An Early
Prescient Critical Researcher--Thomas G. Buchanan
John Delane Williams
Reading Talbot’s Brothers [1] brought my attention to an
early JFK researcher, Thomas G. Buchanan, who was prescient regarding both the
Warren Report and issues related to the assassination. The American edition of
his book, Who Killed Kennedy [2], was published in May 1964, five months before
the Warren Report was published. Moreover, much of the book was filed with the
President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, at the request of a staff member of that
commission, Howard P. Willens. The book was first published in several
different languages and widely available in Europe. Buchanan had attended both
Yale and George Washington University. He was a veteran of World War II, and
had been a journalist in the U.S. until caught up in the McCarthy witch hunts
in the 1950’s; he had a previous involvement with communists in the U.S. [3] He
moved to France and continued being a political correspondent for several
magazines in Europe and Asia. He became interested in the assassination of
President Kennedy, and began writing articles about the assassination early on.
The book, Who Killed Kennedy, grew
out of these early articles.
A Review of Prior
Presidential Assassinations
Who Killed Kennedy had one curious feature: it is one continuous text without chapters.
It also contains no index. Buchanan addressed the idea that, like other
American assassins, Oswald was a lone person without co-conspirators. The three
previous presidential assassinations were reviewed. Though John Wilkes Booth
was the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, he was part of a conspiracy that included
several other persons. Two other persons were to be assassinated at exactly the
same time: Secretary of State William H. Seward was to be assassinated by Lewis
Thornton Powell, and Vice President Andrew Johnson was to be assassinated by
George Atzerodt. Though the latter two
failed in their objective, they and Mary Surratt, a tavern owner, in whose
tavern the plans were made, were all executed. Booth had been killed earlier,
trying to return to the South. Three more conspirators were given life
sentences. One conspirator turned state’s evidence and went unpunished, and
Mary Surratt’s son, John, escaped to Canada. This group was in turn just one of
several cells financed by the Confederacy to assassinate Lincoln and other figures
in his government. The conspiracy led all the way to Jefferson Davis, President
of the Confederated States of America. Clearly Booth did not act alone.
James A. Garfield was the
second American President to be assassinated. His assassin was Charles J. Guiteau,
a 39 year old Republican of the Stalwart faction. Garfield overcame the
Stalwarts efforts and received the Republican nomination on his way to winning
the presidency. The only Stalwart in his choosing persons for positions in his
administration was his Vice president, Chester A. Arthur. Guiteau and several
of his Stalwart compatriots were left out of the mix. Buchanan argued that
Guiteau reasoned that were he to kill Garfield, that the new President Arthur
would replace Garfield’s choices with Stalwart Republicans. Guiteau would soon
recognize that the public favor would turn against them, given Guiteau’s
admission that the act was committed on behalf of the Stalwarts. Though his
lawyer would attempt an insanity plea, Guiteau would be found guilty and
executed.
Leon Czolgosz was a 28
year old American born son of Polish immigrants. He had worked as a laborer and
had been attracted to anarchist writings, presumably due to President William
McKinley’s actions regarding big business. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed in 1890 to protect small businesses from the monopolies. McKinley came to office in 1896, and in the 5 ½ years of his presidency, no prosecutions were begun under the law, despite there being several multi-million dollar trusts established in defiance of the legislation. Czolgosz shot McKinley twice; McKinley died 8 days later. When questioned about his motive, Czolgosz quietly replied, “I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime.” [4] After an eight hour trial and a 34 minute jury deliberation, Czolgosz was convicted and subsequently executed.
McKinley’s actions regarding big business. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed in 1890 to protect small businesses from the monopolies. McKinley came to office in 1896, and in the 5 ½ years of his presidency, no prosecutions were begun under the law, despite there being several multi-million dollar trusts established in defiance of the legislation. Czolgosz shot McKinley twice; McKinley died 8 days later. When questioned about his motive, Czolgosz quietly replied, “I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime.” [4] After an eight hour trial and a 34 minute jury deliberation, Czolgosz was convicted and subsequently executed.
Buchanan reviewed these
assassinations to refute the idea that, “All Presidents of the United States to
date who fell to an assassin’s bullet were the victims of deranged men who had
no accomplices and no political motive.” [5] Buchanan seemed to accomplish this
objective.
Buchanan argues that, “…whoever
killed the President in Dallas could not possibly have acted from sudden
impulse. All the evidence points to a thorough scientific planning of the
crime. Nor does it seem conceivable that
an assassin temporarily deranged by sudden passion could, immediately after, at
the culmination of his frenzy, stand and drink a Coca-Cola. Certainly the
President was not the victim of sudden passion.” [6]
On Insanity
Buchanan stated:
For the only time a prosecutor says that
the defendant was insane is when he is trying
to convict a dead man. Such convictions
can only be useful when they shield the living.
“And an investigating agency declares
that it can find no motive for the President’s
assassination but the murderer’s
insanity, it does not mean that no motive can be
found. It only means, perhaps, that the
investigation was a failure.” [7]
Buchanan’s digression on insanity
addresses the attempt by the President’s Commission having tried to pass off
Oswald’s motive as insanity. Buchanan addressed what was then known about Oswald
and his actions and behaviors and concludes that Oswald was not insane; later
in the book he concludes that Oswald was not the assassin.
The Presidential Motorcade
District Attorney Henry
Wade announced on November 24 that evidence had been found that proved the
crime was premeditated. A map was found in Oswald’s rented apartment. The map
was said to be of possible locations for the murder of the President. One
location was the book depository, which not only was marked, but had a line
indicating the trajectory of the bullet. Instead, it was a map of potential
places to work—and he did get a job at the book depository. Since Oswald
accepted the job and reported to work on October 14, and since a final choice
for the motorcade route was not made until November 15, his accepting the job
more than a month earlier on what would be
the actual motorcade route could not possibly be conceived as
premeditation.
When the first shot rang
out on November 22, 1963, several observers discerned that it came from in
front, possibly in the direction of the railroad bridge on the underpass.
Policeman Seymour Weitzman identified the shot coming from that direction and
started running toward the railroad
bridge, until he was told to go to the Depository. Mary Woodward, a reporter
for the Dallas Morning News reported the shot came from the direction of the
bridge. Charles Drehm [Brehm?] thought the shot came from in front of Kennedy.
[8] The reaction of the limousine driver William Green could be explained by a
shot from the front. Were he to have perceived that the shot came from the
front, he wouldn’t want to drive in that direction for additional shots. But
with a shot from the rear coming next, he would push down on the accelerator to
get the President out of the firing zone.
A man and a woman were
reported running on the railroad bridge over the underpass directly after the
shootings. They were chased by a motorcycle policeman who was thwarted by a wire
fence. [9] Wade said on November 23 that preliminary reports indicated that
more than one person was involved in the shooting. [10] Buchanan would
eventually posit that the first shot did indeed come from a shooter on the railroad
bridge.
Four different
interpretations of the shootings in Dealey Plaza were given through time by the
President’s Commission. New information kept destroying earlier
interpretations. Their final interpretation was that exactly three shots were
fired, all by Lee Harvey Oswald, with one shot missing, and one shot, “the
magic bullet” following an impossible route, doing considerable damage to both
President Kennedy and Governor Connally, yet emerged in pristine condition,
committed by a shooter who was a poor marksman, and who could not possibly
perform beyond world class marksmen ( who could not replicate the feat
attributed to Oswald), further restricted by an inadequate weapon. The
interpretation also required dismissing the testimony of both Governor Connally
and his wife that Conally and Kennedy were hit by separate bullets. The further
likelihood is that Oswald was either in the lunchroom or on his way there at
the time of the shootings.
Prints on the Mannlicher-Carcano
The President’s Commission
claimed that they had scientific evidence that Oswald fired the Mannlicher-Carcano
rifle, the imputed murder weapon. As it happens, the only evidence they had of
Oswald having touched the weapon was a palmprint on the underside of the
barrel, indicating that Oswald had handled the Mannlicher-Carcano when it was
disassembled. One could conjecture that Oswald might have readied the rifle for
the actual shooter. This conjecture would have been unacceptable, because it
would imply a conspiracy. The efforts of the commission were to establish an
Oswald working alone. The rifle did have several fingerprints, one of which was
unidentified, but none of them belonged to Oswald. With Oswald’s fingerprints on many of the nearby
boxes, but not on the rifle, it was unlikely that Oswald was wearing gloves. He
had nitrate on his hands, but not on his cheek. This would seem to preclude
Oswald having recently shot the rifle. The one unidentified print on the rifle
was finally identified in 1998. It belonged to Mac Wallace. [11]. Wallace was a
known henchman for the new president, Lyndon Baines Johnson. That finding, were
it to have made known at the same time as the other prints on the Mannlicher-Carcano
would have brought suspicion to Johnson into focus regarding the conspiracies
surrounding the assassination. [12] Were this information available at the time
of the assassination, Johnson’s presidency could have been very brief. The
course of American politics would have undoubtedly been considerably altered.
Buchanan’s Take on the
Shootings in Dealey Plaza
The first shot came from
in front, probably from the railroad bridge. Buchanan based this conclusion
from the descriptions of the wounds by the Dallas physicians who attended the
President at the Parkland Hospital, together with the observations of witnesses
who saw a man and a woman scrambling on a walk on the railroad bridge. The
shooter likely went either toward the parking area to enter an automobile, or
continued to a freight warehouse. He could have run through the building and
emerged on Houston Street, where he could have then entered the Dallas Morning
News Building. Buchanan speculated that the first assassin could have been Jack
Ruby. Ruby was seen at the newspaper at 12:20 PM when most of employees cleared
the building. When they returned at 12:45, Ruby was there at that time also.
The second shooter was in the Texas Schoolbook Depository. Buchanan conjectured
that Oswald was in some way an accomplice to the second shooter. Perhaps
Oswald’s role was to bring the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle for use in the
shooting.
Was it a Mauser or a Mannlicher-Carcano?
Or both?
Seymour Weitzman, the
police officer credited with finding the rifle in the book depository, gave a
detailed description of it. “This rifle was a 7.65 Mauser with a bolt action
equipped with a 4/18 scope, a thick leather brownish-black sling on it. The
rifle was between some boxes near the stairway. The time the rifle was found
was 1:22 P.M. Captain Fritz took charge of the rifle and ejected one live round
from the chamber.” [13] This statement came from Weitzman’s signed report on
November 23, 1963. There seems to be no room for doubt that the rifle found WAS
a Mauser. Later, the rifle said to have killed President Kennedy was a
Mannlicher- Carcano. Buchanan handles this seeming inconsistency thusly:
The authorities in Dallas have informed us
solemnly that Kennedy was murdered by
a Mauser. The men who made this first statement
were all competent to practice
their profession. I believe them. They
informed us later that the President was killed
by a Carcano. I believe that, also. I am
forced to the conclusion that there were two
weapons. I deduce that there were two
assassins. [14]
It is possible that two
different policemen could have found rifles and brought them back to the police
station, one of which was the Mannlicher-Carcano. When it was determined that
Oswald owned a Mannlicher-Carcano, this became the only weapon of the necessarily
(to avoid the concept of conspiracy) lone gunman.
The Shooting of J.D.
Tippet
Buchanan’s take on the
J.D. Tippet shooting was that Tippet called Oswald to the squad car. Tippet’s
presumed assignment was to badger Oswald into pulling his gun. When that
occurred, Tippet was to draw his gun and eliminate Oswald; presumably Oswald
could identify some of the co-conspirators. Buchanan took the positive test for
nitrates as proof Oswald had recently fired a gun. It would also be proof that
Oswald had handled some cardboard boxes that morning. There are alternative
explanations to the Tippet incident. One of them would be that an Oswald
impersonator played his role, but outdrew Officer Tippet. And of course,
Buchanan may have been correct. However, I would be inclined to think that
Oswald would not have stayed in the movie theater as long as he did if he had
just shot a police officer.
Did Oswald and Ruby know
each other?
With the information
available to Buchanan in 1964, he surmised that the answer was yes. This
interpretation is based on the F.B.I. report that Bill de Mar, a ventriloquist
who was performing at Ruby’s nightclub (The Carousel), saw the two men talking
at the club eight or nine days before the assassination. The President’s
Commission (The Warren Commission) did not want the water muddied with such
assertions. That they knew each other puts Oswald’s murder in a new light. The
unmistakable interpretation is that Ruby killed Oswald to keep him quiet. And
with Ruby’s seeming friends in the police department, Ruby’s ease at entering
the police station as Oswald was being led past the reporters was suspicious.
Recall also that Ruby attended the Friday night press conference and corrected
the speaker about the name of the group that Oswald had been distributing pamphlets
for in New Orleans (Fair Play for Cuba). “(C)omplicity of the police with Ruby seemed so evident to people of all
countries, all political opinions, outside the United States that any possibility
that the official explanation of the President’s assassination might have been
accepted was, thereafter, shattered.” [15]
Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?
Buchanan concludes that:
“Oswald was not at this time [in Dallas] what he professed to be-a Marxist- and
there is good reason to suppose he never was.” [16] But to profess to be a
Marxist in Dallas, he was a brave man and “a most imprudent man unless he had somebody to protect him. And in all the cities in
the state of Texas the last place a radical would go, looking for a job, was
Dallas, unless he already had a job.” [17] When Oswald went to a
stenographer in Fort Worth, Pauline Bates, to type his manuscript on Russia, he
strongly hinted that he was a kind of freelance spy. He was without government
assistance, but with government approval. [18]
Buchanan did not see
Oswald as the person depicted by the Warren Commission, a crazed loner. Clearly
Oswald also had to have income other than that indicated in his official tax
information. The implication is that one or more government agencies [perhaps
the FBI or CIA] had ways of getting money to him. How else could he undertake a
trip to Mexico? If Oswald did kill Officer Tippet, it was a kill or be killed
situation.
A Possible Substitute
Patsy at the Schoolbook Depository
As difficult as it would
seem to be employed in a job and be a radical in Dallas, as it turns out there
was yet another radical employed at the Texas Schoolbook Depository. They were
both brought to police headquarters and questioned on November 22nd,
1963. The other radical employed at the Schoolbook Depository was a bookkeeper
there. His home was searched, and he was questioned for six or seven hours. If
Oswald were not targeted to take the blame, an effective substitute was
available. [19]
Who was Behind the
Assassination?
Buchanan builds a case,
not for specific individuals, but rather for persons with certain characteristics
within two industries in Dallas. Oilmen come to mind; they were aware that
President Kennedy was in favor of reducing the oil depletion allowance (then
27½%) and perhaps eliminating it. This “gift” to the oil producers was very
highly valued, and they loathed to lose it. Oilmen, in their initiation into the oil
“game”, are invariably gamblers. With a going rate of about 1 in 8 oil wells
actually producing oil, many would give up the ghost early on. For those with
deep pockets or some degree of luck, the payoff from oil, particularly the 27½%
depletion allowance, would have paid handsome dividends. For these successful
oilmen, oil ceases to be a gamble; their wells come in with sufficient success,
particularly with the depletion allowance, that the gambling aspect is no
longer present. Since the oilmen were more gamblers than businessmen, they
might seek to express their gambling elsewhere. One such point of gambling was
the attempt to make Dallas the center of the U.S. business and stock markets in
the early 1960’s, which clearly was unsuccessful. [20]
Oilmen’s major threat was
the left wing politicians’ intent on reducing or eliminating the oil depletion
allowance. Kennedy supporters made a
pledge to ‘“close the loopholes in the tax laws by which certain privileged
groups legally escape their fair share of taxation.” The pledge said, “among
the more conspicuous loopholes are depletion allowances, which are
inequitable.”’ [21] With Kennedy pledging to remove the oil depletion allowance
in his next term, he clearly was viewed as an enemy by oilmen.
A second group of Texas
interests deemed to be at risk from Kennedy’s agenda was the persons in the
defense industry. The Texas defense factories could be brought to a standstill
by recent actions by President Kennedy. Kennedy’s pursuit of détente with Nikita Khrushchev,
if continued, would lead to disarmament both for nuclear weapons and the
production of war materials. “I believe the murder of President Kennedy was
provoked, primarily, by fear of the domestic and international consequences of
the Moscow pact: the danger of disarmament which would disrupt the industries
on which the plotters depended and of an international détente which would, in
their view, have threatened the eventual nationalization of their oil investments
overseas.” [22]
It was Buchanan’s view
that the Dallas contingent was as opposed as any area of the country to
rapprochement with Russia; no other area was more convinced that the United States
could survive a nuclear war, and that we could go on and win the war, if we made
the first strike, and it might be worth it. That assessment, is a gamblers
view. “But in Dallas, we have one of the most powerful and wealthy oligarchies
in the world—controlled, as no society ever has before—by men whose instincts
are not those of businessmen, but of gamblers. I suggest the impact of this
fact upon world history, in any country that possesses the atomic bomb, is
terrifying.” [23]
‘If a man believes that,
under some circumstances, it is worth the risk of ending life on this planet to
achieve some national objective, he will hardly flinch at ending one life, if
the chances are remote that he will be detected.” [24]
In the previous
presidential assassinations, there were no denials of the act. After the fact,
there were the explanations of the reasons. Such was not the case in the
Kennedy assassination. No one has ever voiced responsibility, nor given their
explanations.
Since the assassination,
various agencies have sought to hide their own guilt, claiming the act could not
have been anticipated, since it was the act of a madman. These same agencies
also claim Kennedy was partially to blame, for failing to take more precaution.
Having failed to find the real conspirators, they claim the only accomplice was
the President himself. Buchanan’s final words were, “We, the people, are the
only watchmen Kennedy will ever have now. Let these watchmen, then, awaken.”
[25]
Notes:
1. Talbot, D. (2007). Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy
Years. New York: Free Press.
2. Buchanan, T.G. (1964). Who Killed Kennedy? New York: Putnam.
3. Simkin, J. (2013).Thomas G. Buchanan. spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKBuchananT.htm
4. Buchanan, p. 61.
5. Ibid., p. 66.
6. Ibid., p.73.
7. Ibid., p. 74.
8. Ibid., p. 64
9. Ibid., p. 85.
10. Ibid., p.86.
11. Brown, W. (1998a).
TSBD Evidence Places LBJ “Hit Man” in “Sniper’s Nest”. JFK/Deep Politics
Quarterly, 3, No. 3,
Extra; Brown, W. (1998b). The Sordid Story of Mac Wallace. JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly,
3, No.4, 22-27.
12. Williams, J.D.
(1998).LBJ and the Assassination Conspiracies. JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, 4, No.2, 25-28.
13, Buchanan, p. 118.
14. Ibid., p. 120.
15. Ibid., p. 150.
16. Ibid., p.155.
17. Ibid., p. 155.
18. Ibid., p.158.
19. Ibid., pp.174-175.
20. Ibid., pp. 184-187.
Later, Buchanan claimed H.L. Hunt helped fund the assassination.
21. Ibid., p. 184.
22. Ibid., p. 187.
23. Ibid., p. 190.
24. Ibid., p. 190.
25. Ibid., p. 198.
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