John Fitzgerald Kennedy
A Historic Timeline
The Most Comprehensive Timeline On John Fitzgerald Kennedy
By Mark R. Elsis
(Copyright 2017, Mark R. Elsis – All Rights Reserved)
<Edited by Robert D. Morningstar>
Timeline & Other Timelines
Speeches
News Conferences All 64
Executive Orders All 214
National Security Action Memoranda All 272 (NSAM)
Books, Films, Videos, Photographs, Quotations
Resources
100 Sections
*******
“It is our task in our time and in our generation,
to hand down undiminished to those who come after us,
as was handed down to us by those who went before,
the natural wealth and beauty which is ours.”
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
*******
The principal’s voice came on the PA system and announced the death of Kennedy. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was a five year old Irish Catholic boy coming out of Ascension Grammar School in Elmhurst, Queens, New York City.
A haunting scene of Mothers there to get their children all of them openly weeping. I will never forget the assassination of my President on Friday, November 22, 1963.I swore to myself I’d find who was responsible for the assassination of my President.
I finally have.
When I’m asked, who ordered or was behind the assassination of President Kennedy?
My one sentence answer was and still is:
It was those who controlled almost all media back in 1963 (Newspapers, Films, Radio, and especially Television), that relentlessly put forth the narrative of Lee Harvey Oswald, as the lone gunman, assassinated by Jacob Leonard Rubenstein, and the single bullet theory, put forth by Arlen Specter.
The assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was followed by the assassinations of, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy and finally John Lennon. Why is it that so very few seem to put this common denominator together, that all of these men wanted peace?
The Assassination Of John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Who Had The Means, Motive And Opportunity?
One Hundred Sections Proving Treason
The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on Friday, November 22, 1963, was the defining moment of the twentieth century. Not only was our brave and peace seeking President horrifically murdered in broad daylight, in a barbaric coup d’etat; it was also the day that our republic based on democratic principles was permanently annihilated.
My comprehensive website will consist of one hundred sections, with each comprising numerous subsections. Each section with its numerous subsections will contain a compendious overview of the topic and include dozens to hundreds of hotlinks. These links will consist of historical news stories, articles, photographs, quotes, books, letters, audios / videos of interviews, lectures and speeches, films and documentaries.
When all one hundred sections are complete, there will be thousands of pertinent links to edify oneself. With my comprehensive website, I’ll show who had the means, motive and opportunity to assassinate the 35th President of the United States, and get away with it.
That is, until all 100 sections are completed on:
And the web address of this timeline will become:
http://Timeline.November221963.com
Timeline
This timeline is dedicated to the memory of my assassinated President on the 100th anniversary and in commemoration of his birth, May 29, 2017.
Above is the Kennedy Coat of Arms
Below is the Clan Crest for the Kennedy Clan.
http://www.scotclans.com/scottish-clans/clan-kennedy/
http://www.scotclans.com/scottish-clans/clan-kennedy/kennedy-history/
August 20, 1914
Joseph P. Kennedy buys the house at 83 Beals Street, Brookline, Massachusetts.
October 7, 1914
Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald and Joseph Patrick Kennedy marry.
July 25, 1915
Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr. is born in Hull, Massachusetts. He the oldest child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy.
May 29, 1917
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), known in his family as “Jack,” is born at 83 Beals Street, Brookline, Massachusetts, a wealthy suburb of Boston. Jack is the second of Rose Kennedy (Fitzgerald) and Joseph Kennedy’s nine children. His grandfathers P. J. Kennedy and Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald were both Massachusetts politicians. All four of his grandparents were the children of Irish immigrants. The Kennedy family spent summers at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and Christmas and Easter holidays at their winter home in Palm Beach, Florida.
John Fitzgerald “Jack” Kennedy Transformation From 1 to 46 Years Old 
1917 – 1927
John F. Kennedy lived in Brookline for ten years and attended the Edward Devotion School, the Noble and Greenough Lower School, and the Dexter School through 4th grade.
September 13, 1918
Rosemary Kennedy, born Rose Marie Kennedy, is born at 83 Beals Street, Brookline, Massachusetts. She is the third child and eldest daughter of Joseph and Rose Kennedy.
February 20, 1920
Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy was born at 83 Beals Street, Brookline, Massachusetts. She is the second daughter and fourth child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy.
February 20, 1920
When he was just two years old, John F. Kennedy contracted scarlet fever at his family’s home in Brookline. On that same day, February 20, 1920, his pregnant mother went into labor with his younger sister, Kathleen.
Roberts said it made for a chaotic scene in the Kennedy’s Beals Street colonial, with the family nurse running back and forth from Rose to Jack in separate rooms. At the time, scarlet fever was potentially fatal for children. Fearing that Kennedy might transmit the disease to his newborn sister or his two other young siblings, Joe and Rosemary, the family worked to get him admitted to Boston City Hospital. But first, a priest was summoned to the sickly toddler’s second-floor room to deliver his last rites.
“When you’re delivered last rites in the Catholic faith, they don’t expect you to pull through,” said Jim Roberts of the JFK Historic site.
March 1920
The growth of the Kennedy family made it a necessity to move to a larger home so they sold their Beals Street house to Joe Kennedy’s advisor Edward Moore and his family. Joseph P. Kennedy purchases a larger home a few blocks away, located at 131 Naples Road (now 51 Abbottsford Road) in Brookline, Massachusetts. The Kennedy’s lived in the Abbottsford Road home until they moved to New York on September 26, 1927.
June 10, 1921
Eunice Mary Kennedy is born at 51 Abbottsford Road, Brookline, Massachusetts. She is the fifth of Rose and Joseph Kennedy’s nine children and their third daughter.
September 12, 1921
John enters kindergarten at the Edward Devotion School, a public elementary school in Brookline, Massachusetts.
May 6, 1924
Patricia Kennedy is born at 51 Abbottsford Road, Brookline, Massachusetts. She is the sixth child and fourth daughter of Rose and Joseph Kennedy.
Fall 1924
Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. and John F. Kennedy enroll at Dexter School, a private school for boys in Brookline, Massachusetts.
November 20, 1925
Robert Francis “Bobby” Kennedy is born at 51 Abbottsford Road, Brookline, Massachusetts. He is the seventh child in the closely knit and competitive family of Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy.
September 1927
Joe Kennedy’s business interests prompted the family to move to New York. So, in 1927, the Kennedy family moved to a stately twenty-room, Georgian-style mansion at 5040 Independence Avenue (across the street from Wave Hill) in the Hudson Hill neighborhood of Riverdale, Bronx, New York City. John attended the lower campus of Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys, from 5th to 7th grade.
February 20, 1928
Jean Ann Kennedy is born at St. Margaret’s Hospital in Dorchester, Massachusetts. She is the eighth child and youngest daughter of Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy.
1929
Two years later, the Kennedy family moved to 294 Pondfield Road in the New York City suburb of Bronxville, New York, where Kennedy was a member of Boy Scout Troop 2. Kennedy is the first Boy Scout to become President.
September 24, 1930
John F. Kennedy, 13, enters the eighth grade at the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut.
Late April 1931
In late April 1931, JFK required an appendectomy, after which he withdrew from the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut and recuperated at home.
September 19, 1931
John F. Kennedy, 14, enters his first year at Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut. Despite his high intelligence and academic potential, Jack earns only mediocre grades. His older brother Joe had already been at Choate for two years and was a football player and leading student.
September 1931 – June 1935
During his Choate years, Kennedy was beset by health problems that culminated with his emergency hospitalization at New Haven Hospital in 1934, where doctors thought he might have leukemia. In June 1934, he was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, the ultimate diagnosis there was colitis.
February 22, 1932
Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy is born at St. Margaret’s Hospital in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He is the fourth son and youngest of nine children of Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy.
June 8, 1935
Kennedy graduated from Choate on June 8, 1935, ranked 64th in a class of 112. For the school yearbook, of which he had been business manager, Kennedy was voted the “most likely to succeed” which he sure did.
September 1935
In September 1935, Kennedy made his first trip abroad with his parents and his sister Kathleen to London intending to study under Harold Laski at the London School of Economics as his older brother had done. Ill-health forced his return to America in October of that year.
October 26, 1935
John Kennedy enters his freshman year at Princeton University,
December 12, 1935
Due to illness, John Kennedy withdraws from Princeton University. Kennedy was then hospitalized for observation at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, afterwards he convalesced further at the Kennedy winter home in Palm Beach.
Spring 1936
Kennedy spent the spring of 1936 working as a ranch hand on the 40,000-acre Jay Six cattle ranch outside Benson, Arizona.
September 28, 1936
Kennedy enrolled at Harvard University, where he produced that year’s annual “Freshman Smoker”, called by a reviewer “an elaborate entertainment, which included in its cast outstanding personalities of the radio, screen and sports world.” He tried out for the football, golf, and swimming teams and earned a spot on the varsity swimming team.
1937
The earliest known recording of future president’s voice. John F. Kennedy recording for public speaking class at Harvard, 1937.
Summer 1937
In July 1937, Kennedy sailed to France, taking his convertible, and spent ten weeks driving through Europe.
December 1937 – November 1940
In early December 1937, Roosevelt named Joseph P. Kennedy the new ambassador to the Court of St. James, the United States’ representative to Great Britain. In many respects the ambassadorship represented the pinnacle of Joseph P. Kennedy’s personal success. Accompanied by his wife and children, now numbering nine since the birth in 1932 of the fourth son and last child, Edward M. Kennedy.
Joseph P. Kennedy was greeted with enthusiasm by the British public, and for a while Kennedy and his family were popular celebrities in England. But Kennedy’s tenure as ambassador soon ran into difficulty. European tensions were already running high when he arrived in 1938, and Kennedy’s personal aversion to war put him firmly in the appeasement camp, a position that was losing favor in Britain. When war broke out in 1939, Kennedy’s firm and outspoken commitment to United States neutrality put him increasingly at odds with the British Government, and eventually his own. Kennedy ultimately resigned in November 1940.
June 1938
Kennedy sailed overseas with his father and older brother to work at the American embassy in London, where his father was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s.
1939
As an upperclassman at Harvard University, Kennedy became a more serious student and developed an interest in political philosophy. In his junior year, he made the Dean’s List.
Summer 1939
In the Summer of 1939, John Kennedy toured Europe, the Soviet Union, the Balkans, and the Middle East in preparation for his Harvard senior honors thesis.
Kennedy then went to Czechoslovakia and Germany before returning to London on September 1, 1939, the day that Germany invaded Poland.
Two days later, the family was in the House of Commons for speeches endorsing the United Kingdom’s declaration of war on Germany. Kennedy was sent as his father’s representative to help with arrangements for American survivors of the SS Athenia before flying back to the U.S. from Foynes, Ireland to Port Washington, New York on his first transatlantic flight.
September 1, 1939
After numerous attempts by Hitler at trying to broker a peace for East Prussia and the city of Danzig (95% Germanic people), the land stolen from Germany on June 28, 1919, at the Treaty of Versailles, and after these ethnic German are being slaughtered (on purpose to force Hitler to defend his fellow Germans) in these areas, Germany finally goes into Poland to stop the atrocities and take back her rightful land.
For my comprehensive article on this and all of Hitler’s Peace Plans read:
Hitler’s Peace Plans
by Mark R Elsis
… Hitler did not want war in 1939 — and certainly not a general or global conflict. He earnestly sought a peaceful resolution of the dispute with Poland over the status of the ethnically German city-state of Danzig and the “Corridor” region, which was the immediate cause of conflict. The sincerity of his desire for peace in 1939, and his fear of another world war, has been affirmed by a number of scholars, including the eminent British historian A. J. P. Taylor. It was, of course, the declarations of war against Germany by Britain and France on September 3, 1939, made with secret encouragement by US President Roosevelt, that transformed the limited German-Polish clash into a larger, continent- wide war…
September 3, 1939
Britain and France declare war on Germany.
April 1, 1940
In the early Spring of 1940 John F. Kennedy, 23, completed his Harvard thesis, Appeasement in Munich, about British participation in the Munich Agreement. Then on April 1, 1940, it is published as, Why England Slept.
June 20, 1940
On June 20, 1940, John F. Kennedy graduated from Harvard University cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in government, concentrating on international affair.
July 1940
Why England Slept becomes a bestseller.
1940
Kennedy attempted to enter the Army’s Officer Candidate School in 1940, but was medically disqualified (4-F Classification) for his chronic lower back problems.
September 1940
Kennedy enrolled in, and audited classes at, the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
When John F. Kennedy walked the halls of Stanford
by Kate Chesley
John F. Kennedy once briefly audited classes at the Graduate School of Business. Kennedy wrote to a friend: “Have become very fond of Stanford. Everyone is friendly, the gals are quite attractive, and it’s a very good life.”
According to A Chronology of Stanford University and Its Founders, published by the Stanford Historical Society, Kennedy registered as a graduate student for the fall quarter in September 1940. He lived in a cottage behind a house on Mayfield Avenue and took classes in business, economics and political science. He left the campus “around the Christmas holidays.” As a presidential candidate, Kennedy returned to campus in 1960 to deliver a speech to some 4,000 people inside and outside Memorial Auditorium.
November 1940
Joseph P. Kennedy had a personal aversion to war that put him firmly in the appeasement camp, a position that was losing favor in Britain (thanks to warmongering Winston Spencer Churchill). When war broke out in 1939, Kennedy’s firm and outspoken commitment to United States neutrality put him increasingly at odds with the British Government, and eventually his own. Kennedy ultimately resigned as the ambassador to the Court of St. James, the United States’ representative to Great Britain in November 1940.
Joseph Kennedy and the Jews
by Edward Renehan Jr.
Arriving at London in early 1938, newly-appointed U.S. Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy took up quickly with another transplanted American. Viscountess Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor assured Kennedy early in their friendship that he should not be put off by her pronounced and proud anti-Catholicism.
“I’m glad you are smart enough not to take my [views] personally,” she wrote. Astor pointed out that she had a number of Roman Catholic friends – G.K. Chesterton among them – with whom she shared, if nothing else, a profound hatred for the Jewish race. Joe Kennedy, in turn, had always detested Jews generally, although he claimed several as friends individually.
Indeed, Kennedy seems to have tolerated the occasional Jew in the same way Astor tolerated the occasional Catholic.
Fiercely anti-Communist, Kennedy and Astor looked upon Adolf Hitler as a welcome solution to both of these “world problems” (Nancy’s phrase).
No member of the so-called “Cliveden Set” (the informal cabal of appeasers who met frequently at Nancy Astor’s palatial home) seemed much concerned with the dilemma faced by Jews under the Reich. Astor wrote Kennedy that Hitler would have to do more than just “give a rough time” to “the killers of Christ” before she’d be in favor of launching “Armageddon to save them. The wheel of history swings round as the Lord would have it. Who are we to stand in the way of the future?”
Kennedy replied that he expected the “Jew media” in the United States to become a problem, that “Jewish pundits in New York and Los Angeles” were already making noises contrived to “set a match to the fuse of the world.”
During May of 1938, Kennedy engaged in extensive discussions with the new German Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, Herbert von Dirksen.
In the midst of these conversations (held without approval from the U.S. State Department), Kennedy advised von Dirksen that President Roosevelt was the victim of “Jewish influence” and was poorly informed as to the philosophy, ambitions and ideals of Hitler’s regime. (The Nazi ambassador subsequently told his bosses that Kennedy was “Germany’s best friend” in London.)
Columnists back in the states condemned Kennedy’s fraternizing. Kennedy later claimed that 75% of the attacks made on him during his Ambassadorship emanated from “a number of Jewish publishers and writers. … Some of them in their zeal did not hesitate to resort to slander and falsehood to achieve their aims.” He told his eldest son, Joe Jr., that he disliked having to put up with “Jewish columnists” who criticized him with no good reason.
Like his father, Joe Jr. admired Adolf Hitler. Young Joe had come away impressed by Nazi rhetoric after traveling in Germany as a student in 1934. Writing at the time, Joe applauded Hitler’s insight in realizing the German people’s “need of a common enemy, someone of whom to make the goat. Someone, by whose riddance the Germans would feel they had cast out the cause of their predicament. It was excellent psychology, and it was too bad that it had to be done to the Jews. The dislike of the Jews, however, was well-founded. They were at the heads of all big business, in law etc. It is all to their credit for them to get so far, but their methods had been quite unscrupulous … the lawyers and prominent judges were Jews, and if you had a case against a Jew, you were nearly always sure to lose it. … As far as the brutality is concerned, it must have been necessary to use some ….”
Writing to Charles Lindbergh shortly after Kristallnacht, which was a a false flag, in November of 1938, Joe Kennedy Sr. seemed more concerned about the political ramifications stemming from high-profile, riotous anti-Semitism than he was about the actual violence done to the Jews.
“… Isn’t there some way,” he asked,“to persuade [the Nazis] it is on a situation like this that the whole program of saving western civilization might hinge? It is more and more difficult for those seeking peaceful solutions to advocate any plan when the papers are filled with such horror.”
Clearly, Kennedy’s chief concern about Kristallnacht was that it might serve to harden anti-fascist sentiment at home in the United States.
Like his friend Charles Coughlin (a broadcaster and Roman Catholic priest), Kennedy always remained convinced of what he believed to be the Jews’ corrupt, malignant, and profound influence in American culture and politics. “The Democratic [party] policy of the United States is a Jewish production,” Kennedy told a British reporter near the end of 1939, adding confidently that Roosevelt would “fall” in 1940…
1941
In early 1941, Kennedy helped his father write a memoir of his three years as an American ambassador, afterwards he traveled throughout South America; including Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
September 24, 1941
After exercising for months to strengthen his back, and with the help of the director of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), Kennedy joined the United States Naval Reserve.
John F. Kennedy’s Naval Career
John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s Naval Career
October 26, 1941
Kennedy was commissioned an ensign on October 26, 1941, and joined the staff of the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C. His older brother, Joe Jr., is already training to be a navy pilot.
December 7, 1941
The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, compelling the United States to enter World War II.
To find out what really happened on December 7, 1941, read the excellent article:
Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt’s 9/11
False flags do not stand alone. They are better understood – and more credibly explained to skeptics – when seen in history’s context.
by James Perloff
January 19, 1942 – December 4, 1942
Letters to John F. Kennedy from journalist Inga Arvad.
In 1935, as a freelance reporter, Inga Arvad interviewed Hitler, and this connection would color the rest of her life. Arvad was Hitler’s guest at the 1936 Summer Olympics, which led to her being investigated by the FBI in America as a potential spy. Hitler had told her that she was a perfect example of Nordic beauty. A photograph of her with Hitler surfaced and the FBI followed her, finding out that she was dating an American ensign, John F. Kennedy, son of the former U.S. ambassador to Britain. Kennedy’s prominence led only to greater scrutiny of Arvad and suspicions about her that were never substantiated.
January 15, 1942 – July 1942
From January 15, 1942 through July 1942, John F. Kennedy was assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence field office at Headquarters, Sixth Naval District, in Charleston, South Carolina.
May 9, 1942 – May 11, 1950
Naval Hospital, Chelsea, Massachusetts
This folder contains materials concerning medical treatment John F. Kennedy received at the United States Naval Hospital in Chelsea, Massachusetts (previously known as Naval Hospital at Charlestown and later known as Naval Hospital Boston). Materials in this folder include memoranda, admission reports, examination reports, medical charts, dental records, accounts of Kennedy’s medical history, and letters from physicians at the Lahey Clinic in Boston.
July 27, 1942 – September 27, 1942
John F. Kennedy attended Naval Reserve Officers Training School, at Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois.
September 27, 1942 – December 2, 1942
John F. Kennedy voluntarily entered the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Training Center, in Melville, Rhode Island
October 10, 1942
John F. Kennedy was promoted to lieutenant junior grade.
December 2, 1942 – February 23, 1943
His first command was PT-101 from December 7, 1942, until February 23, 1943:
It was a PT boat used for training while Kennedy was an instructor at Melville.
Kennedy then led three Huckins patrol torpedo (PT) boats; PT-98, PT-99, and PT-101, which were being relocated from MTBRON 4 in Melville, Rhode Island, back to Jacksonville, Florida and the new MTBRON 14 (formed February 17, 1943).
During the trip south, he was hospitalized briefly in Jacksonville after diving into the cold water to untangle a propeller. Thereafter, Kennedy was assigned duty in Panama and later in the Pacific theater, where he eventually commanded two more patrol torpedo boats.
April 1943 – March 1945
From April 1943 till December 21, 1943, Kennedy was assigned to Motor Torpedo Squadron Two. On April 24, Kennedy took command of PT-109 which was based at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands.
On the night of August 1 – 2, PT-109, on its 31st mission, was performing nighttime patrols near New Georgia in the Solomon Islands with PT-162 and PT-169. Kennedy spotted a Japanese destroyer nearby and attempted to turn to attack, when PT-109 was rammed suddenly at an angle and cut in half by the destroyer Amagiri, costing two PT-109 crew members their lives.
Kennedy gathered his surviving ten crew members including those injured around the wreckage, to vote on whether to “fight or surrender”. Kennedy stated: “There’s nothing in the book about a situation like this. A lot of you men have families and some of you have children. What do you want to do? I have nothing to lose.” Shunning surrender, the men swam towards a small island three miles away. Despite re-injuring his back in the collision, Kennedy towed a badly burned crewman through the water to the island with a life jacket strap clenched between his teeth, and later to a second island, where his crew was subsequently rescued on August 8.
John F. Kennedy and Ensign Leonard Thom, his executive officer on PT-109, were both later awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism and the Purple Heart Medal for injuries.
September 1, 1943
On September 1, 1943, Kennedy returned to duty, went to Tulagi, and took command of a PT boat converted into a gunboat, the PT-59.
October 10, 1943
Kennedy was promoted to Lieutenant and continued to command the motor torpedo boat when the squadron moved to Vella Lavella.
November 2, 1943
On November 2, 1943, PT-59, which included three former PT-109 crew members, took part with another boat in the successful rescue of 87 marines stranded on two rescue landing craft on the Warrior River at Choiseul Island which was held by the Japanese.
November 18, 1943
Under doctor’s orders, Kennedy was relieved of his command of PT-59 on November 18, 1944
December 21, 1943 – Early January 1944
Kennedy left the Solomons on December 21, 1943, and he returned to the United States in early January 1944.
February 15, 1944 – March 1944
John F. Kennedy attended Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Training Center, Melville, Rhode Island. Due to the re-injury of his back during the sinking of PT 109, Kennedy entered a hospital for treatment.
On March 8, 1944, Kennedy went to the Submarine Chaser Training Center, Miami, Florida. In May while still assigned to the Center, Kennedy entered the Naval Hospital, Chelsea, Massachusetts, for further treatment of his back injury. Under treatment as an outpatient, Kennedy was ordered detached from the Miami Center on October 30, 1944.
June 12, 1944
PC110 Lt. Kennedy being awarded the Navy Marine Corps Medal
At the Hospital on June 12, 1944, he was presented the Navy and Marine Corps Medal (the Navy’s highest non-combat decoration for heroism) for his heroic actions on August 1–2, 1943, and the Purple Heart Medal for his back injury on PT-109, on August 1, 1943 (injured on August 2).
After the war, Kennedy felt that the medal he had received for heroism was not a combat award and asked that he be reconsidered for the Silver Star Medal for which he had been recommended initially. His father also requested the Silver Star, which is awarded for gallantry in action, for his son).
In 1950, The Department of the Navy offered Kennedy a Bronze Star Medal in recognition of his meritorious service, but he would have to return his Navy and Marine Corps Medal in order to receive it. He declined the medal. In 1959, the Navy again offered him the Bronze Star. Kennedy responded, repeating his original request concerning the award. He received the same response from the Navy as he had in 1950. The Navy said his actions were a lifesaving case. Kennedy’s two original medals are currently on display at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
John F. Kennedy also received the American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal.
1944 – November 22, 1963
Florence Pritchett met John F. Kennedy in 1944 and began a romantic relationship that lasted for years. Flo, whom young Jack Kennedy spent time with in New York, Washington, Palm Beach, and Havana, was the girl with whom he had the closest relationship. In Kennedy’s appointment book for June 28, 1947 there was an entry written by Flo that read: “Flo Pritchett’s birthday! send diamonds.” Betty Spalding said that for Kennedy, “Over a long period of time, it was probably the closest relationship with a woman I know of.”
In 1940 Florence met and married Richard Canning. Soon afterwards she became fashion editor of New York Journal American, a journal owned by William Randolph Hearst. In 1943 Florence divorced Canning. Because of her divorce, and Kennedy was a Roman Catholic with political aspirations, so marriage was out of the question.
In 1947 Florence married Earl E. T. Smith, member of the New York Stock Exchange. The couple had three children. In June, 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Smith as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Cuba. FBI files reveal that over the next two years John F. Kennedy made more than a dozen visits to Cuba in order to meet Florence. Florence also met Kennedy in Miami and Palm Beach, where their homes were conveniently adjoined.
Dorothy Kilgallen managed to obtain a private interview with Jack Ruby. She told friends that she had information that would “break the case wide open”. Aware of what had happened to Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe, Kilgallen handed her interview notes to Florence Pritchett Smith. She told friends that she had obtained information that Ruby and J. D. Tippit were friends and that David Ferrie was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. On November 8, 1965, Dorothy Kilgallen, was found dead in her New York apartment. She was fully dressed and sitting upright in her bed. The police reported that she had died from taking a cocktail of alcohol and barbiturates. The notes of her interview with Jack Ruby and the article and book she was writing on the case had disappeared. Florence Smith, died a day later of a cerebral hemorrhage. Her son, Earl Smith III, said that she had been suffering from leukemia.
See: November 8, 1965
For more see the comprehensive section:
August 12, 1944
On August 12, 1944, Kennedy’s older brother, Lieutenant Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., 29, a Navy pilot, was killed after volunteering for a special and hazardous air mission when his explosive-laden PB-44 drone Liberator plane exploded over the English Channel.
Because his eldest brother had been the family’s political standard-bearer, and had been tapped by his father to seek the Presidency. His death in 1944 changed that course, and Jack, the second oldest Kennedy child, is now “next in line” for political leadership within the powerful Kennedy family.
January – March 1945
Beginning in January 1945, Kennedy spent three more months recovering from his back injury at Castle Hot Springs, a resort and temporary military hospital in Arizona.
March 1, 1945
On March 1, 1945, Kennedy was retired from the Navy Reserve on physical disability and honorably discharged with the full rank of lieutenant. When asked later how he became a war hero, Kennedy joked: “It was easy. They cut my PT boat in half.”
April 25, 1945 – June 16, 1945
In April 1945, Kennedy’s father, who was a friend of William Randolph Hearst, arranged a position for his son as a special correspondent for Hearst Newspapers; the assignment kept Kennedy’s name in the public eye and “exposed him to journalism as a possible career.” He worked as a correspondent for several months covering the Potsdam Conference, the United Nations Conference in San Francisco and the 1945 General Election in Britain.
From:
by Peter Janney
…John F. Kennedy and Mary Pinchot Meyer, whom he had first met at an Ivy League prep school dance when she was only 15 years old. Their paths had crossed briefly once again in the Spring of 1945, at the founding conference for the United Nations in San Francisco. (Mary, her new husband Cord Meyer, and John F. Kennedy all attended the conference as journalists reporting on the events there, at the birth of the United Nations.
See the assassination of Mary Pinchot Meyer: October 12, 1964
Early 1946
At the urging of Kennedy’s father, U.S. Representative James Michael Curley vacated his seat in the strongly Democratic 11th Congressional district in Massachusetts to become mayor of Boston in 1946.
April 26, 1946
John F. Kennedy announces his candidacy for the Democratic nomination to Congress from Massachusetts’ Eleventh Congressional District.
June 17, 1946
Kennedy wins the Democratic primary for Massachusetts’ Eleventh Congressional District.
November 5, 1946
Results of John F. Kennedy’s 1946 U.S. Congressional Election
With the help of his father’s campaign financing, John F. Kennedy is elected to his first political office, the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts’ 11th Congressional District, in Boston with over 70% of the popular vote.
He is re-elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1948 and 1950.
December 14, 1946
Outstanding Young Man of the Year Award, 1947
This folder contains materials concerning Kennedy’s nomination as one of the ten outstanding young men of 1946 by the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce.
January 3, 1947
John F. Kennedy enters the 80th Congress on January 3, 1947, at the age of 29, and immediately attracts attention (as well as some criticism from older members of the Washington establishment) for his youthful appearance and relaxed, informal style.
1947 – 1953
Kennedy served as a congressman for six years. He established himself as a loyal supporter of President Harry S. Truman. In Congress he advocated progressive taxation, the extension of social welfare and more low-cost public housing. He was also a leading opponent of the Taft-Hartley Bill.
1947
Kennedy was hospitalized in London and diagnosed with Addison’s disease, a serious adrenal disorder that the family didn’t disclose until after his death.
According to Chris Matthew’s biography Jack Kennedy: The Elusive Hero, the doctor who treated him was less than optimistic about his future in a conversation with Kennedy’s friend and travel companion, Pamela Churchill.
According to varying accounts, Kennedy was given last rites by a priest either during his voyage back across the Atlantic Ocean or upon docking in New York. Nasaw writes that upon his return, the young congressman’s father, Joe Kennedy Sr., spread the fake story that his son had suffered a recurrence of the malaria he first contracted during WWII in the Solomon Islands.
May 13, 1948
On May 13, 1948, Kathleen Kennedy, is killed in a plane crash. Her tragic death reminds Jack of his mortality and inspires him to pursue politics with greater fervor and dedication.
Kennedy is reelected to a second term in the United States House of Representatives for Massachusetts’ 11th Congressional District, in Boston.
January 3, 1949
Kennedy enters the 81st Congress on January 3, 1949.
November 7, 1950
Kennedy is reelected to a third term in the United States House of Representatives for Massachusetts’ 11th Congressional District, in Boston.
January 3, 1951
Kennedy enters the 82nd Congress on January 3, 1949.
Kennedy took a strong interest in foreign policy and in 1951 toured Europe visiting Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Yugoslavia and West Germany. On his return he told the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that the United States should maintain its policy of helping to defend Western Europe. However, he argued that the countries concerned should contribute more to the costs of the operation. In the autumn of 1951 Kennedy visited the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Indochina, Malaya and Korea. An opponent of colonial empires, Kennedy urged that France should leave Algeria. He also argued for increased financial aid to underdeveloped countries.
Fall 1951
…Jack, then in his third term as a congressman from Massachusetts, include his younger brother on his trip to the Middle East and Asia in the fall of 1951, Jack moaned that Bobby would be “a pain in the ass.” Yet traveling in close quarters for 25,000 miles, including to trouble spots like Vietnam, let Jack see Bobby as a grown man with his own opinions. The brothers met Pakistan’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, just before he was murdered, and they saw India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who Bobby said “didn’t pay the slightest attention to my brother but was just destroyed by my sister Pat.” For Jack, the trip was a quick way to beef up his foreign policy resume; it went deeper for Bobby, who was struck by the human dimension of scenes he witnessed and people he encountered: “These countries were struggling for independence, or had just gained their independence and were trying to right themselves and create a future.” Having Bobby along began as a burden for Jack, but in the end it saved his life. Bobby arranged for his brother to be flown to a US military hospital on Okinawa when an adrenal condition flared up, and he sat at his bedside when Jack’s temperature shot to 107. “They didn’t think he could possibly live,” Bobby remembered. It was the second time priests had given the congressman last rites…
April 7, 1952
John F. Kennedy’s Announcement as Candidate for U.S. Senate.
After serving three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives,Kennedy decided to run for a seat in the U.S. Senate representing Massachusetts against Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the incumbent. Jack Kennedy’s younger brother, Bobby, becomes his campaign manager, signaling the birth of an enduring political partnership between the two brothers. His mother and sisters held “Kennedy teas” throughout the state.
September 16, 1952
John F. Kennedy wins the Democratic primary, he ran virtually unopposed.
November 4, 1952
JFK defeats Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. to win election to the United States Senate.
In the presidential election, General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his running mate, Richard Nixon, carried Massachusetts by a margin of 208,000 votes over Adlai Stevenson, but Kennedy defeated Lodge by 70,000 votes for the Senate seat. Largely due to Bobby Kennedy’s effective strategic planning in the campaign, John F. Kennedy is elected to the United States Senate. Joe Sr., Jack, and Bobby all consider the Senate seat to be a key step in Jack’s political ascendancy.
Senator Kennedy enters the 83rd Congress on January 3, 1953. Evelyn Lincoln starts work as the personal secretary for Senator Kennedy.
August 15, 1953 – August 19, 1953
The 1953 Iranian coup d’état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup, was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Shah of Iran) on August 19, 1953, orchestrated by the MI6 in the United Kingdom, under the name, Operation Boot, and by the CIA in the United States, under the name, Operation Ajax.
September 12, 1953
Wedding of Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy, Newport, Rhode Island.
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier and John F. Kennedy were married on the morning of September 12, 1953, in St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Newport, Rhode Island. The more than eight hundred guests included many notable individuals. Bouvier is the daughter of John Vernon Bouvier III and Janet Lee Bouvier.
The ceremony was performed by Archbishop Cushing, a friend of the Kennedy family, and he was assisted by four other priests, including the former president of Notre Dame and the head of the Christopher Society. Before the mass, a special blessing from Pope Pius XII was read.
Tenor soloist Luigi Vena from Boston sang Gounod’s Ave Maria.
The reception was held on the terrace of the 300 acre Auchincloss oceanfront estate, Hammersmith Farm, for more than twelve hundred guests. The wedding cake, four feet tall, was ordered by Joseph P. Kennedy. Meyer Davis and his orchestra played under a huge canopy.
June 18, 1954 – June 27, 1954
The 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état was a covert operation carried out by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944–54. Code-named Operation PBSUCCESS, it installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala.
October 21, 1954
As Kennedy’s carefully managed political ascent continued, so did his health issues. In 1954, less than two years after being elected to the Senate, doctors recommended that Kennedy undergo back surgery to fuse his spinal disks with a metal plate.
The root of Kennedy’s long-term back problems may have been steroids he took in the late 1930s for intestinal problems, which resulted in the degeneration of his vertebrae, biographer Robert Dallek told The New York Times,
Doctors told Kennedy in 1954 that if he did not undergo the surgery he could be confined to a wheelchair for life. And yet the procedure was still risky due to his adrenal condition. Against the wishes of his father, Kennedy opted for surgery, and nearly paid dearly for it.
After the surgery was performed that fall, Kennedy developed a urinary tract infection. And just as doctors warned, the infection worsened due his Addison’s disease. Kennedy’s temperature spiked and he again went into a coma. And once again a priest was summoned to deliver last rites.
And this time, the news of the Massachusetts senator’s poor health spread nationally. Kennedy’s Senate office secretary was told that he wasn’t except to live through to the morning and a “Kennedy death watch” was reported on television.
“The odds made by the political wise guys were that he wouldn’t live, and that if he did live he’d be a cripple,” Ken O’Donnell, a political adviser and friend of Kennedy, told Matthews. “It became ‘he might not make it.’”
But of course, Kennedy did make it. His recovery, however, was slow.
It wasn’t until two months later, four days before Christmas, that he was flown from the New York City hospital where he underwent the operation to his parents’ home in Palm Beach, Florida. According to Nasaw, Kennedy’s father converted the ground floor of the home into a “makeshift hospital” with rotating shifts of doctors and nurses.
Kennedy spent the next five months at his parent’s home recovering and didn’t return to the Senate until May 1955, after a second back surgery.
His medical issues hardly ended there. Kennedy was hospitalized at least nine different times within the next two years and heavily medicated. However, the young senator was able to turn the narrative to attribute his medical woes to a war injury and used his young, telegenic appearance to propel himself to the presidency within only a few years.
“[Voters] largely knew nothing of his illnesses and chronic pain,” Nasaw wrote. “The were instead presented with the portrait of a superbly healthy young man, an athlete, a veteran, a smiling, affable, dynamic, energetic, youthful, handsome American with a smiling, healthy, athletic wife, parents, brothers, and sisters.”
December 2, 1954
Joseph McCarthy is censured by the U.S. Senate. JFK abstains from voting on the resolution. While Kennedy’s father was a strong supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy, McCarthy was also a friend of the Kennedy family. As well, Bobby Kennedy worked for McCarthy’s subcommittee, and McCarthy dated Kennedy sister Patricia. In 1954, the Senate voted to censure McCarthy and Kennedy drafted a speech supporting the censure. However, it was not delivered because Kennedy was hospitalized at the time. The speech had the potential of putting Kennedy in the position of participating procedurally by “pairing” his vote against that of another senator. Although Kennedy never indicated how he would have voted, the episode damaged his support among members of the liberal community.
February 11, 1955
Kennedy undergoes a second spinal operation in New York. While convalescing Jackie supposedly asked him to write. Kennedy started to write a history of acts of bravery and integrity by eight heroic American Senators, Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1957.
1955
Jacqueline Kennedy became pregnant for the first time in 1955 but after three months “suffered a miscarriage and learned that carrying and delivering a child would always be difficult for her,” recalled JFK’s friend and adviser Ken O’Donnell.
August 15, 1956
The highlight of the 1956 Democratic Convention (held in the International Amphitheatre on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois August 13 – August 17, 1956) came when Presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson II, in an effort to create excitement for the ticket, made the surprise announcement that the convention’s delegates would choose his running mate. This set off a desperate scramble among several candidates to win the nomination. A good deal of the excitement of the vice-presidential race came from the fact that the candidates had only one hectic day to campaign among the delegates before the voting began. The two leading contenders were Senator Kefauver, who retained the support of his primary delegates, and John F. Kennedy, who, as a first term Senator from Massachusetts, was relatively unknown at that point. Kennedy surprised the experts by surging into the lead on the second ballot; at one point he was only 15 votes shy of winning.
However, a number of states then left their “favorite son” candidates and switched to Kefauver, giving him the victory. Kennedy then gave a gracious concession speech. The narrow defeat raised his profile and helped Kennedy’s long-term presidential chances, yet by losing to Kefauver he avoided any blame for Stevenson’s expected loss to Eisenhower in November. As of 2017, this was the last time any presidential or vice presidential nomination of either the Democratic or Republican parties, went past the first ballot.
August 15, 1956 (Video 32:24)
Kennedy Withdraws His Name From Vice Presidential Nomination Speech
Roll Call for V.P. Nomination. At the 1956 Democratic National Convention, John Kennedy delivered a speech to withdraw his name from the 1956 vice presidential nomination. Presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson II announced that the convention would vote on the vice presidential nominee. Senator Kennedy lost by a small margin to Senator Kefauver.
August 17, 1956
August 23, 1956
On the morning of August 23, 1956, a month before the baby was due, Jacqueline Kennedy awoke and cried out for her mother, she was hemorrhaging. She gave birth to a stillborn infant that she secretly called, Arabella.
November 6, 1956
The incumbent President, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, successfully ran for re-election. The election was a re-match of 1952, as Eisenhower’s opponent in 1956 was Adlai Stevenson, a former Illinois governor, whom Eisenhower had also defeated in 1952.
1957
Kennedy gains a plum assignment to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, allowing him to gain valuable political experience and increase his prestige.
May 6, 1957
Profiles in Courage is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Biography.
Kennedy was the first Senator to support Algeria’s struggle for Independence.
From, JFK’s Embrace of Third World Nationalists
by Jim DiEugenio
“…Kennedy started the speech with an understanding tone, observing that many American leaders had chosen not to say anything since this was an internal French matter and France had been America’s first ally. Kennedy then switched gears, noting that a true friend of France would not stand by and watch France tear itself asunder in a futile war, one that would only delay the inevitable.
Kennedy then got to his point: “Yet, did we not learn in Indochina that we might have served both the French and our own causes infinitely better had we taken a more firm stand much earlier than we did? Did that tragic episode not teach us that, whether France likes it or not, admits it or not, or has our support or not, their overseas territories are sooner or later, one by one, inevitably going to break free and look with suspicion on the Western nations who impeded their steps to independence?”
“In these days, we can help fulfill a great and promising opportunity to show the world that a new nation, with an Arab heritage, can establish itself in the Western tradition and successfully withstand both the pull toward Arab feudalism and fanaticism and the pull toward Communist authoritarianism.”
As historian Allan Nevins wrote, no speech by Sen. Kennedy had attracted more attention than this one, and much was negative. Naturally, those he criticized harshly attacked Kennedy: John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower and Nixon. But again, as in 1956, Stevenson and another fellow Democrat, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, also attacked him. Kennedy’s staff collected the many newspaper editorials the speech generated: 90 of the 138 responses were negative.
November 27, 1957
Caroline Bouvier Kennedy is born at Cornell Medical Center, New York.
November 4, 1958
In 1958, Kennedy was re-elected to a second term in the Senate, defeating his Republican opponent, Boston lawyer Vincent J. Celeste, by a wide margin. It was during his re-election campaign that Kennedy’s press secretary at the time, Robert E. Thompson, put together a film entitled The U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy Story, which exhibited a day in the life of the Senator and showcased his family life as well as the inner workings of his office. It was the most comprehensive film produced about Kennedy up to that time.
1958
Senator John F. Kennedy writes, A Nation Of Immigrants.
1959
Jack Paar interviews Senator Kennedy on The Tonight Show.
1959
Kennedy’s interest in ending colonialism and supporting the struggle for self-determination (African Independence), which first attracted national attention in the 1950s as a result of his speeches attacking French colonialism in Vietnam and Algeria, extended as well to the struggles for independence in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1958, the State Department first established a Bureau of African Affairs and the following year, Kennedy became chairman of the African Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
1960 – 1962
“The Jack Pack” was the name briefly attributed to a famous group of 1960s entertainers who supported U.S. Senator John F. “Jack” Kennedy (JFK) in his 1960 run for president. “The Jack Pack” moniker was actually a variant of “The Rat Pack,” a nickname for a coterie of Hollywood stars and Las Vegas entertainers that included: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. In 1960, this group was temporarily dubbed “the Jack Pack” by Sinatra when they worked in various ways to support Kennedy’s election bid. Kennedy had socialized with Sinatra and the group on occasion and liked the camaraderie, which later turned to political and financial support on his behalf.
JFK Announces Candidacy For President – January 2, 1960 (Audio 26:55)
Forty-two year old Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy of Massachusetts officially announces his intention to run for the Presidency of the United States. Other major candidates for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination are: Governor Pat Brown of California, Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, and Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota.
Results of 1960 Presidential Election Primaries
Despite his youth, 43-year-old John F. Kennedy captured the Democratic nomination in 1960 and went on to win one of the closest elections in United States history.
March 8, 1960
Kennedy wins the New Hampshire primary, receiving 88% of the vote. This would be the first of 10 primary victories for the Massachusetts Senator.
March 19, 1960 – April 29 1960
Speeches given by Senator John F. Kennedy concerning a proposal for the expansion of Public Law 480, also known as the Food for Peace program.
May 4, 1960
Senators Kennedy and Humphrey hold a televised debate in West Virginia, prior to that state’s primary. Kennedy outperforms Senator Hubert Humphrey.
Kennedy-Humphrey Debate, 1960 West Virginia Primary Debate (59:40)
Senators John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey appeared in a televised debate during the West Virginia primary campaign. The debate was held at the WCHS-TV studio in Charleston, WV. The panelists included WCHS news director Bill Ames, Charleston Gazette publisher Ned Chilton, and WTRF-TV journalist Dale Schussler.
May 10, 1960
Kennedy wins the West Virginia primary, receiving 61% of the vote, and afterward, Humphrey ends his presidential campaign. West Virginia shows that Kennedy, a Catholic, could win in a heavily Protestant state.
May 1, 1960 – February 10, 1962
Gary Powers was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 incident.
On February 10, 1962, Powers was exchanged, along with American student Frederic Pryor, in a well-publicized spy swap at the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin. The exchange was for Soviet KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher, known as “Rudolf Abel”, who had been caught by the FBI and tried and jailed for espionage. Powers credited his father with the swap idea.
Was the downing of Gary Powers’ U2 flight sabotage, or a terribly inconvenient accident? After four years of uneventful missions, why had this flight suddenly crashed on Mayday, two weeks before an unprecedented summit scheduled in Paris between Eisenhower and Khruschev, and who exactly authorized the flight on that date?
Years later, the liberal Senator from Arkansas, William Fulbright, who headed the senate hearings on the U2 affair, stated: “I have often wondered why, in the midst of these efforts by President Eisenhower and Khruschev to come to some understanding, the U2 incident was allowed to take place. No one will ever know whether it was accidental or intentional.”
May 16, 1960
U.S.-Soviet Summit Meeting Collapses
In the wake of the Soviet downing of an American U-2 spy plane on May 1, Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev lashes out at the United States and President Dwight D. Eisenhower at a Paris summit meeting between the two heads of state. Khrushchev’s outburst angered Eisenhower and doomed any chances for successful talks or negotiations at the summit.
June 16, 1960
JFK on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar (4:19)
Kennedy was the first presidential candidate to campaign on an entertainment talk show when he appeared on The Tonight Show, Starring Jack Paar.
July 11, 1060 – July 15, 1960
Democratic National Convention, Los Angeles, California (9:38)
The 1960 Democratic National Convention was held in Los Angeles. In the end, the Kennedy-Johnson ticket was assembled. In the week before the convention opened, John F. Kennedy received two new challengers when Lyndon B. Johnson, the powerful Senate Majority Leader from Texas, and Adlai Stevenson II, the party’s nominee in 1952 and 1956, announced their candidacies. However, neither Johnson nor Stevenson was a match for the talented and highly efficient Kennedy campaign team led by Robert Kennedy. Johnson challenged Kennedy to a televised debate before a joint meeting of the Texas and Massachusetts delegations; Kennedy accepted. Most observers felt that Kennedy won the debate, and Johnson was not able to expand his delegate support beyond the South. Stevenson was popular among many liberal delegates, especially in California, but his two landslide defeats in 1952 and 1956 led party leaders to search for a “fresh face” who had a better chance of winning.
After Kennedy secured the nomination, he asked Johnson to be his running mate in a move which surprised many. To this day there is much debate regarding the details of Johnson’s nomination—why it was offered and why he agreed to take it. Some historians speculate that Kennedy actually wanted someone else (such as Senators Stuart Symington or Henry M. Jackson) to be his running mate, and that he offered the nomination to Johnson first only as a courtesy to the powerful Senate Majority Leader
In Los Angeles, California, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts is nominated for the presidency by the Democratic Party Convention, defeating Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas.
July 14, 1960
Kennedy asked Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson of Texas to be his vice presidential candidate, despite opposition from many liberal delegates and Kennedy’s own staff, including his brother Bobby. Johnson was named Kennedy’s running mate by a unanimous vote of the convention.
July 15, 1960
John F. Kennedy is officially nominated as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate at the Democratic Convention, held in the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California. Kennedy was the first senator since 1920 to be nominated for the presidency by either the Democrats or the Republicans.
Senator Kennedy 1960 Acceptance Speech (Videos)
Kennedy – 1960 Democratic National Convention Acceptance Speech (Audio 22:00)
John F. Kennedy accepts the nomination of the Democratic party to run in the presidential election of 1960. He announces Lyndon B. Johnson as his vice-presidential running mate. The 1960 Democratic National Convention was held in Los Angeles. In the end, the Kennedy-Johnson ticket was assembled and went on to secure an electoral college victory and a narrow popular vote plurality (slightly over 110,000 nationally) in the fall over the Republican candidates Richard M. Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
August 10, 1960
Fair Labor Standards Speech by Senator John F. Kennedy, Delivered in the Senate
Today we begin debate upon the minimum wage bill known as the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1960. The bill has two major purposes. First, it will raise the minimum wage now received by 2 1/2 million workers from $1.10 to $1.25 an hour. Second, it will extend the protection of the Fair Labor Standards Act to 5 million additional employees, chiefly in large-scale interstate retail and service industries, thereby guaranteeing these employees a fair minimum wage and a just premium for overtime…
September 12, 1960
Kennedy’s Separation of Church and State Speech Rice Hotel, Houston, Texas. (10:53)
Address of Senator John F. Kennedy to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association
Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy’s major address to a group of Protestant ministers on the religious issue in which he strongly reaffirms his support for separation of church and state. Many Protestants questioned the ability of a Roman Catholic President to make important national decisions independently of the influence of his church. Senator Kennedy answers those questions before an audience of Protestant clergy, many of whom may believe that he can not.
September 26, 1960
John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon participate in the first-ever televised presidential debate. The debate, which showcases Jack’s youth and charm, marks a turning point in the campaign. CBS News journalist, Howard K. Smith, moderates.
Kennedy-Nixon First Presidential Debate (58:34)
On September 26, 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon stood before an audience of 70 million Americans, two-thirds of the nation’s adult population, in the first nationally televised Presidential debate. This first of four debates held before the end of October gave a national audience the opportunity to see and compare the two candidates, and ushered in a new age of Presidential politics.
October 7, 1960
Kennedy and Nixon participate in the second presidential debate, held in Washington, D.C.; NBC News journalist, Frank McGee moderates.
Kennedy vs. Nixon – Second 1960 Presidential Debate (8:33)
Among the issues discussed was the U-2 incident involving Francis Gary Powers that occurred in May 1960, in the midst of the Cold War.
October 13, 1960
Senator Kennedy and Vice President Nixon debate each other for the third time; former Face the Nation anchor Bill Shadel moderates. Kennedy participates from a New York studio, while Nixon participates from a Los Angeles studio.
Presidential Candidates Debate (60:00) Senator John F. Kennedy (D-MA) and Vice President Richard M. Nixon met via remote link for the third of four presidential debates prior to the 1960 presidential election. Vice President Nixon was in Los Angeles and Senator Kennedy was in New York. The candidates responded to questions from a panel of correspondents. The debate was moderated by Bill Shadel. Other panelists included Frank McGee, Charles Van Fremd, Douglass Cater, and Roscoe Drummond.
October 21, 1960
Kennedy and Nixon participate in the fourth and final presidential debate in New York. This debate centered on foreign policy. ABC News journalist Quincy Howe moderates.
John F. Kennedy vs. Richard Nixon – Fourth Presidential Debate (58:51)
This is the fourth presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon.
November 4, 1960
Speech of Senator John F. Kennedy, Chicago Auditorium.
November 8, 1960
Senator John F. Kennedy is elected the 35th President of the United States, defeating his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon. Kennedy’s popular vote margin is only 0.17%, 112,827 votes, and his electoral margin is 84 electoral votes. Nixon won more states, 26 to 22.
The 1960 presidential election is the first to have both candidates born in the 20th century, and the first in which the two most recently admitted states, Alaska (January 3, 1959) and Hawaii (August 21, 1959), participated. The electoral result proves to be the closest since the 1916 presidential election.
This election also features the last time the state of Ohio was on the losing end of the presidential election. From 1964 onward, the candidate who won Ohio won the election nationwide. There were 14 unpledged electors and one faithless elector in the election, all 8 from Mississippi, 6 out of 11 from Alabama, and 1 out of 8 from Oklahoma for the Byrd / Thurmond ticket, and one for the Byrd / Goldwater ticket.
Popular vote: Kennedy 34,220,984 – Nixon 34,108,157
Percentage: Kennedy 49.72% – Nixon 49.55%
Electoral vote: Kennedy 303 – Nixon 219
States carried: Kennedy 22 – Nixon 26
Election Night 1960 NBC-TV Coverage (1:26:17)
November 9, 1960
Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon concedes the presidency to Kennedy.
Kennedy Elected, Nixon Concedes (5:49)
67 million go to polls on election day, Ike votes, JFK and Jackie vote, Nixon and Pat vote in Whittier, Nixon speaks from his election HQ and concedes defeat; Kennedy wins; JFK speaks, to all Americans I say the next 4 years will be difficult, and the supreme national efort will be needed (cut off) (partial newsreel)
November 9, 1960
President Elect Kennedy Acceptance Speech Hyannis Armory (9:31)
John F. Kennedy Acceptance Speech
Hyannis Armory, Hyannis, Massachusetts, November 9, 1960
This is a transcription of this speech made for the convenience of readers and researchers. No textual copies of the speech exist at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, and this short speech appears to be at least partly extemporaneous. This transcription is based on a Boston Globe article from November 9, 1960 and CBS News film footage housed at the library. Because there is no original textual source available to us, efforts have been made to follow John F. Kennedy’s spoken words as closely as possible. In some cases this has led to apparent errors, where President-elect Kennedy’s grammar becomes somewhat conflicted as he improvises his remarks.
November 25, 1960
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr., named after his father, the President-elect and Mrs. Kennedy’s second child and first son. is born at Georgetown University Hospital.
November 1960
President-elect John F. Kennedy And His Family (4:00)
December 2, 1960
President-elect John F. Kennedy And Daughter Caroline Arriving In West Palm Beach, Florida (:41)
President Elect John F. Kennedy arriving aboard his private plane, with his three year old daughter, Caroline in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Dec. 2, 1960. Caroline seems to be pulling her daddy as they head for a waiting car, which will take them to his Palm Beach water front home in Florida. She peers out rear window of car and looks puzzled at all the excitement going on, in West Palm Beach, Florida, as Kennedy glances at her. They were whisked away from the airport to his Palm Beach home.
December 6, 1961
JFK And Eisenhower Meeting During Presidential Transition (1:52)
President-elect John F. Kennedy’s visit to the White House to meet with President Dwight D. Eisenhower during the presidential transition.
December 7, 1960 – November 22, 1963
The following 17 pages is an extensive overview because it is the number one motive to assassinated the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
In the future I will devote a compressive section on Dimona / David Ben-Gurion and the never-ending lies and deceitful behavior that Israel have promulgated to obtain hundreds of nuclear weapons and dictate foreign policy of the United States.
I strongly recommend reading the insightful, well documented and in my opinion, the best book on the Kennedy assassination; Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy, written by the late Michael Collins Piper.
Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy (Free .pdf)
Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy (Free .pdf)
Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy (Book)
In Final Judgment, Piper puts forth the number one motive for the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy; Israel was obsessed on building their covert Dimona nuclear plant, with the aim of obtaining nuclear weapons, and with the proliferation of nuclear weapons being the paramount issue with Kennedy, there was simply no way he was going to let them.
Piper also lays out in detail how the assassination of Kennedy, and the Presidency of Johnson brought about a 180 degree change in the United States policy towards Israel.
See the section: Jewish Lobby
According to author Stephen Green, Taking Sides: America’s Secret Relations with a Militant Israel, 1984, as early as March 5, 1964, Nasser (Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, was the second President of Egypt, serving from 1956 until his death in 1970) told Assistant US Secretary of State Phillips Talbot that ‘the US had shifted its policy into more active support of Israel’. Nasser’s assessment is supported by intelligence historian Richard Deacon in his book, The Israeli Secret Service (1978). Deacon claims that Johnson’s new policy was keeping in line not only with Israel’s demands but those of Israel’s friends in the CIA: ‘President Johnson had already swung away from the tentative pro-Arab stance of the Kennedy Administration which had always been frowned upon by the CIA”. Deacon further claimed that Walt Rostow, LBJ’s national security advisor, believed that US policy towards Israel would serve as an effective check on Soviet support for Arab countries. Thus, according to Deacon, ‘Rostow reflected almost totally the views of the CIA hierarchy’.
Did LBJ dramatically increase aid to Israel? Former Undersecretary of State George Ball commented that, ‘The Isreali’s were proved right in their assumption that Johnson would be more friendly than Kennedy’. According to author Stephen Green, citing US Agency for International Development data: ‘Over the next few years–the first three years of the Johnson administration–the level of foreign aid support to Israel would change both qualitatively and quantitatively. US Government assistance to Israel in FY 1964, the last budget year of the Kennedy administration, stood at $40 million. In FY 1965, this figure rose to $71 million and in FY 1966, to $130 million’.
‘More significant, however, was the change in the composition of that assistance. In (JFK’s) FY 1964, virtually none of the official US assistance was military assistance; it was split almost equally between development loans and food aid under the PL 480 program. In LBJ’s FY 1965, however, 20% of US aid was military in nature, and in FY 1966, fully 71% of all official assistance to Israel came in the form of credits for purchase of military equipment.
‘Moreover, the nature of the weapons system we provided had changed. In FY 1963, the Kennedy administration agreed to sell five batteries of Hawk missiles valued at $21.5 million. This however, was an air defense system. The Johnson administration, in FY 65/66, provided Israel with 250 modern (modified M-48) tanks, 48 A-1 Skyhawk attack aircraft, communications and electronic equipment, artillery and recoilless rifles.
‘The $92 million in military assistance provided in FY 1966 was greater than the total of all official military aid provided to Israel cumulatively in all the years going back to the foundation of that state in 1948. America has given Israel $17 billion in military aid since 1946, virtually all of which–over 99%–has been provided since 1965’.
It should be noted that Green’s book was written in 1984, tens of billions more military aid has been provided by United States taxpayers to Israel since then.
In Kennedy Assassination, Anyone But Mossad is Fair Game for U.S. Media (March 1992)
by Paul Findley (Former Illinois Congressman)
From: Kennedy, The Lobby And The Bomb
by Laurent Guyénot
Kennedy and the AIPAC
In May 1963, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations opened an investigation into the covert activities of foreign agents on U.S. soil, focusing in particular on the American Zionist Council and the Jewish Agency for Israel. The investigation was prompted by a report from the Chairman of that standing Committee, Senator J. William Fulbright, written in March 1961 (declassified in 2010), stating: “In recent years there has been an increasing number of incidents involving attempts by foreign governments, or their agents, to influence the conduct of American foreign policy by techniques outside normal diplomatic channels.” By covert activities, including “within the United States and elsewhere,” Fulbright was referring to the 1954 “Lavon Affair”, where a group of Egyptian Jews was recruited by Israel to carry out bomb attacks against British targets, which were to be blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood so as to discredit Nasser in the eyes of the British and Americans.
The Senate investigation brought to light a money laundering racket through which the Jewish Agency (indivisible from the State of Israel and a precursor to the Israeli Government) was channeling tens of millions of dollars to the American Zionist Council, the main Israeli lobby in the United States. Following this investigation, the Department of Justice, under the authority of Attorney General Robert Kennedy, ordered the American Zionist Council to register as “agents of a foreign government,” subject to the requirements of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, involving the close monitoring of its activities.
This attempt to counter Israel’s growing interference in U.S. politics undoubtedly enjoyed the support of the President. At the time when he was still a young journalist covering the United Nations inaugural conference, John Kennedy was troubled by Israel’s ability to buy politicians, up to and including the President himself. By recognizing the State of Israel on May 15, 1948, (just ten minutes after its official proclamation) despite the unanimous disapproval of his government, President Harry Truman not only gained a place in biblical history (“Truman’s historic act of recognition will remain forever inscribed in golden letters in the 4000-year history of the Jewish people”, declared the Israeli ambassador), he also pocketed two million dollars to revitalize his re-election campaign. “That’s why our recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast,” Kennedy told his friend novelist and essayist Gore Vidal.
In 1960, John Kennedy himself received a financial aid offer from the Israeli lobby for his presidential campaign. He decoded Abraham Feinberg’s proposal for his journalist friend Charles Bartlett in the following terms: “We know your campaign is in trouble. We’re willing to pay your bills if you’ll let us have control of your Middle East policy.” Bartlett recalls Kennedy’s promise that “if he ever did get to be President, he was going to do something about it.” Between 1962 and 1963, he submitted seven campaign finance reform bills but all were defeated by the influential groups they sought to restrain.
All government efforts to stymie the corruption of American democracy by Israeli agents were stopped short by Kennedy’s assassination and his brother’s replacement at the Department of Justice by Nicholas Katzenbach. The American Zionist Council evaded foreign agent status by dissolving and renaming itself American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Ten years later (April 15, 1973), Fulbright commented on CBS: “Israel controls the U.S. Senate. […] The great majority of the Senate of the U.S. – somewhere around 80 percent – are completely in support of Israel; anything Israel wants Israel gets.” AIPAC continued the same practices, dodging any sanction even when its members were caught red-handed in acts of espionage and high treason. In 2005, two AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, were acquitted after having received from a member of the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, Larry Franklin, documents classified as Secret-Defense which they transmitted to a senior Israeli official.
In 2007, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt demonstrated in their book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy that AIPAC and less prominent pro-Israel lobbies were the main cause of the war in Iraq and, more broadly, the determining factor in the foreign policy of the U.S. in the Middle East. Considering that nothing has changed, there is no reason to believe that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu will not also obtain from the United States the destruction of Iran that it consistently clamors for.
On October 3, 2001, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was reported by Kol Yisrael radio to have said to his Foreign Minister Shimon Peres that “We, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it.”
His successor Benjamin Netanyahu gave a demonstration of that on May 24, 2011, before the U.S. Congress, when members of both houses stood up to cheer him 29 times, in particular after each of the following remarks: “In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers”; “No distortion of history could deny the 4000- year-old bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish land”; “Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967”; “Jerusalem must never again be divided. Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel.”
And again…
US congresspeople got quite the workout on the morning of March 3, 2015. ‘Twas on this fateful day that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party, addressed US Congress, in what one might refer to as an historic occasion, the lector himself saw no problem in proclaiming it to be. To say it was just well received would be to commit the callous crime of understatement. In Netanyahu’s pep rally, rather speech before the US legislative branch, Congress interrupted to applaud 39 times. 23 of these were standing ovations. 10:55 of the 40:30 of Netanyahu’s exhortation consisted of applause. In other words, 27% was Congress applauding and doing standing ovations.
So, who owns our politicians?
“No American president was more concerned with the danger of nuclear proliferation than John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He was convinced that the spread of nuclear weapons would make the world more dangerous and undermine United States interests.”
Avener Cohen, Israel and the Bomb
From: Israeli Nuclear Threats And Blackmail
The Samson Option Still Threatens The World
by Carol Moore
Israel also use plausible deniability of processing hundreds of nuclear weapons while threatening to use the Samson Option. The phrase the “Samson Option” is used to describe Israel’s strategy of massive nuclear retaliation against “enemy” nations should its existence as a Jewish state be jeopardized through military attack. Israeli leaders created the term in the mid-1960s, inspired by the Biblical figure Samson, who destroyed a Philistine temple, killing himself and thousands of Philistine enemies.
Israel refuses to admit officially that it has nuclear weapons – a policy known as “nuclear ambiguity” or “nuclear opacity.” This despite government officials inferring repeatedly – and occasionally admitting – the fact. And despite Israeli nuclear whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu making public smuggled photographs of nuclear weapons and production equipment in the 1980s. Israel now may have as many as 400 atomic and hydrogen nuclear weapons, as well as the ability to launch them via long range missiles, submarines and aircraft. It can use them in a second strike even if its military is devastated.
Originally a strategy of last resort retaliation – even if it means Israel’s annihilation – it has developed into being a nuclear bullying strategy to further Israel’s territorial goals through threats and blackmail. Israel has bullied not only Arab and Muslim nations, but the United States and Russia with its Samson Option threats. Mordechai Vanunu has alleged that Israel uses for purposes of blackmail its ability to “bombard any city all over the world, and not only those in Europe but also those in the United States.”…
“Most European capitals are targets for our [Israel’s] air force….
We have the capability to take the world down with us.
And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”
Martin Van Creveld, professor of military history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem
From: Samson Option:
Israel’s Plan to Prevent Mass Destruction Attacks
by David Eberhart
Israel’s Military Might
In 1997, Jane’s Intelligence Weekly examined satellite photographs of what it described as an Israeli military base at Kfar Zechariah, concluding academically, “Israel’s nuclear arsenal is larger than many estimates.”
According to Jane’s, the site was said to house about 50 Jericho-2 missiles, believed to have a maximum range of about 3,000 miles with a warhead of about 2,200 pounds.
According to the report, the installation contained nuclear bombs, configured for dropping from bombers.
Furthermore, five bunkers at the site were cited as capable of safeguarding 150 weapons.
“This … supports indications that the Israeli arsenal may contain as many as 400 nuclear weapons with a total combined yield of 50 megatons,” the report concluded.
In 1998 the New York Times reported a Rand Corp. study commissioned by the Pentagon that opined Israel had enough plutonium to make 70 nuclear weapons.
More light was shed on the issue in February of last year when the Israeli Knesset (parliament) held the first public discussion on the country’s nuclear arms program.
Issam Mahoul, an Arab Israeli MP and member of the Hadash (Communist) Party, petitioned that country’s Supreme Court to force the government to permit a parliamentary debate on the forbidden subject.
The upshot of this bold and generally unpopular tactic was an unprecedented televised session of the Knesset at which Mahoul stated that, according to experts’ estimates, Israel had stockpiled huge numbers of nuclear warheads.
This had increased to what he described as the “insane amount of 200-300.” The weapons had been developed with the help of the South African apartheid regime.
Working up a head of rhetorical steam, Mahoul grandly alleged that three new German-built submarines just purchased by Israel were to be fitted with nuclear weapons.
Their stated purpose, he said, was “to cruise deep in the sea and constitute a second strike force in the event that Israel is attacked with nuclear weapons.”
Mahoul also announced what was hardly a news bulletin – Israel was producing “biological warfare” weapons at the government’s Biological Institute in Ness Ziona.
The obstreperous MP concluded that the government’s official policy of “nuclear ambiguity” was the height of self-delusion. “All the world knows that Israel is a vast warehouse of atomic, biological and chemical weapons that serves as an anchor for the Middle East arms race,” he said.
Despite the bristling inventory of nukes, the Israelis have a laudable history of restraint in brandishing, much less using, these most destructive of all weapons of mass destruction.
In fact, for most of the latter half of the 20th century, the Israeli Bomb remained invisible and unacknowledged. Israel’s official position was to neither confirm nor deny its nuclear status, only pledging on the record “not to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East.”
“Should war break out in the Middle East again and should the Syrians and the Egyptians break through again as they did in 1973 [Yom Kippur War], or should any Arab nation fire missiles again at Israel, as Iraq did [in the 1991 Gulf War], a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong possibility.”
Seymour M. Hersh
The Samson Option
Israel’s Dimona facility is still not under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervision, nor has Israel joined the international Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Joining this treaty would place all of Israel’s nuclear facilities under IAEA supervision and subject Israel to more often and thorough evaluations of their nuclear facilities. Currently Israel is a member of the UN Nuclear Agency but is not subject to regular IAEA inspections because they are not a signatory to the NPT.
Israel began actively investigating the nuclear option from its inception (actually the theft of Palestine) on May 14, 1948. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has a brief, yet excellent history of the Israeli nuclear weapons program.
Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion is said to have been “nearly obsessed” with Israel obtaining nuclear weapons, feeling that a nuclear arsenal was the only way to counter the Arabs’ superiority in numbers, space, and financial resources, and that it was the only sure guarantee of Israel’s survival.
Israel started the construction work at the Dimona nuclear plant sometime in late 1957 or early 1958, but amazingly it somehow took the United States intelligence community three years to “discover” the site for what it was, namely, a nuclear site under construction.
This so-called Intelligence failure speaks volumes to power that Israel already possessed over both the United States intelligence and political communities in the late 1950’s. There is no other rational explanation. How could Israel hide everything from the Americans until the Dimona reactor was an established fact? If you believe that for almost four years, between 1956 and 1960, this project was hidden due to intelligence failures in the gathering, analysis and inter-agency coordination of various professionals and political figures in Washington, I have a bridge to sell you.
From: The Eisenhower Administration and the Discovery of Dimona:
by Avner Cohen and William Burr
The United States supposedly first became aware of Dimona’s existence after U-2 overflights in 1958 captured the facility’s construction, but it was not identified as a nuclear site until two years later.
Israel continually lied about their clandestine nuclear project in the Negev desert. The complex was variously explained as a textile plant, an agricultural station, and a metallurgical research facility, until David Ben-Gurion stated in December 1960 that Dimona complex was a nuclear research center built for “peaceful purposes.”
When it comes to the textile factory as cover for the Dimona project, researchers from the National Security Archive dug up its origins in a helicopter ride that American Ambassador Ogden Reid took over the Negev desert in September of 1960. Reed asked Addy Cohen of the Israeli Finance Ministry for an explanation for the extensive earthmoving work in the area. Cohen lied, telling Reed it was a textile factory.
Finally, on December 7, 1960, an action on the matter was taken by the United States. The State Department summoned Israeli Ambassador and asked Israel for an explanation. For the first time Dimona was placed on the table. In response to the blunder concerning the late discovery of Dimona the U.S. Intelligence Board (USIB) asked on December 13, 1960, the CIA to prepare a “detailed post-mortem report on why the intelligence community did not recognize this development [Dimona] earlier.” On January 31, 1961, eleven days after President Kennedy took office, and in response to his explicit request, the 17-page “post-mortem” report was forwarded to his office.
On January 19, 1961, on the eve of his inauguration, President-elect Kennedy visited the White House, for the last time as a guest, along with his senior team. After 45 minutes of one-on-one conversation with President Eisenhower, the two men walked to the Cabinet Room to join their departing and incoming secretaries of state, defense and treasury to discuss the transition. One of Kennedy’s first questions was about the countries which were most determined to seek the bomb. “Israel and India,” Secretary of State Christian Herter fired back, and added that the newly discovered Dimona reactor, being constructed with aid from France, could be capable of generating 90 kilogram of weapons-grade plutonium by 1963. Herter urged the new president to press hard on inspection in the case of Israel before it introduced nuclear weapons into the Middle East.
From: The First American Visit to Dimona
The issue of the Dimona reactor was among President Kennedy’s top issues immediately after he took office on January 20, 1961. On January 30, Secretary of State Dean Rusk submitted to Kennedy a two-page report about Israel’s atomic energy activities. The next day Kennedy met departing American Ambassador to Israel, Ogden Reid, primarily to be briefed about the matter of Dimona. Reid told Kennedy that an inspection of the Dimona reactor could be arranged, “if it is done on a secret basis.”
The memo, and its attached chronology, summarizes the diplomatic exchanges that had taken place between the Eisenhower administration and the Israeli government, saying that “categoric assurances” were obtained from Ben Gurion “that Israel does not have plans for developing atomic weaponry. As to Ben Gurion’s assurances, Rusk states that those assurances “appear to be satisfactory,…although several minor questions still require clarification.” Rusk points out, however, that the State Department intended to treat the issue not as a single episode, but as “a continuing subject and it [is] the intention of our intelligence agencies to maintain a continuing watch on Israel as on other countries to assure that nuclear weapons capabilities are not being proliferated.” He added that, “at the moment, we are encouraging the Israelis to permit a qualified scientist from the United States or other friendly power to visit the Dimona installation.”
Israel’s ambassador in Washington Avraham Harman attempted to promote a “calming” version of the Dimona project before the Kennedy administration. It was nothing but “a simple story,” Harman attempted to persuade Assistant Secretary of State Lewis Jones in February 1961, about two months after the project was uncovered. There is plenty of time and no plutonium, Harman told Jones, seeking to convince him that no reactor would be operating for at least two years. The Israelis, Harman said, could not conceive why there should be continuing interest in Dimona in the United States or anywhere else. Talk about unabashed chutzpah.
Kennedy was determined to make good on Ben Gurion’s pledge to the Eisenhower administration for a visit of American scientists to Dimona. Ben Gurion, however, appeared equally determined not to arrange the visit anytime soon. To complicate the problem, Ben Gurion’s domestic political crisis, the Lavon Affair (just another lame obfuscation – the Lavon Affair – an Israeli false flag – occurred in the Summer of 1954), intensified. During February-April 1961 a pattern emerged in which Kennedy would press for a date for the inspection visit, while Israel would invoke Ben Gurion’s domestic problems or the Jewish holidays as reasons for delaying the visit.
By late March 1961, Ben Gurion realized that he could no longer postpone the visit. Myer Feldman and Abe Feinberg persuaded him that a meeting between him and Kennedy, in return for an American visit to Dimona, was necessary to avoid confrontation and save the Dimona project. Ben Gurion asked to set such visit to late May and approved the visit to Dimona against the objections of Foreign Minister Meir, who was, apparently, concerned about the implications of misleading (or just getting caught doing so) the American scientists. Which is just what Israel did, yet again.
On March 28, 1961, Assistant Secretary Jones summoned Ambassador Harman to the State Department and told him that the United States had been faithfully waiting since early January for the promised invitation to visit Dimona, yet no such invitation arrived. He informed the Ambassador that the White House had inquired the previous day when the visit would take place and had requested a report on the matter by 31 March. The American lack of patience with the Israeli delays was evident. Ambassador Harman replied that he had no news about the visit from Jerusalem and doubted whether any action would be possible until after Passover, that is another ten days.
On April 10, 1963, Ambassador Harman informed the State Department that the visit to Dimona was scheduled for the week of May 15. The preparations for the visit moved now to the working level. The United States Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC) selected two of its scientists to conduct the visit: Ulysses Staebler, assistant director of the USAEC Reactor Development Division, and Jesse Croach, a heavy water expert employed by Dupont at the USAEC Savannah River facility.
But even in later April Israel still proposed to have the American visit after the meeting between Ben Gurion and Kennedy (on May 30, 1961, Kennedy met Ben-Gurion at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan). This issue was raised in meetings on May 1 and May 4 between Mordechai Gazit and Armin Meyer, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. In the end Israel reaffirmed the original arrangement and agreed to receive the two American scientists on May 18, 1961.
The available record does not explain why Israel wanted to postpone the technical visit after the meeting so one can only propose a plausible speculation. The Israelis might have thought that the manner in which they would present the Dimona project to the American visits, that is, how much they would reveal about its security aspects, would be dependent on the outcome of discussions between Ben-Gurion and Kennedy, in particular how much room Ben-Gurion would leave to weapons option in his discussions with the Kennedy. It seems that the Israelis did not want to commit Prime Minister Ben-Gurion to a definitive policy line (to be determined by the way the reactor presented to the scientists) but rather to allow him a certain political latitude for his discussions with Kennedy on the purpose of the Dimona project.
Staebler and Croach arrived in Israel on May 17, and three days later, on Saturday May 20, visited Dimona escorted by Professor Ephraim Katzir-Katachalsky and Dimona director Manes Pratt. They were briefed by their Israeli hosts about the deliberation process that led, in 1957, to the decision to expand Israel’s nuclear program through the Dimona project. The Dimona complex was presented to them as a transitory stage in Israel’s ambitious plans to become part of the atomic revolution.
The original report of the American visit to Dimona in May 1961 appears to be missing. Yet on May 26, National Security Advisor, McGeorge Bundy received a two-page memorandum report from the State Department on the scientists’ visit, including “tentative conclusions and opinions,” which might be of relevance to President Kennedy for his meeting with Ben Gurion on May 30. In essence, the scientists concluded that the reactor “is of the scope and peaceful character previously described to the United States.”The positive report was critical for making the meeting on May 30, between President Kennedy and Prime Minister Ben Gurion, successful.
But in fact, Israel had yet again cleverly deceived both Ulysses Staebler, assistant director of the USAEC Reactor Development Division, and Jesse Croach, a heavy water expert employed by Dupont at the USAEC Savannah River facility.
According to one account by Mossad agent Eitan relayed to British writer Gordan Thomas, among the outlandish schemes used to hide the facility from inspectors was a “bogus control center built over the real one… complete with fake control panels and computer-lined gauges that gave a credible impression of measuring the output of a reactor engaged in an irrigation scheme to turn the Negev into a lush pastureland.”
Another version of the “no-nuclear-weapons here” charade was assisted by France, which helped produce video footage of spent reactor fuel being loaded onto French jets, to be supposedly sent to France for reprocessing. The ploy, as reported in the Guardian, was used as evidence by Israel to support its claim that its reactor was not being used to make a bomb. Israeli deceptions to get nuclear weapons knew no ends.
From: Kennedy, Dimona and the Nuclear Proliferation Problem: 1961-1962
by Avner Cohen and William Burr
President John F. Kennedy worried that Israel’s nuclear program was a potentially serious proliferation risk and insisted that Israel permit periodic inspections to mitigate the danger, according to declassified documents published today (April 21, 2016) by the National Security Archive, Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Kennedy pressured the government of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to prevent a military nuclear program, particularly after stage-managed tours of the Dimona facility for U.S. government scientists in 1961 and 1962 raised suspicions within U.S. intelligence that Israel might be concealing its underlying nuclear aims. Kennedy’s long-run objective, documents show, was to broaden and institutionalize inspections of Dimona by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
This collection includes both American and Israeli transcripts of the Waldorf Astoria meeting. One of the transcripts is a previously unknown draft of the Kennedy-Ben-Gurion memcon, which has interesting differences with the final version. The U.S. official memorandum of conversation, declassified and published in the 1990s, was prepared by Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Phillips Talbot (and approved – possibly corrected – by White House Deputy Special Counsel Myer “Mike” Feldman). The Israeli minutes, prepared by Ambassador Avraham Harman, were also declassified in the 1990s and historians have made extensive use of them.
Ben-Gurion provided Kennedy with a rationale and narrative of the Dimona project that was very similar to what the Israeli hosts provided to the AEC team visiting Dimona (albeit in non-technical and more political terms): the Dimona project was peaceful in nature; it was about energy and development. However, unlike during the Dimona visit, Ben-Gurion’s narrative and rationale left a little wiggle room for a future reversal. The prime minister did that by qualifying his peaceful pledge and leaving room for a future change of heart. The Israeli transcript makes Ben-Gurion’s caveat pronounced: “for the time being, the only purposes are for peace. … But we will see what will happen in the Middle East. It does not depend on us” (italics added). The American transcript, by way of rephrasing Ben-Gurion, reveals a similar caveat as well: “Our main – and for the time being – only purpose is this [cheap energy, etc.],” the Prime Minister said, adding that “we do not know what will happen in the future” … Furthermore, commenting on the political and strategic implications of atomic power and weaponry, the Prime Minister said he does believe that “in ten or fifteen years the Egyptian presumably could achieve it themselves” (italics added).
In his draft minutes, Assistant Secretary Talbot notes (in parentheses) that during that part of the conversation, Ben-Gurion spoke “rapidly and in a low voice” so that “some words were missed.” Nevertheless, Talbot thought that he had heard Ben-Gurion making reference to a “pilot plant for plutonium separation which is needed for atomic power,” but that might happen “three or four years later” and that “there is no intention to develop weapons capacity now.” Talbot’s draft was declassified long ago but has been buried in obscurity; it needs to be taken into account by scholars. Notably, the Israeli transcript is even more straightforward in citing Ben-Gurion on the pilot plant issue: “after three or four years we shall have a pilot plant for separation which is needed anyway for a power reactor.”
Days after the meeting, Talbot sat with Feldman at the White House to “check fine points” about “side lines of interest.” There was the key issue of plutonium, about which Ben-Gurion mumbled quickly in a low voice. Ben-Gurion was understood to say something to the effect that the issue of plutonium would not arise until the installation was complete in 1964 or so, and only then could Israel decide what to do about processing it. But this appeared to be incompatible with what the prime minister had said to Ambassador Reid in Tel Aviv in January 1961, namely that the spent fuel would return to the country which provided the uranium in the first place (France). But Israeli affairs desk officer, William R. Crawford, who looked further into the record, suggested that what Ben-Gurion had said was more equivocal and evasive. Upon close examination, Ben-Gurion might have meant to hint in passing that Israel was preserving its freedom of action to produce plutonium for its own purposes. Kennedy may not have picked up on this point, but he, like Talbot, may not have been sure exactly what Ben-Gurion had said.
Intelligence Estimate
The most intriguing – and novel – document in this collection is National Intelligence Estimate 35-61 (document #11a), under the headline “Outlook on Israel,” which was declassified only in February 2015. This NIE left no doubt that the AEC scientists’ impressions from their visit to Dimona had no impact on the way which the intelligence community made its own determination on Dimona’s overall purpose. While the visit clearly helped to ease the political and diplomatic tensions between the United States and Israel over Dimona, and removed, at least temporarily, the nuclear issue as a problem from the bilateral agenda, it did not change the opinion of U.S. intelligence professionals. In their view, while acknowledging the Israeli official narrative of Dimona as peaceful, it was truly about weapons capability. The Dimona complex provided Israel with the experience and resources “to develop a plutonium production capability.” NIE 35-61 reminded its readers that France had supplied “plans, material, equipment and technical assistance to the Israelis.”
Significantly, the intelligence community estimated in 1961 that Israel would be in a position to “produce sufficient weapons grade plutonium for one or two crude weapons a year by 1965-66, provided separation facilities with a capacity larger than that of the pilot plant now under construction are available.” In retrospect, in all these respects, NIE 35-61 was accurate in its assessments and predictions, although no one on the U.S. side knew for sure when Israel would possess the requisite reprocessing facilities. The language about “separation facilities” raises important questions. If Israel was to produce nuclear weapons it would require technology to reprocess spent fuel into plutonium. Whether and when U.S. intelligence knew that Israel had begun work on a secret, dedicated separation plant – larger than a pilot plant – at the Dimona complex has yet to be disclosed. But if the CIA knew about such plans, it may have meant that key information was concealed from AEC scientists who visited Dimona (or perhaps they were instructed to locate such facilities).[3]
Probably lacking secret knowledge of internal Israeli government thinking, the authors of NIE 35-61 may not have fully understood the depth of Israel’s nuclear resolve, or at least, the modus operandi by which Israel proceeded with its nuclear project. They could not be fully clear – both conceptually and factually – on the nature of the Israeli nuclear commitment, i.e., whether Dimona was a dedicated weapons program from the very start, or, alternatively, whether it was set up as infrastructure leading to a weapons capability upon a later decision. At a minimum, however, the authors of NIE 35-61 believed “that the Israelis intend at least to put themselves in the position of being able to produce nuclear weapons fairly soon after a decision to do so.”
Notwithstanding the lack of clarity, the NIE’s findings were incompatible with what Ben-Gurion told Kennedy about the overall purpose of the Dimona project as well as with what he said about Dimona’s plutonium production capacity. Similarly, the NIE was inconsistent with the AEC report whose writers accepted the Israeli narrative and rationale. The bottom line was that as early as 1961 the CIA already knew – or at least suspected – that the Israeli official account of the Dimona project – either by the prime minister or by Israeli scientists – was a cover story and deceptive by nature.
The Second Visit
The AEC visit and the Ben-Gurion Kennedy meeting helped clear the air a bit, but the wary view embodied in the NIE shaped U.S. perceptions of the Dimona project. The Kennedy administration held to its conviction that it was necessary to monitor Dimona, not only to resolve American concerns about nuclear proliferation but also to calm regional anxieties about an Israeli nuclear threat. In this context, the United States did not want to continue to be the only country that guaranteed the peaceful nature of Dimona to the Arab countries. Hence, during the months after the meetings, State Department officials tried to follow up President Kennedy’s interest in having scientists from “neutral” nations, such as Sweden, visit the Dimona plant. The British also favored such ideas but they sought U.S. pressure to induce the Israelis to accept inspection visits by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Kennedy administration believed that IAEA inspections of Dimona were a valid long-term goal but recognized that a second visit by U.S. scientists was necessary if a visit by neutrals could not be arranged.
The talks with the Swedes did not pan out; by June 1962, the Kennedy administration decided to “undertake the responsibility once more.” On September 26, 1962, after “repeated requests over several months,” a second American visit to Dimona finally took place. Until recently little was known about that visit except that Ambassador Walworth Barbour referred to it as “unduly restricted to no more than forty five minutes.” Also, the late professor Yuval Ne’eman, at the time serving as the scientific director of the Soreq nuclear research center and the official host of the American AEC visitors, was cited in Israel and the Bomb to the effect that the visit was a deliberate “trick” (the word “trick” was used but was not cited in the book) he devised and executed to ease American pressure for a second formal visit in Dimona.
Phillips Talbot, who succeeded Jones as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, and as a note-taker at the Kennedy/Ben-Gurion meeting had to make sense of the Prime Minister’s rapid and “low” voice. (National Archives, Still Picture Branch, 59-SO, box 41)
This collection includes archival material that sheds light on the second visit. The key document is a memo, written on December 27, 1962, by deputy director of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs Rodger Davies to Assistant Secretary Talbot on the September visit. It was hiding in plain sight in a microfilm supplement to the State Department historical series, Foreign Relations of the United States. The memo narrated the improvised circumstances of the visit which fit well with the way Ne’eman told the story in the late 1990s. As the two AEC scientists who had arrived to inspect the small reactor at Soreq – Thomas Haycock and Ulysses Staebler – were being driven back from their Dead Sea tour, Ne’eman noted that they were passing by the Dimona reactor and that he could spontaneously “arrange a call with the director.” Notably, Staebler was among the two AEC scientists who had visited Dimona in May 1961, so he must have met director Pratt. It turned out that the director was not there, but the chief engineers gave them a 40-minute tour of the reactor.
The December 27 document reveals that the circumstances of that tour made the AEC visitors feel a little awkward, “not certain whether they were guests of their scientist-host or on an inspection.” They did not see the complete installation, nor did they enter all the buildings they saw, but they believed that what they saw confirmed that Dimona was a research reactor, not a production reactor; and that, from their point of view, made the visit worthwhile and “satisfactory.”
In 1963 President Kennedy was again trying his best to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. He sent at least six letters to Israel Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his successor Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. All to no avail, there was nothing but lies about Israel’s nuclear weapons capability and there was never any inspections of Dimona.
Ben-Gurion felt that Kennedy’s position of not wanting Israel to developed nuclear weapons threatened the very survival Israel.
“Israel need not apologize for the assassination or destruction of those who seek to destroy it. The first order of business for any country is the protection of its people.”
Washington Jewish Week, October 9, 1997
John F. Kennedy Administration Letter To Israeli PM Ben-Gurion Regarding Visit To Dimona (May 18, 1963)
Verbatim text.
You should deliver following letter from President to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion:
“Dear Mr. Prime Minister:
“I welcome your letter of May 12 and am giving it careful study.
“Meanwhile, I have received from Ambassador Barbour a report of his conversation with you on May 14 regarding the arrangements for visiting the Dimona reactor. I should like to add some personal comments on that subject.
“I am sure you will agree that there is no more urgent business for the whole world than the control of nuclear weapons. We both recognized this when we talked together two years ago, and I emphasized it again when I met with Mrs. Meir just after Christmas. The dangers in the proliferation of national nuclear weapons systems are so obvious that I am sure I need not repeat them here.
“It is because of our preoccupation with this problem that my Government has sought to arrange with you for periodic visits to Dimona. When we spoke together in May 1961 you said that we might make whatever use we wished of the information resulting from the first visit of American scientists to Dimona and that you would agree to further visits by neutrals as well. I had assumed from Mrs. Meir’s comment that there would be no problem between us on this.
“We are concerned with the disturbing effects on world stability which would accompany the development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel. I cannot imagine that the Arabs would refrain from turning to the Soviet Union for assistance if Israel were to develop a nuclear weapons capability–with all the consequences this would hold. But the problem is much larger than its impact on the Middle East. Development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel would almost certainly lead other larger countries, that have so far refrained from such development, to feel that they must follow suit.
“As I made clear in my press conference of May 8, we have a deep commitment to the security of Israel. In addition this country supports Israel in a wide variety of other ways which are well known to both of us. [4-1/2 lines of source text not declassified]
“I can well appreciate your concern for developments in the UAR. But I see no present or imminent nuclear threat to Israel from there. I am assured that our intelligence on this question is good and that the Egyptians do not presently have any installation comparable to Dimona, nor any facilities potentially capable of nuclear weapons production. But, of course, if you have information that would support a contrary conclusion, I should like to receive it from you through Ambassador Barbour. We have the capacity to check it.
“I trust this message will convey the sense of urgency and the perspective in which I view your Government’s early assent to the proposal first put to you by Ambassador Barbour on April 2.
“Sincerely,
“John F. Kennedy”
Rusk
Sources:Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963: Near East, 1962-1963, V. XVIII. DC: GPO, 2000.
John F. Kennedy Administration:
Letter Asking Israeli PM Ben-Gurion to Facilitate Visits to Dimona, June 15, 1963
“I thank you for your letter of May 27 concerning American visits to Israel’s nuclear facility at Dimona. I know your words reflect your most intense personal consideration of a problem that is not easy for you or for your Government, as it is not for mine.
“I welcome your strong reaffirmation that the Dimona will be devoted exclusively to peaceful purposes. I also welcome your reaffirmation of Israel’s willingness to permit periodic visits to Dimona.
“Because of the crucial importance of this problem, however, I am sure you will agree that such visits should be of a nature and on a schedule which will more nearly be in accord with international standards, thereby resolving all doubts as to the peaceful intent of the Dimona project.
“Therefore, I asked our scientists to review the alternative schedules of visits we and you have proposed. If Israel’s purposes are to be clear to the world beyond reasonable doubt, I believe that the schedule which would best serve our common purposes would be a visit early this summer, another visit in June 1964, and thereafter at intervals of six months. I am sure that such a schedule should not cause you any more difficulty than that which you have proposed. It would be essential, and I take it that your letter is in accord with this, that our scientists have access to all areas of the Dimona site and to any related part of the complex, such as fuel fabrication facilities or plutonium separation plant, and that sufficient time be allotted for a thorough examination.
“Knowing that you fully appreciate the truly vital significance of this matter to the future well-being of Israel, to the United States, and internationally, I am sure our carefully considered request will again have your most sympathetic attention.”…
The very next day, June 16, 1963, David Ben-Gurion resigns as Prime Minister of Israel for what he describes as personal reasons and chooses Levi Eshkol as his successor.
So, when President Kennedy was pushing extremely hard and not backing down to have inspections at the illegal Dimona nuclear plant, Ben-Gurion resigns, never responding to his letter of June 15, 1963.
Due to the overwhelming evidence in this matter, and long history of false flag incidents which Israel has perpetrated and blamed on others (Lavon Affair, USS Liberty and 911, just to name three), it is my conviction that Ben-Gurion resigned to have plausible deniability for the assassination he ordered on President Kennedy.
For a more detailed list of Israeli false flags please read:
Israel’s Use of False Flags in Global Terrorism
by Michael Collins Piper
On June 26, 1963, Levi Eshkol is elected Prime Minister of Israel.
The Kennedy / Ben Gurion / Eshkol Nuclear Exchange, July 5, 1963
On July 5, 1963, Kennedy sent the new Prime Minister of Israel Levi Eshkol a three page letter. Not since President Eisenhower’s message to Ben Gurion, in the midst of the Suez crisis in November 1956, had an American president been so blunt with an Israeli prime minister. Kennedy told Eshkol that the American commitment and support of Israel ‘could be seriously jeopardized’ if Israel did not let the United States obtain ‘reliable information’ about Israel’s efforts in the nuclear field.
In the letter Kennedy presented specific demands on how the American inspection visits to Dimona should be executed. Since the United States had not been involved in the building of Dimona and no international law or agreement had been violated, Kennedy demands were indeed unprecedented. They amounted, in effect, to American ultimatum.
JFK and Israel’s Nuclear Program:
Kennedy Letter to Eshkol Regarding Visits to Dimona
“Your letter of August 19 was most welcome here. I appreciate that this was a difficult decision, yet I am convinced that in generously agreeing to invite our scientists to visit the Dimona complex on the regular basis that was proposed you have acted from a deep wisdom regarding Israel’s security in the longer term and the awesome realities which the atomic age imposes on the community of man.
You have suggested that an initial visit take place toward the end of this year in the pre-startup stage. I am asking Ambassador Barbour to keep in touch with you so that the visit can be arranged for at a time when the reactor’s core is being loaded and before internal radiation hazards have developed.
The recent overwhelming endorsement of the partial test ban treaty has moved us all a small step in the direction of a more peaceful world. Our purpose must be to continue striving toward the effective control of the power of the atom so that it may be used only for the welfare of man. The spirit you have shown in your letter to me is a clear indication that you share that same high purpose.”
From: Mossad And The JFK Assassination
Ben-Gurion was convinced that Israel needed nuclear weapons to insure its survival, while Kennedy was dead-set against it. This inability to reach an agreement caused obvious problems. One of them revolved around Kennedy’s decision that he would make America his top priority in regard to foreign policy, and not Israel! Kennedy planned to honor the 1950 Tripartite Declaration which said that the United States would retaliate against any nation in the Middle East that attacked any other country. Ben-Gurion, on the other hand, wanted the Kennedy Administration to sell them offensive weapons, particularly Hawk missiles.
The two leaders thus engaged in a brutal letter exchange, but Kennedy wouldn’t budge. Ben-Gurion, obsessed by this issue, slipped into total paranoia, feeling that Kennedy’s obstinance was a blatant threat to the very existence of Israel as a nation. Piper writes, “Ben-Gurion had devoted a lifetime creating a Jewish State and guiding it into the world arena. And, in Ben-Gurion’s eyes, John F. Kennedy was an enemy of the Jewish people and his beloved state of Israel.” He continues, “The ‘nuclear option’ was not only at the very core of Ben-Gurion’s personal world view, but the very foundation of Israel’s national security policy.”
In one of his final communications with Kennedy, Ben-Gurion wrote: “Mr. President, my people have the right to exist.. . and this existence is in danger.” It was at this time that Ben-Gurion demanded that Kennedy sign a security treaty with Israel. Kennedy refused.
Israel’s Central Role in JFK Assassination:
Who’s Who in JFK Assassination
excerpted from the book
Final Judgment:
The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy
by Michael Collins Piper
Conclusion
excerpted from the book
Final Judgment:
The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy
by Michael Collins Piper
excerpted from the book
Final Judgment:
The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy
by Michael Collins Piper
excerpted from the book
Final Judgment:
The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy
by Michael Collins Piper
excerpted from the book
Final Judgment:
The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy
by Michael Collins Piper
excerpted from the book
Final Judgment:
The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy
by Michael Collins Piper
The Mossad Role In The JFK Assassination Conspiracy
by Michael Collins Piper
Thank you and bless you Michael Collins Piper for your insight and courage in pinning the tale on the donkey. May you rest in peace.
Some other books about Dimona and Israel acquiring hundreds of nuclear weapons:
by Avner Cohen
The Samson Option
by Seymour M. Hersh
Taking Sides:
America’s Secret Relations with a Militant Israel
by Stephen Green
Dangerous Liaison
by Andrew and Leslie Cockburm
There’s A Fish In The Courthouse
by Gary Wean
Left to Right: Louis Bloomfield, Bernard Bloomfield (brother), David Ben-Gurion. This picture was taken in Israel on May 4th, 1949 when the Bloomfield brothers met Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion at a garden party celebrating Israel’s first birthday.
For more see the comprehensive section:
JFK, Dimona Nuclear Reactor And David Ben-Gurion
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v18/d274
December 20, 1960
Kennedy’s First Legislation
What President-elect John Kennedy is planning to propose to Congress will be a test of his strategic guile.
President-elect John Kennedy sat down this evening with Vice-President-elect Lyndon Johnson and the Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn, at his father’s house in Palm Beach, Florida, to decide on the first legislation he will propose to the new Congress and the best strategy to win it.
The two tasks must always go hand in hand in a country where the “Opposition” is no single party but a dominating coalition of like-minded men in both parties.
The next session of Congress will test the President’s strategic guile more than usual, because three of the four earliest bills he wants to bring up were strangled in the abortive emergency session of Congress called by Senator Johnson, then the Democratic leader, between the conventions and the election. They were:
Medical care for the aged, to be financed through the social security system;
A depressed areas bill;
A bill for federal aid to education; and
The raising of the minimum wage from $1 to $1.25…
A press conference given by President-elect John F. Kennedy at his father’s house in Palm Beach, Florida. Also attending the press conference are Vice President-elect Lyndon B. Johnson, Senator Mike Mansfield, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Sam Rayburn. President-elect Kennedy begins by announcing Vice President-elect Johnson as Chairman of the President’s Advisory Council on Space. The President-elect, Vice President-elect, Speaker Rayburn, and Senator Mansfield go on to answer questions from the press regarding the economy, the Federal budget, legislation, and potential changes to Congressional regulations.
December 25, 1960
President-elect John F. Kennedy and his wife entering his car after attending Christmas Day mass at St. Edwards Catholic Church, in Palm Beach, Florida.
A Daily Calendar of President Kennedy’s Schedule Month by Month
January 9, 1961
Address of President-Elect John F. Kennedy Delivered to a Joint Convention of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The State House, Boston, January 9, 1961. Also know as the “City Upon a Hill” speech.
January 17, 1961
Farewell Address of President Eisenhower, the Military Industrial Complex speech.
Eisenhower Warns Us Of The Military Industrial Complex (2:30)
Eisenhower Farewell Address ‘Military Industrial Complex’
(Full Speech 16:14)
January 17, 1961
Prime Minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, is assassinated.
From, JFK’s Embrace of Third World Nationalists
by Jim DiEugenio
,,,In July 1960, Lumumba went to Washington to seek help in kicking the Belgians out. When Lumumba arrived, Eisenhower remained on a golfing trip in Newport, Rhode Island. And, it was clear from Lumumba’s discussion with other officials that America was not going to help him expel the Belgians. Then, Lumumba turned to the Russians, who did supply military assistance.
This development played into the hands of CIA Director Allen Dulles, who declared that the “communist” Lumumba must be removed. He was assassinated on January 17, 1961, apparently by a firing squad organized by Belgian officers and Katangan authorities (although his fate was covered up for several weeks).
There are some writers, like John Morton Blum and the late Jonathan Kwitny, who did not believe the timing of Lumumba’s murder to be a coincidence, just three days before Kennedy’s inauguration. It may have been done then because the CIA suspected that Kennedy would side with Lumumba, which, when his new plan for Congo was formulated, was clearly what JFK was going to do.
Kennedy decided to cooperate with Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold at the United Nations to try and save the country’s independence. Kennedy wanted to neutralize any East-West competition, to stop the creation of an economic puppet state in Katanga, and to free all political prisoners. Not knowing Lumumba was dead during the first weeks of his administration, Kennedy meant to restore Lumumba to power. If Lumumba’s death was accelerated to defeat an expected policy change by JFK, in practical terms, it was successful.
January 19, 1961
President-Elect John F. Kennedy Meets With President Dwight Eisenhower (2:38)
President-elect John F. Kennedy meets with President Dwight Eisenhower at the White House to discuss the transition.
January 20, 1961
At age 43, John F. Kennedy takes the oath of office to become the 35th president of the United States. Kennedy is sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. He is the youngest elected president, the first president to be Roman Catholic and of Irish ancestry on both his paternal and maternal sides. All four of his grandparents were the children of Irish immigrants.
In his widely praised inaugural speech, Kennedy speaks these famous words: “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.” Kennedy also formally nominates his cabinet and attends the inaugural balls. He is congratulated by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
On January 20, 1961, I was three years and twelve days old. This day was the first memory that that I remember, and it left an indelible imprint on me. My maternal grandparents were both born in Ireland, and the paternal side of my family is also mostly Irish with some German and French (Alsace-Lorraine where my last name Elsis has its derivation, somehow from Alsace, this probably happened at Ellis Island). Therefore I am mostly Irish, and was also brought up as a Roman Catholic (that was until I became disillusioned at the age of eight and a third with the hypocrisy of the warmongering Cardinal Spellman, his mother was born a Jew, the daughter of a rabbi, and with what I perceived as the greed of the Church – Yes, I was a smart young boy). What I remember, is the excitement that was in my family home that day. Finally a Catholic who was also Irish had become President of the United Sates.
It’s been more than 56 years since President John Fitzgerald Kennedy delivered his inaugural address, and his most famous section still resonates deeply with me now. “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
This timeline is for my heroic, slain President, and to shine a laser beam on the enemy inside the gates of my country, which the overwhelming populace have been relentlessly fooled by all the media they own, into thinking they are our great allies.
January 21, 1961
President Kennedy’s remarks at the Swearing-In Ceremonies for his Cabinet (7:20)
The Cabinet is sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren.
January 21, 1961
President John F. Kennedy’s first visitor to the White House is former President Harry S. Truman (1:14)
January 21, 1961
President John F. Kennedy at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee (6:21)
The President spoke in the East Room at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.
January 21, 1961
Kennedy issued Executive Order 10914 directing a doubling of the quantity of surplus food distributed to needy families. Kennedy also attends a meeting at the Democratic National Committee and hosts the swearing-in of his cabinet.
Kennedy meets with the poet Robert Frost.
President Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, and Paul B. Fay attend mass at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington, D.C.
January 22, 1961
Kennedy establishes the three-member Government Ethics Committee. Kennedy appoints Hickman Price, Jr. and Roland Burnstan as Assistant Commerce Secretaries.
January 23, 1961
Kennedy meets with several defense, foreign policy, and intelligence advisers, including Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, CIA Director Allen Dulles, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Lyman Lemnitzer. Kennedy nominates Frank Burton Ellis for a federal judgeship on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
January 24, 1961
Kennedy issued Executive Order 10915; Amending Prior Executive Orders to Provide for the Responsibilities of the Director of the Food-for-Peace Program. Kennedy meets with then-former Congressman (later Senator) George McGovern of South Dakota. He is presented plans for what would become the Food for Peace program and designates McGovern Director.
January 24, 1961
Kennedy meets with Democratic legislative leaders, and receives a tour of the shelter areas of the White House from Naval Aide, Cmdr. Tazewell Shepard.
January 25, 1961
Kennedy holds his first regular live televised press conference in the State Department Auditorium. He announces the release of two surviving USAF crewman by the Soviet Union after being captured when their RB-47 Stratojet was shot down on July 1, 1960.
Clip from President John F. Kennedy’s first News Conference (2:04)
Kennedy meets with Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Oval Office of the White House:
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Lyman Lemnitzer
Chief of Staff of the United States Army General George H. Decker
Chief of Staff of the United States Navy Admiral Arleigh A. Burke
Commandant of the United States Marine Corps General David M. Shoup
Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force General Thomas D. White
January 30, 1961
John F. Kennedy delivers his first State of the Union address to a Joint session of the United States Congress. He asks Congress to include health insurance in the Social Security Program.
President Makes First “State Of The Union” Speech (Video 3:12)
John F. Kennedy State of the Union Address, January 30, 1961 (Audio 43 minutes)
January 1961 – July 1962
The Laos Crisis was a deteriorating political situation that posed a serious concern in United States foreign policy when President John F. Kennedy took office. After the surrender of the Japanese in World War II, the French attempted to reassert dominion over Laos and the rest of French Indochina, which included Vietnam and Cambodia. The Communist Laotian nationalist movement, the Pathet Lao, was an ally of the Vietnamese in the struggle with France. After the French were defeated by the Vietnamese, the Geneva Accords of 1954 established the sovereignty of Laos. Civil war soon broke out, however, as the Royal Lao government, supported by the United States, fought Pathet Lao insurgents, supported by the Communists in neighboring North Vietnam.
President Kennedy holds his second presidential news conference; he announces the establishment of five pilot food stamp distribution projects. He later meets with economic and budget advisers. President Kennedy holds the first meeting of the National Security Council and sends a letter to Defense Secretary McNamara marking the scheduled launch of the USS Sam Houston (SSBN-609) the next day.
President Kennedy meets with NATO Supreme Allied Commander Lauris Norstad, Joint Chiefs Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, and later with his cabinet.
February 2, 1961
Kennedy appoints Burke Marshall as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, David K. E. Bruce as Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
February 2, 1961
Kennedy telegrams the mayors of 297 cities urging an increase in urban renewal activities. President asks Congress for program to help end recession, including food stamps, extended benefits for unemployed workers and welfare payments for their children.
February 3, 1961
President Kennedy meets with Ambassador to Laos Winthrop G. Brown. Kennedy and Paul B. Fay attend the movie Spartacus at the Warner Theater. After meeting with Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary Abraham A. Ribicoff, Kennedy orders money and surplus food totaling $4 million for Cuban refugees in fiscal year 1961.
February 9, 1961
President requests legislation assisting medical and dental colleges and students.
President warns Soviets to avoid interfering with United Nations pacification of the Congo.
February 22, 1961
President Kennedy sent Premier Nikita Khrushchev a letter stating, “I hope it will be possible, before too long, for us to meet personally for an informal exchange of views.” This was the first time either man suggested a diplomatic meeting. Kennedy felt “that if he could just sit down with Khrushchev” the two leaders could work out their inter-state conflicts. From this letter the Vienna summit soon became a reality.
See: June 3, 1961 – June 4, 1961
March 1, 1961
Emphasizing the theme of public service in his inaugural address, President Kennedy issued Executive Order 10924, establishing the Peace Corps on a “temporary pilot basis”. Kennedy also sends to Congress a message requesting authorization of the Peace Corps as a permanent organization. He appoints Sargent Shriver to head the organization. President Kennedy holds his fifth presidential news conference. President Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt make a tape recording promoting the Youth Peace Corps. President Kennedy records a message for the American Red Cross. President Kennedy signs into law a joint resolution (H.J. Res. 155) to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first inauguration of Abraham Lincoln on March 4, 1861, (PL87-1).
March 4, 1961
President Kennedy appoints R. Sargent Shriver to head the Peace Corps.
March 4, 1961
President Kennedy dines at the home of his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and meets with Ambassador to the United Kingdom David K. E. Bruce.
March 4, 1961
President Kennedy meets with Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Walter Heller.
March 13, 1961
President John F. Kennedy proposes the Alliance for Progress in Washington DC. President proposes a long-term Alliance for Progress between the United States and Latin America, emphasizing democratic reform and economic development.
March 15, 1961
President John F. Kennedy’s 7th News Conference
President calls for long-term Foreign Aid program with new emphasis on self help.
March 23, 1961
President warns Communists that cease fire must precede negotiations for a neutral and independent Laos.
March 28, 1961
President initiates the largest and most rapid defense buildup in United States’ peacetime history, doubling Polaris missile program, increasing armed bomber and other missile programs, adding five combat ready divisions and quadrupling anti-guerilla forces.
April 1, 1961
Kennedy meets with Secretary of State Dean Rusk on the Laos crisis.
Kennedy declares parts of eastern Iowa flooded by the Cedar River to be a major disaster area.
April 2, 1961
Kennedy meets with journalists Albert Merriman Smith and Marvin Arrowsmith.
April 2, 1961
The First Family view the film, All in a Night’s Work.
April 7, 1961
President Kennedy called on Congress to endorse an international effort to preserve the ancient temples in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. The monuments were threatened by the impending construction of the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River.
April 8, 1961
President John F. Kennedy Meets with Helen Keller
President John F. Kennedy meets with Helen Keller in the Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C.
President Kennedy Meets Helen Keller (:29)
April 12, 1961
On April 12, 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. During the flight, the 27-year-old test pilot and industrial technician also became the first man to orbit the planet, a feat accomplished by his space capsule in 89 minutes. Vostok 1 orbited Earth at a maximum altitude of 187 miles and was guided entirely by an automatic control system. The only statement attributed to Gagarin during his one hour and 48 minutes in space was, “Flight is proceeding normally; I am well.”
Yuri Gagarin – Vostok 1 – April 12 1961 (3:00)
April 15, 1961 – April 20, 1961
A U.S.-sponsored invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs fails. With inadequate support and facing an overwhelming force, the CIA-trained brigade of anti-Castro exiles is defeated in a few days. Kennedy takes responsibility for the disaster.
Unhappy with Fidel Castro and the direction he was taking Cuba in, the United States government under President Eisenhower began plotting Castro’s demise. This included assassination plots and also a plan for a CIA-trained group of Cuban exiles to invade the island.
The training of the exiles, which took place in Guatemala, did not achieve sufficient results to launch the invasion before the 1960 U.S. elections, which saw the defeat of Vice-President Richard Nixon to John F. Kennedy. Kennedy had used the “Cuba issue” in his campaign, and inherited a plan which the CIA assured him would succeed. Kennedy and his aides forced some modifications to the plan, to try to ensure that the invasion would not be perceived as led by the United States. This included relocating the landing location to an area known as the “Bay of Pigs.”
On April 17, 1961, approximately 1,400 exiles landed at Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) on the southern coast of Cuba. Their mission was to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro by inciting revolt among the Cuban people. They were quickly overwhelmed by Cuban military forces, with many killed and the bulk of the men captured. President Kennedy refused to order additional air strikes, beyond some initial sorties which had failed to disable the Cuban air force, and for this some attribute the operation’s failure to Kennedy.
An internal CIA investigation conducted in 1961 and finally declassified in 1998 put the blame squarely on the CIA’s shoulders (though it is accompanied by a scathing rebuttal written by Deputy Director Tracey Barnes). In hindsight, the plan seems so unlikely to succeed that some speculate that CIA planners must have counted on some other factor – possibly the simultaneous assassination of Fidel Castro. Or, perhaps the planners were counting on President Kennedy, faced with impending failure, to send in the U.S. military to rescue the situation. Instead, Kennedy accepted a humilating defeat, soon moved to take military operations out of the hands of the CIA, and obtained the resignations of high-level CIA officials including Director Allen Dulles and covert action head Richard Bissell.
April 17, 1961
The Bay of Pigs: On April 17, 1961, 1,400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba.
April 19, 1961
The invasion of Cuba fails and results in a Cuban revolutionary victory. Kennedy’s administration is severely embarrassed, so much so that Kennedy supposedly stated he wanted to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the wind.”
President assumes responsibility for failed Bay of Pigs invasion, says policies and procedures will be changed.
April 20, 1961
President Kennedy speech on the Bay of Pigs Invasion (13:24)
President Kennedy spoke to the Society of Newspaper Editors about events in Cuba, which later became known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion. He emphasized that Cuban “patriots” had taken up arms against Fidel Castro’s Revolutionary Government and that the U.S. armed forces were not involved, despite sympathizing with their cause. He also talked about the greater threat of global communist expansion and the American role in resisting such expansion.
For more see the comprehensive section: Bay of Pigs
April 21, 1961
President Kennedy News Conference (33:05)
President Kennedy delivered a press conference. Four days earlier 1500 Cuban exiles had invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. President Kennedy would not respond to media questions about the conflict saying that his statement of the previous day would suffice for now. He announced that the Peace Corps was proceeding with its first project in Tanganyika. He answered questions about the John Birch Society, the space budget, agriculture automation, the hope for a cease-fire in Laos, and other topics.
April 21, 1961 – April 26, 1961
The Algiers putsch, also known as the Generals’ putsch, was a failed coup d’état to overthrow French President Charles de Gaulle and establish a military junta. Evidence suggests that Allen Dulles, the United States Director of the CIA, and his numerous contacts deep within the French government, helped orchestrate the plot.
A “Nuclear Coup”? France, the Algerian War and the April 1961 Nuclear Test
by Bruno Tertrais
1960-1966, Algeria: The Generals’ Plot Against de Gaulle
by William Blum
Fifty-five Years Ago: Attempt to Overthrow France’s Charles De Gaulle.
April 27, 1961
Address, “The President and the Press,” (Audio 19:37)
Before The American Newspaper Publishers Association
Sound recording of President John F. Kennedy’s address to the American Newspaper Publishers Association at a Bureau of Advertising dinner held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. In his speech President Kennedy addresses his discontent with the press’s news coverage of the Bay of Pigs incident, suggesting that there is a need for “far greater public information” and “far greater official secrecy.”
“The President and the Press” (Text)
Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association
“The very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society;
and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies,
to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.”
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
May 1, 1961
President signs long-sought Area Redevelopment Act. A bill to aid communities with chronic unemployment.
President John F Kennedy signs the Area Redevelopment Act (:40)
“I want to commend the Members of the House and Senate who’ve been identified with this issue for a number of years, and they surround me here on both sides. I want to congratulate them and to say that there’s no piece of legislation which has been passed which gives me greater satisfaction to sign.”
Alan Shepard is launched on Freedom 7 on a sub-orbital spaceflight aboard a Mercury-Redstone rocket, and becomes the first American in outer space, a month after the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had earned the distinction as the first person in space. After roughly four hours of delays, the flight takes off, traveled more than 300 miles, lasts 15 minutes 22 seconds, and reaches an apogee of 187.42 kilometres (116.46 mi), and a maximum speed of 8,277 kilometres per hour (5,143 mph) (Mach 6.94). Shepard came down in the Atlantic Ocean near the Bahamas, where he was picked up by the aircraft carrier Lake Champlain.
Alan Shepard: Mercury Freedom 7 (9:04)
May 8, 1961
Kennedy meets with Alan Shepard at the White House, to congratulate him on becoming the first American in space. He awards him the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in a ceremony on the White House lawn. The six other Mercury Seven astronauts attend the ceremony, the next of which, Gus Grissom, would launch into space less than three months later.
President John F. Kennedy presents medal to Astronaut Alan B. Shepard (:57)
Three days after astronaut Commander Alan B. Shepard became the first American in space, he was awarded with a NASA Distinguished Service Medal by President John F. Kennedy at a Rose Garden Ceremony at the White House. With Shepard were his wife and his parents. Also present were Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and John Glenn. Caroline Kennedy watched from the balcony. Also clips of Louise Brewer Shepard and Jacqueline Kennedy in the Green Room at the Reception following the presentation.
President Kennedy meets NASA Astronauts in his office at the White House (:40)
President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Johnson meet Commander Alan Shepard, Jr., Lt. Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr., Lt. Commander Malcolm S. Carpenser, Captain Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr., Lt. Commander Walter M. Schirra, Jr. and Major Donald K. Slayton in the President’s office in the White House after the ceremony in the Rose Garden, where the President presented the Distinguished Service Medal of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to Commander Shepard.
May 16, 1961 – May 18, 1961
Kennedy makes the first international trip of his presidency, traveling to Ottawa, Canada, for a state visit. There he meets with Canadian Governor General Georges Vanier and Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.
President John F. Kennedy’s visit to Canada (3:50)
May 17, 1961
Kennedy addresses the Canadian parliament.
President John F. Kennedy and wife Jacqueline in the Canadian Parliament (5:20)
U.S. President John F. Kennedy at the Chamber of the Speaker of the House of Commons where he addresses the Senate and the House of Commons of Canada. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy is conducted to the Speaker’s private sitting room.
May 25, 1961
Kennedy in an address to a Joint session of the United States Congress, announces full presidential support for the goal to “commit…before this decade is out, to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” and urges Congress to appropriate the necessary funds, eventually consuming the largest financial expenditure of any nation in peacetime.
John F. Kennedy “Landing a man on the Moon” Address to Congress (Video 3:46)
In an address to a Joint session of the United States Congress on May 25, 1961, Kennedy announces full presidential support for the goal to “commit…before this decade is out, to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” and urges Congress to appropriate the necessary funds, eventually consuming the largest financial expenditure of any nation in peacetime.
President Kennedy Addresses Congress (May 25, 1961) (Audio 45:42)
President Kennedy learned of Rafael Trujillo’s (who ruled the Dominican Republic from February 1930 until his assassination in May 1961) assassination during a diplomatic meeting with French President Charles de Gaulle.
President Kennedy Is Said to Have Tried to Stop Assassination of Trujillo
by Nicholas M. Horrock
White House officials under President Kennedy made an abortive, last-minute attempt to stop the assassination of the Dominican Republic dictator, General Rafael Trujillo Molina, according to former intelligence officers and current Government sources.
A cable was sent from the National Security Council, which is the President’s arm for directing foreign affairs, to the station chief of the Central Intelligence Agency in Ciudad Trujillo (now Santo Domingo) the day before a group of Dominicans killed General Trujillo in an ambush outside the capital.
It informed the C.I.A. official that the United States could not condone an attempt to overthrow General Trujillo’s Government and was based on information from the Dominican Republic that assassination was part of the plot to remove the Trujillo dictatorship…
Kennedy makes the second international trip of his presidency.
President Kennedy’s Trip to Europe, May 30, 1961 – June 5, 1961
This segment features archival footage covering highlights of President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 trip to Europe. Included are scenes of President and Mrs. Kennedy in Paris, France; President Kennedy meeting over two days with the Soviet Union’s Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev in Vienna, Austria; and President Kennedy and meeting British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, in London, England. The footage is narrated by Kennedy Library Director Tom Putnam.
Kennedy addresses North Atlantic Council, and meets with French President Charles de Gaulle in Paris, France.
President John F. Kennedy in Paris, France (9:30)
May 31, 1961
President and Mrs. Kennedy are given a state dinner at the Élysée Palace in Paris.
June 1, 1961
President Kennedy meets with his advisers and with Ambassador to France, General James Gavin.
President Kennedy addresses the staff of the U.S Embassy in Paris, a civic reception at the Hotel de Ville, and the North Atlantic Council.
Meeting with President de Gaulle at the Élysée Palace.
President and Mrs. Kennedy are welcomed by departmental and municipal officials at the Hotel De Ville. The President makes brief remarks.
President and Mrs. Kennedy host a luncheon for President de Gaulle at the American Embassy.
President Kennedy addresses NATO officials and personnel at the NATO Headquarters building at Porte Dauphine.
President and Mrs. Kennedy are given a State Dinner in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles.
June 2, 1961
President Kennedy visits SHAPE headquarters where he is greeted by Supreme Allied Commander Lauris Norstadt and makes brief remarks.
President Kennedy and President Charles de Gaulle conclude three days of discussions at the Élysée Palace. In a joint communiqué both leaders declare that they are in firm agreement on the defense of Berlin.
June 3, 1961
President Kennedy and his party depart Paris.
June 3, 1961
Kennedy meets with Austrian President Adolf Schärf.(3:21)
US President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at a gala dinner in Vienna’s palace Schönbrunn. The Austrian government is hosting a banquet for the visiting American and Russian leaders. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy is wearing a dress designed by Oleg Cassini in shell pink silk-georgette chiffon, embroidered with sequins. Nina Khrushchev, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Austrian President Adolf Schaerf, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and U.S. first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, at Schoenbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria. The Vienna State Opera Ballet dances a waltz.
June 3, 1961 – June 4, 1961
President Kennedy meets with Khrushchev of the Soviet Union in Vienna for a the two day summit. The conference fails to resolve conflict over the status of Berlin. The focus of the meeting is disarmament, Germany, Laos and nuclear testing. They fail to agree on certain problems but issue a joint statement that they agrees to “maintain contact on all questions of interest to the two countries and for the whole world.” On August 13, 1961, the Soviets start to build a wall between East and West Berlin.
John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev meet at US Embassy, Vienna, Austria (2:43)
The historic first meeting between President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the American ambassador’s residence in Vienna, Austria, June 3, 1961.
John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev meets at the Embassy of the USSR (2:16)
The second meeting between President John F. Kennedy meets Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Embassy of the Soviet Union, Vienna, Austria on June 4, 1961.
…In June 1961, Kennedy met with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, Austria. (See a memorandum outlining the main points of conversation between President Kennedy and Khrushchev at their first lunch meeting.) Kennedy was surprised by Khrushchev’s combative tone during the summit. At one point, Khrushchev threatened to cut off AlliedUS Information Agency Incoming Telegram access to Berlin. The Soviet leader pointed out the Lenin Peace Medals he was wearing, and Kennedy answered, “I hope you keep them.” Just two months later, Khrushchev ordered the construction of the Berlin Wall to stop the flood of East Germans into West Germany.
As a result of these threatening developments, Kennedy ordered substantial increases in American intercontinental ballistic missile forces. He also added five new army divisions and increased the nation’s air power and military reserves. The Soviets meanwhile resumed nuclear testing and President Kennedy responded by reluctantly reactivating American tests in early 1962…
June 5, 1961
President Kennedy visits with British Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in London, England.
June 4, 1961 – June 5, 1961 – John F. Kennedy arriving in London (7:21)
June 4, 1961
President and Mrs. Kennedy fly to London for a personal visit at the home of the Radziwills (Lee Radziwill is the sister of Jacqueline Kennedy).
June 5, 1961
President Kennedy and Prime Minister Macmillan meet at London’s Admiralty House to review the world situation. Both leaders express satisfaction with the agreement in Vienna on the need for a Laotian cease fire. Both also express “full agreement on the necessity of maintaining the rights and obligations of the allied governments in Berlin.”
President and Mrs. Kennedy attend the christening ceremonies of the Radziwill’s newborn child in Westminster Cathedral.
President and Mrs. Kennedy are the guests of Queen Elizabeth II for a private dinner in their honor at Buckingham Palace
President Kennedy leaves London for Washington and Mrs. Kennedy remains at her sister Lee Radziwill’s home before flying to Greece and then returning to Washington.
June 5, 1961
President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan meet at Admiralty House (:58)
President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy leaving London’s Admiralty House with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and wife Dorothy. The Macmillans’ entertained the visiting president and his wife to luncheon.
June 5, 1961
President John F. Kennedy’s Remarks to the Staff of the US Embassy in London, England (5:51)
June 5, 1961
Late at night on June 5, 1961, on the plane flight back to Washington from his Vienna meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, a weary President Kennedy wrote down on a slip of paper as he was about to fall asleep, a favorite saying of his from Abraham Lincoln, really a prayer. Presidential secretary Evelyn Lincoln discovered the slip of paper on the floor. On it she read the words: “I know there is a God, and I see a storm coming. If he has a place for me, I believe that I am ready.”
June 6, 1961
Telegram relaying Khrushchev’s comments about meeting President Kennedy. Khrushchev commented that President Kennedy was “tough, very forthright and extremely intelligent.”
June 6, 1961
President Kennedy delivers a major radio and television report to the American people on his trip to Europe centering on his talks in Vienna with Soviet Premier Khrushchev.
John F. Kennedy report to the American people on his trip to Europe (5:00)
” I returned this morning from a weeklong trip to Europe and I want to report to you on that trip in full. It was in every sense an unforgettable experience. The people of Paris, of Vienna, of London, were generous in their greeting. They were heartwarming in their hospitality, and their graciousness to my wife is particularly appreciated. We knew of course that the crowds and the shouts were meant in large measure for the country that we represented, which is regarded as the chief defender of freedom. Equally memorable was the pageantry of European history and their culture that is very much a part of any ceremonial reception, to lay a wreath at the Arc de Triomphe, to dine at Versailles, and Schönbrunn Palace, and with the Queen of England. These are the colorful memories that will remain with us for many years to come. Each of the three cities that we visited – Paris, Vienna, and London – have existed for many centuries, and each serves as a reminder that the Western civilization that we seek to preserve has flowered over many years, and has defended itself over many centuries. But this was not a ceremonial trip. Two aims of American foreign policy, above all others, were the reason for the trip: the unity of the free world, whose strength is the security of us all, and the eventual achievement of a lasting peace. My trip was devoted to the advancement of these two aims. To strengthen the unity of the West, our journey opened in Paris and closed in London. My talks with General de Gaulle were profoundly encouraging to me. Certain differences in our attitudes on one or another problem became insignificant in view of our common commitment to defend freedom. Our alliance, I believe, became more secure; the friendship of our nation, I hope – with theirs – became firmer; and the relations between the two of us who bear responsibility became closer, and I hope were marked by confidence. I found General de Gaulle far more interested in our frankly stating our position, whether or not it was his own, than in appearing to agree with him when we do not. But he knows full well the true meaning of an alliance. He is after all the only major leader of World War II who still occupies a position of great responsibility. His life has been one of unusual dedication; he is a man of extraordinary personal character, symbolizing the new strength and the historic grandeur of France. Throughout our discussions he took the long view of France and the world at large. I found him a wise counselor for the future, and an informative guide to the history that he has helped to make. Thus we had a valuable meeting. I believe that certain doubts and suspicions that might have come up in along time – I believe were removed on both sides. Problems which proved to be not of substance but of wording or procedure were cleared away. No question, however sensitive, was avoided. No area of interest was ignored, and the conclusions that we reached will be important for the future – in our agreement on defending Berlin, on working to improve the defenses of Europe, on aiding the economic and political independence of the underdeveloped world, including Latin America, on spurring European economic unity, on concluding successfully the conference on Laos, and on closer consultations and solidarity in the Western alliance. General de Gaulle could not have been more cordial, and I could not have more confidence in any man.”
June 12, 1961
President Kennedy flies back to Washington D.C. from Palm Beach. Kennedy returns on crutches from a rest to meet Italian Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani to begin two days of discussions.
June 20, 1961
President Kennedy meets with Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda of Japan.
President John F. Kennedy Meets with Hayato Ikeda, Prime Minister of Japan
Meeting with the Prime Minister of Japan Hayato Ikeda. (L-R) President John F. Kennedy, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Zentaro Kosaka, Prime Minister Ikeda, United States Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer, interpreter James J. Wickel. Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C.
President John F. Kennedy meets with Hayato Ikeda, Prime Minister of Japan (1:00)
U.S. President John F. Kennedy walks on crutches as he leaves his limousine to board the presidential yacht “Honey Fitz” for a cruise down the Potomac River with Japanese Prime Minister Ikeda, in Washington on June 21, 1961. President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister of Japan Hayato Ikeda aboard President Kennedy’s yacht “Honey Fitz.” Hains Point, Potomac River, Washington, D.C.
June 23, 1961 – Prime Minister of Japan Hayato Ikeda pays a farewell call on President John F. Kennedy. Yellow Oval Room, White House, Washington, D.C.
June 21, 1961
My mother told a story, says Caroline Kennedy; She was sitting next to Khrushchev at a state dinner in Vienna, on June 3, 1961. She ran out of things to talk about, so she asked about the dog, Strelka, that the Russians had shot into space. During the conversation, my mother asked about Strelka’s puppies. Soon after a puppy arrived at the White House, the puppy was Strelka’s daughter, Pushinka. Kennedy’s letter from June 21, 1961, to Khrushchev thanking him for the gift of Pushinka is one of many letters exchanged between the leaders.
June 28, 1961
The first extremely important step for President John Fitzgerald Kennedy to reign in the Central Intelligence Agency was to issue, National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) NSAM 55, 57 an 57 on June 28, 1961.
Following the failed Bay of Pigs (See April 15, 1961 – April 20, 1961), the failed Algiers putsch against President of France, Charles de Gaulle (See April 21, 1961 – April 26, 1961), and the January 17, 1961, assassination of Prime Minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, just three days before his presidential inauguration (See January 17, 1961).
John M. Newman writes, “The crux of NSAM 55, however, was this: Kennedy charged the Joint Chiefs with responsibility for ‘defense of the nation in the Cold War’ and ‘dynamic and imaginative leadership… of military and paramilitary aspects of Cold War programs.’ This mandate was big news, since cold war paramilitary operations were, up to this moment, the exclusive fiefdom of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).”
NSAM 55, 57 and 57 stripped the CIA of its cherished covert operations role, except for small actions. It cut out the red tape that normally would hinder such an endeavor.
Many military historians of the Kennedy era, most notably, John M. Newman and Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty (Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Kennedy) have written that JFK was trying to reign in the power of the CIA throughout most of his abbreviated term in office. Some have wondered, in the context of an evolving Cuba policy and a planned withdrawal from Vietnam, both hot spots for CIA activities, if this may have been the motivation for his assassination.
See: November 28, 1961 – November 29, 1961: JFK fires Allan Dulles. Deputy Director for Plans Richard M. Bissell, Jr., and Deputy Director General Charles Cabell.
President Kennedy signs bill extending Social Security benefits to five million people and permitting people to retire with benefits at age 62.
President Kennedy signs most comprehensive Housing Bill in history, initiating aid to middle income families and mass transportation users, and increasing urban renewal and elderly housing.
June 30, 1961
President John F. Kennedy Signs the Housing Act of 1961 (:30)
President John F. Kennedy signs into law an omnibus housing bill to authorize a thirty-year low interest rate mortgage loan program for moderate income families, and an increase of $300 million for loans for construction of college housing through 1964.
Remarks Upon Signing the Housing Act
I want to express our pleasure in signing S. 1922, the Housing Act of 1961. This bill is the most important and far-reaching Federal legislation in the field of housing since the enactment of the Housing Act of 1949. For the communities of the Nation, large and small, it provides an opportunity for a giant step toward better cities and improved housing. And I think the beneficial effects of this legislation will be felt by every American…
President Kennedy signs bill doubling Federal effort to halt water pollution.
July 12, 1961
President Kennedy meets with President Ayub Khan of Pakistan at the White House.
July 20, 1961
On the morning of July 20, 1961, while the Berlin Crisis was simmering, President John F. Kennedy and the members of the National Security Council (NSC) heard a briefing on the consequences of nuclear war by the NSC’s highly secret Net Evaluation Subcommittee. The report, published in excerpts today for the first time by the National Security Archive, depicted a Soviet surprise attack on the United States in the fall of 1963 that began with submarine-launched missile strikes against Strategic Air Command bases. An estimated 48 to 71 million Americans were “killed outright,” while at its maximum casualty-producing radioactive fallout blanketed from 45 to 71 percent of the nation’s residences. In the USSR and China, at the end of one month 67 and 76 million people, respectively, had been killed. This was President Kennedy’s first exposure to a NESC report, but the secret studies of nuclear war scenarios had been initiated by his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower. It may have been after this National Security Council briefing, described by Secretary of State Dean Rusk as “an awesome experience,” that a dismayed Kennedy turned to Rusk, and said: “And we call ourselves the human race.”
From: Did The U.S. Military Plan A Nuclear First Strike For 1963? (Fall1994)
by James Galbraith and Heather Purcell
Recently declassified information shows that the military presented President Kennedy with a plan for a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union in the early 1960s…
…beginning in 1957 the U.S. military did prepare plans for a preemptive nuclear strike against the U.S.S.R., based on our growing lead in land-based missiles. And top military and intelligence leaders presented an assessment of those plans to President John F. Kennedy in July of 1961. At that time, some high Air Force and CIA leaders apparently believed that a window of outright ballistic missile superiority, perhaps sufficient for a successful first strike, would be open in late 1963.
The document reproduced opposite is published here for the first time. It describes a meeting of the National Security Council on July 20, 1961. At that meeting, the document shows, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the director of the CIA, and others presented plans for a surprise attack. They answered some questions from Kennedy about timing and effects, and promised further information. The meeting recessed under a presidential injunction of secrecy that has not been broken until now…
…In 1960, claims of a “missile gap” favoring the Soviets had given the Democrats a critical election theme, and many millions of Americans entered the Sixties feeling intensely vulnerable to the new Soviet ICBM threat. But as Richard Reeves has recently written, intelligence based on satellites launched in August of 1960 soon challenged the campaign assessment and public view. The United States had beaten the USSR to an operational ICBM and enjoyed a clear, and growing, numerical advantage. We were far ahead, and our military planners knew it.
Kennedy was quickly convinced of this truth, which was further confirmed as new satellites brought back new information. Later in 1961, a National Intelligence Estimate came through showing only four Soviet ICBMs in place, all of them on low alert at a test site called Plesetsk. By fall, Defense Undersecretary Roswell Gilpatric would acknowledge in a public speech that U.S. forces (with 185 ICBMs and over 3,400 deliverable nuclear bombs at that time) were vastly superior to those of the Russians…
July 25, 1961
President Kennedy tells nation of determination to deter war in West Berlin, increasing military might and manpower; Soviet deadline for East German Treaty subsequently passes.
August 7, 1961
President Kennedy signs first of three bills creating National Seashore Parks, the first major addition to the National Park System in 16 years. On August 7, 1961, he established the Cape Cod National Seashore.
National Parks Servive milestone: Exploring the National Seashore’s watery roots
by Don Wilding
…The Cape Cod National Seashore was signed into law on Aug. 7, 1961, by Kennedy, who became president seven months earlier. A “Mission 66” hallmark was the visitors center. The Cape now has two visitors centers, Salt Pond in Eastham and Province Lands in Provincetown. The park, with numerous selling points, now draws over 4 million visitors annually…
President Kennedy signs most comprehensive wheat and feed grain bill since 1938, resulting in higher farm income and lower food surpluses.
August 11, 1961
NSAM 65, Joint Program of Action with the Government of Vietnam to Secretary of State Dean Rusk from McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
August 13, 1961 – November 9, 1961
By July 1961 American officials estimated that over 1,000 East German refugees were crossing into West Berlin each day, an economic and demographic drain that, left unchecked, would spell disaster for the East.
The Berlin Crisis was the last major politico-military European incident of the Cold War about the occupational status of the German capital city, Berlin, and of post–World War II Germany. The USSR provoked the Berlin Crisis with an ultimatum demanding the withdrawal of Western armed forces from West Berlin, culminating in the city’s de facto partition with the East German erection of the Berlin Wall staring on August 13, 1961.
At Checkpoint Charlie, on October 27, 1961 at 17:00 until October 28, 1961 at about 11:00, a 16 hour standoff between United States and Soviet troops on either side of the diplomatic checkpoint led to one of the tensest moments of the Cold War in Europe. A dispute over whether East German or Soviet guards were authorized to patrol the checkpoints and examine the travel documents of U.S. diplomats passing through led the United States to station tanks on its side of the checkpoint, pointing toward the East German troops just beyond the wall. Concerns that U.S. forces would either attempt to take down the wall or force their way through the checkpoint led the Soviet Union to station its own tanks on the East German side. A wrong move during the face-off could have led to war, and any conventional skirmish between two nuclear powers always brought with it the risk of escalation. Instead, Kennedy made use of back channels to suggest that Khrushchev remove his tanks, promising that if the Soviet Union did so, the U.S. Army would reciprocate. The standoff ended peacefully.
For more see the comprehensive section: Berlin Crisis
August 13, 1961
East Germany, supported by the Soviet Union, begins construction of the Berlin Wall, halting the flow of refugees to the West.
August 17, 1961
The Alliance for Progress was signed at an inter-American conference at Punta del Este, Uruguay, in August 1961. To advance the work of the Alliance, President and Mrs. Kennedy visited Puerto Rico, Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia, while the president joined all six presidents of Central American governments at an unprecedented meeting in Costa Rica. In ceremonies at the White House, the president and first lady honored the presidents of Peru, Brazil, Panama, Colombia, Honduras, Chile, Venezuela and Bolivia, and Governor Muñoz Marín of Puerto Rico.
Kennedy Wins Minimum Wage Victory
Making due on his campaign promise of August 10, 1960, President Kennedy signs $1.25 Minimum Wage Bill, expanding coverage by several million for the first time since original passage.
September 18, 1961
Dag Hammarskjöld killed [or Murdered] in a plane crash. President John F. Kennedy called Hammarskjöld “the greatest statesman of our century.” Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (July 29 1905 – September 18, 1961) was a Swedish diplomat, economist, and author, who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash on September 18, 1961.
At the age of 56 years and 255 days, Hammarskjöld was the youngest to have held the post. Additionally, he is one of only four people to be awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize and was the only United Nations Secretary-General to die while in office.
He was killed in a Douglas DC-6 airplane crash en route to cease-fire negotiations. Hammarskjöld has been referred to as one of the two best secretaries-general, and his appointment has been mentioned as the most notable success for the UN.
Former United States President Harry Truman said diplomat was on the verge of “getting something done when they killed him.”
Evidence may lead to new probe in 1961 death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld
Documents, testimony add weight to case that plane crash was no accident
by Melissa Kent
New evidence to be submitted to the United Nations’ General Assembly this week could help shed light on one of the enduring mysteries of the 20th century, namely, was the 1961 death of the second UN Secretary General an accident or an act of murder?
Dag Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash in Ndola, Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, along with 15 others on Sept. 18, 1961.
The 56-year old Swedish diplomat was in Africa to try to unite the Congo, but faced resistance from a number of multinationals, often supported by mercenaries and openly hostile to the UN, who coveted the area’s mineral wealth.
The crash has been a source of widespread speculation for decades, which has ramped up thanks to evidence uncovered in the last few years.
That includes testimony from a former U.S. National Security Agency intelligence officer who claims he heard a recording of another pilot attacking the plane, as well as a Belgian pilot who says that he accidentally shot the plane down after being hired to merely divert it….
Dag Hammarskjöld is dead, crash site footage (3:07)
Death (or Murder] of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld. Footage of the crash site near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia
September 22, 1961
President John F. Kennedy Signs Peace Corps Act
Shortly after his inauguration in January 1961, Kennedy made good on his promise for a new and aggressive foreign policy. On March 1, 1961, he issued an executive order establishing the Peace Corps. As described by Kennedy, this new organization would be an “army” of civilian volunteers, teachers, engineers, agricultural scientists, etc., who would be sent to underdeveloped nations in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and elsewhere to assist the people of those regions.
Making due on a campaign promise made on November 4, 1960. President Kennedy signs a bill committing United States to unprecedented search for economic breakthrough in the conversion of salt water to fresh.
September 22, 1961
President Kennedy signs a bill establishing first Federal program to help combat juvenile delinquency.
September 25, 1961
President John F. Kennedy’s address before the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) in New York City (JFK’s first of two). In his speech Kennedy addresses the recent death of Secretary-General Hammarskjold, presents six proposals for the new Disarmament Program (announces the United States intention to “challenge the Soviet Union, not to an arms race, but to a peace race”), and provides information on the current crises in Berlin, Germany, Laos, and South Vietnam.
“Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be inhabitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us. It is therefore our intention to challenge the Soviet Union, not to an arms race, but to a peace race, to advance together step by step, stage by stage, until general and complete disarmament has been achieved.”
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
November 28, 1961 – November 29, 1961
Following the failed Bay of Pigs (See April 15, 1961 – April 20, 1961), and the failed Algiers putsch against Charles de Gaulle (See April 21, 1961 – April 26, 1961), CIA Director, Allan Dulles faced increased criticism from President Kennedy.
On November 28, 1961, Kennedy presented Allan Dulles with the National Security Medal at the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The next day, November 29, the White House released a resignation letter signed by Allan Dulles. Also forced to resign were the second and third behind Dullas, Deputy Director for Plans, Richard M. Bissell, Jr., and Deputy Director, General Charles Cabell. An interesting fact, on November 22, 1963, the brother of General Charles Cabell, was Mayor Earle Cabell, of Dallas, Texas.
Knowing this, it now becomes beyond quite interesting that Allen Dulles, who was fired by JFK, was not only a member of the Warren Commission, but actually played the leading role in promoting both the single bullet theory and lone gunman narratives.
For more see the comprehensive section: Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
December 9, 1961
Tanganyika became independent nation (Tanganyika subsequently merged with Zanzibar in 1964 to become Tanzania).
December 13, 1961 – December 25, 1961
White House Christmas Tree, December 13, 1961
President and Mrs. Kennedy with the 1961 White House Christmas tree. White House, Blue Room. Photograph by Robert Knudsen.
Christmas With Kennedy’s 1961 (1:42)
President Kennedy’s 1961 Christmas Message Still Inspires Today
“Christmas expresses the deepest hopes for a world of peace.”
by Caroline Hallemann
“For uncounted millions, Christmas expresses the deepest hopes for a world of peace where love rather than mistrust will flourish between neighbors.”
This was before our country was taken over, which became quite evident with the removal of nativity scenes that were soon replaced with a huge menorah in front of the White House during Christmastime.
The War on Christmas (11:08)
President Kennedy renews American commitment to preserve independence of Vietnam.
December 16, 1961 – December 17, 1961
Kennedy makes the third international trip of his presidency. Meets with Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt in Caracas, Venezuela. Then meets with Colombian President Alberto Lleras Camargo in Bogota, Colombia.
December 21 – 22, 1961
Kennedy makes the fourth international trip of his presidency, travelling to Hamilton, Bermuda, where he meets with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
January 1962 – November 1963
President’s Daily Diary – January 1962 – November 1963
January 11, 1962
John F. Kennedy delivers his second State of the Union address
John F. Kennedy State of the Union Address, January 11, 1962 (Audio 32 minutes)
Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union. (Full Text)
“The task must begin at home. For if we can not fulfill our own ideals here, we cannot expect others to accept them.”
“It is the fate of this generation, of you in Congress and of me as President, to live with a struggle that we did not start, in a world that we did not make. But, the pressures of life are not always distributed by choice. And while no nation has ever faced such a challenge, no nation has ever been so ready to seize the burden and the glory of freedom.”
January 29, 1962
The Geneva conference, with the United States, Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom participating, adjourns without reaching an agreement on a nuclear test ban.
February 3, 1962
Embargo on All Trade with Cuba
By the President of the United States of America Proclamation 3447.
February 10, 1962
American U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers is released by the Soviets in exchange for Soviet Colonel Rudolf Abel, a senior KGB spy who was caught in the United States five years earlier. The two men were brought to separate sides of the Glienicker Bridge, which connects East and West Berlin across Lake Wannsee. As the spies waited, negotiators talked in the center of the bridge where a white line divided East from West. Finally, Powers and Abel were waved forward and crossed the border into freedom at the same moment, 8:52 a.m., Berlin time. Just before their transfer, Frederic Pryor–an American student held by East German authorities since August 1961–was released to American authorities at another border checkpoint.
February 12, 1962
As Commander-in-chief, Kennedy commutes the military death sentence of seaman Jimmie Henderson to life imprisonment, marking the last time in the 20th century that an American president was faced with such a decision.
February 20, 1962
Astronaut John Glenn is launched on Friendship 7 on an orbital space flight aboard a Mercury-Atlas rocket, and becomes the first American to orbit the Earth.
NBC News Re-broadcast coverage John Glenn 1962 Space Flight (5:37)
February 26, 1962
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that segregation in transportation facilities is unconstitutional.
U.S. Supreme Court, Bailey v. Patterson, 369 U.S. 31, Decided February 26, 1962
March 2, 1962
President announces that Soviet resumption of atmospheric nuclear testing makes American testing necessary in late April unless effective treaty is signed.
The main proposal was presented in a document titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba,” a top secret collection of draft memoranda written by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The document was presented by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as a preliminary submission for planning purposes. The JCS recommended that both the covert and overt aspects of any such operation be assigned to them.
Operation Northwoods was a proposed false flag operation against the Cuban government, that originated within the U.S. DoD and the JCS of the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or other U.S. government operatives to commit acts of terrorism against American civilians and military targets, blaming it on the Cuban government, and using it to justify a war against Cuba. The plans detailed in the document included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities. The proposals were rejected by the Kennedy administration.
For more see the comprehensive section: Operation Northwoods
March 15, 1962
Statement by President Kennedy Upon Signing the Manpower Development and Training Act.
I have today signed S. 1991, the “Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962.” President Kennedy signs first major Federal bill to retrain jobless victims of automation and chronic unemployment.
March 22, 1962
Kennedy signs into law HR5143 (PL87-423), abolishing the mandatory death penalty for first degree murder in the District of Columbia, the only remaining jurisdiction in the United States with a mandatory death sentence for first degree murder, replacing it with life imprisonment with parole if the jury could not decide between life imprisonment and the death penalty, or if the jury chose life imprisonment by a unanimous vote. The death penalty in the District of Columbia has not been applied since 1957, and has now been abolished.
The evidence suggests that JFK and Marilyn Monroe were intimate at least once. On March 24, 1962, JFK and Marilyn Monroe were both guests at Bing Crosby’s house in Palm Springs. JFK had arranged the rendezvous through the actor Peter Lawford, who was married to JFK’s sister Pat at the time. According to Marilyn Monroe’s biographer Donald Spoto, Marilyn Monroe called her personal masseur, the actor Ralph Roberts, from the same bedroom where JFK was staying at Bing Crosby’s house. Roberts, JFK, and Monroe then had a brief conversation about the President’s back problems. Spoto later interviewed Ralph Roberts, who clarified what Marilyn Monroe had told him about her sexual experiences with JFK. Later, once the rumor mill was grinding, Marilyn told me that this night in March was the only time of her “affair” with JFK. Of course she was titillated beyond belief, because for a year he had been trying, through Lawford, to have an evening with her. A great many people thought, after that weekend, that there was more to it. But Marilyn gave me the impression that it was not a major event for either of them: it happened once, that weekend, and that was that.
For more see the comprehensive section: Marilyn Monroe
April 5, 1962
President calls for overhaul of Federal transportation policy, emphasizing increased and equal competition instead of regulation; also renews request for urban mass transportation program.
Special Message to the Congress on Transportation (Text)
March 31, 1962 – April 11, 1962
Kennedy goes toe to toe with United States Steel. One of the leading companies in the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned of was United States Steel, a major contractor with the United States military that controlled 25% of the entire steel market. Steelworkers staged a 4-month strike in 1959 during Eisenhower’s second term, and Kennedy hoped to avoid a similar flare up during his tenure.
Kennedy was also concerned about potentially rising inflation, so his administration set an informal but well-publicized target of having wage increases and price hikes match productivity increases. Meanwhile, United Steelworkers’ (USW) bargaining over a contract with the nation’s steel companies was getting nowhere, so the Kennedy administration intervened. Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg, a longtime union counsel, mediated the talks. The two sides reached agreement on March 31. The pact, with ten of the nation’s 11 steel companies, called for an increase in fringe benefits worth 10 cents an hour in 1962, but no wage hikes that year. Then-AFL-CIO President George Meany said that in the pact, the union “settled on a wage increase figure somewhat less than the Steelworkers thought they would get.”
Kennedy praised the contract as “obviously non-inflationary” and said both the USW and the steel firms showed “industrial statesmanship of the highest order.” The agreement also implicitly said the companies would not raise prices, as that would be inflationary. But on April 10, Roger Blough, CEO of United States Steel, the largest of the firms, met Kennedy in the Oval Office and told him the company was immediately raising prices by $6 a ton, and that other steel companies would follow. Six other steel companies did raise their prices. The 3.5% hike and being double-crossed enraged the president. What he said in public was biting, but he was even more caustic in private.
In an April 11, 1962 press conference, Kennedy called the price hikes “a wholly unjustifiable and irresponsible defiance of the public interest.” He criticized “a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility.” The executives had “utter contempt” for the United States, Kennedy said.
But after Kennedy’s defense secretary, Robert McNamara, informed United States Steel that a new submarine contract would be given to a smaller steel company that hadn’t agreed to the price hike, other industries that had raised prices in response to United States Steel’s maneuver quickly withdrew their price hikes, leaving the military-industrial complex smarting from the Kennedy administration’s pointed blow.
“My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it until now.”
John F. Kennedy, April 1962
May 1, 1962
One thousand members of the Society of Friends had been vigiling for peace and world order outside the White House. Kennedy meets with six Quakers in the Oval Office on May 1, 1962. James W. Douglass wrote: “Kennedy’s dialogue with the Quakers was a hopeful sign of what would come in the last year of his presidency, when he would make a crucial turn toward peace.”
David Hartsough called himself “the token young guy” on a six-person Quaker delegation that met with President Kennedy to discuss world peace and nuclear disarmament at a time when the threat of nuclear war had reached an historic high point. The others invited to the Oval Office made up a who’s who of prominent Quaker peace advocates: Ed Snyder and Samuel Levering, executive secretary and chairperson, respectively, of the Friends Committee on National Legislation; Henry Cadbury, a professor at Harvard Divinity School and the chairperson of the American Friends Service Committee; Dorothy Hutchinson, president of the U.S. section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; and George Willoughby, who had sailed on the Golden Rule into the nuclear testing area in the Pacific.
In an interview with Street Spirit, Hartsough described his meeting with JFK. “Kennedy met with us in his office, sitting in his rocking chair next to the fireplace, and we sat around him, and he listened to us. We told him there was a nuclear submarine that was to be named the William Penn, and that was totally unacceptable.”
Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was a Quaker and a pacifist. Naming a nuclear submarine the William Penn is exactly the same as naming a battleship the USS Gandhi or a jet bomber the St. Francis of Assisi.
Hartsough said, “Kennedy just grinned and told us, ‘I’ll see that it doesn’t happen.’ ” The president was as good as his word, and the nuclear-armed submarine was not named after the Quaker pacifist.
The president’s secretary came in after 25 minutes and said, “Mr. President, your next appointment is here.” Kennedy said, “Tell them to wait, I’m learning something from these Quakers.”
All six members of the Quaker delegation were highly impressed by Kennedy’s listening with an open mind to the radical antiwar values of the delegation, and his evident sincerity in understanding the urgent need to work for world peace.
“I think most important to me was, first, that he listened,” Hartsough said. “He wasn’t just pontificating as if he was the president and we were lowly peons. And, second, we were speaking truth to power in the White House, and Kennedy wasn’t just rejecting it as hogwash.”
See October 9, 1963 “Wheat Sale: U.S. to Sell Grain to Soviet Bloc.”
May 1, 1962
Kennedy signs the Educational Television Facilities Act into law, marking the first time Congress provided major federal aid to public broadcasting.
May 19, 1962
Marilyn Monroe sings Happy Birthday, Mr. President to President Kennedy in Madison Square Garden as part of the President’s 45th birthday celebrations (JFK’s birthday was on May 29).
Marilyn Monroe – Happy Birthday Mr. President (3:50)
Marilyn Monroe sings Happy Birthday to President Kennedy.
June 28, 1961
National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 55, 56 And 57
http://NSAM_55_56And57.November221963.com
June 29, 1962 – July 1, 1962
Kennedy makes the fifth international trip of his presidency, traveling to Mexico City, Mexico, for a state visit. There he meets with Mexican President Adolfo López Mateos.
Progress through Freedom: The President’s Trip to Mexico, 1962: (Video 20 minutes)
Motion picture covering President John F. Kennedy’s trip to Mexico beginning in June of 1962. Included are scenes of President Kennedy being welcomed with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy by Mexican President Adolfo Lopez Mateos and delivering remarks, a tour by the First Lady, and shots of local landmarks, scenery, and activities. Presented by: United States Information Service (USIS). Produced in cooperation with Movietone Productions.
Directed by: Leo Seltzer
Written by: Doris Ransohoff
Narrated by: Jose Ferrer
June 29, 1962
President John F. Kennedy’s remarks in the National Palace in Mexico City (:59)
Address by the President at a Luncheon Given in His Honor by President López Mateos. ”We in the United States are committed to a better life for our people, for no nation can seek social justice abroad that does not practice it at home. But now, in addition, the United States of America is committed to help fulfill these goals throughout the Americas, to work together with Mexico and all the other nations of the inter-American system, to create a society in which all men have equal access to land, to jobs, and to education – a society in which no man is exploited for the enrichment of a few, and in which every arm of the Government is dedicated to the welfare of all the people. This effort is not a one-way street. We in the United States have much to learn, as well as something to teach.”
Mexico: JFK trip to Mexico City, 1962: June-July
This folder contains materials collected by the office of President John F. Kennedy’s secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, concerning President Kennedy’s visit to Mexico City, Mexico. Materials in this folder include itineraries, a commemorative brochure, a press release announcing the President’s schedule, a list of officials accompanying the President, guest lists for events and meetings, suggested remarks for the President to deliver upon arrival, a program from the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico, letters thanking those responsible for making administrative arrangements, and briefing papers concerning the Alliance for Progress, the current state of the Mexican economy, the salinity problem near the lower Colorado River, and possible joint ventures between Mexico and the United States. This folder contains some Spanish-language material
President John F. Kennedy in Mexico, June 29, 30 and July 1, 1962 (2:59)
July 1, 1962
President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Attend Mass in Mexico City (:37)
President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy attending mass at the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe) officiated by Archbishop of Mexico City Miguel Darío Miranda y Gómez in Mexico City, Mexico.
July 1962
President John F. Kennedy – July 1962 (7:55)
July 4, 1962 – President John F. Kennedy visits Independence Hall in Philadelphia and touches the Liberty Bell.
July 10, 1962 – President Kennedy attends the All Star baseball game at Washington D.C. Stadium.
July 17, 1962 – Meeting with Anthony Celebrezze and HEW Secretary Abraham Ribicoff
July 18, 1962 – Presentation of the Robert J. Collier Trophy for outstanding achievement in aviation to four X-15 rocket plane pilots.
July 20, 1962 – Meeting with French Minister of Finance Valery Giscard D’Estaing.
July 22, 1962 – President and Mrs. Kennedy cruise aboard the Marlin accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. John Glenn, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
July 25, 1962 – Meeting with Maxwell Taylor and Lyman Lemnitzer.
July 2, 1962
President Kennedy couples depreciation reform with tax credit to spur greater investment in industry.
July 3, 1962
Algeria becomes a sovereign state. This is five years and one day after Kennedy was the first Senator to supported Algeria’s struggle for Independence.
Algerian National Liberation (1954-1962)
The Algerian war for independence began in 1954 and ended in on July 3. 1962 when French President Charles De Gaulle pronounced Algeria an independent country.
July 4, 1962
Kennedy delivered an address at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in which he spoke of the new movement toward interdependence that is transforming the world, and noting that the spirit of that new effort is the same spirit which gave birth to the American Constitution.
JFK Speech at Independence Hall – July 4, 1962 (16:05)
President Kennedy praises the American democratic system which encourages differences and allows for dissent, discusses the enduring relevance of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and addresses the role of the United States in relation to the emerging European Community.
July 10, 1962
President Kennedy attends the All Star baseball game at D.C. Stadium, and throws out the first pitch.
July 12, 1962
President Kennedy couples depreciation reform with tax credit to spur greater investment in plant and industry.
July 26, 1962
Statement by the President Upon Approving the Public Welfare Amendments Bill.
President Kennedy signs the most far-reaching revision of public welfare legislation since enactment in 1935, emphasizing family rehabilitation and training instead of dependency.
August 4, 1962
Marilyn Monroe is assassinated.
August 13, 1962
JFK’S Speech On The State Of The American Economy (Audio 28:23)
August 16, 1962
President Kennedy issued National Security Action Memorandum Number 179: U.S. Policy Toward Indonesia.
September 12, 1962
JFK – We Choose To Go To The Moon (17:48)
Kennedy delivers a speech at Rice University on the subject of the nation’s plans to land humans on the Moon. Kennedy announces his continued support for increased space expenditures, saying “we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
“Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, ‘Because it is there.’ Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.”
John F. Kennedy Moon Speech (Video, Audio and Text)
September 26, 1962
President Kennedy signs bill enabling construction of world’s largest atomic power plant in Hanford, Washington.
September 30, 1962
Joints Chiefs of Staff Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer is denied another term. Lemnitzer approved the plans known as Operation Northwoods in 1962, a proposed plan to discredit the Castro regime and create support for military action against Cuba by staging false flag acts of terrorism and developing “a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington”. Lemnitzer presented the plans to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962. It is unclear how McNamara reacted, but three days later President Kennedy told the general that there was no chance that the United States would take military action against Cuba.
50 Years After JFK Murder, The Finger Finally Points To Pentagon Chief Lemnitzer
Evidence Points to New Suspect as Architect of JFK Murder Plot: Pentagon Chief General Lyman Lemnitzer had Motives, Means, and Track Record, says Gladio expert
To sum up, Lemnitzer had deep ideological and personal motives for killing Kennedy. As NATO commander, he had all the necessary means at his disposal, with the advantage of distance and military discipline to keep it secret. Under him, NATO tried to assassinate President De Gaulle, a head of state who was an ideological and personal adversary, and several other highly respected figures.
Lemnitzer had deep and long-standing Mafia connections, and the contemporary political thriller and film “Seven Days in May” dropped a very broad hint that “Lyman” would lead a coup against Kennedy. Col. Lansdale, who also had scores to settle, was the ideal deputy to carry out the hit on JFK for his general.
by Richard Cottrell
For more see the comprehensive section: Lyman Lemnitzer
September 30, 1962
President Kennedy announces action by Federal Government to carry out court order admitting James Meredith to the University of Mississippi. The U.S. Supreme Court orders the University of Mississippi to admit James H. Meredith, its first African-American student. After Governor Ross Barnett attempts to block the admission, U.S. Marshals escort Meredith to campus while Federalized national guardsmen maintain order. They were met by an angry crowd of students and other local whites who opposed Meredith’s efforts to integrate “Old Miss.” The deadly riot that broke out forced President John F. Kennedy to intervene, and the episode helped change the President’s approach to civil rights.
For more see the comprehensive section: Civil Rights Movement
October 2, 1962
President Kennedy signs United Nations bond issue bill authorizing American participation in financing United Nations peacekeeping operations in the Congo and elsewhere.
October 2, 1962
President John F. Kennedy Signs Bill to Limit Drainage of Wetlands
President John F. Kennedy signs an amendment to the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act to limit the drainage of wetlands in the Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C. Present are Representative Lester R. Johnson (Wisconsin); Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, John P. Duncan, Jr.; Representative Henry S. Reuss (Wisconsin); Senator Eugene J. McCarthy (Minnesota).
October 9, 1962
Uganda’s Political History Independence through the 1960s
Uganda gained her independence on October 9, 1962. Since 1894 she was a British protectorate that was put together from some very organized kingdoms and chieftaincies that inhabited the lake regions of central Africa. At independence, Dr. Milton Apollo Obote, also leader of the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) became the first Prime Minister and head of the government.
October 10, 1962
President Kennedy signs first major improvement in Food and Drug laws since 1938, protecting families against untested and ineffective drugs.
Remarks Upon Signing the Drug Reform Bill (Text)
I am pleased to approve this bill, which is designed to provide safer and more effective drugs to the American consumer. Enactment of this legislation will help give the American consumer the protection from unsafe and ineffective drugs. It will also insure that our pharmaceutical industry will be even better equipped to provide us with the best possible drugs to be found anywhere.
October 11, 1962
President Kennedy signs Trade Expansion Act granting unprecedented authority to end American protectionism and build free world economic unity.
Remarks Upon Signing the Trade Expansion Act, October 11,1962 (Audio 3:56)
October 16, 1962 – January 17, 1963
Oil Men And Oil Depletion Allowance is a section that describes the powerful forces within the Texas oil industry and their wanting to keep the oil depletion allowance tax break. For me, this was the third top motive to assassinated Kennedy. Some of those who became extremely wealthy and powerful as a result of discoveries of oil in Texas included, Ross Sterling, Hugh R. Cullen, Sid Richardson and Clint Murchison.
Let me state, I wholeheartedly believe that there is no possible way Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson ordered the assassination of Kennedy. Yes, he despised the Kennedy brothers, and he had long litany of illegal activates including many murders committed by his personal hit man Malcolm Wallace, but he did not order the hit. Something I do find quite interesting is that a fingerprint of Malcolm Wallace was supposedly found in the sniper’s nest on the sixth floor of the Dallas School Book Depository. Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson had both foreknowledge of the Kennedy assassination and was an accessory after the fact.
and that he was deeply involved in the cover-up.
Philip F. Nelson, the author of LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination (2011) has pointed out that the oil depletion allowance, “allowed them to retain 27.5 percent of their oil revenue tax-tree; its loss, according to World Petroleum magazine, stood to cost the industry as much as $300 million in annual profits (in 1962 dollars). The original rationale for such an allowance was that the product that their investments yielded yeas a finite resource that would require continual investments in exploration and recovery in order to extend the flow of raw material; the more the companies produced, the less was available. Recognition of this depletion of the asset was intended as an incentive for finding and recovering more oil fields. (How this particular commodity was materially different from other forms of mining, or commercial ocean fishing, or even farming, was never fully explained, other than perhaps the oilmen having better lobbyists than the others.)”
During the 1960 presidential election Kennedy gave his support for the oil depletion allowance. In October, 1960, he said that he appreciated However, two years later, Kennedy decided to take on the oil industry. On October 16, 1962, Kennedy was able to persuade Congress to pass an act that removed the distinction between repatriated profits and profits reinvested abroad. While this law applied to industry as a whole, it especially affected the oil companies. It was estimated that as a result of this legislation, wealthy oilmen saw a fall in their earnings on foreign investment from 30 per cent to 15 per cent.
On January 17, 1963, President Kennedy presented his proposals for tax reform. This included relieving the tax burdens of low-income and elderly citizens. Kennedy also claimed he wanted to remove special privileges and loopholes. He even said he wanted to do away with the oil depletion allowance.
After the assassination of Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson dropped the government plans to remove the oil depletion allowance. Richard Nixon followed his example and it was not until the arrival of Jimmy Carter that the oil depletion allowance was removed.
From: What They Don’t Tell You About Oil Industry Tax Breaks
…To head off this larger threat, it was clear to John F. Kennedy’s political advisers that he would have to campaign in Texas, along with Florida, in 1963. Kennedy was interested in revoking the oil depletion allowance, a decision that would have meant steep losses for Texas oilmen, and he continued voicing his support for civil rights, always a contentious issue in the South.
President Kennedy demonstrated his willingness to buck big money during the “steel crisis” of April 1962, when he forced a price rollback by sending FBI agents into corporate offices. But Kennedy’s gutsiest, and arguably his most dangerous, domestic initiative was his administration’s crusade against the oil depletion allowance, the tax break that swelled uncounted oil fortunes. It gave oil companies a large and automatic deduction, regardless of their actual costs, as compensation for dwindling assets in the ground.
Robert Kennedy instructed the FBI to issue questionnaires, asking the oil companies for specific production and sales data. “The oil industry, in particular, the more financially vulnerable Dallas-based independents, did not welcome this intrusion. The trade publication Oil and Gas Journal charged that RFK was setting up a “battleground [on which] business and government will collide.”
FBI director Hoover expressed his own reservations, especially about the use of his agents to gather information in the matter. Hoover’s close relationship with the oil industry was part of the oil-intelligence link he shared with [CIA director Allen]Dulles and the CIA. Industry big shots weren’t just sources; they were clients and friends. And Hoover’s FBI was known for returning favors.
One of Hoover’s good friends, the ultrarich Texas oilman Clint Murchison Sr., was among the most aggressive players in the depletion allowance dispute. Murchison had been exposed as far back as the early 1950s, in Luce’s Time magazine no less—as epitomizing the absurdity of this giveaway to the rich and powerful. Another strong defender of the allowance was Democratic senator Robert Kerr of Oklahoma, the multimillionaire owner of the Kerr-McGee oil company. So friendly was he with his Republican colleague Prescott Bush that when Prescott’s son, George H. W. Bush, was starting up his Zapata Offshore [oil] operation, Kerr offered some of his own executives to help. Several of them even left Kerr’s company to become Bush’s top executives.
Lyndon Johnson shared in the prevailing oil belt enmity toward Kennedy. In fact, he was the one person in the White House the oilmen trusted. After Johnson ascended to the presidency, he and newly elected congressman Bush were often allies on such issues as the oil depletion allowance and the war in Vietnam [oil executive Jack] Crichton (close with Bush and head of a secretive Dallas-based, oil-connected military intelligence unit that deeply immersed in aspects of the tragic events of November 22, 1963) was so plugged into the Dallas power structure that one of his company directors was Clint Murchison Sr., king of the oil depletion allowance, and another was D. Harold Byrd, owner of the Texas School Book Depository building…
For more see the comprehensive section: Oil Men And Oil Depletion Allowance
October 16, 1962 – October 28, 1962
For thirteen days in October 1962 the world waited, seemingly on the brink of nuclear war, and hoped for a peaceful resolution to the Cuban missile crisis.
I owe my life, as do tens or hundreds of millions of other people, to President Kennedy, because of his incredible detente in defusing the Cuban missile crisis. As a four year old boy who lived in New York City at the time, during a nuclear exchange it would surely have been hit with multiple warheads.
John F. Kennedy And The Cuban Missle Crisis
October 16, 1962
JFK is shown photographs of Soviet nuclear missile sites being installed in Cuba. To minimize Soviet power in the West, the president initiates a blockade of Cuba the following week. For thirteen days, the Cuban missile crisis will bring the world closer to nuclear war than ever before or after.
October 22, 1962
President Kennedy’s address the nation on the Cuban missile crisis and orders a navel quarantine of Cuba to halt Soviet missile buildup and prevent further shipments of nuclear weapons.
October 28, 1962
After thirteen days of extreme tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Cuban missile crisis is resolved. The United States will pledge not to invade Cuba (and secretly agrees to remove missiles from Turkey), in exchange for the removal of the Soviet nuclear weapons from Cuba.
From: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matter
by James W. Douglass
JFK had to confront the unspeakable in the Missile Crisis in the form of total nuclear war. At the height of that terrifying conflict, he felt the situation spiraling out of control, especially because of the actions of his generals. For example, with both sides on hair-trigger alert, the U.S. Air Force test-fired missiles from California across the Pacific, deliberately trying to provoke the Soviets in a way that could justify our superior U.S. forces blanketing the USSR with an all-out nuclear attack. As we know from Kennedy’s secretly taped meeting with his Joint Chiefs of Staff on October 19, 1962, the Chiefs were pushing him relentlessly to launch a pre-emptive strike on Cuba, and ultimately the Soviet Union. In this encounter the Chiefs’ disdain for their young commander-in-chief is summed up by Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay when he says:
LeMay: “This [blockade and political action] is almost as bad as the appeasement [of Hitler] at Munich…I think that a blockade, and political talk, would be considered by a lot of our friends and neutrals as being a pretty weak response to this. And I’m sure a lot of our own citizens would feel that way too.
“In other words, you’re in a pretty bad fix at the present time.”
President Kennedy responds: “What did you say?”
LeMay: “I say, you’re in a pretty bad fix.”
President Kennedy: [laughing] “You’re in with me, personally.”
As the meeting draws to a close, Kennedy rejects totally the Joint Chiefs’ arguments for a quick, massive attack on Cuba. The president then leaves the room but the tape keeps on recording. Two or three of the generals remain, and one says to LeMay, “You pulled the rug right out from under him.”
LeMay: “Jesus Christ. What the hell do you mean?”
Other General: “…He’s finally getting around to the word ‘escalation.’ If somebody could keep ‘em from doing the goddamn thing piecemeal, that’s our problem…”
The White House tapes show Kennedy questioning and resisting the mounting pressure to bomb Cuba coming from both the Joint Chiefs and the Executive Committee of the National Security Council. At the same time, John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, the two men most responsible for the Cuban Missile Crisis, seemed locked in a hopeless ideological conflict. The U.S. and Soviet leaders had been following Cold War policies that now seemed to be moving inexorably toward a war of extermination.
Yet, as we have since learned, Kennedy and Khrushchev had been engaged in a secret correspondence for over a year that gave signs of hope. Even as they moved publicly step by step toward a Cold War climax that would almost take the world over the edge with them, they were at the same time smuggling confidential letters back and forth that recognized each other’s humanity and hoped for a solution. They were public enemies who, in the midst of deepening turmoil, were secretly learning something approaching trust in each other.
On what seemed the darkest day in the crisis, when a Soviet missile had shot down a U2 spy plane over Cuba, intensifying the already overwhelming pressures on Kennedy to bomb Cuba, the president sent his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, secretly to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. RFK told Dobrynin, as Dobrynin reported to Khrushchev, that the president “didn’t know how to resolve the situation. The military is putting great pressure on him…Even if he doesn’t want or desire a war, something irreversible could occur against his will. That is why the President is asking for help to solve this problem.”
In his memoirs, Khrushchev recalled a further, chilling sentence from Robert Kennedy’s appeal to Dobrynin: “If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power.”
Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita’s son, has described his father’s thoughts when he read Dobrynin’s wired report relaying John Kennedy’s plea: “The president was calling for help: that was how father interpreted Robert Kennedy’s talk with our ambassador.”
At a moment when the world was falling into darkness, Kennedy did what from his generals’ standpoint was intolerable and unforgivable. JFK not only rejected his generals’ pressures for war. Even worse, the president then reached out to their enemy, asking for help. That was treason.
When Nikita Khrushchev had received Kennedy’s plea for help in Moscow, he turned to his Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko and said, “We have to let Kennedy know that we want to help him.”
Khrushchev stunned himself by what he had just said: Did he really want to help his enemy, Kennedy? Yes, he did. He repeated the word to his foreign minister:
“Yes, help. We now have a common cause, to save the world from those pushing us toward war.”
How do we understand that moment? The two most heavily armed leaders in history, on the verge of total nuclear war, suddenly joined hands against those on both sides pressuring them to attack. Khrushchev ordered the immediate withdrawal of his missiles, in return for Kennedy’s public pledge never to invade Cuba and his secret promise to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey – as he would in fact do. The two Cold War enemies had turned, so that each now had more in common with his opponent than either had with his own generals. As a result of that turn toward peace, one leader would be assassinated thirteen months later. The other, left without his peacemaking partner, would be overthrown the following year. Yet because of their turn away from nuclear war, today we are still living and struggling for peace on this earth. Hope is alive. We still have a chance.
…That is how he seemed to regard the situation – that it would soon lead to his own death. JFK was not afraid of death. As a biographer observed, “Kennedy talked a great deal about death, and about the assassination of Lincoln.” His conscious model for struggling truthfully through conflict, and being ready to die as a consequence, was Abraham Lincoln. On the day when Kennedy and Khrushchev resolved the missile crisis, JFK told his brother, Robert, referring to the assassination of Lincoln, “This is the night I should go to the theater.” Robert replied, “If you go, I want to go with you.”
For more see the comprehensive section:
Cuban Missile Crisis
November 6, 1962
The 1962 United States mid-term elections were held on November 6, and elected the members of the 88th United States Congress. The election occurred in the middle of Democratic President John F. Kennedy’s term. The Republican Party picked up four seats in the House of Representatives, but the Democrats retained strong majorities in both houses of Congress. In the Senate, Democrats won a net gain of four seats from the Republicans, maintaining control of the Senate. Kennedy’s brother Ted wins a special election in Massachusetts to represent the state as junior senator, in the seat his brother had held prior to his election as president. In the gubernatorial elections, neither party won a net gain of seats. Notably, 1960 Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon lost the California gubernatorial election to Democratic incumbent Governor Pat Brown by almost 300,000 votes, which many analysts incorrectly predicted to be the end of his political career.
November 20, 1962
Kennedy announces fair housing legislation
President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order 11063, which mandates an end to discrimination in housing. The order, which came during the burgeoning Civil Rights movement, prohibited federally funded housing agencies from denying housing or funding for housing to anyone based on their race, color, creed or national origin.
November 20, 1962
During the President’s news conference (number 45) of November 20, 1962, he begins with an update on the Cuban missile crisis, stating that Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev would withdraw IL-28 bomber planes in Cuba within 30 days and that the naval quarantine of Cuba was lifted as a result of the withdrawal. The President then announces the signing of Executive Order 11063, which prevented discrimination in housing facilities owned or operated by the federal government, and the creation of the Committee on Equal Opportunity in Housing.
President John F. Kennedy’s 45th News Conference (30:36)
President John F. Kennedy’s forty-fifth news conference was held in the State Department Auditorium at 6 o’clock on Tuesday evening, November 20, 1962.
‘’I have several statements. I have today been informed by Chairman Khrushchev that all of the IL-28 bombers now in Cuba will be withdrawn in 30 days. He also agrees that these planes can be observed and counted as they leave. Inasmuch as this goes a long way towards reducing the danger which faced this hemisphere 4 weeks ago, I have this afternoon instructed the Secretary of Defense to lift our naval quarantine. In view of this action, I want to take this opportunity to bring the American people up to date on the Cuban crisis and to review the progress made thus far in fulfilling the understandings between Soviet Chairman Khrushchev and myself as set forth in our letters of October 27 and 28. Chairman Khrushchev, it will be recalled, agreed to remove from Cuba all weapons systems capable of offensive use, to halt the further introduction of such weapons into Cuba, and to permit appropriate United Nations observation and supervision to insure the carrying out and continuation of these commitments. We on our part agreed that once these adequate arrangements for verification had been established we would remove our naval quarantine and give assurances against an invasion of Cuba.’’
November 22, 1962
President Kennedy is presented with the Laetare Medal by Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, the president of the University of Notre Dame. The Medal, annually awarded by Notre Dame, is considered the highest award for American Catholics. Kennedy was presented with the award in the Oval Office, by Fr. Hesburgh, who was also a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, the university’s executive vice president.
Presentation of University of Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal to President Kennedy
President John F. Kennedy is presented the Laetare Medal for 1961 from the University of Notre Dame. Attending the presentation (L-R): Father Edmund P. Joyce, vice president of the University of Notre Dame; President Kennedy; Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh, president of the University of Notre Dame; three unidentified men; and Representative John Brademas (Indiana). Unidentified man in background. Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C.
November 29, 1963
President John F. Kennedy Speaking at American Pageant of the Arts Dinner (11:35)
President John F. Kennedy spoke in the National Guard Armory in Washington, D.C. Mrs. Kennedy then spoke briefly before introducing Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower who served with her as Honorary Co-Chairman of the National Cultural Center. General and Mrs. Eisenhower participated in the broadcast from Augusta, Georgia.
December 12, 1962
President Kennedy meets with President Jorge Alessandri of the Republic of Chile, have a working meeting to discuss the Alliance for Progress.
President John F. Kennedy with President of Chile, Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez
President John F. Kennedy walks with President of Chile, Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez, through the West Wing Lobby, following their meeting at the White House.
December 14, 1962
JFK Address to the Economic Club of New York, December 14, 1962
(Audio 28 minutes)
…However, at that time the income tax rate was 91 percent, which Kennedy wanted to lower to 65 percent.
John F. Kennedy On The Economy And Taxes
The president finally decided that only a bold domestic program, including tax cuts, would restore his political momentum. Declaring that the absence of recession is not tantamount to economic growth, the president proposed in 1963 to cut income taxes from a range of 20-91% to 14-65% He also proposed a cut in the corporate tax rate from 52% to 47%.
December 12, 1962
President and First Lady at Christmas Reception
President and Mrs. Kennedy pose in front of the White House Christmas Tree during the Staff Christmas Reception. White House, Entrance Hall.
Photograph by Robert Knudsen
December 17, 1962
This folder contains materials collected by the office of President John F. Kennedy’s secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, concerning President Kennedy’s Christmas message for 1962. In his speech the President discusses the universality of Christmas as a day of peace. Materials in this folder include drafts by economist and Ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith, one of which contains handwritten notations by the President.
December 18, 1962 – December 21, 1962
Kennedy makes the sixth international trip of his presidency, traveling to Nassau, The Bahamas, where he confers with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and concludes an agreement on nuclear defense systems.
December 25, 1962
Kennedy Slideshow #1 — Christmas Day With The Kennedys At Palm Beach, Florida
January 10, 1963
Kennedy meets with President-elect Dr. Juan Bosch of the Dominican Republic.
Meeting with the President-elect of the Dominican Republic, Dr. Juan E. Bosch
January 14, 1963
Kennedy delivers his third (and final) State of the Union address. The President calls for massive tax reduction and tax reform, accurately predicting longest, strongest economic expansion in American peace-time history to that time.
I shall propose a permanent reduction in tax rates which will lower liabilities by $13.5 billion. Of this, $11 billion results from reducing individual tax rates, which now range between 20% and 91%, to a more sensible range of 14% to 65%. $2.5 billion results from reducing corporate tax rates, from 52%–which gives the Government today a majority interest in profits-to the permanent pre-Korean level of 47%.
JFK’s 1963 State of the Union (45:01)
February 7, 1963
Press Conference, February 7, 1963 (31 minutes)
Sound recording of the President’s News Conference of February 7, 1963 (News Conference 48). The President begins the press conference by announcing reappointments of William McChesney Martin, Jr. as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and Mr. C. Canby Balderston as Vice Chairman. Following this statement the President answers questions from the press on a variety of topics including the Cuban Missile Crisis and Soviet military personnel and weapons inspections in Cuba. President Kennedy also answers questions concerning President of France Charles de Gaulle’s blocking of Great Britain from the Common Market and his desire for an independent national deterrent.
February 28, 1963
Special Message on Civil Rights, February 28, 1963
This folder contains a press release of President John F. Kennedy’s Special Message to Congress on civil rights, during which he asks Congress to enact legislation protecting all Americans’ voting rights, legal standing, educational opportunities, and access to public facilities. The President recognizes that legislation alone cannot solve the country’s problems concerning race relations, but notes that these measures are necessary preliminary actions towards the ideal of equality.
A Brief History Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1964
by Robert D. Loevy
On February 28, 1963, President John F. Kennedy sent Congress a strong message on the immediate need for civil rights legislation: “The Negro baby born in America today … has about one-half as much chance of completing high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day-one-third as much chance of completing college-one third as much chance of becoming a professional man-twice as much chance of becoming unemployed … a life expectancy which is seven years less-and the prospects of earning only half as much.”
March 18, 1963
The Supreme Court rules in Gideon v. Wainwright that states must supply counsel in criminal cases for individuals who cannot afford it.
March 18, 1963 – March 20, 1963
Kennedy makes the seventh international trip of his presidency, traveling to San José, Costa Rica, where he attends the Conference of Presidents of the Central American Republics, March 18-20, 1963.
President John F. Kennedy in Costa Rica (3:25)
March 18-20, 1963, San José, Costa Rica. President John F. Kennedy attending Conference of Presidents of the Central American Republics. Meetings with Central American business and government leaders during this visit led to the establishment of INCAE.In his opening discourse President Kennedy speaks of strengthening education in Central America. The Declaración de Centroamérica (Declaration of Central America), emitted on the second day of the conference, documents the presidents interests in strengthening institutions that would train and integrate public and private sector leaders in the Central American region. Kennedy met with President of Costa Rica Francisco Orlich during his tour of San Jose.
March 22, 1963
President Kennedy urges final action on Constitutional Amendment outlawing poll tax as a bar to voting; it became the 24th Amendment.
Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Twenty-fourth Amendment (Amendment XXIV) of the United States Constitution prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax. The amendment was proposed by Congress to the states on August 27, 1962, and was ratified by the states on January 23, 1964.
President John F. Kennedy returned to this issue. His administration urged Congress to adopt and send such an amendment to the states for ratification. He considered the constitutional amendment the best way to avoid a filibuster, as the claim that federal abolition of the poll tax was unconstitutional would be moot. Still, some liberals opposed Kennedy’s action, feeling that an amendment would be too slow compared to legislation.[10] Spessard Holland, a conservative Democrat from Florida, introduced the amendment to the Senate. Holland opposed most civil rights legislation during his career,[11] and Kennedy’s gaining of his support helped splinter monolithic Southern opposition to the Amendment. Ratification of the amendment was relatively quick, taking slightly more than a year; it was rapidly ratified by state legislatures across the country from August 1962 to January 1964.
April 1963
President John F. Kennedy – April 1963 (3:33)
April 3, 1963 British Labour Party Leader Harold Wilson visits Washington for talks with President John F. Kennedy.
April 8, 1963 – President Kennedy opens the 1963 baseball season by throwing out the first ball at D.C. Stadium
April 9, 1963 – President Kennedy signs Proclamation 3517 declaring Winston Churchill an honorary citizen of the United States
April 14, 1963 -The Kennedy family attend church during Easter.
April 29, 1963 – Meeting with Anastas Mikoyan.
April 30, 1963 – John F. Kennedy and Eunice Shriver meeting Grand Duchess Charlotte and Prince Jean of Luxembourg
April 1963 Continued …
President John F. Kennedy – Easter Vacation in Palm Beach, Florida (3:34)
The President swimming and playing with John Jr., Caroline and the dogs in the swimming pool.
April 3, 1963
April 3, 1963 Press Conference
(30 minutes)
Sound recording of the President’s News Conference of April 3, 1963 (News Conference 53). During this press conference President Kennedy answers questions from the press on a variety of topics including the budget, Soviet troop withdrawal from Cuba, the TFX fighter plane contract, hit and run raids on Cuba by Cuban exiles, an increase in the size of the Peace Corps for Latin America, and the space program.
April 3, 1963
Martin Luther King Jr leads a civil rights drive in Birmingham, Alabama. Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor orders the police to use fire hoses and dogs on demonstrators.
April 4, 1963
White House Rose Garden (Video)
Silent motion picture containing scenes filmed possibly on April 4, 1963, on the grounds of the White House, Washington, D.C., including the South lawn, the Rose Garden, and the East Wing. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Antoinette Bradlee, and other children have a picnic and some of the children play in the fountain and elsewhere. President John F. Kennedy also joins the group.
April 24, 1963
Press Conference (Audio 31 minutes)
Sound recording of the President’s News Conference of April 24, 1963 (News Conference 54). The President begins the press conference by announcing that he would meet with Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts on May 10 and 11. He goes on to say that Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs W. Averell Harriman will travel to Moscow to meet with Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to discuss the situation in Laos. Following the announcements the President answers questions from the press on a variety of topics including the tax cut, Laos, the nuclear test ban treaty, the number of Soviet personnel and troops in Cuba, Scientist John Rock’s recommendation of Government-funded population growth programs, civil rights, and the space program.
May 1963
President John F. Kennedy – May 1963 (2:49)
May 10, 1963 – Meeting with Prime Minister Lester Pearson of Canada, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts
May 12, 1963 – Address to the nation on radio and television on the racial strife in Birmingham, Alabama
May 23, 1963 – President Kennedy at a Democratic Party fund raising event held by as a birthday salute to the President at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
May 31, 1963 – General Mobutu from Zaire visits the White House.
President Kennedy’s Schedule – May 1963
May 6, 1963
President Kennedy orders National Security Action Memorandum NSAM 239 to pursue both a nuclear test ban treaty and an urgent reexamination of the possibilities of new approaches to significant measures short of general and complete disarmament which it would be in the interest of the United States to propose in the resumed session of the Geneva Conference.
1) Discussions in the 18 Nation Disarmament Conference at Geneva on both general and complete disarmament and a nuclear test bam treaty have unfortunately resulted in almost no progress. There has been no serious discussion of general and complete disarmament for some time. While discussions of a test ban treaty have shown important developments since the beginning of the 18 Nation Conference, they are now stalled.
2) I have in no way changed my views of the desirability of a test ban treaty or the value of our proposals on general and complete disarmament. Further, the events of the last two years have increased my concern for the consequences of an unchecked continuation of the arms race between ourselves and the Soviet Bloc.
3) We now expect the 18 Nation Disarmament Committee in Geneva to recess shortly for six weeks to two months. I should like the interval to be used for an urgent reexamination of the possibilities of new approaches to significant measures short of general and complete disarmament which it would be in the interest of the United States to propose in the resumed session of the Geneva Conference.
For more see the comprehensive section:
NSAM 239
May 8, 1963
Press Conference (Audio 30 minutes)
Sound recording of the President’s News Conference of May 8, 1963 (News Conference 55). The President begins the press conference with a statement concerning recent civil rights issues and demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, and urges leaders on both sides of the issue to continue their cooperative efforts to achieve equality. Following this statement the President answers questions from the press on a variety of topics including the situation in Birmingham, Alabama; desegregation of the University of Alabama at Huntsville; a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Pearson; agricultural legislation; tax cuts; and the forthcoming GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) meeting at Geneva.
President Kennedy’s Birthday – May 29, 1963
President’s Birthday Party, given by White House Staff. President and Mrs. Kennedy, assistants David Powers and Kenneth O’Donnell, others. White House, Navy Mess Hall.
Photograph by Robert Knudsen
May 29, 1963
How John F. Kennedy celebrated his last birthday
May 29, 1963 (Video and Text)
by Peter Grier
JFK’s last birthday was classic ‘Camelot,’ with ‘festive yachting suit and dress’ and a dash of Hollywood. ‘I don’t think I had ever seen the president and Mrs. Kennedy having more fun,’ wrote an aide.
May 29, 1963
Remembering JFK’s Last Birthday
by Clint Hill
May 29, 1963, was President Kennedy’s forty-sixth birthday, and it is one of those days that has remained vivid in my memory. At the end of the workday, at around 5:45, President Kennedy walked down to the Navy Mess, where a small group of his staff and Mrs. Kennedy were waiting with a cake. When the president walked in, we yelled, “Surprise!” and as soon as somebody handed him a glass of champagne, we all started singing “Happy Birthday.”
June 4, 1963
President Kennedy issues
Executive Order 11110
Many believe (such as I had, and I unwittingly helped to promulgated this myth – perhaps more than anyone – for this, I am sorry – thanks to Jim Marrs for mistakenly starting this myth) that this EO was the opening salvo to put an end to the criminal counterfeiting of the Federal Reserve. It wasn’t.
What is true, is that Joseph P. Kennedy understood what the Federal Reserve really was and instilled this knowledge into his son, John. Joseph P. Kennedy wanted John to take down this cabal. This could have happened if John F. Kennedy lived to have a second term as President.
In 1963, the last $2 an $5 United States Treasury Notes were printed, and put into circulation. In 1966, $100 United States Treasury Notes were printed. This was the last time usury free money entered circulation.
EO 11110, Hard Facts Refute `JFK Greenback’ Myth
by Michael Collins Piper
The Jewish War on the Kennedys
John DeNugent
by John DiNardo
Israel Killed JFK And Has Ruled America Ever Since
by VidRebel
The United States has had three coups if you count the first one being Jekyll Island in November of 1910. Those first coup plotters met at Jekyll Island and secretly wrote the law that became the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
All of the bankers who met in secret were Rothschild agents. This included Paul Warburg of the Rothschild dominated Kuhn Loeb bank. Nelson Aldrich who was a Senator married into the Rockefeller family. The Rockefellers were created by the Rothschilds as were J P Morgan, the Harrimans and the Bush family. Senator Aldrich was head of the National Monetary Commission created by President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt had become President after the Jews had successfully assassinated President McKinley. They previously had assassinated President Lincoln. John Wilkes Booth was Jewish. But I prefer not to count these earlier assassinations as coups. The remaining members of the Jekyll Island Six were Treasury Department employees. who did what they were told to do.
The first day of those meetings actually occurred in a private railway car on the evening of November 22, 1910. When the Jews took over America’s banking and monetary system in 1913, they took over the country. Not all coups involve tanks in the streets. It was no coincidence that President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 which was the 53rd anniversary of Israel’s earlier coup. President Kennedy had dared to attempt to take America back from the Jews.
All three of America’s coups involved Israel. I have defined an Israeli as anyone of Jewish descent who is loyal to Israel. There was no state of Israel in 1910 but there was an ongoing criminal enterprise which could be called Judaism Incorporated. Any educated person whose thoughts have not been contaminated by the Jews should view Israel as the enemy of all mankind.
Today I want to focus on the assassination of JFK as we are now facing the 51st anniversary of our President’s murder without being allowed to conduct a criminal investigation. Voltaire said you know who has power because you are not allowed to criticize them. We could rephrase that in today’s world by saying we know who owns the government by determining who has not been arrested for stealing money by the billions.
The following is from a video made by Michael Collins Piper. He has connected all the dots in the Kennedy assassination and tied them to Israel.
Mordecai Vanunu was the original whistleblower. In 1986 he told the world that Israel had nuclear weapons and published photos of the secret Dimona works in the British press. He said Prime Minister Ben Gurion ordered the assassination of JFK because the President opposed Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Ben Gurion resigned in protest over JFK’s Israeli policies. Vanunu also wrote a letter in 1997 saying that there was even a link between the assassination of Kennedy and Israel’s launching of the 1967 war.
Michael Collins Piper wrote Final Judgement: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination. Michael Collins Piper in this book argued that the Israelis killed Kennedy. Vanunu endorsed Piper’s book.
The Oliver Stone movie JFK was the kosher version of the assassination. Piper does not dispute that Clay Shaw had connections to the CIA. But the film neglects Shaw’s connections to the heart of the Israeli nuclear program. He was also on the Board of Directors of Permindex, a Swiss assassination bureau. Permindex is an Israeli front and was not run by the CIA as Oliver Stone had said. A primary shareholder in Permindex was the Banque De Credit International of Geneva, founded by Tibor Rosenbaum, an arms procurer and financier for the Mossad. That bank was used by Meyer Lansky to launder hot money. Permindex was owned by CMC of Rome, which was founded by a Hungarian Jew named George Mandel who had deep connections with Israel and the Mossad. Mandel was the first man to start rumors about Auschwitz being a death camp. The Chairman of the Board at Permindex was Louis Bloomfield, a Canadian Jew and close associate of Edgar Bronfman. He also had long standing connections with the Rothschilds dating back before WW II.
The Stern family funded Clay Shaw’s defense. They can be traced back to the Purple Gang of Detroit. The Stern family owned WDSU radio and TV stations in New Orleans.
Prior to JFK’s assassination, they ran stories on Lee Harvey Oswald denouncing him as a member the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. They did not tell the people of New Orleans that this was an FBI front group. This gave Oswald the cover of being a Leftist while spying on American liberals. The Stern family was heavily invested in the NUMEC nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, which was the source of Israel’s first nuclear bomb. NUMEC also dumped nuclear waste in Pennsylvania.
Piper said Clay Shaw might have had more to do with CIA-Mossad attempts to assassinate Charles De Gaulle than he did with the assassination of President Kennedy.
Ed Asner played Guy Bannister, the private detective, in the movie JFK. Bannister was a good friend of Kent and Phoebe Courtney. Bannister and the Courtneys were active in conservative politics. But the Courtneys did frustrate the work of people on the Right that the Anti-Defamation League did not like. Joe Pesci played David Ferrie in the movie JFK. He was a pilot and a friend of Lee Harvey Oswald. Bannister, Ferrie and Oswald spied on Leftists in New Orleans. Guy Bannister also was a friend of A. I. Botnick who was the head of the New Orleans ADL office. The Courtneys, Bannister, Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald were actively spying on Leftists in New Orleans for the ADL and Botnick.
The producer of JFK was the Israeli spy Arnon Milchan who sold nuclear triggers to Israel. A J Weberman, an Israeli citizen, was the first to say that District Attorney Jim Garrison had an unpublished manuscript that charged Israel was behind the assassination of President Kennedy.
John King offered Jim Garrison a judgeship to stop his investigation of Clay Shaw. King was a business partner of Bernie Cornfeld whose Investors Overseas Service was a 2.5 billion dollar fraud. It was a subsidiary of Permindex and was linked to Tibor Rosenbaum and the Mossad.
The London Jewish Chronicle denounced President Kennedy’s UN delegation position that displaced Palestinians had the right to return to the land that Israel had illegally taken from them during the 1948 war. The Jewish Chronicle published this in London on November 22, 1963.
Adlai Stevenson, a former Presidential candidate, was the American UN ambassador at the time. Stevenson’s son was also a Senator and opposed Israel’s excesses. He was critical of Israel sinking the USS Liberty in the 1967 war, which killed 34 American sailors.
Lyndon Johnson said he wanted the USS Liberty to sink to the bottom of the Mediterranean even while the Israelis were attacking the ship. LBJ was sleeping with a former Irgun terrorist, Mathilde Krim. Her husband was one of LBJ’s many Jewish advisers.
A JFK researcher once wrote that Piper was on to something in his research linking Israel to the assassination of President. But he said that we had to proceed with caution. Because to be accused of anti-Semitism is about the same as being accused of being a child molester.
Robert Kennedy was the Attorney General in 1963. He gave the American Zionist Council, the predecessor to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), 72 hours to register as a foreign lobby. They formed AIPAC and waited for President Kennedy to be murdered so their legal problems would go away.
Frank Sturgis was an anti-Castro operative who was caught up in the Watergate burglary. He was an Israeli mercenary during the 1948 war. Cuban Intelligence believed Sturgis was in charge of communications for one of the JFK hit teams on November 22, 1963.
Meyer Lansky was key to the establishment of both Las Vegas and the state of Israel. The casinos launder the CIA’s Black Ops money along side Jewish mob money. The real crime boss of Chicago was Meyer Lansky’s partner Hyman Larner. Larner was closely connected with Israel and the Shah of Iran. Lucky Luciano wrote in his biography that his old friend and partner Meyer Lansky took over the mob from him. Sam (Santo) Trafficante of Tampa and Carlos Marcello of New Orleans were both lower level local bosses who were far out ranked by Lansky.
The Bronfman family bought Texas Pacific, an oil company. The Crown family of Chicago who had been part of organized crime bought General Dynamics. The late Sir Edgar Bronfman was given 240 million US dollars a year by organized crime for the right to export heroin from Canada into the US. He was allowed to write this down on his tax returns, which legitimatized his take from the heroin trade. This allowed him to at one time buy 20% of the combined assets of DuPont-Conoco. The Bronfman family has branched out into water privatization through Vivendi, which was exploited of the poor in Third World countries.
Lee Harvey Oswald tested negative for gunshot residue. Piper believes Oswald was in front of the Texas Schoolbook Depository when JFK was killed. There is a photo, which could be of Oswald standing in front of the building. Judyth Vary Baker, a medical researcher, worked with Oswald at the Riley Coffee Company of New Orleans, which was a CIA front run by a retired FBI agent. She was a child prodigy who developed cancer cells in mice that Oswald took to Dr Mary Sherman at LSU to be put in vaccines for Americans. Dr Mary Sherman died under mysterious and to date unsolved circumstances. Ed Haslam wrote a book called Dr Mary’s Monkey about this neglected part of Oswald’s life. Judyth Vary Baker also wrote about her affair with Oswald.
Jack Ruby was connected to two people who were involved in smuggling nuclear triggers to Israel. One was Lawrence Meyers. Piper had corresponded with James Earl Ray. Ray’s brother published a book saying that the Bronfmans and Israel had nothing to do with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. A US intelligent agent helped put the book together.
Piper does not mention that JFK was assassinated on the 53rd anniversary of the first day of the meetings to found the Federal Reserve Bank. That meeting on November 22, 1910 could be considered the first Jewish coup. America’s second Jewish coup was of course the JFK assassination. And the third occurred on 9-11-2001 when Israel took down World Trade Center Towers 1, 2 and 7 with controlled demolitions.
There have been many books written that prove JFK was not killed by a lone assassin. But Michael Collins Piper the first to connect all the dots and trace them back to Israel.
For more see the comprehensive section:
June 7, 1963 – June 9, 1963
John F. Kennedy in Los Angeles and Honolulu
President Kennedy attends a Democratic Party fund-raising dinner for 150 members of the President’s Club of Los Angeles. President Kennedy addresses a breakfast with Democratic State Committeewomen of California at the Hollywood Palladium. The President calls for enactment of his tax cut and aid-to-education programs. He defends his administration’s civil rights record. President Kennedy arrives in Honolulu, Hawaii. President Kennedy addresses the U.S. Conference of Mayors at the Lawn House at the Hawaiian Village Hotel in Honolulu. The President discusses the increased “tempo of the nationwide drive for full equality.” He asks the mayors to help guide “along constructive channels the attainment of a peaceful revolution which will not only avoid disaster, but fulfill our highest obligations.” The President asks the mayors to adopt a program for local action.
June 10, 1963
American University peace speech
President John Kennedy gave the commencement address at American University. In it, he addressed relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and offers a nuclear test ban treaty (on August 5, 1963, the United States and the Soviet Union sign the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, agreeing not to test nuclear bombs in air, space, or water). He calls on American people to reexamine their attitude toward cold war. For me, this is Kennedy’s greatest speech.
The Soviet press, which was accustomed to censoring United States government statements, published the entire speech all across the country. Soviet radio stations broadcast and rebroadcast the speech to the Soviet people. In response to Kennedy’s turn toward peace, the Soviet government even stopped jamming all Western broadcasts into their country.
Nikita Khrushchev was deeply moved by the American University Address. He said Kennedy had given “the greatest speech by any American President since Roosevelt.”
“At American University on June 10, 1963, President Kennedy proposed an end to the Cold War.”
Norman Cousins, editor Saturday Review
“After the American University address, John Kennedy and Nikita Krushchev began to act like competitors in peace. They were both turning. However, Kennedy’s rejection of Cold War politics was considered treasonous by forces in his own government. In that context, which Kennedy knew well, the American University address was a profile in courage with lethal consequences. President Kennedy’s June 10, 1963 call for an end to the Cold War, five and one-half months before his assassination, anticipates Dr. King’s courage in his April 4, 1967, Riverside Church address calling for an end to the Vietnam War, exactly one year before his assassination. Each of those transforming speeches was a prophetic statement provoking the reward a prophet traditionally receives. John Kennedy’s American University address was to his death in Dallas as Martin Luther King’s Riverside Church address was to his death in Memphis.”
James Douglass, “JFK and the Unspeakable,” p. 46
Kennedy sends the Alabama National Guard to the University of Alabama to protect two African-American students who won a court order to attend the college.
That evening in a televised address to the nation, Report to the American People on Civil Rights, Kennedy defined the civil rights crisis as moral, as well as constitutional and legal. He announced that major civil rights legislation would be submitted to the Congress to guarantee equal access to public facilities, to end segregation in education, and to provide federal protection of the right to vote.
Report to the American People on Civil Rights
June 11, 1963 (Video 14 minutes)
CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) motion picture excerpt of President John F. Kennedy’s full radio and television report to the American people on civil rights. See “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963: Item 237.” In his speech the President responds to the threats of violence and obstruction on the University of Alabama campus following desegregation attempts, explaining that the United States was founded on the principle that all men are created equal and thus, all American students are entitled to attend public educational institutions, regardless of race. He also discusses how discrimination affects education, public safety, and international relations, noting that the country cannot preach freedom internationally while ignoring it domestically. The President asks Congress to enact legislation protecting all Americans’ voting rights, legal standing, educational opportunities, and access to public facilities, but recognizes that legislation alone cannot solve the country’s problems concerning race relations.
For more see the comprehensive section:
June 12, 1963
Medgar W. Evers, civil rights leader and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) field secretary for Mississippi, is assassinated In the driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. The murder of Evers happens the very day after President Kennedy addressed the nation about civil rights.
June 19, 1963
Medgar Evers Assassination (4:31)
Special Message to the Congress on Civil Rights and Job Opportunities
To the Congress of the United States:
Last week I addressed to the American people an appeal to conscience–a request for their cooperation in meeting the growing moral crisis in American race relations. I warned of “a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety” in many parts of the country. I emphasized that “the events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them.” “It is a time to act,” I said, “in the Congress, in State and local legislative bodies and, above all, in all of our daily lives.”
In the days that have followed, the predictions of increased violence have been tragically borne out. The “fires of frustration and discord” have burned hotter than ever…
The 1963 Civil Rights Bill
Until this year, President Kennedy has tackled civil rights by issuing executive orders, launching investigations, and enforcing existing laws. On February 28, he sends a Special Message to Congress outlining a plan dealing with racial discrimination. But Congress takes no action.
In the spring, a weeks-long series of civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama result in thousands of people arrested and jailed, many of them young schoolchildren. When Eugene “Bull” Connor, Birmingham’s notorious city commissioner, uses police dogs and fire hoses against demonstrators, the violence is broadcast on television and seen in news photos around the globe, and ignites protests across the country. The crisis compels the administration to speed up the drafting of comprehensive civil rights legislation.
On May 29, with the intention of sending a bill to Congress, Kennedy begins a series of meetings to get input and support from governors, civil rights groups, business executives, religious leaders, educators, women’s organizations, and others. On June 11, in a nationally televised address, he promises to send a bill to Congress, and on June 19 he does just that…
June 22, 1963
President Kennedy meets with civil rights leaders to review results of efforts to end segregation, stress the responsibility of leaders to stay within the law, and to discuss the nature of proposed civil rights legislation.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
President Kennedy is out on a political limb. He’s committed his administration to a major new civil rights bill, which he outlines in a nationally-televised address on June 11, 1963. The following week, he submits the bill to Congress. But its passage is very much in doubt, and he needs all the support he can get. Now he’s learned that civil rights and labor organizations are planning a big demonstration in the capital this summer, which they are calling “The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” Kennedy is afraid that it will hurt rather than help his chances of getting the bill through Congress.
On June 22, the same day he’s scheduled to leave on an important European trip, the President has a pre-arranged meeting with civil rights leaders. A. Philip Randolph, the respected black labor leader is there. He’s the driving force behind the proposed March. Martin Luther King Jr. is also present and has joined Randolph in supporting the demonstration. The president tells the group he doesn’t want “a big show in the capital” that could jeopardize passage of the bill…
In the early 1960s, the fundamental prize sought by the civil rights movement was something that African Americans had never known: full legal equality.
When John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, African Americans throughout much of the South were denied the right to vote, barred from public facilities, subjected to insults and violence, and could not expect justice from the courts. In the North, black Americans also faced discrimination in housing, employment, education, and many other areas. But the civil rights movement had made important progress, and change was on the way…
June 23, 1963 – July 2, 1963
Kennedy makes the eighth and final international trip of his presidency.
President Kennedy’s Trip to Europe
June 23-July 2, 1963 (Video 8:40)
This segment features archival footage covering highlights of President John F. Kennedy’s European trip in the summer of 1963. Included are scenes from of President Kennedy in West Berlin; President Kennedy arriving in Ireland and his visit to the Kennedy Homestead; and President Kennedy meeting Pope Paul VI at the Vatican. The footage is narrated by Kennedy Library Director Tom Putnam.
June 23, 1963 – June 25, 1963
Kennedy visits Cologne, Frankfurt, and Wiesbaden, West Germany; he also holds meetings with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and other officials.
June 25, 1963
Address in the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt.
President John F. Kennedy’s Address at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt (2:31)
”The first task of the Atlantic Community was to assure its common defense. That defense was and still is indivisible. The United States will risk its cities to defend yours because we need your freedom to protect ours. Hundreds of thousands of our soldiers serve with yours on this continent, as tangible evidence of that pledge. Those who would doubt our pledge or deny this indivisibility–those who would separate Europe from America or split one ally from another–would only give aid and comfort to the men who make themselves our adversaries and welcome any Western disarray.
The proposal before us is for a new Atlantic force. Such a force would bring strength instead of weakness, cohesion instead of division. It would belong to all members, not one, with all participating on a basis of full equality. And as Europe moves towards unity, its role and responsibility, here as elsewhere, would and must increase accordingly. Let it not be said of this Atlantic generation that we left ideals and visions to the past, nor purpose and determination to our adversaries. We have come too far, we have sacrificed too much, to disdain the future now. And we shall ever remember what Goethe told us, that the “highest wisdom, the best that mankind ever knew” was the realization that “he only earns his freedom and existence who daily conquers them anew.”
June 25, 1963 – June 26, 1963
President John F. Kennedy in Frankfurt
June 25-26, 1963 (2:23)
President Kennedy visits Allied and American troops at Fliegerhorst Barracks near Hanau after which he drives to Frankfurt. President Kennedy signs the Golden Book and makes remarks at Romerburg in Frankfurt upon signing the Golden Book. President Kennedy addresses German government officials and invited guests at the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt, site of the first free German Parliament in 1848. The President says “The future of the West lies in the Atlantic partnership.” President Kennedy meets with Ludwig Erhard, expected successor to Chancellor Adenauer. President Kennedy makes remarks at a reception in his honor given by Hesse state president Georg Zinn in the Kurhaus in Wiesbaden.
June 26, 1963
Kennedy visits West Berlin, and delivers his now-famous speech to an enormous crowd at Schoneberger Rathaus in the Rudolph Wilde Platz. Kennedy’s stirring words on freedom excite the crowd: “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, Ich bin ein Berliner.”
June 23-26, 1963
President John F Kennedy’s visit to Germany
(Part 1) (9:44)
June 23, 1963 President Kennedy arrives at the Wahn Airport between Bonn and Cologne in West Germany. The President is welcomed by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. They attend Mass at Cologne Cathedral.
President John F Kennedy’s visit to Germany
(Part 2) (10:46)
President Kennedy continues his visit in West Germany
President John F Kennedy’s visit to Germany
(Part 3) (9:38)
President Kennedy in West Berlin. ”Ich bin ein Berliner” speech
President John F Kennedy’s visit to Germany
Part 3) (9:38)
June 26, 1963 – June 29, 1963
Kennedy visits Dublin, Wexford, Cork, Galway, and Limerick, Ireland.
President John F Kennedy’s visit to Ireland
(Part 1) (10:39)
President Kennedy arriving in Dublin Airport – June 26-29, 1963
President John F Kennedy’s visit to Ireland
(Part 2) (10:36)
June 26-29, 1963
President Kennedy in Dunganstown, New Ross, Co. Wexford. Kennedy Homestead.
President John F Kennedy’s visit to Ireland
(Part 3) (9:32)
President Kennedy continues his trip in Ireland and takes of for Britain.
June 28, 1963
President Kennedy addresses the Oireachtas Éireann, the national parliament of Ireland, at Leinster House in Dublin, Ireland.
President Kennedy’s Address Before the Irish Parliament in Dublin, Ireland (17:15)
President Kennedy and Taoiseach Sean Lemass entering the Dáil Éireann Chamber where the President makes a speech to both houses of the Oireachtas. President John F. Kennedy spoke in Leinster House before a joint session of the Seanad and the Dail. Kennedy spoke to both Dáil Éireann and of Seanad Éireann on 28th of June, 1963. In his speech the President discusses the historic relationship between Ireland and the United States, the numerous contributions to society made by Americans of Irish descent, and commends the representatives on Ireland’s social, political, and economic advancements following the Famine.
June 29, 1963
President John F. Kennedy’s Remarks at Shannon Airport Upon Leaving (5:31)
President John F. Kennedy’s final remarks in Ireland. Large numbers turn out at Shannon Airport in the hope of getting a glimpse of President Kennedy before he leaves for the UK. Already behind in his schedule President Kennedy says farewell to the people of Ireland before boarding Air Force One to the UK. Police and photographers surround President Kennedy, as he meets the Bunratty Castle Singers.
June 29, 1963 – June 30, 1963
Kennedy travels to the United Kingdom for an informal visit with the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan at his home in West Sussex, England.
June 29, 1963 – June 30, 1963
President John F. Kennedy’s visit to Britain (5:20)
President John F. Kennedy arrives at Gatwick Airport in London for a private visit at Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s country home, Birch Grove, Sussex, England. They fly by helicopter to Macmillans country home. Kennedy attends Mass at a nearby Catholic church. Later he departs from Gatwick. Next destination is Milan.
June 29, 1963 – June 30, 1963
President John F. Kennedy visits Harold Macmillan, Birch Grove House, Sussex (2:06)
In 1963, at the height of the Cold War, President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan met at Birch Grove, Macmillan’s country house in Sussex. The brief 24 hour visit is often overlooked by the history books, but their time together in the English countryside cemented their relationship and a unique Anglo-American friendship. Birch Grove acted as the stage for the talks between the two men, with all the comings and goings of an international Cold War summit. After just 24 hours Kennedy would leave England never to return.
June 30, 1963
President John F. Kennedy attending Mass at Our Lady of the Forest, Forest Row (:49)
President John F. Kennedy attended Mass at Our Lady of the Forest Church in Forest Row, East Sussex, England. President Kennedy’s car stopped in the church courtyard and the President stepped out. He was greeted by Father Charles P. Dolman on the entrance before going inside.
July 1, 1963 – July 2, 1963
Kennedy visits Naples and Rome, Italy, where he meets with Italian President Antonio Segni, and with officials of The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
July 1, 1963 – July 2, 1963
President John F. Kennedy’s visit to Italy (10:58)
President Kennedy arrives at Fiumicino Airport in Rome, where he is welcomed by President Antonio Segni and Premier Giovanni Leone. Kennedy visit Pope Paul VI at the Vatican together with his sister Eunice Shriver.
July 2, 1963
Kennedy has an audience with the newly elected Pope Paul VI at the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City.
July 2, 1963
President John F. Kennedy visits Pope Paul VI in the Vatican City (1:14)
U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Archbishop Gennaro Verolino, secretary of the Vatican Ceremonial Congregation, in the courtyard of St. Damasus of the Vatican Palace. Pope Paul VI spreads arms in welcoming gesture as he receives President John F. Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic President of the United States, for their historic meeting in the Apostolic Palace. Kennedy was ushered into the private library of the newly-crowned Pontiff for a talk presumably centering on their mutual hopes for world peace.
July 2, 1963
President John F. Kennedy meets Pope Paul VI in the Vatican (4:49)
President John F. Kennedy, sister Jean Smith and American Secretary of State Dean Rusk are received by Pope Paul in the Vatican. This is the only meeting of a Roman Catholic U.S. President and a reigning Pope.
July 1963
July 1963 with JFK in Hyannis (19:20)
Family life at the JFK compound during July of 1963
July 18, 1963
Kennedy presents latest in series of administrative and legislative programs to stabilize United States balance of payments and stem outflow of gold.
July 24, 1963
President John F. Kennedy greets members of the American Legion Boys Nation
President John F. Kennedy greets the delegates to the 18th Annual American Legion Boys Nation in the Rose Garden of the White House. He congratulated Richard J. Stratton, 17, of Leland, Illinois, who had just been elected President of Boys Nation. Among the delegates is future President Bill Clinton (starting at 39 seconds).
July 25, 1963
To make due on his American University promise to get a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, President Kennedy selected Averell Harriman, an experienced diplomat known and respected by Khrushchev, to resume negotiations in Moscow. An agreement to limit the scope of the test ban paved the way for a treaty. By excluding underground tests from the pact, negotiators eliminated the need for the on-site inspections that worried the Kremlin. On July 25, 1963, after only 12 days of negotiations, the two nations agreed to ban testing in the atmosphere, in space, and underwater. The next day, in a television address announcing the agreement, Kennedy claimed that a limited test ban” is safer by far for the United States than an unlimited nuclear arms race.”
Within six weeks after the American University Address, the president had done an end run around the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He negotiated the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty without consulting them, because they opposed it.
Kennedy was fiercely determined but not optimistic that the Test Ban Treaty be ratified by the defense-conscious Senate. In early August, he told his advisers that getting Senate ratification of the agreement would be “almost in the nature of a miracle.” He said if a Senate vote were held right then it would fall far short of the necessary two-thirds.
Kennedy initiated a whirlwind public education campaign on the treaty, coordinated by Saturday Review editor Normal Cousins, who directed a committee of activists. By the end of August, the tide of congressional mail had gone from fifteen to one against a test ban to three to two against.
In September public opinion polls showed a turnaround. 80 percent of the American people were now in favor of the Test Ban Treaty. On September 24, 1963, the Senate approved the treaty by a vote of 80 to 19 – 14 more than the required two-thirds. No other single accomplishment in the White House gave Kennedy greater satisfaction.
July 26, 1963
Address to the Nation on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
(Video 26 minutes)
President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C., delivering a radio and television address to the American people on the passage of a treaty banning atmospheric nuclear weapons tests, later known as the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) or Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT). In his speech the President explains that the treaty will strengthen national security, lessen the risk and fear of radioactive fallout, reduce world tension by encouraging further dialogue, and prevent acquisition of nuclear weapons by nations not currently possessing them. The President emphasizes that while the treaty does not eliminate the threat of nuclear war, a limited test ban is safer than an unlimited arms race.
July 26, 1963
JFK’s “Nuclear Test Ban Treaty” Speech To The Nation (25:38)
August 5, 1963
After more than eight years of difficult negotiations, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, agreeing not to test nuclear bombs in air, space, or water.
August 7, 1963
Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, the President and Mrs. Kennedy’s third child, is born (five-and-a-half weeks prematurely) at the Otis Air Force Base Hospital in Bourne, Massachusetts. Shortly after birth, he develops symptoms of hyaline membrane disease, now called infant respiratory distress syndrome.
August 9, 1963
Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, the President and Mrs. Kennedy’s third child, dies at Boston Children’s Hospital from a lung ailment only two days after his birth.
August 9, 1963
Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for fighting in New Orleans. His arrest occurred when Oswald was handing out pro-Castro leaflets on Canal Street. The man Oswald got into the altercation with was Carlos Bringuier, a strongly anti-Castro Cuban exile and head of the New Orleans chapter of the Directorio Revoionario Estudiantil, aka the DRE, an exile group with well-known ties to the CIA’s JM/WAVE Program.
August 14, 1963
Although then-Senator John F. Kennedy’s 1957 speech calling for independence for Algeria from France had helped pave the way for that end result, newly-won Algerian freedom came at great cost. Israel was actively seeking to undermine the new regime. On August 14, 1963 the government of Algerian premier Ben Bella accused Israel of plotting to topple the new Arab regime. The Algerian authorities captured 20 Algerians and 10 foreigners who were engaged in a conspiracy to bring down the government. “Those foreigners are nearly all Israelites,” declared the Algerian information minister. “We are led to believe that we are facing a plot with far-flung ramifications and that behind it is the hand of Israel which is trying to oppose the march of our revolution. “Ben Bella has made clear the Algerian position on the enclave of imperialism called Israel but which is really Palestine. It is not strange that they are trying to interfere in our internal affairs.”
August 28, 1963
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom attracts 250,000 people to the nation’s capital in support of civil rights legislation. After rousing songs, heartfelt prayers, and inspirational speeches by nine other civil rights leaders at the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., addressed a sweltering but energized crowd in the afternoon heat culminating in the now-famous, “I Have A Dream” speech. The event exceeded all expectations; it was a powerful and peaceful demonstration for equality and justice. Following the event, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the nine other civil rights leaders of the “Top Ten” met with President Kennedy.
August 30, 1963
Kennedy becomes the first United States president to have a direct phone line to the Kremlin in Moscow. The “hotline” was designed to facilitate communication between the president and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.
September 15, 1963
The Birmingham Church bombing. On September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, a church with a predominantly black congregation that served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls were killed and many other people injured; outrage over the incident and the violent clash between protesters and police that followed helped draw national attention to the hard-fought, often dangerous struggle for civil rights for African Americans.
September 20, 1963
President Kennedy address before the United Nations General Assembly (JFK’s second and last) stating various specific recommendations, including “My fellow inhabitant of this planet: Let us take our stand here in this Assembly of nations. And let us see if we, in our own time, can move the world to a just and lasting peace.”
He proposes additional cooperation with Soviet Union, including outer space exploration. The United States and the Soviet Union subsequently agree on outer space disarmament move.
See November 12, 1963
Joint Moon Mission With USSR
http://JointMoonMissionWithUSSR.November221963.com
September 24, 1963
In September public opinion polls showed a turnaround. 80 percent of the American people were now in favor of the Test Ban Treaty. On September 24, 1963, the Senate approved the treaty by a vote of 80 to 19 – 14 more than the required two-thirds. No other single accomplishment in the White House gave Kennedy greater satisfaction.
September 24, 1963
President Kennedy signs first major program assisting construction of higher education classrooms.
September 26, 1963
John F. Kennedy’s Remarks at Hanford Electric Generating plant, Hanford, WA (15:10)
President John F. Kennedy addresses crowd, and initiates groundbreaking of the N-Reactor at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, Richland, Washington, September 26, 1963, two month before he was assassinated.
In his opening words the President referred to U.S. Senators Henry M. Jackson and Warren G. Magnuson and to Governor Albert D. Rosellini of Washington; Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall; U.S. Senator Frank E. Moss of Utah; U.S. Representatives AI Ullman of Oregon and Chet Holifield of California; and Atomic Energy Commissioner Gerald F. Tape. Later the President referred to Owen Hurd, Managing Director of the Washington Public Power Supply System; Glenn Lee and Don Pugnetti, publisher and managing editor, respectively, of the Tri-City Herald of Richland, Wash.
At the close of his remarks the President broke ground for the new Hanford nuclear generating plant, the world’s largest, by means of a new device. Using a pointer tipped with uranium from the first Hanford reactor he caused a radiation counter on the speakers’ stand to close a relay, thereby setting in motion a 60-foot crane and breaking ground for the new plant.
Remarks at the Hanford, Washington, Electric Generating Plant (Text)
Autumn – November 22, 1963
Excerpt from
Kennedy’s Last Act: Reaching Out to Cuba
by Peter Kornbluh
Secret United States – Cuban talks. The talks between Cuba and the U.S. began, ironically, around Washington’s bald act of aggression, the paramilitary invasion at Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs). In the aftermath of Cuba’s victory over the CIA-backed brigade, the President and his brother, Robert Kennedy sent a lawyer named James Donovan to negotiate the release of over 1000 captured brigade members. During the course of several negotiating sessions in the fall of 1962, Donovan brokered a deal to supply Cuba with $62 million in food and medicine in return for the release of the prisoners. He not only won their freedom but the trust of Fidel Castro as well.
In the spring of 1963, Donovan returned to Havana several times to negotiate with Castro the release of two dozen Americans, three of them were CIA operatives that were imprisoned in Cuban jails on charges of spying and sabotage. During the course of their meetings, Castro for the first time raised the issue of restoring relations. Given the acrimony and hostility of the recent past, “how would the U.S. and Cuba go about it,” he asked Donovan.
“Do you know how porcupines make love?,” James Donovan replied. “Very carefully. And that is how you and the U.S. will go about this issue.”
When Donovan’s report on Castro’s interest in talks to normalize relations reached the desk of President Kennedy, the White House began considering the possibility of a “sweet approach” to Castro. Top aides argued that the U.S. should demand that Castro jettison his relations with the Soviets as a pre-condition to any talks. But the President overruled them; he instructed his top aides to “start thinking along more flexible lines” in negotiating with Castro, and made it clear, according to declassified White House documents, that he was “very interested” in pursuing this option.
On his last trip to Cuba in April 1963, Donovan introduced Castro to a correspondent for ABC News named Lisa Howard who had traveled to Havana to do a televised special on the Cuban revolution. She replaced Donovan as the central interlocutor in a protracted secret effort to set up the first serious face to face talks on better relations. When she returned from Cuba, the CIA met her in Miami and debriefed her on Castro’s clear interest in improved relations. In a top secret memorandum that arrived on the desk of the president, CIA deputy director, Richard Helms, reported that “Howard definitely wants to impress the U.S. Government with two facts: Castro is ready to discuss rapprochement and herself is ready to discuss it with him if asked to do so by the U.S. Government.”
Predictably, the CIA adamantly opposed any dialogue with Cuba. The agency was institutionally invested in its on-going efforts to covertly roll back the revolution. In a secret memo rushed to the White House on May 1, 1963, CIA Director John McCone requested that “no active steps be taken on the rapprochement matter at this time” and urged only the “most limited Washington discussions” on accommodation with Castro.
But in the fall of 1963, Washington and Havana did take active steps toward actual negotiations. In September Howard used a cocktail party at her E. 74th st. Manhattan townhouse as cover for the first meeting between a Cuban official, UN Ambassador Carlos Lechuga, and a U.S. official, deputy UN Ambassador William Attwood. Attwood told Lechuga that there was interest at the White House in secret talks, if there was something to talk about. He also noted that “the CIA runs Cuba policy.” Following that meeting, Castro and Kennedy used Howard as an intermediary to began passing messages about arranging an actual negotiation session between the two nations.
On November 5, Kennedy’s secret taping system in the Oval Office recorded in a conversation with his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, on whether to send William Attwood, who was serving as a deputy to U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson at the United Nations, to Havana to meet secretly with Castro. Attwood, Bundy told the President, “now has an invitation to go down and talk to Fidel about terms and conditions in which he would be interested in a change of relations with the U.S.” The president is heard agreeing to the idea but asking if “we can get Attwood off the payroll before he goes” so as to “sanitize” him as a private citizen in case word of the secret meeting leaked.
On November 14, Howard arranged for Attwood to come to her home and talk via telephone to Castro’s top aide, Rene Vallejo, about obtaining the Cuban agenda for a secret meeting between in Havana with the Cuban commandante. Vallejo agreed to transmit a proposed agenda to Cuba’s UN ambassador, Lechuga, to give to the Americans. When Attwood passed this information onto Bundy at the White House, he was told that when the agenda was received, “the president wanted to see me at the White House and decide what to say and whether to go [to Cuba] or what we should do next.”
“That was the 19th of November,” Attwood recalled. “Three days before the assassination.”
Kennedy’s Final Act
But Kennedy also sent another message of potential reconciliation to Castro. His emissary, a French journalist named Jean Daniel, had met with Kennedy in Washington to discuss Cuba. Kennedy gave him a message for Fidel Castro: Better relations were possible, and the two countries should work toward an end to hostilities. On November 22, Daniel passed that message to Castro, and the two were discussing it optimistically at Castro home over lunch, when Castro received a phone call reporting that Kennedy had been shot. “This is terrible,” Castro told Daniel, realizing that his mission had been aborted by an assassins’ bullet. “Everything is changed. Everything is going to change.” “There goes your mission of peace.” Castro then accurately predicted: “They are going to say we did it.”
Amidst the ongoing controversies over conspiracy theories, what is lost in the historical discussion of the assassination is that John F. Kennedy’s very last act as president was to reach out to Castro and offer the possibility of a different bilateral relationship between Havana and Washington. Fifty years later, the potential Kennedy envisioned for co-existence between the Cuban revolution and the U.S. has yet to be realized. As part of commemorating his legacy, his vision for a détente in the Caribbean must be remembered, reconsidered, and revisited.
October 3, 1963
The Intra-Administration War In Vietnam, by Arthur Krock, a very close friend of the Kennedy Family, published by The New York Times, on October 3, 1963.
…One reporter in this category is Richard Starnes of the Scripps-Howard newspapers. Today, under a Saigon dateline, he related that, “according to a high United States source here, twice the CIA flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Herny Cabot Lodge [and] in one instance frustrated a plan of action Mr. Lodge brought from Washington because the agency disagreed with it.”
Among the views attributed to United States officials on the scene, including one described as a “very high American official who has spent much of his life in the service of democracy” are the following: The CIA’s growth was “likened to a malignancy” which the very high official was not sure even the white house could control “any longer.” “If the United States ever experiences an attempt at a coup to overthrow the government, it will come from the CIA and not the Pentagon”. The agency “represents a tremendous power and total unaccountability to anyone.”
October 3, 1963
White House Oval Office, President Kennedy’s Rocking Chair and Desk
October 5, 1963
From: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matter
For at least a decade, JFK’s favorite poem had been Rendezvous, a celebration of death. Rendezvous was by Alan Seeger, an American poet killed in World War One. The poem was Seeger’s affirmation of his own anticipated death.
The refrain of Rendezvous, “I have a rendezvous with Death,” articulated John Kennedy’s deep sense of his own mortality. Kennedy had experienced a continuous rendezvous with death in anticipation of his actual death: from the deaths of his PT boat crew members, from drifting alone in the dark waters of the Pacific Ocean, from the early deaths of his brother Joe and sister Kathleen, and from the recurring near-death experiences of his almost constant illnesses.
He recited Rendezvous to his wife, Jacqueline, in 1953 on their first night home in Hyannis after their honeymoon. She memorized the poem, and recited it back to him over the years. In the fall of 1963, Jackie taught the words of the poem to their five-year-old daughter, Caroline.
I have thought many times about what then took place in the White House Rose Garden one beautiful fall day.
On the morning of October 5, 1963, President Kennedy met with his National Security Council in the Rose Garden. Caroline suddenly appeared at her father’s side. She said she wanted to tell him something. He tried to divert her attention while the meeting continued. Caroline persisted. ‘
The president smiled and turned his full attention to his daughter. He told her to go ahead. While the members of the National Security Council sat and watched, Caroline looked into her father’s eyes and said:
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air –
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath –
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
God knows ‘twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear….
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.
After Caroline said the poem’s final word, “rendezvous,” Kennedy’s national security advisers sat in stunned silence. One of them said later the bond between father and daughter was so deep “it was as if there was ‘an inner music’ he was trying to teach her.”
JFK had heard his own acceptance of death from the lips of his daughter. While surrounded by a National Security Council that opposed his breakthrough to peace, the president once again deepened his pledge not to fail that rendezvous. If God had a place for him, he believed that he was ready.
October 7, 1963
President Kennedy signs the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. This is the first disarmament agreement of the nuclear age. Kennedy states: “with our courage and understanding enlarged by this achievement, let us press onward in quest of man’s essential desire for peace.”
October 9, 1963
“Wheat Sale: U.S. to Sell Grain to Soviet Bloc.”
At the Presidential News Conference, Kennedy makes remarks concerning the wheat surplus in America, and the new agreement to sell off the wheat to the Soviet Union. He states that although this act does not alter the Soviet trade policy, it is still a good step forward in better foreign relations.
Excerpt from
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matter
Why He Died and Why It Matters: In the final weeks of his presidency, President Kennedy took one more risky step toward peace. It can be seen in relation to a meeting he had the year before with six Quakers who visited him in his office. One thousand members of the Society of Friends had been vigiling for peace and world order outside the White House. President Kennedy agreed to meet with six of their leaders. I have interviewed all three survivors of that meeting with the president 47 years ago. They remain uniformly amazed at the open way in which President Kennedy listened and responded to their radical Quaker critique of his foreign policy. Among their challenges to him was a recommendation that the United States offer its surplus food to the People’s Republic of China. China was considered an enemy nation. Yet it was also one whose people were beset by a famine.
Kennedy said to the Quakers, “Do you mean you would feed your enemy when he has his hands on your throat?”
The Quakers said they meant exactly that. They reminded him it was what Jesus had said should be done. Kennedy said he knew that, and knew that it was the right thing to do, but he couldn’t overcome the China lobby in Washington to accomplish it.
Nevertheless, a year and a half later in the fall of 1963, against overwhelming opposition, Kennedy decided to sell wheat to the Russians, who had a severe grain shortage. His outraged critics said in effect to him what he had said to the Quakers: Would you feed an enemy who has his hands on your throat?
Vice President Lyndon Johnson said he thought Kennedy’s decision to sell wheat to Russia would turn out to be the worst political mistake he ever made. Today JFK’s controversial decision “to feed the enemy” has been forgotten. In 1963, the wheat sale was seen as a threat to our security – feeding the enemy to kill us. Yet JFK went ahead with it, as one more initiative for peace.
The violent reaction to his decision was represented on Friday morning, November 22, 1963, by a threatening, full-page advertisement addressed to him in the Dallas Morning News. The ad was bordered in black, like a funeral notice.
Among the charges of disloyalty to the nation that the ad made against the president was the question: “Why have you approved the sale of wheat and corn to our enemies when you know the Communist soldiers ‘travel on their stomach’ just as ours do?” JFK read the ad before the flight from Fort Worth to Dallas, pointed it out to Jacqueline Kennedy, and talked about the possibility of his being assassinated that day.
“But, Jackie,” he said, “if somebody wants to shoot me from a window with a rifle, nobody can stop it, so why worry about it?”
See May 1, 1962, Kennedy meets with six Quakers in the Oval Office.
October 11, 1963
On October 11, 1963, President Kennedy issued National Security Action Memorandum 263, In NSAM 263 he orders that 1,000 U.S. military personnel be withdrawn from Vietnam by the end of 1963, and that the bulk of U.S. personnel be taken out by the end of 1965. Kennedy decided on his withdrawal policy, against the arguments of most of his advisers, at a contentious October 2 National Security Council meeting. When Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was leaving the meeting to announce the withdrawal to the White House reporters, “the President called to him, ‘And tell them that means all of the helicopter pilots, too.’”
In fact, it would not mean that at all. After JFK’s assassination, his withdrawal policy was quietly voided (See November 21, 1963 NSAM 273 Draft and November 26, 1963, NSAM 273). In light of the future consequences of Dallas, it was not only John Kennedy who was murdered on November 22, 1963, but 58,000 other Americans and over three million Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians.
Excerpt from
Exit Strategy: In 1963, JFK Ordered A Complete Withdrawal From Vietnam
by James K. Galbraith
… A more thorough treatment appeared in 1992, with the publication of John M. Newman’s JFK and Vietnam. Until his retirement in 1994 Newman was a major in the U.S. Army, an intelligence officer last stationed at Fort Meade, headquarters of the National Security Agency. As an historian, his specialty is deciphering declassified records, a talent he later applied to the CIA’s long-hidden archives on Lee Harvey Oswald.
Newman’s argument was not a case of “counterfactual historical reasoning,” as Larry Berman described it in an early response. It was not about what might have happened had Kennedy lived. Newman’s argument was stronger: Kennedy, he claims, had decided to begin a phased withdrawal from Vietnam, that he had ordered this withdrawal to begin. Here is the chronology, according to Newman:
(1) On October 2, 1963, Kennedy received the report of a mission to Saigon by McNamara and Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The main recommendations, which appear in Section I(B) of the McNamara-Taylor report, were that a phased withdrawal be completed by the end of 1965 and that the “Defense Department should announce in the very near future presently prepared plans to withdraw 1,000 out of 17,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Vietnam by the end of 1963.” At Kennedy’s instruction, Press Secretary Pierre Salinger made a public announcement that evening of McNamara’s recommended timetable for withdrawal.
(2) On October 5, Kennedy made his formal decision. Newman quotes the minutes of the meeting that day:
The President also said that our decision to remove 1,000 U.S. advisors by December of this year should not be raised formally with Diem. Instead the action should be carried out routinely as part of our general posture of withdrawing people when they are no longer needed. (Emphasis added.)
The passage illustrates two points: (a) that a decision was in fact made on that day, and (b) that despite the earlier announcement of McNamara’s recommendation, the October 5 decision was not a ruse or pressure tactic to win reforms from Diem (as Richard Reeves, among others, has contended3) but a decision to begin withdrawal irrespective of Diem or his reactions.
(3) On October 11, the White House issued NSAM 263, which states:
The President approved the military recommendations contained in section I B (1-3) of the report, but directed that no formal announcement be made of the implementation of plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.
In other words, the withdrawal recommended by McNamara on October 2 was embraced in secret by Kennedy on October 5 and implemented by his order on October 11, also in secret. Newman argues that the secrecy after October 2 can be explained by a diplomatic reason. Kennedy did not want Diem or anyone else to interpret the withdrawal as part of any pressure tactic (other steps that were pressure tactics had also been approved). There was also a political reason: JFK had not decided whether he could get away with claiming that the withdrawal was a result of progress toward the goal of a self-sufficient South Vietnam.
The alternative would have been to withdraw the troops while acknowledging failure. And this, Newman argues, Kennedy was prepared to do if it became necessary. He saw no reason, however, to take this step before it became necessary. If the troops could be pulled while the South Vietnamese were still standing, so much the better.4 But from October 11 onward the CIA’s reporting changed drastically. Official optimism was replaced by a searching and comparatively realistic pessimism. Newman believes this pessimism, which involved rewriting assessments as far back as the previous July, was a response to NSAM 263. It represented an effort by the CIA to undermine the ostensible rationale of withdrawal with success, and therefore to obstruct implementation of the plan for withdrawal. Kennedy, needless to say, did not share his full reasoning with the CIA.
(4) On November 1 there came the coup in Saigon and the assassination of Diem and Nhu. At a press conference on November 12, Kennedy publicly restated his Vietnam goals. They were “to intensify the struggle” and “to bring Americans out of there.” Victory, which had figured prominently in a similar statement on September 12, was no longer on the list.
(5) The Honolulu Conference of senior cabinet and military officials on November 20–21 was called to review plans in the wake of the Saigon coup. The military and the CIA, however, planned to use that meeting to pull the rug from under the false optimism which some had used to rationalize NSAM 263. However, Kennedy did not himself believe that we were withdrawing with victory. It follows that the changing image of the military situation would not have changed JFK’s decision.
(6) In Honolulu, McGeorge Bundy prepared a draft of what would eventually be NSAM 273. The plan was to present it to Kennedy after the meeting ended. Dated November 21, this draft reflected the change in military reporting. It speaks, for example, of a need to “turn the tide not only of battle but of belief.” Plans to intensify the struggle, however, do not go beyond what Kennedy would have approved: A paragraph calling for actions against the North underscores the role of Vietnamese forces:
7. With respect to action against North Vietnam, there should be a detailed plan for the development of additional Government of Vietnam resources, especially for sea-going activity, and such planning should indicate the time and investment necessary to achieve a wholly new level of effectiveness in this field of action. (Emphasis added.)
(7) At Honolulu, a preliminary plan, known as CINCPAC OPLAN 34-63 and later implemented as OPLAN 34A, was prepared for presentation. This plan called for intensified sabotage raids against the North, employing Vietnamese commandos under U.S. control—a significant escalation.5 While JCS chief Taylor had approved preparation of this plan, it had not been shown to McNamara. Tab E of the meeting’s briefing book, also approved by Taylor and also not sent in advance to McNamara, showed that the withdrawal ordered by Kennedy in October was already being gutted, by the device of substituting for the withdrawal of full units that of individual soldiers who were being rotated out of Vietnam in any event.
(8) The final version of NSAM 273, signed by Johnson on November 26, differs from the draft in several respects. Most are minor changes of wording. The main change is that the draft paragraph 7 has been struck in its entirety (there are two pencil slashes on the November 21 draft), and replaced with the following:
Planning should include different levels of possible increased activity, and in each instance there be estimates such factors as: A. Resulting damage to North Vietnam; B. The plausibility denial; C. Vietnamese retaliation; D. Other international reaction. Plans submitted promptly for approval by authority.
The new language is incomplete. It does not begin by declaring outright that the subject is attacks on the North. But the thrust is unmistakable, and the restrictive reference to “Government of Vietnam resources” is now missing. Newman concludes that this change effectively provided new authority for U.S.–directed combat actions against North Vietnam. Planning for these actions began therewith, and we now know that an OPLAN 34A raid in August 1964 provoked the North Vietnamese retaliation against the destroyer Maddox, which became the first Gulf of Tonkin incident. And this in turn led to the confused incident a few nights later aboard the Turner Joy, to reports that it too had been attacked, and to Johnson’s overnight decision to seek congressional support for “retaliation” against North Vietnam. From this, of course, the larger war then flowed.
Another excellent in-depth article on NSAM 263 and NSAM 273:
The Kennedy Assassination And The Vietnam War (1971)
by Peter Dale Scott
October 24, 1963
President Kennedy signs the bill launching first major national drive against mental illness and mental retardation.
November 1, 1963 – November 2, 1963
The South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his adviser, his younger brother Ngô Ðình Nhu are arrested and assassinated. The Unites States backed coup overthrows the government of South Vietnam, replaces it with a military dictatorship.
November 2, 1963
The Chicago plot. Chicago was originally where Kennedy was to be assassinated. Had the plan succeeded, Thomas Arthur Vallee would have been the famous alleged assassin whose name would be remembered forever, rather than Lee Harvey Oswald.
On November 2, 1963, Kennedy was set to appear at the Army / Air Force football game in Chicago at 11:40 a.m. At the Chicago Secret Service Bureau, Special Agent in Charge, Maurice Martineau, informed agents about reports of assassins on October 30. Martineau was repeating a tip from the FBI, in which an informant identifying as “Lee” talked about a four-man sniper team of “rightwing para-military fanatics” with high-powered rifles, who would shoot at Kennedy as his motorcade was driving from O’Hare down the Northwest Expressway, around a slow loop off the highway exit of what is now ironically known as the JFK Expressway.
The tip from “Lee” wasn’t the only one. A landlady at a Northside boarding house called the FBI after she saw four men check into the house, each with a scoped rifle, and carrying a map of Kennedy’s motorcade route. The FBI then called the Secret Service office in Chicago, who searched for the riflemen. Two of the would-be assassins were found and detained for several hours for questioning, while the other two got away. The names of the two would-be presidential assassins are still unknown to this day, as the Department of the Treasury, which oversees the Secret Service, mysteriously destroyed all records of the Chicago plot when the Assassinations Records and Review Board asked for them in 1995, more than three decades after the incident.
In the meantime, the Secret Service had to respond to another tip about an ex-Marine named Thomas Arthur Vallee, who had been reportedly talking about shooting the president when he came to Chicago. Vallee was a paranoid schizophrenic, a disaffiliated member of the famously right-wing, anti-Communist John Birch society, collected guns, and was described as a loner. As a Marine in the Korean War, Vallee was injured by a mortar blast, was subsequently committed to several mental institutions, and received full disability benefits from the Veterans Administration. Like Oswald the expat turncoat, Vallee the mentally disabled fit the preferred profile of the lone wolf presidential assassin.
Vallee’s apartment was raided in his absence, and FBI agents found an M1 rifle, a carbine rifle, and 2500 rounds of ammunition. The Secret Service instructed Chicago Police to put 24-hour surveillance on Vallee and “get him off the street.” Vallee was pulled over and arrested by Chicago Police Department officers Daniel Groth and Peter Schurla on the morning of November 2, as his 1962 Ford Falcon made its way toward the expressway on Kennedy’s motorcade route. The officers cited a missed turn signal as the result of the arrest. Upon seeing a hunting knife in the front seat of the Falcon, they charged Vallee with carrying a concealed weapon, and a search of his trunk yielded 300 rounds of ammunition.
Vallee’s connections to Unites States intelligence soon came out. His New York license plates read 31-10RF. NBC Chicago employee Luke Christopher Hester learned of the arrest and asked Hugh Larkin, his father-in-law, to have a background check done on the plates by his former colleagues in the New York Police Department. The plates came back “frozen,” meaning that only United States intelligence agencies could retrieve the classified information associated with Vallee’s registration.
Officers Groth and Schurla went on to have prominent intelligence careers. Groth led the December 4, 1969, raid on Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, who were both assassinated by police. Hampton was just 21, and Clark was 22. The families of Hampton and Clark, as well as Black Panthers who survived the raid, would successfully sue Daniel Groth and local, state, and federal agencies in 1983 for a $1.85 million settlement. While under Oath, Groth admitted that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI specifically requested the raid on Hampton. Officer Schurla became a high-level intelligence officer at the Chicago police headquarters.
Like Oswald, Vallee also worked on the CIA’s top-secret U-2 planes in Japan. Vallee told investigative journalist Edwin Black that his U-2 work was at Camp Otsu, but that he also helped the CIA train Cuban exiles to kill Fidel Castro at a CIA base in Levittown, Long Island. Oswald did similar work at a CIA training camp in Lake Pontchartrain, close to New Orleans. Vallee worked near a third floor window at IPP Litho-Plate, at 625 West Jackson Boulevard, directly above where the presidential motorcade would pass. Oswald worked on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD), in front of where the Dallas motorcade would pass. It isn’t hard to see how the CIA blazed a path for both men to be set up as scapegoats in their elaborate plot to assassinate JFK.
November 12, 1963
NSAM 271 Cooperation With The USSR On Outer Space Matters
Memorandum For The Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
I would like you to assume personally the initiative and central responsibility within the Government for the development of a program of substantive cooperation with the Soviet Union in the field of outer space, including the development of specific technical proposals. I assume that you will work closely with the Department of State and other agencies as appropriate.
These proposals should be developed with a view of their possible discussion with the Soviet Union as a direct outcome of my September 20 proposal for broader cooperation between the United States and the USSR in outer space, including cooperation in lunar landing programs. All proposals or suggestions originating within the Government relating to this general subject will be referred to you for your consideration and evaluation.
In addition to developing substantive proposals, I expect that you will assist the Secretary of State in exploring problems of procedure and timing connected with holding discussions with the Soviet Union and in proposing for my consideration the channels which would be most desirable from our point of view. In this connection the channel of contact developed by Dr. Dryden between NASA and the Soviet Academy of Sciences has been quite effective, and I believe that we should continue to utilize it as appropriate as a means of continuing the dialogue between the scientists of both counties.
November 15, 1963?
Sergei Khrushchev said his father talked to him about a week before Kennedy’s death on the president’s idea for a joint lunar mission. Nikita Khrushchev had broken ranks with his rocket scientists, and thought the Soviet Union should accept Kennedy’s invitation to go to the moon together, as a further step in peaceful cooperation.
In Washington, Kennedy acted as if he already knew about Khrushchev’s hopeful change of heart on that critical issue. JFK was already telling NASA to begin work on a joint U.S.-Soviet lunar mission. On November 12, 1963, JFK issued his National Security Action Memorandum 271, ordering NASA to implement, as he put it, my “September 20 proposal for broader cooperation between the United States and the USSR in outer space, including cooperation in lunar landing programs.”
That further visionary step to end the Cold War also died with President Kennedy. As you know, the U.S. went to the moon alone. U.S. and Soviet rockets continued to be pointed at their opposite countries rather than being joined in a project for a more hopeful future. Sergei Khrushchev said, “I think if Kennedy had lived, we would be living in a completely different world.”
November 15, 1963
President Kennedy visits the family home in Palm Beach.
November 16, 1963
President Kennedy visits Cape Canaveral. Ten days after his visit, the cape was renamed Cape Kennedy. Today it is known as the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral.
November 17, 1963
President Kennedy returns to Palm Beach. He is scheduled to visit Tampa, Miami and several cities in Texas in the coming week.
November 18, 1963
President Kennedy arrives at MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa. His first stop is Al Lopez Field, where he delivers a speech. He then travels to the State Chamber of Commerce meeting and delivers another speech at a meeting at the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory. Then he flies to Miami to speak at a Democratic rally at the airport and at the Inter-American Press Association in Miami Beach. He returns to Washington late in the evening.
November 19, 1963
…But there was another case where Kennedy did the same, the giant island archipelago of Indonesia, which the Netherlands had colonized since the late 1500s. After World War II, a guerrilla war challenged a restoration of colonialism and Indonesia won its independence in 1949. But, as with Katanga in Congo, the Dutch decided to keep control of the eastern island of West Irian because of its wealth.
In 1958, the Dulles brothers tried to overthrow Achmed Sukarno, the nationalist president of Indonesia, but the coup attempt failed. The shoot-down of American pilot Allen Pope exposed the coup as being organized and run by the CIA. Sukarno kept Pope imprisoned after the change of administrations.
President Kennedy invited Sukarno to the U.S. for a state visit. He wanted to discuss the release of Pope, so he asked CIA Director Allen Dulles for the report on how Pope was captured. Dulles gave him a redacted copy. But even in this form, Kennedy discerned what had happened. He exclaimed, “No wonder Sukarno doesn’t like us very much. He has to sit down with people who tried to overthrow his government.”
Because of Kennedy’s different view of the issues at hand, he was able to achieve a much improved relationship with Indonesia. He secured the release of Pope, put together a package of non-military aid for Indonesia, and finally, with the help of Robert Kennedy and veteran diplomat Ellsworth Bunker, West Irian was released by the Netherlands and eventually returned to Indonesia.
Kennedy’s diplomatic opening to the fiery third-world leadership of President Sukarno of Indonesia. Sukarno was “the most outspoken proponent of Third World neutralism in the Cold War.” He had actually coined the term “Third World.” The CIA wanted Sukarno dead. It wanted what it saw as his pro-communist “global orientation” obliterated. During Eisenhower’s presidency, the CIA repeatedly tried to kill and overthrow Sukarno but failed.
Kennedy, however, chose to work with Sukarno, hoping to win him over as an ally, which he did. Sukarno came to love Kennedy. The U.S. president resolved what seemed a hopeless conflict between Indonesia and its former colonial master, the Netherlands, averting a war. To the CIA’s dismay, in 1961 Kennedy welcomed Sukarno to the White House.
Most significantly, three days before his assassination (November 19, 1963), President Kennedy said he was willing to accept Sukarno’s invitation to visit Indonesia the following spring. His visit to Indonesia would have dramatized in a very visible way Kennedy’s support of Third World nationalism, a sea change in U.S. government policy.
Kennedy’s Indonesian policy was also killed in Dallas, with horrendous consequences. After Lyndon Johnson became president, the CIA finally succeeded in overthrowing Sukarno in a massive purge of suspected Communists that ended up killing 500,000 to one million Indonesians.
November 19, 1963
Sends a presidential statement to be read at the Centennial Ceremony in Gettysburg National Military Park, where Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.
November 20, 1963
President Kennedy discusses the prospect of a single global commercial space communications system. He transmits to Congress an annual report on the United Nations. He signs a bill authorizing medals commemorating the founding of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (his last bill). That evening Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy host a cocktail party at the White House.
November 21, 1963
President Kennedy asks economic advisers to prepare “War on Poverty” program for 1964.
November 21, 1963
President Kennedy begins his tour of Texas. His destinations are San Antonio, Houston, Fort Worth, Dallas and Austin. In San Antonio, President Kennedy gives a dedication speech for U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base. In Houston, he attends at testimonial dinner at the Rice Hotel, honoring Congressman Albert Thomas. At 11:35 p.m., the First Couple arrives at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, after being cheered by thousands of well-wishers lined on the route towards the West Freeway, despite the late time and rainy weather.
November 21, 1963
A Handbill Circulated On November 21, 1963 In Dallas, Texas. Around 5,000 copies were distributed around Dallas in the days before President Kennedy’s November 22, 1963 visit, accused Kennedy of a range of offenses, from being “lax” on Communism, to “appointing anti-Christians to Federal office,” to lying to the American people about his personal life. General Edwin A. Walker, a Texan who served in World War II and the Korean War, had resigned his Army post in 1961 after a Kennedy-ordered investigation found that he had violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activity on the job. The Warren Commission investigation tracked these flyers to Walker’s aide Robert Surrey. Surrey had overseen the distribution of the sheets in the days prior to JFK’s arrival; members of Walker’s organization, acting on his behalf, placed them under windshield wipers and in newspaper racks.
November 21, 1963
Perhaps the most powerful evidence indicating that select Senior Administration Officials and Senior Military personnel may have had foreknowledge of the plot to assassinate the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, is found in the draft of National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) Number 273. There are several smoking guns, but the one that initially stands out as the most obvious is the date of the draft, which was subsequently signed by McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President for National Security. The draft was written and dated November 21st, 1963 less than 24 hours before the assassination.
Strangely, this NSAM #273, which began the change in Kennedy’s policy toward Vietnam, was drafted on November 21, 1963, the day before Kennedy died. It was not Kennedy’s policy. He would not have requested it, and would not have signed it. Why would it have been drafted for his signature on the day before he died; and why would it have been given to Johnson so quickly? Johnson had not asked for it. On November 21, 1963 Johnson had no expectation whatsoever of being President.
See October 11, 1963
November 21, 1963
There was a party and afterwards a very late (12:30 a.m.) closed door meeting at the home of Clint Murchison on the evening of Thursday, November 21, 1963. There were at lease four witnesses that have gone on record about this party and then late night meeting, Helen Thomas, Penn Jones, Madeline Brown and May Newman. Also, Val Imm, the society editor for the now-defunct Dallas Times Herald, attended the party and unwittingly documented one of the most significant gatherings in American history. James Tague was also confident in his research that the party and meeting occurred.
Chapter Eighty-Two – Clint Murchison’s Party (Part 1)
by James Tague
Chapter Eighty-Two – Clint Murchison’s Party (Part 2 – Helen Thomas)
by James Tague
Madeleine Brown, on the television program, A Current Affair (February 24, 1992)
On Thursday night, November 21, 1963, the last evening prior to Camelot’s demise, I attended a social at Clint Murchison’s home. It was my understanding that the event was scheduled as a tribute honoring his long time friend, J. Edgar Hoover (whom Murchison had first met decades earlier through President William Howard Taft), and his companion, Clyde Tolson.
Val Imm, the society editor for the now-defunct Dallas Times Herald, unwittingly documented one of the most significant gatherings in American history. The impressive guest list included John McCloy, Richard Nixon, George Brown, R. L. Thornton, H. L. Hunt and a host of others from the Suite 8F group.
The jovial party was just breaking up when Lyndon made an unscheduled visit. I was the most surprised by his appearance since Jesse had not mentioned anything about Lyndon’s coming to Clint’s. With Lyndon’s hectic schedule, I never dreamed he could attend the big party. After all, he had arrived in Dallas on Tuesday to attend the Pepsi-Cola convention. Tension filled the room upon his arrival.
The group immediately went behind closed doors. A short time later Lyndon, anxious and red-faced, reappeared I knew how secretly Lyndon operated. Therefore I said nothing… not even that I was happy to see him. Squeezing my hand so hard, it felt crushed from the pressure, he spoke with a grating whisper, a quiet growl, into my ear, not a love message, but one I’ll always remember: “After tomorrow those goddamn Kennedy’s will never embarrass me again, that’s no threat, that’s a promise.”
The Clint Murchison Meeting (1:21:26)
Interview with Madeleine Duncan Brown
The Men Who Killed Kennedy – Lyndon Johnson (First Part Clint Murchison’s Party)
According to journalist Helen Thomas, those who were at that private meeting the night before the assassination included:
Vice President Lyndon Johnson
J. Edgar Hoover
Clyde Tolson – J. Edgar Hoover’s boyfriend and Associate Director of the FBI
Richard M. Nixon
H. L. Hunt
George Brown – Brown and Root
John McCloy – Chairman Chase Manhattan Bank and member of Warren Commission
John Connally
Cliff Carter – National Director of the Democratic National Committee
Clint Murchison Sr.
Carlos Marcello – Head of New Orleans Mafia
Joe Civello – Head of Dallas Mafia
Earle Cabell – Mayor of Dallas and brother of General Charles Cabell who was Deputy Director of the CIA until he was fired by Kennedy
Robert L. Thornton – Former Dallas Mayor
Amon G. Carter Jr. – Owner of the Fort Worth Star Telegram newspaper
Bill Decker – Sheriff of Dallas County
Malcolm Wallace, Hitman for LBJ
Jack Ruby
And others…
When Kennedy was slaughtered, Russia’s Khrushchev was literally crying, fearing nuclear war. Cuba’s Castro worried and feared an US invasion and gave an impressive speech the next day deconstructing the CIA’s deception provocation for war. Meanwhile at Clint Murchison’s home, their family maid May Newman describes the scene: “The mood in the Murchison family home was very joyous and happy. For a whole week after champagne and caviar flowed, every day of the week. But I was the only one in that household at that time that felt any grief for his assassination.”
The Men Who Killed Kennedy, The Guilty Men, Episode 9
For more see the comprehensive section:
Oil Men And Oil Depletion Allowance
For more see the comprehensive section:
November 22, 1963
“It is interesting, but not surprising, to note that
in all the words written and uttered about the Kennedy assassination,
Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, has never been mentioned.”
Paul Findley, Former United States Congressman, March 1992
The number one motive for the assassination of the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was for Israel to acquire nuclear weapons. At the same time, Israel was desperate to keep their all powerful Lobby from ever having to register as agents of a foreign government, and finally, to buy every United States politician, so they could dictate foreign policy.
The second and third top motives, the military industrial complex (Kennedy was pulling out of the Vietnam War – NSAM 263 – October 11, 1963) and the oil depletion allowance, were about money.
If one follows the money it leads us directly to the Jewish controlled banks (especially our counterfeiting central bank, theFederal Reserve). These same top Jewish financiers were the major interlocking shareholders of the biggest defense companies. The same goes for the oil depletion allowance, the major interlocking shareholders of the largest oil companies were once again, the same top Jewish financiers.
To all of the writers and researchers on the Kennedy assassination who have come to the conclusion that he was assassinated by the military industrial complex and the CIA; I ask, how can you not then follow the tens of billions of dollars that was made from the Vietnam War?
The usurious bank loans made billions of dollars or more per year off the Vietnam War. So much money was spent on that needless war that on August 15, 1971,
Nixon is forced to temporally take the United States off of the gold standard, and therefore puts an end to the Bretton Woods system (almost 46 years later we are still off the gold standard). There was also an awful lot of money made off the heroin in Southeast Asia. Ending the oil depletion allowance would have cost big oil about $300 million per year.
How has every Kennedy writer and researcher not come to this very basic conclusion?
Israel most likely now possesses at least 500 nuclear weapons, and perhaps as many as 1,000. This is more than enough to cause a nuclear winter, and the end of mankind. Spokespeople for Israel have stated that if threatened they will use the Samson option.
So, is Israel using their vast nuclear arsenal to blackmail and control not only the United States, but every country on Earth?
For more see the comprehensive section:
November 22, 1963: Death of the President
Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas.
Lyndon Baines Johnson on the morning of November 22, 1963 to Madeleine Brown: “His snarling voice jolted me as never before – “That son-of-a-bitch crazy Yarborough and that goddamn _____ Irish mafia bastard, Kennedy, will never embarass me again!” I managed to say, “I’m looking forward to tonight,” when he blasted out even louder, “I’ve got about a minute to get to the parking lot to hear that bastard!”, and he slammed down the phone. I was startled … an uneasiness gripped me over Lyndon’s actions and temper.”
[Madeleine Duncan Brown, Texas in the Morning, p. 167]
On Friday, November 22, 1963, at 8:45 a.m. CST, the president is speaking before breakfast in a square across Eighth Street, accompanied by Congressman Jim Wright, Senator Yarborough, Governor Connally and Vice President Johnson. Kennedy is praising Fort Worth’s aviation industry.
At 9:10 a.m. CST, JFK takes his place in the hotel’s Grand Ballroom for the scheduled speech, the First Lady arriving amid loud applause 15 minutes later. After the speech, Roy Kellerman, the Secret Service agent in charge of the trip, is advised by Kenny O’Donnell that the presidential limousine should have its bubbletop off if it’s not raining in Dallas. Later, press secretary Mac Kilduff shows the First Couple a disturbing advertisement seen in The Dallas Morning News, ironically and critically headlined ‘Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas’. JFK tells Jacqueline: “Oh, you know, we’re heading into nut country today.”
At 11:38 a.m. CST, Kennedy, his wife Jacqueline, and the rest of the presidential entourage arrived at Love Field in northwest Dallas aboard Air Force One after a very short flight from nearby Carswell Air Force Base, west of Fort Worth. The Presidential motorcade did not leave Love Field until approximately fifteen minutes later. The president to proceed in a long motorcade from Love Field through downtown Dallas, and end at the Dallas Business and Trade Mart. The presidential motorcade stopped twice so President Kennedy could shake hands with some Catholic nuns, then some school children. The motorcade was scheduled to enter Dealey Plaza at 12:10 p.m., followed by a 12:15 p.m. arrival at the Dallas Business and Trade Mart so President Kennedy could deliver a speech and share in a steak luncheon with Dallas government, business, religious, and civic leaders and their spouses. Invitations that were sent out specify a noon start time to the luncheon.
12:00 p.m. – 1:22 p.m. CST
Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) Timeline
12:25 p.m. CST,
Dead Phones & No Electrical Power
by James Tague
The JFK Assassination, Part 6: The TSBD’s Electricity
by Randall F. McElroy III
…Four witnesses, two policemen and two employees of the TSBD, said that the elevator was not working. Another employee says that it was not moving, which is different from saying that it was not working but at least does not contradict this idea. Geneva Hine was an employee at the TSBD, and her testimony to the Warren Commission can be found here (quote on page 395). Miss Hine. Yes, sir: I was alone until the lights all went out and the phones became dead because the motorcade was coming near us and no one was calling so I got up and thought I could see it from the east window in our office. This excerpt of the Alyea film shows the elevator in motion at 0:36. This video shows a light on in the entrance to the TSBD at the 2:03 mark. This same light is not on a few minutes prior in the Altgens photo, taken during the assassination. This is consistent with Geneva Hine’s testimony. What does this all add up to? It’s mighty strange that the power wasn’t working when somebody on the sixth floor was busy assassinating the president. This could be a lucky coincidence for the shooter (or team, or however it played out), making it even less likely that somebody would come upstairs in time to witness the act. It becomes more eerie when one learns that the building was owned by D.H. Byrd, an associate of Lyndon Baines Johnson…
Geneva Hine, the only employee in the Depository’s second floor offices, observes the electrical power and telephone system go dead. She tells the Warren Commission, “I was alone until the lights all went out and the phones became dead because the motorcade was coming near us and no one was calling so I got up and thought I could see it from the east window in our office.” The Warren Commission will not question a single TSBD employee, including building manager Roy Truly, about the mysterious interruption of electric or telephone service, nor will they ask the location of the electric and telephone service panels. Moments after the shooting, Geneva Hine knocks on the door of Southwestern Publishing (Room 203 in the TSBD). She sees a woman through the opaque glass, hears her talking on the phone, and continues knocking on the door, but the woman never answers. Researcher John Armstrong questions why a telephone was working in one office when electrical service and phone service went dead everywhere else in the TSBD. The woman using the phone, Mrs. John L. (Carol) Huges, was not questioned by the Warren Commission.
Researcher Richard Gilbride: “I’ve been wondering about a power stoppage of the elevators for several years, but can’t rigorously prove it. What got me started was Geneva Hine’s statement that “the lights all went out and the phones became dead because the motorcade was coming near us.” I believe she is talking about the Lucite display buttons on the phone carriages that signal an incoming call; there was no switchboard; she was manning the 2nd-floor central-office phones as a favor to the other office girls, since she’d seen the President before. At least 2 (“lights”- plural) phone calls went dead simultaneously. I have to wonder whether a voltage spike or power surge (which also occurs in a negative sense- a negative spike or sudden loss of power) brought about this temporary loss of power to the phones. This could occur if the phone’s electrical line was physically close to a strongly-changing electrical line. Then the fundamental force of induction comes into play. A changing current in one line can induce a current to change in a neighboring line, if it is close enough.
There were 2 elevator outages noted: 1) the front passenger elevator wasn’t working when Victoris Adams and Sandra Styles tried it on the 4th floor; at 12:31, in my opinion 2) Luke Mooney took the west freight elevator from the 1st to the 2nd floor, and Adams got on, somewhere between 12:45 and 12:50. But the elevator’s power then cut out and they had to use the stairs. IF the front passenger elevator and rear freight elevators were tied into the same circuit, the 12:31 passenger elevator outage may mean the freight elevators were shut off at this time as well.
The passenger elevator was newly-installed, built during renovations to the vacant warehouse, once the Sexton grocery company moved out of 411 Elm Street. The freight elevators had been in use for years and years. The main junction box for the freight elevators was undoubtedly somewhere just beneath them, in the basement at the rear of the building. It may have been a 440-volt feed, to provide ample power for the elevators.
The installation of a passenger elevator required either its own separate junction box, or a cable running along the wall or ceiling to connect with the box for the freight elevators.
It’s true that, if the outer corrugated-metal gate wasn’t shut closed, the west freight elevator couldn’t be summoned- riding empty on its own. With the outer gate open, this elevator could still be ridden up & down if, as a safety feature, the inner wooden-slat gate was rolled down. So we may picture Truly yelling up the shaft, 50 seconds after the assassination, and Dougherty standing on the elevator platform at the 5th floor, with the inside gate shut, ignoring Truly, waiting for the power to get turned on. He’d then just press a button for a floor on the control panel inside. It wasn’t necessary to cut off the elevator’s power, but may have been incorporated into the assassination planning, a precautionary overkill.”
Electrical Power Events: Geneva Hine’s phone system lights go off, just before 12:30. Was this a power outage or just no calls at that time?; Truly and Baker are unable to get an elevator down from the 5th floor less than a minute after the shots. Sandra Styles said she and Vicky Adams tried the passenger elevator in front, but when it did not work, they went to the backstairs. The West elevator has power when Mooney gets on the 1st floor, then loses power on the 2nd floor, 12:33-12:36. Who cut power to elevator at that precise moment? Select Elevator circuits and possibly the phone system circuit were reported off, but I have seen no report of all power to the TSBD being off, which would have happened if the Main Circuit breaker was thrown. The 3 elevators would have been on their own dedicated circuits, as would the phone system. The evidence supports the possibility that selected circuits may have been turned on/off at various times just before and after 12:30. This rules out random fuse failure (or circuit breakers being tripped) and supports the notion of manipulation of the power circuits.
At 12:29 p.m. CST, the presidential limousine entered Dealey Plaza after a 90-degree right turn from Main Street onto Houston Street. Over two dozen known and unknown amateur and professional still and motion-picture photographers captured the last living images of President Kennedy. Just before 12:30 p.m. CST, President Kennedy was riding on Houston Street and slowly approached the Texas School Book Depository head-on.
At 12:30 p.m. CST, shots are fired. According to witnesses, the shooting began shortly after the limousine made the sharp left-hand turn from Houston onto Elm Street.
At 12:38 p.m. CST, the limousine arrives at Parkland Memorial Hospital. President Kennedy is taken Parkland Hospital Trauma Room #1. Dr. Malcolm Perry, assistant professor of surgery at UT Southwestern and a vascular surgeon on the Parkland staff, was the first to treat Kennedy and he performed a tracheotomy, followed by a cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Other doctors and surgeons who gathered worked frantically to save the president’s life, but his wounds were too severe. Personnel at Parkland Hospital Trauma Room #1, who treated the President, observed that the president’s condition was “moribund”, meaning he had no chance of survival upon arrival at the hospital. “We never had any hope of saving his life,” Dr. Perry said.
At 1:00 p.m. CST, after all the activity had ceased, and after the Reverend Oscar L. Huber administered the last rites, President Kennedy was pronounced dead.
Although President Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:00 p.m. CST, the official announcement would not come until more than half an hour later. After receiving word of the president’s death, acting White House press secretary Malcolm Kilduff entered the room where Vice President Johnson, who was constitutionally now the President, and his wife were sitting. Kilduff approached them and said to Johnson, “Mr. President, I have to announce the death of President Kennedy. Is it ok with you that the announcement be made now?” The new president ordered that the announcement be made only after he left the hospital. When asking that the announcement be delayed, Johnson told Kilduff: “I think I had better get out of here.. .before you announce it. We don’t know whether this is a worldwide conspiracy, whether they are after me as well as they were after President Kennedy, or whether they are after Speaker (John W.) McCormack, or Senator (Carl) Hayden. We just don’t know.”
At 1:22 p.m. CST, Boone, Craig and Weitzman discover a rifle they identify as a 7.65 Mauser concealed between boxes on the 6th floor. This 7.65 Mauser rifle was mentioned on all news for almost a day, till the assassins rifle was then changed to the Mannilcher-Carcano.
Roger Craig talks about the 7.65 Mauser found in the Texas School Book Depository after the JFK assassination. See the news reports you never saw again after the lying started.
The Mauser 7.65 Rifle
Various news agencies reported the rifle to be a Mauser, until the correction was made, one – one and a half days later.
A Mauser, is a Mauser, is a Mannlicher-Carcano
by George W. Bailey
The Assassinations Record Review Board (ARRB) in 1995 uncovered an FBI Field Office Dallas (89-43-1A-122) envelope. It was dated 12/2/63 and detailed the contents (since missing) of a 7.65mm shell found in Dealey Plaza after the assassination. This recovered evidence was unknown until the ARRB uncovered it. Unfortunately, it did not contain the 7.65mm shell and the outside of the envelope listed it as having no value and was destroyed. Destruction of material evidence by the FBI? Did they even bother take fingerprints off of it? Or, were there in too big of a rush?
One can see from this 7.65mm shell affair how deeply entrenched the lone gunman dogma is at this juncture. Yes, dismiss the evidence if there is only one shooter. But if there is a conspiracy, with multiple shooters, then the recovered shell has greater implications for it. But they don’t think like that. Ironically, the spent cartridge is of the same caliber as the recovered Mauser. With these people the evidence doesn’t matter as much as the carefully constructed narrative. Just like it didn’t matter when Gerald Ford moved Kennedy’s back would up to his neck and stated that lie as a fact to the American people.
The Condition of the Sixth–Floor Rifle
The experts from the US Army and the FBI who had tested the rifle discovered that it was actually not usable in its original state: Three shims had to be applied to the telescopic sight before the rifle could be aimed.
Even after the telescopic sight had been repaired, it proved unreliable and inaccurate. The condition of both the bolt and the trigger pull meant that the rifle could not be aimed accurately.
The rifle discovered on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository could not have caused any of the wounds to Kennedy, Connally or Tague, except by accident.
For more see the comprehensive section: 7.65 Mauser
At 1:33 p.m. CST, Malcolm Kilduff entered a nurses’ classroom at the hospital filled with press reporters and made the official announcement: “President John F. Kennedy died at approximately 1:00 CST today, here in Dallas. He died of a gunshot wound to the brain. I have no other details regarding the assassination of the president.”
At 2:38 p.m. EST (1:38 p.m. CST) Cronkite remarked on fearful concerns of demonstrations in Dallas similar to the attack of U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson in Dallas the previous month. At that moment, a CBS News employee seen in the background pulled off a sheet from the AP News ticker. He quickly relayed it (off-camera) to Cronkite, who put on his glasses, took a few seconds to read the sheet, and made the announcement: “From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official: [reading AP flash] ‘PRESIDENT KENNEDY DIED AT 1 P.M. (CST),’ 2:00 Eastern Standard Time, some thirty-eight minutes ago.” After reading the flash, Cronkite took off his glasses so he could consult the studio clock, which established the lapse in time since Kennedy had died. He paused briefly and replaced his eyeglasses, visibly moved for a moment. Cronkite continued: “Vice President Johnson… (clears throat) …has left the hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where he has proceeded. Presumably, he will be taking the oath of office shortly and become the thirty-sixth president of the United States.” There was a sense of irony to CBS’ coverage of the assassination. On September 2, 1963, Kennedy gave an interview with Cronkite, helping CBS inaugurate network television’s first half hour evening newscast.
At about 1:40 p.m. CST, shoe store manager Johnny Brewer testified that he saw Lee Harvey Oswald “ducking into” the entrance alcove of his store. Suspicious of this activity, Brewer watched Oswald continue up the street and slip into the nearby Texas Theatre without paying. He alerted the theater’s ticket clerk, who telephoned police.
At 1.45 p.m. CDT, Fifteen police officers surround the movie theater, and four officers are needed to subdue Lee Harvey Oswald inside.
At 1.51 p.m. CST, Dallas police report that Lee Harvey Oswald is in custody.
At about 2 p.m. CST, Oswald arrived at the Dallas Police Department building, where he was questioned by Detective Jim Leavelle about the shooting of Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit. When Captain J. W. Fritz heard Oswald’s name, he recognized it as that of the book depository employee who was reported missing and was already a suspect in the assassination of President Kennedy.
A few minutes after 2:00 p.m. CST, President Kennedy’s body was removed from Parkland Hospital and driven straight to Air Force One. The removal occurred subsequent to a ten to fifteen-minute angry confrontation between Kennedy’s special assistant Ken O’Donnell (backed by weapons-drawn and/or aimed Secret Service agents) with Parkland Hospital doctors and Medical Examiner Dr. Earl Rose, along with a justice of the peace. The removal of President Kennedy’s body was illegal, as it was done before a forensic examination could be performed by the Dallas coroner, which was against Texas state laws. The assassination of the president was, at that time, listed on the books as a state-level crime and not a federal one, and as such legally occurred under Texas jurisdiction.
In a 1992 interview published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Earl Rose (Rose was the medical examiner for Dallas County, Texas, at the time of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and he performed autopsies on J. D. Tippit, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby) said, “The law was broken” and that “[a] Texas autopsy would have assured a tight chain of custody on all the evidence.” In 2003, Rose said he still believed that he and his staff should have been allowed to perform the post-mortem examination of Kennedy and that many conspiracy theories about the assassination would have been quelled had he examined the President.
Once back at Air Force One, and only after Mrs. Kennedy and President Kennedy’s body had also returned to the plane, Lyndon Johnson was sworn in by Sarah T. Hughes as the thirty-sixth President of the United States of America at 2:38 p.m. CST.
At 2:50 p.m. CST, Dallas police take a paraffin test of Oswald’s hands and right cheek. Test is positive for hands; negative for the face. They lie and tell the media and public Oswald failed this test.
After the assassination, Oswald underwent a test that was routinely carried out on those suspected of having fired a gun. Liquid paraffin wax was spread on his hands and his right cheek. When hardened, the paraffin wax would extract from deep in the pores of his skin any fine residues given off by the firing of a gun, even if he had washed his skin in the meantime.
Barium and antimony, which are found in gunpowder residues, are also found in several common substances such as printing ink, which Oswald certainly had handled on the morning of the assassination. The presence of these substances is not sufficient evidence of having fired a gun, but their absence is sufficient evidence of having not fired a gun.
In other words: Firing a gun would deposit barium and antimony on parts of the skin close to the gun. If barium and antimony were found on Oswald’s skin, they may have been deposited by the firing of a gun. But they may instead have been deposited by other means: for example, the handling of books. If barium and antimony were not found on Oswald’s skin, he almost certainly did not fire a gun.
Three Tests Proved Oswald’s Innocence
Test 1: Spectrographic Analysis
Oswald’s paraffin casts were subjected to two analyses. Spectrographic analysis, the method normally used by the police, showed evidence of barium and antimony on Oswald’s hands, but not on his cheek.
Test 2: Neutron Activation Analysis on Oswald
Spectrographic analysis was considered sufficiently reliable for criminal investigations, but in this case a more incisive test was also used. Neutron activation analysis, which is capable of identifying the presence of substances in quantities much too small to be captured by spectrographic analysis, also showed no incriminating quantities of residues on Oswald’s cheek.5 The result was reported in an internal Warren Commission memo: “At best, the analysis shows that Oswald may have fired a pistol, although this is by no means certain. … There is no basis for concluding that he also fired a rifle.”
Test 3: Controlled Neutron Activation Analysis
In order to check the validity of the neutron activation analysis of Oswald’s paraffin casts, a controlled test was made. Seven marksmen fired a rifle of the same type as that found on the sixth floor. The standard paraffin test was administered, and the paraffin casts were subjected to neutron activation analysis. All seven subjects showed substantial amounts of barium and antimony on their hands and, more importantly, on their cheeks.
The absence of significant quantities of residues on Oswald’s cheek meant that he almost certainly had not fired a rifle that day.
Summary of Results from Oswald’s Paraffin Tests
Congressman Albert Thomas give a “Masonic wink” back at a quickly-smiling LBJ as he is being sworn in to be the 36th President of the United States onboard Air Force One, while the grief-stricken Jackie Kennedy stands next to him.
At 5:59 p.m. EST, Air Force One arrived at Andrews Air Force Base (AFB) near Washington, D.C. The television networks made the switch to the AFB just as the plane touched down.
After President Kennedy’s brother, Robert Kennedy, boarded the plane, Kennedy’s casket was removed from the rear entrance and loaded into a light gray US Navy ambulance for its transport to the Bethesda Naval Hospital for an autopsy and mortician’s preparations. When Jackie Kennedy stepped off the plane with her brother-in-law, her pink suit and legs were still stained with her husband’s blood. All that long afternoon and into the early morning hours of the next day, the widow objected to leaving her husband’s body, except for the swearing in of Johnson. She also refused to change out of her blood-stained suit; Lady Bird Johnson, in her audio diary, quoted Mrs. Kennedy as saying “I want them to see what they have done to Jack.”
Shortly after the ambulance with the casket and Mrs. Kennedy departed, President Johnson and the First Lady exited Air Force One. They were led to a podium clustered with microphones where Lyndon Johnson made his first official statement as president of the United States: “This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me, it is a deep, personal tragedy. I know the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best; that is all I can do. I ask for your help and God’s.”
President Johnson himself ordered the arrival to be televised live. While en route to Washington from Dallas, he and Kilduff told the other assistant press secretary, Andrew Hatcher, that he was going to make his statement and that he wanted the arrival to be televised live. As the new president boarded his helicopter, he said that Mrs. Kennedy was in his heart and remarked about the presidency, and recounted, “Then the door of the helicopter slammed shut behind me and thus ended a tragic chapter in American history.
Kennedy’s body is taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital for the autopsy.
At 7:05 p.m. CST, Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with “murder with malice” in the killing of Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit.
At 11:26 p.m. CST, Oswald was charged with the murder of President Kennedy in the furtherance of a Communist conspiracy. (he reference to a Communist conspiracy was soon dropped from the language of the murder charge, reportedly on orders from someone in the White House.
Three Great Men Died That Day:
JFK, C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley
On November 22, 1963, three towering figures of the 20th century died. John F. Kennedy is the one that we all remember, but let’s consider the others. – John Garth
From: JFK at 100
by Paul Craig Roberts
…The assassination of President Kennedy was an enormous cost to the world. Kennedy and Khrushchev would have followed up their collaboration in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis by ending the Cold War long before the military/security complex achieved its iron grip on the US government. Israel would have been denied nuclear weapons, and the designation of the Israel Lobby as a foreign agent would have prevented Israel’s strong grip on the US government. In his second term, JFK would have broken the CIA into a thousand pieces, an intention he expressed to his brother, Robert, and the Deep State would have been terminated before it became more powerful than the President.
November 23, 1963
Kennedy’s body was prepared for burial by embalmers from Gawler’s Funeral Home in Washington, who performed the embalming and cosmetic restoration procedures at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
The body of President Kennedy was returned to the White House at about 4:30 a.m., the casket is placed in the East Room of the White House, where it stays under honor guard for 24 hours. Mrs. Kennedy declared that the casket would be kept closed for the duration of the viewing and funeral. Mrs. Kennedy, still wearing the blood-stained raspberry-colored suit she wore in Dallas, had not left the side of her husband’s body since his death (except for when Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States onboard Air Force One). Only after the casket was placed in the East Room, draped with black crepe, did she retire to her private quarters.
Mrs. Kennedy requested that two Catholic priests remain with the body until the official funeral. A call was made to The Catholic University of America, and Msgr. Robert Paul Mohan and Fr. Gilbert Hartke, two prominent Washington, D.C., priests, were immediately dispatched for the task.
A Mass was said in the East Room at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, November 23. After the Mass, other family members, friends, and other government officials came at specified times to pay their respects, including former U.S. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower. The other surviving former U.S. president at the time, Herbert Hoover, was too ill to attend, and was represented by his sons, Herbert Hoover Jr., who also attended the funeral, and Allan Hoover, who went to the services in the rotunda.
Across the street from the White House, in Lafayette Park, crowds stood in the rain, keeping a vigil and paying quiet respects. It rained all day in Washington, befitting the mood of the nation.
At 4:45 p.m, President Johnson issued Proclamation 3561, declaring November 25, the day of the funeral service, to be a national day of mourning.
On November 23, 1963 Fidel Castro broadcast a statement on Cuban radio in which he labeled the Kennedy assassination “a Machiavellian plot against our country” to justify “immediately an aggressive policy against Cuba…built on the still warm blood and unburied body of their tragically assassinated President.”
Oswald, he stated, may have been “an instrument of the most reactionary sectors that have been planning a sinister plot, who may have planned the assassination of Kennedy because of disagreement with his international policy. At the time of this dramatic statement, Castro knew something about Kennedy’s international policy that the rest of the world did not: at the time of his assassination Kennedy was actively exploring a rapprochement with Cuba, and working secretly with Castro to set up secret negotiations to improve relations.
In November 1963, Cuba had no reason to assassinate Kennedy because they were engaged in back channel diplomacy that could possibly lead to normalized relations. Indeed, at the very moment Kennedy was killed, Castro was meeting with an emissary (French journalist named Jean Daniel) Kennedy had sent to Havana on a “mission of peace.”
Castro On JFK Murder November 23, 1963 (Audio)
This is an audio book-style reading of Fidel Castro’s remarks about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Castro made these statements on November 23, 1963.
Comments by Fidel Castro
Narration by John Hawkes
Castro On JFK Murder November 23, 1963 (Text)
“The following is the text of a speech/commentary delivered by Fidel Castro on Cuban radio and TV, Saturday evening, November 23, 1963, one day after the assassination of President Kennedy. The speech gives the reader insight into the immediate analysis of the assassination which a political expert such as Castro was able to make. This English translation of the speech was released by the Cuban delegation to the United Nations in 1963. It is here reproduced with minor editing of grammar and punctuation.” – Fidel Castro
November 24, 1963
On Sunday, November 24, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald was being led through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters toward an armored car that was to take him to the nearby county jail. At 11:21 a.m. CST, Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby (Jacob Leonard Rubenstein) stepped from the crowd and shot Oswald at close range in the abdomen.
After few minutes of delay to wait for an ambulance to arrive, Oswald was taken unconscious to Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where doctors tried to save President Kennedy’s life two days earlier. Oswald died at 1:07 p.m. Oswald’s death was announced on a TV news broadcast by Dallas police chief Jesse Curry.
A network television pool camera was there to cover the transfer of Oswald and was broadcasting live; millions of people who were watching on NBC witnessed the shooting as it happened live and on other networks within minutes afterward.
The assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald is the first murder ever to be broadcast on live television.
On November 24, after driving into town with his two pet dogs and sending an emergency money order to one of his employees, Ruby walked to the nearby Dallas police headquarters, where he made his way to the basement via either the Main Street ramp or a stairway accessible from an alleyway next to the Dallas Municipal Building. At 11:21 am CST, while authorities were escorting Oswald through the police basement to an armored car that was to take him to the nearby county jail, Ruby stepped out from a crowd of reporters and fired his .38 revolver into Oswald’s abdomen, fatally wounding him. Ruby was immediately subdued by agents and police as he reportedly yelled “You killed the president, you rat!”
The House Select Committee on Assassinations in its 1979 Final Report opined: Ruby’s shooting of Oswald was not a spontaneous act, in that it involved at least some premeditation. Similarly, the committee believed it was less likely that Ruby entered the police basement without assistance, even though the assistance may have been provided with no knowledge of Ruby’s intentions… The committee was troubled by the apparently unlocked doors along the stairway route and the removal of security guards from the area of the garage nearest the stairway shortly before the shooting… There is also evidence that the Dallas Police Department withheld relevant information from the Warren Commission concerning Ruby’s entry to the scene of the Oswald transfer.
When Ruby was arrested immediately after the shooting, he told several witnesses that he had helped the city of Dallas “redeem” itself in the eyes of the public, and that Oswald’s death would spare “…Mrs. Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial.” At the time of the shooting, Ruby said he was taking phenmetrazine, a central nervous system stimulant.
Ruby’s explanation for killing Oswald would be “exposed … as a fabricated legal ploy”, according to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. In a private note to one of his attorneys, Joseph Tonahill, Ruby wrote: “Joe, you should know this. My first lawyer Tom Howard told me to say that I shot Oswald so that Caroline and Mrs. Kennedy wouldn’t have to come to Dallas to testify. OK?”
Another motive was put forth by Frank Sheeran, allegedly a hitman for the Mafia, in a conversation he had with the then-former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. During the conversation, Hoffa claimed that Ruby was assigned the task of coordinating police officers who were loyal to Ruby to kill Oswald while he was in their custody. As Ruby evidently mismanaged the operation, he was given a choice to either finish the job himself or forfeit his life.
At 2:45 p.m. the same day, an autopsy was performed on Oswald in the Office of the County Medical Examiner. Announcing the results of the gross autopsy, Dallas County medical examiner Earl Rose said: “The two things that we could determine were, first, that he died from a hemorrhage from a gunshot wound, and that otherwise he was a physically healthy male.” Rose’s examination found that Ruby’s bullet entered Oswald’s left side in the front part of the abdomen and caused damage to his spleen, stomach, aorta, vena cava, kidney, liver, diaphragm, and eleventh rib before coming to rest on his right side.
On Sunday afternoon about 300,000 people watched a horse-drawn caisson, carry Kennedy’s flag-covered casket down the White House drive, past parallel rows of soldiers bearing the flags of the 50 states of the Union, then along Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Rotunda to lie in state.
In the public viewing, tens of thousands lined up in near-freezing temperatures to view the casket. Over the span of 18 hours, 250,000 people, some waiting for as long as 10 hours in a line up to 10 persons wide that stretched 40 blocks, personally paid their respects as Kennedy’s body lay in state. Capitol police officers politely reminded mourners to keep moving along in two lines that passed on either side of the casket and exited the building on the west side facing the National Mall.
The original plan was for the rotunda to close at 9:00 p.m. and reopen for an hour at 9:00 the next morning. Because of long lines police and military authorities decided to keep the doors open. At 9:00 p.m., when the rotunda was supposed to close, both Jacqueline Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy returned to the rotunda again.[63][64] More than half the mourners came to the rotunda after 2:45 a.m., by which time 115,000 had already visited. Military officials doubled the lines, first to two abreast, then to four abreast. NBC broadcast uninterrupted coverage of the people passing through the Capitol rotunda during the overnight hours.
November 24, 1963 – November 30, 1963
Walkthrough: Formation of the Warren Commission
…in the 1990s more evidence emerged regarding secret information tying Oswald, or an Oswald impersonator, to Castro and to a Soviet assassination expert based in Mexico City. President Johnson used the fear of “40 million Americans” dying in a nuclear exchange to force a reluctant Senator Russell onto the Commission, and made Earl Warren finally say yes when told about “a little incident in Mexico City.”
Shortly after Oswald’s murder by Jacob Leonard Rubenstein, there is a very telling phone call made by Yale Law School Dean (1955 – 1966) Eugene Rostow (and then U.S. undersecretary of State for President Lyndon Johnson) and Bill Moyers (a special assistant to President Johnson, and then White House Press Secretary in the Johnson administration). In this call, Eugene Rostow suggests a President Commission to Bill Moyers. Rostow tells Moyers he has talked to Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach three times that day (November 24, 1963), and suggests “a commission of seven or nine people, maybe Nixon.” [According to Eugene Rostow, a former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the Johnson Administration, Resolution 242 gives Israel a legal right to be in the West Bank.]
[Shortly after 1 p.m., Katzenbach was watching television at home with a friend when Jack Ruby stepped out of the crowd in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters and shot Lee Harvey Oswald dead, an act that guaranteed that the truth about the Kennedy assassination never would be established beyond a reasonable doubt.
Although the exact time of this call is missing [how convent] from the White House daily diary, it is possible to identify the period during which the call was made. Rostow refers to the killing of Oswald, so the call had to be after 2:07 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the time Oswald was pronounced dead. The call appears in the White House daily diary prior to a conversation at 4:40 p.m., between President Johnson and Governor Pat Brown of California.” There is a memorandum however which clearly indicates that Rostow called the White House well before 4:00 p.m., EST.
According to Donald Gibson, the author of The Kennedy Assassination Cover-up, Eugene Rostow played an important role in the creation of the Warren Commission. He argues that “this Commission would have been more accurately named the Rostow Commision or the McCloy-Dulles Commission.“
The release of the White House telephone transcripts, thirty years after the assassination, make it possible to now construct a much more complete account of the Warren Commission’s origins. Those transcripts tell the story that Katzenbach hinted at in his 1978 testimony, a story LBJ had also hinted at in 1971. Had the appropriate questions been asked of Katzenbach in 1978, it is at least possible that Katzenbach himself would have filled in some of the gaps left in the record for over three decades.
It appears that the idea of a Presidential commission to report on the assassination of President Kennedy was first suggested by Eugene Rostow, Dean of the Yale Law School, in a telephone call to LBJ aide William Moyers during the afternoon of November 24, 1963. Although the time of this call is missing from the White House daily diary, it is possible to identify the period during which the call was made. Rostow refers to the killing of Oswald, so the call had to be after 2:07 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, the time Oswald was pronounced dead. The call appears in the White House daily diary prior to a conversation at 4:40 P.M, between President Johnson and Governor Pat Brown of California.” There is a memorandum which clearly indicates that Rostow called the White House well before 4:00 p.m., EST.
Rostow told Moyers that he was calling to make a suggestion that a “Presidential commission be appointed of very distinguished citizens in the very near future.” Rostow recommended that such a commission be Bi-partisan and above politics – no Supreme Court justices but people like Tom Dewey and Bill Story from Texas and so on. A commission of seven or nine people, maybe Nixon, I don’t know, to look into the whole affair of the murder of the President because world opinion and American opinion is just now so shaken by the behavior of the Dallas Police that they’re not believing anything.”
Rostow does not explain how he has determined the nature of world or American opinion within minutes or an hour or so of the murder of Oswald. As we saw in the preceding chapter, the Dallas police were a model of objectivity and open mindedness compared to Alan Belmont of the FBI and at least much of the major media.
Rostow also said that he had already spoken “about three times” that day to Nick Katzenbach but he was making his suggestion directly to Moyers because of his uncertainty that Katzenbach would pass it on. Rostow explains that Katzenbach “sounded too groggy so I thought I’d pass this thought along to you”.
It is highly probable that it was Rostow’s call(s) that Katzenbach was referring to in his 1978 testimony when he said that he was “sure” that he had talked to “people outside the government entirely who called me.”
Apparently Rostow was making his suggestion in the context of discussions with at least one other person. He said to Moyers: “Now, I’ve got a party here. I’ve [or We’ve] been pursuing the policy, you know, that people need to come together at this time.”
[How could anyone be having a party the day of the wake?]
Rostow does not identify the individual or individuals with whom he has been talking.
Moyers briefly interrupted this line of discussion by stating his concern that recent events were undermining the credibility of U.S. institutions. He then returned to Rostow’s suggestion, saying: “All right. Now, your suggestion is that he [President Johnson] appoint a Special Commission of distinguished Americans, primarily in the field of law, I presume to look into the whole question of the assassination.”
Rostow says “That’s right and a report on it” and then the conversation ended with Moyers assuring Rostow that he will discuss this with President Johnson.” Rostow acted very quickly on what was a momentous decision and he did so even though he had no obligation or responsibility to do anything.
In Volume III of the Hearings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, there is a copy of a memo written by LBJ aide Walter Jenkins to the President which reports on a phone conversation that Jenkins apparently had with J. Edgar Hoover.” According to the memo, Hoover said over the phone that: “The thing I am concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin. Mr. Katzenbach thinks that the President might appoint a Presidential Corrunission of three outstanding citizens to make a determination.”
Hoover goes on to state misgivings about the idea of a commission. It is, of course, of interest that Hoover and, apparently, Katzenbach already have Oswald as the assassin. Did Rostow discuss this with the “groggy” and insufficiently active Katzenbach? The timing of this memo is of immediate interest.
The time on the memo is 4:00 P.M., November 24. Hoover has already spoken with Katzenbach and received from him information concerning the idea of a commission. Apparently, Hoover spoke with Katzenbach prior to 4:00 P.M. We now have a considerably shorter time frame.
Oswald died at 2:07 Eastern Standard Time. Before 4:00 Katzenbach had spoken with Hoover about a commission. Katzenbach was acting as a result of his conversation(s) with Rostow. We are now down to something well under one hour and fifty-three minutes for Rostow to hear of Oswald’s death, consider all the factors, discuss it with at least one other person, and begin to act. The entire time span for Rostow’s actions is almost certainly less than ninety minutes, allowing only twenty or so additional minutes for him to talk to Katzenbach and for Katzenbach to talk to Hoover. We don’t know who was with Rostow at the time of Oswald’s death. Did Rostow act as an individual or was he representing a collective decision when he moved so rapidly to have a Presidential commission established? This probably cannot be answered in a definite way without a candid statement from Rostow and, perhaps, others. There are, however, indications in the events of November 25 to 29 that Rostow and then Katzenbach were acting on behalf of a group of people.
As we have seen, the idea of a commission was suggested to at least two people close to LBJ, Bill Moyers and Walter Jenkins, on the afternoon of the 24th. The suggestion was relayed to LBJ by someone before 10:30 A.M. the next day, November 25. This is clear from the transcript of Johnson’s phone conversation with J. Edgar Hoover at 10:30.
From, Gene Kelly
What was Walter Rostow’s reason for influencing world opinion… his stake in the outcome? I think it was the Middle East, JFK’s policy towards aid to Israel (including nuclear weapons), and countering Soviet influence in the region at the time.
Rostow argued that LBJ needed a commission because “world opinion and American opinion is just now so shaken by the behavior of the Dallas Police that they do not believe anything.” This was disingenuous, and not the real reason. if you examine later actions during LBJ’s term, the Rostow brothers are front and center, steering foreign policy towards military and economic support for Israel and American oil interests in the Middle East.
In June 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War, one of LBJ’s closest advisers was Walter Rostow, a so-called “Zionist zealot” and his Special Assistant for National Security Affairs. Rostow has been described as a “sinister, Svengali-like figure” (see Peter Hounam, “Operation Cyanide”). This related to the June 8, 1967, USS Liberty ship attack, which was believed to be a set up (e.g. Gulf of Tonkin incident) to blame the Egyptians and a pretext to bring the U.S. into the 1967 Six Day War on Israel’s side. Rostow was instrumental in steering LBJ towards which way the U.S. might respond to hostilities in the Middle East. Rostow was known as a hawk who believed in the Vietnam War (see David Milne’s “America’s Rasputin: Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War”). These following are excerpts on Rostow from Wikipedia:
In August 1954 Rostow and fellow CIA-connected MIT economics professor Max Millikan convinced Eisenhower to massively increase U.S. foreign aid for development as part of a policy of spreading American-style capitalist economic growth in Asia and elsewhere, backed by the military.
While working as national security adviser, Rostow became involved in setting the United States’ posture towards Israel. Although he supported military and economic assistance to Israel, Rostow believed that increased public alignment between the two states could run counter to United States’ diplomatic and oil interests in the region.
The followup call to LBJ about setting up a blue ribbon panel by journalist Joseph Alsop is also interesting. During his conversation with LBJ, he name-drops Dean Acheson. Alsop is tied to the ‘Georgetown Set’ that included Acheson, Richard Bissell, Stewart Alsop (his brother), Tracy Barnes, Philip Graham, Clark Clifford, Walt Rostow, Eugene Rostow, Cord Meyer, James Angleton, Averill Harriman, John McCloy, John Sherman Cooper, and Allen W. Dulles. Quite a list of JFK plot suspects. Alsop had also collaborated in 1960 with Philip Graham to persuade Kennedy to make Lyndon Johnson, instead of Stuart Symington, his running-mate.
See: November 25, 1963, Katzenbach Memo.
November 24, 4:00 p.m. – Phone call between FBI Director Hoover and White House Aide Walter Jenkins. Hoover began by reporting that “There is nothing further on the Oswald case excerpt that he is dead.” At the end of the call, Hoover noted the need to have “something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin,” and that (Assistant Attorney General) “Katzenbach thinks that the President might appoint a Presidential Commission of three outstanding citizens to make a determination.”
November 25, 10:40 a.m. – Phone call between President Johnson and Joseph Alsop. Influential Washington Post columnist Joe Also strongly advises LBJ to accept the idea of a Presidential Commission. When Johnson persists in wanting local authorities and the FBI to handle what he calls a “local killing,” Alsop snaps that “well, in this case it does happen to be the killing of the President.” Alsop warns Johnson to “get ahead of” the Post and repeatedly invokes the name of Cold War icon Dean Acheson as one of the people behind the Commission idea. Johnson says he will call Acheson, though no such call is in the available recordings.
November 26, 1963 – November 28, 1963 – There is something of a gap in materials relevant to the decision-making regarding the Presidential Commission. On November 25th, President Johnson is against the idea, but by the November 28th he is lobbying support for it. Johnson’s change of mind occurred sometime in this intervening period. I wonder how many times President Johnson and his advisor Abraham “Abe” Fortas talked between November 26th and November 28th? A Washington Post editorial highlighting the need for a national solution to the crisis did appear on the 26th. The following day, LBJ addressed a joint session of Congress, urging the nation to “let us continue” the work begun during the Kennedy presidency. That afternoon, LBJ had a short meeting with Robert Kennedy. But exactly how and when he swung in favor of the Commission idea is not known.
November 28, 3:21 p.m. – Phone call between President Johnson and Senator James Eastland. Johnson feels out Judiciary Committee head Eastland on the planned Congressional hearings and then discusses the idea of a Commission including members of Congress. Eastland agrees to cut short his Committee’s investigation, saying “we can work it out,” to which LBJ responds: “You can handle your Committee. O.K. Much obliged.”
November 29, 11:30 a.m. – Phone call between President Johnson and Congressman Hale Boggs. LBJ discusses the Presidential Commission idea with Louisiana Congressman Hale Boggs. See also this later call at 1:11PM.
November 29, 1:15 p.m – Phone call between President Johnson and his advisor Abraham “Abe” Fortas, a Jewish man (1 in 1,000 odds and his parents were Orthodox Jews). LBJ and Abe Fortas bandy about several names as possible Commissioners. After mentioning some possibilities include General Norstadt and James Eastland, at the end of the call LBJ selects the seven Commissioners named later that day to serve on the President’s Commission.
A little about the Presidential advisor, Abraham “Abe” Fortas. In 1965, President Johnson persuaded Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg to resign his seat to become the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations because the President wanted Abe Fortas for that position. Johnson thought that some of his reforms (the “Great Society”) could be ruled unconstitutional by the Court and felt that Fortas would let him know if that was to happen. Johnson and Fortas did collaborate while Fortas was an Associate Justice. Abe Fortas co-wrote Johnson’s 1966 State of the Union speech.
Fortas remained an associate justice, but in 1969, a new scandal arose. Fortas had accepted a US$20,000 = US$130,617 in 2017 dollars retainer from the family foundation of Wall Street financier Louis Wolfson, a friend and former client, in January 1966. Fortas had signed a contract with Wolfson’s foundation. In return for unspecified advice, it was to pay Fortas $20,000 a year for the rest of Fortas’s life (and then pay his widow for the rest of her life). Wolfson was under investigation for securities violations at the time, and it was alleged that he expected that his arrangement with Fortas would help him stave off criminal charges or help him secure a presidential pardon. He asked Fortas to help him secure a pardon from Johnson, which Fortas claimed that he did not do. Fortas recused himself from Wolfson’s case when it came before the Court and had earlier returned the retainer but not until Wolfson had been indicted twice.
Fortas resigned from the Court in disgrace on May 14, 1969. In 1970, Louis Wolfson surreptitiously taped a private telephone call with Fortas. The transcript of this call was disclosed by Wolfson’s lawyer, Bud Fensterwald, to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in 1977. The Washington Post subsequently published several excerpts from the transcript, including language suggesting that Fortas might indeed have spoken with LBJ about a pardon for Wolfson, but there is no evidence that it was a quid pro quo rather than a voluntary intervention for a friend. Wolfson was convicted of violating federal securities laws later that year and spent time in prison.
November 29, 1:40 p.m. – Phone call between President Johnson and FBI Director Hoover. Almost immediately, LBJ calls Hoover to run by him the seven names of “this proposed group that they’re trying to put together on this study of your report.” Hoover gives a “good man” to most names, though he is “not as enthusiastic about McCloy.” LBJ does not even mention Warren, the head of the Commission.
November 29, afternoon – Phone calls between President Johnson and Commission appointees. Having decided on the final set of names, Johnson had these phone calls with those being appointed to the Commission:
Richard Russell, 4:05 p.m.
Allen Dulles, 5:43 p.m.
John Sherman Cooper, 5:45 p.m.
Gerald Ford, 6:52 p.m.
November 29, time unknown – Phone call between President Johnson and Abe Fortas. LBJ and Fortas work out the wording of the an announcement of the President’s Commission.
November 29, time unknown – FBI Memo from Belmont to Evans. This internal FBI memo about the forthcoming Commission was written before Earl Warren had agreed to serve, and contains some other interesting background material.
November 29, 5:41 p.m. – Another relevant taped conversation is the call President Johnson made to Allan Dulles on November 29, 1963, to advise him that he would be on the Commission. This is one of the shortest calls that LBJ had to make to the potential members of the Commission. Unlike others who were reluctant to serve, Dulles expressed no reluctance, the call only lasted approximately a minute and thirty or so seconds, but Johnson appears to try to repeat the arguments he made to others anyway.Neither Dulles nor LBJ mention Robert Kennedy or his possible involvement in Dulles selection.
The conversation opens with LBJ apologetically advising Dulles:
LBJ: I have some unpleasant news for you.” Dulles says,
“Yes.” LBJ goes on, “We are going to name very shortly a presidential commission made up of seven people … as a study group to go into this FBI report … in connection with the assassination of our beloved friend, and you’ve got to go on that for me.”
Dulles responds: “Because I can really serve you,”
“I know you can, ”LBJ interrupts. “I know you can, not any doubt about it. Just get ready now to go in there and do a good job. America’s got to be united in this hour.”
At this point the tape becomes somewhat garbled and hard to understand as Dulles says something about his “previous job.” LBJ’s response is garbled as well but he can be heard to say “you always do a good job as I found out long ago.”
Dulles, in raising his previous job, is expressing a concern that his service as the director of the CIA would disqualify him from service on the commission. Many consider that he did so based on a concern that it could serve as a basis for adverse propaganda. On the other hand, it could be that he knew, especially considering the circumstances of his departure from the job (JFK told him to resign), that he had a serious conflict of interest that should prevent his serving. The nature of the basis of his concern is not apparent from the conversation. No one at the time, however, raised Dulles apparent conflict of interest.
Is there a countervailing theory as to how Dulles got on the Warren Commission? In his book, Brothers, David Talbot says that Allen Dulles lobbied to be appointed to the Warren Commission.
David Talbot returned to this issue in his recently published book, The Devil’s Chessboard: “The Dulles camp itself made no bones about the fact that the Old Man aggressively lobbied to get appointed to the commission. Dick Helms later told historian Michael Kurtz that he ‘personally persuaded’ Johnson to appoint Dulles. According to Kurtz, Dulles and Helms ‘wanted to make sure no agency secrets came out during the investigation…. And, of course, if Dulles was on the commission that would ensure the agency would be safe. Johnson felt the same way, he didn’t want the investigation to dig up anything strange.
Audio of LBJ and Allen Dulles, phone call November 29, 1963, 5:41 p.m.
November 29, 8:55 p.m. – Phone call between President Johnson and Richard Russell. In this fascinating call, the last of the day, Johnson tells Russell that he has named him to the Commission over Russell’s objections, because “you’ve got to lend your name to this thing” and because “we’ve got to take this out of the arena where they’re testifying that Khrushchev and Castro did this and did that and kicking us into a war that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour…” LBJ also tells Russell the story of how Warren turned him down repeatedly, until Johnson “pulled out what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City.”
November 29 – November 30 – Exective Order 11130. Announced on the 29th but executed on November 30, Executive Order 11130 appointed the Commission, named its members, and described its purpose and powers.
LBJ Phone Calls – November 1963. This set of transcripts, along with selected audio recordings, were made during the November days immediately following the assassination of President Kennedy. Some of them concern the formation of the so-called “Warren Commission”, which was formally announced on November 29, 1963.
A few phone calls with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover discuss the early results of FBI investigations into the death of President Kennedy. The first of these, recorded at 10:01 a.m. on November 23, less than 24 hours after the assassination, appears to have been erased. A transcript survived the apparent erasure, in it, Hoover tells Johnson that tapes of Oswald contacting the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City don’t match the voice of the living Oswald. Hoover says “it appears that there is a second person who was at the Soviet Embassy down there.”
Warren Commission-Related Telephone Calls
November 24, 1963 – November 25, 1963
The assassination of President Kennedy not only removed the head of state but also incapacitated the head of the Justice Department, Robert Kennedy. Nicholas Katzenbach, the Assistant Attorney General, was to play an important role in the early development of official responses to the assassination.
Katzenbach wrote this memo by hand on the evening of Sunday, November 24, a few hours after Lee Harvey Oswald had been shot dead by Jack Ruby. A typed version was prepared the following morning, November 25 1963, the day of the Kennedy funeral, Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach sent the memo, titled “Memorandum for Mr. Moyers” (known as the Katzenbach Memo) to Bill Moyers of the new Johnson White House. He had begun writing it the day earlier, within hours after Oswald’s death at the hands of Jack Ruby. Thanks to Eugene Rostow talking to Katzenbach three times that day (November 24, 1963) pushing [outlining this memo = cover-up] for a Presidential Commission.
The second paragraph stated: “The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.”
Given that the authorities could not possibly by November 25 know these things to be true, and Katzenbach later admitted he knew very little at this stage, the memo is clearly advocating a political course irrespective of the truth of the assassination.
Katzenbach’s memo advocated a public FBI report to satisfy this “objective,” though he noted the possible need for “the appointment of a Presidential Commission of unimpeachable personnel to review and examine the evidence and announce its conclusions.” He ended by advocating a quick public announcement to “head off speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort.”
To many observers, the Katzenbach memo provides the blueprint for the cover-up which followed.
Knowing this, why was Eugene Rostow, a Jewish man (1 in 1,000 odds) and one who was extremely loyal to Israel, pushing so hard for a Presidential Commission? So that it would “head off speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort.” It seems quite clear, to cover-up the true facts of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Eugene Rostow died of heart failure on November 25, 2002, 39 years to the day of the Katzenbach Memo.
“Memorandum for Mr. Moyers”
(Also known as the Katzenbach Memo)
“It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy’s Assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad that all the facts have been told and that a statement to this effect be made now.
1. The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.
2. Speculation about Oswald’s motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis for rebutting thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing conspiracy to blame it on the Communists. Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too pat– too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.). The Dallas police have put out statements on the Communist conspiracy theory, and it was they who were in charge when he was shot and thus silenced.
3. The matter has been handled thus far with neither dignity nor conviction. Facts have been mixed with rumour and speculation. We can scarcely let the world see us totally in the image of the Dallas police when our President is murdered.
I think this objective may be satisfied by making public as soon as possible a complete and thorough FBI report on Oswald and the assassination. This may run into the difficulty of pointing to in- consistencies between this report and statements by Dallas police officials. But the reputation of the Bureau is such that it may do the whole job.
The only other step would be the appointment of a Presidential Commission of unimpeachable personnel to review and examine the evidence and announce its conclusions. This has both advantages and disadvantages. It think it can await publication of the FBI report and public reaction to it here and abroad.
I think, however, that a statement that all the facts will be made public property in an orderly and responsible way should be made now. We need something to head off public speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort.”
— Nicholas deB. Katzenbach
Deputy Attorney General
November 25, 1963
The last of the hundreds of thousands of mourners passed through Capitol Rotunda at 9:05 a.m. EST.
Over one million people lined the route of the funeral procession, from the Capitol back to the White House, then to the Requiem Mass at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, and finally the late president was buried at to Arlington National Cemetery. Tens of millions more followed the funeral on television.
Although JFK never specified where he wanted to be buried, most of his family and friends assumed he would have chosen a plot in his home state of Massachusetts. Because JFK was a World War II veteran, he qualified for a plot at Arlington National Cemetery, but he also deserved a special site befitting his presidential status. The spring before he was assassinated, President Kennedy had made an unscheduled tour of Arlington and had remarked to a friend on the view of the Potomac from the Custis-Lee Mansion, reportedly saying it was so magnificent I could stay forever. After the assassination, the friend who accompanied JFK to Arlington that day relayed the comment to the president’s brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, who suggested the site to Jacqueline Kennedy. Jackie, who was responsible for the final decision, toured the site on November 24 and agreed. “He belongs to the people,” she said.
November 25, 1963
Lee Harvey Oswald was buried on the same day as JFK, his remains going into the ground at the Rose Hill Cemetery in Fort Worth. There were few mourners, and finding a minister to preside proved difficult.
November 26, 1963
NSAM 273 is signed, which reversed the pullout from Vietnam that Kennedy ordered on October 11, 1963, with NSAM 263.
Was JFK’s Vietnam Policy Changed After His Assassination
(Video 33:26)
by Greg Burnham
See October 11, 1963 and November 21, 1963
November 29, 1963 – November 30, 1963
On November 29, 1963, one week after the Kennedy assassination, President Lyndon Baines Johnson announces the Warren Commission to investigate [cover-up] the assassination. On November 30, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order 11130, which appoints the Commission, names its members, and describes its purpose and powers.
See:
September 24, 1964 – September 27, 1964
December 5, 1963
The remains of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy and that of a stillborn sister, whom Jacqueline Kennedy called Arabella, were re-interred on December 5, 1963, alongside their father at Arlington National Cemetery, and later again (March 14, 1967) moved to their permanent graves in Section 45, Grid U-35.
December 22, 1963
Limit CIA Role To Intelligence, an op-ed by former President Harry S. Truman, published only in its early edition, by The Washington Post, on December 22, 1963 – page A11.
I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency, CIA. At least, I would like to submit here the original reason why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency during my Administration, what I expected it to do and how it was to operate as an arm of the President.
… But there are now some searching questions that need to be answered. I, therefore, would like to see the CIA be restored to its original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President, and that whatever else it can properly perform in that special field, and that its operational duties be terminated or properly used elsewhere.
We have grown up as a nation, respected for our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.
“The Washington Post published the op-ed on December 22, 1963, in its early edition, but immediately excised it from later editions. Other media ignored it. The long hand of the CIA?”
Ray McGovern
December 31, 1963
Madeleine Duncan Brown was a mistress of Lyndon Johnson for 21 years and had a son with him named Steven Mark Brown in 1950. Madeleine mixed with the Texas elite and had many trysts with Lyndon Johnson over the years, including one at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, Texas, on New Year’s Eve 1963. In the late evening of December 31, 1963, just 6 weeks after the JFK assassination, Madeleine asked Lyndon Johnson:
“Lyndon, you know that a lot of people believe you had something to do with President Kennedy’s assassination.”
He shot up out of bed and began pacing and waving his arms screaming like a madman. I was scared!
“That’s bull___, Madeleine Brown!” he yelled. “Don’t tell me you believe that crap!”
“Of course not.” I answered meekly, trying to cool his temper.
“It was Texas oil and those _____ renegade intelligence bastards in Washington.” [said Lyndon Johnson] [Texas in the Morning, p. 189]
March 14, 1964
On March 14, 1964, Ruby was convicted of murder with malice, for which he received a death sentence. Ruby’s conviction was overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on the grounds that the venue should have been changed to a Texas county other than the one in which the high-profile crime had been committed. Because Ruby’s conviction was overturned, and his retrial was pending at the time of his death, he died technically unconvicted.
September 24, 1964 – September 27, 1964
The Warren Commission publishes a report [cover-up] with its findings and was presented to President Johnson on September 24, 1964, and made public three days later. It concluded that President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and that Oswald acted entirely alone. It also concluded that Jack Ruby also acted alone when he killed Oswald two days later. The Commission’s findings have proven controversial and have been both challenged and supported by later studies.
27 Warren Commission Counsel And Staff Members
19 Of The 27 (70.37%) Warren Commission counsel and staff members were Jewish. The mathematical chance of this occurring is:
1 in 391,576,005,273,123,200
Because of my extensive research on Holocaust Revisionism throughout the years and knowing the fact that around 75% of the counsel and staff members at the Nuremberg Trials were Jewish.
“You know how I have despised anti-Semitism. You know how strongly I feel toward those who preach intolerance of any kind. With that knowledge – you will understand when I tell you that this staff is about seventy-five percent Jewish. Now my point is that the Jews should stay away from this trial – for their own sake. For – mark this well – the charge ‘a war for the Jews’ is still being made and in the post-war years it will be made again and again. The too large percentage of Jewish men and women here will be cited as proof of this charge. Sometimes it seems that the Jews will never learn about these things. They seem intent on bringing new difficulties down on their own heads. I do not like to write about this matter – it is distasteful to me – but I am disturbed about it. They are pushing and crowding and competing with each other and with everyone else.”
Thomas J. Dodd, September 25, 1945 (from a letter to his wife, he wrote when he was the US prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials)
I had this most insightful thought. Why don’t I research and find out just how many counsel and staff members on the Warren Commission were Jewish. Well I did just that. I went one by one through all 27 and I found; out of the 27 Warren Commission counsel and staff members, 19 were Jewish. This equals 70.37%.
The chance of being a Jewish male in the United States in 1963 was about 1 in 100. The mathematical chance for 19 Jewish American males being counsel and staff members out of 27 on the Warren Commission is, 1 in 391,576,005,273,123,200. The name for that number is a quadrillion, so it was a 1 in 392 quadrillion chance.
Here are the 27 Warren Commission counsel and staff members:
General counsel:
James Lee Rankin
Assistant counsel:
Francis W. H. Adams
Joseph A. Ball
David W. Belin – Jewish
William T. Coleman, Jr. – Jewish
Melvin Aron Eisenberg – Jewish
Burt W. Griffin
Leon D. Hubert, Jr. – Jewish
Albert E. Jenner, Jr. – Jewish
Wesley J. Liebeler – Jewish
Norman Redlich – Jewish
W. David Slawson – Jewish
Arlen Specter – Jewish
Samuel A. Stern – Jewish
Howard P. Willens – Jewish
Staff:
Philip Barson – Jewish
Edward A. Conroy
John Hart Ely – Jewish
Alfred Goldberg – Jewish
Murray J. Laulicht – Jewish
Arthur J. Marmor
Richard M. Mosk – Jewish
John J. O’Brien
Stuart R. Pollak – Jewish
Alfredda Scobey
Charles N. Shaffer, Jr. – Jewish
Lloyd L. Weinreb – Jewish
So, how did this Jewish impossibility of 1 in 391,576,005,273,123,200 happen?
For more see the comprehensive section:
27 Warren Commission Counsel And Staff Members
Also, almost no one knows of the five Jewish members on the Warren Commission that somehow miraculously all came to the conclusion of the single bullet theory simultaneously. The totally preposterous single bullet theory, which was used to prove a lone gunman was responsible and therefore no conspiracy, was put forth by Arlen Spector (later a five-time United States Senator from Pennsylvania) and four other Jewish members of the Warren Commission.
“Warren Commission staff lawyer Norman Redlich was asked by author Vincent Bugliosi in 2005 whether Specter was the sole author of the single bullet theory and he said, ‘No, we all came to this conclusion simultaneously.’ When asked who he meant by ‘we’, he said, ‘Arlen, myself, Howard Willens, David Belin, and Mel Eisenberg.’ Specter did not respond to Bugliosi’s request for a clarification on the issue.” Bugliosi, p. 301 – 306.
Did you get that?
The chance of being a Jewish male in the United States in 1963 was 1 in 100. For somehow five men, all Jewish, to come up with the single bullet theory, what is the likelihood of that? Well it is 1 in 10,000,000,000. Yes, a one in ten billion chance.
And then this 1 in 10,000,000,000 possibility — they “simultaneously” come to the same conclusion for the assassination, the single bullet theory.
What is the chance now? One in infinity.
But this Jewish cover story gets much more outlandish, because the corrupt single bullet theory also uses an indestructible magic bullet as the single bullet.
The single magic bullet, known as “Warren Commission Exhibit 399” (also known as “CE 399”), caused the non-fatal wounds to the President Kennedy and all the wounds to Governor Connally. This adds up to a total of seven entry and exit wounds.
According to the Jewish single bullet theory, a three-centimeter-long copper-jacketed lead-core 6.5×52mm Mannlicher–Carcano rifle bullet fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository passed through President Kennedy’s neck and Governor Connally’s chest and wrist and embedded itself in the Governor’s thigh.
That means this magic bullet traversed 15 layers of clothing, 7 layers of skin, and approximately 15 inches of tissue, struck a necktie knot, removed 4 inches of rib, and shattered a radius bone.
The magic bullet was then found on a gurney in the corridor at the Parkland Memorial Hospital, in Dallas, after the assassination (Did Jack Ruby put it there?). The Warren Commission found that this gurney was the one that had borne Governor Connally.
After inflicting all of this damage to President Kennedy and Governor Connally, the magic bullet was found in nearly pristine condition. Its copper jacket was completely intact, the nose appeared normal and the tail was compressed laterally on one side. Also, quite incredibly the magic bullet contained no traces of blood or tissue when examined under a microscope.
For more see the comprehensive section:
Much has been written on the Warren Commission and how it blatantly covered-up the assassination of the 35th President of the United Sates, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. For me, 16 Questions On The Assassination by Bertrand Russell, from September 6, 1964, is a great an early (published just three weeks before the Warren Commission) article showing the insolent hypocrisy of this “body of holy men appointed to pronounce the truth.”
I just went through this article and found 17 Questions:
1) Why were all the members of the Warren Commission closely connected with the U.S. Government?
2) If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security?
3) If the Government is so certain of its case, why has it conducted all its inquiries in the strictest secrecy?
4) Why did the Warren Commission not establish a panel to deal with the question of who killed President Kennedy?
5) Why have so many liberals abandoned their own responsibility to a Commission whose circumstances they refuse to examine?
6) Why did the authorities follow many persons as potential assassins and fail to observe Oswald’s entry into the book depository building while allegedly carrying a rifle over three feet long?
7) Why was the President’s route changed at the last minute to take him past Oswald’s place of work?
8) How did Oswald manage to shoot the President in the front from behind?
9) Why has the medical evidence concerning the President’s death been altered out of recognition?
10) What is the evidence to substantiate the allegation that the President was shot from behind?
11) Why has the F.B.I. refused to publish what could be the most reliable piece of evidence in the whole case?
12) How is it that millions of people have been misled by complete forgeries in the press?
13) Why was the result of the paraffin test altered before being announced by the authorities?
14) Why was the only description of Tippitt’s killer deliberately omitted by the police from the affidavit of the sole eye-witness?
15) Why was Oswald’s description in connection with the murder of Patrolman Tippitt broadcast over Dallas police radio at 12:43 p.m. on November 22, when Tippitt was not shot until 1:06 p.m.?
16) The rifle which the police “produced” was almost 3½ feet long. How was it possible for Earl Warren to forecast that Marina Oswald’s evidence would be exactly the reverse of what she had previously testified?
17) How does a District Attorney of Wade’s great experience account for all the extraordinary changes in evidence and testimony which he has announced during the Oswald case?
For more on this cover-up, see the comprehensive section:
October 12, 1964
Mary Pinchot Meyer, who was intimate with JFK from 1961 to 1963, is assassinated. Her diary concerning the JFK assassination is supposedly never found. James Jesus Angleton was found in Mary’s home by her sister Tony and her husband Ben Bradlee when they went looking for diary after Anne Truitt (whom I spoke with personally) told them about it.
Meyer was shot to death on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath on October 12, 1964, just after the release of the Warren Commission Report, whose conclusions Meyer challenged. Meyer’s long history of criticism of the CIA, the timing of her killing, the CIA’s wiretapping of her phone, and the effort by CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton to retrieve Meyer’s diary immediately after her death have prompted investigation of possible CIA involvement in her murder. Additionally, Army personnel records for prosecution witness Lt. William L. Mitchell, released in 2015 and 2016 under the Freedom of Information Act, corroborate his ties to the intelligence community. CIA involvement has also been suggested by the phone call that was placed by top Agency official Wistar Janney to Ben Bradlee, hours before the police had identified Meyer’s body. The man accused of the murder, Ray Crump, Jr., was acquitted at trial in July, 1965. The murder remains officially unsolved.
Pinchot Meyer visited John F. Kennedy at the White House in October 1961 and their relationship became intimate. Pinchot Meyer told Ann and James Truitt she was keeping a diary. Timothy Leary later claimed Pinchot Meyer influenced Kennedy’s “views on nuclear disarmament and rapprochement with Cuba.” In an interview with Nina Burleigh, Kennedy aide Myer Feldman said, “I think he might have thought more of her than some of the other women and discussed things that were on his mind, not just social gossip.” Burleigh wrote, “Mary might actually have been a force for peace during some of the most frightening years of the cold war…”
In a 2008 interview with author Peter Janney for his book Mary’s Mosaic, journalist and Kennedy intimate Charles Bartlett emphasized the serious nature of Pinchot Meyer’s romance with the late president, stating, “That was a dangerous relationship. Jack was in love with Mary Meyer. He was certainly smitten with her, he was heavily smitten. He was very frank with me about it.”
In October 1963, one month before his assassination, Kennedy wrote a letter to Mary Meyer, imploring her to join him for a tryst. The unsent letter, written on White House stationery and retained by Kennedy’s personal secretary Evelyn Lincoln, sold in June 2016 at auction for just under $89,000. The letter reads: “Why don’t you leave suburbia for once – come and see me – either here – or at the Cape next week or in Boston the 19th. I know it is unwise, irrational, and that you may hate it – on the other hand you may not – and I will love it. You say that it is good for me not to get what I want. After all of these years – you should give me a more loving answer than that. Why don’t you just say yes.” The letter is signed “J.”
An excellent book on the assassination of Mary Pinchot Meyer:
by Peter Janney (Author), Dick Russell (Foreword)
October 14, 1964
Nikita Khrushchev is ousted as both premier of the Soviet Union and chief of the Communist Party after 10 years in power. He was succeeded as head of the Communist Party by his former protégé Leonid Brezhnev, who would eventually become the chief of state as well.
November 8, 1965
Dorothy Kilgallen is assassinated. Dorothy Kilgallen was the only reporter to ever obtain a private interview with Jack Ruby. She told friends that she had information that would “break the case wide open”. The notes of her interview with Jack Ruby and the article and book she was writing on the case disappeared.
Kilgallen began to tell friends that she was close to discovering who assassinated Kennedy. According to David Welsh of Ramparts Magazine Kilgallen “vowed she would ‘crack this case.’ And another New York show biz friend said Dorothy told him in the last days of her life: “In five more days I’m going to bust this case wide open.” Aware of what had happened to Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe (both killed), Kilgallen handed a draft copy of her chapter on the assassination to her friend, Florence Pritchett Smith. Florence Pritchett Smith, died one day later of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Please see the section:
The HSCA would use obfuscation and factual omission in an attempt to refute an actuary’s calculation of 100,000 trillion to 1 odds of 18 material witness deaths in the three years following the assassination. If the odds were essentially correct, it would force the HSCA to conclude a conspiracy. The HSCA statistician claimed, incorrectly, that it was impossible to determine a known universe of witnesses. There was a defined universe of an estimated 1100 witnesses who were called in 1964-78 to testify: 552 by the Warren Commission, the others at the Garrison/Shaw trial, Church Senate hearings and HSCA. At least 67 died (46 unnaturally). The probability of 46 unnatural deaths is 4.9E-45 (this is less than 1 in a Trillion Trillion Trillion).
An excellent book on the assassination of Dorothy Kilgallen:
The Reporter Who Knew Too Much:
The Mysterious Death of What’s My Line TV Star and Media Icon Dorothy Kilgallen
by Mark Shaw
January 3, 1967
As the date for his new trial was being set, Jack Ruby became ill in his prison cell and was taken to at Parkland Hospital, where died of a pulmonary embolism from lung cancer. He was buried beside his parents in the Westlawn Cemetery in Norridge, Illinois.
March 14, 1967
The Kennedy family and Arlington officials chose to move JFK’s grave in order to construct a safer, more stable eternal flame and to accommodate the extensive foot traffic caused by tourists. The final resting place, which is only a few feet from the original site, took 2 years to construct, during which time JFK’s body was secretly moved on March 14, 1967, and re-interred in a private ceremony attended by Jackie, his brothers Edward and Robert, and President Lyndon Johnson. The bodies of two of the couple’s children (Patrick Bouvier Kennedy and that of a stillborn sister, whom Jacqueline Kennedy called Arabella) who died were also moved to the new site. The makeshift propane gas line was replaced with a permanent natural gas line and furnished with a continuous electronic flashing spark that reignites the flame in case it is extinguished by rain or wind. The Kennedy family chose Cape Cod granite flagstones to surround the flame. They also paid the costs of the original burial, but the federal government funded construction of the final site and appropriates money for the plot’s upkeep.
JFK Exhumation March 14, 1967 (14:04)
March 1, 1967 – March 1, 1969
Jim Garrison And The Trial Of Clay Shaw
Jim Garrison is an American hero of the highest order, for being the only person to bring a trial for the assassination of President Kennedy.
On March 1, 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested and charged New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy, with the help of David Ferrie and others.
On January 29, 1969, Shaw was brought to trial in Orleans Parish Criminal Court on these charges. On March 1, 1969, a jury took less than an hour to find Shaw not guilty. To date, it is the only trial to be brought for the assassination of President Kennedy. In 1979, Richard Helms, former director of the CIA, testified under oath that Clay Shaw had been a part-time contact of the Domestic Contact Service of the CIA.
Jim Garrison On The JFK Assassination (1988) (1:59:31)
Jim Garrison was District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana. He investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, His trial against Claw Shaw was the only one ever in the President’s murder.
The JFK Assassination: The Jim Garrison Tapes (1992) (1:31:03)
The story of Orleans Parish District Attorney Jim Garrison and his search for the truth in the JFK assassination and how the federal government worked to destroy that effort. A sad saga of the death of the United States of America; the Constitution; and a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Director and Writer: John Barbour
Jim Garrison Response – Kennedy Assassination (27:05)
July 15, 1967, New Orleans DA Jim Garrison NBC Response – Kennedy Assassination
In 1967, NBC’s Frank McGee, the “respected” veteran news journalist presented an “NBC White Paper,” “The JFK Conspiracy: The Case Of Jim Garrison” (Documentary) on New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. This “White Paper,” pointed out many of the investigative practices by Garrison and his office, regarding changes that Garrison brought against New Orleans business man Clay Shaw. Shaw was charged with conspiracy in the murder of President Kennedy. The “White Paper,” was so demeaning and slanderous to Mr. Garrison and his office, that the Federal Communications Commission demanded that NBC give the New Orleans District Attorney equal time. This ruling by the FCC was unprecedented in Network Television history. So on Saturday July 15, 1967 Mr. Garrison got his equal time to set the record straight and answer all those slanderous statements by NBC.
“The JFK Conspiracy: The Case Of Jim Garrison” (57:45)
On June 19, 1967, NBC-TV aired “The JFK Conspiracy: The Case Of Jim Garrison”, a one-hour special documentary program which probes New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s case against businessman Clay Shaw. On March 1, 1967, Garrison’s office arrested Shaw on a charge of conspiracy to murder President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
“Shoot Him Down”: NBC, the CIA and Jim Garrison
by William Davy
…Garrison’s case was big news and predictably the news media swung into attack mode. None was more vicious or had more resources at their disposal than NBC. For the job as lead investigative reporter, NBC assigned Walter Sheridan. Shortly after Shaw’s arrest Sheridan arrived in New Orleans and began questioning witnesses — perhaps bribing and intimidating would be a better choice of words. Sheridan questioned a former electronics expert and CIA asset Gordon Novel and immediately put him on a $500 a day retainer. (Novel had briefly consulted with Garrison’s team). Sheridan then urged Novel to skip town to avoid being indicted and paid him an additional $750 while Novel was in Columbus Ohio. Attorney Dean Andrews, who received the call from a “Clay Bertrand” to represent Oswald, was promised a recording studio if he cooperated with Sheridan. Andrews was overheard bragging, “I can get the equipment here. All I have to do is make a phone call, I’ll have open credit, I can pay off on any terms. Look, Bobby Sarnoff promised me those facilities. He’d better pay off, baby.” Bobby Sarnoff was, of course, Robert Sarnoff, NBC president and later chairman of the board of its parent company RCA…
For more see the comprehensive section:
Jim Garrison And The Trial Of Clay Shaw
April 1967
in his book, Conspiracy Theory in America, Lance deHaven-Smith reveals that the term “conspiracy theory” entered the American lexicon of political speech to deflect criticism of the Warren Commission and traces it back to a April 1967, CIA propaganda campaign to discredit doubters of the commission’s report. The dispatch was marked “psych” – short for “psychological operations” or disinformation – and “CS” for the CIA’s “Clandestine Services” unit. The term “conspiracy theory” has been used ever since to validate false explanations by discrediting true explanations.
February 26, 1968 – February 27, 1968
Ramsey Clark and the death of JFK
by John Simkin
William Ramsey Clark was born in Dallas, Texas, on December 18, 1927. His father, Tom C. Clark, was a local district attorney who went on to become the Attorney General of the United States from June 27, 1945 – July 26, 1949, and then Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from August 19, 1949 – June 12, 1967.
In 1961 Clark was appointed as the Assistant Attorney General of the Lands Division. After the assassination of JFK he worked in a liaison capacity with the Warren Commission. In 1965 Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him as his Deputy Attorney General.
In 1967, President Johnson nominated him to be Attorney General of the United States, he was confirmed by congress and took the oath of office on March 2, 1967. Later that day District Attorney Jim Garrison announced the arrest of businessman Clay Shaw on charges of conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy. The new Attorney General stated that the FBI had already investigated and cleared Shaw “in November and December of 1963” of “any part in the assassination”. Within a few days of this statement Clark had to admit that he had published inaccurate information and that no investigation of Shaw had taken place.
In an interview on Face the Nation on March 12, 1967, CBS correspondent, George Herman, asked Clark about the death of David Ferrie. Herman asked Clark why documents concerning Ferrie had been classified by the FBI and the Justice Department. Clark replied: “No, those documents are under the general jurisdiction of the General Services Administration.” According to Bernard Fensterwald, this was untrue as the Ferrie documents had specifically been classified under orders from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
In 1968 Attorney General Ramsey Clark appointed a panel of four medical experts to examine various photographs, X-ray films, documents, and other evidence pertaining to the death of President Kennedy. The Clark Panel argued that Kennedy was struck by two bullets fired from above and behind him, one of which traversed the base of the neck on the right side without striking bone and the other of which entered the skull from behind and destroyed its upper right side.
Ramsey Clark was also the subject of criticism a year later when he announced that there was “no sign of conspiracy” in the assassination of Martin Luther King, several weeks before James Earl Ray, the alleged assassin, had been arrested. Ramsey Clark later admitted he suspended Cartha DeLoach from his position as FBI liaison, as a result of his behaviour over the arrest of James Earl Ray.
On January 25, 1969, Ramsey Clark’s final day as Attorney General, he ordered the Justice Department to withhold from Jim Garrison, the X-Rays and photographs from the autopsy of John F. Kennedy.
James DiEugenio is very good on Ramsey Clark in Destiny Betrayed (1992):
One point man for the Johnson Administration in damaging Garrison’s case was Ramsey Clark. In March of 1967, right after his confirmation as Attorney General by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Clark made an extraordinary intervention into the case: he told a group of reporters Garrison’s case was baseless. The FBI, he said, had already investigated Shaw in 1963 and found no connection between him and the events in Dallas. When pressed on this, Clark insisted that Shaw had been checked out and cleared.
But in his haste to discredit Garrison, Clark had slipped. The obvious question, though not pursued by the Washington press corps, was why back in 1963 the upstanding citizen Shaw had been investigated concerning the assassination at all. Shaw and his lawyers realized the implication of Clark’s gaffe even if the Attorney General did not. When one of Shaw’s attorneys, Edward F. Wegmann, requested a clarification of Clark’s statement, a Clark subordinate tried to control the damage by asserting that the original statement was without foundation: “The Attorney General has since determined that this was erroneous. Nothing arose indicating a need to investigate Mr. Shaw.”
Things got even worse for Clark. The same day he made his original announcement, a New York Times reporter, Robert Semple, wrote that the Justice Department was convinced that “Mr. Bertrand and Mr. Shaw were the same man.” Semple had gone to the National Archives seeking Warren Commission references to Clay Shaw. Finding zero, he was told that the Justice Department believed that Bertrand and Shaw were actually the same man, and that this belief was the basis for the Attorney General’s assertion.
Clark had come to praise Shaw but instead had implicated him. However, Clark was not through trying to aid Shaw and sandbag Garrison. The AG would have a surprise for the DA at the upcoming trial…
In July of 1967, Garrison had tried to expedite matters by filing for an early trial date. For one thing, he wanted to stop Phelan and Sheridan from tampering with, intimidating, and making offers to witnesses. But when he saw that the defense was determined to drag out the pre-trial phase, he decided to use the interval to secure more evidence from the government. Here, Ramsey Clark, his nemesis, blocked his path.
After the Attorney General had bungled his first attempt to discredit Garrison’s case, he secretly tried another method. Garrison had been trying to secure the original JFK autopsy photos and x-rays to exhibit at the trial. They would form an important part of his case, since, to prove a conspiracy, he had to present evidence against the Warren Report, which maintained there was no conspiracy and that Oswald had acted alone. In 1968, Clark convened a panel of experts – which did not include any of the doctors who had performed the original examinations – to review what was extant of the photos and x-rays. In early 1969, just a few days before he left office and on the eve of the trial, Clark announced that this panel had endorsed the findings of the Warren Report. The panel released its findings, but none of the original evidence on which it was based. And when Garrison again requested the autopsy materials, he was turned down by Clark’s Justice Department.
Even more intriguing is that one of the “Chicago mob bosses” sprung by Clark was Johnny Rosselli…
by Pat Speer
I mean, what are the odds? JFK is killed in Dallas on the very day New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello wins his lawsuit against Robert F. Kennedy. At Marcello’s side is David Ferrie, who knew Oswald, JFK’s supposed assassin. Lyndon Johnson is also rumored to have once been associated with Marcello. Another of Marcello’s rumored connections is Tom Clark, a Supreme Court Justice. For a time the public is convinced Oswald acted alone, and then, JUST WHEN the public is starting to ask questions and doubt the official story, Johnson appoints Ramsey Clark, Tom Clark’s son, to run the Justice Department. Clark arranges for the autopsy doctors to re-examine the medical evidence; their supposed report is instead written by the Justice Department. Around this same time, Johnny Rosselli, a Chicago mobster who’d once been released under then-attorney general Tom Clark’s orders, starts maneuvering to get excused from his most recent run-in with the law. His lawyer leaks to columnist Drew Pearson that the CIA had hired him to kill Castro, and that someway somehow this had backfired and that Castro had killed Kennedy instead. Pearson then meets with Johnson and discusses how they can best use this information. Shortly thereafter, Clark tells Johnson that New Orleans DA Jim Garrison has a key witness, Ferrie, and that Garrison now suspects Johnson’s involvement.
Literally days later, Ferrie dies unexpectedly, and mysteriously. Shortly after that, Robert F. Kennedy breaks with Johnson over Vietnam, and the next day Drew Pearson’s column reports that JFK had been killed after Robert Kennedy’s plans to kill Castro had backfired. Weeks later, the Justice Department provides Dr. Humes with “talking points” for an interview on CBS; these talking points amount to an order that Humes lie about the location of Kennedy’s back wound so that the single-bullet theory and single-assassin conclusion can be preserved. Over the next year or so, the Justice Department under Clark continues to interfere with Garrison’s investigation. Then, in early 1968, within weeks of Johnson’s deciding not to run for re-election, and his presumed acceptance that Robert Kennedy might become the next President, he has Clark create a secret panel to re-examine the medical evidence. Aware that the entrance wound on the back of JFK’s head does not connect to the large defect presumed to have been an exit, this panel either convinces itself or flat-out lies and determines that the entrance wound was actually 4 inches higher on Kennedy’s skull. They then refuse to be interviewed about their findings, and destroy all their notes. Their report is not released for almost a year. It is finally released on the first day of Garrison’s trial of Clay Shaw, just a few days before Johnson was to step down from office. Not surprisingly, NONE of the national media even reads the report; they report that the new report refutes Garrison’s belief in a conspiracy and supports the Warren Commission. NOT ONE paper notes that Clark’s secret panel moved the head wound 4 inches, etc…
July 20, 1969
Neil Armstrong is the first human to step foot on the Moon. The vision of President Kennedy made this possible, within the decade of the 1960s, like he said.
See September 12, 1962: Kennedy delivers a speech at Rice University on the nation’s plans to land humans on the Moon. Kennedy announces his continued support for increased space expenditures, saying “we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
January 21, 1971
by John Simkin
…Russell originally agreed that John F. Kennedy and J. D. Tippit had been killed by Lee Harvey Oswald and that Jack Ruby was not part of any conspiracy. However, later he began to have doubts claiming that “no one man could have done the known shooting.” On a taped telephone conversation Russell had with Lyndon B. Johnson about Oswald being the lone gunman, he is heard saying that “I don’t believe it”. Johnson responded with the words: “I don’t either”.
After the death of John F. Kennedy in 1963 his deputy, Lyndon B. Johnson, was appointed president. He immediately set up a commission to “ascertain, evaluate and report upon the facts relating to the assassination of the late President John F. Kennedy.” Johnson asked Warren if he would be willing to head the commission. Earl Warren refused but it was later revealed that Johnson blackmailed him into accepting. According to Russell (who also a member of the Warren Commission): “After Warren refused several times, Johnson called him to the Oval Office and told him “what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City,” whereupon Warren began crying and told Johnson “well I won’t turn you down, I’ll just do whatever you say.”
Richard Russell died in Washington on January 21, 1971
Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and Senator Richard Russell,
Washington, May 27, 1964, 10:55 p.m.
October 16, 1972
by John Simkin
…Boggs had doubts that John F. Kennedy and J. D. Tippit had been killed by Lee Harvey Oswald and that Jack Ruby was not part of any conspiracy.” According to Bernard Fensterwald: “Almost from the beginning, Congressman Boggs had been suspicious over the FBI and CIA’s reluctance to provide hard information when the Commission’s probe turned to certain areas, such as allegations that Oswald may have been an undercover operative of some sort. When the Commission sought to disprove the growing suspicion that Oswald had once worked for the FBI, Boggs was outraged that the only proof of denial that the FBI offered was a brief statement of disclaimer by J. Edgar Hoover. It was Hale Boggs who drew an admission from Allen Dulles that the CIA’s record of employing someone like Oswald might be so heavily coded that the verification of his service would be almost impossible for outside investigators to establish.”
It has been claimed by John Judge that when Alan Dulles was asked by Hale Boggs about releasing the evidence, he replied, “Go ahead and print it, nobody will read it anyway.”
According to one of his friends: “Hale felt very, very torn during his work (on the Commission) … he wished he had never been on it and wished he’d never signed it (the Warren Report).” Another former aide argued that, “Hale always returned to one thing: Hoover lied his eyes out to the Commission – on Oswald, on Ruby, on their friends, the bullets, the gun, you name it.”
Thomas Hale Boggs disappeared while on a campaign flight from Anchorage to Juneau, Alaska, on 16th October, 1972. Also killed in the accident was Nick Begich, a member of the House of Representatives. No bodies were ever found and in 1973 his wife, Lindy Boggs, was elected in her husband’s place.
The Los Angeles Star, on November 22, 1973, reported that before his death Boggs claimed he had “startling revelations” on Watergate and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
October 16, 1972
New Details Uncovered in 1972 Disappearance of Congressman Hale Boggs
By Jonathan Walczak
Forty years ago yesterday, Hale Boggs, a powerful Democratic congressman with a colorful past, disappeared in a small plane over Alaska. The massive search that ensued turned up no leads, and the plane, along with the bodies of Boggs and three others who died, remains hidden somewhere in the wilderness. Boggs — who served on the Warren Commission, accused the FBI of tapping congressional phones, and called for J. Edgar Hoover’s resignation — was the majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. Seattle and the rest of the country were captivated as the government sent out dozens of planes and ships to find him, but search efforts failed. In the years that followed, conspiracy theories flourished, in part because of his connections to the Kennedy assassination and the FBI, and in part because no trace of the plane ever surfaced.
To mark the anniversary of Boggs’ disappearance, Seattle Weekly made Freedom of Information requests to eight government agencies and reviewed more than 1,500 pages of documents. While none of the records get us closer to knowing why and where Boggs’ plane went down, they do paint a fuller picture of the his life before the crash -including an incident in which he was run off the road by an unknown driver in Washington, D.C., in 1970…
December 26, 1972
Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, dies.
On December 5, 1972, Truman was admitted to Kansas City’s Research Hospital and Medical Center with lung congestion from pneumonia. He developed multiple organ failure and died at 7:50 am on December 26 at the age of 88. Bess Truman opted for a simple private service at the library for her husband rather than a state funeral in Washington. A week after the funeral, foreign dignitaries and Washington officials attended a memorial service at Washington National Cathedral. Bess died in 1982; they are buried at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence.
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was an American politician who served as the 33rd President of the United States (1945–53), assuming that office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the waning months of World War II.
The authorization by President Truman to use the first atomic weapon at Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and second atomic weapon on the most Christian city in Japan, Nagasaki, on August 9, 1945, on overwhelmingly women, children and older people when their country, Japan wanted to surrender for months, is unhuman.
So far, these are the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war.
We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.
Harry Truman, writing about the atomic bomb in his diary on July 25, 1945
January 22, 1973
Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, dies.
On Inauguration Day (January 20, 1969), Lyndon Baines Johnson saw Richard Milhouse Nixon sworn in, then got on the plane to fly back home to Texas. When the front door of the plane closed, Johnson pulled out a cigarette, his first cigarette he had smoked since his heart attack in 1955. One of his daughters pulled it out of his mouth and said, “Daddy, what are you doing? You’re going to kill yourself.” He took it back and said, “I’ve now raised you girls. I’ve now been President. Now it’s my time!”
With his heart condition diagnosed terminal, Johnson returned home to his ranch. At approximately 3:39 pm Central Time on January 22, 1973, he placed a call to the ranch’s Secret Service compound complaining of “massive chest pains”. The agents rushed to the former President’s bedroom, finding him unresponsive with the phone receiver still in his hand. Johnson was airlifted in one of his own airplanes to San Antonio and taken to Brooke Army General, where he was pronounced dead on arrival by cardiologist and Army Colonel Dr. George McGranahan. He was age 64.
Shortly after Johnson’s death, his press secretary Tom Johnson (no relation) telephoned Walter Cronkite at CBS; Cronkite was live on the air with the CBS Evening News at the time, and a report on Vietnam was cut abruptly while Cronkite was still on the line, so he could break the news. Johnson’s death came two days after Richard Nixon’s second inauguration and left the United States with no living former presidents, Harry S. Truman having died weeks earlier on December 26, 1972.
For more see the comprehensive section:
September 11, 1973
CIA Cover-Up on Chile 1973 Coup against Salvador Allende.
Release of Classified CIA Documents
by Peter Kornbluh
Forty-three years after the U.S.-supported military coup in Chile, the Central Intelligence Agency continues to withhold information on what it knew about planning for the putsch, and what intelligence it shared with President Richard Nixon, according to redacted documents posted today by the National Security Archive. The documents, among the hundreds of President’s Daily Briefs (PDBs) the CIA declassified last month, excise material that almost certainly has already been released to the public years ago. The section on Chile of the PDB dated September 11, 1973, for example, was completely censored, as was an entire page on Chile provided to Nixon on September 8, 1973, even though thousands of once-sensitive intelligence records from the coup period have already been declassified since at least 1999.
“The CIA is trying – but failing – to hold history hostage,” stated Peter Kornbluh, who directs the Archive’s Chile Documentation Project. By continuing to censor the historical record, he suggested, “the CIA is attempting to cover up what Nixon knew about coup plotting in Chile and when he knew it, as well as hiding the CIA’s own contacts and connections to the coup plotters.”
December 1974 – 1975
In the aftermath of Watergate, abuses by the CIA, FBI, and other intelligence agencies began coming to light. The 1974 “reform Congress” began investigating some of these matters. In this context, President Ford directed Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller to head up a President’s Commission on CIA Activities in the United States.
The “Rockefeller Commission,” whose Executive Director was former Warren Commission staffer David Belin, investigated CIA mail opening programs, its monitoring of anti-war dissidents, and also conducted a limited review of JFK’s assassination. Specifically, the Commission dealt with allegations that Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis had participated in the assassination (and were two of the three “tramps” arrested that day). It also analyzed the JFK medical evidence, in an attempt to explain how the Zapruder film’s depiction of Kennedy being thrust backward was compatible with a shot from behind.
The Rockefeller Commission was quickly overtaken by the congressional Church Committee, whose scope was much broader and included U.S. plots to assassinate foreign leaders, the FBI’s domestic CounterIntelligence program which targeted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. among others, and much more. The Rockefeller Commission in history looks much like the Tower Commission which initially investigated Iran-Contra. Like that body, the Rockefeller Commission has been accused of having been an (unsuccessful) attempt to fend off more thorough investigations.
Prior to the so-called Church Committee, the President’s Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States was formed by President Gerald Ford. Headed by Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller, this body came to be known as the Rockefeller Commission.
The Rockefeller Commission issued a single report in 1975, which delineated some CIA abuses including mail opening and surveillance of domestic dissident groups. It also conducted a narrow study of issues relating to the JFK assassination, specifically the backward head snap as seen in the Zapruder film (first shown publicly in 1975), and the possible presence of E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis in Dallas.
The Rockefeller Report is seen by many as a “whitewash,” and was certainly superceded by the Church Committee’s work in scope and depth.
The files of the Rockefeller Commission were reviewed by the Church Committee, and many of them are included as part of the roughly 50,000 pages of declassified Church Committee documents now publicly available at the National Archives.
(CIA Activities) Published 1975
by United States President’s Commission on CIA Activities within the United States
For more see the comprehensive section:
Commissions, Investigations And Trial
January 27, 1975
by John Simkin
Select Committee Into Intelligence Activities
In 1975, Frank Church became the chairman of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. This committee investigated alleged abuses of power by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Intelligence.
The committee also reported that the Central Intelligence Agency had withheld from the Warren Commission, during its investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, information about plots by the Government of the United States against Fidel Castro of Cuba…
The Mafia boss, Sam Giancana was ordered to appear before the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. However, before he could appear, on 19th June, 1975, Giancana was murdered in his own home. He had a massive wound in the back of the head. He had also been shot six times in a circle around the mouth. At the same time Jimmy Hoffa, another man the committee wanted to interview, also disappeared. His body was never found.
Johnny Roselli was also due to appear before Church’s committee when he was murdered and in July 1976 his body was found floating in an oil drum in Miami’s Dumfoundling Bay. Jack Anderson, of the Washington Post, interviewed Roselli just before he was killed. On 7th September, 1976, the newspaper reported Roselli as saying : “When Oswald was picked up, the underworld conspirators feared he would crack and disclose information that might lead to them. This almost certainly would have brought a massive U.S. crackdown on the Mafia. So Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminate Oswald.”
In its final report the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities concluded: “Domestic intelligence activity has threatened and undermined the Constitutional rights of Americans to free speech, association and privacy. It has done so primarily because the Constitutional system for checking abuse of power has not been applied.”
As a result of Church’s report and the deaths of Sam Giancana, Jimmy Hoffa and Johnny Roselli, Congress established the House Select Committee on Assassinations in September 1976. The resolution authorized a 12-member select committee to conduct an investigation of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
Book V – The Investigation of the Assassination of President J.F.K.:
Performance of the Intelligence Agencies
This report, often referred to as the Schweiker-Hart Report after its authors, discusses the performance of the CIA and FBI in the investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy. The report analyzes the general question of whether and by what degree the CIA and FBI withheld relevant information from the Warren Commission, which was charged with investigating Kennedy’s murder. Among the information unknown to the Warren Commission (except Commissioner Allen Dulles) were the CIA’s plots to kill Fidel Castro. With the public disclosure of these plots, the idea that Castro “struck back” gained prominence with many at the time. The Committee found that the evidence “indicates that the investigation of the assassination was deficient” and “impeaches the process whereby the intelligence agencies arrived at their own conclusions.”
Church Committee:
Book V – The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy:
Performance of the Intelligence Agencies
For more see the comprehensive section:
Commissions, Investigations And Trial
February 19, 1975 – January 31, 1976
The Nedzi Committee / The Pike Committee
On February 19, 1975, the House Select Committee on Intelligence was formed under the leadership of Michigan Representative Lucien Nedzi. Only a few months had passed when the New York Times revealed that Nedzi, as head of the House Armed Services Intelligence Subcommittee, had been briefed in 1973 by CIA Director Colby on some of the contents of the “family jewels,” including assassination plotting. The resulting furor expressed by other members of the Committee resulted in the Committee being dissolved in July and replaced by one run by Otis Pike of New York.
The Pike Committee’s relations with the CIA were tense from the start, particularly over what level of access it would be given to CIA files. The hostile relationship between the Pike Committee and the CIA, as well as the White House, was profound and impeded the Committee’s ability to conduct its investigation. The New York Times joined a chorus of other media outlets accusing Pike of running a witch hunt. When presented with a draft of the Committee’s report, CIA legal counsel Mitchell Rogovin is said to have told the Committee’s staff director Searle Field: “Pike will pay for this, you wait and see…. There will be a political retaliation…. We will destroy him for this.”
In the end, the Committee’s report was not accepted by the full House of Representatives, though it was leaked by journalist Daniel Schorr, and the Village Voice printed it. The very first line of the report reads “If the Committee’s recent experience is any test, intelligence agencies that are to be controlled by Congressional lawmaking are, today, beyond the lawmaker’s scrutiny.”
The CIA report the President doesn’t want you to read
Author: Aaron Latham:
United States. Congress. House. Select Committee on Intelligence.
For more see the comprehensive section:
Commissions, Investigations And Trial
1976 – 1979
House Select Committee On Assassinations (HSCA)
How The CIA Controlled The House Select Committee On Assassinations
…The final report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), issued in 1979, concluded that a conspiracy existed in the assassination of President Kennedy. This news should have delighted hundreds of researchers who had disagreed with the no-conspiracy finding of the Warren Commission. The fact that it did not, is due to the HSCA conspiracy being a simple one, with Lee Harvey Oswald still firing all but one of the shots from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository Building. The existence of another shooter and another shot, from the grassy knoll, was “proved” by the HSCA, based primarily on acoustical evidence presented in the very last month of their public hearings. Dr. Robert Blakey and Richard Billings, chief counsel and report editor for the HSCA, co-authored, in 1981, a book, The Plot to Kill the President, following the publication of the HSCA’s final report. The book claimed that the other shooter and Oswald were part of a Mafia plot to kill JFK.
To over simplify the current (1985) situation, most JFK researchers feel that the American public had been deceived once again. The HSCA reaffirmed all but one of the Warren Commission’s findings, including even the famed single bullet theory. The simplified conspiracy finding is now subject to review by the Justice Department and the FBI because it is based on very questionable acoustical evidence. Justice commissioned the so-called Ramsey Panel to review this evidence, in 1981, under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences. It found no evidence from the acoustics that a grassy knoll shot was fired. So, we are back to no-conspiracy and Oswald being the lone assassin. And even if there was a conspiracy, Blakey claims it involved the Mafia and not the CIA. The HSCA report and all of its volumes of evidence omitting any reference to CIA involvement, concluded that the CIA was not involved, and did not reveal any evidence that the HSCA staff had collected showing that CIA people murdered JFK, and that the CIA has been covering up that fact ever since.
Any followers of CIA activities connected with the JFK assassination, since 1963, must ask the question, how did they do it? How did the CIA turn things completely around from the 1976 days when Henry Gonzalez, Thomas Downing, Richard A. Sprague, Robert Tanenbaum, Cliff Fenton and others were pursuing the truth about the assassination, to essentially the same status as when the Warren Commission finished its work? How did they produce the final cover-up? The answer is that the CIA controlled the HSCA and its investigation and findings from the early part of 1977, forward. The methods they used were as clever and devious as any they had used previously to control the Warren Commission, the Rockefeller Commission, the Garrison Investigation, the Schweiker/Hart Committee and the efforts of independent researchers.
House Select Committee on Assassinations
by John Simkin
…In 1976 Thomas N. Downing began campaigning for a new investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Downing said he was certain that Kennedy had been killed as a result of a conspiracy. He believed that the recent deaths of Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli were highly significant. He also believed that the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had withheld important information from the Warren Commission. Downing was not alone in taking this view. In 1976, a Detroit News poll indicated that 87% of the American population did not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman who killed Kennedy.
Thomas N. Downing named Richard Sprague as chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Gaeton Fonzi was to later say: “Sprague was known as tough, tenacious and independent. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind when I heard of Sprague’s appointment that the Kennedy assassination would finally get what it needed: a no-holds-barred, honest investigation. Which just goes to show how ignorant of the ways of Washington both Sprague and I were”.
Sprague quickly assembled a staff of 170 lawyers, investigators and researchers. On December 8, 1976, Sprague submitted a 1977 budget of $6.5 million. Frank Thompson, Chairman of the House Administration Committee made it clear he opposed the idea of so much money being spent on the investigation. Soon afterwards smear stories against Sprague began appearing in the press. David B. Burnham of The New York Times reported that Sprague had mishandled a homicide case involving the son of a friend. Members of Congress joined in the attacks and Robert E. Bauman of Maryland claimed that Sprague had a “checkered career” and was not to be trusted. Richard Kelly of Florida called the House Select Committee on Assassinations a “multimillion-dollar fishing expedition for the benefit of a bunch of publicity seekers.”
On February 2, 1978, Henry Gonzalez replaced Thomas N. Downing as chairman of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Gonzalez immediately sacked Sprague as chief counsel. Sprague claimed that only the fill committee had the power to dismiss him. Walter E. Fauntroy agreed with Sprague and launched a campaign to keep him as chief counsel. On March 1, Gonzalez resigned describing Sprague as “an unconscionable scoundrel” Louis Stokes of Ohio was now appointed as the new chairman of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. After a meeting with Stokes on March 29, Sprague agreed to resign and he was replaced by G. Robert Blakey.
Sprague later told Gaeton Fonzi that the real reason he was removed as chief counsel was because he insisted on asking questions about the CIA operations in Mexico. Fonzi argued that “Sprague… wanted complete information about the CIA’s operation in Mexico City and total access to all its employees who may have had anything to do with the photographs, tape recordings and transcripts. The Agency balked. Sprague pushed harder. Finally the Agency agreed that Sprague could have access to the information if he agreed to sign a CIA Secrecy Agreement. Sprague refused…. “How,” he asked, “can I possible sign an agreement with an agency I’m supposed to be investigating?”
The House Select Committee of Assassinations set up a panel of forensic pathologists to examine the autopsy materials and other medical evidence. Most of the members concluded that two bullets, both fired from the rear, struck Kennedy. However, one member, Cyril H. Wecht, rejected this theory claiming it was medically impossible, and suggested that at least one bullet had been fired from the right front.
During the investigation the committee discovered that the Dallas Police had a recording of the assassination. A microphone, mounted on one of the motorcycles escorting the motorcade, had picked up sounds in Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination. Acoustic experts analyzed the recording and were able to distinguish four rifle shots. They concluded that there was a 95 per cent probability of the third bullet was fired from the Grassy Knoll.
As a result of this acoustic evidence G. Robert Blakey was able to state that there were “four shots, over a total period of 7.91 seconds were fired at the Presidential limousine. The first, second and fourth came from the Depository; the third from the Grassy Knoll.”
The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that “scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy.” It added that “on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
The HSCA was “unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.” However, it did discover evidence to suggest that anti-Castro Cubans were involved in the assassination. For example, an undercover agent heard Nestor Castellanos tell a meeting of anti-Castro Cubans, “We’re waiting for Kennedy (on) the 22nd. We’re going to see him in one way or another.” The committee also obtained evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald met David Ferrie in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. It concluded that “individuals active in anti-Castro activities had the motive, means, and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy”.
The committee claimed that the Warren Commission “failed to investigate adequately the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the President.” The report was also highly critical of the Secret Service: “The Secret Service was deficient in the performance of its duties. The Secret Service possessed information that was not properly analyzed, investigated or used by the Secret Service in connection with the President’s trip to Dallas; in addition, Secret Service agents in the motorcade were inadequately prepared to protect the President from a sniper.”
Gary Cornwell, Deputy Chief Counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations published his own account of the investigation, Real Answers, in 1999. It is highly critical of the FBI and the Warren Commission investigations. As Cornwell points out: “The case should have been solved in 1963 and 1964, and because the government decided not to look for the real answers when it had the chance, the opportunity was probably lost forever.”
The House Select Committee on Assassinations refused to publish all the documents obtained during the investigation. The CIA forced all members of the committee, all staff members, all consultants to the committee, and several independent researchers involved in the investigation, to sign a Nondisclosure Agreement. As Richard E. Sprague, one of the consultants, later explained: “First, it binds the signer, if a consultant, to never reveal that he is working for the committee. Second, it prevents the signer from ever revealing to anyone in perpetuity, any information he has learned about the committee’s work as a result of working for the committee. Third, it gives the committee and the House, after the committee terminates, the power to take legal action against the signer, in a court named by the committee or the House, in case the committee believes the signer has violated the agreement. Fourth, the signer agrees to pay the court costs for such a suit in the event he loses the suit.”
It has been announced that all House Select Committee on Assassinations documents will be published by 2017.
HSCA Final Report
The Final Report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations presents the HSCA’s findings in the murders of both President John F. Kennedy and Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. The HSCA found a “probable conspiracy” in the JFK assassination, but was unable to determine its nature or participants (other than that Oswald was still deemed to have fired all the successful shots). In the King case, the HSCA similarly found that James Earl Ray assassinated Reverend King, but that there might have been a small-scale conspiracy involved.
For many assassination researchers, the HSCA’s findings suggested a “limited hangout” of a deeper and more disturbing reality. The release of the HSCA’s internal files in the 1990s has certainly provided fodder for this view, including evidence of HSCA cover-ups in the area of the medical evidence and of Oswald’s intelligence connections and his mysterious trip to Mexico City.
The HSCA Report presents an overview of the HSCA’s work. Many more details are present in the twelve volumes of appendices published in each of the two assassination cases (the JFK volumes are available online here). The voluminous files of the HSCA and the many depositions taken in the investigation are a fertile field for today’s researchers.
https://www.maryferrell.org/php/showlist.php?docset=1009
For more see the comprehensive section:
House Select Committee On Assassinations
August 14, 1978 – February 6, 1985
Jury: CIA Involved in JFK Assassination
Not a single major newspaper nor any national news broadcast has ever reported that on Feb. 6, 1985, a jury in Miami concluded that the CIA was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
This is remarkable, if only because the verdict came in a court case featuring two international celebrities: Water gate burglar E. Howard Hunt — perhaps the most infamous CIA operative in history — and his courtroom nemesis — attorney Mark Lane. Lane’s ground-break ing best-seller, Rush to Judgment, had convinced millions of readers there had been a conspiracy in the JFK assassination, the Warren Commission’s claims notwithstanding.
Scattered news reports did mention Hunt had lost a libel case against The SPOTLIGHT. However, no media reported what the jury forewoman had told the press:
Mr. Lane was asking us to do something very difficult. He was asking us to believe John Kennedy had been killed by our own government. Yet when we examined the evidence closely, we were compelled to conclude that the CIA had indeed killed President Kennedy.
Until 1992, when Lane recounted the trial in Plausible Denial and put forth additional compelling evidence of CIA complicity in the crime, the only substantive news reports about the trial appeared in The SPOTLIGHT. In issue No. 7 for 1985 (Feb. 18), The SPOTLIGHT announced its victory, detailing the remarkable events that led to the trial.
The affair was set in motion on Aug. 14, 1978, when The SPOTLIGHT published an article by former CIA official Victor Marchetti who revealed the CIA intended to publicly “admit” Hunt had been involved in the JFK assassination, acting as a “rogue” agent without CIA sanction.
A top CIA liaison to anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the early 1960s, Hunt was unknown to the public until the Watergate scandal that toppled President Nixon in 1974 brought Hunt ill fame. Then, after Watergate, when the Rockefeller Commission investigated CIA misdeeds, two eccentric writers alleged Hunt was one of three “tramps” photographed in Dallas minutes after the JFK assassination.
Subsequent investigation refuted the “Hunt as tramp” theory. However, scandal sheets had hyped the story and many came to believe Hunt had a hand in Dallas.
In 1976, growing skepticism about the Warren Commission’s claim that a “lone assassin” had killed JFK forced the House of Representatives to convene a new assassination inquiry.
In the midst of the House investigation, an unusual development occurred:
As Marchetti’s SPOTLIGHT article reported, an in-house CIA memo, ostensibly written in 1966 — some 12 years previously — was leaked to congressional investigators.
The memo stated Hunt had been in Dallas on the day of the JFK assassination, and that CIA officials were concerned the agency would one day have to explain Hunt’s presence there.
The SPOTLIGHT subsequently learned CIA Director Richard Helms and the CIA’s chief of counterintelligence, James Angleton, had signed off on the memo.
Marchetti suggested that because the CIA perceived Hunt to be a villain in the public’s eye as a consequence of Watergate, the CIA had decided to sacrifice Hunt and “admit” he had been involved in the assassination.
The CIA would claim Hunt was acting on his own and that the CIA, as an institution, had no part in the president’s murder. This would satisfy public demand for a resolution of the JFK controversy and the CIA itself would be absolved. Hunt would be left to fend for himself.
The SPOTLIGHT felt the article served as warning to Hunt about CIA intentions and Hunt himself admitted the story seemed plausible. Yet, Hunt still filed suit against The SPOTLIGHT.
When the case went to trial in federal court in Miami, the jury found in Hunt’s favor, ordering The SPOTLIGHT to pay Hunt $650,000 in damages. However, an error in the jury instructions resulted in the verdict being overturned. After the case was ordered for retrial, Lane stepped in for The SPOTLIGHT’s defense.
The highlight of the trial was when Lane presented the jury the testimony of Marita Lorenz, an ex-CIA operative who had worked with Hunt in plots against Fidel Castro.
Miss Lorenz testified that on Nov. 21, 1963 — the day prior to the JFK assassination — she arrived in Dallas in a two-car caravan from Miami. Accompanying her were several CIA operatives, armed with telescopic rifles, including Frank Sturgis who (years later) participated with Hunt in the Watergate burglary.
She didn’t know the purpose of the mission, but upon arrival, the travelers met with Hunt, who acted as their paymaster, and also Jack Ruby who, days later, killed the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Uncomfortable, sensing something “big, very big,” was impending, she left Dallas that same day. Later Sturgis told her how big the mission had been: the assassination of President Kennedy.
The jury listened carefully to her testimony, already suspicious of Hunt after his performance under Lane’s cross-examination. Lane pointed out inconsistencies in conflicting stories by Hunt over the years about where he had been on Nov. 22, 1963. However, Hunt insisted to the jury that he was in Washington, D.C. with his wife and three children that day.
Hunt’s case collapsed when he was unable to explain, when questioned by Lane, why his teenage children had asked him if the rumors he was involved in the events in Dallas were true.
Obviously, if Hunt were in Washington on Nov. 22 he couldn’t have been in Dallas.
Not surprisingly, the jury found in favor of The SPOTLIGHT. Yet, the major media said nothing about the stunning, historic revelations of this trial.
It was clearly the CIA’s counterintelligence chief, James Angleton, who leaked the CIA memo placing Hunt in Dallas. In fact, Angleton’s confidant, reporter Joe Trento (deposed by Lane in the Hunt case) has said — based upon what Angleton told him — that Hunt had been in Dallas and that it was Angleton who sent him there (Angleton’s own denials notwithstanding). Three conclusions can be reached:
• The CIA had planned to throw Hunt to the wolves but evidently he and the CIA reached an accord since Angleton’s loyal, longtime deputy, Newton Miler, was dispatched by the CIA to testify against The SPOTLIGHT in Hunt’s defense;
• Because The SPOTLIGHT ex posed the intended CIA scheme to “admit” Hunt’s complicity in the assassination, the operation was shelved; and,
• If there’s anybody who knows what really happened in Dallas, it’s Hunt.
December 20, 1991
The film, JFK, by Oliver Stone is released.
Final Judgement Reviewed and the Film JFK by Oliver Stone
by Mark Braver
Why didn’t Oliver Stone, in his famous movie “JFK” not mention any of the following?
It turns out the chief financial backer of Stone’s film was longtime Mossad figure, Arnon Milchan, Israel’s biggest arms dealer…
…When New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison charged businessman Clay Shaw with participation in the JFK assassination conspiracy Garrison stumbled upon the Israeli Mossad connection to the murder of President Kennedy. Shaw served on the board of a shadowy corporation known as Permindex. A primary shareholder in Permindex was the Banque De Credit International of Geneva, founded by Tibor Rosenbaum, an arms procurer and financier for the Mossad.
What’s more, the Mossad-sponsored Swiss bank was the chief “money laundry” for Meyer Lansky, the head of the international crime syndicate and an Israeli loyalist whose operations meshed closely on many fronts with the American CIA.
The chairman of Permindex was Louis M. Bloomfield of Montreal, a key figure in the Israeli lobby and an operative of the Bronfman family of Canada, long-time Lansky associates and among Israel’s primary international patrons.
In the pages of “Final Judgment” the Israeli connection to the JFK assassination is explored in frightening–and fully documented–detail. For example, did you know:
* That JFK was engaged in a bitter secret conflict with Israel over U.S. East policy and that Israel’s prime minister resigned in disgust, saying JFK’s stance threatened Israel’s very survival?
* That JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, immediately reversed America’s policy toward Israel?
* That the top Mafia figures often alleged to be behind the JFK assassination were only front men for Meyer Lansky?
* That the CIA’s liaison to the Mossad, James Angleton, was a prime mover behind the cover-up of the JFK assassination?
Arnon Milchan – Israel’s biggest arms dealer, Milchan was “executive producer” (i.e. chief financial angel) of Oliver Stone’s Hollywood fantasy about the JFK assassination, a fact which may explain Stone’s aversion to exploring the Israeli connection to the affair.
JFK – A Meeting With X (4:36)
Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) meets with a mysterious man (L. Fletcher Prouty) called X (Donald Sutherland), who gives him confidential information about President Kennedy’s assassination.
October 26, 1992 – October 26, 2017
President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act Of 1992
The John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act
John F. Kennedy was killed on November 22, 1963. Almost 30 years later, hoping to allay lingering doubts about the circumstances surrounding that event, Congress enacted the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act. On October 26, 1992, President George Bush signed the bill into law (PL 102-526). One provision of the law mandated that all assassination-related material be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The clear intent of the law was to open most of the records for research.
The Act defined five narrow categories of information whose release could be postponed and established the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) to consider all agency decisions to postpone the release of records. Records initially postponed by an agency remained in the custody of that agency until the Review Board evaluated those records and decisions. Once the Board completed its review of the agency’s recommendations for postponement, all records, including those that are closed, were to be transferred to NARA. The transfers of the last records reviewed by the ARRB are still taking place at this time. The Act requires that all assassination-related records be opened by October 26, 2017, with the exception of documents certified for continued postponement by the President.
On December 28, 1992, the National Archives and Records Administration established the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection. The Collection consists of approximately 2,000 cubic feet of records or more than 4.1 million pages. Even though the Assassinations Records Review Board has gone out of existence, additions are being made as agencies continue to review records identified as relevant and transfer newly opened records to the National Archives of the United States. The Collection may not be complete for several years.
The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection
John F. Kennedy was killed on November 22, 1963. Almost 30 years later, Congress enacted the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. The Act mandated that all assassination-related material be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
For more see the comprehensive section:
April 22, 1994
Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, dies.
Nixon suffered a severe stroke on April 18, 1994, while preparing to eat dinner in his Park Ridge, New Jersey home. A blood clot resulting from the atrial fibrillation he had suffered for many years had formed in his upper heart, broken off, and traveled to his brain. He was taken to New York Hospital–Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, initially alert but unable to speak or to move his right arm or leg. Damage to the brain caused swelling (cerebral edema), and Nixon slipped into a deep coma. He died at 9:08 p.m. on April 22, 1994, with his daughters at his bedside. He was 81 years old.
Nixon’s Three Stories Of Where He Was On November 22, 1963
by Col. L. Fletcher Prouty
For more see the comprehensive section:
May 19, 1994
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis dies of non-Hodgkin lymphoma cancer. She is buried next to President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and their children in Arlington National Cemetery. Monsignor George F. Bardes of St. Thomas More Church on East 89th Street, Onassis’ parish, administers last rites, heard her confession and give her Communion. On July 31, 1993, Monsignor George F. Bardes married me (Mark R. Elsis) at St. Thomas More Church.
September 1994 – September 1998
Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB)
Assassination Records Review Board
The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 created the Assassination Records Review Board as an independent agency to re-examine for release the assassination-related records that federal agencies still regarded as too sensitive to open to the public. The Board finished its work on September 30, 1998, issued a final report, and transferred all of its records to the National Archives and Records Administration.
https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board
The Assassination Records Review Board Report (Final Report)
https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board/report
(6 Hours 24 Minutes)
Exposing Deceit and Deception in the JFK Assassination
by Douglas P. Horne
In this 5-part video (six hours and twenty-four minutes), Douglas P. Horne, who served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board and who is the author of the five-volume book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence and much more in the Assassination of JFK, discusses deceit and deception in the official autopsy of John F. Kennedy.
For more see the comprehensive section:
July 16, 1999
John F. Kennedy Jr. dies [assassinated] when his small plane crashes while flying from the Essex County Airport in Fairfield, N.J., to Martha’s Vineyard. With him are his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette. All three are later buried at sea.
John F. Kennedy Jr.
Intelligent And Charismatic, Yet A Down To Earth Nice Guy
by Mark R. Elsis
February 10, 2017
I have done and will be doing more extensive research and writing on the life and assassination of our 35th President, John Fitzgerald “Jack” Kennedy.
On Monday, May 29, 2017, I will honor his 100th Birthday, with my website: http://November221963.com
I have also written on the assassination of the United States Senator from New York, Robert Francis “Bobby” Kennedy. It is entitled:
The Day The United States Died: Thursday June 6, 1968
I have also done research into the evening of July 16, 1999. John was a careful and capable pilot, in voice contact and visual of Martha’s Vineyard Airport. An airport he knew well and had landed at dozens of times. When something went terribly wrong.
Monsignor George S. Bardes, who was the pastor for Jacqueline Kennedy and gave her the last sacraments before her death on May 19, 1994, also preformed my marriage, at St. Thomas More Church on July 31, 1993.
I driving my taxi in Upper East Side of Manhattan on a beautiful summer evening in 1987. A man was hailing a taxi in front of a restaurant, and as I drove closer to pick him up, I noticed it was John F. Kennedy Jr. The son of my assassinated Irish Catholic President. He got in and said that he was going to North Moore Street in Tribeca. He seemed like he needed some space, so we only talked a little bit as I drove him down to Tribeca. I found him to be intelligent and charismatic, yet a down to Earth nice guy. I believe that he was the last major person my country had to assassinate.
The Assassination of JFK Jr. (1:47:04)
[Except for all the “Nazi and Nazis” rants, informative]
by John Hankey
John F. Kennedy Jr.: Evidence Of A Cover up
John F. Kennedy Jr. on YouTube
“People often tell me I could be a great man. I’d rather be a good man.”
John F. Kennedy Jr.
September 11, 2001
Yet another Israeli false flag. This one killing almost 3,000 mostly Americans, to start the never ending War on Terror.
The Most Comprehensive Minute By Minute Timeline On 911
by Mark R. Elsis
2005
Dallas Holocaust Museum opens. It is located right next to the Texas School Book Depository.
December 26, 2006
Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the United States, dies.
Gerald Ford, a Warren Commission member was the only unelected President ever.
Gerald Ford
by John Simkin
Leslie King was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on 14th July, 1913. His parents divorced when he was an infant and his mother remarried a paint salesman in Michigan. Leslie’s name was changed to that of his stepfather, Gerald Rudolph Ford.
…One possible reason Johnson selected Ford (as a Warren Commission member) was that he was under the control of J. Edgar Hoover. According to Bobby Baker (Wheeling and Dealing), who was himself under investigation for his corrupt relationship with politicians, businessmen and call-girls, Ford had been secretly taped by the FBI when he had attended meetings with Fred Black at the Sheraton-Carlton Hotel in Washington…
…According to William C. Sullivan (The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover’s FBI) Gerald Ford provided J. Edgar Hoover with information about the activities of staff members of the commission. “Hoover was delighted when Gerald Ford was named to the Warren Commission. The director wrote in one of his internal memos that the bureau could expect Ford to ‘look after FBI interests,’ and he did, keeping us fully advised of what was going on behind closed doors. He was our man, our informant, on the Warren Commission.”
…The original first draft of the Warren Commission Report stated that a bullet had entered Kennedy’s “back at a point slightly above the shoulder and to the right of the spine.” Ford realized that this provided a serious problem for the single bullet theory. As Michael L. Kurtz has pointed out (The JFK Assassination Debates): “If a bullet fired from the sixth-floor window of the Depository building nearly sixty feet higher than the limousine entered the president’s back, with the president sitting in an upright position, it could hardly have exited from his throat at a point just above the Adam’s apple, then abruptly change course and drive downward into Governor Connally’s back.”
In 1997 the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) released a document that revealed that Ford had altered the first draft of the report to read: “A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine.” Ford had elevated the location of the wound from its true location in the back to the neck to support the single bullet theory…
…In 1973, Nixon’s vice-president, Spiro Agnew was investigated for extortion, bribery and income-tax violations while governor of Maryland. On 10th October, 1973 resigned as vice-president. Nixon attempted to appoint John Connally as Agnew’s replacement. However, Nixon was warned that his appointment would not be confirmed by Congress. Nixon therefore selected Ford instead.
Gerald Ford became president when Richard Nixon was also forced to resign over the Watergate Scandal in August, 1974. Ford therefore became the first man in history to become the president of the United States without having been elected as either president or vice president. Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller as his vice president. During his confirmation hearings it was revealed that over the years he had made large gifts of money to government officials such as Henry Kissinger.
On 8th September, 1974, Ford controversially granted Richard Nixon a full pardon “for all offences against the United States” that might have been committed while in office. The pardon brought an end all criminal prosecutions that Nixon might have had to face concerning the Watergate Scandal…
…In January 2006, Ford was treated for pneumonia. In August of that year it was reported that he had been fitted with a pacemaker. Gerald Ford died on 26th December, 2006.
Gerald Ford Moving the JFK Back Wound (2:35)
Interview from June 30th, 2005, with former FBI agent James W. Sibert, one of the two FBI agents who attended President Kennedy’s autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital on the night of JFK’s assassination in November 1963. The significance of this cannot be overstated! For with a wound in the original location, there cannot be a single bullet theory and without a single bullet theory there cannot be a lone gunman. A total 4 US presidents are involved on President Kennedy by knowing it before or after the fact or on cover up, Nixon left Dallas on morning on 11/22/63, Bush/CIA was photographed front of TSBD, Johnson in same motorcade with president witch never happened before and warren commission Ford moving strings on official cover-up work
FBI Agents James Sibert and Francis O’Neill wrote this five and half page report from their notes taken during the autopsy of President.
James W. Sibert Interview Gerald Ford’s motto: Attack is Best Defense
…Ford himself is guilty! Not only was it learned that he was secretly reporting on the Commission to FBI Director Hoover, but also, forced by declassified files, he has admitted that he instructed the Warren Commission to move Kennedy’s backwound up by several inches !!! The significance of this cannot be overstated! For with a wound in the original location, there cannot be a single bullet theory and without a single bullet theory there cannot be a lone gunman. Last time I looked, this was called “tampering with evidence”, which is a federal crime and in such an important case as the death of a president, it is also treason…
Gerald Ford’s Terrible Fiction
Moving the Back Wound and the Single Bullet Theory
October 26, 2017
The Background
Oliver Stone’s December 1991 film JFK ended with closing statement about the enormous amount of still-secret government documents relating to the JFK assassination and the fact that they would not be released until 2029. The tidal wave of letter-writing and phone-calling to Washington D. C. that followed the film precipitated a congressional decision to speed up the declassification of those files. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 was the result, and it was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush on 26 October 1992.
The Records Collection Act also created an independent board to oversee the declassification effort—the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB)—and invested it with the power to direct agencies to release documents, with direct appeal to the President as the agencies’ only recourse. The law defined “assassination record” very broadly. It decreed that no records could remain classified beyond twenty-five years of the enactment. In other words, the law mandates that all JFK assassination records must be fully declassified by 26 October 2017.
The Problem
Although the AARB released millions of pages of assassination records, a significant amount of potentially critical material still remains partially redacted or withheld in full. In April 2015, Martha Murphy, Chief of Special Access and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Branch, National Archives and Records Administration, (NARA) gave this assessment of the current situation:
There are 5 million pages of records in the JFK Act collection.
There are 318,886 documents in the JFK Act database.
11% of the documents have partial redactions.
3,603 documents are withheld in full.
These figures do not include many hundreds—perhaps thousands—of documents that are already supposed to be released but are not available. NARA has put U. S. Government agencies on notice that the withheld material is going to be released in 2017 unless they appeal to the President to prevent it. Murphy stated that NARA wants to know now—not at the last moment—what, if anything, these agencies expect to appeal.
The Outlook
The people of the United States must anticipate now that such appeals will occur without significant public pressure the president will assume that Americans are not interested in upholding the terms of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act
The Mission
Therefore, we must begin to prepare now for action to ensure that these records are released. Over the course of the next twenty-four months citizens concerned about the possible continued withholding of these assassination records must:
Constantly stay informed about the developing situation
Organize in ways to increase and share awareness
Develop plans and activities to communicate with elected leaders and presidential hopefuls
Impress upon them our firm and unwavering belief that these records belong to us
Mark the Date: October 26, 2017
by Rex Bradford
Hello, November in Dallas. I’m sorry not to be there in person, but I wanted to record this video missive, to tell you to mark a date on your calendar.
The date? October 26, 2017. That’s about 11 months away.
Why is this date important? Because it’s the 25th anniversary of the passage of the JFK Records Collection Act of 1992. But the significance goes beyond the normal anniversary nostalgia. Here is a section from the JFK Records Act:
“Each assassination record shall be publicly disclosed in full, and available in the Collection no later than the date that is 25 years after the date of the enactment of this Act…..”
And the National Archives is busy getting ready to do just that. They have published, and we have put online at maryferrell.org, a document listing 3,571 records which to this day have remained withheld in full. There are another roughly 35,000 documents which feature redactions–like this page of the Lopez Report. In 11 months, all of those redactions are supposed to be lifted.
Oh but wait, I forgot to read the rest of the sentence in the JFK Records Act. “Each assassination record shall be publicly disclosed in full…..yadda yadda…..unless the President certifies, as required by this act, that: (i) continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations; and (ii) the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.”
JFK Assassination Records and the Enduring Lessons from the Assassination Records Review Board
by Lauren Harper
JFK assassination records are likely the most frequently and prominently requested classified documents in the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) possession. The Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (JFK Act) requires that each assassination record be publicly disclosed in full by October 2017 – unless the President upholds an agency appeal and “certifies” that releasing a record would cause specific harm. The timing of the Act’s “final release date” has the potential to further affect election year politics in an election cycle already dominated by records retention, declassification, and state secrecy. This is also a timely opportunity to consider more broadly the Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board’s (the Board’s) recommendations to improve declassification practices of even the most sensitive government records.
The JFK Act of 1992 – spurred by renewed public interest in assassination records thanks to the success of Oliver Stones’ film, JFK – mandated that all federal records pertaining to JFK’s assassination be transmitted to NARA. The Act further required that each assassination record be publicly disclosed in full, and be available in the collection no later than the date 25 years after the enactment of the Act (October 26, 2017) unless the President certified that releasing the documents would cause “identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations” that outweighed the public interest in disclosure.
The Act also established the Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board (the Board), a temporary, independent agency consisting of five citizens who were not government employees but who had, for the first time in history, the “ability to order agencies to declassify government documents” and whose declassification decisions only the President could override. With its unique authority, the Board opened previously hidden CIA records from the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and FBI files that would have otherwise been protected by the FOIA’s broad law enforcement exemption. The Board also implemented a program requiring agencies sign a declaration, under penalty of perjury, that they were complying with the JFK Act…
I Still Imagine
In first grade
My president was blown away
I wondered why
In fifth grade
Martin and Robert were filled with lead
I began to understand
In the summer before high school
Morrison was in French soil
But no one was there
I became scared
For John
The warmest 8th of December
In New York City history
I was driving my cab
When Vinny broke the news
From that day till now
At 29
Every time I pass 1 West 72nd street
I feel humanity
Has no hope
But I still imagine
by Mark R. Elsis
September 21, 1987
Other Timelines
Selected Milestones Of The Kennedy Presidency
The following is a chronological selection of key events, speeches, and legislation from President John F. Kennedy’s administration.
President John F. Kennedy – Key Events
https://millercenter.org/president/john-f-kennedy/key-events
November 22, 1963 (Friday)
http://www.assassinationresearch.com/v2n1/chrono2.pdf
Timeline Of The Presidency Of John F. Kennedy – January 2, 1960 – November 25, 1963
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_presidency_of_John_F._Kennedy
JFK History Maker – A 50 Year Retrospective
Relive the day, understand the man, and see what America lost. See the strength and youth of a President who was so tragically struck down in his prime. Learn about JFK’s childhood, his wartime exploits and his career before the Presidency. Most importantly, explore the three years of his Presidency up close. Cherish his successes and learn from his failures. Understand the events that helped mold the early part of the turbulent 1960’s.
http://www.historycentral.com/JFK/Index.html
January 1961 – November 1963
A Daily Calendar of President Kennedy’s Schedule Month by Month
http://www.historycentral.com/JFK/Calendar/Listing.html
Day By Day Timeline
JFK, Vietnam And Laos
http://www.jfkessentials.com/forum/index.php?topic=108.0
JFK: A Timeline Of His Life 1917 – 1963
http://www.sptimes.com/News/111199/JFK/timeline.shtml
JFK Assassination Timeline
http://www.jfk.org/the-assassination/jfk-assassination-timeline
John F. Kennedy Timeline
http://www.shmoop.com/john-f-kennedy/timeline.html
John F. Kennedy Timeline
http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/jfk/timeline.html
Timeline Of The Presidency Of John F. Kennedy
https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Timeline%20of%20the%20presidency%20of%20John%20F.%20Kennedy
Timeline: Milestones In The Life Of John F. Kennedy
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/jfk-interactive-timeline.htm
Timeline: The Life Of President John F. Kennedy
by Emma-Jean Weinstein
http://legacy.wbur.org/2013/11/13/timeline-president-john-kennedy
The Kennedy Half Century Timeline: The Life And Career Of JFK
http://www.thekennedyhalfcentury.com/kennedy-timeline.php
Defining Moments From John F. Kennedy’s Life
by Freeman Stevenson
John F. Kennedy Timeline
http://www.softschools.com/timelines/john_f_kennedy_timeline/122
JFK A Timeline 1917 – 1963
http://www.slideshare.net/bestoldfarm/john-f-kennedy-14346012
JFK Assassination Timeline
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/22/jfk-assassination-timeline
Timeline Of The John F. Kennedy Assassination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_John_F._Kennedy_assassination
Kennedy Assassination Timeline (17:43)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq46PU3kD8I
John F Kennedy Timeline Conspiracy (1:48:28)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld0Sm4LP9jE
Timeline Of The John F. Kennedy Assassination (55:06)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_9vOTGyJEQ
Timeline Of The John F. Kennedy Assassination (27:07)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk2JF5PtVvI
November Days 1963
http://novemberdays1963.tumblr.com
Inside Job
http://jfkinsidejob.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/INSIDE-JOB.pdf
November 22, 1963 (Friday)
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?13233-Deep-Politics-Timeline/page8
Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) Timeline
by Richard Hocking
Four Days In November
http://www.news965.com/news/national/jfk-timeline-1963
John Fitzgerald Kennedy: 1917 – 1963
https://www.nps.gov/jofi/learn/education/upload/time-line.pdf
John F. Kennedy Early Life And Education
http://www.john-f-kennedy.org/Jugend_Studium-en.html
JFK Timeline
Speeches
http://Speeches.November221963.com
News Conferences All 64
http://NewsConferencesAll64.November221963.com
Executive Orders All 214
http://ExecutiveOrdersAll214.November221963.com
National Security Action Memoranda All 272 (NSAM)
http://NSAMAll272.November221963.com
Books
http://Books.November221963.com
Films
http://Films.November221963.com
Videos
http://Videos.November221963.com
Photographs
http://Photographs.November221963.com
Quotes
http://Quotes.November221963.com
Resources
http://Resources.November221963.com
100 Sections
http://100Sections.November221963.com
Home
Mark R. Elsis
May 29th, 20117
On the 100th Anniversary of the birth of President John F. Kennedy
*******
A HISTORIC TIMELINE OF DAYS GONE BY
AND
OF DAYS AS YET TO COME
The Kennedy Century begins today.
Robert D. Morningstar
The UFO Spotlight On... 
