The Kennedy Half-Century (103 page)

32
. See J. Randy Taraborrelli,
The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe
(New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2009), 409–17.

33
. Mimi Alford,
Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath
(New York: Random House, 2011). Mention of Alford, without details or a first-person account, first appeared in Robert Dallek’s
An Unfinished Life
.

34
. For more information on Kennedy’s reckless philandering, see Ronald Kessler, “Secret Service Describes JFK as Reckless,” Newsmax, February 13, 2012,
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Secret-Service-JFK-Alford/2012/02/i3/id/429282
 [accessed February 13, 2012],
and Larry J. Sabato,
Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics
(New York: Free Press, 1991), 33–42.

35
. Sabato,
Feeding Frenzy
, 38.

36
. Arthur Schlesinger thought that Kennedy’s religion “was humane rather than doctrinal. He was a Catholic as Franklin Roosevelt was an Episcopalian—because he was born into the faith, lived in it and expected to die in it.” Schlesinger also told the story of an evening at the White House when Kennedy had argued “with considerable particularity that nine of the ten commandments were derived from nature and almost seemed to imply that all religion was so derived.” Sorensen never heard his boss “pray aloud” or “disclose his personal views on man’s relation to God.” Schlesinger,
Thousand Days
, 107; Sorensen,
Kennedy
, 19. On the other hand, Jackie Kennedy told Arthur Schlesinger in a private interview in the spring of 1964, which has now been made public, that President Kennedy would change into his pajamas prior to his afternoon nap, kneel at the bedside, and say his prayers. See Susan Cheever, “Jackie’s Enduring Mystique,”
Daily Beast
, September 17, 2011,
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/09/17/jackie-kennedy-tapes-show-us-what-we-lost.html
 [accessed December 27, 2012].

37
. Thomas C. Reeves,
A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy
(Rocklin, CA: Prima Publishing, 1992), 400; Dallek,
Unfinished Life
, 633; “New York Times Chronology (October 1963),” John F. Kennedy Library website,
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Ready-Reference/New-York-Times-Chronology/Browse-by-Date/New-York-Times-Chronology-October-1963.aspx
 [accessed February 8, 2011].

7. ECHOES FROM DEALEY PLAZA

1
. The historian was David Herbert Donald, a scholar of Lincoln and the Civil War. Molly Muldoon, “President John F. Kennedy Predicted His Own Assassination,”
Irish Central
, June 3, 2001,
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/President-John-F-Kennedy-predicted-his-own-assassination-123115643.html
 [accessed July 19, 2011]. See also Barney Henderson, “John F. Kennedy Made Ominous Legacy Prediction a Year Before Assassination,”
The Telegraph
, June 2, 2011,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8553200/John-F-Kennedy-made-ominous-legacy-prediction-a-year-before-assassination.html
 [accessed July 13, 2011].

2
. William Manchester,
The Death of a President: November 20–November
25,
1963
(New York: Harper and Row, 1967), 630.

3
. Lyndon B. Johnson, “Executive Order 11130 Appointing a Commission to Report Upon the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy [Released November 30, 1963. Dated November 29, 1963],” Lyndon B. Johnson Papers, John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters,
The American Presidency Project
, Santa Barbara, CA,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=26032#axzz1IeuLBveT
 [accessed April 6, 2011]. The influential journalist Joe Alsop helped convince LBJ of the need for a blue-ribbon panel to investigate the Kennedy assassination. See “LBJ-Alsop 11-25-63,”
History Matters
,
http://historymatters.com/archive/jfk/lbjlib/phone_calls/Nov_1963/audio/LBJ-Alsop_11-25-63.htm
 [accessed May 24, 2011]. In the latest installment of his award-winning series on LBJ, the historian Robert Caro says that Robert Kennedy recommended two of the appointees—McCloy and Dulles. This story, provided by Johnson himself, is almost certainly false. The Kennedys banished the Dulles clan from
Washington after the Bay of Pigs. Bobby convinced his brother to replace Allen Dulles with John McCone as head of CIA and forced Eleanor Dulles (Allen’s sister) to resign from the State Department. See Robert Caro,
The Passage of Power
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 442–43; Leonard Mosley,
Dulles: A Biography of Eleanor, Allen, and John Foster Dulles and Their Family Network
(New York: Dial Press / James Wade, 1978), 473–74; and Eleanor Lansing Dulles,
Chances of a Lifetime: A Memoir
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1980), 304–7; Rex Bradford, “Whispers From the Silent Generation,” Mary Ferrell Foundation website, May 2013,
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Essay_-_Whispers_from_the_Silent_Generation
 [accessed June 15, 2013].

4
. Specter served in the U.S. Senate from 1981 to 2011, representing Pennsylvania. He was a Republican until 2009, when he changed parties and became a Democrat. Defeated for reelection in 2010, Specter died in 2012.

5
. Kathryn S. Olmsted,
Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 131.

6
. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,
Robert Kennedy and His Times
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), 615. Katzenbach “maintained later that his goal had been to gather, not cover up, evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald, who he was convinced was the lone assassin.” Douglas Martin, “Nicholas Katzenbach, Trusted Adviser to JFK and LBJ, Dies at 90,”
New York Times
, May 9, 2012.

7
. Harris Wofford,
Of Kennedys and Kings: Making Sense of the Sixties
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980), 415. At 4:01 P.M. EST on November 22, two and a half hours after the assassination, Hoover sent a memo to aides naming Oswald as the prime suspect. See “Memorandum for Mr. Tolson [et al.],” JFK Lancer website,
http://www.jfklancer.com/backes/newman/documents/hoover/Hoover_RFK.JPG
 [accessed May 22, 2013]. Hoover apparently quashed an FBI investigation of the National States Rights Party as well. See IC Robert G. Renfro to SAC, Dallas, November 22, 1963,
http://jfkmurdersolved.com/hoover.htm
 [accessed May 22, 2013].

8
. Oswald attempted to kill Major General Edwin Walker in April 1963 (discussed in a subsequent chapter). The case was still open at the time of JFK’s assassination.

9
. Anthony Summers,
The Kennedy Conspiracy
(London: Sphere Books, 1989), 283–85. Dallas FBI Agent James P. Hosty, Jr., twice visited the Paine residence in November 1963. Hosty had inherited the Oswald file from Fort Worth FBI Agent John Fain. On November 1, 1963, Hosty visited Ruth Paine’s house in Irving. Marina and her children were living with Paine at the time. Paine told Hosty that Marina and Lee had separated and that Lee worked at the Texas School Book Depository. Paine also said that Lee lived somewhere in the Oak Cliff neighborhood, but she wasn’t sure where. Hosty and a second FBI agent returned on November 5. Paine told the agents that she still didn’t have Lee’s address, but that he had described himself to her as a Trotskyist-Marxist. James P. Hosty, Jr.,
Assignment: Oswald
(New York: Arcade Publishing, 1996); “Papers of James Hosty, Jr.,” National Archives and Records Administration website,
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/finding-aids/hosty-papers.html
 [accessed June 13, 2011].

10
. Without clear written evidence, which is not available, it is difficult to impute a motive here, but surely protection of the FBI’s reputation weighed on Hoover at the time observers began to assess blame for the murder of the president.

11
. Michael L. Kurtz,
The JFK Assassination Debates: Lone Gunman versus Conspiracy
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006), 21; Joseph A. Loftus, “Oswald Assassin Beyond
a Doubt, F.B.I. Concludes,”
New York Times
, December 10, 1963; Laurence Stern, “FBI Keeps Silent on Contents As Dallas File Goes to Warren,”
Washington Post and Times Herald
, December 10, 1963.

12
. Later on, I will review the evidence about this topic, including the stray bullet that hit a curb (missing the target entirely) and the timing of the shots as determined by the available film and photographic evidence.

13
. Abraham Zapruder was a Dallas dressmaker who happened to be filming the president’s motorcade at the exact moment of the assassination, from a well-positioned perch atop a concrete pedestal on what is now known as the grassy knoll. The Warren Commission obtained the film in January 1964. While some still frames from the film were released from 1963 into the 1970s, the public never saw the entire Zapruder film until 1975.

14
. The Warren Commission initially concluded that “A bullet had entered his [JFK’s] back at a point slightly above the shoulder and to the right of the spine.” Ford wanted the sentence to read, “A bullet had entered the back of his neck at a point slightly to the right of the spine.” The final report said: “A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine.” Mike Feinsilber, “Ford Altered Crucial JFK Report: His Revision Raised the Location of the Wound,”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
, July 3, 1997. Here’s the
London Independent
’s version of the same story: “The former U.S. president, Gerald Ford, altered a key sentence in the Warren Commission report to strengthen its conclusion that John F. Kennedy was killed by a single bullet, it emerged yesterday. The effect of his editing was to suggest that a single bullet struck the assassinated president in the neck and severely wounded Texas Governor John Connally—a crucial element in its controversial finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman … Ford said last night that it was a small change, one intended to clarify the report and not to alter history.” Kate Watson-Smyth, “Ford Tampered with Report on JFK Shooting,”
The Independent
(London, UK), July 3, 1997.

15
. Mark Lane,
Rush to Judgment
(New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1992), 7–8; Kurtz,
Assassination Debates
, 21–22; Olmsted,
Real Enemies
, 128; Joe Stephens, “Ford Told FBI of Skeptics on Warren Commission,”
Washington Post
, August 8, 2008; Mike Feinsilber, “Ford Altered Crucial JFK Report,”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
, July 3, 1997.

16
. On two separate occasions in the 1990s, Ford told me personally that he was convinced of the commission report’s accuracy and of the critics’ wrongheadedness. His sincerity in this belief is unquestioned. On January 31, 1997, Ford affixed his signature to a statement on his own letterhead which read in full: “In 1964, the Warren Commission decided: 1. Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin, and 2. There was no conspiracy, foreign or domestic. I endorsed those conclusions in 1964 and fully agree now.”

17
. Memorandum from David E. Murphy to the Deputy Director for Plans, April 13, 1964, House Select Committee on Assassinations Segregated CIA Collection, Box 5, NARA #104-10051-10288, Mary Ferrell Foundation website,
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=39161&relPageId=3
 [accessed September 28, 2012].

18
. From the 1930s to the mid-1960s, journalists engaged in what I have termed “lapdog” journalism—reporting that served and reinforced the political establishment. During this period, mainstream journalists rarely challenged prevailing orthodoxy, accepted at face value much of what those in power told them, and protected politicians by revealing little
about their nonofficial lives, even when private vices affected their public performance. Wartime necessities encouraged the lapdog mentality but it had already become well established in Franklin Roosevelt’s earlier administrations. Lapdog journalism perhaps reached its zenith under John F. Kennedy. See chapter 2 of my book
Feeding Frenzy
(New York: Free Press, 1993), 25–51.

19
. Charles Mohr, “President Gets Assassination Report,”
New York Times
, September 25, 1964; “The Warren Report: Official Summary and Conclusions of Commission,”
Chicago Tribune
, September 28, 1964; Marquis Childs, “Warren Report: Remedy for Rumor,”
Washington Post and Times Herald
, September 28, 1964.

20
. Max Holland,
The Kennedy Assassination Tapes
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 250. Author and “lone gunman” advocate Gerald Posner credits Holland with debunking some of the myths surrounding Johnson’s and Russell’s conversation, and his interpretation is different from others’: “Although some authors have cited this passage as evidence that the two men did not share the commission’s lone-assassin conclusion, they were actually referring to Russell’s doubts about the single-bullet theory. Holland rightly points out: ‘When Johnson proclaims that he doesn’t believe in the single-bullet theory either, it is a blatant example of his tendency to speak for effect. He has not studied the issue; indeed he doesn’t understand what the issue is. He is just trying to agree with his old mentor Russell and get to the subject he really wants to talk about: Vietnam’ ” (249). Gerald Posner, review of
The Kennedy Assassination Tapes: The White House Conversations of Lyndon B. Johnson Regarding the Assassination, the Warren Commission, and the Aftermath
, by Max Holland,
Journal of Cold War Studies
9, no. 2 (Spring 2007): 154–56. Posner may be right, but it is difficult to get inside LBJ’s head and assert with certainty that he is “speaking for effect.” One also doubts that the highly intuitive Johnson, who had been present at the assassination and had thought a great deal about it, didn’t “understand what the issue is.”