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.”
Many have interpreted this as a clear call to cover-up — that the federal government was already committed to what the Warren Commission would later conclude — Oswald was the sole assassin, not part of any larger conspiracy.
To be fair, the memo opens with: “It is important that all the facts surrounding President Kennedy’s Assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad that all the facts have been told…”
The problem is that, regardless of whether you believe the Warren Commission later solved the case, it is not possible that on November 25 the government already knew there was no conspiracy. The rifle found in the Book Depository had been traced to Oswald, yes. But it had no fingerprints on it, and the “magic bullet” tied to the gun had been found mysteriously on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital. Oswald had just been murdered in police custody, and the government was awash in allegations surrounding his visit to Communist embassies in Mexico City just six weeks earlier.
This last point was much on Katzenbach’s mind:
“Speculation about Oswald’s motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis for rebutting thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing conspiracy to blame it on the Communists.”
And he was well aware that the simple story of a lone assassin had problems:
“Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too pat–too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.)”
Given the heightened state of tensions that existed in the world in 1963, it is not surprising that the federal government would be acutely concerned about whether blame for JFK’s mruder would be placed on the Cubans or Soviets, which would have put immense pressure on President Johnson to respond forcefully. The world had been at the brink of all-out nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis only a year earlier.
In 2012, what is important is the truth of the matter. It seems clear that Katzenbach’s memo is a statement of policy going forward, not a summary of currently-known facts.
And it invariably follows that if the government could not know the existence of a conspiracy barely three days following the assassination, then it surely exceeds all characterizations of credibility to believe that any such conspiracy could have been known and the government’s response have been initiated in the hours immediately following the assassination on the afternoon of Friday the 22nd.
It is that single fact that torpedoes any and all theories of body alteration occurring prior to the start of the Bethesda autopsy. The premise of an empty casket being off-loaded from Air Force One at 6:05 p.m. EST before a live, national television audience has been the linchpin of the published speculations of David Lifton and Douglas Horne for many years.
Both authors’ hypothesis of the theft of the President’s corpse concurrent in real time with the arrest and bare beginnings of Oswald’s first interrogation, imply a decision to commit that theft even earlier still — a theft apparently devoid of strategy or timing.
It is a story that should have ground to a halt and been mercifully discarded before the drafting of the table of contents.
from: david t. krall
email: truthatlarge@hotmail.com
re: katzenbach memo
amazing memo! kind of “let’s the cat out of the bag” !!!
examine the opening words of the memo closely…it not about being fair.or unfair ..please use your “third eye” here (keeness, perceptive, etc.,)…”facts be made public IN SUCH A WAY WHICH WILL SATISFY people in the United States and abroad THAT ALL THE FACTS HAVE BEEN TOLD…
The exclicit or “on the surface” intent of the opening satement
is not inconsistent with the rest of the memo: “FACTS BE MADE PUBLIC” is up-ended and slyly conveyed and tied/tethered
to and with “IN SUCH AS WAY”. This is not a random phrase within this memo, but a carefully worded inference or overriding necessity. This “in such a way” is adroit wording, or as Katezenback is actually “saying”: how the public could and should be told about the assassination. And what follows is the second or “other shoe dropping”, is the way the “how” (the “in such a way”) the assassination can & be explained in some acceptable manner to disable or minimize or mariginalize talk of conspiracy…I seriously doubt that Katzenbach was attempting to minimize fears regarding a communist plot, due to his position in gov, which an Asst Attorney General, no doubt, gave him insights, much inside information, as well as knowledge of & about and interaction with RFK, etc. This gave him an inside commonsense perspective that Castro, the USSR or other parties on the left didn’t kill JFK…I would be interested to know who (other Washington “insiders” outside the AG’s office?)or other AG personel may have contributed to this memo???
“….the facts must be made public…..in such a way….that
satisfies….” semantics that would make Orwell and Huxley proud…
Somehow I find this cleaver use of semantics somwhat chilling
regarding the death of a U.S. President…perhaps relating to the
death of politician or military official within the Soviet/Stalin sphere (e.g. Sergi Kirov) or Nazi/Hitler sphere (e.g. General Rommell) coming from “Radio Moscow” or “Radio Berlin” but from a
major law enforcement officer and investigator who is a top
ranking memeber of the US Justice Dept in Washington, D.C.???
On 11/25/63 no less… Was Katzenbach involved in any way
with the very, very quick pronouncement (NOW HEAR THIS..NOW HEAR THIS…JFK IS DEAD…THE “PARTY LINE” IS THIS…) from
the WH Friday afternoon as relayed to AF1 that there “was no
conspiracy…” Just as importantly I would be interested in knowing, according to William Manchester, how a Navy Admiral
informed Rusk, Saliger and others after they rerouted and landed in Hawaii, with the same “party-line”-no conspiracy pronouncement soon after the shooting???
from: david t. krall