Reclaiming History (350 page)

†The Dallas Police Department had failed to protect the accused presidential assassin, and hence he would never be brought to trial for a jury to decide whether he was guilty, a fact that will reverberate, to the benefit of those who question the official position of the Warren Commission, down through the centuries. “If we had had jurisdiction,” J. Edgar Hoover would later say, “we would have taken custody of him and I do not believe he would have been killed by Rubenstein [Ruby]” (5 H 115).

^*
There’s a rather interesting addendum to this. Although Combest never mentioned this in his testimony before the Warren Commission, he told author Anthony Summers in August of 1978 that Oswald accompanied his shaking of his head with “a definite clenched-fist salute” (Summers,
Not in Your Lifetime
, p.407 note 85). Anti-conspiracy author Joan Davison wrote in 1983, “When Combest testified [before the Warren Commission] in 1964 he probably didn’t know what a clenched-fist salute was. Although the gesture had been a socialist salute in Spain in the 1930’s, it didn’t become a widely recognized symbol of political militancy in this country until the late 1960’s. It was probably then that Combest reinterpreted Oswald’s gesture as a political statement. Second, a news photograph taken of Oswald after his arrest [see photo section of this book] shows him raising his right manacled arm in what very clearly appears to be a clenched-fist salute. In any event, a raised fist was Oswald’s last comment” (Davison,
Oswald’s Game
, p.254).
Davison limits the salute to Spanish socialists in the 1930s, but no one was watching the Communists more in 1963 than the John Birch Society, and in a February 1964 article in its publication,
American Opinion
, a contributor wrote that what Oswald gave was “the Communists’ clenched-fist salute” (Oliver, “Marksmanship in Dallas,” p.14; Oliver Exhibit No. 2, 20 H 721).

^*
Prior to the
Escobedo
case in 1964, federal law enforcement agencies had a
policy
of doing this, but as indicated earlier, there was no
legal requirement
that they advise suspects of this constitutional right, and if they didn’t, any statement made by the defendant thereafter would be inadmissible at the defendant’s trial.

^*
During the ceremony, John-John, age three, was kept busy in a room off the rotunda.

^*
At midnight, police begin warning those at the rear of the line that extends for miles from the Capitol, that they might as well go home—the rotunda would be closed at nine in the morning in preparation for the burial later that day. Most paid no heed. (
New York Times
, November 26, 1963, p.10)

^*
Fritz may have misspoken here, as there is no evidence that any Dallas officer was stationed at the bottom of the ramp.

†In a December 6, 1963, meeting between Captain Fritz and Tom Howard, attorney for Jack Ruby, Fritz asked Howard if Ruby knew the officer at the top of the ramp, to which Howard replied no. Fritz asked why, then, did Ruby refuse to discuss this point with him during questioning, and Howard stated that “the reason was because Ruby did not want to get the officer in trouble.” (CE 2025, 24 H 438–439)

^*
Murray Kempton and James Ridgeway would write in the
New Republic
, “It had been less than three years since Mr. Kennedy had announced that a new generation was taking up the torch. Now, old General de Gaulle and old Mr. Mikoyan were coming to see him buried” (Kempton and Ridgeway, “Romans,” p.10).

^*
“How come you weren’t handcuffed to Ruby?” I asked Leavelle. “No need to,” Leavelle said. “Jack wasn’t going anywhere I didn’t want him to. If he did, I’d know where to find him,” he added in the special dry wit of Texans. (Telephone interview of James Leavelle by author on November 19, 2004)

^*
The idea of the eternal flame at Kennedy’s grave site, one that would glow forever, was Jackie’s. She had seen one under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris (one of only two in the world, the other at Gettysburg), and insisted on one for her husband, saying she didn’t want the country to ever forget him. Her request threw those around her, as well as those in charge of the funeral, into a tizzy, no one knowing how to produce such a device—at one point prompting Richard Goodwin, a JFK assistant and writer, to bark into the phone at an officer at nearby Fort Myers, “If you can design an atomic bomb, you can put a little flame [one that wouldn’t die] on the side of that hill.” The military ended up passing, resorting instead to the yellow pages of the telephone directory under “Gas Companies,” and securing a modified road torch supplied by the Washington Gas & Light Company. (Manchester,
Death of a President,
pp.550–552)

†A quarter hour after the Kennedy family had left the cemetery, the president’s coffin was lowered into the grave under the vigilant eyes of the network television cameras. It’s 3:32 p.m. Three minutes later, under orders from John C. Metzler, Arlington Cemetery’s superintendent, the power to the network cameras was cut to allow the final stages of the burial to be carried out in private. Shortly thereafter, the burial vault was sealed, the grave filled with dirt, a picket fence erected around the plot, and the surrounding ground dressed with evergreen boughs and flowers. (Manchester,
Death of a President
, p.604; 3:32 p.m.: ARRB MD 134, Funeral Arrangements for John Fitzgerald Kennedy, November 25, 1963, p.3, “at precisely 3:32 p.m., the casket was slowly lowered into the ground”; see also
New York Times
, November 26, 1963, pp.2, 4)

^*
In a court distribution on October 21, 1964, Mrs. Tippit received $312,916 in cash, and a trust fund for $330,946 was set up for the Tippit children. Also, $3,716 went to policemen’s and firemen’s funds. (“$650,000 for Family of Man Killed by Oswald,” p.9)
At least financially, Mrs. Tippit would now have no worries. In an AP interview during the weekend after her husband’s death, Marie Tippit said, “We always kept thinking we’d put money [aside], but with three kids it just never worked out. It was one payday to the next.” Tippit’s police salary when he died was $490 per month. She said that to get by, her husband “worked at Austin Barbecue Friday and Saturday nights and at the Stevens Park Theater Sundays.” Her eyes swollen with tears as she sat in her neat, three-bedroom, pink-brick home, she spoke lovingly of her husband. “He was very quiet, likeable—almost a lovable guy…He was a good father. He always told the kids, ‘If you’re going to do a job, do it right or not at all.’ There was no hollering around here. He wanted me to stay at home and take care of the children.” (
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
, November 25, 1963, p.2)

^*
The exact time of the conversation is not known, but we know it was after Oswald’s death at 2:07 p.m. EST because Rostow refers to Oswald’s death in the conversation.

^*
Since, as indicated earlier in the text, in 1963 there was no federal jurisdiction over the murder of President Kennedy on a Dallas street (as opposed to on federal property), how did the FBI, a federal agency, even have jurisdiction to investigate the murder? Under Title 18 of Section 372 in the U.S. Code, it
was
a federal crime (no matter where committed) to
conspire
to murder any federal official on account of, or while he was engaged in, the lawful discharge of his duties, language that would have covered the murder of the president. And at the time of the assassination, in the eyes of many, including President Johnson, the possibility of a conspiracy was very real. However, the Warren Commission acknowledged that “once it became reasonably clear [they never identified this point in time] that the killing was the act of a single person, the State of Texas had exclusive jurisdiction…[and the FBI handled the investigation thereafter] only upon the sufferance of the local authorities.” (WR, pp.454, 456; 5 H 25, WCT Alan H. Belmont; Cushman, “Why the Warren Commission?” pp.478–479) The above in no way militates against the inherent power of President Johnson to have established, by executive order (11130), the Warren Commission, or that of Congress (by Senate Joint Resolution 137) to have empowered the Commission to issue subpoenas and grant immunity in carrying out its mandate. It only deals with the issue of whether Texas law enforcement or the FBI had investigative jurisdiction over the case.

^*
When Johnson telephoned Dulles, who was now in retirement, on November 29 and said, “You’ve got to go on” the Commission “for me,” the always reserved Dulles said, “You think I can really serve you?” “I know you can…There’s not any doubt about it,” Johnson replied, probably thinking of Dulles’s vast experience in the CIA as being helpful in clarifying and evaluating Oswald’s defection to Russia and his trip to Mexico City. “If I can be of any help,” the longtime civil servant said. But perhaps anticipating criticism of his selection, he added, “and you’ve considered the effect of my previous work and my previous job?” “I sure have,” LBJ said. “We want you to do it…that’s that. You always do what’s best [for your country]. I found that out about you a long time ago.” (Telephone conversation between LBJ and Dulles at 5:41 p.m., November 29, 1963, in Holland,
Kennedy Assassination Tapes
, p.167)

†As with Warren eighteen years later, Roberts was appointed by the president (Franklin Delano Roosevelt), and the presidential commission he headed and the report it submitted were named after him (Roberts Commission, Roberts Report).

‡Courtney Evans, one of Hoover’s assistant directors, would later acknowledge what most everyone already knew. “He wanted to get credit for solving [this] thing,” Evans said, “and he wanted to get it fast” (Thomas, “Real Cover-Up,” p.71).

^§
Although Hoover never expressly stated to LBJ his opposition to what LBJ was proposing in lieu of congressional investigations, he did state his opposition to LBJ’s proposal of a “high-level” commission in an internal memo to his assistants that day (Church Committee Report, p.46; Memorandum from Hoover to Messrs. Tolson, Belmont, Mohr, DeLoach, Rosen, and Sullivan, November 29, 1963).

^**
Johnson and Hoover also got into a discussion of the case. Johnson asked Hoover, “How many shots were fired?” “Three,” Hoover replied. “Any of them fired at me?” Johnson inquired. “No. All three at the president.” Hoover went on to illustrate how much confusion there was about the facts of the case, even by the FBI director himself, when he told Johnson that the shot that hit Kennedy in the head “wasn’t shattered” (it was). It was a “complete bullet…that rolled out of the president’s head” at the hospital “and fell onto the stretcher.” (Holland,
Kennedy Assassination Tapes
, p.141; LBJ Record 177-10001-10237, Transcript of telephone conversation between LBJ and Hoover at 1:40 p.m. on November 29, 1963, LBJ Library)

^*
One hears various figures for the length of time the Warren Commission was in existence. And I suppose that’s because of when one starts counting. The Commission was created on November 29, 1963, but no work was done until December 5, 1963, when the Commission had its first executive session (WR, p.x). It called its first witness on February 3, 1964 (1 H 1), and submitted its final report to the president on September 24, 1964 (Letter from Commission to President Johnson dated September 24, 1964, WR, p.vii). I would think the reasonable computation of time would be from December 5, 1963, to September 24, 1964, a period of a little over nine and a half months.

^*
The May 17, 1954, landmark decision in
Brown v. Board of Education
(347 U.S. 483) held that segregation in public schools was prohibited by the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

^*
On December 13, 1963, Congress passed a joint resolution granting the Commission the power to issue subpoenas, compel testimony, administer oaths, examine witnesses, receive evidence, grant immunity from prosecution, and seek a federal court to hold someone in contempt if he or she refused to give requested testimony (Public Law 88-202, S. J. Res. 137, 88th Congr., 1st sess., December 13, 1963, in WR, pp.473–474).

†Although it did not appear in any Commission document, according to J. Edgar Hoover, Olney had a “hostility” toward the FBI, and Commission members Russell, Dulles, and Ford “all threatened to resign if Olney were appointed” (FBI Record 124-10103-10087, Memo from Hoover to Tolson, Belmont, Rosen, and DeLoach, June 22, 1964, p.2).

‡No Texas Court of Inquiry proceedings were ever conducted on the assassination. The Texas attorney general’s office worked closely with the FBI and Warren Commission throughout the life of the Warren Commission, helping in the investigation whenever asked, including serving as a liaison between the Commission and the city and county officials of Dallas, and had a representative attend many of the Commission hearings. On October 5, 1964, Texas attorney general Waggoner Carr sent a very thin report (perhaps seven or eight pages stretched out to twenty) to Governor John Connally in which he said he did “not have the slightest hesitancy in concurring in the conclusion of the Warren Commission” that Oswald killed Kennedy and acted alone. (
Texas Supplemental Report
, pp.8, 10)

^*
James Malley, the FBI inspector from the bureau’s General Investigative Division who was assigned by Hoover to serve as liaison to the Warren Commission, and who led the FBI’s field investigation of the assassination, disputes Sullivan’s allegations, stating that he was not aware of any negative feelings Hoover had toward the Commission. Malley added that “he would not necessarily trust any statements that [Sullivan] made about the assassination investigation and Director Hoover’s role in it.” (11 HSCA 54–55; Malley led field investigation: DeLoach,
Hoover’s FBI
, pp.127–128) However, we do know that on December 1, 1963, before the FBI turned over its report on the investigation to the Warren Commission, the
Washington Post
reported (obviously through a leak) that “all the police agencies with a hand in the investigation…insist that [the case against Oswald] is an unshakable one” (
Washington Post
, December 1, 1963). And on December 10, the day after the FBI’s supposedly secret report on the assassination was delivered to the Commission, the
New York Times
ran the page-one headline, “Oswald Assassin beyond a Doubt, FBI Concludes,” along with an accompanying story announcing the delivery of the report to the Commission and details about the final conclusions reached by the FBI (
New York Times
, December 10, 1963, p.1). More leaks followed shortly (e.g., “Assassination: History’s Jury,” pp.25–27).