I was working for Visión, a Spanish-language newsmagazine patterned after Time. I was on my way to AP to get related photos, when as I passed within a short distance of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, its bells tolled the death of JFK. I can still hear them. Even now, after 49 years, a heaviness comes across my chest as I remember that day, and look at the photos.
Archive for November 2012
Didn’t do it: More on the role of George H.W. Bush in the events of 1963
Russ Baker takes exception to our post of November 25, “Didn’t Do It: George H.W. Bush.” His comment is published in full beneath the post, but since his response has merit, I want to give it prominent treatment here as well.
Russ rightly objects to my linking his reporting about Bush and the JFK story with John Hankey’s video on the same subject. He says:
“To try and distract people from a TON of documented, footnoted evidence on HW Bush’s covert work in Dallas with CIA circa 11/22 by falsely suggesting that I–or anyone–is stupid enough to believe that Bush would be an actual triggerman, well, that’s just beyond the pale.”
My apologies. Russ’s views are clearly different Read more
A lawman’s view of JFK’s security–and his murder
Ed Martin, a Montana law enforcement officer in the 1960s and 1970s, had unique personal experience with security procedures around President Kennedy in 1963. His daughter, Deb Galatine, shares what her father’s perspective on the JFK story on Vince Palamara’s site about the Secret Service. Martin’s story provides Read more
Nov 29 1963: Warren Commission announced
Once President Johnson decided to back the idea of a Presidential Commission, he moved swiftly. By Friday, November 29, his selections had solidified, reluctant participants arm-wrestled into service, and the Commission was announced. It was to be headed by the most reluctant participant of all, Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, and the story of how Johnson got him on board is revealing.
First, the names had to be run by the all-powerful FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Johnson was coy, asking if Hoover was “familiar with this proposed group they’re trying to put together?”
Read more
“40 million Americans…”
“…we’ve got to take this out of the arena where they’re testifying that Khrushchev and Castro did this and did that and kick us into a war that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour…”
- President Johnson, telling Senator Richard Russell why he has been named to the Warren Commission.
‘The most exciting development so far…’
from a reader at Indiegogo:
“JFK Facts is the most exciting development so far in the crowded and often confusing rush to explain the Kennedy assassination as we near Year 50.”
Nov 28 1963: LBJ backs Commission to investigate the assassination
Three days earlier, President Johnson had resisted the idea of a Presidential Commission inquiry into President Kennedy’s assassination, telling Joe Alsop “we don’t send in a bunch of carpetbaggers” and “the President must not inject himself into, ah, local killings.” To which Alsop had replied “I agree with that, but in this case it does happen to be the killing of the President.” Read more
When JFK wooed Latinos
AP reported a genuinely new JFK story on Sunday. It turns out that JFK met informally with members of Mexican-American civil rights group in Houston the day before his death. It was the first time an American president had ever recognized Latinos as a voting bloc. First Lady Jackie Kennedy spoke Read more
Nov 27 1963: President Johnson invokes JFK in speech to Congress
President Johnson’s address to a joint session of Congress called on the nation to “let us continue”, an echo of Kennedy’s inaugural “let us begin anew”. Johnson began what would become a masterful use of Kennedy’s memory and his own considerable legislative skills in passing such seemingly intractable legislation as the 1964 Civil Rights bill. This is one of the greatest ironies of the assassination: it enabled LBJ to accomplish what Kennedy probably could not have.
JFK culture war brews in Dallas
Dallas is ground zero of the JFK assassination debate, and Russ Baker at WhoWhatWhy points out how plans for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary next year already seem weighted in favor of conclusions that vast majority of Americans people–and even most scholars–do not believe. The scene is set for a culture war in 2013.
Nov 26 1963: Another conspiracy allegation from Mexico City
On Tuesday the 26th, President Johnson met with many of the heads of state who had come to Washington for Kennedy’s funeral. The idea of a Presidential Commission to address the assassination was not yet settled. Meanwhile, in Mexico City another allegation of Communist conspiracy involving Oswald emerged, adding to the earlier CIA reporting that Oswald had met with a KGB officer associated with “Department 13″ – sabotage and assassinations. The efforts to blame communists for JFK’s assassination, sometimes emanating from CIA sources, would cloud the case for decades. Read more
Petition for JFK disclosure gains 2,000+ signatures
The fact that the CIA is still concealing at least 1,172 documents related to JFK’s assassination from the public is either absurd or sinister. What can you do? Join the more than 2,000 people who are petitioning the Obama administration to do its job Read more
JFK memory: ‘Something really bad had happened to Mr. Kennedy’
I was two and half years old when Kennedy was killed. I was toddling around the house when the soap opera my mother was watching came to a halt. The news came on. I paid little attention, but knew something bad had happened, since all my family did for the next few days was watch television. Read more
Nov 25 1963: Kennedy’s funeral, and Washington’s response firms up
On the Monday following the tragic and fast-moving events in Dallas, President Kennedy’s body was laid to rest in Arlington cemetary. A host of foreign dignitaries took part, including British Prime Minister Home, French President Charles de Gaulle, and many others.
Meanwhile the federal government’s response to the assassination was taking shape. Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach sent the White House a memo proposing a course of action. He went right to the point in its second paragraph:
“The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.”
Top Russian at JFK funeral: U.S. ‘does not want to involve us’
“Judging from everything, the U.S. government does not want to involve us in this matter, but neither does it want to get into a fight with the extreme rightists; it clearly prefers to consign the whole business to oblivion as soon as possible.”
- Soviet Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, writing to his government after talks with U.S. officials at Kennedy’s funeral. The telegram was part of a collection of documents given by Russian President Boris Yeltsin to President Clinton in 1999.
At the funeral ceremony, Mikoyan approached Jacqueline Kennedy, who “clasped both his hands in hers and in a voice filled with deep emotion” said: “Please tell Mr. Chairman [Khrushchev] that I know he and my husband worked together for a peaceful world, and now he and you must carry on my husband’s work.” (Brothers, by David Talbot, p. 254)