Lee Harvey Oswald, Lyndon Johnson & the JFK Assassination

By John Delane Williams

Incorporating the work of Ernst Titovets, this book explores the life of Lee Harvey Oswald, painting him as a real person—not as the straw man concocted to match the image of a lone assassin in search of greatness or infamy. Among other facets of his life and personality, the text explores Lee Harvey Oswald's relationships with Jack Ruby, David Ferrie, and Judyth Baker.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trine Day
• Release date: Oct 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781634242691

Book preview

Lee Harvey Oswald, Lyndon Johnson & the JFK Assassination

Copyright ©2019 John Delane Williams. All Rights Reserved.

Published by:

Trine Day LLC

PO Box 577

Walterville, OR 97489

1-800-556-2012

www.TrineDay.com

[e-mail]

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Williams, John Delane, 1938- author. | Baker, Judyth Vary, author of foreword.

Title: Lee Harvey Oswald, Lyndon Johnson and the JFK Assassination / John Delane Williams, Ph.D. ; foreword by Judyth Vary Baker.

Description: First edition. | Walterville, OR : TrineDay LLC, 2019. |

Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: "Incorporating the work of Ernst Titovets, this book explores the life of Lee Harvey Oswald, painting him as a real person-not as the straw man concocted to match the image of a lone assassin in search of greatness or infamy. Among other facets of his life and personality, the text explores Lee

Harvey Oswald’s relationships with Jack Ruby, David Ferrie, and Judyth Baker"-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019022653 (print) | LCCN 2019022654 (ebook) | ISBN 9781634242684 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781634242691 (epub) | ISBN 9781634242707 (mobi)

Subjects: LCSH: Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963--Assassination. | Oswald, Lee Harvey. | Oswald, Lee Harvey--Friends and associates. | Assassins--United States--Biography. | Conspiracies--United States--History--20th century.

Classification: LCC E842.9.W4693 2019 (print) | LCC E842.9 (ebook) | DDC 364.152/4092 [B]--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019022653

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019022654

First Edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the USA

Distribution to the Trade by:

Independent Publishers Group (IPG)

814 North Franklin Street

Chicago, Illinois 60610

312.337.0747

www.ipgbook.com

Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.

–John F. Kennedy

Foreword

From childhood’s hour I have not been

As others were – I have not seen

As others saw.

– Edgar Alan Poe

– from Ernst Titovets’ book Oswald: Russian Episode

The above quote seems apropos to begin a preface to Dr. John Delane Williams’ new book, Lee Harvey Oswald, Lyndon Johnson and the JFK Assassination. The book is the latest to synthesize a view of Lee Harvey Oswald’s short life from his childhood to his own assassination at the hands of Jack Ruby on November 24, 1963. The focus is mostly on Oswald’s last five years of life. It is significant that Dr. Ernst Titovets chose Poe’s quote to allude to his understanding of his three-year relationship with the young Oswald. Titovets’ friendship with Lee Harvey Oswald is unique. It developed three years prior to the rest of the world’s familiarity with Oswald because of his alleged murder of John F. Kennedy. Dr. Titovets’ met Oswald in Minsk, Belarus where Oswald was in self-exile. Dr. Williams is able to draw on Dr. Titovets’ account of this friendship to flesh out a fresh view of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Dr. Williams’ book isn’t just another summary of other authors’ works but is a fresh approach to understanding the JFK assassination. This new synthesis is made possible because of the extensive interviews Professor Williams’ conducted with Dr. Ernst Titovets, Judyth Vary Baker, Madeleine Brown and many others. I have done the same and can speak to the veracity of what we have found. This in-depth analysis of Lee Harvey Oswald’s pre-November 22, 1963 life gives us a very unique view of Oswald that has not previously been available in one book.

It was an auspicious day when Dr. John Delane Williams and I met at a 1999 JFK assassination conference in Minneapolis at the University of Minnesota. The meeting began a relationship spanning the next 20 years, both as friends and research associates investigating the JFK assassination. We had both been doing JFK assassination research from the 1960s to our first meeting in 1999, he in my hometown of Grand Forks, North Dakota at the University of North Dakota where he was a professor of educational statistics. During that same time I was teaching history in Minnesota high schools including, coincidentally, at John F. Kennedy High School, in the Minneapolis area. There I taught the JFK assassination many times a year as a world historic event rather than just as a domestic crime.

My own interest began on September 25, 1963, two months before the death of JFK, when I was involved in an anomalous event as a sixteen-year old attending a JFK speech at what was to become my alma mater, the University of North Dakota. A seed was planted on that day because of the unusual nature of my presence at JFK’s speech that day and his subsequent murder two months later. Ostensibly, my experience on September 25, 1963 was as a witness to either an aborted attempt on JFK’s life or an assassination dry run. Richard Case Nagell robbed a bank on September 20, 1963. His purpose was to derail a late September plot to end JFK’s presidency. This aborted assassination attempt was what I now believe I witnessed five days later in North Dakota.

During our first meeting at the 1999 Minneapolis JFK conference, I asked John if he had ever heard of the 1954 connection between Stanley, North Dakota and Lee Harvey Oswald. Even though he hadn’t heard of this obscure event it immediately caught his attention. In 1998 I had become aware of research that placed Oswald in North Dakota and of course I was very interested because of my experience at Kennedy’s speech years earlier. I then recounted my 35-year-old story to Dr. Williams. After that discussion, we decided to head to Stanley, North Dakota to investigate the theory. John, as a professional researcher, put together an impressive research protocol for interviews we planned to do in Stanley. With this trip, our twenty-year collaboration on the JFK assassination began.

What we discovered in North Dakota is still an ambiguous narrative that uncovered tangents that were unexpected but still inconclusive about Lee Harvey Oswald’s possible time in Stanley. Oswald’s actual time in Stanley became much more problematic but did open other possibilities for further exploration. I think for both John and I this was our first full-blown attempt at ferreting out something about Oswald that no one else had looked at as directly as we attempted to do. John Armstrong (Harvey and Lee) had done the initial work on Oswald’s supposed time in North Dakota, and he encouraged us to continue pursuing his research in more depth. Our research was published in the 2000 issue of the journal The Fourth Decade.

During the last 20 years we have continued to support each other at numerous conferences in New Orleans, Dallas, Minneapolis, and Grand Forks. Together we have interviewed many key witnesses of events leading up to the JFK assassination and its aftermath whose stories will now be available in one place in Professor William’s new book.

Dr. Williams, being the scholar that he is, has been one of the most prolific researcher-writers that I know of. If one looks at his publishing history both in the area of educational research statistics and JFK assassination studies, you will see the amount of energy he has expended for both fields is truly impressive. Even when he embraces some of the more controversial narratives surrounding the assassination, his statistical analysis of the probability of certain events taking place has to be reckoned with.

It has been our privilege to meet many researchers on our journey to this point. They continue to motivate us to persevere in the search for truth. We agree that this tragedy is a most pivotal event in American history, and it needs to be resolved. Closure may never happen, but without it John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963, will always leave a hole in the soul of the America we both love.

Gary Severson

Minneapolis

August 22, 2019

Professor Williams and Judyth Vary Baker

Ernst Titovets, John Williams, Gary Severson, and Mark Newman at 2013 JFK Assassination Conference

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Epigraph

Foreword

INTRODUCTION

Lee Harvey Oswald

THE LEGACY OF JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY

The Presidential Years

Putting a Man on the Moon

Peace Corps

The Bay of Pigs

Bay of Pigs: The Decision to Not Allow a Second Air Raid

Civil Rights

The Cuban Missile Crisis

A President for Peace

Ich bin ein Berliner

An Important Part of John F. Kennedy’s Legacy Not Widely Known During His Lifetime

TIMELINE TO DALLAS

June 9, 1963 to November 22, 1963

TIMELINE NOVEMBER 23, 1963 THROUGH THE JOHNSON YEARS

OSWALD’S EARLY YEARS

The Move to New York

An Interesting Encounter with a Border Agent

A Visit to North Dakota

Back to New York

New Orleans, January 1954 to August 1955

Oswald Meets Captain David Ferrie

High School Dropout

OSWALD’S MARINE YEARS

Oswald’s Touch of Success

The Queen Bee

A Changed Man

Recruiting Oswald to Go to the Soviet Union

OSWALD’S RUSSIAN EXPERIENCE

Getting to the Soviet Union

Oswald is Allowed to Stay in Russia

Working at the Radio Factory

The Apartment

The U-2 Incident and the Subsequent Trial.

Oswald Meets Ernst Titovets

Oswald and Titovets Become Good Friends.

Recording Oswald’s American English

Ella German

Socialism vs. Capitalism and Who’s Army is Better?

Oswald Meets Marina Prussakova

OSWALD RETURNS TO THE USA

George deMohrenschildt

The Last Meeting Between The Demohrenschildts And The Oswalds

The DeMohrenschildt’s Actions after the Assassination Regarding Oswald

THE SUMMER OF ‘63: OSWALD’S RETURN TO NEW ORLEANS

David Ferrie

Guy Banister

Dr. Alton Ochsner

Background on Ochsner’s Feud with Huey Long

INCA

The Cutter Incident

The Project

Jack Ruby

The Application Process for Jobs at Reily Coffee

Interview by Dr. Ochsner

Was Their Getting Jobs at Reily a Chance Event?

Dr. Mary Sherman

The Get-Together at Dr. Sherman’s Apartment

Getting into Their Jobs

Lee Harvey Oswald’s Driver License

The Library Card

The 500 Club

June 16, 1963: Passing out FPFC leaflets to Sailors and Stevedores

An Unexpected Flight to Toronto for Oswald

The Passport

The Gun Shipment from Venezuela

June 29, 1963; The Marriage Proposal

The Crescent City Garage

Lee and Judyth’s Handlers

The Anti-Castro Training Camp

Oswald’s First Trip to Mexico City

Spring Hill College

Premonitions of Being a Patsy

Aftermath of the FBI Raid on the Anti-Castro Training Camp and the Leaflet Campaign

Dutz Murret Came to Oswald’s Apartment

Passing Leaflets at the Trade-Mart

Conversation Carte Blanche, featuring Lee Harvey Oswald

August 23-27, 1963; Richard Case Nagell

Jackson

THREE WEEKS IN SEPTEMBER

The Plan

Waiting for the Cancer

A Meeting in Dallas with Mr. B

Oswald’s Meeting with Richard Case Nagell in New Orleans

Another Oswald Impersonator

Nagell in El Paso, September 20, 1963

Success at the Jackson State Hospital

MEXICO: LATE SEPTEMBER – EARLY OCTOBER 1963

The Trip from the Mexican Border to Mexico City

The Problem of Impersonators

The Project

Sylvia Duran

Robert Clayton Buick

Return to Dallas

OCTOBER 1963

Another Imposter

Returning to Dallas

Alex Rorke

Events Surrounding President Kennedy

National Security Action Memorandum 263 (NSAM-263)

The McNamara-Taylor Report on Vietnam

What Were President Kennedy’s Views on Withdrawing American Military Personnel in Vietnam, Both Public and Private?

Oswald Starts Work at the Texas Schoolbook Depository; His Second Child is born.

Walker, Stevenson, and the ACLU

A Car for Marina

The Bobby Baker Situation

ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS PLANNED PRIOR TO DALLAS

Chicago, November 2, 1963

November 18, 1963: Tampa

Abraham Bolden’s Proposed Testimony to the Warren Commission

The Ordeals in Abraham Bolden’s Life

The Two Trials

Spagnoli’s Trial

The Ordeal Continued

The Proposed C- Day Coup, Planned for December 1, 1963

What Ever Happened to C-Day/JFK-Almeida?

EARLY NOVEMBER TO NOVEMBER 21, 1963

Oswald’s Concerns

Joseph Adams Milteer

November 20, 1963: Three Oswalds

Rose Cherami

The Last Telephone Contact Between Lee Oswald and Judyth Baker

November 21, 1963

NOVEMBER 22, 1963

Buell Wesley Frazier

Vice President Johnson Calls Madeleine Brown from Fort Worth

The Morning in Fort Worth

Arriving in Dallas

The Whereabouts of Richard Nixon

Security Stripping the Motorcade

The Order of the Vehicles in the Parade

The Motorcade

LBJ’s Behavior in the Motorcade.

A Chance Spectator at the Motorcade

Inside the Texas School Book Depository

Oswald’s Whereabouts Between 12:33 p.m. and 1:00 p.m.

George Bush in Dallas

J.D. Tippit

Parkland Hospital

The Charged Atmosphere at Parkland Hospital

Taking President Kennedy’s Remains to Air Force One

Oswald at the Dallas Police Station

Update from New Orleans

The Dallas Press Conference

A Telephone Call from Dr. Robert B. Livingston to Dr. Humes

A conundrum

General Curtis LeMay’s Change in Plans

The Delivery of the President’s Body to the Autopsy in Bethesda

What Happened at the Pre-Autopsy?

Tom Robinson and Ed Reed

Photographs, X-Rays, and the Autopsy Film

The End of the Autopsy, the Beginning of the Work of the Morticians, and the Social Photographer

DALLAS – NOVEMBER 23-25

Oswald (or Someone) Talked

Jack Ruby in the Early Morning of November 23, 1963

The Afternoon and Evening at the Dallas Police Station

Sunday November 24, 1963

How did Ruby get into the Dallas Police Station?

The Murder of Oswald

Why Did Jack Ruby Kill Lee Harvey Oswald?

The Burial of Lee Harvey Oswald

DEVELOPMENTS WITH THE AUTOPSY

The Autopsy Reports

Lens Three

Lens Four

Two Brains

What Finally Happened to John F. Kennedy’s brain?

THE ZAPRUDER FILM AND OTHER FILMS AND PHOTOS

How about the Zapruder Film– Has It been Altered? If so, how Much, and Why?

Was the Zapruder Film Altered? Doug Horne’s View

A Hollywood Connection

WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 23, 1963 TO JANUARY 23, 1964

Whitney Young and Civil Rights

The Beginnings of What Would Become the Warren Commission

National Security Action Memorandum No. 273

Lyndon Johnson Before a Joint Session of Congress, 11/27/63

Johnson’s Warming to a National Commission to Investigate the Assassination

Johnson’s Stream-of-Consciousness Rant to Katharine Graham

Governor Connally

President Johnson’s Concern About the Bobby Baker Scandal

The FBI Report on the Assassination

State of the Union Message, January 8, 1964

The 24th Amendment to the Constitution – Removal of the Poll Tax

ADVOCACY RESEARCH: REVISITING THE WARREN COMMISION

The Relation of Bayesian Statistical Analysis to Prosecutorial Advocacy

The Handling of Data – the Case of Victoria Adams

Oswald’s Income

The FBI and the Warren Commission

The FBI and Oswald

The CIA and the Warren Commission

The Staff of the Warren Commission

Arlen Specter and the Single Bullet Theory

1964: THE BEGINNING OF THE WORST OF TIMES

January, 1964

The Resumption of the Hearings of the Senate Rules Committee

February, 1964

Don Reynolds

Ted Sorensen

The House Vote on the Civil Rights Bill

The Tax Reduction Act of 1964

March, 1964

April, 1964

The Bobby Kennedy for Vice-President Dilemma

The Civil Rights Bill

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

August 1964

Landslide Lyndon

The Senate Rules Committee Again met with Donald Reynolds

JOHNSON’S FULL TERM 1965-1969

The Great Society

Medicare

Medicaid

Welfare

The Arts and Cultural Institutions

Transportation

Consumer Protection

The Environment

Housing

Rural Development

The Vietnam War

The Tone of the Johnson Full Term

American Deaths During the Vietnam Era22

France Withdraws from NATO

The Attack on the USS Liberty

The Detroit Riot in July, 1967

1968-The USS Pueblo

The Tet Offensive

The New Hampshire Primary

The My Lai Massacre

Robert Kennedy Enters the Presidential Race

Johnson Announces His decision to not Seek Re-election

The Murder of Martin Luther King

The California Democratic Primary

The Democratic National Convention

The 1968 Election

The End of the Johnson Presidency

What, Can be Said About the Lyndon Johnson Presidency?

WHY IS OSWALD STILL CONSIDERED THE ASSASSIN?

A Post-Assassination Conspiracy – The Warren Commission

Victoria Adams and her Three Co-Workers: Proof that Oswald wasn’t on the Sixth Floor at the Time of the Assassination

Highly Unusual Reports on Oswald Prior to November 22, 1963.

The Telegram Sent to the New Orleans FBI

Oswald as a Covert Operator

Was Oswald involved in a Conspiracy or Conspiracies to Assassinate JFK?

Sorting out the Conspiracy Scenarios- A meeting of Conspirators in late August, 1963

Why Oswald?

The Maintaining of False Beliefs

How Does This Apply to Oswald?

So, When Will Oswald be Exonerated?

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

Chicago, Tampa, and Dallas: Three Cities, Three Patsies

Lee Harvey Oswald

Lyndon Johnson

The CIA

The FBI

The Mafia

The Secret Service

The Military

The Oil Cartel

The Military-Congressional-Industrial Complex

The Warren Commission

THE CONTINUING COVER-UP

The Manchurian Candidate Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight

The Inheritance and the JFK Assassination

JFK’s Gold Cartier Watch

Fulton’s Conversations with Robert Bouck

Fulton Makes the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List

Further Detention and the Legal Proceedings

The Sentence

The Ensuing Incarceration

The Continuing Cover-up

Index

Contents

Landmarks

INTRODUCTION

The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy has fascinated readers from, as they say, Day One. In the reporting of the assassination and surrounding issues, initially, the traditional news sources reported what came into their hands. At a very early stage, there were anomalies. One such anomaly came from Christchurch, New Zealand. Within an hour of the taking of Oswald to the police station, the Christchurch Star published an article about Oswald’s background, including his having lived in the Soviet Union (Russia). This story was out in a regular edition about four hours after Oswald was arrested. ( Christchurch Star, November 23, 1963)

Sometimes ordinary citizens found themselves in circumstances that belied the official stories that came out of Dallas. One of these involved Junior Moore in Mobile Alabama on November 21, 1963. Junior was told to come down to the FBI office four blocks away. There, he was asked whether he knew anything about Lee Harvey Oswald. Perhaps the question came either because Oswald had given a lecture on Russia at Spring Hill College in Mobile the previous summer, or the interest could have been spurred by the telegram received at the New Orleans FBI on the previous Sunday about a possible assassination attempt in Dallas, November 22-23.¹ Were the FBI to have acknowledged that they had in fact interviewed someone regarding Lee Harvey Oswald just before the assassination, trying to maintain that they had little or no information on Oswald just before the assassination would be seen to be a lie.

A second anomaly relates to a neurophysiologist, Adele Edisen. She was re-entering the workforce and had obtained a post-doctoral fellowship at Tulane University. An administrator at the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness (NINDB) Dr. Jose Rivera, had conversed with Edisen at a national gathering. A number of quirky incidents occurred in their conversations. Rivera asked Edisen if she knew Lee Harvey Oswald. Rivera indicated that Oswald would be moving to New Orleans soon, and Edisen should meet Oswald and his Russian wife. He gave Edisen Oswald’s telephone number when he got to New Orleans. And Rivera told Edisen to tell Oswald to shoot the chief. The information seemed bewildering and nonsensical – until November 22, 1963.²

A third anomaly was that of Rose Cherami (nee Melba Christine Marcades), who, was with two unknown men on the early morning of November 20, 1963, near Eunice, Louisiana. As they were driving down the highway one of the men threw Rose out of the car. Rose was picked up and taken to a hospital, and then to a police station. Rose was said to have told those who would listen that President Kennedy would be killed in Dallas, two days later. No one seriously took what she said as being of any value.³

The Rose Cherami story is the only story of these three that surfaced any time near the assassination. It would be the 1990’s before the first two would see the light of day.

One anomaly that did become a controversial issue is that of the magic bullet. Initially, the Warren Commission had hypothesized three bullets, two hitting President Kennedy, and one hitting Governor Connally. Since one bullet missed the Presidential limousine entirely and hit a section of curbing that broke loose and hit James Tague as he was watching the motorcade, it became necessary to revise the scenario if the number of shots were to be limited to three.⁴ It came to Arlen Specter, a lawyer serving on the investigative team, to come up with the magic bullet theory, wherein a bullet fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository struck President Kennedy in the back of the head, exited his throat, made a 90 degree turn to the right and then entered Governor Connally, leaving several serious wounds and somehow ended up in a stretcher in the hospital, still in pristine condition. One more bit of magic was that the wound in President Kennedy’s throat gave the appearance of an entrance wound and the wound in the back of his head gave the appearance of an exit wound!⁵

Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald has been characterized, first by the Warren Commission, as a loner, a traitor, and a person who was unable to have sufficient income to support his family. Further he did not have any knowledge of Jack Ruby or David Ferrie. This is the legend that the CIA wanted to construct regarding Oswald. None of it was true.

Lee Harvey Oswald’s life is a major part of this present writing. What is different here is that the entirety of his life is addressed. Two big chunks of his life that are omitted from most presentations are Oswald’s time in the Soviet Union (Russia) and his time in New Orleans in 1963. Oswald’s time in Russia was written about by his best friend there, Ernst Titovets.⁶ At the time of Oswald’s being in Russia, Titovets was a medical student. Titovets received his medical degree and subsequently two scientific doctorates; his career was as a medical researcher. Titovets was unaware of the characterizations of Oswald’s life in Russia by American authors. For example, author John Armstrong made the statement that Oswald never spoke Russian in Russia, except possibly with Marina.⁷ When I contacted Titovets about this, he said that, once Oswald learned to speak Russian, whenever Oswald and Titovets were with friends, they spoke Russian all the time.⁸

A second area that is most important is Oswald’s time in New Orleans from April to September 1963. In April, 1963, Oswald met Judyth Vary (who shortly became Judyth Vary Baker upon her marriage to fellow University of Florida student Robert Baker). It is Judyth Baker’s story that fills this gap in Oswald’s life.⁹ Not only is Oswald not a loner; two of his good friends were David Ferrie and Jack Ruby. Oswald met Ferrie when he was a cadet in the Civil Air Patrol, where Oswald was taught to be a pilot by Ferrie. In the Summer of 1963, Oswald was a currier for a secret medical research project in New Orleans funded by the CIA, under the direction of Anton Ochsner, M.D. ¹⁰ Oswald, Judyth Baker, and David Ferrie all worked closely with Mary Sherman, M.D. During the late spring and early Summer, Jack Ruby came to New Orleans and met with Oswald and Judyth Baker. It was during this time that, as a patron to the research project Ruby found out about the development of fast acting cancers, intended for use on Fidel Castro. This also gave Ruby the heads-up, after his murder conviction was overturned, that he was injected by a physician with, likely, cancer cells: that he also was being murdered.¹¹

There is the issue of Oswald’s financial circumstances. Oswald was directed by the CIA to give the appearance of being poor. As a son of a widow in his early life, there was little unique about Oswald. It was the depression at that time, and many were in frugal circumstances. Once he entered the military at age 17, though his take home pay was not high, he seemed to have extra resources. In Japan, Oswald was recruited to be a false defector. In that capacity, his needs were likely met. He seemed to be getting money from the CIA and the FBI on his return to the United States. His good friend George deMohrenschildt was given several thousand dollars to save for Oswald until some later point in time. He had also given Mrs. Ruth Paine money to buy a car for Marina. Oswald gave Judyth Baker $400 to help when they were able to reunite in Mexico. During his last two months of life, Oswald received $3665.89. according to a report by Richard Mosk, a staff lawyer for the Warren Commission, and Phillip Barson, an IRS Supervisor, which was turned over to the Warren Commission. This is not the financial information one would expect in 1963 for a poor man.¹²

It is a goal of this presentation to show that Oswald was not only a patsy for the persons planning the assassination of President Kennedy, but was in fact trying to intercede to stop it.

One other difference with most books about the assassination is the inclusion of the presidential terms of Lyndon Johnson. At a minimum, Johnson knew about the plan to assassinate President Kennedy, though he may not have known long before he went to the Murchison’s home and went into a meeting taking place there. Most likely he made statements there about the assassination scheduled for the next day. He revealed as much to his longtime mistress, Madeleine Brown, directly after leaving the meeting.¹³

The reason to address Johnson’s time in office is to compare it to what could be expected from a continued Kennedy presidency. In one sense, Johnson was very successful in getting Kennedy’s initiatives passed much more quickly than JFK might have. Ironically, Johnson had cautioned President Kennedy to proceed slowly on civil rights and other social programs. Invoking Kennedy’s name, Johnson used all the hand shaking and arm twisting to get the programs through. However, one could interpret Johnson’s behavior as a prelude to getting his Great Society programs passed through congress. Put another way, President Kennedy’s programs dovetailed perfectly with Johnson’s Great Society. There were two differences. Johnson was perfectly willing to help the military with their Vietnam agenda. It was the undoing of the Johnson presidency. Additionally, there was the deliberate loss of the USS Liberty during the Six Day War in 1967, as a pretense to enter the war on Israel’s side. The treatment of the survivors of the USS Liberty was inhumane. The deliberate attack on the USS Liberty was treasonous.¹⁴

An important issue to address is the legacy of President Kennedy, and what was lost forever with his assassination. One of the most important parts of his legacy was not known during his lifetime (and as of this writing, still not widely known). At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, between 95-100 of the 172 Soviet missiles were operational. The Joint Chiefs had every intention of bombing the missile sites; only the steadfastness of President Kennedy kept them from their goal.¹⁵ Among the losses occurring from the assassination of President Kennedy, beyond the dynamic young president, was the carnage in Vietnam. It was President Kennedy’s goal to remove all military, except for advisors, from Vietnam by the end of 1965. Instead, by the end of 1965, Vietnam had already become a bloodbath, and as President Kennedy foresaw, we did have men on the moon before the end of the decade.

Endnotes

1Williams, J.D. (2004). Was the FBI Searching for Oswald the Day Before the Assassination? The Dealey Plaza Echo, 8, 2, 46-52.

2Edisen’s story was first published in the Third Decade, a JFK Assassination research journal, under the pseudonym K.S. Turner; Albarelli, H.P. (2013). A Secret Order: Investigating the High Strangeness and Synchronicity of the JFK Assassination. Walterville, OR: Trine Day, pp. 127-162.

3Elliott, T.C. (2013). A Rose by Many Other Names: Rose Cherami & the JFK Assassination. Walterville, OR: Trine Day.

4Tague, J.T. (2003). Truth Withheld: A Survivor’s Story. Dallas: Excell Digital Press.

5Groden, R.J. & Livingstone, H.E. (1989). High Treason: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy What Really Happened. New York: The Conservatory Press, pp. 54-61.

66Titovets, E. (2010). Oswald’s Russian Episode. Minsk Belerus: MonLitera Publishing House.

7Armstrong, J. (2003). Harvey & Lee: How the CIA Framed Oswald. Arlington TX: Quasar, pp. 339-340.

8Williams, J.D. & Titovets, E. (November, 2013). "Did Oswald Speak Russian in Russia?" 50th Anniversary Conference, Arlington, TX. Also published in JFK-E/Deep Politics Quarterly, (2014). 1, 3, 21-34.

9Baker, J.V. (2010). Me & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald. Walterville OR: Trine Day.

10Wilds, J. & Harkey, I. (1990). Alton Ochsner: Surgeon of the South. Baton Rouge LA: Louisiana State University Press.

11Haslam, E. (2007). Dr. Mary’s Monkey: How the Unsolved Murder of a Doctor, a Secret Laboratory in New Orleans and Cancer-Causing Monkey Viruses are Linked to Lee Harvey Oswald, the JFK Assassination and Emerging Global Epidemics. Walterville, OR: Trine Day, p. 337. See also, Haslam, E.T. (1997). Mary, Ferrie & the Monkey Virus: The Story of an Underground Medical Laboratory. Albuquerque NM: Wordsworth Communications,

12Shenon, P. (2013). A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination. New York: Henry Holt & Co., p.452.

13Brown, M.D. (1997). Texas in the Morning: The Love Story of Madeleine Brown and President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Baltimore: Conservatory Press,

14Allen, R.J. (2012). Beyond Treason. Create Space. (Available Through Amazon.com).

15Norris, R.S. & Kristensen, H.M. (2012). The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Nuclear Order of Battle, October and November, 1962. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 68, 6.

Chapter One

THE LEGACY OF

JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY

Yet, in his 32 months in office, John F. Kennedy definitely left a legacy. His legacy can be described as those actions and activities, that were known during his lifetime, but their deeper and more personal importance only became known with the passing of time, and information about his activities became public knowledge after his assassination.

The Presidential Years

Afirst area of JFK’s legacy is his speechmaking, his glibness, his humor, and his charismatic persona. First, it would be remiss not to acknowledge the brilliance of his speechwriter, Ted Sorensen. But Sorensen did not write the speeches totally on his own; through conversations with JFK and some of his other advisors, discussions would take place regarding not only the substance of the speech, but also what it would try to accomplish. Then Sorensen would set out to wordsmith a speech to meet these expectations. ² One of the finest examples of this wordsmithing was JFK’s inaugural address. While Sorensen was a master of the art, JFK in turn took the text (usually reworking it to fit his ideas) and masterfully delivered it, completely owning the speech. Phrases within the inaugural address resonate with us today:

And so my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.

This was followed by:

My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what Americans will do for you, but together what we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America, or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but that knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.³

No one has ever topped it.

Putting a Man on the Moon

One of the more spectacular aspects of President Kennedy’s legacy is his intent for America to land a man on the moon in the decade of the 1960’s. Soviet Russia’s success in space had, for the time being, relegated the United States to second place in the space race. The Soviets had the first orbiting satellite (Sputnik I) in October, 1957. They followed that with the first creature in space (a dog named Laika) in November, 1957. Only in January 1958 did the U.S. gets its first orbiting satellite. The Soviets sent a probe to the moon (Luna II) on September 12, 1959. This was followed by Luna III, which photographed the far side of the moon, October 4, 1959. And on April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space, making a 108-minute orbital flight in Vostik 1. Though Allen Shepard did make a sub-orbital flight into space on May 5, 1961, it was not the equivalent of Gagarin’s earlier achievement. President Kennedy made a special presentation to a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961, and asked for an additional 5 to 7 billion dollars over the next 5 years for the space program: The U.S. should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. 4 While this did not occur in his lifetime, it was accomplished on July 16, 1969. 5

Peace Corps

One of the enduring programs that was begun by President Kennedy was the Peace Corps. Though others had conceived ideas that involved citizens to help the needy in other countries, it would fall to the US Representative Jack Kennedy to propose in 1951 that young college graduates would find a full life in bringing technical advice and assistance to the underprivileged and backward Middle East.… In that calling, these men would follow the constructive work done by the religious missionaries in these countries over the past 100 years. 6

On the campaign trail in 1960, late at night on October 14, on the steps of the Union on the University of Michigan campus, John Kennedy announced that such an organization would be part of his presidency. On March 1, 1961, after being in office just over a month, Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924 creating the Peace Corps.7 In 1963, President Kennedy proposed a Peace Corps for the underprivileged in the United States. That program, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), was enacted in 1965. Both programs continue to the present.

The Peace Corps program has sent over 220,000 volunteers in its history to 140 countries.8 While the idea behind the Peace Corps was to have American volunteers go to other countries and attempt to help the people there with better farming techniques, or, perhaps teaching them English or teaching them in their own language. One unexpected outcome for the volunteers is that they were likely to learn something about themselves and about the United States. One Peace Corps volunteer observed, One of the main things I learned is that the third world is not different; it is the United States that’s different. We’re the ones that are oddballs.9

The

Bay of Pigs

Some might think it unusual to include the Bay of Pigs in a discussion of President Kennedy’s legacy. Rather, its omission would miss an important aspect of his presidency. To understand the Bay of Pigs, necessarily includes the Eisenhower administration. The CIA had begun addressing Fidel Castro shortly after the revolution in Cuba. They had pleased President Eisenhower with a quick overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. Eisenhower approved a program to deal with Fidel Castro on March 17, 1960. Subsequently Eisenhower, tiring of the lack of progress to a developed plan, informed CIA Director Allen Dulles and CIA Deputy Director for Plans Richard Bissell that he didn’t want to hear from them if they didn’t intend to go through with the removal of Castro, that they should stop talking to him about it. 10 Vice President Nixon strongly supported the CIA’s program, and hoped Castro could be successfully removed before the forthcoming presidential election. But life can become ever more complex. In the debates running up to the election, JFK hit two points hard: that if he were elected, he would move to close the missile gap with the Soviet Union, and that he thought that we should do more to help Cuba rid themselves of Castro by direct action. These points, which likely helped JFK’s candidacy, were not successfully rebutted by Richard Nixon. As Vice-President, he knew the missile gap was false, (i.e., the Soviet Union was ahead of the United States in missiles) but being advanced by the CIA. Nixon also knew that the U.S. was planning an attack to remove Castro from Cuba, but secrecy kept him quiet. Instead, Nixon proposed a blockade of Cuba, which seemed weak compared to JFK’s presented ideas. Shortly after the last debate, JFK was told that no missile gap existed. Perhaps he wasn’t sure about the new information; the information he was given as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had emphasized this missile gap. Given the amount of prior information, and the importance of this issue in his campaign, and the failure of Vice President Nixon to counter Kennedy’s claim about a missile gap, and