot Him Down": NBC, the CIA and Jim Garrison
by William Davy
...Garrison's case was big news and predictably the news media swung into attack mode. None was more vicious or had more resources at their disposal than NBC. For the job as lead investigative reporter, NBC assigned Walter Sheridan. Shortly after Shaw's arrest Sheridan arrived in New Orleans and began questioning witnesses — perhaps bribing and intimidating would be a better choice of words. Sheridan questioned a former electronics expert and CIA asset Gordon Novel and immediately put him on a $500 a day retainer. (Novel had briefly consulted with Garrison's team). Sheridan then urged Novel to skip town to avoid being indicted and paid him an additional $750 while Novel was in Columbus Ohio. Attorney Dean Andrews, who received the call from a "Clay Bertrand" to represent Oswald, was promised a recording studio if he cooperated with Sheridan. Andrews was overheard bragging, "I can get the equipment here. All I have to do is make a phone call, I'll have open credit, I can pay off on any terms. Look, Bobby Sarnoff promised me those facilities. He'd better pay off, baby." Bobby Sarnoff was, of course, Robert Sarnoff, NBC president and later chairman of the board of its parent company RCA...
For more see the comprehensive section: Jim Garrison And The Trial Of Clay Shaw
April 1967
in his book, Conspiracy Theory in America, Lance deHaven-Smith reveals that the term “conspiracy theory” entered the American lexicon of political speech to deflect criticism of the Warren Commission and traces it back to a April 1967, CIA propaganda campaign to discredit doubters of the commission’s report. The dispatch was marked “psych” – short for “psychological operations” or disinformation – and “CS” for the CIA’s “Clandestine Services” unit. The term “conspiracy theory” has been used ever since to validate false explanations by discrediting true explanations.
April 4, 1967
Beyond Vietnam A Time To Break Silence
This courageous speech was given one year to the day before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. This speech was the first time King publicly came out against the Vietnam war (police action). He called the United States government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." He also linked the war with economic injustice, stating that America needed moral change. He went on to say, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." He stated that North Vietnam "did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had arrived in the tens of thousands", and accused the United States of having killed a million Vietnamese, "mostly children."
Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence
Address to the Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam,
Riverside Church, New York City April 4, 1967
Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence (Audio Full Speech 56:48)
by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
April 28, 1967
When the heavyweight boxing champion, Muhammad Ali, announced to the world that he would not go to kill people in the Vietnam War for the United States government, I was overjoyed. Finally someone famous, and none other than the heavyweight boxing champion had stood up and eloquently said no, I will not kill my fellow human beings.
Muhammad Ali on the Vietnam War-Draft (2:37)
"My conscious won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn't put no dogs on me, they didn't rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father... Shoot them for what? ...How can I shoot them poor people, Just take me to jail."
Muhammad Ali interview on not joining the army (4:07)
Muhammad Ali on not going to war (6:47)
Muhammad Ali refuses Army induction
Muhammad Ali, the heavyweight boxing champion refuses to be inducted into the U.S. Army and is immediately stripped of his heavyweight title. Ali, a Muslim, cited religious reasons for his decision to forgo military service.
On April 28, 1967, with the United States at war in Vietnam, Ali refused to be inducted into the armed forces, saying “I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong.” On June 20, 1967, Ali was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three years. He stayed out of prison as his case was appealed and returned to the ring on October 26, 1970, knocking out Jerry Quarry in Atlanta in the third round. On March 8, 1971, Ali fought Joe Frazier in the “Fight of the Century” and lost after 15 rounds, the first loss of his professional boxing career. On June 28 of that same year, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction for evading the draft.
by Krishnadev Calamur
His refusal to be drafted to fight in the war transcended the boxing ring, which he had dominated, at great personal cost.
Muhammad Ali refuses to fight in Vietnam
Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali (1942-2016) was outspoken about many political issues, including his opposition to the Vietnam War. Ali was drafted in 1966 and called up for induction in 1967, however he refused to answer to his name or take the oath. This led to Ali’s arrest and conviction, later overturned on appeal by the US Supreme Court. In March 1967, one month before his scheduled military induction, Ali explained why he would not be enlisting to fight in Vietnam:
“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?
No, I am not going ten thousand miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would put my prestige in jeopardy and could cause me to lose millions of dollars which should accrue to me as the champion.
But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is right here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality…
If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. But I either have to obey the laws of the land or the laws of Allah. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail. We’ve been in jail for four hundred years.”
May 27, 1967
President Lyndon Johnson establishes John F. Kennedy National Historic Site.
Some buildings become landmarks because their architecture is imposing; others, because they are meant by a nation or a people to be monuments and symbols. Still others are set apart through no quality of their own. They become famous because they evoke the name and the memory of great men--or one great man. So it is with the two-story frame house at 83 Beals Street, Brookline, Massachusetts. On May 29, 1917, John F. Kennedy was born in that house. Today we establish it as a national historic site.
June 5, 1967 - June 10, 1967
Israel Provoked the Six-Day War in 1967, and It Was Not Fighting for Survival
by James North
I am old enough to remember clearly how the Six-Day War [June 5-10, 1967] was reported at the time. Just about everything we were told then was wrong, as the major historians of the period all acknowledge today ... Norman Finkelstein, the distinguished scholar, has done as much as anyone to uncover the truth about the Six-Day War ... Finkelstein emphasizes that no genuine academic today, whatever their political orientation, endorses the Mainstream Narrative. He starts by identifying what he has called the "Two Biggest Lies": The truth is that Nasser and the other Arab leaders had absolutely no intention of invading Israel in June 1967; And Israel's existence was never in the slightest doubt, as both Israeli and American leaders knew that Israel could easily win any conflict, even against a coalition of Arab states.
The Six Day War and Israeli Lies: What I Saw at the CIA
by Melvin A. Goodman
...In 1967, Israeli officials at the highest level lied to the White House about the start of the Six-Day War. As a junior analyst at the CIA, I helped to draft the report that described Israel's attack against Egypt on the morning of June 5, 1967. There were sensitive communications intercepts that documented Israeli preparations for an attack, and no evidence of an Egyptian battle plan ... The Israeli government lied to the White House about how the war started. President Johnson was told that the Egyptians had initiated firing on Israeli settlements, and that an Egyptian squadron had been observed heading toward Israeli. Neither statement was true ... The CIA, meanwhile, had the benefit of satellite photography that showed Egyptian planes parked on airfields wingtip-to-wingtip, which pointed to no plan to attack...
Historical Myth Justifies Israel's Golan Heights Occupation
For decades Israel has cited vital security concerns to justify its seizure of the Golan Heights. Israelis have claimed that from 1948 to June 1967, Syrian military forces repeatedly used the Heights to shell Jewish settlements and installations below. These artillery bombardments, in the widely accepted Israeli and American view, justified Israel's conquest of the Heights in 1967, and its occupation ever since. Actually, Israel's seizure and occupation of this territory is based on a historical lie. This was frankly acknowledged by Israel General and cabinet minister Moshe Dayan in an interview given in 1976, but which was not made public until April 1997.
June 8, 1967
Israel Attacks The USS Liberty In International Waters
Deanna Spingola Interviews J. B. Campbell (Audio 1:08:18)
Operation Cyanide, LBJ's Jewish Handlers, And How Russia Saved The Liberty
The Most Diabolical Secret In Washington Is That America Sent The USS Liberty To Be Sunk. 'The Blackmail Weapon That Israel Uses Against America.'
Israel's 'Knife In The Back' Attack Against America
by Phillip Tourney
Here is the text of the open letter by Phillip Tourney, President of the USS Liberty Veterans Association, published in a full-page advertisement in the daily Washington Times, June 6, 2002.
Saturday, June 8, 2002 marks the 35th anniversary of probably the most shameful day in American history. That day America's banner and honor were treacherously trashed by our so-called ally, Israel. Thirty-four Americans were brutally slaughtered, 172 wounded, including myself. America's most sophisticated intelligence ship was so badly damaged it had to be scrapped. Israel deliberately attacked America's virtually unarmed USS Liberty in international waters, knowing full well our identity, in an assault that lasted as long as the attack on Pearl Harbor...
Covert Sacrifice: Operation Cyanide (20:00)
by Iona Miller
On June 8, 1967, at the height of the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Israeli air and naval forces attacked the USS Liberty, an intelligence-collection ship in the service of Israel’s closest ally, while that vessel steamed in international waters off the Sinai Peninsula.
USS Liberty: Dead In The Water (1:08:32)
by BBC Television
On June 8th, 1965, during the Six-Day War, Israel attacked and nearly sank the USS Liberty belonging to its closest ally, the USA. Thirty-four American servicemen were killed and over 170 wounded in the two-hour assault by Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats. Israel claimed that the whole affair had been a tragic accident based on mistaken identification of the ship. The American government accepted the explanation. For more than 30 years many people have disbelieved the official explanation but have been unable to rebut it convincingly. Now, "Dead in the Water" uses startling new evidence to reveal the truth behind the seemingly inexplicable attack. The film combines dramatic reconstruction of the events, with new access to former officers in the US and Israeli armed forces and intelligence services who have decided to give their own version of events. Interviews include President Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, former head of the Israeli navy, Admiral Shlomo Errell, and members of the USS Liberty crew.
The Loss Of Liberty (52:09)
USS Liberty Cover Up
Israel attacks America to cover-up its War Crimes
Due to the fact that the entire mainstream media (MSM) is owned by the Israeli zionists, the American public is not aware that Israel is the biggest threat to American national security, and many believe that Israel is in fact at war with America and has colonized and occupied it just like the Palestine. The apartheid state of Israel's unprovoked attack on The USS Liberty, the assassination of a true human rights & peace activist, the honorable Rachel Corrie are just a few examples of Israel's war against America. Sinking Liberty: Who will write the final chapter on Israel's 1967 confrontation with the U.S. Navy?
The USS Liberty (AGTR-5) has been called the most decorated United States Naval ship for a single action. But if this is true, why have so few Americans ever heard of the Liberty? The reasons are many, but have everything to do with who attacked the Liberty and who covered up the attack, an ongoing and disgraceful coverup for nearly 50 years.
Though attempts have been, and continue to be made, to bring the truth about the attack on the Liberty to a wider audience, those responsible for the attack and the coverup have many resources available to keep this national tragedy buried.
And the most shocking part of this story, is that the country who attempted to sink the Liberty with all those aboard, Israel, on that beautiful, sunny day in the Eastern Mediterranean in June, 1967, not only continues to erase the true history of what happened, but our own country, the United States of America, and those public officials sworn to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution, initiated the coverup and continue, to this very second, to dishonor those 34 men viciously slaughtered and the 174 wounded, who are forced to live knowing their own country abandoned them on the altar of political expediency.
The coverup has been so thorough that this is the only maritime attack in U.S. history not afforded a Congressional investigation, as required by the U.S. Constitution.
Based on the new book by Liberty survivor Phillip F. Tourney, Erasing the Liberty: My Battle to Keep Alive the Memory of Israel’s Attack on the USS Liberty, some of the ship’s survivors and supporters decided the most effective way to bring the story of the Liberty to the widest possible audience was through a full-length feature film.
Liberty survivors are dying off and need to have their story told. They and the American people deserve no less. Help us make this dream a reality. Donate to the USS Liberty film project today.
June 25, 1967
I was just shy of nine and a half years of age, but I had already come to think that I was being brought up in a world that was akin to a violent insane asylum. But watching television on the evening of Sunday, June 25, 1967, I realized that there was someone who believed in peace and love.
Sunday, June 25, 2017 was the day John Lennon and The Beatles sang, All You Need Is Love, on, Our World. The Beatles performed the song as Britain's contribution to Our World, the first live global television link via satellite. An estimated 400 to 700 million people around the globe watched the broadcast.
Watching John Lennon sing, All You Need Is Love, was profound, and the most transformational moment of my life. I was already a huge Beatle fan, that started when I watched their performance on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, but now the music, lyrics and images of, All You Need Is Love, touched me at the deepest level inside my heart and soul, as nothing ever had before in my life.
It was the moment that I followed John Lennon, more than any other person on Earth. I did so, until I was at the Datoka on December 8, 1980.
Within three months, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali and now John Lennon all had shown me that there were people who were against violence and killing, and for love. I thought maybe there was hope for humanity.
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy
Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
Nothing you can know that isn't known
Nothing you can see that isn't shown
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be
It's easy
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
All you need is love (All together, now!)
All you need is love (Everybody!)
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Yee-hai! (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Yesterday (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Love is all you need (Love is all you need)
Oh yeah! (Love is all you need)
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah (Love is all you need)
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah (Love is all you need)
Written by John Lennon and credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney
The beautiful song captured the utopian sentiments of the Summer of Love era and topped the singles charts in Britain, the United States and many other countries.
See: April 4, 1968 and December 8, 1980.
November 27, 1967
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee AIPAC applies for a federal tax exemption. The US Treasury Department grants it, backdated to 1953.
For more see the comprehensive section: Jewish Lobby
February 26, 1968 - February 27, 1968
Ramsey Clark and the death of JFK
by John Simkin
William Ramsey Clark was born in Dallas, Texas, on December 18, 1927. His father, Tom C. Clark, was a local district attorney who went on to become the Attorney General of the United States from June 27, 1945 - July 26, 1949, and then Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from August 19, 1949 - June 12, 1967.
In 1961 Clark was appointed as the Assistant Attorney General of the Lands Division. After the assassination of JFK he worked in a liaison capacity with the Warren Commission. In 1965 Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him as his Deputy Attorney General.
In 1967, President Johnson nominated him to be Attorney General of the United States, he was confirmed by congress and took the oath of office on March 2, 1967. Later that day District Attorney Jim Garrison announced the arrest of businessman Clay Shaw on charges of conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy. The new Attorney General stated that the FBI had already investigated and cleared Shaw "in November and December of 1963" of "any part in the assassination". Within a few days of this statement Clark had to admit that he had published inaccurate information and that no investigation of Shaw had taken place.
In an interview on Face the Nation on March 12, 1967, CBS correspondent, George Herman, asked Clark about the death of David Ferrie. Herman asked Clark why documents concerning Ferrie had been classified by the FBI and the Justice Department. Clark replied: "No, those documents are under the general jurisdiction of the General Services Administration." According to Bernard Fensterwald, this was untrue as the Ferrie documents had specifically been classified under orders from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
In 1968 Attorney General Ramsey Clark appointed a panel of four medical experts to examine various photographs, X-ray films, documents, and other evidence pertaining to the death of President Kennedy. The Clark Panel argued that Kennedy was struck by two bullets fired from above and behind him, one of which traversed the base of the neck on the right side without striking bone and the other of which entered the skull from behind and destroyed its upper right side.
Ramsey Clark was also the subject of criticism a year later when he announced that there was "no sign of conspiracy" in the assassination of Martin Luther King, several weeks before James Earl Ray, the alleged assassin, had been arrested. Ramsey Clark later admitted he suspended Cartha DeLoach from his position as FBI liaison, as a result of his behaviour over the arrest of James Earl Ray.
On January 25, 1969, Ramsey Clark's final day as Attorney General, he ordered the Justice Department to withhold from Jim Garrison, the X-Rays and photographs from the autopsy of John F. Kennedy.
James DiEugenio is very good on Ramsey Clark in Destiny Betrayed (1992):
One point man for the Johnson Administration in damaging Garrison's case was Ramsey Clark. In March of 1967, right after his confirmation as Attorney General by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Clark made an extraordinary intervention into the case: he told a group of reporters Garrison's case was baseless. The FBI, he said, had already investigated Shaw in 1963 and found no connection between him and the events in Dallas. When pressed on this, Clark insisted that Shaw had been checked out and cleared.
But in his haste to discredit Garrison, Clark had slipped. The obvious question, though not pursued by the Washington press corps, was why back in 1963 the upstanding citizen Shaw had been investigated concerning the assassination at all. Shaw and his lawyers realized the implication of Clark's gaffe even if the Attorney General did not. When one of Shaw's attorneys, Edward F. Wegmann, requested a clarification of Clark's statement, a Clark subordinate tried to control the damage by asserting that the original statement was without foundation: "The Attorney General has since determined that this was erroneous. Nothing arose indicating a need to investigate Mr. Shaw."
Things got even worse for Clark. The same day he made his original announcement, a New York Times reporter, Robert Semple, wrote that the Justice Department was convinced that "Mr. Bertrand and Mr. Shaw were the same man." Semple had gone to the National Archives seeking Warren Commission references to Clay Shaw. Finding zero, he was told that the Justice Department believed that Bertrand and Shaw were actually the same man, and that this belief was the basis for the Attorney General's assertion.
Clark had come to praise Shaw but instead had implicated him. However, Clark was not through trying to aid Shaw and sandbag Garrison. The AG would have a surprise for the DA at the upcoming trial...
In July of 1967, Garrison had tried to expedite matters by filing for an early trial date. For one thing, he wanted to stop Phelan and Sheridan from tampering with, intimidating, and making offers to witnesses. But when he saw that the defense was determined to drag out the pre-trial phase, he decided to use the interval to secure more evidence from the government. Here, Ramsey Clark, his nemesis, blocked his path.
After the Attorney General had bungled his first attempt to discredit Garrison's case, he secretly tried another method. Garrison had been trying to secure the original JFK autopsy photos and x-rays to exhibit at the trial. They would form an important part of his case, since, to prove a conspiracy, he had to present evidence against the Warren Report, which maintained there was no conspiracy and that Oswald had acted alone. In 1968, Clark convened a panel of experts - which did not include any of the doctors who had performed the original examinations - to review what was extant of the photos and x-rays. In early 1969, just a few days before he left office and on the eve of the trial, Clark announced that this panel had endorsed the findings of the Warren Report. The panel released its findings, but none of the original evidence on which it was based. And when Garrison again requested the autopsy materials, he was turned down by Clark's Justice Department.
Even more intriguing is that one of the "Chicago mob bosses" sprung by Clark was Johnny Rosselli...
by Pat Speer
I mean, what are the odds? JFK is killed in Dallas on the very day New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello wins his lawsuit against Robert F. Kennedy. At Marcello's side is David Ferrie, who knew Oswald, JFK's supposed assassin. Lyndon Johnson is also rumored to have once been associated with Marcello. Another of Marcello's rumored connections is Tom Clark, a Supreme Court Justice. For a time the public is convinced Oswald acted alone, and then, JUST WHEN the public is starting to ask questions and doubt the official story, Johnson appoints Ramsey Clark, Tom Clark's son, to run the Justice Department. Clark arranges for the autopsy doctors to re-examine the medical evidence; their supposed report is instead written by the Justice Department. Around this same time, Johnny Rosselli, a Chicago mobster who'd once been released under then-attorney general Tom Clark's orders, starts maneuvering to get excused from his most recent run-in with the law. His lawyer leaks to columnist Drew Pearson that the CIA had hired him to kill Castro, and that someway somehow this had backfired and that Castro had killed Kennedy instead. Pearson then meets with Johnson and discusses how they can best use this information. Shortly thereafter, Clark tells Johnson that New Orleans DA Jim Garrison has a key witness, Ferrie, and that Garrison now suspects Johnson's involvement. Literally days later, Ferrie dies unexpectedly, and mysteriously. Shortly after that, Robert F. Kennedy breaks with Johnson over Vietnam, and the next day Drew Pearson's column reports that JFK had been killed after Robert Kennedy's plans to kill Castro had backfired. Weeks later, the Justice Department provides Dr. Humes with "talking points" for an interview on CBS; these talking points amount to an order that Humes lie about the location of Kennedy's back wound so that the single-bullet theory and single-assassin conclusion can be preserved. Over the next year or so, the Justice Department under Clark continues to interfere with Garrison's investigation. Then, in early 1968, within weeks of Johnson's deciding not to run for re-election, and his presumed acceptance that Robert Kennedy might become the next President, he has Clark create a secret panel to re-examine the medical evidence. Aware that the entrance wound on the back of JFK's head does not connect to the large defect presumed to have been an exit, this panel either convinces itself or flat-out lies and determines that the entrance wound was actually 4 inches higher on Kennedy's skull. They then refuse to be interviewed about their findings, and destroy all their notes. Their report is not released for almost a year. It is finally released on the first day of Garrison's trial of Clay Shaw, just a few days before Johnson was to step down from office. Not surprisingly, NONE of the national media even reads the report; they report that the new report refutes Garrison's belief in a conspiracy and supports the Warren Commission. NOT ONE paper notes that Clark's secret panel moved the head wound 4 inches, etc...
April 3, 1968
I've Been To The Mountain Top (Audio and Text)
by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
April 3, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee
This was Dr. King's last, and most apocalyptic, sermon. He delivered it, on the eve of his assassination, at [the Bishop Charles] Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 3, 1968. Mason Temple is the headquarters of the Church of God in Christ, the largest African American pentecostal denomination in the United States.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.... Returning violence for violence multiples violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
April 4, 1968
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
In early 1968, King organized the, Poor People's Campaign, to address issues of economic justice. He traveled the country to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor" that would march on Washington to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol until Congress created an "economic bill of rights" for poor Americans. So, he was now against the Vietnam war and wanted to unite not only blacks, but all poor people. He knew what he was doing was extremely dangerous and that he was a dead man walking, yet he continued to speak his mind. To me, this is extremely brave and of the highest calling.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the finest orator I've ever heard. I believe this is the real reason why he was shot in the mouth (jaw) by the demonic forces that ordered the assassination, when he could have easily been shot between the eyes.
Assassination of Martin Luther King - Part 1 of 2 (7:58)
Assassination of Martin Luther King - Part 2 of 2 (14:58)
In March 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King went to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of striking African American sanitation workers. The workers had staged a walkout on 11 February 1968, to protest unequal wages and working conditions. At the time, the city of Memphis paid black workers significantly lower wages than whites. In addition, unlike their white counterparts, blacks received no pay if they stayed home during bad weather; consequently, most blacks were compelled to work even in driving rain and snow storms.
On April 3, 1968, King returned to Memphis to address a gathering at the Mason Temple (World Headquarters of the Church of God in Christ). With a thunderstorm raging outside, King delivered the last speech of his life, now known as the "I've Been to the Mountaintop" address.
King was booked in room 306 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, owned by black businessman Walter Bailey (and named after his wife).
At 18:01 on Thursday, April 4, 1968, while he was standing on the motel's second floor balcony, King was struck by a single .30 bullet fired from a Remington 760 Gamemaster. The bullet travelled through the right side of his neck, smashing his throat and down his spinal cord before lodging in his shoulder.
King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where doctors opened his chest and performed manual heart massage. He was pronounced dead at 19:05. According to Taylor Branch, King's autopsy revealed that though he was only 39 years old, he had the heart of a 60 year old man.
The Greatest Orator For Peace And Love - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Born January 15, 1929
Assassinated April 4, 1968
Robert F. Kennedy Speech (Audio and Text)
On The Assassination Of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
April 4, 1968, Indianapolis, Indiana
Indianapolis was the only major city in the United States that did not experience riots.
William Pepper: US Role Assassinating Martin Luther King (2:39:39)
William Pepper details the responsibility of the US government for the assassination of Martin Luther King after more than 30 years' investigation.
Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. April 4, 1968
At 6:01 p.m. on Thursday, 4 April 1968, Martin Luther King was shot dead while standing on a balcony outside his second-?oor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. News of King’s assassination prompted major outbreaks of racial violence, resulting in more than 40 deaths nationwide and extensive property damage in over 100 American cities. James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old escaped fugitive, later confessed to the crime and was sentenced to a 99-year prison term. During King’s funeral a tape recording was played in which King spoke of how he wanted to be remembered after his death: "I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others"
5 facts about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Joe Carter
Established in 1968 by Mrs. Coretta Scott King, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change (“The King Center”) has been a global destination, resource center and community institution for over a quarter century. Nearly a million people each year make pilgrimage to the National Historic Site to learn, be inspired and pay their respects to Dr. King’s legacy.
Assassination Conspiracy Trial
After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
In a press statement held the following day in Atlanta, Mrs. Coretta Scott King welcomed the verdict, saying, “There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court's unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself. It is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. I want to make it clear that my family has no interest in retribution. Instead, our sole concern has been that the full truth of the assassination has been revealed and adjudicated in a court of law… My husband once said, "The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice." To-day, almost 32 years after my husband and the father of my four children was assassinated, I feel that the jury's verdict clearly affirms this principle. With this faith, we can begin the 21st century and the new millennium with a new spirit of hope and healing.”
June 5, 1968 - June 6, 1968
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy is shot on June 5, 1968 and dies the next day.
The Day The United States Died
Thursday, June 6, 1968
by Mark R. Elsis
Right after delivering a rousing speech to an overflowing ballroom of exuberant campaign supporters thanking them for helping him win the big prize of the California Democratic primary for President, the junior Senator from New York State, Robert Francis Kennedy was shot at by an assassin four times within a couple of inches. He was wounded by three of the bullets with the fourth bullet going through his jacket. The exact time was 12:15am Wednesday morning June 5, 1968. The location was the kitchen pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. I was only a 10 year old boy back then, but I somehow knew the day Bobby Kennedy died, the next day, Thursday June 6, 1968, was the day the United States died...
...I discovered an interesting fact about the last three major assassinations, King, Kennedy and Lennon were all executed during the time of a lame duck presidency. President Lyndon Baines Johnson became a lame duck on March 31, 1968 when he said he would not run for reelection even if the Democrats wanted him to. Four days later Martin was assassinated. Sixty-three days later Bobby was assassinated. On November 4, 1980 President James Earl Carter lost the presidential election to Ronald Wilson Reagan, thus becoming a lame duck. Thirty-four days later the heartbeat of music for a generation, John Winston Lennon was assassinated...
The Assassination of Robert Kennedy (51:56)
The Robert Kennedy Assassination, a gripping documentary by the acclaimed producer Chris Plumley, exposes how the CIA planted two operatives within the Los Angeles Police Department who manipulated the investigation of Kennedy's killing.
Robert Kennedy's killing seemed an open and shut case, yet in spite of 77 witnesses, it remains shrouded in mystery. Many witnesses at the time complained of pressure by the LAPD to change their testimony.
For the first time, we expose how evidence was changed: how an FBI officer saw bullets being removed from the scene of the assassination and how LAPD officers who didn't toe the line found themselves suspended on ridiculous charges or taken off the case.
This hard-hitting documentary is prodced in the gripping style of "The Day The Dream Died", the documentary which catapulted Chris Plumley to international prominence and formed the backbone of Oliver Stone's acclaimed film "JFK".
New Bobby Kennedy Assassination Recording (4:45)
A previously unknown audio tape, only recently uncovered, reveals that Sirhan Sirhan did not act alone in the June 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
In this CNN.com video, you will hear the sounds of the actual RFK assassination during a two-minute excerpt from the Pruszynski recording, the only known tape of the Bobby Kennedy shooting. The audio recording was made by freelance newspaper reporter Stanislaw Pruszynski, a Polish journalist covering the RFK presidential campaign for Canadian newspapers.
In this video, CNN International anchor Adrian Finighan in London interviews forensic audio expert Philip Van Praag in Tucson, Arizona about the Pruszynski recording, which was uncovered by an American journalist in 2004 and examined extensively by Van Praag beginning in 2005.
Van Praag says the tape shows that in addition to convicted gunman Sirhan, there was a second, hidden gunman in the Ambassador Hotel kitchen pantry who also was firing at RFK. In fact, he says the recording along with other forensic evidence proves that none of Sirhan's bullets hit Kennedy. He says the Democratic presidential candidate was shot by the second unknown gunman and not by Sirhan, who is the only person ever to have been arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced for the assassination.
Van Praag says all eight bullets fired by Sirhan missed Bobby Kennedy and instead hit bystanders and woodwork inside the kitchen pantry and inside another area near the pantry. He says that RFK was struck four times (with three bullets entering his body and one passing through his clothing) and that all four Kennedy bullets were fired from extremely close range immediately behind the Senator by someone else other than Sirhan, who was several feet to Kennedy's front and never got behind RFK.
According to Van Praag, the Pruszynski recording reveals that at the moment of the RFK shooting in the hotel kitchen pantry, at least 13 shots were fired: five more bullets fired than Sirhan alone could have expended from his single eight-shot revolver, which he had no opportunity to reload in the pantry. In addition, Van Praag says the recording also reveals two sets of "double shots": shots fired too closely together to have come from the same gun.
Finally, Van Praag says, the Pruszynski recording reveals that the second gunman (RFK's real killer, he believes) likely was firing a .22 caliber 9-shot H&R 922 handgun at the same time that Sirhan was firing his .22 caliber 8-shot Iver Johnson Cadet 55 handgun. He says the hidden H&R weapon fired at least five shots from the rear while Sirhan fired all eight of his Iver Johnson's bullets from in front. He says Sirhan only had a free hand during his first two shots: that the first two shots Sirhan fired missed Senator Kennedy and Sirhan's last six shots were fired wildly while he was being grabbed by several people in the pantry. He says only the second gunman had a clear shot at RFK and was able to quickly fire his bullets into Kennedy from behind, unseen by most witnesses because all attention in the pantry had shifted to Sirhan and his gun.
Robert Kennedy and five other people were shot at the Ambassador in Los Angeles at 12:16 AM on June 5, 1968 only moments after the New York Senator had claimed victory in the June 4th California Democratic Presidential Primary. This was the third major American assassination of the 1960s, occurring 4 1/2 years after the assassination of RFK's brother, U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
Van Praag presented his RFK assassination findings before the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Washington D.C. on February 21, 2008. On March 25, 2008, he and his co-author Robert Joling likewise presented their RFK findings in Ledyard, Connecticut before hundreds of forensic experts attending the annual Markle Symposium, sponsored by the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science. They've done a number of TV, radio, internet and print interviews since. Earlier, on June 6, 2007, the Discovery Times Channel premiered the television documentary, "Conspiracy Test: The RFK Assassination" which featured Van Praag, Stanislaw Pruszynski of Warsaw, Poland and other notables as the program focused in detail on Van Praag's Pruszynski recording findings. Also featured in "Conspiracy Test" was shooting victim Paul Schrade of Los Angeles who is currently spearheading efforts to reopen the RFK assassination case at the local, state or federal level, based in large part on the late-breaking revelations from the Pruszynski recording.
The original CNN International segment was aired on television on April 16, 2008 and an online version was posted on CNN.com on April 19, 2008.
CNN: New RFK Assassination Recording (7:00)
A previously unknown audio tape, recently uncovered, reveals that Sirhan Sirhan did not act alone in the June 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
The Assassination of Robert Kennedy (1:50)
Robert Kennedy's death seemed an open and shut case, yet in spite of the testimonies of seventy-seven witnesses, it remains shrouded in mystery. Many witnesses at the time complained of pressure by the LAPD to change their testimony. For the first time, Plumley exposes how evidence was changed: how an FBI officer saw bullets being removed from the scene of the assassination and how LAPD officers who didn't tow the line found themselves suspended on ridiculous charges or taken off the case.
The Second Gun (1:38:27)
The Golden Globe-nominated documentary about the Robert F. Kennedy assassination by the late Ted Charach and Gerard Alcan.
Color Footage Of The Robert F Kennedy Assassination (9:44)
December 24, 1968
Apollo 8's Christmas Eve Earthrise Message (2:49)
On December 24th, 1968, Apollo 8 made its final pass around the moon and the crew, in turn, sent home this message:
Bill Anders
"We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you. 'n the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness."
Jim Lovell
"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."
Frank Borman
"And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."
May 29, 1969
Rose Kennedy dedicates John F. Kennedy National Historic Site in Brookline.
In Brookline, a tribute to a president, shaped by his mother
by John Hilliard
Inside the home at 83 Beals St., Rose Kennedy wanted to show a moment frozen in time: A young family says hello to its second son, before the coming years swept the boy onto the world stage and into his place in American history.
The boy who would become President John F. Kennedy was born in this modest single-family home on May 29, 1917, in the second-floor master bedroom off to the right of the stairs. And for 50 years, the National Park Service has maintained the home in honor of the nation’s 35th president...
July 20, 1969
Neil Armstrong is the first human to step foot on the moon. The vision of President Kennedy made this possible, within the decade of the 1960s, like he said.
First Moon Landing July 20, 1969 (1:44)
The video of the very first moon landing of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969! Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon with his now legenday words "One small step for man, a giant leap for mankind."
See September 12, 1962: Kennedy delivers a speech at Rice University on the nation's plans to land humans on the Moon. Kennedy announces his continued support for increased space expenditures, saying "we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
The United States putting a man on the moon is made possible not only by the leadership and vision of Presdient Kennedy and the tens of thousands of men working on the project, but by the genius rocket engineer and designer, Wernher von Braun.
November 18, 1969
Joseph P. Kennedy suffered a stroke on December 19, 1961, when he was 73. He survived but was left paralyzed on his right side. Thereafter, he suffered from aphasia, severely affecting his ability to speak. He however remained mentally alert and regained certain functions with therapy and began walking with a cane. His speech also showed some improvement.[58] Eventually he was forced into a wheelchair from excessive muscular weakness. In 1964, Kennedy was taken to The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia, a medical and rehabilitative center for those who have experienced brain injury.
Kennedy's final public appearance was with his wife and his son Ted Kennedy in a filmed message to the country following the death of his son Robert. He died at home in Hyannis Port on November 18, 1969, two months after his 81st birthday, having outlived three of his four sons and one of his five daughters. He was buried at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts. Kennedy's widow, Rose, was buried next to him following her death in 1995, as was their daughter, Rosemary, in 2005.
May 4, 1970
Monday, May 4, 1970 was yet another day that changed my life forever. On this extremely sad day Ohio National Guardsmen fired on students and antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine.
I couldn't believe young mostly white National Guardsmen would open fire with live rounds on other overwhelming white antiwar demonstrators who were exercising their First Amendment right of Free Speech.
What I realized that day was the United States government could train their young men (and now women) to kill other young Americans, both women and men. It scared me.
Kent State Shootings: Does Former Informant Hold The Key To The May 4 Mystery?
by John Mangels
In the four decades since Ohio National Guardsmen fired on students and antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University, Terry Norman has remained a central but shadowy figure in the tragedy.
The 21-year-old law enforcement major and self-described "gung-ho" informant was the only civilian known to be carrying a gun -- illegally, though with the tacit consent of campus police -- when the volatile protest unfolded on May 4, 1970. Witnesses saw him with his pistol out around the time the Guardsmen fired.
Though Norman denied shooting his weapon, and was never charged in connection with the four dead and nine wounded at Kent State, many people suspected he somehow triggered the soldiers' deadly 13-second volley...
Ohio (3:00)
by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
We had to do a music video for a song on American History and we decided to do Ohio by Crosby Stills Nash and Young, which was about the Kent State murders where the Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on protesters, who were at the time protesting the Vietnam War.
Four Dead In Ohio (22:33)
by Al Jazeera English
Forty years after the campus shooting in Kent, Ohio that left four students dead, shot by Ohio National Guardsmen during an anti-war demonstration, the controversy has not died, and the site has become a listed historic place. A look at how the Kent State shooting impacted the course of the Vietnam war.
At Al Jazeera English, we focus on people and events that affect people's lives. We bring topics to light that often go under-reported, listening to all sides of the story and giving a 'voice to the voiceless.'
January 21, 1971
by John Simkin
...Russell originally agreed that John F. Kennedy and J. D. Tippit had been killed by Lee Harvey Oswald and that Jack Ruby was not part of any conspiracy. However, later he began to have doubts claiming that "no one man could have done the known shooting." On a taped telephone conversation Russell had with Lyndon B. Johnson about Oswald being the lone gunman, he is heard saying that "I don't believe it". Johnson responded with the words: "I don't either".
After the death of John F. Kennedy in 1963 his deputy, Lyndon B. Johnson, was appointed president. He immediately set up a commission to "ascertain, evaluate and report upon the facts relating to the assassination of the late President John F. Kennedy." Johnson asked Warren if he would be willing to head the commission. Earl Warren refused but it was later revealed that Johnson blackmailed him into accepting. According to Russell (who also a member of the Warren Commission): "After Warren refused several times, Johnson called him to the Oval Office and told him "what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City," whereupon Warren began crying and told Johnson "well I won't turn you down, I'll just do whatever you say."
Richard Russell died in Washington on January 21, 1971.
Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and Senator Richard Russell, Washington, May 27, 1964, 10:55 p.m.
July 3, 1971
James Douglas "Jim" Morrison the charismatic lead singer and lyricist of The Doors, is found dead in Paris, France under very suspicious circumstances.
With songs like Five to One, The Unknown Soldier and The End, Morrison was openly calling for the United States government to be overthrown, an end to the Vietnam War and telling everyone of the decline of morality in the Wset.
So, were the evil forces inside United States government out to silence Jim Morrison?
During a concert of March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami, Morrison attempted to spark a riot in the audience. He failed, but six warrants, including a felony, for his arrest were issued by the Dade County Police department three days later for indecent exposure, among other things.
Consequently, many of the Doors' scheduled concerts were canceled. In September 1970, Morrison was convicted of indecent exposure and profanity. Morrison, who attended the sentencing "in a wool jacket adorned with Indian designs", silently listened as he was sentenced to six months in prison and had to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free on a $50,000 bond.
Soon after Jim Morrison fled the United States and went to Paris, France.
If there was a list (and there probably was) of people the United States government wanted to assassinate on July 3, 1971, Jim Morrison would have been on top or very close to the top of the list.
Jim Morrison was my second favorite musician after John Lennon. I believe they were both assassinated by evil forces controling the United States government since at least the time John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated, if not since the usurious counterfeiters know as the Federal Reserve started on December 23, 1913.
The Mysterious Death of Jim Morrison
by Lydia Hutchinson
Paris. July 2, 1971, early evening. Jim Morrison and his girlfriend Pamela Courson went to the cinema to see Pursued, a western starring Robert Mitchum. At another theater, Jim Morrison sat alone, watching a documentary called Death Valley. Across town, at the Rock ’n’ Roll Circus nightclub, Jim Morrison scored some heroin and OD’d in the bathroom. At the same time, Jim Morrison walked the streets of Paris and shot up with some junkies on skid row. Meanwhile, at Orly Airport, Jim Morrison boarded a plane for an unknown destination.
No one knows for sure where the 27-year-old Jim was or what he did that evening, but by the next morning, one thing was certain: He was dead...
Jim Morrison The Last 24 Hours (Documentary 48:09)
New Evidence In The Miami Incident
by Janelle Preston
...However, there was a type of "ending" for the group due to the death of James Douglas Morrison on July 3, 1971. In actuality this "end" is traceable back to one pivotal event. It occurred on March 1, 1969 on a hot night inside an old seaplane hangar in Miami, Florida.
Quite simply, from that moment on the band's fate was in the hands of the United States Government which was seemingly determined to hinder any continuation of the band's regular livelihood. What better time than prior to the group's first major national tour?...
Jim Morrison And The Doors (Official Website)
October 16, 1972
by John Simkin
...Boggs had doubts that John F. Kennedy and J. D. Tippit had been killed by Lee Harvey Oswald and that Jack Ruby was not part of any conspiracy." According to Bernard Fensterwald: "Almost from the beginning, Congressman Boggs had been suspicious over the FBI and CIA's reluctance to provide hard information when the Commission's probe turned to certain areas, such as allegations that Oswald may have been an undercover operative of some sort. When the Commission sought to disprove the growing suspicion that Oswald had once worked for the FBI, Boggs was outraged that the only proof of denial that the FBI offered was a brief statement of disclaimer by J. Edgar Hoover. It was Hale Boggs who drew an admission from Allen Dulles that the CIA's record of employing someone like Oswald might be so heavily coded that the verification of his service would be almost impossible for outside investigators to establish."
It has been claimed by John Judge that when Alan Dulles was asked by Hale Boggs about releasing the evidence, he replied, "Go ahead and print it, nobody will read it anyway."
According to one of his friends: "Hale felt very, very torn during his work (on the Commission) ... he wished he had never been on it and wished he'd never signed it (the Warren Report)." Another former aide argued that, "Hale always returned to one thing: Hoover lied his eyes out to the Commission - on Oswald, on Ruby, on their friends, the bullets, the gun, you name it."
Thomas Hale Boggs disappeared while on a campaign flight from Anchorage to Juneau, Alaska, on 16th October, 1972. Also killed in the accident was Nick Begich, a member of the House of Representatives. No bodies were ever found and in 1973 his wife, Lindy Boggs, was elected in her husband's place.
The Los Angeles Star, on November 22, 1973, reported that before his death Boggs claimed he had "startling revelations" on Watergate and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
October 16, 1972
New Details Uncovered in 1972 Disappearance of Congressman Hale Boggs
By Jonathan Walczak
Forty years ago yesterday, Hale Boggs, a powerful Democratic congressman with a colorful past, disappeared in a small plane over Alaska. The massive search that ensued turned up no leads, and the plane, along with the bodies of Boggs and three others who died, remains hidden somewhere in the wilderness. Boggs -- who served on the Warren Commission, accused the FBI of tapping congressional phones, and called for J. Edgar Hoover's resignation -- was the majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. Seattle and the rest of the country were captivated as the government sent out dozens of planes and ships to find him, but search efforts failed. In the years that followed, conspiracy theories flourished, in part because of his connections to the Kennedy assassination and the FBI, and in part because no trace of the plane ever surfaced.
To mark the anniversary of Boggs' disappearance, Seattle Weekly made Freedom of Information requests to eight government agencies and reviewed more than 1,500 pages of documents. While none of the records get us closer to knowing why and where Boggs' plane went down, they do paint a fuller picture of the his life before the crash -including an incident in which he was run off the road by an unknown driver in Washington, D.C., in 1970...
December 26, 1972
Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, dies.
On December 5, 1972, Truman was admitted to Kansas City's Research Hospital and Medical Center with lung congestion from pneumonia. He developed multiple organ failure and died at 7:50 am on December 26 at the age of 88. Bess Truman opted for a simple private service at the library for her husband rather than a state funeral in Washington. A week after the funeral, foreign dignitaries and Washington officials attended a memorial service at Washington National Cathedral. Bess died in 1982; they are buried at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence.
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was an American politician who served as the 33rd President of the United States (1945–53), assuming that office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the waning months of World War II.
The authorization by President Truman to use the first atomic weapon at Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and second atomic weapon on the most Christian city in Japan, Nagasaki, on August 9, 1945, on overwhelmingly women, children and older people when their country, Japan wanted to surrender for months, is unhuman.
So far, these are the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war.
We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.
Harry Truman, writing about the atomic bomb in his diary on July 25, 194
January 22, 1973
Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, dies.
On Inauguration Day (January 20, 1969), Lyndon Baines Johnson saw Richard Milhouse Nixon sworn in, then got on the plane to fly back home to Texas. When the front door of the plane closed, Johnson pulled out a cigarette, his first cigarette he had smoked since his heart attack in 1955. One of his daughters pulled it out of his mouth and said, "Daddy, what are you doing? You're going to kill yourself." He took it back and said, "I've now raised you girls. I've now been President. Now it's my time!"
With his heart condition diagnosed terminal, Johnson returned home to his ranch. At approximately 3:39 pm Central Time on January 22, 1973, he placed a call to the ranch's Secret Service compound complaining of "massive chest pains". The agents rushed to the former President's bedroom, finding him unresponsive with the phone receiver still in his hand. Johnson was airlifted in one of his own airplanes to San Antonio and taken to Brooke Army General, where he was pronounced dead on arrival by cardiologist and Army Colonel Dr. George McGranahan. He was age 64.
Shortly after Johnson's death, his press secretary Tom Johnson (no relation) telephoned Walter Cronkite at CBS; Cronkite was live on the air with the CBS Evening News at the time, and a report on Vietnam was cut abruptly while Cronkite was still on the line, so he could break the news. Johnson's death came two days after Richard Nixon's second inauguration and left the United States with no living former presidents, Harry S. Truman having died weeks earlier on December 26, 1972.
For more see the comprehensive section: Lyndon Baines Johnson
September 11, 1973
CIA Cover-Up on Chile 1973 Coup against Salvador Allende.
Release of Classified CIA Documents
by Peter Kornbluh
Forty-three years after the U.S.-supported military coup in Chile, the Central Intelligence Agency continues to withhold information on what it knew about planning for the putsch, and what intelligence it shared with President Richard Nixon, according to redacted documents posted today by the National Security Archive. The documents, among the hundreds of President’s Daily Briefs (PDBs) the CIA declassified last month, excise material that almost certainly has already been released to the public years ago. The section on Chile of the PDB dated September 11, 1973, for example, was completely censored, as was an entire page on Chile provided to Nixon on September 8, 1973, even though thousands of once-sensitive intelligence records from the coup period have already been declassified since at least 1999.
“The CIA is trying – but failing – to hold history hostage,” stated Peter Kornbluh, who directs the Archive’s Chile Documentation Project. By continuing to censor the historical record, he suggested, “the CIA is attempting to cover up what Nixon knew about coup plotting in Chile and when he knew it, as well as hiding the CIA’s own contacts and connections to the coup plotters.”
December 1974 - 1975
In the aftermath of Watergate, abuses by the CIA, FBI, and other intelligence agencies began coming to light. The 1974 "reform Congress" began investigating some of these matters. In this context, President Ford directed Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller to head up a President’s Commission on CIA Activities in the United States.
The “Rockefeller Commission,” whose Executive Director was former Warren Commission staffer David Belin, investigated CIA mail opening programs, its monitoring of anti-war dissidents, and also conducted a limited review of JFK’s assassination. Specifically, the Commission dealt with allegations that Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis had participated in the assassination (and were two of the three “tramps” arrested that day). It also analyzed the JFK medical evidence, in an attempt to explain how the Zapruder film’s depiction of Kennedy being thrust backward was compatible with a shot from behind.
The Rockefeller Commission was quickly overtaken by the congressional Church Committee, whose scope was much broader and included U.S. plots to assassinate foreign leaders, the FBI’s domestic CounterIntelligence program which targeted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. among others, and much more. The Rockefeller Commission in history looks much like the Tower Commission which initially investigated Iran-Contra. Like that body, the Rockefeller Commission has been accused of having been an (unsuccessful) attempt to fend off more thorough investigations.
Prior to the so-called Church Committee, the President's Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States was formed by President Gerald Ford. Headed by Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller, this body came to be known as the Rockefeller Commission.
The Rockefeller Commission issued a single report in 1975, which delineated some CIA abuses including mail opening and surveillance of domestic dissident groups. It also conducted a narrow study of issues relating to the JFK assassination, specifically the backward head snap as seen in the Zapruder film (first shown publicly in 1975), and the possible presence of E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis in Dallas.
The Rockefeller Report is seen by many as a "whitewash," and was certainly superceded by the Church Committee's work in scope and depth.
The files of the Rockefeller Commission were reviewed by the Church Committee, and many of them are included as part of the roughly 50,000 pages of declassified Church Committee documents now publicly available at the National Archives.
Rockefeller Commission Report (CIA Activities) Published 1975
by United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States
For more see the comprehensive section: Commissions, Investigations And Trial
January 27, 1975
by John Simkin
Select Committee Into Intelligence Activities
In 1975, Frank Church became the chairman of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. This committee investigated alleged abuses of power by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Intelligence.
The committee also reported that the Central Intelligence Agency had withheld from the Warren Commission, during its investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, information about plots by the Government of the United States against Fidel Castro of Cuba...
The Mafia boss, Sam Giancana was ordered to appear before the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. However, before he could appear, on 19th June, 1975, Giancana was murdered in his own home. He had a massive wound in the back of the head. He had also been shot six times in a circle around the mouth. At the same time Jimmy Hoffa, another man the committee wanted to interview, also disappeared. His body was never found.
Johnny Roselli was also due to appear before Church's committee when he was murdered and in July 1976 his body was found floating in an oil drum in Miami's Dumfoundling Bay. Jack Anderson, of the Washington Post, interviewed Roselli just before he was killed. On 7th September, 1976, the newspaper reported Roselli as saying : "When Oswald was picked up, the underworld conspirators feared he would crack and disclose information that might lead to them. This almost certainly would have brought a massive U.S. crackdown on the Mafia. So Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminate Oswald."
In its final report the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities concluded: “Domestic intelligence activity has threatened and undermined the Constitutional rights of Americans to free speech, association and privacy. It has done so primarily because the Constitutional system for checking abuse of power has not been applied.”
As a result of Church's report and the deaths of Sam Giancana, Jimmy Hoffa and Johnny Roselli, Congress established the House Select Committee on Assassinations in September 1976. The resolution authorized a 12-member select committee to conduct an investigation of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
Book V - The Investigation of the Assassination of President J.F.K.:
Performance of the Intelligence Agencies
This report, often referred to as the Schweiker-Hart Report after its authors, discusses the performance of the CIA and FBI in the investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy. The report analyzes the general question of whether and by what degree the CIA and FBI withheld relevant information from the Warren Commission, which was charged with investigating Kennedy’s murder. Among the information unknown to the Warren Commission (except Commissioner Allen Dulles) were the CIA’s plots to kill Fidel Castro. With the public disclosure of these plots, the idea that Castro “struck back” gained prominence with many at the time. The Committee found that the evidence “indicates that the investigation of the assassination was deficient” and “impeaches the process whereby the intelligence agencies arrived at their own conclusions.”
Church Committee:
Book V - The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy:
Performance of the Intelligence Agencies
For more see the comprehensive section: Commissions, Investigations And Trial
February 19, 1975 - January 31, 1976
The Nedzi Committee / The Pike Committee
On February 19, 1975, the House Select Committee on Intelligence was formed under the leadership of Michigan Representative Lucien Nedzi. Only a few months had passed when the New York Times revealed that Nedzi, as head of the House Armed Services Intelligence Subcommittee, had been briefed in 1973 by CIA Director Colby on some of the contents of the "family jewels," including assassination plotting. The resulting furor expressed by other members of the Committee resulted in the Committee being dissolved in July and replaced by one run by Otis Pike of New York.
The Pike Committee's relations with the CIA were tense from the start, particularly over what level of access it would be given to CIA files. The hostile relationship between the Pike Committee and the CIA, as well as the White House, was profound and impeded the Committee's ability to conduct its investigation. The New York Times joined a chorus of other media outlets accusing Pike of running a witch hunt. When presented with a draft of the Committee's report, CIA legal counsel Mitchell Rogovin is said to have told the Committee's staff director Searle Field: “Pike will pay for this, you wait and see…. There will be a political retaliation…. We will destroy him for this."
In the end, the Committee's report was not accepted by the full House of Representatives, though it was leaked by journalist Daniel Schorr, and the Village Voice printed it. The very first line of the report reads "If the Committee's recent experience is any test, intelligence agencies that are to be controlled by Congressional lawmaking are, today, beyond the lawmaker's scrutiny."
The CIA report the President doesn't want you to read.
Author: Aaron Latham; United States. Congress. House. Select Committee on Intelligence.
For more see the comprehensive section: Commissions, Investigations And Trial
Incredibly, the Zapruder film was withheld from the American public for nearly 12 years. The first opportunity Americans had to see it was on March 6, 1975, when a bootleg copy from when Jim Garrison obtained a copy of the film was broadcast on nationwide TV on NBC’s “Goodnight America” show, hosted by Geraldo Rivera.
The Zapruder Film Is Shown On "Good Night America" March 6, 1975
This is a segment from Geraldo Rivera's late-night ABC-TV talk show "Good Night America", where Abraham Zapruder's famous home movie depicting President John F. Kennedy's assassination in graphic detail is shown to an American audience for the very first time. Dick Gregory [who I met and talk with] and Robert Groden are Rivera's guests.
1976 - 1979
House Select Committee On Assassinations (HSCA)
How The CIA Controlled The House Select Committee On Assassinations
...The final report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), issued in 1979, concluded that a conspiracy existed in the assassination of President Kennedy. This news should have delighted hundreds of researchers who had disagreed with the no-conspiracy finding of the Warren Commission. The fact that it did not, is due to the HSCA conspiracy being a simple one, with Lee Harvey Oswald still firing all but one of the shots from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository Building. The existence of another shooter and another shot, from the grassy knoll, was "proved" by the HSCA, based primarily on acoustical evidence presented in the very last month of their public hearings. Dr. Robert Blakey and Richard Billings, chief counsel and report editor for the HSCA, co-authored, in 1981, a book, The Plot to Kill the President, following the publication of the HSCA's final report. The book claimed that the other shooter and Oswald were part of a Mafia plot to kill JFK.
To over simplify the current (1985) situation, most JFK researchers feel that the American public had been deceived once again. The HSCA reaffirmed all but one of the Warren Commission's findings, including even the famed single bullet theory. The simplified conspiracy finding is now subject to review by the Justice Department and the FBI because it is based on very questionable acoustical evidence. Justice commissioned the so-called Ramsey Panel to review this evidence, in 1981, under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences. It found no evidence from the acoustics that a grassy knoll shot was fired. So, we are back to no-conspiracy and Oswald being the lone assassin. And even if there was a conspiracy, Blakey claims it involved the Mafia and not the CIA. The HSCA report and all of its volumes of evidence omitting any reference to CIA involvement, concluded that the CIA was not involved, and did not reveal any evidence that the HSCA staff had collected showing that CIA people murdered JFK, and that the CIA has been covering up that fact ever since.
Any followers of CIA activities connected with the JFK assassination, since 1963, must ask the question, how did they do it? How did the CIA turn things completely around from the 1976 days when Henry Gonzalez, Thomas Downing, Richard A. Sprague, Robert Tanenbaum, Cliff Fenton and others were pursuing the truth about the assassination, to essentially the same status as when the Warren Commission finished its work? How did they produce the final cover-up? The answer is that the CIA controlled the HSCA and its investigation and findings from the early part of 1977, forward. The methods they used were as clever and devious as any they had used previously to control the Warren Commission, the Rockefeller Commission, the Garrison Investigation, the Schweiker/Hart Committee and the efforts of independent researchers.
House Select Committee on Assassinations
by John Simkin
...In 1976 Thomas N. Downing began campaigning for a new investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Downing said he was certain that Kennedy had been killed as a result of a conspiracy. He believed that the recent deaths of Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli were highly significant. He also believed that the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had withheld important information from the Warren Commission. Downing was not alone in taking this view. In 1976, a Detroit News poll indicated that 87% of the American population did not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman who killed Kennedy.
Thomas N. Downing named Richard Sprague as chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Gaeton Fonzi was to later say: "Sprague was known as tough, tenacious and independent. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind when I heard of Sprague's appointment that the Kennedy assassination would finally get what it needed: a no-holds-barred, honest investigation. Which just goes to show how ignorant of the ways of Washington both Sprague and I were".
Sprague quickly assembled a staff of 170 lawyers, investigators and researchers. On December 8, 1976, Sprague submitted a 1977 budget of $6.5 million. Frank Thompson, Chairman of the House Administration Committee made it clear he opposed the idea of so much money being spent on the investigation. Soon afterwards smear stories against Sprague began appearing in the press. David B. Burnham of The New York Times reported that Sprague had mishandled a homicide case involving the son of a friend. Members of Congress joined in the attacks and Robert E. Bauman of Maryland claimed that Sprague had a "checkered career" and was not to be trusted. Richard Kelly of Florida called the House Select Committee on Assassinations a "multimillion-dollar fishing expedition for the benefit of a bunch of publicity seekers."
On February 2, 1978, Henry Gonzalez replaced Thomas N. Downing as chairman of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Gonzalez immediately sacked Sprague as chief counsel. Sprague claimed that only the fill committee had the power to dismiss him. Walter E. Fauntroy agreed with Sprague and launched a campaign to keep him as chief counsel. On March 1, Gonzalez resigned describing Sprague as "an unconscionable scoundrel" Louis Stokes of Ohio was now appointed as the new chairman of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. After a meeting with Stokes on March 29, Sprague agreed to resign and he was replaced by G. Robert Blakey.
Sprague later told Gaeton Fonzi that the real reason he was removed as chief counsel was because he insisted on asking questions about the CIA operations in Mexico. Fonzi argued that "Sprague... wanted complete information about the CIA's operation in Mexico City and total access to all its employees who may have had anything to do with the photographs, tape recordings and transcripts. The Agency balked. Sprague pushed harder. Finally the Agency agreed that Sprague could have access to the information if he agreed to sign a CIA Secrecy Agreement. Sprague refused.... "How," he asked, "can I possible sign an agreement with an agency I'm supposed to be investigating?"
The House Select Committee of Assassinations set up a panel of forensic pathologists to examine the autopsy materials and other medical evidence. Most of the members concluded that two bullets, both fired from the rear, struck Kennedy. However, one member, Cyril H. Wecht, rejected this theory claiming it was medically impossible, and suggested that at least one bullet had been fired from the right front.
During the investigation the committee discovered that the Dallas Police had a recording of the assassination. A microphone, mounted on one of the motorcycles escorting the motorcade, had picked up sounds in Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination. Acoustic experts analyzed the recording and were able to distinguish four rifle shots. They concluded that there was a 95 per cent probability of the third bullet was fired from the Grassy Knoll.
As a result of this acoustic evidence G. Robert Blakey was able to state that there were "four shots, over a total period of 7.91 seconds were fired at the Presidential limousine. The first, second and fourth came from the Depository; the third from the Grassy Knoll."
The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that "scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy." It added that "on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
The HSCA was "unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy." However, it did discover evidence to suggest that anti-Castro Cubans were involved in the assassination. For example, an undercover agent heard Nestor Castellanos tell a meeting of anti-Castro Cubans, "We're waiting for Kennedy (on) the 22nd. We're going to see him in one way or another." The committee also obtained evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald met David Ferrie in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. It concluded that "individuals active in anti-Castro activities had the motive, means, and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy".
The committee claimed that the Warren Commission "failed to investigate adequately the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the President." The report was also highly critical of the Secret Service: "The Secret Service was deficient in the performance of its duties. The Secret Service possessed information that was not properly analyzed, investigated or used by the Secret Service in connection with the President's trip to Dallas; in addition, Secret Service agents in the motorcade were inadequately prepared to protect the President from a sniper."
Gary Cornwell, Deputy Chief Counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations published his own account of the investigation, Real Answers, in 1999. It is highly critical of the FBI and the Warren Commission investigations. As Cornwell points out: "The case should have been solved in 1963 and 1964, and because the government decided not to look for the real answers when it had the chance, the opportunity was probably lost forever."
The House Select Committee on Assassinations refused to publish all the documents obtained during the investigation. The CIA forced all members of the committee, all staff members, all consultants to the committee, and several independent researchers involved in the investigation, to sign a Nondisclosure Agreement. As Richard E. Sprague, one of the consultants, later explained: "First, it binds the signer, if a consultant, to never reveal that he is working for the committee. Second, it prevents the signer from ever revealing to anyone in perpetuity, any information he has learned about the committee's work as a result of working for the committee. Third, it gives the committee and the House, after the committee terminates, the power to take legal action against the signer, in a court named by the committee or the House, in case the committee believes the signer has violated the agreement. Fourth, the signer agrees to pay the court costs for such a suit in the event he loses the suit."
It has been announced that all House Select Committee on Assassinations documents will be published by 2017.
HSCA Final Report
The Final Report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations presents the HSCA's findings in the murders of both President John F. Kennedy and Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. The HSCA found a "probable conspiracy" in the JFK assassination, but was unable to determine its nature or participants (other than that Oswald was still deemed to have fired all the successful shots). In the King case, the HSCA similarly found that James Earl Ray assassinated Reverend King, but that there might have been a small-scale conspiracy involved.
For many assassination researchers, the HSCA's findings suggested a "limited hangout" of a deeper and more disturbing reality. The release of the HSCA's internal files in the 1990s has certainly provided fodder for this view, including evidence of HSCA cover-ups in the area of the medical evidence and of Oswald's intelligence connections and his mysterious trip to Mexico City.
The HSCA Report presents an overview of the HSCA's work. Many more details are present in the twelve volumes of appendices published in each of the two assassination cases (the JFK volumes are available online here). The voluminous files of the HSCA and the many depositions taken in the investigation are a fertile field for today's researchers.
https://www.maryferrell.org/php/showlist.php?docset=1009
For more see the comprehensive section: House Select Committee On Assassinations
December 3, 1976
Forty Years Ago, the CIA Had Its Eye on Jamaica, and Bob Marley Got Shot
by David Cupples
Forty years ago, on December 3, 1976, Bob Marley was shot in a gangland assassination attempt in the heat of a contentious Jamaican election campaign pitting the United States’ favorite (Edward Seaga) against the incumbent prime minister (Michael Manley). The shooting in Marley’s Kingston home, which also wounded his wife, Rita, and at least two others, occurred 12 days before the scheduled elections and two days before a free concert Marley had agreed to play in hopes of bringing the people together and cooling the violence that had been occurring...
See: May 11, 1981
August 14, 1978 - February 6, 1985
Jury: CIA Involved in JFK Assassination
Not a single major newspaper nor any national news broadcast has ever reported that on February 6, 1985, a jury in Miami concluded that the CIA was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
This is remarkable, if only because the verdict came in a court case featuring two international celebrities: Water gate burglar E. Howard Hunt -- perhaps the most infamous CIA operative in history -- and his courtroom nemesis -- attorney Mark Lane. Lane's ground-break ing best-seller, Rush to Judgment, had convinced millions of readers there had been a conspiracy in the JFK assassination, the Warren Commission's claims notwithstanding.
Scattered news reports did mention Hunt had lost a libel case against The SPOTLIGHT. However, no media reported what the jury forewoman had told the press:
Mr. Lane was asking us to do something very difficult. He was asking us to believe John Kennedy had been killed by our own government. Yet when we examined the evidence closely, we were compelled to conclude that the CIA had indeed killed President Kennedy.
Until 1992, when Lane recounted the trial in Plausible Denial and put forth additional compelling evidence of CIA complicity in the crime, the only substantive news reports about the trial appeared in The SPOTLIGHT. In issue No. 7 for 1985 (Feb. 18), The SPOTLIGHT announced its victory, detailing the remarkable events that led to the trial.
The affair was set in motion on August 14, 1978, when The SPOTLIGHT published an article by former CIA official Victor Marchetti who revealed the CIA intended to publicly "admit" Hunt had been involved in the JFK assassination, acting as a "rogue" agent without CIA sanction.
A top CIA liaison to anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the early 1960s, Hunt was unknown to the public until the Watergate scandal that toppled President Nixon in 1974 brought Hunt ill fame. Then, after Watergate, when the Rockefeller Commission investigated CIA misdeeds, two eccentric writers alleged Hunt was one of three "tramps" photographed in Dallas minutes after the JFK assassination.
Subsequent investigation refuted the "Hunt as tramp" theory. However, scandal sheets had hyped the story and many came to believe Hunt had a hand in Dallas.
In 1976, growing skepticism about the Warren Commission's claim that a "lone assassin" had killed JFK forced the House of Representatives to convene a new assassination inquiry.
In the midst of the House investigation, an unusual development occurred:
As Marchetti's SPOTLIGHT article reported, an in-house CIA memo, ostensibly written in 1966 -- some 12 years previously -- was leaked to congressional investigators.
The memo stated Hunt had been in Dallas on the day of the JFK assassination, and that CIA officials were concerned the agency would one day have to explain Hunt's presence there.
The SPOTLIGHT subsequently learned CIA Director Richard Helms and the CIA's chief of counterintelligence, James Angleton, had signed off on the memo.
Marchetti suggested that because the CIA perceived Hunt to be a villain in the public's eye as a consequence of Watergate, the CIA had decided to sacrifice Hunt and "admit" he had been involved in the assassination.
The CIA would claim Hunt was acting on his own and that the CIA, as an institution, had no part in the president's murder. This would satisfy public demand for a resolution of the JFK controversy and the CIA itself would be absolved. Hunt would be left to fend for himself.
The SPOTLIGHT felt the article served as warning to Hunt about CIA intentions and Hunt himself admitted the story seemed plausible. Yet, Hunt still filed suit against The SPOTLIGHT.
When the case went to trial in federal court in Miami, the jury found in Hunt's favor, ordering The SPOTLIGHT to pay Hunt $650,000 in damages. However, an error in the jury instructions resulted in the verdict being overturned. After the case was ordered for retrial, Lane stepped in for The SPOTLIGHT's defense.
The highlight of the trial was when Lane presented the jury the testimony of Marita Lorenz, an ex-CIA operative who had worked with Hunt in plots against Fidel Castro.
Miss Lorenz testified that on Nov. 21, 1963 -- the day prior to the JFK assassination -- she arrived in Dallas in a two-car caravan from Miami. Accompanying her were several CIA operatives, armed with telescopic rifles, including Frank Sturgis who (years later) participated with Hunt in the Watergate burglary.
She didn't know the purpose of the mission, but upon arrival, the travelers met with Hunt, who acted as their paymaster, and also Jack Ruby who, days later, killed the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Uncomfortable, sensing something "big, very big," was impending, she left Dallas that same day. Later Sturgis told her how big the mission had been: the assassination of President Kennedy.
The jury listened carefully to her testimony, already suspicious of Hunt after his performance under Lane's cross-examination. Lane pointed out inconsistencies in conflicting stories by Hunt over the years about where he had been on Nov. 22, 1963. However, Hunt insisted to the jury that he was in Washington, D.C. with his wife and three children that day.
Hunt's case collapsed when he was unable to explain, when questioned by Lane, why his teenage children had asked him if the rumors he was involved in the events in Dallas were true.
Obviously, if Hunt were in Washington on Nov. 22 he couldn't have been in Dallas.
Not surprisingly, the jury found in favor of The SPOTLIGHT. Yet, the major media said nothing about the stunning, historic revelations of this trial.
It was clearly the CIA's counterintelligence chief, James Angleton, who leaked the CIA memo placing Hunt in Dallas. In fact, Angleton's confidant, reporter Joe Trento (deposed by Lane in the Hunt case) has said -- based upon what Angleton told him -- that Hunt had been in Dallas and that it was Angleton who sent him there (Angleton's own denials notwithstanding). Three conclusions can be reached:
• The CIA had planned to throw Hunt to the wolves but evidently he and the CIA reached an accord since Angleton's loyal, longtime deputy, Newton Miler, was dispatched by the CIA to testify against The SPOTLIGHT in Hunt's defense;
• Because The SPOTLIGHT ex posed the intended CIA scheme to "admit" Hunt's complicity in the assassination, the operation was shelved; and,
• If there's anybody who knows what really happened in Dallas, it's Hunt.
December 8, 1980
On December 8, 1980, the greatest singer songwriter and the most influential political artist of the 20th century, John Lennon, was assassinated.
I was at the Dakota for 9 hours the night John Lennon was assassinated, and swore on his blood that night, I would do everything I could in this life to enlighten humanity.
Who Authorized The Assassination Of John Lennon?
by Mark R. Elsis
...President Lyndon Baines Johnson became a lame duck on March 31, 1968, when he said to a national television audience; he would not run for reelection even if the Democrats wanted him to. Four days later Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Sixty-three days later, Senator Robert Francis Kennedy was assassinated after winning the California Democratic primary (RFK would have been the Democratic Presidential candidate against the Republican Presidential candidate Richard Milhouse Nixon, and RFK would have won the Presidency). On November 4, 1980 President James Earl Carter lost the Presidential election to Ronald Wilson Reagan, thus becoming a lame duck President. Thirty-four days later, the heartbeat of music for his generation, John Winston Lennon was assassinated...
...In every single major assassination these black-op conspirator killers have actually had the balls to blame it on some poor deranged lone gunman. They have had a patsy or a mind controlled Manchurian candidate fall guy for the last four assassinations. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Senator Robert Francis Kennedy, and the founder and leader of the most influential musical group The Beatles, the person who was his generations and about to be another generations leader for peace and love, John Winston Lennon.
Who Authorized The Assassination Of John Lennon?
It took me almost 22 years to figure out who most likely authorized the assassination of John Lennon, the greatest singer songwriter and the most influential political artist of our time. I believe it could have been the CIA that manipulated the assassin of John Winston Lennon, but more likely, I believe a new army of old school CIA, which was let go under President Carter, manipulated the assassin. I believe the assassin was a mind-control experiment, like all their old tricks of MKULTRA, only much more sophisticated. I believe their old boss authorized it. The person the CIA building in Washington D.C. is named after. I believe he was the same person who tried to assassinate President Ronald Wilson Reagan on his sixty-ninth day in office -- March 30, 1981. He is the person with the most to gain from both of these assassinations. So, who authorized the assassination of John Lennon? I believe it was the 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush.
Since writing this article on December 8, 2002, I now believe that Mark David Chapman did not pull the trigger on December 8, 1980. He was yet again, just another patsy to take the fall. The real assassin was either the front doorman at the Dakota, Jose Perdomo or a contracted hit man. You don't send an amateur to do a professional assassination. I really should have known this back in 2002.
John Lennon Was Assassinated 36 Years Ago Tonight
"I am going into an unknown future, but I'm still all here,
and still while there's life, there's hope."
John Lennon, December 8, 1980
by Mark R. Elsis, December 8, 2016
John Lennon was the greatest singer songwriter and the most influential political artist of the 20th century. He was assassinated on Monday, December 8, 1980, walking into The Dakota, his home in the upper West side of Manhattan, New York City.
In mid November of 1980, I told my closest friends John Lennon was about to be assassinated. I said the powers that be were going to blame a lone deranged crazy fan, and that this person would never have a trial. I don't know how I knew all of this.
I was driving my taxi in Manhattan on that beautifully warm Monday evening of December 8, 1980. At around 10 p.m., I was traveling without any passengers, going north on Central Park West, when I made a slow left turn on to 72nd Street.
As soon I made the slow left turn on to 72nd Street, now looking towards the front of The Dakota, my instinct sensed something was awfully wrong. So, I literally slowed down to a crawl while passing in front of The Dakota.
I first saw the outside doorman, Jose Perdomo. He was standing on the left side (West side) of the archway, next to the outside doorman enclosure. Then, I looked directly at this other guy, and had the feeling he was, lurking in the darkness. He was standing just outside the right side (East side) of the archway. I felt extremely bad energy. I thought about stopping and very nearly stopped. It was Mark David Chapman.
An hour later, still driving my taxi in Manhattan and listening as always to Vin Scelsa on WNEW 102.7 FM, when around 11 pm he announced that John Lennon had been shot. Then a short while later, trying to hold back tears, he announced the death of John Lennon.
John Lennon Assassination Vin Scelsa WNEW FM December 8, 1980
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWyw4tsf-I0
When Vin Scelsa broke this horrible news of John Lennon's death, I was with a woman passenger in my taxi. I was on was on East End Avenue, the same street where I was born, in Doctor's Hospital. When my passenger heard the news, she immediately broke out crying. Soon there were tears in my eyes and rolling down my checks.
I composed myself, turned my off duty light on and finished driving my passenger to her home in Brooklyn Heights. I dropped her off, waited till she was inside her home safely, and then headed straight to The Dakota.
It was about 11:45 pm when I arrived and already there was large group of people mourning. I double parked my Peugeot 504 taxi just about 25 feet West of the archway, in front of The Dakota. Then I opened the sunroof and placed a portable speaker on the roof, so people could hear WNEW FM live. Soon hundreds of people had gathered. Throughout the night thousands arrived, mourned and left.
Strawberry Fields (Assassination Sequence)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2Q5XkcCYyo
I stayed in front of The Dakota for the next nine hours. These nine hours were the catalyst that transformed my life. I swore on John's blood that I would do everything I possibly could to enlighten humanity and make our world better for future generations.
And everyday for the last thirty-six years, I have been doing this.
"It matters not
Who you love
Where you love
Why you love
When you love
Or how you love
It matters only that you love."
John Lennon
In the future I will be writing an article with forty questions (to get people to think) about the assassination of John Lennon. When finished, for the 40th commemoration, December 8, 2020, it will be published on: December81980.com
My film with trailer, websites and writings on John Lennon:
Strawberry Fields (Film 82 Minutes)
Keeping The Spirit Of John Lennon Alive
Producer | Writer | Director Mark R. Elsis
Strawberry Fields (Trailer 5:05)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAZC8GTuajU
This Website Is Dedicated To The Greatest Singer Songwriter
And The Most Influential Political Artist Of The 20th Century
John Lennon
http://www.John-Lennon.com (Ranked Third in Google for John Lennon or Lennon)
Who Authorized The Assassination Of John Lennon?
(Update: I am now almost positive Chapman did not do it)
by Mark R. Elsis
John Lennon (Official Website)
Who Authorized The Assassination Of John Lennon? (2:00:02)
Mark R. Elsis Interviewed by Ed Opperman - December 10, 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S9_A0LMUl8
Who Killed John Lennon? Part 1 of 2 [Excerpts]
by Fenton Bresler
http://www.john-lennon.com/whokilled.htm
John Winston Lennon
Family History and Early Years
John Lennon Day
John and Yoko
Strawberry Fields (Phil Spector on the Assassination of John Lennon)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gusARyZj2SA
The Assassination Of John Lennon
http://www.john-lennon.com/theassassinationofjl.htm
Poem To John Lennon -- December 8, 2000
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adiJhd_RVtc
Mark R. Elsis on YouTube
"We've got this gift of love,
but love is like a precious plant.
You can't just accept it and leave it
in the cupboard or just think
it's going to get on by itself.
You've got to keep watering it.
You've got to really look after it and nurture it."
John Lennon
Love Is The Answer
Mark R. Elsis
May 11, 1981
The great Bob Marley dies of cancer. Was this cancer given to him?
In July 1977, Marley was found to have a type of malignant melanoma under the nail of a toe. Marley turned down his doctors' advice to have his toe amputated, citing his religious beliefs, and instead the nail and nail bed were removed and a skin graft taken from his thigh to cover the area. Despite his illness, he continued touring and was in the process of scheduling a world tour in 1980.
The album Uprising was released in May 1980. The band completed a major tour of Europe, where it played its biggest concert to 100,000 people in Milan. After the tour Marley went to America, where he performed two shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City as part of the Uprising Tour.
Marley's last concert occurred at the Stanley Theater (now called The Benedum Center For The Performing Arts) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on September 23, 1980. The only known photographs from the show were featured in Kevin Macdonald's documentary film Marley.
Soon Marley's health deteriorated as the cancer had spread throughout his body. The tour was cancelled and Marley sought treatment at the Bavarian clinic of Josef Issels, where he received a controversial type of cancer therapy (Issels treatment) partly based on avoidance of certain foods, drinks, and other substances. After fighting the cancer for eight months Marley boarded a plane to go home to Jamaica.
While Marley was flying home from Germany to Jamaica, his vital functions worsened. After landing in Miami, Florida, he was taken to the hospital for immediate medical attention. Marley died on 11 May 1981 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami (now University of Miami Hospital), aged 36. The spread of melanoma to his lungs and brain caused his death. His final words to his son Ziggy were "Money can't buy life."
Assassination of Bob Marley (17:29)
My YouTube Playlist for Bob Marley
Bob Marley (Official Website)
May 28, 1981
On May 28, 1981, Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings died in his sleep in his Manhattan apartment following a heart attack. His dying wish was for the young Kennedy men to carry his casket to its final resting place. When they arrived at the cemetery, it was already in place to be lowered. The young Kennedys took the casket and carried it around the grave site before returning it to the burial plot. He is buried in Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Lem was a close and long-time friend of President John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family. Billings was a prep school roommate of Kennedy at Choate, an usher at his wedding and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. Joseph Kennedy Sr. called him "my second son," and he sometimes acted as escort for several of the Kennedy women. Billings served with Sargent Shriver as a trustee for the Kennedy family trusts.
Friends from the 1970s confirmed that Billings was homosexual, but not open to discussing it. In 2006, looking back to the Kennedy Administration, Ben Bradlee said: "I suppose it's known that Lem was gay....It impressed me that Jack had gay friends." At the same time, he admitted that no one ever expressed the idea aloud during Kennedy's White House years. Red Fay, a friend of the President from his World War II service, said of Billings: "I didn't see anything overtly gay about him; I think he was neutral." Though newspapers often mentioned Billings' attendance at major social events, they identified him either as the escort of a member of the Kennedy family or included him in a list of Kennedy friends. Otherwise he attended without a female partner.
Some historians believe that Billings expressed his sexual interest in Kennedy in writing in 1934 and that Kennedy rebuffed his advances. Kennedy knew Billings had rightly been accused of homosexual behavior by a fellow Choate student during their years there. Charles L. Bartlett, a journalist who introduced Kennedy to Jacqueline Bouvier and friend of both Billings and Kennedy, described their relationship: "Lem was a stable presence for Jack. Lem's raison d'être was Jack Kennedy. I don't think it's true that he did not have views of his own, as some have said. He had a very independent mind. He had interests of his own that Jack didn't necessarily share. He certainly didn't have the same interest in politics and women that Jack had." Though Gore Vidal thought Billings was "absolutely nobody," he also believed "it was a good idea that Jack had somebody he could trust like that around him." He believed Billings loved Kennedy. "Jack made a big difference in my life," Billings said. "Because of him, I was never lonely. He may have been the reason I never got married."
June 7, 1981
Operation Opera - Israel Airstrike on Iraq Nuclear Reactor 1981 (44:51)
Operation Opera, also known as Operation Babylon and Raid on the Reactor, was a surprise Israeli air strike carried out on June 7, 1981, which destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor under construction 17 kilometers, 10.5 miles, southeast of Baghdad. The operation came after Iran's unsuccessful Operation Scorch Sword operation had caused minor damage to the same nuclear facility the previous year, the damage having been subsequently repaired by French technicians. Operation Opera, and related Israeli government statements following it, established the Begin Doctrine, which explicitly stated the strike was not an anomaly, but instead “a precedent for every future government in Israel.” Israel's counter-proliferation preventive strike added another dimension to their existing policy, as it related to the nuclear capability of other states in the region.
In 1976, Iraq purchased an "Osiris" class nuclear reactor from France. While Iraq and France maintained that the reactor, named Osirak by the French, was intended for peaceful scientific research, the Israelis viewed the reactor with suspicion, and said that it was designed to make nuclear weapons. On June 7, 1981, a flight of Israeli Air Force F-16A fighter aircraft, with an escort of F-15As, bombed and heavily damaged the Osirak reactor. Israel claimed it acted in self-defense, and that the reactor had "less than a month to go" before "it might have become critical.Ten Iraqi soldiers and one French civilian were killed.
The attack was strongly criticized around the world, including in the United States, and Israel was rebuked by the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly in two separate resolutions.
July 16, 1981
The humanatarian Harry Chapin dies when an tractor-trailer truck hit him from behind.
So, within 220 days, three (John Lennon, Bob Marley and Harry Chapin) of the top musicians for peace and love are taken from us.
Is this just a coincidence?
I don't think so.
From my soon to be published Meeting and Stories:
Harry Chapin
One Of The Greatest Men That Was On Earth
by Mark R. Elsis
Written on February 9, 2017
While waiting outside of Colden Auditorium at Queens College, after a canceled concert, I met and has a few words with the man who was to have given the concert. In my eyes, one of the greatest men that was on Earth. He was a dedicated humanitarian who fought to end world hunger. He was the cofounder of World Hunger Year or WHY (now known as WhyHunger) a non-profit that is still helping people today. He was instrumental in the creation of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger in 1977.
He was a man that was posthumously awarded the highest civilian award in the United States, the Congressional Gold Medal. He was a man who performed benefit concerts for hundreds of other organizations during his career. He was a man who raised more than 3,000,000 USD for others in the last six years of his life. He was a man that donated to charitable causes an estimated 33% of his busy 200+ concerts each year.
He was a man that I was lucky enough to have seen in concert a few times between 1975 and 1980. He is a man that I still miss to this very day.
Harry Chapin.
In 1991 I was training to run my second NYC Marathon. One of my goals was to ran a 10K in under 40 minutes, this is 6 minutes and 26 seconds per mile for 6.2 miles. I was stuck at around 41 minutes in my last two 10K races. When friend since childhood and very good runner, Jerry Simpson, who I had been training a lot with, said he could get me under 40 minutes at the upcoming Harry Chapin Run Against Hunger 10K at Croton-On-The-Hudson on Sunday, October 20, 1991.
I had run the Harry Chapin 10K race once before, and found it to be a tough, hilly course. We both were entered because of our admiration for Harry, our love of running, and it is a beautifully scenic course. The race went over the New Croton Dam, part of the New York City water supply system from the New Croton Reservoir.
Race day was cool, in the low 50s. This was ideal for racing. Jerry told me we were going to run negative splits (last 5K faster than first 5K), to be quiet and run behind him. I did, and ran a 39 minute and 29 second 10K. This is 6 minutes and 21 seconds a mile for 6.2 miles. To break 40 minutes was an accomplishment, thank you Jerry.
The kindhearted people, the autumnal colors, the beautiful yet difficult course, the wonderful cause, and the memory of Harry, make this a very special event. It was also great to meet Harry's two bothers, Tom and Steve.
The Harry Chapin Run and Walk Against Hunger is still going strong. The 37th annual will take place on Sunday, October 15, 2017.
Thank you Harry, for the exemplary example you set by giving back so much to others who were hungry and less fortunate, and for all of the beautiful music you created.
Harry Chapin Music (Official Website)
WhyHunger was founded in 1975 by the late musician Harry Chapin and Radio DJ Bill Ayres on the fundamental belief that access to nutritious food is a human right and hunger is a solvable problem in a world of abundance.
Harry Chapin Memorial Run and Walk Against Hunger
Harry Chapin on YouTube
My YouTube Playlist for Harry Chapin
"Our lives are to be used and thus to be lived as fully as possible, and truly it seems that we are never so alive as when we concern ourselves with other people."
Harry Chapin
October 4, 1981
Lee Oswald's body was exhumed at the request of British author Michael Eddowes, with the cooperation of Marina Oswald and over the objections of Robert Oswald. A partial autopsy was performed at Baylor Pathology Laboratories, and the procedure was videotaped.
The Exhumation and Identification of Lee Harvey Oswald (2:12)
The grave of the man accused of assassinating President John F. Kennedy was opened in Rose Hill Burial Park in Fort Worth, Oswald's home town, starting shortly after 7 A.M. The public and reporters were kept out of the cemetery as work began. As helicopters circled overhead, the coffin was covered with a white sheet and driven the 35 miles to Dallas in a hearse. A team of examining pathologists said that the remains were indeed Oswald's. The finding appeared to end speculation that the corpse might have been that of a Russian agent sent here to kill President Kennedy in 1963.
The Exhumation and Identification of Lee Harvey Oswald
by Linda E. Norton, M.D.; James A Cottone, D.M.D., M.S.; Irvin M. Sopher, D.D.S., M.D.; and Vincent J. M. DiMaio, M.D.
by Michael Stahl
September 16, 1982 - September 18, 1982
Survivors recount Sabra-Shatila massacre
Three women who lived through the 1982 massacre at Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon remember harrowing killings.
by Nour Samaha
Shatila camp, Lebanon - The fighters began at sunset, meticulously working their way through the alleys and homes, bodies riddled with bullets and slashed with machetes left crumpled in their wake.
Between September 16-18, 1982, in the middle of Lebanon's civil war and a few months after Israel's invasion of the country, hundreds of members of the Phalange party - a Lebanese Christian militia - in collaboration with the Israeli army, slaughtered about 2,000 Palestinian refugees, mostly women, children, and the elderly, in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp located in Beirut.
The massacre came on the heels of the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, the leader of the Phalangists. The Phalangists wrongly blamed the Palestinians for the assassination, and executed the massacre as a reprisal attack with the Israeli army, who had invaded Lebanon to fight the Palestinians and supporters of the Palestinian cause.
The Massacre of Sabra and Shatila (49:30)
Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the massacre of Sabra and Shatila so i uploaded this video as a reminder of the horrible crimes that took place in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut, Lebanon between September 16 and September 18, 1982, during the Lebanese civil war. We will never forget.
April 5, 1986
German TV exposes CIA, Mossad links to 1986 Berlin disco bombing
by a German correspondent
A documentary broadcast August 25 by German public television presents compelling evidence that some of the main suspects in the 1986 Berlin disco bombing, the event that provided the pretext for a US air assault on Libya, worked for American and Israeli intelligence.
August 2, 1990 - February 28, 1991
The Gulf War - Codenamed Operation Desert Shield, August 2, 1990 - January 16, 1991, for operations leading to the buildup of troops and defense of Saudi Arabia and Operation Desert Storm, January 17, 1991 - February 28, 1991.
First ‘crisis actor’: 1990 ‘Nayirah’ claimed Iraq killed 312 hospital incubator infants in Kuwait to criminally incite war (Videos and Text)
by Carl Herman
US Congressional and public opinion to support any UN military force was divided. President George H.W. Bush spoke for US support of the war, emphasizing two areas of evidence:
Testimony from a 15-year-old girl named Nayirah to Congress on October 10, 1990. Nayirah claimed to be a refugee and hospital volunteer of the maternity ward of Al Adan hospital in Kuwait City; stating she witnessed Iraqi soldiers steal the incubators and leave 312 infants to die on the cold hospital floor.
US satellite photos showed Iraqi forces massing for attack on the Saudi Arabian border in September, 1990 with 250,000 troops and 1,500 tanks. The President and those who supported war spoke publicly of Iraqi cruelty and the need to protect the innocent people of Saudi Arabia.
Public opinion gradually shifted in favor for war. The Congressional vote passed by 52-47 in the Senate and 250-183 in the House on January 12, 1991.
We now know both claims were known to be lies as they were told:
Nayirah lied about her identity; she was the daughter of Kuwait Ambassador to the United States and member of the Kuwait royal family, Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah. Nayirah had no connection to the hospital and was coached on how to give her testimony by the US public relations firm Hill and Knowlton. The only explanation I can imagine that the Bush Senior administration was not lying about this evidence for war is if it never occurred to anyone in leadership to verify the accuracy of this girl’s testimony. If true, using unverified claims to incite war is criminally negligent. And remember, George H.W. Bush was the Director of the CIA, an agency responsible for working with accurate and contrived information.
Claimed satellite photos never existed, and refuted by real ones: When a reporter purchased commercially available satellite photos of the region at the time claimed to show massive Iraqi troop build-up and submitted them to experts for analysis, US troop presence was visible on the Saudi side of the border but there was no evidence of Iraqi troops. The Kuwaiti Air Base seemed deserted in the photos. When the reporter queried Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney (later Vice President to Papa Bush’s son, George) about the satellite photos, she was told, “Trust us.” The alleged US satellite photos have never been released for reasons of “national security”...
How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf
US Congressman Jimmy Hayes of Louisiana -- a conservative Democrat who supported the Gulf War -- later estimated that the government of Kuwait funded as many as 20 PR, law and lobby firms in its campaign to mobilize US opinion and force against Hussein.72 Participating firms included the Rendon Group, which received a retainer of $100,000 per month for media work, and Neill & Co., which received $50,000 per month for lobbying Congress. Sam Zakhem, a former US ambassador to the oil-rich gulf state of Bahrain, funneled $7.7 million in advertising and lobbying dollars through two front groups, the "Coalition for Americans at Risk" and the "Freedom Task Force." The Coalition, which began in the 1980s as a front for the contras in Nicaragua, prepared and placed TV and newspaper ads, and kept a stable of fifty speakers available for pro-war rallies and publicity events.73
Hill & Knowlton, then the world's largest PR firm, served as mastermind for the Kuwaiti campaign. Its activities alone would have constituted the largest foreign-funded campaign ever aimed at manipulating American public opinion. By law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act should have exposed this propaganda campaign to the American people, but the Justice Department chose not to enforce it. Nine days after Saddam's army marched into Kuwait, the Emir's government agreed to fund a contract under which Hill & Knowlton would represent "Citizens for a Free Kuwait," a classic PR front group designed to hide the real role of the Kuwaiti government and its collusion with the Bush administration. Over the next six months, the Kuwaiti government channeled $11.9 million dollars to Citizens for a Free Kuwait, whose only other funding totalled $17,861 from 78 individuals. Virtually all of CFK's budget -- $10.8 million -- went to Hill & Knowlton in the form of fees...
...In fact, the most emotionally moving testimony on October 10 came from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah. According to the Caucus, Nayirah's full name was being kept confidential to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her family in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen with her own eyes in a hospital in Kuwait City. Her written testimony was passed out in a media kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait. "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital," Nayirah said. "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where ... babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."83
Three months passed between Nayirah's testimony and the start of the war. During those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over and over again. President Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council. "Of all the accusations made against the dictator," MacArthur observed, "none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City...
Baby Killing Lies and the 1991 Gulf War
How war profiteers orchestrated a singly monstrous lie against Saddam Hussein order to brainwash Americans into supporting the 1991 Gulf war.
by Rene
With billions of bucks at their disposal the Kuwaiti government, with the help of a NY PR firm, phony witnesses, the mainstream media, war mongering politicians, the U.S.-Israeli propaganda machine and other various war profiteers, were able to completely deceived the American people. To date, no one has ever been charged for this terrible crime. The sad facts follow...
December 20, 1991
The film, JFK, by Oliver Stone is released.
Final Judgement Reviewed and the Film JFK by Oliver Stone
by Mark Braver
Why didn't Oliver Stone, in his famous movie "JFK" not mention any of the following?
It turns out the chief financial backer of Stone's film was longtime Mossad figure, Arnon Milchan, Israel's biggest arms dealer...
...When New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison charged businessman Clay Shaw with participation in the JFK assassination conspiracy Garrison stumbled upon the Israeli Mossad connection to the murder of President Kennedy. Shaw served on the board of a shadowy corporation known as Permindex. A primary shareholder in Permindex was the Banque De Credit International of Geneva, founded by Tibor Rosenbaum, an arms procurer and financier for the Mossad.
What's more, the Mossad-sponsored Swiss bank was the chief "money laundry" for Meyer Lansky, the head of the international crime syndicate and an Israeli loyalist whose operations meshed closely on many fronts with the American CIA.
The chairman of Permindex was Louis M. Bloomfield of Montreal, a key figure in the Israeli lobby and an operative of the Bronfman family of Canada, long-time Lansky associates and among Israel's primary international patrons.
In the pages of "Final Judgment" the Israeli connection to the JFK assassination is explored in frightening--and fully documented--detail. For example, did you know:
* That JFK was engaged in a bitter secret conflict with Israel over U.S. East policy and that Israel's prime minister resigned in disgust, saying JFK's stance threatened Israel's very survival?
* That JFK's successor, Lyndon Johnson, immediately reversed America's policy toward Israel?
* That the top Mafia figures often alleged to be behind the JFK assassination were only front men for Meyer Lansky?
* That the CIA's liaison to the Mossad, James Angleton, was a prime mover behind the cover-up of the JFK assassination?
Arnon Milchan - Israel's biggest arms dealer, Milchan was "executive producer" (i.e. chief financial angel) of Oliver Stone's Hollywood fantasy about the JFK assassination, a fact which may explain Stone's aversion to exploring the Israeli connection to the affair.
JFK - A Meeting With X (4:36)
Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) meets with a mysterious man (L. Fletcher Prouty) called X (Donald Sutherland), who gives him confidential information about President Kennedy's assassination.
October 26, 1992 - October 26, 2017
President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act Of 1992
The John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act
John F. Kennedy was killed on November 22, 1963. Almost 30 years later, hoping to allay lingering doubts about the circumstances surrounding that event, Congress enacted the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act. On October 26, 1992, President George Bush signed the bill into law (PL 102-526). One provision of the law mandated that all assassination-related material be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The clear intent of the law was to open most of the records for research.
The Act defined five narrow categories of information whose release could be postponed and established the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) to consider all agency decisions to postpone the release of records. Records initially postponed by an agency remained in the custody of that agency until the Review Board evaluated those records and decisions. Once the Board completed its review of the agency's recommendations for postponement, all records, including those that are closed, were to be transferred to NARA. The transfers of the last records reviewed by the ARRB are still taking place at this time. The Act requires that all assassination-related records be opened by October 26, 2017, with the exception of documents certified for continued postponement by the President.
On December 28, 1992, the National Archives and Records Administration established the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection. The Collection consists of approximately 2,000 cubic feet of records or more than 4.1 million pages. Even though the Assassinations Records Review Board has gone out of existence, additions are being made as agencies continue to review records identified as relevant and transfer newly opened records to the National Archives of the United States. The Collection may not be complete for several years.
The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection
John F. Kennedy was killed on November 22, 1963. Almost 30 years later, Congress enacted the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. The Act mandated that all assassination-related material be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
For more see the comprehensive section: JFK Records Act And ARRB
April 19, 1993
Waco: Rules of Engagement (2:15:51)
Director: William Gazecki
This controversial documentary about the stand-off between an unorthodox Christian group - the Branch Davidians, under the leadership of the young, charismatic David Koresh - and the FBI and ATF in Waco, Texas, from February to April 1993 presents a different spin on the events from that of the United States government, which held that the Branch Davidians set the fire that destroyed their compound, and killed the vast majority of them, on April 19, 1993. Using footage from the 51 day siege, from the congressional hearings afterwards, from people involved in all aspects of the siege, and from experts technical, psychological, and religious, the movie suggests that the Branch Davidians were not a cult, but a valid religious group practicing under First Amendment freedoms who fell victim to first the ineptitude of an ATF raid designed to garner the agency positive attention and later the cruel, methodical work of the FBI, who over-saw the murder of the Davidians and then quickly covered it up.
Many people believe that David Koresh (or the Branch Davidians) were responsible for the deaths of the 74 men, women and children who died in the inferno at Waco on April 19, 1993. This is the story that the FBI put out. It is a lie. The guns they had were legal. The local sheriff investigated and found no basis for complaints against them. These were law-abiding American citizens, even if they thought differently to most other folks. They trusted the U.S. Constitution to ensure their political rights, but they were murdered by agents acting under the authority of the U.S. government...
April 22, 1994
Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, dies.
Nixon suffered a severe stroke on April 18, 1994, while preparing to eat dinner in his Park Ridge, New Jersey home. A blood clot resulting from the atrial fibrillation he had suffered for many years had formed in his upper heart, broken off, and traveled to his brain. He was taken to New York Hospital–Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, initially alert but unable to speak or to move his right arm or leg. Damage to the brain caused swelling (cerebral edema), and Nixon slipped into a deep coma. He died at 9:08 p.m. on April 22, 1994, with his daughters at his bedside. He was 81 years old.
Nixon's Three Stories Of Where He Was On November 22, 1963
by Col. L. Fletcher Prouty
For more see the comprehensive section: Richard Milhous Nixon
May 19, 1994
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis dies of non-Hodgkin lymphoma cancer. She is buried next to President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and their children in Arlington National Cemetery. Monsignor George F. Bardes of St. Thomas More Church on East 89th Street, Onassis’ parish, administers last rites, heard her confession and give her Communion. On July 31, 1993, Monsignor George F. Bardes married me (Mark R. Elsis) at St. Thomas More Church.
September 1994 - September 1998
Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB)
Assassination Records Review Board
The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 created the Assassination Records Review Board as an independent agency to re-examine for release the assassination-related records that federal agencies still regarded as too sensitive to open to the public. The Board finished its work on September 30, 1998, issued a final report, and transferred all of its records to the National Archives and Records Administration.
https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board
The Assassination Records Review Board Report (Final Report)
https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board/report
Altered History (6 Hours 24 Minutes)
Exposing Deceit and Deception in the JFK Assassination
by Douglas P. Horne
In this 5-part video (six hours and twenty-four minutes), Douglas P. Horne, who served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board and who is the author of the five-volume book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence and much more in the Assassination of JFK, discusses deceit and deception in the official autopsy of John F. Kennedy.
For more see the comprehensive section: JFK Records Act And ARRB
January 22, 1995
On January 22, 1995, Rose Kennedy died from complications from pneumonia at age 104 at the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port. She was survived by five children, 26 grandchildren, and 42 great-grandchildren. Rose Kennedy was interred with her husband at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts.
April 19, 1995
A Noble Lie: Oklahoma City 1995 (2:00:51)
A fresh and in-depth look at the circumstances surrounding the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. But instead of accepting at face value the Federal Government’s deeply-flawed investigation, A Noble Lie features ground breaking information and eyewitness testimonies that refute the official story. The April 19, 1995 bombing that destroyed much of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building involved far more revealing evidence than the FBI maintains.
A Noble Lie presents interviews with police officers, first responders, victims, journalists and investigators whose evidence demonstrates that not all the perpetrators were brought to justice. Among the interview subjects are General Benton Partin, former head of weapons development for the Air Force, State Representative Charles Key, members of the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee and Jesse Trentadue, whose brother Kenneth was tortured and murdered in Federal custody in the days following the bombing.
A Noble Lie is the only full-length documentary that addresses and answers many of the questions people have asked about the bombing. Details as to what really happened regarding this horrific event, taking the lives of 168 people, have been summarily covered up by the Federal Government. A NOBLE LIE re-examines the tragedy in a measured, informative and scholarly way, and in the process exposes the treachery that has gone unpunished.
Remembering That The Oklahoma City Bombing Was A False Flag
False-Flag: 1995. Oklahoma City Bombing - Quotes
John F. Kennedy Jr. dies [assassinated] when his small plane crashes while flying from the Essex County Airport in Fairfield, N.J., to Martha's Vineyard. With him are his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette. All three are later buried at sea.
From my soon to be published Meeting and Stories:
John F. Kennedy Jr.
Intelligent And Charismatic, Yet A Down To Earth Nice Guy
by Mark R. Elsis
Written on February 10, 2017
I have done and will be doing more extensive research and writing on the life and assassination of our 35th President, John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy. On Monday, May 29, 2017, I will honor his 100th Birthday, with my website: http://November221963.com
I have also written on the assassination of the United States Senator from New York, Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy. It is entitled:
The Day The United States Died: Thursday June 6, 1968
I have also done research into the evening of July 16, 1999. John was a careful and capable pilot, in voice contact and visual of Martha's Vineyard Airport. An airport he knew well and had landed at dozens of times. When something went terribly wrong.
Monsignor George S. Bardes, who was the pastor for Jacqueline Kennedy and gave her the last sacraments before her death on May 19, 1994, also preformed my marriage, at St. Thomas More Church on July 31, 1993.
I driving my taxi in Upper East Side of Manhattan on a beautiful summer evening in 1987. A man was hailing a taxi in front of a restaurant, and as I drove closer to pick him up, I noticed it was John F. Kennedy Jr. The son of my assassinated Irish Catholic President. He got in and said that he was going to North Moore Street in Tribeca. He seemed like he needed some space, so we only talked a little bit as I drove him down to Tribeca. I found him to be intelligent and charismatic, yet a down to Earth nice guy. I believe that he was the last major person my country had to assassinate.
The Assassination of JFK Jr. (1:47:04)
[Except for all the "Nazi and Nazis" rants, informative]
by John Hankey
John F. Kennedy Jr.: Evidence Of A Cover up
John F. Kennedy Jr. on YouTube
“People often tell me I could be a great man. I'd rather be a good man.”
John F. Kennedy Jr.
September 11, 2001
Yet another Israeli false flag. This one killing almost 3,000 mostly Americans, to start the never ending War on Terror.
The Most Comprehensive Minute By Minute Timeline On 911
by Mark R. Elsis
Exposing NORAD's Wag The 911 Window Dressing Tale
by Mark R. Elsis
The Military Screw-up Nobody Talks About
by Scott Shuger
9/11 Missing Links (2:07:06)
Discover the definitive truth about 9/11 and learn why even the most popular movies on the subject have failed to address the evidence exhaustively presented in this video. The facts will make it abundantly clear that the so-called 9/11 “Truth” movement has been infiltrated and is ultimately controlled by the same criminal group who masterminded the attacks.
As they say, ‘if you want to control the dissent you lead the dissent.’ Utilizing evidence from the FBI, CIA, NSA, US Armed Forces Intelligence sectors, Foreign Intelligence organizations, local law enforcement agencies and independent investigators, Missing Links goes where no other 9/11 video has dared to. Israel's negative impact on America & other countries: 9/11, attack on USS Liberty, theft of state secrets, control of our government's policies re the Middle East and much more.
March 19, 2003
Bush announces launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, March 19, 2003
On this day in 2003, President George W. Bush announced the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The U.S.-led invasion was, according to Bush, aimed at ridding Iraq of its dictator, Saddam Hussein, and eliminating its ability to store, develop and deploy its stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
by Andrew Glass
Shock and Awe the initial bombing of baghdad (2:02)
Where Are The Media's Iraq War Boosters 10 Years Later?
by Eric Hananoki
by Franklin Foer
Pulitzer Prize winner Judith Miller’s series of exclusives about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, courtesy of the now-notorious Ahmad Chalabi—helped the New York Times keep up with the competition and the Bush administration bolster the case for war. How the very same talents that caused her to get the story also caused her to get it wrong.
For critics of the Iraq war, the downfall of Ahmad Chalabi occasioned a hearty, unapologetic outpouring of Schadenfreude, a loud cheer for a well-deserved knee to the administration’s gut. In fact, it was possible to detect a bit of this spirit on the front page of the New York Times. On May 21, the editors arrayed contrasting images of the banker turned freedom fighter turned putative Iranian spy. Here he is smirking behind Laura Bush in the House of Representatives gallery as the president delivers his State of the Union address. There he is looking bleary and sweaty, after Iraqi police stormed his home and office in the middle of the night. An analysis by David Sanger went so far as to name names of individuals who had associated themselves with the discredited leader of the Iraqi National Congress. The list, he wrote, included “many of the men who came to dominate the top ranks of the Bush administration . . . Donald H. Rumsfeld, Paul D. Wolfowitz, Douglas J. Feith, Richard L. Armitage, Elliott Abrams and Zalmay M. Khalilzad, among others.”... [Interesting how they are almost all Jewish.]
Purim
I have caught on to what the Jews do to celebrate their killing holiday called Purim.
The Jewish holiday of Purim commemorates the Old Testament's Book of Esther, which hails the genocide of 75,000 Persians as a result of the scheming of Esther, the Jewish bride of the Persian king. No other Jewish holiday, all of which in one form or another celebrate the defeat and destruction of non-Jews, better exemplifies the venal nature of the teachings that underlie what one Jewish theologian has called "the Jewish Utopia," which is the philosophical foundation of what some today refer to as an impending New World Order. Jews have been massacring on Purim ever since.
Purim: Hostility Toward Christians Rooted In Boisterous Major Jewish Holiday
by Willis A. Carto
Purim - The Jew Cannibal Feast
Joseph Stalin poisoning occurred on Purim March 1, 1953 (Died on March 5, 1953)
New Study Supports Idea Stalin Was Poisoned
by Michael Wines
On March 1, 1953, two weeks after the camps were ordered built and two weeks before the accused doctors were to go on trial, Stalin collapsed at Blizhnaya, a north Moscow dacha, after the all-night dinner with his four Politburo comrades. After four days, Stalin died, at age 73...
The Highway of Death occurred on Purim February 27-28, 1991
"Highway of Death" Iraqi Army Armed Retreat from Kuwait 1991 (3:50)
The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre occurred on Purim February 24-25, 1994
Remembering the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre
by Rich Wiles
In an event which cemented the city's occupation, Baruch Goldstein gunned down Muslim worshippers 20 years ago today.
On February 25 1994, a US-born Israeli military physician walked into the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron armed with a Galil assault rifle. It was early morning during the holy month of Ramadan, and hundreds of Palestinians were crammed inside, bowed in prayer. Baruch Goldstein, who had emigrated to Israel in 1983, lived in the Kiryat Arba settlement on the outskirts of the city. As worshippers kneeled, Goldstein opened fire. He reloaded at least once, continuing his barrage for as long as possible before finally being overpowered and eventually beaten to death. By the time he was stopped, 29 worshippers were killed, and more than a hundred had been injured...
The Iraqi War started on Purim March 17-18, 2003
Yes, it started the next day, on March 19, 2003.
The Libyan War started on Purim March 19-20, 2011 (I called this one)
Battle for Libya: Key moments - March 19, NATO starts bombing Libya
by Al Jazeera Staff
Timeline of decisive battles and political developments in Libya's uprising against Muammar Gaddafi. After a debate, the United Nations Security Council voted to impose a no-fly zone over Libya. Ten of the council's 15 members voted "yes," while five - Russia, China, India, Germany and Brazil - abstained. The resolution called for international military action to protect civilians. It would be enforced primarily by NATO, with logistical support from several Arab countries, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. French jets began bombing Libya just hours after the resolution was passed , with bombers from the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries joining shortly afterward.
What will happen on the next Purim?
2005
Dallas Holocaust Museum opens. It is located right next to the Texas School Book Depository.
December 26, 2006
Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the United States, dies.
Gerald Ford, a Warren Commission member was the only unelected President ever.
by John Simkin
Leslie King was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on 14th July, 1913. His parents divorced when he was an infant and his mother remarried a paint salesman in Michigan. Leslie's name was changed to that of his stepfather, Gerald Rudolph Ford.
...One possible reason Johnson selected Ford (as a Warren Commission member) was that he was under the control of J. Edgar Hoover. According to Bobby Baker (Wheeling and Dealing), who was himself under investigation for his corrupt relationship with politicians, businessmen and call-girls, Ford had been secretly taped by the FBI when he had attended meetings with Fred Black at the Sheraton-Carlton Hotel in Washington...
...According to William C. Sullivan (The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover's FBI) Gerald Ford provided J. Edgar Hoover with information about the activities of staff members of the commission. "Hoover was delighted when Gerald Ford was named to the Warren Commission. The director wrote in one of his internal memos that the bureau could expect Ford to 'look after FBI interests,' and he did, keeping us fully advised of what was going on behind closed doors. He was our man, our informant, on the Warren Commission."
...The original first draft of the Warren Commission Report stated that a bullet had entered Kennedy's "back at a point slightly above the shoulder and to the right of the spine." Ford realized that this provided a serious problem for the single bullet theory. As Michael L. Kurtz has pointed out (The JFK Assassination Debates): "If a bullet fired from the sixth-floor window of the Depository building nearly sixty feet higher than the limousine entered the president's back, with the president sitting in an upright position, it could hardly have exited from his throat at a point just above the Adam's apple, then abruptly change course and drive downward into Governor Connally's back."
In 1997 the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) released a document that revealed that Ford had altered the first draft of the report to read: "A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine." Ford had elevated the location of the wound from its true location in the back to the neck to support the single bullet theory...
...In 1973, Nixon's vice-president, Spiro Agnew was investigated for extortion, bribery and income-tax violations while governor of Maryland. On 10th October, 1973 resigned as vice-president. Nixon attempted to appoint John Connally as Agnew's replacement. However, Nixon was warned that his appointment would not be confirmed by Congress. Nixon therefore selected Ford instead.
Gerald Ford became president when Richard Nixon was also forced to resign over the Watergate Scandal in August, 1974. Ford therefore became the first man in history to become the president of the United States without having been elected as either president or vice president. Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller as his vice president. During his confirmation hearings it was revealed that over the years he had made large gifts of money to government officials such as Henry Kissinger.
On 8th September, 1974, Ford controversially granted Richard Nixon a full pardon "for all offences against the United States" that might have been committed while in office. The pardon brought an end all criminal prosecutions that Nixon might have had to face concerning the Watergate Scandal...
...In January 2006, Ford was treated for pneumonia. In August of that year it was reported that he had been fitted with a pacemaker. Gerald Ford died on 26th December, 2006.
Gerald Ford Moving the JFK Back Wound (2:35)
Interview from June 30th, 2005, with former FBI agent James W. Sibert, one of the two FBI agents who attended President Kennedy's autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital on the night of JFK's assassination in November 1963. The significance of this cannot be overstated! For with a wound in the original location, there cannot be a single bullet theory and without a single bullet theory there cannot be a lone gunman. A total 4 US presidents are involved on President Kennedy by knowing it before or after the fact or on cover up, Nixon left Dallas on morning on 11/22/63, Bush/CIA was photographed front of TSBD, Johnson in same motorcade with president witch never happened before and warren commission Ford moving strings on official cover-up work
FBI Agents James Sibert and Francis O'Neill wrote this five and half page report from their notes taken during the autopsy of President.
James W. Sibert Interview Gerald Ford's motto: Attack is Best Defense.
...Ford himself is guilty! Not only was it learned that he was secretly reporting on the Commission to FBI Director Hoover, but also, forced by declassified files, he has admitted that he instructed the Warren Commission to move Kennedy's backwound up by several inches !!! The significance of this cannot be overstated! For with a wound in the original location, there cannot be a single bullet theory and without a single bullet theory there cannot be a lone gunman. Last time I looked, this was called "tampering with evidence", which is a federal crime and in such an important case as the death of a president, it is also treason...
Gerald Ford's Terrible Fiction
Moving the Back Wound and the Single Bullet Theory
January 2, 2007
Bush Sr. Laughs At JFK Shooting (:35)
35 second excerpt of Bush Sr.'s speech at Gerald Ford's funeral.
October 26, 2017
The Background
Oliver Stone’s December 1991 film JFK ended with closing statement about the enormous amount of still-secret government documents relating to the JFK assassination and the fact that they would not be released until 2029. The tidal wave of letter-writing and phone-calling to Washington D. C. that followed the film precipitated a congressional decision to speed up the declassification of those files. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 was the result, and it was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush on 26 October 1992.
The Records Collection Act also created an independent board to oversee the declassification effort—the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB)—and invested it with the power to direct agencies to release documents, with direct appeal to the President as the agencies’ only recourse. The law defined “assassination record” very broadly. It decreed that no records could remain classified beyond twenty-five years of the enactment. In other words, the law mandates that all JFK assassination records must be fully declassified by 26 October 2017.
The Problem
Although the AARB released millions of pages of assassination records, a significant amount of potentially critical material still remains partially redacted or withheld in full. In April 2015, Martha Murphy, Chief of Special Access and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Branch, National Archives and Records Administration, (NARA) gave this assessment of the current situation:
There are 5 million pages of records in the JFK Act collection.
There are 318,886 documents in the JFK Act database.
11% of the documents have partial redactions.
3,603 documents are withheld in full.
These figures do not include many hundreds—perhaps thousands—of documents that are already supposed to be released but are not available. NARA has put U. S. Government agencies on notice that the withheld material is going to be released in 2017 unless they appeal to the President to prevent it. Murphy stated that NARA wants to know now—not at the last moment—what, if anything, these agencies expect to appeal.
The Outlook
The people of the United States must anticipate now that:
Such appeals will occur
Without significant public pressure the president will assume that Americans are not interested in upholding the terms of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act
The Mission
Therefore, we must begin to prepare now for action to ensure that these records are released. Over the course of the next twenty-four months citizens concerned about the possible continued withholding of these assassination records must:
Constantly stay informed about the developing situation
Organize in ways to increase and share awareness
Develop plans and activities to communicate with elected leaders and presidential hopefuls
Impress upon them our firm and unwavering belief that these records belong to us
On July 24, October 26, November 3, November 9, November 17 and December 15, 2017, the National Archives & Records Administration (NARA) released previous withheld records.
The Black Vault has obtained the thousands of records released thus far, and created a massive index with all records linked and archived on a single page.
Missing JFK Assassination Records - Updated
The Black Hole at the Archives - Top Fifty Missing Assassination Records
by William Kelly
“I do think identifying the missing assassination records is an important project, not because I think we can make the documents appear, but so we can help make this sleeping nation more aware that America has a deep history.”
Peter Dale Scott
National Archives Reveals Missing Document Count To WhoWhatWhy
A National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) official has told WhoWhatWhy that approximately 2,800 JFK assassination records remain withheld in full following Thursday’s disappointing release. Here is an up-to-the-minute count of the documents that NARA has not yet made public:
Withheld in Full - there remain approximately 2,745 documents withheld in full; of these 547 were withheld in full for tax or grand jury information that is not currently subject to release.
Withheld in Part - after the July 24 and October 26 releases, there remain approximately 28,609 documents withheld in part; of these about 1,295 contain tax or grand jury information not currently subject to release.
So the total number of documents not released in full in the Collection [is] approximately 31,354; subtracting out the Tax and Grand Jury, there are approximately 29,512.
This confirms WhoWhatWhy’s early reporting that the total expected document release was approximately 30,000 - of which about 10% was released last Thursday - and that only a small fraction of the withheld-in-full documents were released.
Mark the Date: October 26, 2017
by Rex Bradford
Hello, November in Dallas. I'm sorry not to be there in person, but I wanted to record this video missive, to tell you to mark a date on your calendar.
The date? October 26, 2017. That's about 11 months away.
Why is this date important? Because it's the 25th anniversary of the passage of the JFK Records Collection Act of 1992. But the significance goes beyond the normal anniversary nostalgia. Here is a section from the JFK Records Act:
"Each assassination record shall be publicly disclosed in full, and available in the Collection no later than the date that is 25 years after the date of the enactment of this Act....."
And the National Archives is busy getting ready to do just that. They have published, and we have put online at maryferrell.org, a document listing 3,571 records which to this day have remained withheld in full. There are another roughly 35,000 documents which feature redactions--like this page of the Lopez Report. In 11 months, all of those redactions are supposed to be lifted.
Oh but wait, I forgot to read the rest of the sentence in the JFK Records Act. "Each assassination record shall be publicly disclosed in full.....yadda yadda.....unless the President certifies, as required by this act, that: (i) continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations; and (ii) the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure."
JFK Assassination Records and the Enduring Lessons from the Assassination Records Review Board
by Lauren Harper
JFK assassination records are likely the most frequently and prominently requested classified documents in the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) possession. The Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (JFK Act) requires that each assassination record be publicly disclosed in full by October 2017 – unless the President upholds an agency appeal and “certifies” that releasing a record would cause specific harm. The timing of the Act’s “final release date” has the potential to further affect election year politics in an election cycle already dominated by records retention, declassification, and state secrecy. This is also a timely opportunity to consider more broadly the Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board’s (the Board’s) recommendations to improve declassification practices of even the most sensitive government records.
The JFK Act of 1992 – spurred by renewed public interest in assassination records thanks to the success of Oliver Stones’ film, JFK – mandated that all federal records pertaining to JFK’s assassination be transmitted to NARA. The Act further required that each assassination record be publicly disclosed in full, and be available in the collection no later than the date 25 years after the enactment of the Act (October 26, 2017) unless the President certified that releasing the documents would cause “identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations” that outweighed the public interest in disclosure.
The Act also established the Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board (the Board), a temporary, independent agency consisting of five citizens who were not government employees but who had, for the first time in history, the “ability to order agencies to declassify government documents” and whose declassification decisions only the President could override. With its unique authority, the Board opened previously hidden CIA records from the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and FBI files that would have otherwise been protected by the FOIA’s broad law enforcement exemption. The Board also implemented a program requiring agencies sign a declaration, under penalty of perjury, that they were complying with the JFK Act...
Trump Releases Some, But Not All, JFK Assassination Records
President Donald Trump on Thursday agreed not to release the full tranche of records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, acquiescing to last-minute requests from national security agencies that some of those records remain secret.
The US government released over 2,800 records Thursday night in an effort to comply with a 1992 law mandating the documents' release, but kept roughly 300 files classified out of concern for US national security, law enforcement and foreign relations.
by Jeremy Diamond and Kevin Liptak
JFK Assassination Records - 2017 Additional Documents Release
For more see the comprehensive section: JFK Records Act And ARRB
The JFK Show (9:26)
The wit and humor of President John F. Kennedy is revealed in this series of clips from his various press conferences.
The wit of JFK (3:58)
JFK Crowd Work (3:19)
JFK was a great stand-up comedian as well as a fine President.
I Still Imagine
In first grade
My president was blown away
I wondered why
In fifth grade
Martin and Robert were filled with lead
I began to understand
In the summer before high school
Morrison was in French soil
But no one was there
I became scared
For John
The warmest 8th of December
In New York City history
I was driving my cab
When Vinny broke the news
From that day till now
At 29
Every time I pass 1 West 72nd street
I feel humanity
Has no hope
But I still imagine
by Mark R. Elsis
September 21, 1987
Other Timelines
An excellent timeline. 292 pages, of which 98 pages are on November 22, 1963 and 194 pages on November 23, 1963 to October 26, 2017.
by Ira David Wood III
http://www.assassinationresearch.com/v2n1/chrono2.pdf
The JFK Assassination Chronology
An excellent timeline of 131 pages, from January 19, 1961 to November 21, 1963.
Compiled by Ira David Wood III
https://www.assassinationresearch.com/v2n1/chrono1.pdf
The JFK Assassination: A Researcher’s Guide
An great book with an excellent 226 page timeline.
by Don Becker
https://books.google.com/books?id=tZm4eYwLBycC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Selected Milestones Of The Kennedy Presidency
The following is a chronological selection of key events, speeches, and legislation from President John F. Kennedy's administration.
President John F. Kennedy - Key Events
https://millercenter.org/president/john-f-kennedy/key-events
Daily JFK
The Life of John F. Kennedy
JFK Assassination Timeline (November 22, 1963 - November 24, 1963)
A very good timeline.
by L.D.C. Fitzgerald
http://www.savingjackiek.com/conspiracy_timeline.html
John Fitzgerald Kennedy: 1917 - 1963
https://www.nps.gov/jofi/learn/education/upload/time-line.pdf
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:John_Fitzgerald_Kennedy
Timeline Of The Presidency Of John F. Kennedy - January 2, 1960 - November 25, 1963
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_presidency_of_John_F._Kennedy
JFK History Maker - A 50 Year Retrospective
Relive the day, understand the man, and see what America lost. See the strength and youth of a President who was so tragically struck down in his prime. Learn about JFK's childhood, his wartime exploits and his career before the Presidency. Most importantly, explore the three years of his Presidency up close. Cherish his successes and learn from his failures. Understand the events that helped mold the early part of the turbulent 1960's.
http://www.historycentral.com/JFK/Index.html
January 1961 - November 1963
A Daily Calendar of President Kennedy's Schedule Month by Month
http://www.historycentral.com/JFK/Calendar/Listing.html
Day By Day Timeline
JFK, Vietnam And Laos
http://www.jfkessentials.com/forum/index.php?topic=108.0
JFK: A Timeline Of His Life 1917 - 1963
http://www.sptimes.com/News/111199/JFK/timeline.shtml
JFK Assassination Timeline
http://www.jfk.org/the-assassination/jfk-assassination-timeline
John F. Kennedy Timeline
http://www.shmoop.com/john-f-kennedy/timeline.html
John F. Kennedy Timeline
http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/jfk/timeline.html
Timeline Of The Presidency Of John F. Kennedy
https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Timeline%20of%20the%20presidency%20of%20John%20F.%20Kennedy
Timeline: Milestones In The Life Of John F. Kennedy
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/jfk-interactive-timeline.htm
Timeline: The Life Of President John F. Kennedy
by Emma-Jean Weinstein
http://legacy.wbur.org/2013/11/13/timeline-president-john-kennedy
The Kennedy Half Century Timeline: The Life And Career Of JFK
http://www.thekennedyhalfcentury.com/kennedy-timeline.php
Defining Moments From John F. Kennedy's Life
by Freeman Stevenson
John F. Kennedy Timeline
http://www.softschools.com/timelines/john_f_kennedy_timeline/122
JFK A Timeline 1917 - 1963
http://www.slideshare.net/bestoldfarm/john-f-kennedy-14346012
JFK Assassination Timeline
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/22/jfk-assassination-timeline
Timeline Of The John F. Kennedy Assassination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_John_F._Kennedy_assassination
Kennedy Assassination Timeline (17:43)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq46PU3kD8I
John F Kennedy Timeline Conspiracy (1:48:28)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld0Sm4LP9jE
Timeline Of The John F. Kennedy Assassination (55:06)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_9vOTGyJEQ
Timeline Of The John F. Kennedy Assassination (27:07)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk2JF5PtVvI
November Days 1963
http://novemberdays1963.tumblr.com
Inside Job
http://jfkinsidejob.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/INSIDE-JOB.pdf
November 22, 1963 (Friday)
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?13233-Deep-Politics-Timeline/page8
Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) Timeline
by Richard Hocking
Four Days In November
http://www.news965.com/news/national/jfk-timeline-1963
John F. Kennedy Early Life And Education
http://www.john-f-kennedy.org/Jugend_Studium-en.html
JFK Timeline
Speeches
Speeches
http://Speeches.November221963.com
News Conferences All 64
News Conferences All 64
http://NewsConferencesAll64.November221963.com
Executive Orders All 214
Executive Orders All 214
http://ExecutiveOrdersAll214.November221963.com
National Security Action Memoranda All 272 (NSAM)
National Security Action Memoranda All 272 (NSAM)
http://NSAMAll272.November221963.com
Books
Books
http://Books.November221963.com
Films
Films
http://Films.November221963.com
Videos
Videos
http://Videos.November221963.com
Photographs
Photographs
http://Photographs.November221963.com
Quotes
Quotes
http://Quotes.November221963.com
Resources
Resources
http://Resources.November221963.com
100 Sections
100 Sections
http://100Sections.November221963.com
Home
Home
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Timeline may be reprinted in parts or in its entirety. Please just give credit to me, Mark R. Elsis, and link back to: http://November221963.com
Bless you
Go In Peace
May 29, 2017