A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination

by Philip Shenon

impeachment campaigns vs.

  Jacqueline Kennedy and

  JFK and

  Kennedy family protected by

  Kennedy family response to report and

  key evidence denied to staff by

  Lane and

  LBJ and defense of report by

  LBJ and Lady Bird interviews limited by

  LBJ chooses, to head WC

  leaks to media and

  Liebeler and

  “lifetime” comment and media

  limits imposed by

  lone assassin theory and

  Manchester and

  Marguerite Oswald and

  Marina Oswald and

  Markham testimony and

  media and

  Nixon and

  Nosenko and

  Olney and

  Pearson and

  personality of

  polygraphs and

  public response to report and

  Rankin appointed by

  Redlich defended by

  regrets accepting WC assignment

  retirement of

  RFK and

  Rowley and

  Ruby and

  Russell and

  Secret Service and

  secrets kept by

  Specter and

  staff and

  Stern and

  Supreme Court and

  WC budget and

  WC files and

  WC first meetings and

  WC organized by

  WC report drafting and

  WC report presented to LBJ by

  WC report signing and

  WC report unanimous conclusion and

  WC routine and

  Willens and

  Zapruder film and

  Warren, Earl, Jr.

  Warren, Nina

  Warren, Robert

  Warren Commission (President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy). See also Oswald, Lee Harvey; Warren, Earl; and specific agencies; commissioners; evidence; staff members; theories; and witnesses

  aftermath of

  amount of evidence examined by

  Angleton and

  anti-Communist attacks on

  autopsy report and

  ballistics and fingerprint evidence and

  budget and printing costs

  calls for official reexamination of

  Castro testimony and

  CIA and

  CIA conceals evidence from

  CIA denies conspiracy

  CIA liaison with staff

  CIA Mexico City station and

  CIA plots to kill Castro and

  CIA pressure on Warren

  closed down

  commissioners-staff relations

  Connally and

  conspiracy theories and

  criticisms of

  Cuban document requests and

  Cuban link and

  Dallas evidence and

  Dallas police and

  deadlines and

  deaths of members and staff

  de Mohrenschildt and

  Duran sought by

  Epstein on

  evidence examined by outside experts

  executive session transcripts

  eyewitness accounts and

  FBI and

  FBI conceals evidence from

  FBI Dallas FBI

  FBI documents reviewed by Hoover

  FBI files on members of

  FBI links to Oswald as paid informant and

  FBI preliminary report and

  FBI surveillance of LHO and

  files mishandled by

  final fully transcribed meeting

  final report presented to LBJ

  final sessions and debate on conclusions of

  first meetings and organization of

  Ford and

  Ford vs. Redlich and

  Fortas and

  general counsel appointed

  Helms and

  Hoover and

  Hoover interviews and

  Hoover letter on LHO threat to kill JFK

  Hosty testimony

  Humes testimony

  investigation flawed from start

  Jacqueline Kennedy and

  Jacqueline Kennedy testimony and

  key areas of investigation

  Lady Bird testimony

  Lane and

  Lane testimony

  LBJ and attacks on

  LBJ doubts conclusions of

  LBJ sets up

  LBJ’s written statement to

  LHO investigated by

  Liebeler criticizes

  Manchester and

  Mann and

  Marguerite Oswald and

  Marina Oswald and

  Markham testimony

  Martin testimony

  McCloy letter and

  McCone and

  media and

  medical evidence kept from

  medical testimony and

  Mexico City investigation and

  mishandling of classified documents and

  Nosenko and

  Odio and

  O’Donnell testimony

  office at VFW headquarters

  Paines and

  public hearings and

  Rankin and Goldberg planned defense of

  records of

  RFK and

  RFK statement for

  Robert Oswald testimony

  Rowley testimony

  Ruby and

  Ruby polygraph and

  Rusk testimony

  Russell and

  Russell dissent on final report

  Scott and

  Secret Service investigated by

  Secret Service testimony

  single-bullet theory and (see single-bullet theory)

  evidence withheld from

  staff concerns about conspiracy

  staff divided into teams

  staff draws up preliminary outline

  staff hired

  staff hours totaled

  staff relations

  staff work done by junior lawyers

  subpoena power and

  surviving staff members

  Thomas and

  transcripts and

  Walker testimony

  Warren attempt to destroy files

  Warren’s media blunders and

  Warren’s oversight of

  Zapruder film and

  Warren Commission report

  censorship of

  CIA Mexico City and

  CIA response to

  drafting and delays

  drafts written and edited

  Duran and

  FBI response to

  Ford and

  Goldberg outline and style memo for

  internal debate on conclusions

  Kennedy family response to

  LHO as lone assassin and

  LHO biography drafted for

  McCloy criticizes

  media response to

  New York Times publishes

  Nosenko dropped from

  Odio story rebutted in

  presented to LBJ

  public response to

  Redlich vs. Liebeler on

  release of

  RFK and conclusions of

  “rumors” appendix and

  Russell and

  Secret Service section drafted

  State Department and

  witness testimony excerpts and

  Washington Post

  Washington Star

  Watson, Stanley

  Weaver, James D.

  Weinreb, Lloyd

  Welch, Joseph

  West, Eugene

  West, Louis

  WH-3 (CIA Clandestine Services branch)

  White, Alan

  White, Byron “Whizzer”

  Whitten, John

  Whittington, Bert

  Who Killed Kennedy? (Buchanan)

  Wilkins, Roger

  Willens, Howard

 
; Willis, Edwin

  Wilson, Harold

  Worker (newspaper)

  Zapruder, Abraham

  sale of film by

  Zapruder film

  Dallas reconstruction and

  sale of

  Ziger, Alexander

  Air Force One, moments after returning to Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, from Dallas, November 22, 1963.

  President Lyndon Johnson rejected the advice of Secret Service agents who wanted him to depart Dallas’s Love Field airport the instant he boarded Air Force One. The plane remained on the ground for an extra 35 minutes as Johnson waited for the arrival of Jacqueline Kennedy and the casket bearing her husband’s body. Mrs. Kennedy boarded shortly after the casket was loaded onto the plane. Johnson was then formally sworn in, a scene witnessed by Mrs. Kennedy—still in the blood-caked clothes from the motorcade—and Lady Bird Johnson.

  Chief Justice Earl Warren and his wife, Nina, seen the day after the assassination outside the White House, where they had gone with other members of the Supreme Court for a viewing of the president’s casket in the East Room. On Sunday, November 24, Warren stood before Mrs. Kennedy and her daughter, Caroline, and offered a eulogy for Kennedy in the Capitol Rotunda, where the casket had been on public display.

  Attorney General Robert Kennedy loathed President Johnson but agreed to remain in his cabinet. The two men, shown at the White House in October 1964, were the highest-ranking government officials not called to testify before the Warren Commission.

  Kennedy and wife, Ethel, leave the new Georgetown home of Jacqueline Kennedy after helping her move in on December 6, 1963.

  The Kennedys aboard the Coast Guard yacht Manitou, sailing in Narragansett Bay, on September 8, 1962. Mrs. Kennedy can be seen reading William Manchester’s respectful biography of Kennedy, Portrait of a President, as she smokes.

  Although Kennedy demanded the resignation of Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles as a result of the Bay of Pigs disaster in 1961, he remained friendly with Dulles, seen here (left) on September 27, 1961, at the announcement of Dulles’s successor at the CIA, California industrialist John McCone (right).

  Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson (center) is surrounded by police officers after he is struck on the head by a placard carried by an anti-U.N. demonstrator in Dallas on October 25, 1963. The incident, a month before the assassination, was another example of the hostility faced by prominent political visitors to conservative Dallas.

  On the morning of his assassination, Kennedy told his wife that they were “heading into nut country” after seeing a black-bordered ad in the Dallas Morning News headlined: “Welcome Mr. Kennedy,” in which the Kennedy administration was accused of “going soft on Communists, fellow-travelers, and ultra-leftists in America.” Leaflets appeared in the streets that portrayed Kennedy in a mock mug shot and said he was “Wanted for Treason.”

  The president appears to practice “the Johnson Treatment” on his political mentor, Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, in the White House Cabinet Room on December 12, 1963, three weeks after the assassination.

  President Johnson meets with Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren in an undated photograph. Johnson convinced the reluctant Warren to lead the commission by warning him that he might otherwise be responsible for a nuclear war in which tens of millions of Americans would die.

  Johnson is interviewed on the White House lawn on April 16, 1964, by the powerful muckraking columnist Andrew “Drew” Pearson, a close friend of Chief Justice Warren’s.

  The hostility between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Attorney General Robert Kennedy was no secret to their aides. It was Hoover who—in a brief telephone call minutes after the shots rang out in Dealey Plaza—notified Kennedy that his brother had been shot. In this photograph, the two men are seen at a White House ceremony on May 7, 1963.

  President Johnson meets in the Oval Office with Richard Helms, the career intelligence operative named by Johnson to run the Central Intelligence Agency. Helms would later admit there were caveats to his promise of full cooperation with the Warren Commission; he admitted he told the commission nothing about the CIA’s plots to kill Castro.

  A formal portrait of the members of the Warren Commission, taken in the hearing room in the Washington, DC, headquarters of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, where the commission had its offices. Left to right: Representative Gerald R. Ford of Michigan, Representative Hale Boggs of Louisiana, Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia, Chief Justice Earl Warren, Senator John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky, former World Bank president John J. McCloy, former Director of Central Intelligence Allen W. Dulles, and commission general counsel J. Lee Rankin.

  J. Lee Rankin, the commission’s general counsel and a former United States solicitor general, led the commission’s staff lawyers, who were divided into two-man teams made up of a “senior counsel” and a “junior” partner. In most cases, the junior lawyers did the bulk of the work.

  Norman Redlich, a New York University law professor, was the central editor and author of the final report. Rankin’s decision to hire Redlich, linked by the FBI to left-wing groups the bureau considered subversive, would create a furor among the commissioners.

  The commission’s staff gathers for a group portrait in the offices in the national headquarters of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Front row, left to right: Alfred Goldberg, Norman Redlich, J. Lee Rankin, David Slawson (with glasses), Howard Willens (no glasses), David Belin. Second row: Stuart Pollak, Arlen Specter, Wesley Liebeler (with cigarette), Samuel Stern, Albert Jenner, John Hart Ely, and Burt Griffin.

  David Slawson, one of the junior lawyers, stands next to Chief Justice Warren. Slawson was the commission’s key investigator on the question of a possible foreign conspiracy.

  Arlen Specter, who was effectively abandoned by his “senior” partner in reconstructing the events of day of the assassination, would become known as the “father of the single-bullet theory.”

  David Belin was the junior partner on the team responsible for identifying the assassin—Oswald, presumably.

  Burt Griffin was the junior lawyer on the team investigating Jack Ruby’s background.

  Alfred Goldberg, an air force historian, helped outline and write the report.

  Melvin Eisenberg, Redlich’s deputy, became the commission’s in-house expert on the science of criminology and could knock down many of the conspiracy theories.

  Joseph Ball, the senior lawyer on the team to determine the assassin’s identity, was praised for his hard work.

  Richard Mosk prepared studies on Oswald’s marksmanship and his surprisingly sophisticated reading habits.

  William Coleman, senior lawyer on the “conspiracy” team, was a key legal strategist in the civil rights movement and is shown standing next to Martin Luther King.

  Francis Adams, former New York City police commissioner, effectively abandoned the investigation.

  Leon Hubert, former district attorney of New Orleans, left the commission’s staff early, angry that little attention was being paid to his investigation of Jack Ruby.

  Albert Jenner was the senior lawyer in investigating Oswald’s life story.

  Samuel Stern was the sole investigator assigned to study the history of presidential protection and the performance of the Secret Service.

  Julia Eide was Rankin’s intelligent and intimidating secretary.

  Marina Oswald in Minsk.

  Marina and Lee in Minsk.

  The Oswalds with infant June in Texas.

  Oswald’s falsified Marine Corp ID card (in the name of alias Alex Hidell).

  Oswald with rifle and pistol in New Orleans, 1963.

  Oswald in Marine Corps uniform.

  Oswald’s falsified ID (in name of alias Alex Hidell).

  Oswald and friends in Russia, including Ella German, who refused to marry him, seen top right.

  Oswald with coworkers in Minsk.

  Oswald hands out “Hands off Cuba” leaflets in New Orleans
in 1963.

  Jack Ruby, “host” of the Carousel Club burlesque house, was known in Dallas for his aggressive effort to court the police and reporters. Ruby poses with three of the club’s performers.

  Ruby’s business card.

  A mug shot taken after his arrest for Oswald’s murder.

  The ramp that Ruby was believed to have used to reach the basement of Dallas police headquarters to kill Oswald.

  On Sunday, November 24, Ruby murdered Oswald on live national television, pushing through a crowd of reporters and cameramen to fire his pistol at point-blank range.

  The cold-blooded murder of Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit, shown in uniform, was seen by commission lawyer David Belin as the “Rosetta Stone” in understanding that Oswald was obviously guilty of the president’s assassination, too.

  Tippit’s murder was witnessed by restaurant waitress Helen Markham, seen next to an unidentified policeman; she identified Oswald in a police lineup later that day.

  Shortly after Tippit’s killing, Oswald was arrested as he tried to hide in the darkened auditorium at the nearby Texas Theatre. In his pocket was a bus transfer (shown with key), which Belin suspected that Oswald intended to use to reach another bus that would allow him to escape to Mexico.

  Texas Governor John Connally is comforted by his wife, Nellie, at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, as he recovered from the bullet wounds suffered as he rode in the president’s limousine in Dealey Plaza.