come from? I suspect they were plants, sent in by somebody in the Bush Administration.
So thatâs my personal experience with the assassination of JFK. What I respect most about the man is that he was willing to grow and change his views while in office, for the sake of the greater good. Without his going up against the generals who wanted to attack Cuba and take out the Soviet missiles in the fall of 1962, I wouldnât be sitting here today writing this book. Weâd have all been victims of a nuclear holocaust. But because Kennedy wasnât afraid to take on the powers-that-beânot just the military madmen but the CIA, the Mafia, and the right-wing Texas oilmen, among othersâhe made enemies. So many enemies that itâs almost impossible to sort out which one eventually killed him.
The conclusion of Robert Blakey, who ran the House investigation back in the late 1970s, was that the Mob was most likely behind the assassination. On this question, I have to defer to what Kevin Costner said in Oliver Stoneâs JFK movie: âI donât doubt their involvement ... but at a lower level. Could the Mob change the parade route ...? Or eliminate the protection for the president? Could the Mob send Oswald to Russia and get him back? Could the Mob get the FBI, the CIA, and the Dallas Police to make a mess of the investigation? Could the Mob get the Warren Commission appointed to cover it up? Could the Mob wreck the autopsy? Could the Mob influence the national media to go to sleep?â
Now letâs run down some comments made by government officials at the time, most of which havenât been made public until recent years.
President Johnson, on the telephone recordings made of his White House conversations: âI never believed that Oswald acted alone, although I can accept the fact that he pulled the trigger.â 6 However, he also told his friend and Warren Commission member Richard Russell, the senator from Georgia, that he didnât believe in the single-bullet theory.
President Nixon, on the White House tapes, talking about the Warren Commission: âIt was the greatest hoax that has ever been perpetuated.â 7
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, responding to the question, âDo you think Oswald did it?â: âIf I told you what I really know, it would be very dangerous to this country. Our whole political system could be disrupted.â 8
Warren Commission member Hale Boggs: âHoover lied his eyes out to the Commissionâon Oswald, on Ruby, on their friends, the bullets, the gun, you name it.â 9
Senator Russell: â[I] never believed that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy without at least some encouragement from others ... I think someone else worked with him on the planning.â
Who was this guy Oswald anyway? A lot more than a 24-year-old loner, thatâs for sure. Does it make sense that this Marine radar operator who arrives in Moscow in 1959 offering secrets to the Russians then comes home married to a colonelâs niece and never gets debriefed by the CIAâlet alone charged with a possibly treasonous act? The Warren Commission knew, from Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr and District Attorney Henry Wade, that Oswald apparently was FBI informant No. 179 and was making a couple hundred dollars a month in wages from the Bureau! 10 Wadeâs source said that Oswald had a CIA employment number as well.
Of course, we canât know for sure which Oswald this was. Let me explain. At the time the Warren Commission places Oswald on a bus heading to Mexico City to try and get a visa to Cuba, he was also in Dallas with two Latinos at the door of Silvia Odio. Later on, as the assassination date approaches, heâs supposedly target-practicing at firing ranges and driving a car like a maniacâexcept he doesnât know how to drive or have a license. Well, how could Oswald be in two places at once? Maybe there were two men ,
James Patterson and Maxine Paetro