He Was Expendable: National Security, Political and Bureaucratic Cover Ups In the Murder of President John F. Kennedy

By James Kelleher

The Warren Commission got it wrong when it concluded there was no conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963.

James Kelleher, a political scientist, proves it in this well-researched examination that uncovers:

• evidence showing a shot came from the grassy knoll
• relationships between Oswald and numerous individuals never identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Warren Commission.
• connections between Jack Ruby and gangsters linked to the Central Intelligence Agency’s failed attempts to kill Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

Further evidence shows that President Lyndon B. Johnson helped squelch rumors about Soviet or Cuban involvement to avoid a conflict that could have led to nuclear war. Even the Secret Service destroyed evidence of credible attempts on the president’s life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Dec 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483416083

Book preview

HE WAS EXPENDABLE

National Security, Political and Bureaucratic Cover-Ups in the Murder of President John F. Kennedy

JAMES KELLEHER

Copyright © 2014 Dr. James Kelleher.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1609-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1608-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014914134

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 08/18/2016

CONTENTS

Introduction

PART I: CONSPIRACY

The Trip to Texas – November 21-22, 1963

Chapter 1: The Shot from the Grassy Knoll

Chapter 2: Oswald: In the Company of Others

Chapter 3: Oswald and the Murder of Officer J. D. Tippit

Chapter 4: Jack Ruby Murders Oswald

Chapter 5: The Medical Evidence: Conflict, Confusion, and the Negation of Science

PART II: STATE SECRETS

Chapter 6: National Security, Political, and Bureaucratic Protective Responses, and Assassination Theories

Chapter 7: Oswald’s Motivation and Linkages to the CIA/Mafia Murder Plots

PART III: REGICIDE

Chapter 8: Assassination Triggers and Scenarios

Chapter 9: Three Motorcades and the Stalking of JFK

PART IV: CONCLUSIONS

Chapter 10: Conclusions

Bibliography

Endnotes

TABLES

1.1: Witnesses to a shot from the Grassy Knoll by Location in Dealey Plaza

1.2: Witnesses to a shot from the TSBD by Location in Dealey Plaza

1.3: Comparison of Witnesses reporting the knoll as the source of the shots to those reporting the TSBD as the source (Excludes those identifying both TSBD/Knoll).

1.4: Summary of Sightings of Persons Fleeing Dealey Plaza

1.5: Other Suspicious Observations in Dealey Plaza

1.6: FBI Shooting Tests of Oswald’s Weapon

1.7: United States Army Laboratory Firing Tests

1.8: Probabilities of Assassin Scoring Hit on Large and Small Targets

3.1: Oswald’s Movements from the TSBD to 1026 N. Beckley Rooming House

3.2: Estimated Driving Time from the Gloco Service Station to North Beckley

3.3: Estimated Driving Time from N. Beckley to the Top Ten Record Store

4.1: Rank and numbers of Police Officers Known by Jack Ruby

6.1 Response of Government Officials and Bureaucratic Agencies to JFK Assassination.

6.2: Possible Conspiracy Theories

DIAGRAMS, EXHIBITS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

1. 1 Dealey Plaza: Grassy Knoll and Texas School Book Depository (Photo by author).

2. Diagram 1.1: JFK Exhibit 337. Microphone Locations in Dealey Plaza.

3. Diagram 1.2: JFK Exhibit 367. Correlations of Impulse Patterns to Test Shots.

4. JFK Exhibit F 671: Officer McLain turning on Houston Street.

5. JFK Exhibit F 675: Officers McLain and Courson on Elm Street.

6. JFK Exhibit F 683: Police examining grass median where a bullet may have hit.

7. Warren Commission Exhibit 875: Photos of motorcade reenactment.

8. JFK Exhibit 382: Photo of Oswald with rifle.

JFK Exhibit 383: Handwriting on back of photo.

9. Warren Commission Pizzo Exhibit 453 A and B.

10. Warren Commission Greener Exhibit: Oswald Tag.

11. Exhibit 3.1: Warren Commission Exhibit 1119-A Oswald’s Escape Route.

12. Exhibit 3.2: Photos of Officer J. D. Tippit’s patrol car.

13. Exhibit 3.3: Location of Witnesses to Tippit murder (prepared by Amy Kelleher).

14. Chart 4.1: Jack Ruby’s links to organized crime members (prepared by Amy Kelleher).

15. Exhibit 4.1: Main Street ramp Dallas Police HQ (Photo by author).

16. Exhibit 4.2: Main Street ramp Dallas Police HQ (Photo by author).

17. Exhibit 4.3: Warren Commission Exhibit 451 Photo of Larry Craford.

18. Exhibit 4.4: Warren Commission Exhibit 453 Photo of Larry Craford.

19. Exhibit 5.1: Warren Commission Exhibit 399 The Magic Bullet.

20. Exhibit 5.2: Autopsy Description Sheet.

21. Exhibit 5.3: President Kennedy’s suit jacket.

22. Exhibit 5.4: Baden/Dox Illustration.

23. Exhibit 5.5: Warren Commission Price Exhibit #5.

APPENDICES

1.1: Witnesses Identifying Knoll and Knoll Area as the Source of Shots in Dealey Plaza. Witnesses Identifying Knoll as Source of Shots (26).

1.2: Witnesses Identifying TSBD and TSBD area as the Source of the Shots. Witnesses Identifying TSBD as Source of Shots (29).

1.3: Witnesses Identifying Knoll and TSBD as Sources of Shots (12)

1.4: Chi-Square Test: Shots from Grassy Knoll and TSBD

1.5: Witnesses Reporting Seeing Smoke from Grassy Knoll (9)

1.6: Witnesses Who Reported Smelling Gunpowder (7)

1.7: Witnesses Identifying Different Gunfire Sounds (13)

2.1: The Early Life of Lee Harvey Oswald

4.1: 34 Dallas Police Officers in basement of Dallas Police Headquarters when Oswald was killed who knew Ruby. Citations from Warren Commission Documents and Exhibits

4.2: 45 Other Dallas Police Officers who knew Jack Ruby

To those researchers who have labored in the minefield of the Kennedy assassination, whose only motive was the search for truth.

INTRODUCTION

This is a book about conspiracy, political and bureaucratic cover-ups, and the role of state secrets in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The American public has been given no final answer regarding the who and why of Kennedy’s murder. Two official government investigations, the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, have produced conflicting conclusions. The former proclaimed that there was no evidence of a conspiracy, and the latter concluded that there was a 95% probability of a conspiracy. Both government bodies shut down after completing their investigations leaving no venue for the examination of new evidence or any process to resolve the inconsistencies between both investigations.

This problem was addressed by a former Warren Commission attorney who testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Judge Burt W. Griffin outlined a number of mistakes he thought were made by the Warren Commission. One of his criticisms gets at the root of why individual American citizens found themselves in the position of having to continue the investigation into Kennedy’s murder. Judge Griffin testified:

The eighth failure that I would like to identify for the committee is the failure to have a mechanism after the Warren Commission closed its operation for evaluating new evidence. I think the Warren Commission was shortsighted in writing its report and closing the door on further investigation. This led to claims that new evidence was being ignored or that the significance of old evidence had been overlooked.¹

As a result, the controversy about whether there was a conspiracy to kill the President lingers unresolved to this day. Consequently, the task of continuing the investigation has fallen to a limited number of scholars, lawyers, investigators, and average citizens. Many of these researchers have been dubbed as assassination buffs in a rather disparaging manner. This community has developed new arguments and counterarguments as well as theories and counter theories, while demolishing old arguments and theories concerning the assassination, but only to end up as divided as the Warren Commission and the HSCA.

Why another book on the Kennedy assassination? I have a long interest in the murder of President Kennedy starting with the day that I watched the story unfold at the RCA Building. In November 1963, I was working for the legal department of the Sinclair Oil Corporation as a clerk-typist. The offices of the Sinclair Oil Corporation were located in the Rockefeller Center complex at 600 Fifth Avenue. It was an interesting and educational experience for a young person. Sinclair’s offices were located in one of the most vibrant and stimulating sections of New York City. Each day I went out for lunch at about 1:00 p.m. and returned around 2:00 p.m. The RCA Building, located near the ice skating rink, had a teletype machine in a window at street level. Each day after lunch, I went over to view the latest news coming off the wire. November 22, 1963 was no different except for the news. As I stood watching the teletype, it sped into bulletin mode with the news that shots had been fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade. Within minutes the news came across that the President had been hit and was on the way to the hospital. I had to get back to the office, and not long after getting back the staff was informed that the President had died. The office closed for the rest of the day and the following Monday.

Today, as a political scientist, I recognize the impact on government of the assassination of a head of state. It was a major development which commanded examination and study and consequently, a book on the assassination. It would be wonderful if we were able to collect and code all of the disparate data about the assassination and feed it into one of the National Security Agency’s supercomputers. It would be most interesting to read the analysis and conclusions generated by the computer. Unfortunately, there is no funding for such a project and little likelihood that an NSA supercomputer will be made available for such a project. Hence, we are back to the level of the individual researcher and the necessity for him or her to produce a well-researched and logical analysis of the data. That in essence is the rationale for this new book on the Kennedy assassination.

The Warren Commission concluded that it could find no evidence of a conspiracy in the assassination of President Kennedy. The Commission supported its conclusion on the following basis:

• There was no evidence that shots were fired from any other location in Dealey Plaza other than the Texas School Book Depository.

• Lee Harvey Oswald was a loner who carried out the assassination of President Kennedy unaided.

• Lee Harvey Oswald murdered Officer J. D. Tippit. The Commission viewed Oswald’s murder of the police officer as evidence supporting the conclusion that he also murdered President Kennedy.

• While Jack Ruby, Oswald’s murderer, may have known criminal figures, Ruby himself was not a member of organized crime. Consequently, he did not murder Oswald as part of a conspiracy but for personal reasons arising out of his grief over the President’s assassination.

• The medical evidence based on the autopsy of the President’s body at Bethesda Naval Hospital supported the conclusion that all of the shots that hit the President were fired from above and behind.

If the evidence supported the negation of any one of the above premises, it would strengthen the probability of a conspiracy in the murder of the President. Negating all of the above premises virtually assures that a conspiracy was behind Kennedy’s murder. The evidence presented in this book negates every single premise that the Warren Commission’s conclusions were based on. A comprehensive analysis of the evidence supporting a shot or shots from the grassy knoll area is laid out for the reader. The Warren Commission interviewed only a few of the witnesses who stated that a shot came from the knoll. It ignored their testimony in its final report when it concluded that there was no credible evidence of a shot from the knoll. Detailed research reveals that a total of sixty-four witnesses reported a shot or shots coming from the grassy knoll or the knoll area. A number of witnesses reported seeing smoke rising from the knoll after shots were fired at the President’s motorcade. Other witnesses, mostly Secret Service agents and police officers, reported different gunfire sounds, indicating that more than one type of weapon was used. Several witnesses reported smelling gunpowder in the area of the knoll. The assassin in the TSBD was sixty-three feet above Dealey Plaza and firing from inside a building. It was highly unlikely that the smell of gunpowder would float down to the street level. Two motorcycle officers riding to the left rear of the motorcade were struck so hard by blood and bone fragments from the President’s head that one of the officers at first thought that he had been shot. The Zapruder film also shows the President’s body violently thrown to the left and rear of the limousine. When someone is shot, he or she moves away from the source of the gunfire. The President’s body movements are consistent with a shot from the right front and so was the blood evidence on the motorcycle officers. There are a number of films showing the motorcade that day and the crowd reaction to the shots. People instinctively ran to the knoll, as did police officers with their guns drawn. Police officers and other witnesses reported the presence of individuals on the knoll before and after the assassination. There were credible reports, never fully investigated, of persons fleeing from the knoll area after the assassination. The HSCA analyzed the dictabelt recording from a Dallas police officer’s motorcycle that had its microphone button stuck on. The scientific analysis of that recording revealed the presence of gunfire. The HSCA had the Dallas police run live gunfire tests in Dealey Plaza. The shot recordings matched those on the dictabelt tape, leading the HSCA to conclude that there was a 95% probability of a second gunman in Dealey Plaza. All of this material, presented in a cogent understandable way, contradicts the Warren Commission’s conclusion that there was no evidence of a shot from the grassy knoll. The names of witnesses reporting shots from the knoll and the TSBD, smoke from the knoll area, and different gunfire sounds are included in appendices so that the reader can check the data if they desire to do so.

The Warren Commission also reported that Lee Harvey Oswald was a loner with no connections to other individuals or groups. It used this assertion to argue that Oswald, acting alone and without help, killed the President of the United States. The evidence does not support the Commission’s conclusions. Oswald was involved with a large number of individuals, many of whom were not fully investigated by either the Commission or the FBI. One example clearly illustrates the problem. Sylvia Odio, a member of an organization opposed to the Castro regime, was visited by three men at the end of September 1963 at her apartment in Dallas, Texas. Odio’s sister, Annie, was at the apartment when the men arrived and backed up her sister’s testimony. Two of the men claimed to know her father, who at that time was imprisoned in Cuba. The men claimed to be seeking her assistance to get help from anti-Castro organizations. She was rather suspicious and told them that she could not be of help. Two of the men were Latino looking types, according to Odio. The third man was an American introduced to her as Oswaldo. Odio received a phone call a couple of days later from one of the men who had visited her. He told her that the American was a former Marine who was crazy. The caller stated that Oswaldo said that the Cubans should have killed Kennedy because of his failure to come to their aid in the Bay of Pigs invasion. The Warren Commission was very concerned about Odio’s story and asked the FBI to check it out. As the report went to press, the FBI informed the Commission that three men had been identified as the individuals who visited Odio. Within days of the release of the Warren Commission Report, the FBI determined that one of the men was working in Florida at the time of the incident, and the other two denied that they had ever met Odio. The problem for the Warren Commission was that Odio and her sister, upon hearing that Kennedy had been assassinated and that Lee Harvey Oswald had been arrested as the assassin, were absolutely positive that Oswald was one of the men who came to the apartment in September 1963. The Warren Commission reported that Sylvia Odio was mistaken.

The Odio incident represents just one of a series of witnesses who reported Lee Harvey Oswald in the company of others, sightings that were not fully checked out by the Warren Commission. There was a series of sightings of Oswald lookalikes all over Dallas before the assassination. As an example, an individual using the name Oswald tried to buy an automobile and told the salesman, I guess I’ll have to go to Russia to buy a car. There were several reports of Oswald lookalikes at a shooting range in Dallas before the assassination, lookalikes who intentionally shot at other people’s targets and acted in a belligerent fashion. There was a report from a gunsmith that he mounted a scope on a 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, the type found in the TSBD, before the assassination. The gunsmith’s tag showed the name Oswald. However, Oswald’s rifle came with the scope already mounted when he purchased the rifle.

In some cases, the Warren Commission did not know the significance of the contacts made by Oswald, as the information surfaced years later. George de Mohrenschildt, a well-educated, Russian-born oil geologist, with contacts ranging from the Kennedy family to George H. W. Bush, befriended the Oswalds while they lived in Dallas. Just before he killed himself in 1977, de Mohrenschildt was being interviewed by Edward Jay Epstein, author and researcher, and admitted to him that he was watching Oswald for the CIA. Another incident unknown to the Warren Commission involved Antonio Veciana, the head of Alpha 66, one of the most violent anti-Castro Cuban groups. Veciana reported that before the assassination, he saw Oswald in Dallas meeting with Veciana’s CIA case officer.

This book analyzes a variety of contacts that Oswald made with individuals and groups never investigated by the Warren Commission and the FBI. The picture that the Warren Commission presented of Oswald as a loner was not borne out by the evidence. The report that Oswald may have had a scope mounted on a 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano rifle in Irving, Texas before the assassination, when the rifle he purchased already had the scope mounted, raised the question of whether someone used his name to link him to the assassination or whether a second gun was being readied to be used in the assassination. The Warren Commission never considered the ramifications of a reported second rifle.

The Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Officer J. D. Tippit in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas at 1:16 p.m. on November 22, 1963. The Commission used this conclusion to buttress its argument that Oswald was the lone assassin of President Kennedy. The Commission argued that Oswald, in the course of fleeing from the scene of the crime, killed Tippit rather than be arrested. The Commission ignored evidence in its own files that Oswald and Tippit ate in a small café at the same time two days before the assassination. There was a web of relationships that indicated that Ruby, Oswald, and Tippit all shopped in the same stores and knew other individuals who linked them together.

Over time, evidence had surfaced that indicated that Tippit was acting in a somewhat suspicious manner before he was killed. Five witnesses saw him parked at a gasoline station before 1:00 p.m. on Zang Boulevard in Oak Cliff watching the traffic come over the Houston Viaduct from downtown Dallas. Oswald, who allegedly took a cab from the TSBD to his rooming house in Oak Cliff, would have passed over this viaduct and gone right by Tippit on his way home. When Oswald arrived at the rooming house, his landlady reported that he went immediately to his room and left within four minutes. Before he left, the landlady reported that a Dallas police car drove up in front of the house, blew the horn twice, and left when she went to the window. Tippit was reported by witnesses at a gas station only nine-tenths of a mile from the rooming house. An FBI investigation, requested by the Warren Commission, revealed that no Dallas police car drove by the rooming house. However, the FBI investigation did not consider the possibility that J. D. Tippit drove by the rooming house.

Oswald was stopped by Tippit in a residential area nearly three miles from the TSBD. Witnesses stated that he was just walking along the street and not acting in a suspicious manner. The Dallas police put a description of the assassin out on the police radio that only provided general characteristics that could have fit literally thousands of men in Dallas in 1963. The radio description also said that the assassin was carrying a rifle. Oswald was not carrying a rifle, nor was acting in a fashion that would have triggered a police stop. The evidence in this chapter supports the observation that Tippit was not looking for the assassin but for Lee Harvey Oswald. Tippit was the only police officer close enough to Oswald’s rooming house to drive by. The evidence suggests that there was a connection between Tippit and Oswald, a conclusion buttressed by a web of relationships that tied Oswald, Ruby, and Tippit together. Where Tippit was murdered was just three-tenths of a mile from Jack Ruby’s apartment. A linkage between Ruby, Tippit, and Oswald undermines the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Oswald’s murder of Tippit supported the conclusion that Oswald killed Kennedy. If Tippit knew Oswald’s address, it establishes a linkage between the two men and supports the conclusion that Kennedy was murdered as the result of a conspiracy.

The Warren Commission concluded that Jack Ruby’s murder of Oswald was the act of an overwrought strip club owner, plunged into grief by the President’s assassination, who sought revenge by killing Lee Harvey Oswald. The Commission soon became aware that Ruby had organized crime contacts. Yet, it concluded that he was not mob connected but only knew some organized crime figures. The evidence clearly suggested otherwise. Ruby had links to major organized crime figures including Carlos Marcello, Sam Giancana, Santos Trafficante, and Jimmy Hoffa. FBI informants had notified the FBI that Marcello, Trafficante, and Hoffa had made death threats against President Kennedy. Ruby’s ties to members of organized crime also included individuals who had committed murder, were engaged in narcotics trafficking, prostitution, larceny, sodomy, fire bombing, arson, bank robbery, and a variety of other crimes. Evidence shows that Ruby was heavily in debt, was known to be an extremely violent person, and had access to the Dallas Police Headquarters because of his long-term relations with a large number of police officers. It is also necessary to note that Ruby was connected to two of the major players in the CIA/Mafia plots to assassinate Premier Fidel Castro, Sam Giancana and Santos Trafficante.

This book details all of Ruby’s mob connections. It analyzes his movements on Friday and Saturday night, revealing that Ruby was stalking Oswald and looking for an opportunity to kill him. The book also details Ruby’s violent nature and his beating of employees, customers, and other individuals with whom he had established relationships. The evidence also demonstrates that Jack Ruby was a liar. He lied about being at Parkland Memorial Hospital while President Kennedy was in Trauma Room 1; he lied about stalking Oswald; he lied about carrying a gun on Friday night while visiting the Dallas Police Headquarters where Oswald was being questioned; he lied about his trips to Cuba; he lied about his relationship with organized crime figures; he lied about how he got into the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters on November 24, when he killed Oswald.

The Warren Commission was all too ready to believe Jack Ruby’s testimony. However, when Ruby requested that Chief Justice Earl Warren take him to Washington, D.C. so that he could tell the Commission the truth about his role in murdering Oswald, Warren, with the advice of Congressman Gerald Ford, refused. The evidence clearly indicated that Ruby was mob connected. He used his connections with the Dallas Police Department to gain access to the basement to kill Oswald. Ruby was a violent hoodlum. He killed Oswald to silence him. The question the book analyzes is who did he act for, the mob or rogue elements of the CIA? Ruby’s murder of Oswald was powerful proof of a conspiracy in the murder of President Kennedy.

According to the Warren Commission, the medical evidence supported the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots from the TSBD and that the President’s and Governor Connally’s wounds support the conclusion that the shots came from above and behind the motorcade. In reality, the autopsy was poorly performed and was a textbook example of how not to do an autopsy. During his testimony before the HSCA, Dr. Humes, who was in charge of the autopsy performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital, admitted that the autopsy doctors had made an error in the location of the President’s head wound by nearly four inches. The doctors arrived at the conclusion that three shots were fired at the President because they were given that information during the autopsy. They did not conduct an outside investigation to determine the number of shots. They did not examine the President’s or the Governor’s clothing. The bullet holes in the clothing could have provided them with valuable information. The reality was that none of the doctors in the autopsy room were qualified forensic pathologists with experience in criminal investigations.

The country was told that the President was hit at the base of the neck, and that the bullet exited his throat and struck Governor Connally in the back. Other than the President’s head wound, one bullet caused all the other wounds in both men. This was dubbed the single bullet theory. The bullet, CE 399, later was called the magic bullet by critics of the autopsy results. CE 399 allegedly hit the President in the base of the neck, exited his throat, struck Connally in the back, broke a rib, punctured his lung, exited his chest by the right nipple, smashed the radial bone in his wrist, and finally embedded itself in his thigh. The bullet emerged in near perfect condition, to the astonishment of a number of experts and forensic pathologists.

Eyewitness testimony from three Secret Service agents and two FBI agents reported that the President was hit in the back, six inches down from the midline of the neck. His clothing shows bullet holes 5 ¾ inches down from the midline of the neck. This raised the question of how a bullet fired at a downward declination from the TSBD, hitting the President in the back, could have come out his throat. This has never been satisfactorily answered. We learned in the 1990s that Gerald Ford changed the location of the President’s back wound to the base of the neck in the final Warren Commission report. The report’s language was manipulated to make the Warren Commission’s conclusions more palatable to the American public.

Not long after the autopsy was performed, the public learned that the President’s brain, tissue slides of the wounds, and some autopsy photographs were missing from the National Archives. There was no explanation as to how or why these materials went missing. It was suggested that the materials were destroyed by Robert Kennedy, but that has never been proven.

The evidence for a shot from the knoll, the evidence indicating that Oswald was far from a loner, that Officer Tippit was not looking for the President’s assassin but for Lee Harvey Oswald, that Jack Ruby was mob connected and was linked to people involved in the CIA/Mafia murder plots, and that a poorly performed autopsy that cannot be relied upon to establish what happened that day in Dealey Plaza, all negate the Warren Commission’s conclusion of no conspiracy. The evidence overwhelmingly supports a conspiracy in the murder of the thirty-fifth President of the United States.

The investigation of President Kennedy’s assassination was shrouded in confusion, so much so that a number of Warren Commission critics began to suspect a government cover-up. It was not long before some critics suggested that government agencies could have been involved in the assassination. A theory surfaced that the military’s desire for a war in Southeast Asia was behind the assassination. Kennedy’s policies aimed at ending the Cold War could have prevented such a conflict. Others asserted that the CIA was behind the assassination because of its frustration over the Bay of Pigs fiasco and Kennedy’s failure to invade Cuba during the missile crisis of October 1962. Before one can analyze the various conspiracies and evaluate their probabilities, it is necessary to examine the cover-ups that did take place and that contributed to the suspicion that the government was involved in the assassination.

I have classified the cover-ups that occurred into three distinct types. The first is called a national security protective response. In his first couple of days in office, President Lyndon Johnson was informed that Lee Harvey Oswald had visited the Cuban Consulate and the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico in late September and early October 1963. While there, he met with Cuban officials and a KGB officer. Johnson was told that the CIA had information from an informant who stated that he observed Oswald receive what appeared to be a large sum of money from Cuban officials. The American Ambassador to Mexico, Thomas Mann, informed the White House that he suspected that the Cubans were involved in the assassination. Johnson believed that if this information were to become public knowledge, the United States would be forced to retaliate against Cuba, possibly leading to a thermonuclear war with the Soviet Union. In the meantime, news of Oswald’s defection to the Soviet Union and his Communist sympathies was being broadcast around the world. Johnson pushed Chief Justice Earl Warren to take the job of heading up a commission to investigate Kennedy’s murder. He elaborated on his fear of a war with the Soviet Union, insisting that Warren head the commission and quell the rumors that were beginning to circulate about Oswald’s Marxist leanings. Johnson’s warning to Warren had a negative impact on the Chief Justice and the manner in which the Commission operated. There are numerous examples of the Warren Commission avoiding evidence of a conspiracy in its investigation of the assassination. To provide just one example, the Commission ignored the testimony of two witnesses that Jack Ruby was at Parkland Memorial Hospital during the time that President Kennedy was in Trauma Room 1. The ramifications of Ruby’s being at the hospital are rife with conspiratorial overtones. The Commission, as it did on numerous occasions, concluded that the witnesses had to be mistaken. Whose testimony did they accept that Jack Ruby was not at the hospital? Jack Ruby’s! The fear of nuclear war led to the first layer of government cover-up.

The next level of cover-up is classified as a bureaucratic protective response. Agencies of the government that were charged with protecting the President, such as the Secret Service and the FBI, had failed in their duty. Both the Secret Service and the FBI had lost a President. There are photographs of Secret Service agents at Parkland Memorial Hospital with a pail of water and sponges, washing out the back of the Presidential limousine after the assassination. This act destroyed important evidence, such as blood splatter, in the murder of a President of the United States. The FBI was aware that Oswald was employed at the TSBD, a building overlooking the President’s motorcade route. Yet, it never informed the Secret Service or the Dallas Police Department of this information. Hoover pressured FBI agents in the field to quickly conclude the investigation. Agents of the FBI, in the first few days of the investigation, arrested or questioned a number of Mafia figures. Hoover ordered the investigation terminated, asserting that Oswald was the lone assassin. Hoover had warned for years that the great danger to the United States was Communism. Now he could point to a Marxist sympathizer as the assassin of President Kennedy. Hoover was on record denying the existence of the Mafia into the early 1960s. The damage to the FBI’s reputation would have been immense if the mob had pulled off the assassination of a President, and the FBI was unable to uncover the plot ahead of time. It would have made Hoover look ridiculous if an organization he claimed did not exist had killed the President. For the Secret Service and the FBI, a lone assassin unaided by anyone was the perfect answer to the assassination in order to protect their reputations. The CIA fell into this category and also into the national security protective response category. It was trying to prevent information on the CIA/Mafia murder plots from becoming public. There was information that linked the CIA to Lee Harvey Oswald. Had the linkages become public knowledge, they would have created a major public relations problem for the CIA. If the CIA/Mafia murder plots were made public, the agency feared a backlash because its attempts to kill Castro might have backfired resulting in Kennedy’s assassination. Lyndon Johnson long suspected that Castro was behind the assassination. Also, the agency’s linkages to Oswald would have been a disastrous public relations debacle for the CIA.

The third category of cover-up is a political protective response. Robert Kennedy was the Attorney General of the United States when his brother was assassinated. His initial response was to seize all of the President’s papers, tapes of recorded conversations in the Oval Office, and the Usher’s logs. The Usher’s logs were of major importance because they recorded all of the visitors to the White House. Kennedy’s visits from a number of women at the White House would have been recorded there. Robert Kennedy was thinking not only of his brother’s reputation and legacy but also of his own political future. His lack of interest in the Warren Commission proceedings was well known. Some have attributed his lack of interest to his grief over his brother’s death. However, there was evidence that his motives were deeper than just grief. Robert Kennedy initiated some inquiries into who may have killed his brother but warned that he could not take any action until his political future was more secure.

Lyndon Johnson had political considerations as well. Johnson was an extremely vain and ambitious politician. He wanted to wrap up the Warren Commission investigation before the election so that it would not overshadow his political future. Johnson badly wanted to be president in his own right. His was not the only pressure exerted on the Warren Commission to get the job done. We already noted the national security pressure placed on Warren. The Commission appeared to do everything in its power to avoid the finding of a conspiracy in the murder of the President. This book examines a number of instances where the Commission avoided evidence of a conspiracy.

The assassination was shrouded by a fog of cover-ups that took place at a number of levels. Once the motivations for the cover-ups can be identified, it becomes possible to eliminate suspects in the assassination. Individuals and agencies were motivated to protect their reputations, power, and prestige. Such motivations fall far short of a desire to assassinate a President. The cover-ups are reactions to the event, not the cause of it. A thorough analysis of each cover-up makes it possible to eliminate a number of suspects based on their desire to protect themselves from public anger. Those involved in the assassination would have had more comprehensive motives for engaging in an act of murder. As we shall see, not all suspects are eliminated by this process. The remaining suspects had the means, motive, and opportunity to carry out an assassination.

In the last analysis, the evidence supports the conclusion that President Kennedy was expendable. National security concerns, the protection of political and bureaucratic reputations, and state secrets were more important considerations than an open and honest investigation of the President’s murder. Kennedy was expendable because national security, political careers, bureaucratic power, and sensitive state secrets were at risk. President Johnson feared a nuclear war with the Soviet Union and passed that fear on to Chief Justice Earl Warren, who was expected to squelch rumors of Communist involvement and or conspiracy in the assassination of President Kennedy. Johnson wanted to move the investigation along so that it would not overhang the presidential election coming up in November 1964. He wanted to become president in his own right and not have the assassination of his predecessor tainting his claim to power. Robert Kennedy wanted to protect his brother’s reputation and legacy. During the Warren Commission investigation, he had no incentive to dig deeper into the assassination and who might have been involved. According to close intimates, that would have to wait until later when he was in a stronger political position. The FBI and the Secret Service had reputations and power to protect. Hoover ended the FBI’s investigation early, proclaiming that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin in the days immediately following Kennedy’s murder. A lone assassin relieved both agencies of the responsibility of uncovering a conspiracy before the participants could murder the President in cold blood in the streets of Dallas. The CIA’s role was less clear but essentially boiled down to a lack of cooperation with both the Warren Commission and the HSCA. The CIA engaged in obfuscation, deception, and potentially criminal behavior. The state secrets doctrine began developing and expanding at the end of World War II. There was no more important state secret to protect in 1963 than the CIA/Mafia murder plots. Oswald may have been murdered to keep this information out of the public domain. None of the evidence supports the view that political or bureaucratic leaders of the U.S. government were involved in the assassination. What the evidence does suggest is that they did not pursue an honest investigation of the assassination in order to protect their own interests. In that sense, President John F. Kennedy was expendable.

Connected to the murder of President Kennedy was the use of state secrets, namely the CIA/Mafia murder plots, to manipulate Lee Harvey Oswald into taking part in a conspiracy. There was information that Oswald knew of these plots twelve years before they became public information. His knowledge of the plots explained all of his odd behavior in New Orleans before the assassination took place. That behavior included apparent attempts to infiltrate pro-Castro groups, setting up a fake chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, appearing on radio and television programs to defend Castro and the Cuban Revolution, and, after being arrested in a street altercation in New Orleans, requesting that the FBI interview him while he was in jail. Knowledge of the plots may also have been the fundamental reason why he went to the Cuban Consulate and Soviet Embassy in Mexico City seeking a visa to Cuba. Was Oswald trying to get to Cuba to warn Castro of the plots?

Oswald had a long history of pro-Castro support. His mother, learning of his defection to the Soviet Union, remarked that she was surprised that he did not go to Cuba. His wife, Marina Oswald, stated that he was a long time supporter of Fidel Castro. His uncle, Dutz Murret, while visiting Oswald’s apartment in New Orleans, noted that he had a picture of Fidel Castro displayed. A friend in the Marine Corps, Nelson Delgado, told the FBI that Oswald talked of going to Cuba to join the Cuban Army and fight for Castro. There was a plethora of evidence that demonstrated Oswald’s support for Castro. Sometime before the assassination, he was given the information that the United States government was involved in a plot to kill the leader he most admired. The Warren Commission and the HSCA were not able to come up with a motive for Oswald’s alleged involvement in the assassination. However, the knowledge that the U.S. government was trying to kill Castro could easily have supplied the motivation. This raised the question of who had the information, and who gave it to Oswald. It also raised the question of why Oswald was selected to receive this information.

There are only three sources from which Oswald could have learned this information: individuals connected with the Mafia who were participating in the CIA/Mafia murder plots, the CIA, and Cuban intelligence, the DGI. The book analyzes the connections that Oswald had to the Mafia, from an uncle who worked as a bookie for Carlos Marcello to other Mafia figures his mother was involved with. Marcello was known to have made a death threat against President Kennedy, and in describing how he would carry it out he stated that he would employ a nut to shoot at the President from an office building. It was most important to recruit someone not connected to normal Mafia operations.

Researching Oswald’s ties to the CIA reveals potential connections as well. The head of Alpha 66, one of the most violent anti-Castro groups, reported seeing Oswald meet with his case officer in Dallas before the assassination. Oswald also had linkages to David Ferrie, an associate of Marcello’s, who was linked to the CIA and anti-Castro operations. What was murkier was his potential contacts with Cuban intelligence. Recent evidence indicates that Castro knew about the plot to kill Kennedy. The book examines this aspect in detail and the ramifications of Castro’s potential involvement in the assassination. Oswald’s knowledge of the CIA/Mafia murder plots narrows down the potential suspects in the assassination to three.

Does the evidence show that organized crime had the means and the motive? The Mafia was reeling from an assault against its operations from the opening days of the Kennedy administration. Its criminal operations were under attack. The Mafia has always had the reputation of hitting back at those who interfere with its operations. Did rogue elements of the CIA have the means and the motive? The President refused U.S. military aid to the Cuban forces that landed at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. Many in the CIA considered the President’s decision cowardly and an abandonment of the brave men willing to die to free their native land. The President again disappointed the same group when he did not invade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. In the days before his death, the President was carrying on secret negotiations in an apparent attempt to reach a political settlement with Fidel Castro. While the President was attempting to keep these negotiations secret, the CIA was wiretapping the Cuban officials involved in the negotiations. This made the President a three-time loser for some elements of the CIA and the anti-Castro Cuban community. Rogue elements in the CIA, along with anti-Castro Cubans, were highly skilled in the application of violence.

Premier Fidel Castro was aware that the CIA was attempting to kill him. Did he have the means and motive to kill Kennedy? Castro warned the United States in September 1963 that if U.S. leaders were engaging in attempts to kill Cuban leaders, Cuba could also play that game. Castro was clearly threatened by the United States. Every aspect of his life indicated that he was a fighter and could have struck back. In reality, all three groups had the means. All three groups had the motive to kill the President, and there were also important events or triggers that impacted each group that could have propelled them into action.

The book uses the available data to narrow the range of suspects down even further and lays out the potential assassination scenarios that might have occurred. We now know that during the month of November 1963, President Kennedy was being stalked. A motorcade was cancelled in Chicago because of a death threat. He proceeded a little later that month with a motorcade in Tampa, Florida even though there was a serious death threat. Just a few days later, he was murdered in Dallas.

This book takes a totally different view of the assassination of President Kennedy than the many books already published. In essence, Kennedy was expendable. Nuclear war was not an option Lyndon Johnson was willing to entertain. The Warren Commission, aware of that fear, did its best to avoid a conclusion of conspiracy. The FBI and Secret Service had reputations to protect, and a lone assassin helped them to do just that. Robert Kennedy had his brother’s historical legacy to protect and his own ambitions to pursue at a more opportune time. The CIA had state secrets to protect. The life of one man was a small price to pay for the protection of political careers, agency reputations, a family’s historical legacy, and state secrets, even if he was the President of the United States.

There is a deeper problem in the Kennedy assassination that reaches down into the psyche of the nation itself. Can we as a people readily accept that the President of the United States was murdered by a small group of people with the power to get away with it? What would this say about American democracy? The political assassination of leaders only happens in other countries, not in America! Perhaps that is why people like Gerald Posner and Vincent Bugliosi cannot come to grips with all the irregularities in the Kennedy assassination. Both are attorneys who believe deeply in the legal process, the rule of law, and American democracy. A political assassination of President Kennedy by individuals and groups connected to the United States government, that were also involved in attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, would destroy everything they believed in and had devoted their lives to and cast them into a pit of nihilism. Sylvan Fox described the real problem in accepting the assassination of a President in a democracy:

For example, let us suppose that there were persons who believed it essential to remove President Kennedy from office and that they organized an assassination plot. The discovery of such a plot, rife with political implications, would have posed a greater threat to the nation’s stability than the assassination itself.²

If John Kennedy was murdered by individuals or groups intent on reversing his policies then his assassination was the ultimate contradiction of democracy in America. We must accept the consequences of a truthful investigation wherever it might lead.

Part I

CONSPIRACY

THE TRIP TO TEXAS – NOVEMBER 21-22, 1963

With the 1964 presidential campaign drawing ever nearer, President Kennedy began discussing a campaign trip to Texas with Vice-President Johnson in mid 1962. Kennedy’s margin of victory in Texas in 1960 was only 46,000 votes. Despite having Lyndon Johnson as his running mate, the margin was too thin for comfort. In addition, the Democratic Party in Texas had long been split into two warring camps controlled by liberals and conservatives. Kennedy already had the support of the liberal wing of the party, but to carry Texas in 1964, he needed a united party. The President wanted to visit Texas with the support of Governor Connally, who enjoyed the backing of the moderate and conservative elements in the state Democratic Party. By June of 1963, the decision to go to Texas had been made. In October 1963, Governor Connally met with President Kennedy in Washington, D.C. and suggested that the President use the trip not as a fundraising venture but to meet with moderate and conservative business leaders. Kennedy readily agreed with Connally’s suggestion.³

The final arrangements for the trip called for a five city swing. The President left Washington on November 21 and headed for San Antonio, where he visited a new facility at Brooks Air Force Base, the Aerospace Medical Facility. He then went to Houston, where later that evening he attended a testimonial dinner for Congressman Albert Thomas. The next morning, November 22, the President attended a breakfast at the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce. He then flew the short distance to Dallas, where he was to motorcade through the downtown area and proceed to the Trade Mart for a speech at 1:00 p.m. Later that day, the President was to attend a fundraising dinner at the Governor’s Mansion in Austin.⁴

The President believed that his public appearances, particularly in motorcades, had helped him win in 1960. Because he was going to speak mainly at business events that would not be open to the general public, he was very much in favor of the motorcade through Dallas since it would provide average citizens with the opportunity to see him and his wife. Kennedy asked aides Kenny O’Donnell and Dave Powers to ride in the Secret Service follow-up car so that they could gage the reaction of the crowds. In the early morning, it was raining in Dallas, but by the time the President arrived at Love Field, the sun had come out.

Leading the motorcade were several Dallas Police Department motorcycles followed by a pilot car in which Dallas police officers were riding. It was about a quarter of a mile ahead of the motorcade, and its purpose was to warn police officers along the route that the President’s motorcade was approaching. Additional motorcycle officers followed this car, and their task was to keep people back. A command car carrying Secret Service agents, Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry, and Dallas County Sheriff J. E. Decker was about five car lengths ahead of the President’s limousine and was alert for any signs of trouble. The President’s car was followed by four more motorcycles riding slightly to the rear, as per JFK’s request. Directly behind the President was a Secret Service car carrying eight Secret Service agents and presidential aides Kenny O’Donnell and Dave Powers. Vice-President Johnson’s limousine followed next with another car carrying Secret Service agents behind it. Several other automobiles followed carrying local dignitaries, including the Mayor of Dallas and the President’s doctor. There were also two press buses in the motorcade. At the end of the motorcade were additional Dallas police and motorcycle officers.⁵

At approximately 12:30 p.m. cst., after turning left from Houston Street, shots were fired at the motorcade as it moved down Elm Street toward the triple underpass. Realizing that the President had been hit, the motorcade sped to Parkland Memorial Hospital approximately four miles away. The President’s limousine arrived at the hospital at about 12:35 p.m. cst. Despite the best efforts of the doctors at Parkland Memorial Hospital, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was pronounced dead at approximately 1:00 p.m. by Dr. Kemp Clark.

Chapter 1

THE SHOT FROM THE GRASSY KNOLL

I remain convinced that the preponderance of the evidence supports the finding of the committee that a gunman fired from the grassy knoll.

Representative Christopher J. Dodd⁶

That shots were fired from the Texas School Book Depository was a given. Arnold Rowland saw an individual at the southwest window on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) holding a rifle with a scope mounted on it minutes before the motorcade arrived in Dealey Plaza. Amos Euins saw a man firing what appeared to be a rifle from the sixth floor window of the depository. Other witnesses saw what appeared to be a rifle barrel protruding from a window on the same floor. A number of witnesses, upon hearing gunshots, believed that they came directly from the TSBD. Another group of witnesses described the shots as coming from above and to their rear while others gave a vaguer description indicating that shots came from the direction of Houston and Elm Streets. The Dallas police found a 6.5mm. Mannlicher-Carcano bolt action rifle on the sixth floor, along with three expended cartridge cases. They also found a paper sack that was believed to have contained the weapon. The rifle was later traced to Lee Harvey Oswald through an alias, A. J. Hidell, which he had also used on other occasions. Oswald worked at the TSBD as a textbook order filler and had access to the sixth floor on a regular basis. There was ample evidence to buttress the conclusion that some shots were fired from the TSBD. Using this information, the Dallas Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Warren Commission focused solely on Oswald as the lone assassin.

Because no one else was arrested for the crime did not preclude the possibility that more than one assassin was involved in the murder of President Kennedy. There was ample evidence that at least one shot was fired from the so-called grassy knoll. A large number of witnesses identified the knoll as the source of at least one shot. There are other witnesses who saw people behind the wooden stockade fence on the knoll prior to the assassination. After the assassination of President Kennedy, a number of witnesses ran around to the railroad yards and proceeded to the fence on the knoll. They found a large number of footprints, as if someone had been walking back and forth for a long period of time. They also found numerous cigarette butts and a car with muddy bumpers, as if someone had wiped his shoes off on them. The evidence indicated that individuals were waiting behind the fence for an extended period of time. Other witnesses reported seeing smoke from the knoll when the President was shot. Several witnesses also saw individuals running away from the knoll. One off-duty Dallas police officer actually pursued an individual after he jumped into a car but lost him in the traffic.

We also have photographs and motion picture camera films allowing us to study the reaction of a large number of people in Dealey Plaza. A major portion of the crowd ran towards the knoll. Police officers parked their motorcycles and ran up the knoll, some with their guns drawn. Witnesses who participated in the charge to the knoll describe the feeling they had as one of wanting to pursue the assassin or assassins behind the stockade fence.

In addition, we have physical evidence of a shot from the knoll in terms of the blood and bone fragments from the President’s head wound that struck both motorcycle police officers riding directly to the left rear of the presidential limousine. The Zapruder film was evidence of a head shot from the front. No one who watches it can doubt that a shot came from the right front of the motorcade. The motion of the President’s body – thrown violently backwards and to the left – was visible for all to see. Jacqueline Kennedy climbed onto the rear of the limousine to retrieve a piece of the President’s skull blown to the left rear. Another piece of the President’s skull was found by William Harper on the center median separating Elm and Main Streets to the left of the President’s limousine. Finally, we have the acoustical evidence obtained by the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluding that there was a 95% probability of a shot from the knoll.

What law enforcement did not have in terms of the grassy knoll was a rifle or suspect, as the police did have for the TSBD location. If only one shot was fired from the knoll, as the acoustical evidence developed by the HSCA indicated, then the shooter did not have to eject an empty cartridge shell, and unlike Oswald could have taken the weapon with him as he left the knoll area. However, we do have overwhelming and compelling evidence of a shot from the knoll. We also know that Oswald was murdered by a mob-connected hoodlum and as a consequence, would never be able to reveal who else may have been involved or even what his role, if any, in the assassination had been.

There was also eyewitness testimony that individuals with rifles were seen at both the east and west windows of the depository. Let us accept that there was sufficient evidence indicating that one shooter was in the TSBD. If there was only one shooter in Dealey Plaza that day, the task of proving a conspiracy becomes that much more difficult, but not impossible. One shooter does not necessarily rule out a conspiracy, as others could have motivated and aided a lone assassin. However, one shooter does support the argument for a lone assassin and no conspiracy. If, on the other hand, there is conclusive evidence of a shot from another location, evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, then the case for conspiracy is made. There is the statistical possibility that even with more than one shooter, that the participants in the assassination could have been unknown to one another and by random chance showed up at the same time to kill the president. While possible, this remains a highly improbable coincidence.

Therefore, let us accept the condition that there was a shooter in the TSBD. Let us also accept that if there was sufficient evidence of a shooter at another location in Dealey Plaza, that this constitutes prima facie evidence of a conspiracy to kill the President of the United States. While there may be some evidence that shots were fired from other locations in Dealey Plaza that day, we will focus on the most likely location for another assassin. The location that has garnered the most attention and publicity was the so-called grassy knoll. It had been alleged that an assassin or assassins were hidden behind the stockade fence. Anyone who has stood behind that fence and looked out on Elm Street realizes what an easy target the President would have presented. G. Paul Chambers, author of Head Shot, tells us why the knoll was such an excellent location for a second assassin: it offered cover, a perfect view of the motorcade, and the area made it extremely difficult to pursue anyone who used it for an assassination attempt.

A Second Assassin

There are numerous ways to classify the witnesses who heard a shot from the grassy knoll: witnesses facing the knoll (north), witnesses facing away from the knoll (south), witnesses on the railroad overpass, witnesses in the motorcade, witnesses who saw activity on the knoll, witnesses who saw smoke come from the knoll, and crowd reaction after the shots. We will cover all these aspects but will start first with those witnesses who testified that a shot came from the knoll. Classification of that data will be broken down into three categories representing the descriptions given by those witnesses who indicated a shot from a location other than the Texas School Book Depository:

Grassy Knoll

Grassy Knoll Area

Grassy Knoll/Texas School Book Depository

These three categories cover what witnesses in Dealey Plaza testified to hearing. Some witnesses said they heard shots come from both the knoll and the TSBD. That shots came from both places will be discussed in greater detail further on. Others reported the knoll as the sole source of a shot or shots. Other witnesses described the shots as coming from the general area of the knoll using terms, such as the area of the triple underpass, railroad tracks, or to the west of the TSBD. Ochus V. Campbell, vice president, and Roy Truly, director of warehouse personnel at the TSBD, were typical of witnesses who identified the knoll area as the source of shots (See Appendix 1.1 for the complete list). Both Campbell and Truly stood in front of the TSBD on Elm Street watching the motorcade go by. Campbell believed that shots came from the area of the railroad tracks. He said he never looked back at the TSBD because I thought the shots had come from the west.⁷ Truly gave almost the same account when he appeared before the Warren Commission and testified that the shot came from the west of the TSBD.⁸

By placing witness reports into specific categories, we can get a more complete understanding of the aggregate observations of the witnesses. In addition, later in the chapter we will also summarize witness statements concerning other suspicious behavior and events in Dealey Plaza. There are solid