A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination (86 page)

Russell recommended that:
Ibid., p. 20.

Before the meeting ended:
Ibid., p. 12.

“No, I have not”:
Ibid.

“They have”:
Ibid.

“Of course we do”:
Ibid.

CHAPTER 7

Gerald Ford asked:
Memo from DeLoach to Mohr, December 12, 1963, FBI. After public release of the DeLoach memo decades later, Ford did not dispute the contents of the memo, although he said he had no substantive contacts with the FBI over commission work after December 1963.

Fifty-year-old “Jerry”:
Gerald R. Ford Biography, Ford Library,
http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/grf/fordbiop.asp
.

He used one of his:
Ford speech, July 8, 1949, Congressional Record, House of Representatives. A salary of $17,500 a year in 1949 would be equal to about $171,000 in 2013.

“Ford told me”:
Memo from DeLoach to Mohr, December 12, 1963, FBI.

The FBI’s former number-three official:
Sullivan,
The Bureau
, p. 53.

On Sunday, November 24:
Jenkins memo for the files, November 24, 1963, four p.m., as cited in the Church Committee, Vol. 5, pp. 32–43.

On Tuesday, November 26:
Hoover, as recorded in HSCA final report, p. 244.

Three days later, on November 29:
Ibid.

That estimate proved:
The full FBI report, “Investigation of Assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” December 9, 1963, is available online through the Mary Ferrell Foundation Web site,
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10402&relPageId=4
.

Warren and the other commissioners:
Warren Commission Executive Session, December 16, 1963, NARA.

“He’s been with me”:
Ibid., pp. 1–2.

“We’re in business”:
Ibid., p. 2.

“The grammar is bad”:
Ibid., p. 12.

“Gentlemen, to be very”:
Ibid., p. 11.

“This bullet business”:
Ibid., p. 12.

“There are all kinds”:
Ibid.

Even Ford:
Ibid., p. 33.

“It will take quite a while”:
Ibid., pp. 19–20.

Warren was also now ready:
Ibid., p. 22.

Someone on the staff:
Ibid., p. 24.

“This is a serious concern”:
Ibid., pp. 25–26.

Boggs suggested that:
Ibid., p. 10.

McCloy had questions:
Ibid., pp. 35, 55.

Warren hesitated:
Ibid., p. 54.

“Your mind plays tricks”:
Ibid., p. 55.

“You have to feed”:
Ibid., p. 57.

“You understand that reports”:
Ibid., p. 59.

The next day, Hoover called:
Memo from Hoover to Tolson, December 22, 1963, FBI.

The day after the meeting:
Memo from Tolson to Mohr, December 17, 1963, FBI.

CHAPTER 8

His teenage son:
James Rankin interview.

“He never expressed”:
Sara Rankin interview.

J. Lee Rankin:
New York Times
, June 30, 1996.

Rankin, a graduate:
James and Sara Rankin interviews.

“If you made a typo”:
Sara Rankin interview.

“The substantive decisions”:
Deposition of J. Lee Rankin, HSCA, August 17, 1978 (hereafter Rankin Deposition), NARA.

Within hours of Warren’s:
James and Sara Rankin interviews.

Willens arrived at the commission’s:
Testimony of Howard P. Willens, HSCA, November 17, 1977, p. 312.

“No one could seriously”:
Ibid., p. 327.

“I do concede”:
Ibid., p. 322.

Rankin thought that Redlich:
Redlich conceded his lack of background on criminal law and investigative work in HSCA testimony, November 8, 1978, p. 109.

His involvement in social justice:
See eulogy for Redlich prepared by Dean Richard Reversz of New York University’s law school, June 13, 2011, as published by the law school online:
https://www.law.nyu.edu/ecm_dlv3/groups//files/05/33/83/f053383/public/@nyu_law_website__news__media/documents/documents/ecm_pro_069050.pdf
.

CHAPTER 9

The sealed envelope:
Warren,
Memoirs
, p. 371.

An FBI inventory:
“Autopsy of Body of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy,” FBI, November 26, 1963. Accessible through
history-matters.com
Web site:
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md44/html/Image0.htm
.

“I saw the pictures”:
Warren,
Memoirs
, pp. 371–72.

Arlen Specter was a young man:
Specter interviews. Also see Specter,
Passion for Truth
, p. 36. See also “Court Refuses Appeal of 6 Convicted for Union Fraud,”
New York Times
, November 10, 1964.

The recruiting call:
Specter interviews; Specter,
Passion
, pp. 43–45.

“They were all very excited”:
Specter interviews, Specter memoir transcripts. See also Specter,
Passion
, passim.

CHAPTER 10

In the first days of January 1964:
Slawson interviews.

There was no second-guessing:
Slawson interviews.

“At the beginning, I really thought”:
Coleman interviews. See also Coleman,
Counsel for the Situation
, pp. 171–78.

“He dealt with his”:
Guthman and Shulman,
Robert Kennedy
, p. 252.

He still resembled:
Helms,
A Look over My Shoulder
, pp. 59–60.

Robert Kennedy recalled:
Schlesinger,
Robert Kennedy
, p. 446.

CHAPTER 11

In the first hours after the assassination:
Particulars of the meeting are found throughout Whitten’s testimony to the Church Committee on May 7, 1976 (hereafter Whitten Senate Testimony) and his testimony to the HSCA, May 16, 1978 (hereafter Whitten House Testimony), NARA.

Whitten’s real name:
Whitten Senate Testimony, passim.

When President Johnson created:
Description of Whitten’s personality and background comes from Jefferson Morley, “The Good Spy,”
Washington Monthly
, December 2003, pp. 40–44; description of Whitten’s job and responsibilities at the CIA comes from Whitten Senate Testimony.

Like so many of his colleagues:
That Whitten reviewed Oswald’s agency file comes from Whitten House Testimony and Whitten Senate Testimony, passim.

At the meeting on November 23:
That Helms told the others that Whitten would have “broad powers” comes from Whitten House Testimony, passim.

“was to be in charge”:
Whitten Senate Testimony, p. 76000140417.

Whitten thought:
Whitten House Testimony, p. 1–136/001918.

“I had investigated”:
Whitten House Testimony, p. 1–112/001894.

Among the others in Helms’s office:
Who was at the meeting comes from Whitten Senate Testimony, p. 76000140429.

The two men had clashed:
Whitten Senate Testimony, p. 76000140459; Whitten House Testimony p. 1–71/001852.

“None of the senior officials”:
Whitten House Testimony, p. 1–74/001855.

Whitten thought of Angleton as a sinister force:
Angleton was paranoid. Whitten House Testimony, p. 1–167/001949.

Angleton had a:
Whitten House Testimony, p. 1–167/001949.

The Yale-educated Angleton:
Martin,
Wilderness of Mirrors
, p. 10.

“Everything that Angleton did”:
Whitten House Testimony, p. 1–71/001852.

“He had enormously influential”:
Whitten House Testimony, p. 1–169/001951.

“One of the reasons”:
Whitten Senate Testimony, p. 76000140472.

“The FBI could be extremely clannish”:
Ibid., p. 76000140473.

“Angleton’s influence also extended”:
That Angleton was close to Allen Dulles can be found in Whitten Senate Testimony, p. 76000140469; Whitten House Testimony p. 1–73/001854.

Whitten admitted he took some pleasure:
Whitten Senate Testimony, p. 76000140459.

“We were flooded”:
Whitten House Testimony, p. 1–131/001913.

“We dropped almost everything else”:
Ibid.

Much of it was:
Ibid., p. 1–135/001917.

Whitten said he knew nothing:
Whitten Senate Testimony, p. 76000140473; Whitten House Testimony, pp. 1–30/001811 and 1–47/001828.

That was not surprising:
Whitten House Testimony, pp. 1–15/001796 and 1–103-A/001885.

They were detected:
Ibid., p. 1–50/001832.

Whitten shared Hoover’s admiration:
Ibid., p. 1–18/001799.

According to Whitten:
Whitten Senate Testimony, p. 76000140458.

Whitten said that every:
Whitten House Testimony, pp. 1–51/001833 and 1–56/001837.

Whitten recalled:
Ibid., pp. 1–129/001911 through 1–131/0013.

“We were sure to give them”:
Ibid., p. 1–163/001945.

“We wondered”:
Ibid., p. 1–161/001943.

“There was no nefarious”:
Ibid.

The station had secretly:
Whitten House Testimony, pp. 1–61/001837 through 1–68/001849.

Scott was a force unto:
See Morley,
Our Man in Mexico
, for the definitive biography of Scott.

Among his deputies:
Interview of Anne Goodpasture, HSCA, November 20, 1978, JFK Records, RIF: 180–10110–10028, NARA (hereafter Goodpasture House interview).

She had also begun:
Morley,
Our Man
, p. 84.

In later years, Goodpasture denied:
Deposition of Anne Goodpasture, ARRB, p. 36, NARA (hereafter Goodpasture Deposition). See also Morley,
Our Man
, for the definitive biography of Goodpasture.

Goodpasture was sometimes confused for:
Goodpasture House interview, p. 31.

She was not a street spy:
Goodpasture Deposition, p. 14.

“He maintained his own”:
See Morley,
Our Man
, passim. See Goodpasture Deposition, Goodpasture House interview, passim.

“Win never trusted”:
Morley interview with Goodpasture, May 2–3, 2005, cited in
Our Man
, p. 257.