A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination (10 page)

The conversation was over almost before it began. The words were barely out of his visitors’ mouths before Warren rejected the president’s request: “I told them I thought the president was wise in having such a commission, but that I was not available for service on it.”

He reminded Katzenbach and Cox of the unfortunate history of court members taking on outside government assignments. There had been harsh criticism of Associate Justice Owen Roberts as chairman of the commission that investigated the Pearl Harbor attacks, and of Associate Justice Robert Jackson, who left the court for a year in 1945 to oversee the Nuremberg war-crimes trials. Former chief justice Harlan Fiske Stone described the trials as a “fraud” and accused Jackson of participating in a “high-grade lynching.”

Warren thanked his guests for their visit and sent them back out the door to deliver the bad news to the White House. “Katzenbach and Cox went away, and I thought that that settled it,” the chief justice remembered.

But nothing was settled, as Warren was about to discover; Johnson was determined to change his mind. “Early in my life, I learned that doing the impossible frequently was necessary to get the job done,” the president said later. “There was no doubt in my mind that the Chief Justice had to be convinced that it was his duty to accept the chairmanship.”

At about three thirty that afternoon, the president had a secretary phone the Supreme Court to ask Warren to come to the White House—immediately. Warren was not told the purpose of the meeting, although the issue was “quite urgent,” Warren recalled. “I, of course, said I would do so.” The White House dispatched a limousine.

The chief justice was about to be subjected—in full force, for the first time—to what had long been known in the Capitol as “the Johnson Treatment.” A potent mixture of flattery, pleading, deceit, and menace, it was a kind of salesmanship that Johnson had perfected in Congress to bend others to his will. It worked because it was so audacious—so unexpected, even undignified—that its targets were often too startled to do anything but give in.

Many times in the past Johnson had shown that, if necessary, he was prepared to reduce a proud man to weeping. In Warren’s case, he was ready to make the case that the chief justice was all that stood between the people of the United States and Armageddon.

“I was ushered in,” Warren said, recalling his arrival in the Oval Office. “With only the two of us in the room, he told me of his proposal.”

The president said he needed Warren to change his mind. The assassination investigation had to be led by someone of Warren’s stature, the president explained. Johnson said he was concerned about the “wild stories and rumors that were arousing not only our own people but people in other parts of the world.”

Johnson mentioned the other six men he expected to name to the commission, and it was an impressive group. There were two senators: Democrat Richard Russell, the “Georgia Giant,” and Republican John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky, a respected moderate who had been ambassador to India. There were two House members: Democrat Hale Boggs of Louisiana, the assistant majority leader, who had been close to Kennedy, and Republican Gerald R. Ford of Michigan. And there were two high-profile appointees who, Johnson said, had been recommended to him by Robert Kennedy: former director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles and former World Bank president John J. McCloy.

According to Warren, the president said that he had already talked with the others and that “they would serve if I would accept the chairmanship.” The word “if” was important, Johnson made clear; all six had apparently said they would sign on only if Warren agreed to lead them. The president was suggesting that Warren would put the whole membership of the commission in jeopardy if he turned down the job. As Johnson recalled telling Warren, “All these appointments were conditioned on the Chief Justice being chairman.”

Warren was flattered and startled by the suggestion that Russell—the Senate’s most powerful segregationist—was willing to see beyond their differences and insist that he run the commission. Still, Warren declined. He explained his reasoning, repeating the arguments he had made that afternoon to his visitors from the Justice Department.

Johnson listened—and then turned up the pressure on the chief justice as far as it could go. It came down to this, he said: Was Warren willing to risk World War III? More than that, was he willing to be responsible for World War III? The president’s wording was that stark, Warren remembered.

“I see you shaking your head,” Johnson told him. “But this is something which is just as important to your country now as fighting for it was in World War I,” reminding Warren of his wartime service in the army. “I am not going to order you to take this, as you were ordered to duty in 1917. I am going to appeal to your patriotism.”

Johnson later recalled telling the chief justice: “Now these wild people are chargin’ Khrushchev killed Kennedy, and Castro killed Kennedy, and everybody else killed Kennedy.” If there was any truth in the allegations of a Communist plot, or if the investigation of the assassination was mishandled and false charges were made against a foreign government, the result could be nuclear war. He told Warren about rumors coming out of Mexico City that Oswald had received a payoff of $6,500 from Castro’s government to kill Kennedy. “You can imagine what the reaction of the country would have been if this information came out,” the president said.

Johnson told the chief justice that he had just spoken to Defense Secretary McNamara, who warned that a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union would leave tens of millions of American dead in just the first strike. “If Khrushchev moved on us, he could kill 39 million in an hour, and we could kill 100 million in his country in an hour,” he said, suggesting that the chief justice was now responsible for the fate of those people. “You could be speaking for 39 million people. Now I just think you don’t wanna do that.”

He called on Warren’s patriotism. “You were a soldier in World War I, but there was nothing you could do in that uniform comparable to what you can do for your country in this hour of trouble,” Johnson said. “The President of the United States says that you are the only man who can handle the matter. You won’t say, ‘no,’ will you?”

Johnson remembered that Warren “swallowed hard and said, ‘No, sir.’”

With a little cruel pride, Johnson later recalled that he made Warren cry: “Tears just came into his eyes.… They just came up. You never saw anything like it.”

*

There is no known recording of the Oval Office meeting with Warren, but if the accounts offered by Johnson and the chief justice are accurate, the president lied outright in claiming that the other commissioners had agreed to serve only if Warren was in charge. The truth was that, with the exception of Russell, Johnson had not even talked to the others.

Johnson talked to Russell by phone at about four p.m., shortly before the Warren meeting, and tried to persuade him to serve on the commission. Russell rejected the idea outright. He was too busy with his Senate duties, he said. And his health was not good; Russell had been plagued for years by emphysema.

In that first call, Johnson asked Russell for suggestions of other candidates. The president said he might try to recruit a member of the Supreme Court to join the commission, although he suggested that it would probably prove fruitless. Warren’s name was never mentioned in the call. “I don’t think I can get any member of the court, but I’m going to try to,” he said to Russell, neglecting to mention that the chief justice—at that very minute—was being summoned to the White House to be convinced to take the job.

Hours later, at about nine p.m., Johnson made his second call to Russell. He would be delivering two pieces of unwelcome news. First, that Russell would serve on the commission despite his protests. Second, that the commission would be led by—of all people—Earl Warren, a man Russell had long portrayed to his fellow Georgians as a villain.

Taking no chances, Johnson decided to force Russell’s hand. Before making the call, he ordered the White House press office to issue a public statement announcing the creation of the commission and listing its members, including Russell.

Johnson reached Russell at his home in Winder, Georgia, where the senator was spending a few days after Thanksgiving.

“Dick?” Johnson began in a gentle, apologetic tone of voice.

“Yes?”

“I hate to bother you again, but I just wanted you to know that I’d made that announcement.”

Russell: “Announcement of what?”

Johnson: “Of this special commission.”

The president began reading from the press release and soon came to the names of the commission’s members. Russell heard Warren’s name as chairman and then heard his own.

He sounded flabbergasted by Johnson’s duplicity. “Well now, Mr. President, I know I don’t have to tell you of my devotion to you, but I just can’t serve on that commission.… I couldn’t serve there with Chief Justice Warren.” This was personal, he said. “I don’t like that man. I don’t have any confidence in him.”

Johnson cut him off. “Dick, it’s already been announced, and you can serve with anybody for the good of America. This is a question that has a good many more ramifications than’s on the surface.” As he had with Warren, Johnson noted McNamara’s estimate of the nearly forty million Americans who might be killed in a nuclear exchange, if the assassination led to war.

“Now the reason I asked Warren is because he’s the chief justice of this country, and we’ve got to have the highest judicial people we can have,” he said. “The reason I ask you is because you have that same kind of temperament, and you can do anything for your country. And don’t go to givin’ me that kinda stuff about you can’t serve with anybody. You can do anything.

“You never turned your country down,” Johnson continued. “You’re my man on that commission. And you gonna do it. And don’t tell me what you can do and what you can’t. I can’t arrest you. And I’m not gonna put the FBI on you. But you’re goddamned sure gonna serve. I’ll tell you that.”

Russell: “Well, I know, but Mr. President, you oughta told me you were gonna name Warren.”

Johnson then lied to Russell, just as he had lied to Warren a few hours earlier. “I
told
you,” the president said. “I told you today I was gonna name the chief justice, when I called you.”

Russell knew it was a lie, as transcripts of Johnson’s phone calls would show. “No, you did not,” he said.

Johnson: “I did.”

Russell: “You talked about getting somebody on the Supreme Court. You didn’t tell me you was gonna name
him
.”

Johnson: “I begged him as much as I’m begging you.”

Russell: “You haven’t had to beg me. You’ve always told me, all right.”

Johnson: “No, it’s already done. It’s been announced … hell.”

Announced? Russell finally understood what Johnson had done: the press release with his name on it had already been given to the White House press corps.

Russell: “You mean you’ve got out that…”

Johnson: “Yes, sir, I mean I gave it.… It’s already in the papers, and you’re on it, and you’re gonna be my man on it.”

Russell: “I think you’re sort of takin’ advantage of me, Mr. President.”

Johnson: “I’m not takin’ advantage of you.”

Johnson suddenly seemed to remember who he was talking to—his political mentor, a man who was closer to him than many members of his family. He pleaded with Russell to keep in mind how much he could do for Russell now that he was president: “I’m gonna take a helluva lot of advantage of you, my friend, ’cause you made me and I know it, and I don’t ever forget.… I’m a Russell protégé, and I don’t forget my friends.”

Russell: “Hell, I just don’t like Warren.”

Johnson: “Well, of course you don’t like Warren, but you’ll like him ’fore it’s over with.”

Russell: “I haven’t got any confidence in him.”

Johnson: “You can give him some confidence, goddamnit! Associate with him. Now.… Now by God, I wanna man on that commission. And I’ve got one.”

Russell gave up the fight: “If it is for the good of the country, you know damned well I’ll do it, and I’ll do it for you. I hope to God you’ll be just a little bit more deliberate and considerate next time about it. But this time, of course, if you’ve done this, I’m gonna do it and go through with it and say I think it’s a wonderful idea.” He uttered those last few words—“it’s a wonderful idea”—in a tone heavy with sarcasm.

Before hanging up, Russell admonished Johnson a last time. “I think you did wrong gettin’ Warren, and I know damn well you got it wrong getting me, but we’ll both do the best we can.”

“I think that’s what you’ll do,” the president replied. “That’s the kind of Americans both of you are. Good night.”

*

At the Supreme Court the next week, Warren had to explain himself to his fellow justices—why he had agreed to lead the commission after insisting, for years, how wrong it was for members of the court to take outside assignments.

He later told his friend Drew Pearson that the other justices reacted with outrage, with the exception of Justice Goldberg, the court’s newest arrival. “Every member of the court except Arthur Goldberg gave him hell,” Pearson wrote in his diaries. Justices William Brennan and John Marshall Harlan pointed out Warren’s hypocrisy, reminding him that he had long argued that “members of the court should stick to their knitting and not assume extra-curricular duties.” Warren knew his colleagues were right to be angry with him. He was, he admitted, angry with himself.