The Girl on the Stairs

by Barry Ernest

  On nine separate occasions prior to the assassination, the FBI made contact with the nightclub owner in an attempt to enlist him as an agency informant, because of his knowledge of “criminal elements in Dallas.”50 Those attempts apparently failed.51

  The Committee did level some criticism at the FBI, though. It said the FBI’s limited efforts to determine if a conspiracy existed were “seriously flawed”52 and “deficient.”53 The Committee found that, even though the bureau had specialists on Cuban affairs, the FBI hardly examined Oswald’s much-publicized activities along that line.54 And the agency focused its efforts too narrowly on Oswald, and “the critical early period of the FBI’s investigation was conducted in an atmosphere of considerable haste and pressure from Hoover to conclude the investigation in an unreasonably short period of time,” the Committee determined. “The committee also noted that Hoover’s personal predisposition that Oswald had been a lone assassin affected the course of the investigation, adding to the momentum to conclude the investigation after limited consideration of possible conspiratorial areas.”55

  In addition, the Committee described the relationship between the Warren Commission and the FBI as being “distinctly adversarial and that there were limited areas in which the FBI did not provide complete information to the Commission and other areas in which the bureau’s information was misleading.”56

  The CIA wasn’t off the hook either. Overall, the Committee described the CIA’s assistance to the Commission as “inconsistent with the spirit of” the investigation,57 mainly because of that agency’s don’t-say-a-word-unless-specifically-asked attitude. That policy, for example, was how the CIA justified silence about its super-secret alliance with the Mafia over a plan to get rid of Fidel Castro.58

  The Secret Service, according to the Committee, failed to adequately respond to threatening information it possessed prior to the Dallas trip, was not prepared to defend the president against sniper attack, and relinquished its role too quickly when the FBI took over the Commission’s investigative work.

  The Committee also found “regrettable” the fact that the Department of Justice did not take on a more supervisory role over the FBI. “The promise of what the department might have realized in fact was great,” the Committee wrote, “particularly in the use of such evidence-gathering tools such [sic] as a grand jury and grants of immunity.”59

  Government agencies had, in fact, performed poorly.

  As for the Warren Commission, the Committee concluded it had shown little initiative. It relied too heavily on the FBI and CIA, the very agencies that ended up deceiving it.

  The Commission’s inquiry “was conducted in good faith, competently, and with high integrity, but . . . the Warren Report was not, in some respects, an accurate presentation of all the evidence available to the Commission or a true reflection of the scope of the Commission’s work, particularly on the issue of possible conspiracy in the assassination,” the Committee determined. “It is a reality to be regretted that the Commission failed to live up to its promise.”60

  Did the HSCA live up to its own promise? When formed, the Committee established three questions it felt obligated to answer to fulfill its legislative mandate: What kind of a job did federal agencies do in their investigation of the assassination? Was there a conspiracy? Who murdered Kennedy?

  Federal agencies, the Committee found, did not do well. In practically every instance, there appeared to be deception and disguise, not only in information presented to the Warren Commission but also in what the Warren Commission presented to the public.

  As to question two, the Committee agreed there was a near certainty that a conspiracy existed.

  Who did it? The Committee still declared it to be Oswald, a crazed little man bounced around like a pinball in life’s game, seeking nothing but notoriety. He was proficient enough to kill Kennedy from his sixth-floor perch. The grassy-knoll gunman simply missed.

  The question remains, however, that if Oswald sought only stardom—his personal fifteen minutes of fame, so to speak—wouldn’t he have wanted to do his deed alone? Wouldn’t a knoll shooter have negated Oswald’s selfish and solitary attempt at self-aggrandizement, especially if the knoll shooter was accurate and Oswald was not?

  Where was the evidence that Oswald actually pulled the trigger or was even on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting? Try as they might, the Warren Commission and now the HSCA could at best only surmise he had been there and done that. Every bit of evidence used to place Oswald on the sixth floor, as a Warren Commission attorney frankly admitted years earlier, was merely “circumstantial.”61

  CHAPTER 19

  April 1994-April 1999

  “The Commission’s first client is the public,” wrote Alfred Goldberg, a historian charged with helping compose what would soon become the Warren Report, the official and, as it turned out, the first of the government’s versions of who shot John Kennedy.1 Those were lofty words and among the first I read as I found myself journeying back to the National Archives to examine some of the newly released documents.

  Goldberg’s pledge opened a four-page memorandum to General Counsel J. Lee Rankin. Rankin had asked Goldberg for his thoughts on how to pull together into readable form the mass of evidence the Warren Commission was acquiring. He also wanted Goldberg’s feelings on how the final product might be received.

  “This public,” Goldberg thought, “consists primarily of some millions of intelligent and reasonably educated people in the United States and abroad who are waiting to be informed of the facts of the assassination of President Kennedy and the conclusion of the Commission as to who did it and why.”2 Goldberg predicted the Report was destined to become “a major historical document” and “the definitive history of the event.”3 Therefore, its value “will rest ultimately on the extent to which the information is complete and on the skill and judgement [sic] with which it is evaluated,” he said. “Clear evidence is the only means by which to establish historical facts, and this report must speak to the public through facts that are arranged, emphasized, and generalized to give meaning to confused and confusing happenings.

  “It is the professional and patriotic duty, and the announced intention, of the Commission Staff to tell the whole truth about the assassination of President Kennedy. There is complete agreement that the report must be as honest, accurate, and objective as it is humanly possible to make it. It must include both sides of issues and clearly distinguish fact from hypothesis.4

  “The requirement for accuracy,” he emphasized, “is so paramount that it cannot be exaggerated.”5

  Goldberg’s noble words were written in April 1964, five months before the Warren Report went to print. What, then, happened to those well-intentioned goals during that intervening period? Why did the Commission’s crowning work contain unclear evidence and inaccuracies, the exact opposite of what should have been its hallmark? Why had it not become the “definitive history of the event”?

  Was it because the “skill and judgement” of the Commission and its staff were lacking? How could that be, though? These were trained and honorable men, selected specifically because they were among the best and brightest in their chosen fields, clear thinkers and very responsible too.

  There were a couple of laxities, such as when Commission member Gerald Ford took classified documents to include in the first chapter of his upcoming book, or when member Hale Boggs carelessly left top-secret papers exposed on the front seat of his car. Those were but minor improprieties.

  Goldberg’s prophecy for a “definitive history of the event” was attainable only if all the information was available for the Commission to judge and evaluate. An outburst by Sen. Richard Russell at an early Commission meeting, however, seemed prophetic:

  I have never been able to understand why it is that every agency acts like it’s the sole agency in the Government. There is very little interchange of information between the departments in the United States Government. The entire view is that th
ey are a separate, closed department, and there is no interchange of information.6

  Russell would be proven correct. Both the CIA and FBI, for example, considered activities of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) to be a serious threat to the internal security of the United States. Both agencies were conducting active investigations into that faction. The FBI, in particular, singled out the FPCC as requiring “intensive coverage” because it was “the principal outlet of pro-Castro propaganda and agitation.”7

  Yet neither the CIA nor FBI exchanged notes or compared their individual results.

  Was Oswald a member of the FPCC? He said he was. Authorities and the media certainly used that fact against him. Yet if he had such an allegiance and the FBI knew of it, why wasn’t he included on that agency’s list of security risks, as every other member of the FPCC had been?

  This is an odd omission, since Oswald’s background included a lengthy stay in Russia, a conspicuous detail of which the Communist-hating FBI was aware. And during the summer of 1963, the FBI also knew he was in New Orleans, a vitriolic hotbed of anti-Castro activities, proclaiming himself to be the head of the FPCC’s local chapter.

  When it came to Pres. Lyndon Johnson, the FBI had no problem sharing what it knew about Oswald only hours after the assassination. In an unsigned memo addressed modestly to “Mr. Johnson” on November 22, 1963, the bureau listed five points concerning the suspected assassin, including the error that Oswald had visited the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C.,8 had been arrested for disturbing the peace in New Orleans, and had received a dishonorable military discharge. It also noted the following:

  “4. Reported to drink to excess and to be wife beater.

  5. Present Status: Arrested in connection with killing of Dallas policeman. No direct link with assassination [author’s emphasis].”9

  FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover certainly did not feel that Oswald had “no direct link” to the president’s murder. Upon learning Kennedy had died, Hoover told Dallas Special Agent in Charge Gordon Shanklin to “go all out on this and find out who did it.”10 Less than an hour later, however, Hoover was on the phone to Attorney General Robert Kennedy, telling him he “thought we had the man who killed the President” and adding, “we have had a case on Oswald as he has been involved in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.”11

  If Hoover knew of Oswald’s FPCC involvement, why wasn’t Oswald listed as a security risk? Why wasn’t that information passed along to the Secret Service and local police authorities in advance of the president’s trip to Dallas?

  Not long after that, Hoover described Oswald as being “in the category of a nut and the extremist pro-Castro crowd.”12

  And when an FBI agent only hours after the assassination suggested the bureau look into the possibility that a member of the National States Rights Party was involved, Hoover responded, “Not necessary to cover as true subject located.”13 However, at that time, Oswald had not yet been charged with the crime.

  J. Edgar Hoover, of course, wanted his own agency to singly investigate and write the final chapter on Kennedy’s murder. He wanted to tout the fact that his men had quickly solved the case. He was therefore not pleased to hear on November 25, the day of Kennedy’s funeral, of a planned Washington Post editorial calling for a “Presidential Commission” to probe the assassination.

  One of his assistant directors quickly telephoned the Post’s managing editor, advising him that such an opinionated piece would “muddy the waters and would create further confusion and hysteria.”14 The FBI, the caller explained to the Post, was conducting a “swift and intensive” investigation in which “no stone is to be left unturned,” and the results would be shared with the public and would “lay to rest any rumors of substance that had been flying around.”15

  When the Post remained unconvinced and said it was moving ahead with the story anyway, Assistant Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach intervened, going directly to the paper’s editor. He asked that the story be quashed. This time it worked.

  The next day, Hoover relayed to the White House his success at having “killed the editorial in the Post.”16 He also said his FBI had turned up evidence of only three shots, adding, “We have one complete bullet found on the stretcher on which the President was carried into the hospital, which apparently fell out of the President’s head.”17

  According to Hoover, the only question remaining was who should publicly issue the FBI’s conclusions—the Justice Department or the White House. President Johnson’s thoughts, at that moment, were elsewhere. He was considering turning the whole mess over to the State of Texas.

  Hoover quite naturally was aghast.

  Curiously, Katzenbach was perhaps the earliest and strongest proponent of a Presidential Commission, despite his influence in “killing” the Post editorial.

  During his HSCA appearance years later, Katzenbach said he “thought very early that such a Commission was essential . . . that such a Commission should be formed of people of impeccable integrity, people who would search for the truth and who would make that truth public because I did not believe that if it remained entirely within the executive branch that that effect could ever be achieved as far as the general public here or abroad was concerned.”18

  He “never intended at any point that the investigation done by the FBI would be a substitute for the kind of investigation of President Kennedy’s assassination.”19

  Katzenbach was in a tough spot, though. In Robert Kennedy’s absence, he was running the show at Justice, the supposed overseers of the FBI.

  “My awkwardness,” he explained, “was because it was perfectly obvious to anybody who knew anything about the Federal Bureau of Investigation that they were certain to resent the appointment of any such commission . . . and if I were thought to be the source of that or to recommend that, then it would very seriously affect my relations with Mr. Hoover and the Bureau.”20

  Nevertheless, on November 25, Katzenbach penned a two-page memorandum to Johnson aide Bill Moyers, “exerting tremendous pressure,”21 as the HSCA would later describe it, to form “a Presidential Commission of unimpeachable personnel to review and examine the evidence and announce its conclusions.”22

  Katzenbach said, “The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial [author’s emphasis].

  “Speculation about Oswald’s motivation ought to be cut off . . . ,” he went on. “Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too pat—too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc). . . . The matter has been handled thus far with neither dignity nor conviction.”23 He suggested a quick response “to head off public speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort.”24

  Critics later charged that this memo signaled a rush to judgment against Oswald.

  While the White House secretly considered Katzenbach’s proposal, Hoover continued his own agenda.

  “Seems to me we have the basic facts now,” he wrote four days after the assassination.25

  Two weeks later, the FBI Summary Report was born, with its conclusion that Oswald was the sole assassin. Instead of laying rumors to rest, as promised, it generated its own, especially with the conclusion that Kennedy was hit by two bullets and Connally by a separate third.

  That three-for-three logic disregarded two questions: how James Tague, the bystander, was wounded by a missed shot, and how Kennedy and Connally could have been hit by separate bullets in less time than it took to fire Oswald’s rifle twice. The FBI’s Summary Report, therefore, implied a second assassin.

  The dilemma over who would release that report became moot. Johnson by now had been swayed into creating the Warren Commission. Adding insult to injury, one of the Commission’s first moves was to reject going public with Hoover’s Summary Report, choosing instead to use it only as a foundation to the Commission’s inquiry.

  It was clear in the beginning that the Co
mmission had serious doubts about the FBI’s three-shots, three-hits scenario.

  [John] McCloy: This bullet business leaves me confused.

  Chairman [Warren]: It’s totally inconclusive.

  [Sen. Richard] Russell: They couldn’t find where one bullet came out that struck the President and yet they found a bullet in the stretcher.26 . . .

  [Rep. Hale] Boggs: And this business about where the bullets penetrated the President’s body, speculation about the wound in the throat, the hole in the windshield.

  McCloy: That is very unsatisfactory.

  [Rep. Gerald] Ford: I thought it was a narrative that was interesting to read but it did not have the depth that it ought to have.27 . . .

  Boggs: Well, this FBI report doesn’t clear it up.

  Chairman: It doesn’t do anything.

  Boggs: It raises a lot of new questions in my mind.28

  Ironically, the FBI was called on to resolve the very problems it was accused of creating. In hindsight, it became in HSCA member Richardson Preyer’s eyes the “innkeeper” summoned to appraise his own wine.

  As expected, the innkeeper objected. The Commission asked the FBI, for example, to determine how fast the presidential automobile was traveling while it was under fire. When an agent alerted Hoover to the request, Hoover replied, “O.K. It seems like a lot of poppy cock to me.”29

  Even though the Commission rejected the FBI’s version of events, Hoover never changed his mind about the bureau’s conclusion that all three shots found their mark.

  Years later, a line in a newspaper article discussing the Commission’s rebuff caught Hoover’s eye. It read, “Confusion on this point has been caused by a preliminary FBI report that apparently was erroneous.” Hoover, ever the diligent one, underlined those words and wrote as marginalia, “What about this?”30

  The Warren Commission depended on the FBI as its investigative right arm. Yet in Hoover’s eyes, the Warren Commission was a waste of time. It was nothing more than “poppy cock,” since, in his opinion, the case already had been solved—by his own men.