You can listen to all the phone calls that President Lyndon Johnson participated in on November 22nd, 1963, the day JFK was assassinated, through to the end of the month. All of them, that is, except for the call Johnson had with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover at 10AM on the morning of November 23rd. The audio of that particular conversation was erased. However, somewhat inexplicably, a transcript has survived. The second page of that transcript is what can only be called a bombshell. It reveals two things that the president and the FBI Director did not want the American people or the Soviets to know. First, it revealed that the FBI had pictures of someone using the name Oswald visiting the Soviet Embassy down in Mexico City, and the picture did not correspond to the Oswald they had in custody. In other words, someone had been impersonating Oswald, possibly for the purpose of implicating the Soviets in killing of the U.S. president. Second, it revealed that all mail going to the Soviet embassy was opened and read by the FBI before being delivered. It’s not surprising that someone made the decision to erase this (and only this) tape. The information about the mail-opening was probably sufficient to justify erasure, but the part about Oswald raised the specter of a right-wing conspiracy. Meanwhile, the fact that Oswald had a Russian wife and had lived in Russia raised the specter of a Soviet-backed plot. President Johnson needed to control the narrative even before he had a firm grip of the facts. And Johnson was quickly faced with pressure originating from the Washington Post to create a commission of inquiry into the assassination. He had another conversation with Hoover on the 25th, in which they discussed the problems with a commission. Hoover compared the Post to the Daily Worker, while Johnson said “sometimes a Commission that is not trained hurts more than it helps.” Nonetheless, he could not avoid appointing one. But he made sure that the people on the Commission understood that the wrong conclusions could result in a nuclear war with the Soviets.
On the 29th, Johnson had another conversation with Hoover, in which he argued that the only way to avoid congressional investigations was to appoint an independent one. Johnson decided that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, should chair the Commission, and he announced (without consulting him first) that Senator Dick Russell of Georgia would also be serving. Sen. Russell did not want to serve on a commission with Warren because of the deep unpopularity of the Warren Court in the segregated South. When LBJ called Russell to inform him of his press release, a facinating conversation ensued. But the most interesting part is that LBJ told Russell that he needed him to serve because “we’ve got to take this out of the arena where they’re testifying that Krhuschev and Castro did this and did that and check us into a war that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour…” It was the same threat that he used to convince Warren to chair the commission, and it was a line he would use several other times on the tapes.
I mention all of this not to have a debate about what really happened. I mention it because long before LBJ had any firm idea about how the assassination was pulled off, how many shooters there might have been, who was behind Oswald (if anyone), who was impersonating Oswald in Mexico City, or many other issues of grave concern, he had already decided that he needed a Commission to assure the people that the communists had not been responsible. And he came to that conclusion because it was more important that we avoid a nuclear war than that the American people learn all the facts, no matter where they might lead.
President Obama faces similar choices right now because no one knows what the treasure-trove of documents that were seized at bin-Laden’s compound might say about who assisted bin-Laden in avoiding detection for ten years. It is very possible that the answers could justify very strong action against Pakistan or even, conceivably, other nation-states. American opinion has cooled considerably in the decade since 9/11, but could still be aroused mightily if certain information came to light.
The president must weigh these competing considerations. If it isn’t in our interests to be in a state of war with some other country, it may not be in our interests to know all the facts.
That’s a heavy burden for a president to bear.
And if you look into the history of other Commissions – the Rockefeller Commission, the 9/11 Commission, etc., you’ll see the common theme is not to seek the truth but to justify the government’s version of events.
Btw – LBJ eventually came to believe the CIA killed Kennedy.
Is that a little strong?
I think it’s accurate. One indication of that is the huge number of important leads they never followed up, obvious questions they never looked into, and important witnesses they never called.
No, I mean the evidence that LBJ came to that conclusion is rather thin.
LBJ actually at various times came up with several alternative, conspiracy theory explanations for Dallas. The CIA one happened in 1967, iirc, and was told to trusted aide Marvin Watson (who, again working from memory, had related it to a high-ranking FBI official who later disclosed it). Thin evidence? Perhaps, but not the sort of stuff either Watson or the FBI official would normally be considered to want to fabricate.
In 1969, LBJ, in his post-presidency interview with Cronkite, said he thought there had been some “damn Murder Inc” the US had been involved with wrt getting rid of Castro, suggesting the latter had been involved with Oswald as payback.
Silly stuff, because it’s almost certain LBJ knew of the vastly improved US-USSR and US-Cuban relations following the Missile Crisis, or at least that’s what I extrapolate given VP Johnson’s accurate insider knowledge about Kennedy’s VN policy (of eventual withdrawal). And, again, silly to consider a foreign angle given Oswald’s huge USSR and Cuban fingerprints, as well as the stupidity of sending someone with a nonexistent track record as an assassin and rather poor record in the Marines for shooting accurately.
Johnson was just too smart to believe that sort of nonsense.
It all sounds “simple” and “silly” in hindsight. At the time the whole thing was scary as hell. You’re right, Johnson didn’t believe it, at least after he had a chance to consider the whole thing and look at what the Warren commission as doing, or not doing — but he also knew that very powerful (and ruthless) forces were pushing that line and (like so many others) that it might be a good idea to give the idea “lip service” as a “possibility”.
Another reason to believe LBJ didn’t believe the foreign conspiracy angle that he was suggesting (disingenuously, imo) to others like Warren and Russell: his actual behavior as president in the hours and days following Dallas suggests he was not really thinking about a foreign involvement in the assass’n, or any obvious consequences flowing from that, such as war with that foreign power.
F’rinstance, Johnson, instead of quickly acting to get aboard AF1 and get the hell out of Dallas over fears of some foreign plot, instead takes his sweet time: he orders a local fed judge to swear him in (falsely claiming AG RFK told him this was required), even as constitutionally this was entirely unnecessary (as LBJ almost certainly knew). AF1 doesn’t take off from Love Field for another, what, 45 min or an hour or so as they wait for fed Judge Hughes to arrive — much to the annoyance of Jackie Kennedy and the JFK camp in the back of the plane sitting grief-stricken beside the president’s casket.
Once back in the WH that same night, according to the later testimony of an admiral (a JFK military aide) who debriefed him, there was no sense of urgency by the new president about any int’l crisis or war. We also know from other sources that as he went to bed that night, Lady Bird overheard him talking domestic politics — yes, domestic politics — to his aides sitting next to the bed. Bird turned away in disgust apparently. But that was what was on LBJ’s mind that first day — completely contradicting any notion of a foreign plot.
Iirc, LBJ also quickly received word from internal CIA reports that there was no Soviet or Cuban govt involvement in the assassination. I believe this was reported to Johnson that first weekend. With Oswald’s clear Soviet/Cuba connections (the probably false ones set up to make him look far lefty), this would have been an obvious and IMMEDIATE question to look into — no waiting months for some pres’l comm’n to decide the matter.
Oh. Up to now I never thought about that question. I’ll just say I don’t find it implausible.
But now, looking into it, I see that in Danny Schechter’s feature documentary “Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy,” Walter Cronkite concedes that CBS News in 1970 (on Johnson’s insistence) censored Lyndon Johnson’s own doubts about the lone-assassin theory. Cronkite tells Schechter that Johnson invoked “national security” to get CBS to edit out his remarks long after they had been captured on film. Cronkite and CBS, of course, reflexively complied.
Max Holland, in “The Assassination Tapes,” (Atlantic, June 2004) writes:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/holland_atlantic.htm
In this interview, [actually conducted in September 1969], Cronkite asked Johnson if he was satisfied that there had been no foreign conspiracy. “I can’t honestly say that I’ve ever been completely relieved of the fact that there might have been international connections,” Johnson replied. Cronkite pushed a little harder, asking if Johnson’s suspicions involved Cuba. Johnson replied, “Oh, I don’t think we ought to discuss the suspicions, because there’s not any hard evidence that would lead me to the conclusion that Oswald was directed by a foreign government.” Three weeks before the segment aired, Johnson had second thoughts; he insisted that the exchange be deleted, on grounds of “national security.” CBS reluctantly obliged.”
I also find that that Leo Janos (Houston bureau chief for Time Magazine), in his book The Last Days of the President: LBJ in retirement, writes of his interview with Johnson on his ranch on June 16, 1971:
‘During coffee, the talk turned to President Kennedy, and Johnson expressed his belief that the assassination in Dallas had been part of a conspiracy. “I never believed that Oswald acted alone, although I can accept that he pulled the trigger.” Johnson said that when he had taken office he found that “we had been operating a damned Murder Inc. in the Caribbean.” A year or so before Kennedy’s death a CIA-backed assassination team had been picked up in Havana. Johnson speculated that Dallas had been a retaliation for this thwarted attempt, although he couldn’t prove it. “After the Warren Commission reported in, I asked Ramsey Clark [then Attorney General] to quietly look into the whole thing. Only two weeks later he reported back that he couldn’t find anything new.” Disgust tinged Johnson’s voice as the conversation came to an end. “I thought I had appointed Tom Clark’s son–I was wrong.”‘
I get the impression that Johnson, while he may never have had any definite theory of what exactly happened, knew perfectly well that the Warren Commission had been a coverup.
The evidence is very strong in that I believe people are more likely to tell the truth of what they really think and believe to close, trusted associates than they are to tell the truth to media figures who might ridicule them or challenge them publicly on it. LBJ was no dummy.
As for the “damn murder inc.” comment, it’s interesting how that has been spun to mean he thought the mob may have killed JFK. There’s no real evidence for that. He meant only that the CIA was using the mob in the Castro attacks. That’s very different than saying the Mob, alone, was capable of such a thing.
Right.
Thx priscianus for the cites. I had earlier conflated Johnson’s two separate interviews.
Not that I buy either one, or that Johnson actually believed any of the theories he arranged to put out there.
In fact, I’ve posted so far in mostly genteel fashion as to LBJ. But what I really believe, and have so for a long time, is that Johnson probably had foreknowledge of the assassination.
If true, that would then also account not only for his curiously unconcerned behavior in the days immediately following Dallas (a major meeting he had with his JCS and nat’l security team, on Nov 24 iirc, didn’t involve talk about a major int’l crisis over Dallas, but centered on the situation in VN and what the policy would be; see., e.g., the important NSAM 273 signed Nov 25, 1963 — hardly something he would have spent any time on if he believed there was indeed a foreign conspiracy to assassinate JFK.) but would also account for his putting out various theories about Dallas pointing in all sorts of other directions (Mob, CIA, foreign), as well as his need to have a self-appointed pres’l comm’n to quickly wrap things up (he wanted their work to be completed before the end of summer ’64 or earlier — like before the Dem convention in August). All sorts of things make more sense when viewed through the foreknowledge lens.
Controversial position to take, I know. But not as uncommon, even among serious researchers in this field, as it once was. E.g., the author of the best book in the JFK/Dallas subject to come along in many years, James Douglass (JFK and the Unspeakable, 1998, highly recommended), also believes Lyndon Johnson probably knew in advance (author’s online radio interview, ca 2009).
All I can say is, after some 20 years of looking into this, I’ve never seen CREDIBLE evidence that LBJ had foreknowledge. Afterwards, he was provably involved in a cover-up. But the evidence people cite as compelling of foreknowledge has not yet impressed me. I remain open, because just because I haven’t seen good evidence doesn’t mean it isn’t true. But I find that a much more dubious proposition now than when I was first investigating the case. People like Madeleine Brown and others who have asserted such fall apart under serious scrutiny.
I agree with you, Lisa. Johnson vis a vis the Kennedy assasination is like one of those characters in a classic mystery novel. It might look like he had a motive, opportunity, and personality to have been behind the JFK assassination, or at least significantly involved, but the actual evidence points in quite another direction.
Johnson was part of the coverup, but he was not an enthusiastic part. He, like Warren and many others, was essentially told that a coverup was necessary because, even if you thought the idea of Cuban/USSR involvement was nonsense, there was a lot of evidence pointing that way (Oswald) and if it came out, the Right would be able to push for WW III. That’s why that whole “‘Oswald’ in Mexico City” thing — so obviously a setup — is so important. Johnson’s lack of enthusiasm is shown by those very quotes we are talking about.
Lots of circumstantial evidence, imo, points towards his possible foreknowledge, as opposed to one smoking gun piece of evidence. It would take me several pages of posting to list them all and make my case, which still probably wouldn’t be enough to meet the burden of proof in a criminal court. Civil court or court of public opinion, maybe.
As for MB, she said quite a bit in her final years, some of which might have been inaccurate, a misperception, or a Texas-type embellishment or stretcher. But some of it, the core of it — ?
Me, I’m actually more inclined to the LBJ foreknowledge view than I was 15 or 20 yrs ago when I first had serious suspicions.
And the fact that a serious JFK author like James Douglass is basically on board with me on this one makes me think (in my unscientific survey of researchers) the trend line is slightly in favor of my position.
you should also read the coversation where Joe Alsop skillfully brings LBJ to this conclusion. Alsop, more than any other person, talked LBJ into setting up a commission for this purpose. (This is the same Joe Alsop the Soviets tried to blackmail claiming evidence of his homosexuality. Joe went right to his dinner buddies who happened to head the CIA and sought their protection. So it’s interesting that he was the one who was dogged and skillfully manipulative with LBJ early on.)
Yes, the Aslop transcript is fascinating.
However, I don’t see anything nefarious in it. He’s delicately trying to tell the president that leaving the investigation to the FBI and the Texas Attorney Geneal isn’t going to cut it. And he was right about that.
Booman,
The murder was committed in the state of Texas. Whatever else was going to be done, the Texas Attorney General, by the most basic tenets of law, should have investigated it. The fact that wasn’t done is a glaring anomaly in itself. It means that JFK’s murder was never subject to the same legal process as any other murder in the United States.
Nefarious or not, Alsop (as well as Eugene Rostow, for he played a similar role), was obviously a go-between for for people higher up. It stretches credibility to believe they made these calls just on their own account, and it’s obvious LBJ knew that.
Well, Alsop and several others (Scotty Reston, a few WaPoers, etc) all were at the top rung of the Media Establishment, the very biggest pundits and media players of their time, along with their political/academic establishment friends like Dean Acheson (Truman’s SoS) and Gene Rostow, and so it’s not unreasonable to see some of them acting on their own given their high-powered DC status.
And it makes sense that in the days following Dallas, some of them would have communicated w/each other and concluded by consensus that LBJ’s plan to limit the investigation to just a TX comm’n (headed by TX AG Carr) which would basically just endorse the FBI report re LHO as the lone nut — all these media establishment people had sense enough to know that approach wouldn’t fly with the American public.
Alsop was just the guy who took it upon himself to lobby Johnson directly and rather quickly. Yes, he was CIA connected, but I’m not convinced in this case it was anything other than a rather benign attempt to point out the politically obvious to Lyndon Johnson.
It’s precisely because they were “at the top rung of the Media Establishment, the very biggest pundits and media players of their time” that it’s unreasonable to think they were acting on their own. They were acting for the media establishment — hand in glove with the CIA.
Stewart and Joe Alsop, brothers, were very close to the CIA – so much so that I think it’s fair to call them “witting” assets.
Similarly, Walt Rostow, Eugene’s brother, was a CIA officer. It’s safe to say Eugene was close to the CIA as well.
So it’s interesting that two highly connected journalists were early ones to pressure LBJ on this matter.
Hundreds of MSM people had CIA connections back then, according to Carl Bernstein. And what was that quote from the CIA guy (Helms?): “We own anyone of significance in the press.”
You may be right, Lisa, but on this one I’m less conspiracy inclined, even as the CIA is invoked plausibly. Still, regardless of what motivated Alsop et al to get involved, Lyndon ended up with a result with the WC only a little less ideal than what he originally sought.
And LBJ also presumably was the one — and not CIA-assets Alsop et al — who decided to put ex DCI Allen Dulles (fired by JFK over the BoP) on the commission.
That was a huge decision as Dulles was instrumental in shaping the trajectory of the commission’s limited investigative activity and influential to a large degree in keeping a lid on CIA involvement either with Oswald or anything to do with the assassination.
It was neither Johnson nor Alsop that decided to put ex-DCI Allen Dulles on the commission. It was the CIA (Dulles himself, if you will) that wanted him on the commission.
Is that just your speculation? Though I have no doubt a number of higher-ups at CIA would have been in favor.
Apparently LBJ himself wanted Dulles at the outset, according to WC researcher Gerald McKnight (book, Breach of Trust), maybe the first person he wanted to head up the comm’n was Dulles.
Odd pr that one, since Kennedy had basically fired him over the BoP.
Odd too — but sort of consistent with LBJ’s pick of Dulles — that so many of the 7 comm’n members picked by Lyndon were not politically sympatico with Kennedy — i.e., most were conservatives or even RWers, with the exception of Warren, picked by LBJ to appease the liberal establishment.
“mind you…I’m not talking about an investigative body …”
Alsop was as uninterested in getting the truth as LBJ would later prove to be. Why? for a journalist, that’s an incredible stance. I think it’s hard NOT to read that as nefarious.
I don’t think LBJ was in any way strong-armed or forced to form the WC any more than his advisers twisted his arm to go into VN — in both cases, he was being “persuaded” to go where he knew (WC) he wanted (VN) to go. The TX comm’ee being set up wouldn’t do — another home-state investigation that, politically for LBJ, wouldn’t have put to rest dark rumors of his own involvement/foreknowledge of the assassination. And at the same time, there were various cong’l comm’ees looking into their own investigations — that could get out of hand and become uncontrollable.
Better, thinks Lyndon, to accept the necessity of Plan B and take Alsop’s advice for the nat’l comm’ee of Wise Men of Unimpeachable Reputation — which would be fine, since Lyndon himself would be the one picking all these Wise Men.
The Alsop angle is another diversion, imo.
Booman, the problem with your stance here — in addition to the little fact that al-Qaeda’s “best” day was four entire orders of magnitude below what President Johnson faced — is that absent meaningful oversight and the ability to at least eventually look back at the truth, dishonesty is as dangerous in the long run as truth could ever be.
As a for instance, please note that dishonesty on the part of leaders of both the Soviet Union and the US, played a very large part in putting us into the dangerous situation that Johnson faced. Dishonesty also continues to be a factor in why nuclear destruction is still a real (if less immediate) danger.
This is the trap of the idea of noble and protective dishonesty. Yes, it’s true that circumstances may force this kind of dishonesty. But I suspect that few people could consistently limit their dishonesty to situations like that, hence the need for meaningful oversight and ways of making sure that even necessary dishonesty is temporary.
I have often pondered whether LBJ did the right thing. I can’t answer that question. I do know that the transcripts make it absolutely clear that he was much less interested in finding out what happened than he was in making sure there was no groundswell of opinion that the Soviets or Cuba had been behind it. If they were behind it, it was the Commission’s indisputable job to hide that information. Therefore, the Commission’s mission was compromised from the beginning, and if they came to correct conclusion, it was pure luck that the facts meshed with their mission.
Given the proximity in time to the Cuban Missile Crisis, I have a hard time blaming LBJ for making that decision, but it came at a very heavy price.
You are right, Booman, but are you not ignoring one very important point? The Soviets and the Cubans were NOT behind it. Johnson didn’t know that, but people like Angleton knew it perfectly well.
I don’t think it’s appropriate to judge it as “right” or “wrong” in that I think LBJ did the only thing he really COULD do, at the time, given what he was up against. I think it’s to his credit that he didn’t let anyone use the assassination as an excuse for war. But would anyone have been able to get close to the truth if they’d really tried, that close to the event? Mightn’t they all have been picked off, one at a time? Hard to say.
Similar, I am personally abhorred by the killing of OBL just as I am by the killing of anyone. I don’t think it’s okay to kill “bad” people but not okay to kill “good” people. Killing is killing, in my book. But I can’t judge Obama by that standard. The world he lives in and rules over is very complicated. I think he made the best decision he could, under the circumstances. Whether it was moral or not I leave to him and his maker.
this happened shortly after JFK had given his speech at American University, and about a year after the World nearly blew itself up.
He absolutely did the right thing.
If word got out that there were suspicions that Castro was involved there would have been no way to avoid invading Cuba.
I don’t agree with that at all. Which doesn’t mean you aren’t right. But I have heard that argument before and have not been persuaded by the evidence that that is what would have happened. People were pressuring LBJ hard to go into Cuba as it was. Admirably, he resisted that pressure.
I’m not sure to what extent, outside of maybe some CIA elements (but not McCone, the DCI) and a few Pentagon brass perhaps, that there was much pressure on Lyndon to go into Cuba. (Public pressure? I don’t recall much, if any. People too stunned and saddened by Dallas; suspicious too, and beginning to ask uncomfortable Qs for the authorities.) Really not much invasion talk, iirc.
Certainly after the Oswald botch during assass’n weekend, his easy rub-out by Ruby in the police station basement — making people all the more suspicious about what had happened in those few days and wondering whether Oswald really was what his official portrait said he was — the original probable plan by the CIA (to use the assass’n and LHO’s alleged ties to Castro as pretext for invading Cuba) had run into trouble.
And with Lyndon signing on, in the presence of the JCS and CIA, to getting tough in VN unlike JFK, the spooks probably figured that little venture down the road would be an acceptable alternative to Cuba.
Not much really to admire about LBJ over the Cuba non-invasion, imo, if there was no there there to pressure him as of Nov 24 and if he was handing them an acceptable substitute war with VN.
“People were pressuring LBJ hard to go into Cuba as it was.” But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Johnson feared, and was deliberately led to believe, that the push would become irresistible if certain evidence got out. That’s why he (and some others) believed the Warren Commission coverup was necessary. That evidence was mostly connected with Oswald, and we now know it was fabricated.
Very good post.
I suspect however that the real discussion is more of showing the military and ISI pictures of who the courier saw who is either ex or current military or ISI. With the facts on the table the question is when the military and ISI purge themselves and the current leaders “retire”. The intent is on civilian control of the military.
Such a change will allow the cooling down of friction w/ India, China and Afghanistan.
I too don’t want to get into a discussion of the underlying case in the LBJ era, but would note that a fair assessment of Johnson’s character would suggest that we we should be careful in taking him at his word — he was always scheming and didn’t exactly have a rep for honesty (“Lyin Lyndon” was one of the colorful nicknames he’d acquired, along with “Landslide”, referring to his stolen 1948 senate election).
I doubt if the rather smart and Machiavellian-minded LBJ, himself not unfamiliar with dark plotting, thought the Soviets or Cubans would have been stupid enough to send someone with Oswald’s background — “defection” to the USSR, member of the Fair Play for Cuba Comm’ee — who could be so easily traced back to them. In fact, the actual best reading of the evidence suggests strongly that LHO was probably US intel playing at being a pro-Soviet defector, playing at being pro-Castro.
I think LBJ probably knew early on this was a high US govt-/US intel-originated plot to assassinate Kennedy and that any LHO connections to communist govts abroad were actually US intel laying down a “far lefty” profile for agent Oswald. He decided, since revelation of that fact would send major shock waves through the body politic not to mention put his own self/presidency at risk, that the USSR/Cuba angles would be a nice diversion and justification for putting together a cover-up committee who would put a lid on doing any real investigation.
Eventually (ca 1967) LBJ suggested privately (to trusted aide Marvin Watson, iirc) that the CIA was probably behind Dallas. Sounds about right (if rather limited in scope).
Obama: not even remotely in LBJ’s league as a dissembler, liar, or cover-upper. Johnson knew there was little risk of the US getting into another major confrontation with the Soviets because the real evidence didn’t lead in that direction. Obama though is actually in a tougher position wrt Pakistan if indeed the intel recovered from the OBL compound does reveal high-level Pakistani complicity with Laden et al since he would have to deal with an actual reality and not a fiction concocted for intel misdirection purposes.
Tough call he might have to make, but I trust him to do the right thing far more than I would have Lyin’ Lyndon, architect of two of the biggest lies ever foisted upon the American public (WCR, Gulf of Tonkin).
It was hard to find an excerpt of that Dick Russell call that I can cut and past. Finally found it. Here’s the relevant part about convincing Warren to chair the commission.
Here is a fact to consider. J. Edgar Hoover and the Kennedys were not the best of friends. So poisoned was the relationship that J. Edgar Hoover did not attend the funerals of President John Kennedy or Sen. Robert Kennedy.
The reason for this is likely that he was not happy that Robert Kennedy used the FBI to investigate racist terrorism by the KKK and White Citizens Councils. But it might also be that the Kennedys pushed him to investigate organized crime, including some folks who were Hoover’s acquaintances. It would be interesting to know what rum-runner Joseph Kennedy knew about Hoover and his relationship to organized crime during the days when Hoover was using Hollywood to promote FBI G-men as heroes.
No doubt someone will take this new information and run it against Hoover’s papers. (The “secret files” his secretary supposedly lost seem not to have been lost at all. It seems that what she destroyed was the filing key that allowed easy retrieval of information from the files. Some historians seem to have cracked this key sometime in the 1990s and this information has become the basis of a number of histories. And at least one popular biography of Hoover.)
The problem is not the information that is hidden as much as it is the information that is selectively leaked in order to create a political narrative. I think that for the sake of a fuller history, the normal archival rule of holding for 75 years should be observed with this material–unless events make it easier to release it earlier, as the end of the Cold War has done for papers from that period.
It’s more complicated. Yes, information is selectively leaked, but that’s not the end of the story.
http://www.aarclibrary.org/
The “normal archiving rule” you speak of in your last sentence no longer exists:
“The unpublished portion of those [JFK assassination] records was initially sealed for 75 years (to 2039) under a National Archives policy that applied to all federal investigations by the executive branch of government. This was a period “intended to serve as protection for innocent persons who could otherwise be damaged because of their relationship with participants in the case.” The 75-year rule no longer exists, supplanted by the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 and the JFK Records Act of 1992. By then, 98 percent of the Warren Commission records had been released to the public. The remaining Kennedy assassination-related documents are scheduled for release to the public by 2017.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Commission#Commission_records
Thanks for this correction on current federal policy. The 75-year rule still remains a rule of thumb for a lot of archivists–unless they receive a FOIA request that overrides it.
Btw – for any with a serious interest in the JFK case, I highly recommend this site: http://www.ctka.net/ – overseen by Jim DiEugenio, who is one of the most consistently accurate and insightful researchers on this case.
He recently put up a review of Halberstam’s book “The Best and the Brightest,” contrasting what H said then to what we know now. It’s pretty devastating. Yet the press totally lauded that book when it came out.
Yep, Jim DiEugenio has done a lot of good work on the JFK case (and RFK, MLK) as you have Lisa. I probably agree with both of you a very high % of the time, except re LBJ and Dallas.
And he’s right re Halberstam, a curious MSMer beloved for decades by the liberal left for what they understood to be dovish views, but who, in his first stint in VN for the NYT, was a bit of a hawk, sending back reports — much to the irritation in 1963 of the withdrawal-minded JFK who was trying to keep the conflict over there very low-key with the US public — that tended to send the signal that we needed a greater US military effort in order to avoid catastrophe. And in ’63-4, for Halberstam the greater catastrophe wasn’t getting the US possibly bogged down militarily with more troops sent, but the greater danger was losing VN to the Communists.
In 1968, according to Arthur Schlesinger’s Diaries (posthumously published by his son), he overheard Halberstam at a pre-election party arguing in favor of the election of Nixon. Richard Nixon.