Even before the Czech’s first shot, the Jordanian had the President of the United States directly in his scope. As the first shot hit the President from behind, Namdar pulled the trigger and let loose the bullet that killed John F. Kennedy. The shot struck straight into his head. It drove him backwards, tearing a piece from his skull, scattering portions of his brain on the back of the limousine, on the seat next to him, and on his frightened wife.
Less than ten seconds later, Namdar had dismantled the rifle, loaded it back into his box, and was gone. According to plan, he drove his 1962 Buick slowly to Los Angeles. He made many stops along the way, leaving pieces of his weapon scattered, many miles apart, in the desert and sagebrush from west Texas to California. He made his report before staying with friends in Los Angeles, people who knew nothing of his activities. For six weeks he waited, celebrating the coming of the New Year 1964 before flying to Montreal and then on to Athens. As prearranged, he booked passage on a ship from Greece to Egypt. Finally, in the first week of February, he made it home to his well-earned, comfortable retirement. His most lucrative job would also be his last. Two weeks later, on a busy street in Amman, he was hit by a truck and killed. All who saw it said it was an unfortunate accident. Witnesses, people who waited with him on the sidewalk at the intersection, said he seemed to jump in front of the truck. No one noticed or remembered the man who pushed Namdar from behind.
The third man, Ondnok, had watched it all, only a few yards away from the target. He heard all three shots. Of course, he enjoyed the advantage of knowing when they would come. The panic of the crowd did not disturb him. He too had seen many men shot with a high-powered rifle. The blow that struck the American President in the skull had clearly done the job. As the limousine sped away, Ondnok turned and walked in the other direction. He never drew his pistol. He never did anything. He knew a dead man when he saw one. His prayers had been answered.
He earned more money on November 22, 1963, than for any job he ever did. And he did nothing. His risk had more than justified his price. Like the others, he followed his prearranged escape plan. He met a small private plane at an airport south of Dallas. Posing as a West German businessman, an anti-Communist looking to buy arms for his Eastern brothers, he had chartered the plane two days earlier. His destination was New Orleans. Once there, he made his report. After three days, and three memorable nights in the French Quarter, he took a commercial flight to Mexico City. There he made a connection to Havana before finally returning to his family in a small farming village in Slovakia.
Less than a month later, the day before Christmas 1963 to be exact, the barn in which he was working burned to the ground. Trapped, unable to escape, he perished in the blaze. To save his family added grief, no autopsy on the charred remains was performed. The small bullet hole in the back of the farmer’s head was never discovered.
Two days after the assassination, as contracted for, Lee Harvey Oswald was shot dead. His shouted pronouncement to the press, his plea of innocence, was soon forgotten. As he was gunned down, Oswald was surrounded by Dallas Police officers. He was still inside Dallas Police Headquarters, handcuffed and in custody when it happened. A man simply walked up to Oswald with a drawn handgun and fired point-blank at his midsection. The whole world saw it, live on television.
The men’s room killing in Rome was local news for a day or two. The accident in Amman was not even reported. The tragedy in Slovakia also went unnoticed by the world at large. It was, however, the final detail. Within ninety days of the death of John F. Kennedy, the men who did the deed, as well as the man who stood falsely accused, were all dead themselves. Their killers had been retained professionally. They had no knowledge of who their victims were or what they might have done. Why they had been hired to kill someone, in a restroom, on a busy street or in a rural barn, would have been an impolite question. They knew only how much they were to be paid. Only one person, the man responsible for all this, knew the truth. Only Frederick Lacey knew. He wrote extensively, passionately, angrily about it in his private journal-the Lacey Confession.
November 24, 1963
The Chief Justice waited patiently on a beige love seat in the Oval Office. Summoned unexpectedly, he arrived at a hectic White House as quickly as he could. Later, in his diary, he remarked on the chaos pervading the West Wing that day. As he was led through the hallways, he noticed an unusual number of Secret Service agents. They were all over the place. They were openly armed. And everywhere he saw signs of moving in. “No time for compassion,” he wrote. “The King is dead. Long live the King.” There was tomorrow’s funeral, but it was Thanksgiving the Thursday coming that was on his mind. Thanksgiving, a day of joyous celebration, the quintessential American holiday, he always felt. A tribute to those who began this noble experiment. A reaffirmation of our own survival, our success, our perseverance in a hostile, new world. Now, that day lay in ruins, victim of a cowardly ambush. For the Chief Justice and millions of Americans, the unimaginable, the unthinkable, the impossible, had all come to be.
Immediately after returning to Washington from Dallas, Lyndon Johnson, the new American President, insisted on a full federal investigation. From the beginning he wanted a special commission. His mind was made up days before the official story was delivered to and devoured whole by a compliant American media. That account, given to the American people, had Johnson, a Texan himself, worried about the Attorney General in Texas, a man named Waggoner Carr. It was said that he, Carr, was about to start up his own inquiry. The murder had occurred in Texas. Carr was portrayed as an opportunist of the worst kind. The official story went on to say it was Abe Fortas, a Johnson crony and a man later nominated to be a Justice on the Supreme Court, together with Nicholas D. B. Katzenbach, a high-ranking member of the Justice Department, who presented the idea for the Warren Commission to Johnson on November 29. Still another Texas Democrat, Leon Jaworski, who ten years later would be among the most recognized people in the country, supposedly was assigned to take care of Waggoner Carr. Jaworski was to have him call off the dogs of Texas.
None of this was true or ever happened. Instead, it was President Johnson, who was determined before he ever came back to Washington, who pressured Chief Justice Earl Warren to head the commission investigating the death of John F. Kennedy. Warren wanted no part of it. He made that quite clear, in great detail in those entries he made in the final weeks of 1963 in his personal diary. According to Warren, Johnson called him to the White House before Kennedy was even buried. Warren met with the President on the 24th, offered to help, but did not agree to serve. Late on that night, following his meeting with Johnson, he wrote: “It never occurred to me that anyone would question that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated the President of the United States-or that there would be any public speculation about some sinister motivation on his part-or that there would be widespread consideration he might be part of some larger plot or conspiracy. I never thought of it, that is, until today when President Johnson expressed such concern over the matter.”
Earlier that Sunday afternoon the Chief Justice sat alone in the Oval Office. He could not help but speculate-the couch on which he sat must have belonged to the dead President lying in state in the rotunda of the Capitol. Too sophisticated, too tasteful for Lyndon Johnson. It was an uncomfortable thought for him. One of many he said he had since this nightmare began. He’d seen the picture of Johnson being sworn in. He wrote of what he called the horrific sadness in Mrs. Kennedy’s eyes, the dress splattered with blood-her husband’s blood. That photograph had been on the front page of The New York Times, The Washington Post and newspapers all over the world. Johnson hurried Federal Judge Sarah Hughes out to the airport in Dallas. He didn’t wish to leave the scene of his ascendancy except as President of the United States. Who could blame him? Warren agreed that was the right decision. The Chief Justice heaved a sigh of relief. I’m glad it wasn’t me in that picture, he later wrote. It probably would be all I’d ever be remembered for. Sarah Hughes could be
certain that picture, and none other, would top her obituary.
Now, noted Warren, things had gone from bad to worse. Lee Harvey Oswald, the apparent assailant, the man who killed John F. Kennedy, had himself been murdered, on television, in full view of the whole world. I saw it myself, he wrote. Jesus Christ! How could they let a thing like that happen?
The President appeared in the room as if from nowhere. He came through a wall panel that was also a hidden door. Warren heard his footsteps and looked up. He had no idea that door was there. “Afternoon, Mr. Chief Justice,” said Johnson, extending his hand. Warren rose to shake it. Lyndon Johnson was a very tall man, a bit funny looking, even ugly in person, according to some, yet still fit and thin despite many years living the good life, “high on the hog,” as he might have said when in Texas. Very high indeed. He looked as if he’d just showered, shaved and changed his clothes. Warren knew him well. The two men had met many times. Johnson was still a relatively poor Texas Congressman when they first crossed paths, and Warren only beginning then to dream of being Governor of California. “Now look at us,” he said to himself.
“Good afternoon, Mr. President,” he replied. My God! he wondered. Could it be? Yes. Lyndon Johnson really is the President of the United States! “I came over as soon as I could.”
“I appreciate that,” said Johnson in his stretched-out Texas drawl. “I do. I’m truly grateful to see you. I prize your good counsel and I have the greatest admiration for you. You know that, I’m sure.” He stood with both hands resting on his hips; his head bent slightly forward, his mouth in a tight frown. Surely he towered over the seated Chief Justice.
“This is a bad time, one neither of us could have imagined. Just look around.” He gestured with his hands extended, the long sweep of his arms emphasizing the expanse of the famed Oval Office. “This has become my office. I am the President. We all think of it, dream of it, some nights go to sleep tasting it. But not this way. Not this way. In ’48, when you ran with Tom Dewey, there must have been a time when you not only thought you’d win-hell, Harry looked like roadkill there for a while-but, more than that-there had to be a moment when you saw yourself right here, right where I am now. I know you never thought it’d happen like this. It’s hard to find the words. But we must go on. This country must go on. We face serious problems, Mr. Chief Justice.” Johnson walked over to the big, dark mahogany desk. Was it his desk or Jack Kennedy’s? Sitting on the edge, he looked down at Earl Warren. “We’re needed,” he said with an urgency common to Protestant preachers. “We’re called upon to serve.”
“Yes, we are,” Warren answered, still unsure why Johnson asked for this meeting, unclear what it was the President wanted from him, or from the Supreme Court. At first, when a White House aide called asking the Chief Justice to come to the White House on an “urgent matter,” Warren thought there might be some concern about the procedures used to swear in the new President. Or perhaps the shooting of Oswald was presenting technical questions or jurisdictional problems which Johnson didn’t understand and wanted cleared up right away. A strange reason indeed to call the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but in these times, the strange was normal. However, at that moment, with the President looking straight at him, Earl Warren had no idea what this meeting was about.
Moreover, he thought, until now he had never been alone with the President of the United States. He’d seen Roosevelt in person, twice, each time at a dinner with hundreds of people. He was introduced to Truman, but again that was in a receiving line at an official function and before the 1948 election. When Eisenhower called him in to interview for the appointment as Chief Justice there must have been a half dozen advisors in the room at the time. Once he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a Constitutional post that established him as the leader of a co-equal branch of the Federal Government, he never met alone with Ike or Jack Kennedy. If asked, he supposed he would probably have offered the opinion that such a meeting might be improper, regardless of who occupied either office. And yet, following the murder of President Kennedy, here he was, alone with Lyndon Johnson in the private office of the President. The Chief Justice felt uncomfortable. He recorded his discomfort in his journal.
“Mr. Chief Justice, I’m afraid the American people are worried and confused,” Johnson went on. “They’re worried that their government, their country, is in jeopardy, facing great danger. They speculate about an enemy. Who is their enemy? Where are they? What are they gonna do next? Who else is gonna get killed? And who’s doing this killing? You know what I mean?”
“Well, yes. I think I do, Mr. President.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that. You and I need to keep our heads about us. We need to clear away the cobwebs of confusion and put to rest the nation’s worry. That’s my obligation now. That’s our obligation. The trust of the people is the foundation on which this government rests. It’s the bedrock of our republic. It’s my responsibility-my sworn duty-to keep that trust from being shaken.” Johnson was quiet a moment. He shook his head slightly from side to side, showing his disgust and frustration. “This Oswald problem is getting out of hand,” he said. “How the goddamn hell do they let somebody shoot him? Tell me that!” The Chief Justice knew better than to reply.
Johnson rose from his desk, raised his fist in anger and walked over to the window looking out on the White House lawn. Special lights, put in place that afternoon by the Secret Service, covered much of the wide-open grassy area in bright light. In the late autumn afternoon, the garden just outside the Oval Office was already dark with only a few ground lights to show the walkways among the flowers and plants, the ones Mrs. Kennedy had arranged so beautifully.
“Oswald’s dead. Shot and killed in front of our eyes for Christ’s sake! The man who killed the President is dead. And now we got speculation running rampant. Who’d he work for?” Johnson once more turned around, paced from one side of the office to the other and back, slapping his thighs as he walked, then sat down-at the President’s desk-in the President’s chair. He looked like he’d been there forever. “I’ve got reports people are asking questions about his communist ties. Talking about the Cubans-those damn Cubans,” Johnson mumbled, looking down at the floor as if there might be something important there. Then he looked straight at Warren and spoke again in a loud, strong voice. “The Russians too, even Chinese. You know Oswald was stationed in Japan?”
“No sir, I didn’t. I didn’t know that. Did Oswald have any contact with the Chinese?”
“He could have, could have. Who knows? Chinese, Japanese. He could have. That’s not the point. The point is-people are asking questions. You understand? People are asking questions. Even you. You just asked, didn’t you? Newspapers are gonna start writing things, all sorts of things. You know that. With Oswald dead we’re never gonna get the truth about why he shot the President. Instead we’ll get speculation. We’ll get dangerous, unhealthy speculation. Crazy stuff. The kind that plays right into the hands of our real enemies. And we,” he said peering straight into Warren’s eyes, “have to prevent this. We have to stop this needless, irresponsible distraction. We have to stem the tide of our national vulnerability. We need time to heal our hurt. We’re hurting. This kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen. People need to be reassured. We have to do what’s right. I must do it. And I need your help.”
“I’ll do whatever I can, Mr. President, whatever’s appropriate given my position and responsibilities. Legally, you know of course, this is a local problem. Murder, both of them, the murder of President Kennedy and the murder of Oswald, are violations that come under Texas law. There’s no federal crime here that I can see. Quite amazing, isn’t it? You kill the President of the United States, the highest-ranking federal officer in the land and you’re not subject to any federal jurisdiction as a result. You know, I hesitate to say it, actually I…”
“Don’t be shy, Mr. Chief Justice. Our job is to bring this whole sad business to its rightful conclusion.”
“
I was going to say, I’m not sure it was such a good idea to remove the body from the local jurisdiction. I understand, under the circumstances…”
“Under the circumstances!” Johnson bellowed. “I had no information to tell me who else was in danger. Maybe they were after Mrs. Kennedy too. The Governor, my friend John Connally, was hit pretty bad. I didn’t know if I was a target. The thought more than crossed my mind, I can tell you that. You know, when Lincoln was killed they tried to get the Vice President at the same time. Another Johnson too. I had folks saying there was sharpshooters all over the place. Shots were coming from everywhere. Could have been a damn army of them. The Pentagon told me about threats from all over the world. You know, the Secretary of State was in the air over the Pacific Ocean while this was going on. Dallas was no place to be and I wasn’t gonna leave him back there. There’s her too,” he said, referring to the widowed First Lady. “She wouldn’t go without him. No sirree, she wouldn’t.”
The Lacey confession l-2 Page 3