Historian Douglas Brinkley talks about the significance of the Air Force One tapes from the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
For more on the story:
“Audio sleuth on the trial of a missing JFK tape” (JFK Facts, Nov. 6, 2013).
“Enhanced Air Force One tape captures top general’s response to JFK’s murder” (JFK Facts, Oct. 19, 2013)
“What’s the most important piece of JFK assassination evidence to surface in the past five years?” (JFK Facts, Oct. 27, 2013)
Listen to the enhanced Air Force One tape from November 22, 1963, in four parts, as prepared by Primeau Forensics.
To learn about the people involved in transporting JFK’s damaged parade car from Dallas to Washington post-assassination investigative journalists should focus on the flight manifest paperwork that would have been maintained by the air transporter’s air operations chain (copies of which would have been maintained by the pilots of the aircraft involved. The manifest would identify all persons flying on the aircraft (including special handling persons), damage problems with the cargo that would cause flight safety concerns, photos of the damage (if taken & included in the manifest package)plus any waiver instructions & who gave them.
It is not unusual for Federal air transport pilots to refuse to fly with damaged cargo unless a waiver has been given by a higher authority in their chain of command. If any such waiver discussion were on the AF-1 tapes is not known because the audio tapes have been edited. A bullet hole in the windshield that could worsen as the transport plane takes flight would be a safety concern for the pilots & load crew plus the command they worked for. Flying with damaged or unsafe cargo is a top concern for Federal air transporters (replacing aircraft destroyed by air mishaps is expensive & sometimes results in ‘heads rolling’).
Learning who the people involved were & what happened to them after the ambush could lead to living former federal air transportation witnesses (possible operating under the restrictions of ‘gag order’s) no longer working for the government that might be willing to talk about their experience today. It is also possible that some or all of those people met the fate of others suspected of being murdered post-assassination.
If the flight manifest for 22 November 1963 hasn’t been destroyed it is possible the Freedom Of Information Act can free it from those withholding it. The aircraft & crew either should have worked for the Department Of Defense in a military or civilian employee or contractor status. The aircraft in question was briefly filmed during live Dallas TV coverage of JFK’s arrival in Dallas by TV station KLRD & can be seen in several JFK documentaries.