Inside the Assassination Record Review Board  

                                     Part III- The Political Context of the Assassination

                                                          John Delane Williams                                                                    

The fifth volume of Inside the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) [1] also corresponds to Part III-The Political Context of the Assassination. It would be easy to envision this volume being released as a book for the mass market (presuming that the mass market would welcome a pro-conspiracy publication.) Were this to become such a publication, we could hope for more than two chapters for over 400 pages of material. The first chapter addresses the set-up

for events in Dallas.

Getting Kennedy to Dallas and the Planning of Events

If Horne is on the right track, John Connally and Lyndon Johnson were the spearheads behind the Texas trip. It would seem political considerations enticed President Kennedy to venture to Texas. A planned testimonial dinner for Congressman Al Thomas, which occurred in Houston on the night of November 21, was pivotal. Thomas was said to be dying of cancer—just as importantly, Thomas controlled the funding for JFK’s space program. Horne also points out that it was Thomas who winked at Lyndon Johnson, during Johnson’s swearing in ceremony, which was also photographed (p. 1388); see [2]. To be sure, Connally and Johnson had their own agendas as well. Connally wanted the luncheon planned at the Trade Mart, which seated 1500, rather than the Women’s Building, which seated 4000. The Women’s Building was preferred by Jerry Bruno, JFK’s advance man from the Democratic National Committee. The Women’s Building site was considered much easier to insure safety, and also, it would allow attendance by a larger cross-section of citizens; the smaller venue at the Trade Mart was said to likely be attended by those who reflected the conservative wing of the Texas Democratic Party. Connally was adamant about the Trade Mart site. Secret Service (SS) Agent Winston Lawson and Jack Puterbaugh, also from the Democrat National Committee, and in charge of motorcade political protocol, recommended the Trade Mart as the luncheon site. The choice of the luncheon site dictated the motorcade route (pp. 1387-1398). It has been purported than one reason for the preference for the Trade Mart was that the Women’s Building was not nearly as dignified venue as the Trade Mart. [3]  

Lyndon Johnson and Pre-Knowledge of the Assassination

 On the eve of the Dallas motorcade, Vice President Johnson argued with President Kennedy about the placement of Senator Ralph Yarborough and Governor John Connally in the next day’s Presidential parade. Johnson wanted Governor Connally in his car and Senator Yarborough in President Kennedy’s limousine, rather than vice-versa. Kennedy would not relent. Later that evening, Johnson attended a party at the estate of Clint Murchison. Johnson arrived long after the party started, and immediately called a meeting for selected dignitaries, including  J. Edgar Hoover, H.L. Hunt, John Currington (Hunt’s Chief of Staff), George Brown (of Brown & Root), John McCloy, and Richard M. Nixon (pp. 1429-1430); the event was termed a “victory party” by Livingston. [4] The celebration reportedly regarded the next day’s planned assassination. As Johnson left the meeting, he bellowed to Madeleine Brown, his former mistress, “After tomorrow those goddam Kennedys will never embarrass me again—that’s not a threat--that’s a promise.” [5]

Lyndon Johnson’s behavior in the motorcade on 11/22/1963 was curious. Johnson was ducking down 30 to 40 seconds before the shooting started. He was listening to a walkie-talkie at the time the shooting started (p. 1433). Immediately after the first shot, Secret Service Agent Rufus Youngblood pushed Johnson to the floor of the Vice-Presidential limousine, and proceeded to lie on top of Johnson as they sped out of Dealey Plaza. [6]

Security Stripping in Dallas

The motorcycle escort for the Presidential limousine was cut in half, from four on either side to two on either side, and the remaining motorcyclists were stationed to the rear of the limousine; Captain Perdue Lawrence, Dallas Police Department (DPD), and driver of the pilot vehicle, testified to this arrangement at the Warren Commission, saying that President Kennedy wanted no motorcycle policemen between him and the crowd. Lawrence was told this not by JFK, but by SS Agent Winston Lawson. Lawson also gave the order for no secret service agents to ride on the back of the Presidential limousine, again suggesting that this came from President Kennedy. Vince Palamara, in presentations at two research symposia in 1995 & 1996, was given assurances by both Gerald Behn (Head of the White House detail in the Secret Service) and Floyd Boring (#2 man under Behn) that JFK never vetoed or modified any Secret Service procedures ever. Apparently Palamara has contradicted himself on this issue on various websites. [7] The Dallas motorcade is contrasted with the previous day in Houston, when there were nine motorcycle escorts on either side of President Kennedy’s limousine (p. 1401-1405). When Clint Hill ran toward the Presidential limousine in Dealey Plaza, a second agent, Jack Ready, was also going to run to the limousine, but was told not to move by SS Agent Emory Roberts (pp. 1410-1412). That decision seems inexplicable.

It was standard practice for one of JFK’s two military aides, Air Force Brigadier General Godfrey McHugh, or Naval Captain Tazewell Shepard, to ride in the Presidential limousine; minimally, they would ride in the follow-up car; both were placed 12 cars behind the Presidential limousine. President Kennedy’s personal physician, Rear Admiral George Burkley, was also usually placed as close as possible to the president. In Dallas, he was in a vehicle- one of the two press busses 20 cars behind the Presidential limousine- unable to respond to any trauma that might occur. Quite often a press vehicle was placed directly in front of the Presidential limousine to film the President’s tour; in Dallas the two press cars were 13^th and 15^th respectively behind the Presidential limousine (pp. 1413-1414). However, the 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th vehicles behind the Presidential limousine were camera cars; Thomas M. Atkins, a White House cameraman, was in the first of the camera cars. [8]

William Greer

William Greer was the driver of the limousine. Horne has hearsay evidence that a steward on Air Force One was helping Clint Hill change his blood stained clothes on the way back to Washington. Reportedly Hill told the steward that Greer pulled his gun on Hill as he jumped on the back of the limousine (pp. 1415-1418). Given that the Secret Service agents were not supposed to be on the limousine (by Winston Lawson’s orders), it is not surprising that Greer would pull his gun on someone jumping onto the back of the limousine. Horne alludes to the possibility that Greer shot President Kennedy in the head. Horne stated, “The very unpleasant tentative possibility exists that limousine driver William Greer fired a fourth head shot into the President’s temple with his revolver.” (p.1150). Personally, I would have preferred this conjecture had been placed in the Appendix rather than in the body of the text.  In my view, the evidentiary base is just not there for this interpretation—a shot to the left temple, yes—by Greer—no. This statement tends to detract from the rest of the text. The evidence is far too weak to suggest that William Greer shot President Kennedy in the head from the information presented. [9]

The Secret Service’s Involvement with the Assassination

It is because of Doug Horne’s work that we now know how much more deeply the Secret Service (at least several key members) was involved with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Their involvement can be seen in the security stripping, which included not only reducing the protection around Kennedy’s limousine, but the planning of the route to the Trade Mart, the selection of the Trade Mart instead of the Women’s Building, and the changing of the placement of cars in the Presidential parade in Dallas, putting Kennedy’s personal physician far enough behind the Presidential limousine, so that he couldn’t respond to an emergency. Also, the press would be unable to record the parade on film, as was normally done (But see note 8). At Parkland Hospital, the Secret Service stole the slain president’s body, illegally removing him from Texas, and avoiding an autopsy in Texas. At the Bethesda autopsy, SS Agent Roy Kellerman was in charge of allowing persons to view the proceedings; some persons were kept from being in a particular audience to try to keep the body alterations unknown to attendees at the autopsy. It is likely that Dr. Burkley was in a liaison with the Secret Service. Burkley was one of the individuals shouting instructions to the autopsists in Bethesda. The Secret Service personnel took possession of the Presidential limousine and had it torn down to remove evidence, and apparently had a new windshield installed to try to eliminate evidence of a frontal shot. According to Horne, William Greer not only slowed or stopped the limousine during the motorcade, but also possibly shot President Kennedy in the head. After the ARRB was instituted, the Secret Service deliberately destroyed files relating to the assassination, some 32 years after the assassination. Also according to Horne, Kellerman likely did some alterations on his own to remove a frontal bullet from President Kennedy’s body. I am not convinced of the veracity of the involvements of Greer and Kellerman in these allegations. Burkley testified at one point about his anger about where he stuck in the motorcade; but he did NOT blame the SS; he stated that placement in vehicles was usually left to local folks, of the ‘host committee’ not the SS. Kellerman, it should be stated, also testified that there was a bullet entrance in what would be JFK’s right ‘sideburn’ [2H 91], and such testimony casts doubt on Kellerman consciously playing any cover-up role.

Not emphasized in Horne’s analysis is the treatment of Abraham Bolden, the first black SS agent to serve in the presidential detail. After a year in Washington, Bolden asked to be transferred back to Chicago. Bolden was part of the Secret Service detail in Chicago that unearthed a threat against President Kennedy and caused the cancellation of his trip to Chicago on November 1, 1963. During Bolden’s tenure in Washington, he began to have strong misgivings about presidential security.  In May of 1964, Bolden flew to Washington to attend a Secret Service training school. When he arrived in Washington, he attempted to call J. Lee Rankin, counsel to the Warren Commission. His call was placed to the White House Switchboard. Bolden wished to give testimony to the Warren Commission on the low level of protection afforded President Kennedy by the Secret Service. The Secret Service apparently got wind of Bolden’s plans. Bolden was sent home directly, and charged with counterfeiting on his return to Chicago. Bolden would eventually be convicted and sentenced to prison. Though he was paroled in 1969, the government never saw fit to offer him a pardon. After all, his conviction could be construed to be because of government misconduct. The government rarely acknowledges its own misconduct.  [10]

 The Enablers- J. Edgar Hoover and Lyndon Johnson

Horne refers to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Vice-President (and on 11/22/1963, President) Lyndon Johnson as “enablers” of the plot to eliminate John F. Kennedy (p. 1472). Without being an apologist for either, it is hard to conceptualize two people that apparently became aware of the plot as late as 11/21/1963, as enablers to the plot. They likely became instrumental in the cover-up, making both enablers of a different sort, as they kept the heat off of the actual plotters, but overstates their involvement with the assassination. And, their participation in the cover-up was “different”. For J. Edgar Hoover, his participation in the cover-up was more akin to “business as usual” (his business as usual was in its own way nefarious). For example, at no point did Hoover and his FBI ever venture away from a two shot hit scenario (one shot in the back of President Kennedy’s skull, exiting at the top of his skull, and the other a shallow, non-transiting wound in the back), despite Arlen Specter’s magic bullet scenario. Hoover’s bureau seemed to have saved most of their collected materials in relation to the assassination of President Kennedy and cooperated with the ARRB with this process (obviously, Hoover was long gone), but the FBI’s collected materials were apparently destroyed less often than by other agencies.

Johnson, as president, set in motion the Warren Commission, which was the means to covering up the incriminating evidence from the assassination, and pinning it onto Lee Harvey Oswald. Johnson would have been seen to be an enabler for the interests of the military, and would deliver on that aspect following the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Perhaps Johnson thought he was going to be removed from the 1964 ticket, but if JFK would only remove him were an indictment against Johnson made, Johnson had little to worry about. [11] It was not likely that he would be indicted by any Texas court, and insofar as the Rules Committee hearings held in the Senate, even on the day of the assassination, Johnson had little to fear. The Senate Rules Committee members, made up of 6 Democrats and 3 Republicans, were if anything (the 6 Democrats) defending their former colleague, rather than trying to gather evidence against him.  See [12].

The Military (JCS) and their Relationship with President Kennedy

To say the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) had a conflicted relationship with President Kennedy would be a gross understatement. Presumably, the JCS would have looked forward to the Kennedy Presidency—he campaigned as a Cold Warrior, seemingly more interested in combating the Soviet Menace than his opponent Richard Nixon. In particular, he wished to close the missile gap with the Soviet Union. Once elected, he found that there was no missile gap or bomber gap; any gap that existed was in the United States’ favor. Then the impending Cuban issue arose. Unlike his predecessor, President Eisenhower, JFK initially attended meetings with the JCS without any experts from his own administration. The Bay of Pigs planning would be affected within a series of meetings with the JCS. What President Kennedy did not understand was that if the Bay of Pigs operation were to have a chance of success, direct intervention by the American military would be necessary. The JCS and the CIA were expecting the cold warrior to accede to the use of the military rather than face defeat for the Cuban ex-patriots attempting to invade Cuba. JFK refused to allow any direct intervention by American militia. More meetings would bring out the strong differences between JFK and the JCS. Included in these meetings were aspects of the Northwoods plan. This bizarre plan had several scenarios for creating a pretext for an invasion of Cuba by the U.S. military. One such plan was to implement a fake “Communist Cuban Terror Program” in Miami in which Cuban refugees would be exposed to actual exploding bombs, with attempts on the lives of the Cuban refugees, perhaps wounding some, and also using false documents to implicate the Castro regime (pp. 1525-1530).

The Vietnam situation was yet another area of contention. President Kennedy was continually being pushed to allow American combat troops there. Kennedy had become aware that the glowing reports of success in Vietnam were far removed from the truth.  Though he earlier decided to reduce the number of advisors in Vietnam by 1000 by the end of 1963, using the erroneous information supplied to him, he remained steadfast in the drawdown in American advisors; after his reelection, he planned to withdraw all American military personnel by the end of 1965 (pp. 1583-1602). Eventually the JCS would come to see JFK as a traitor, and that his elimination would be necessary.

A Convenient and Agreeable Replacement Was Found

On April 27, 1961, a crisis meeting was held regarding Laos. Present were 15 congressional members, the JCS, President Kennedy, and Vice-President Johnson. Arleigh Burke, sitting in for General Lemnitzer, advocated immediate military intervention in Laos with combat troops, with possible escalation up to and including the use of nuclear weapons. President Kennedy asked for the views of those present. Only one person sided with Burke--Lyndon Johnson (pp.1553-1554). On May 5, 1961, President Kennedy indicated that Vice President Johnson would be going to Vietnam in the near future--without discussing it with Johnson. When Johnson got on the plane 5 days later, he was given a briefing book about the goals of the trip by USAF Colonel Howard Burris. After studying the book for about one minute, Johnson said, “Howard, if you give me any of this State Department crap again, I’ll throw you off the plane.” (p. 1569). On May 12, without authorization, Johnson promised President Diem that the U.S. would fully fund and equip the 20,000 man additional increase Diem wanted. Later that evening, LBJ called Diem the “Churchill of Asia” (p. 1571). As the war effort in Vietnam deteriorated, but rosy reports of success were reported back to JFK, Johnson was given accurate back channel information about how badly things were going in Vietnam (p. 1583). If need be, it would appear that the military might have a suitable replacement for President Kennedy.

The CIA Became the Operational Arm of the Security Establishment in the Assassination

It is Horne’s assertion that the CIA was the operational arm of the security establishment in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I think it would be more correct to say that key personnel from the CIA were likely a part of the operational arm of the security establishment in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. However, this does not mean that the CIA, nor any of its members, was part of the group that made major decisions about the assassination. Horne placed David Atlee Phillips in the midst of the CIA operational arm in the assassination. Phillips was involved with the sheep-dipping attempt with Lee Harvey Oswald, with the intended outcome of labeling Oswald as a pro-Castro assassin of President Kennedy. A second person was David Sanchez Morales, a notorious CIA hitman, who bragged about the CIA’s involvement in the assassination. Morales was the Operational Manager at a training base in Florida, training Cuban exiles for a possible invasion of Cuba. According to Bradley Ayers, also involved in training exiles at that base was mobster Johnny Rosselli. [13] A third CIA planner named by Horne was James Jesus Angleton. Angleton stressed a relationship between Oswald and Valery Kostikov, a Soviet official at the Mexico City embassy who was in charge of assassinations in the Western hemisphere. Covering up this relationship (or pseudo-relationship) would help keep the U.S. out of war with the Soviet Union, but more importantly from Angleton’s view, also get the CIA off the hook for their part in the assassination. Mark Lane argued this theory persuasively in Plausible Denial, suggesting, with credibility, that the entire Mexico City scenario was fraudulent, yet presented quickly to the WC by the CIA in order to drum up the possibility of nuclear war as a pretext/excuse for the WC to find a lone, non-political assassin. [14] Edward G. Lansdale, a Brigadier General in the Air Force, owed his true loyalties to the CIA.  President Kennedy disappointed Lansdale in both Vietnam and Cuba. Lansdale had the offer to be Ambassador to Vietnam rescinded by Dean Rusk, who did not want a CIA “spook” serving as an ambassador; Project Mongoose (an attempt to start a popular uprising in Cuba against Castro) was shut down in early 1963, following President Kennedy’s no invasion pledge to Kruschchev, after the Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK’s intent to withdraw from Vietnam after the 1964 election also rankled Lansdale (pp. 1613-1649). According to Horne, Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty identified Lansdale as being in the photograph of the three tramps in the yard area behind Dealey Plaza in Dallas on 11/22/1963 (p. 1648).  This statement by Horne is accurate but possibly misleading. Colonel Prouty identified Lansdale as being a person photographed with the three tramps when the tramps were being escorted by two men dressed as Dallas police. The man identified as Lansdale by Prouty was walking in the opposite direction as the three tramps. The three tramps would then be escorted to the nearby County Jail by the same two Dallas policemen. It seems highly unlikely that the Dallas police would escort persons to the County Jail. The whole scene seemed bogus to Prouty in an interview he gave in 1989. [15] [ In an aside, the police interviewed stated that “the tramps” removed from the boxcars—there were more than three, were taken off trains parked near Union Station, three blocks SOUTH of Dealey Plaza; the implication regarding the “tramps” is that they were behind the picket fence. [16] The question then becomes, why march them through Dealey Plaza if they were caught three blocks south?

The Longstanding Desire of Hawks to Obliterate the Soviet Union

Horne reviewed Richard Rhodes’ book on the history of America’s nuclear arms race [17]; the planning for the obliteration of the Soviet military and industry was begun as early as September 1945.  In 1950, Paul Nitze and Dean Atcheson (then Secretary of State) deliberately began exaggerating the Soviet threat in order to boost defense spending (p. 1694). This exaggeration apparently continued to the 1960 election year; JFK campaigned on the premise that he would move, as president, to erase the missile gap. Shortly after JFK became president, Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara concluded there was no missile gap (pp. 1690-1692). In terms of nuclear warheads, the U.S. held a 20 to 1 advantage.  In 1954, President Eisenhower issued an updated Basic National Security Policy statement: “The United States and its allies must reject the concept of preventative war or acts intended to promote war.” (p. 1695). Air Force General Curtis LeMay authorized the Strategic Air Command (SAC) to plan for preemption—for beating the Soviet Union to the punch if intelligence indicated the Soviets were beginning a first strike. LeMay’s plan would have left virtually the entirety of the Soviet Union as a smoking, radiating ruin in two hours. LeMay deliberately had begun overhead flights of the Soviet Union from the mid- 1950’s, apparently hoping a response from the Soviet Union would justify a preemptive first strike (p. 1696). 

At the end of WWII, custody of the U.S. nuclear bombs was transferred to the civilian Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). In 1957, LeMay wrestled physical custody of the nuclear weaponry from the AEC. Robert Sprague, chairman of a committee appointed by President Eisenhower to study SAC’s response abilities, expressed his concerns to LeMay. LeMay said, “If I see the Russians are amassing their planes for attack, I’m going to knock the shit out of them before they take off the ground.” Sprague protested, “But general, that’s not national policy.” LeMay responded: “I don’t care. It’s my policy. That’s what I’m going to do.” (p. 1699).

The Single Integrated Operational Plan for 1962 (SIOP-62)  

This plan was first revealed to President Kennedy at a meeting with the JCS on July 20, 1961. Horne discussed SIOP-62 in Chapter 5 (pp. 482-487). Briefly, SIOP-62 was a plan for a nuclear war in 1962, annihilating the Soviet Union, China, even Albania. It was to be an obliterating attack on everything Red. Once begun, the entire plan was to be executed. It involved using 3,423 nuclear weapons against 1,077 military and urban-industrial targets scattered throughout the Sino-Soviet bloc. The enormousness of this plan was incredible. In all human history, only two atomic bombs had ever been used against another nation, the bombs used to end WWII. Many of the thermo-nuclear warheads available to the U.S. in 1962 were much more powerful than the two atomic bombs used in 1945. Generals Lemneitzer and LeMay were strong advocates of this plan (pp. 1701-1707).  

What was the Meaning of the Assassination of President Kennedy?

If the Warren Commission and its defenders are to be believed, there is no major meaning to the assassination of President Kennedy. He was murdered by a madman; the policies which President Kennedy was promulgating were kept intact, and there was no change in government. It is Horne’s assessment that the JFK presidency was a break from “business as usual”. Horne argues against those historians who maintain that nothing would have changed had President Kennedy lived. Horne claims that this sort of thinking--Kennedy’s death was irrelevant to subsequent events, ignores Kennedy’s role as a reformer who was in the process of a paradigm change--a change that infuriated the military-industrial complex. Kennedy had plans to remove American troops from Vietnam in 1965; 58,000 American lives and over a million Asian lives would have been saved. Détente with the Soviet Union could have come 25 years earlier. Just perhaps, hundreds of billions of dollars could have been saved in the military budget. A cooperative effort for putting mankind on the moon, rather than the race which took place, could have signaled that a transformative change in our way of interacting with other nations had begun.

Even more importantly, it is likely that a nuclear war was avoided in regard to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) were unanimous in recommending a military solution to end the crisis. The JCS wanted to bomb the missiles in Cuba. Their view was that the missiles were not yet operational. The CIA had also seriously underestimated the number of Soviet personnel in Cuba. There were at least 42,000 Soviet troops there. Nor did the JCS know that the missiles were operational, armed with nuclear warheads and permission to use them was granted if the Soviet installations were attacked. Had the president given the green light to attack the Soviet missile structures, the ensuing holocaust would have been almost unimaginable. As it was, the U.S. Navy harassed four Soviet diesel-electric submarines, which were each carrying 10 kiloton nuclear warheads, though this information was not known until years later (p. 1740).  Had the captains of any one of these submarines had the mentality of, say, General Curtis LeMay, World War III would surely have been underway. Such a war would have had profound effects worldwide; a long lasting nuclear winter would have been the prize for the survivors. In saving the world from the devastation implicit in such a conflict, President Kennedy was seen by some as a traitor, and he was marked for assassination. The nuclear winter theory espoused here, which I agree with, would have accounted for far more than the “39 million” dead that Lyndon Johnson sold to the WC; it could have been closer to 1.5 billion dead, particularly as the fallout were to go eastward, to India, Pakistan, China, and Japan- all heavily populated.

A Quick Synopsis of Horne’s Contribution

This massive writing encompassing over 1800 pages; it is an important contribution to understanding the events of 11/22/1963. Part I, almost half of the five volumes, makes the set a must reading for any person seriously wanting to understand the assassination. The medical evidence involved with the autopsy is riveting. Yet it is hard to read in such detail about the handling of President Kennedy’s body. Horne leaves seemingly no detail out of his magnum opus. Part I is a major contribution to the assassination literature. In a real sense, it is hard for Part I not to overshadow the final two Parts.         Part Two was an extension and interpretation of Part One. The two brain hypothesis (JFK’s real brain, and a substitute, more intact brain) is explored. Horne’s looking into the Zapruder film is well worth reading. One issue that deserves more emphasis in ballistics evidence is the use of sabots (a sabot would allow a bullet which would have been fired from a rifle to retain its original ballistic markings when fired from a sabot in a larger caliber rifle), particularly when the government is trying to frame a suspect. Part Three is an uneven contribution. Horne presents no evidence that William Greer acted improperly, but provided only hearsay reports of Greer improprieties. Were Greer under the understanding that no secret service agents would approach the limousine, it doesn’t seem unreasonable for him to pull out his handgun when someone jumped on the limousine. Even on a hearsay basis, I didn’t read anything that suggests Clint Hill said that Greer fired the handgun at either Hill or President Kennedy. Perhaps such evidence may eventually surface; at that time hypothesizing a shot from Greer would then be appropriate. On the other hand, the involvement of General Curtis LeMay, laid out in considerable detail, is handled more gingerly than that of William Greer. The richness of Part III is in regard to the coverage given to the relationship of the military brass to President Kennedy. Horne presents considerable evidence of disdain toward Kennedy on the part of several key top brass in the military, including their seeing Kennedy as a traitor for not using a military response to the missile crisis. Given inaccurate assessments of the Soviet nuclear preparedness in Cuba, the military brass were adamant about a military attack on the missiles in Cuba. It was the steadfastness of President Kennedy against the military attack on Cuba that likely saved the world from a massive nuclear holocaust. While it is not Horne’s specific interpretation, it is not a long stretch to postulate that selected military brass were at the center of the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. Whatever criticisms have been brought up herein, I would strongly recommend the five volumes by Horne to any researcher interested in the JFK assassination.      

Notes:

1.      Horne, D.P. (2009). Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK, Volumes I-V. Lexington, KY: Author.

2.      Lifton, D.S. (1980). Best Evidence: Disguise and Deception in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. New York: Macmillan.

3.      This seems like a trumped up excuse. I am reminded of the time I saw President Kennedy; JFK gave a speech in a high school football stadium in front of 20,000 onlookers. All the dignity necessary for the occasion was provided by President Kennedy. Williams, J.D. (2009). How “Typical” was the Protection for President Kennedy in Dallas? Dealey Plaza Echo, 13, 1,1-4.

4.      Livingstone, H.E. (1993). Killing the Truth: Deceit and Deception in the JFK Case. New York: Carroll & Graf. (pp. 483-487).

5.      Brown, M.D. (1997). Texas in the Morning: The Love Story of Madeleine Brown and President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Baltimore: The Conservatory Press. (p. 166). See also, The Men Who Killed Kennedy: Part 7: Smoking Guns. The History Channel, 11/21/2003.

6.      Youngblood, R.W. (1973). 20 Years in the Secret Service: My Life with Five Presidents. New York: Simon and Schuster. (pp. 113-115).

7.      Palamara, V. (1993). The Third Alternative-Survivors Guilt: The Secret Service and the JFK Murder. Pittsburgh, PA: Author. The two presentations Palamara made were at the Coalition on Political Assassinations meetings in Washington, DC in 1995 & 1996. Videotapes were made of Palamara’s presentations (along with other presenters).

8.      Trask, R.B. (1994). Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the Assassination of President Kennedy. Danvers, MA: Yeoman Press. (p. 306). In the three camera cars were six cameramen (NBC, CBS, the White House cameraman, three local TV affiliates,) seven photographers, an NBC sound technician a pool electrician, and three drivers.

9.      This is not to say that I would absolutely reject the idea that William Greer shot at President Kennedy, only that I am unaware of any additional evidence that would conclusively show that Greer fired at the President.

10.   Bolden, A. (2008). The Echo from Dealey Plaza. New York: Harmony Books.

11.  Williams, J.D. (1999). LBJ and the assassination conspiracies. JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, 4, 2, 25-28.

12.  Williams, J.D. & Conway, D. (2001) The Don Reynolds Testimony and LBJ. Kennedy Assassination Chronicles, 7, 1, 19-28. No publication of the Senate Rules Committee hearings (being held on November 22, 1963) was ever made, because they were never concluded. Because the hearings, involving Donald Reynolds, an insurance salesman purportedly involved with kickbacks to Johnson, were resumed, we can discern what happened at the hearings at the time of the assassination from Reynolds later testimony regarding the hearings on 11/22/1963.

13.  Ayers, B.E. (2006). The Zenith Secret: A CIA Insider Exposes the Secret War Against Cuba and the Plot that Killed the Kennedy Brothers, Brooklyn: Vox-Pop. Also, Ayers, B.E. (1976). The War that Never Was: An Insider’s Account of CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba. New York: Bobbs-Merrill.

14.  Lane, M. (1991). Plausible Denial. New York: Thunder’s Mountain Press.

15.  A U-Tube video of Colonel Prouty’s 1989 interview regarding General Lansdale was received from Treefrog (treefrog@ix.netcom.com) on 8/1/2010. The video is available at www.prouty.net. The picture that Colonel Prouty identified General Lansdale as being in with the three tramps can be found in Trask, R.B. (1994). Pictures of the Pain. Danvers, MA: Yeoman Press. (p. 340).

16.  From the testimony of D.V. Harkness, DPD; at the WC hearings, Harkness was not asked about the tramps. See Brown, W. (1996). The Warren Omission. Wilmington, DE: Delmax, p. 310.

17.  Rhodes, R. (2007). Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.