Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (62 page)

The new president was waiting on board presidential jet Air Force One
when Kennedy's body reached Love Field. In his Warren Commission
affidavit, Johnson said Kennedy's aide Kenneth O'Donnell specifically
told him to take the presidential plane because it had better communication
equipment. However, O'Donnell denied this, telling author William Man chester: "The President and I had no conversation regarding Air Force
One. If we had known that he was going on Air Force One, we would
have taken Air Force Two. One plane was just like the other."

O'Donnell later wrote that a Warren Commission attorney asked him to
"change his testimony so that it would agree with the President's"-an
offer O'Donnell declined.

While others were shocked into immobility by Kennedy's death, Johnson exhibited a strange-and perhaps suspicious-ability to press forward
with his work. Johnson aide George Reedy commented that while "everything was chaotic, only the President knew what he was doing." While
Kennedy's body still lay in state in the White House East Room, Johnson
outlined to a flabbergasted John Kenneth Galbraith his 1964 election
strategy, saying: "I want to come down very hard on civil rights, not
because Kennedy was for it, but because I am for it."

Author Jack Bell noted: "... almost from the moment he took the
Presidential oath, Johnson had been unfolding a master plan designed to
win the Presidency in his own right and . . . to carve for himself a
favorable place in history."

During the course of the assassination investigation, a number of incidents occurred involving Johnson that have been viewed with suspicion by
researchers.

Within seventy-two hours of Kennedy's death-at Johnson's order-the
presidential limousine SX-100, which carried Kennedy through Dallas,
was shipped to Detroit where the body was replaced and the interior
completely refurbished. In any other case, this would have been destruction
of evidence, since bullet marks on the windshield and blood traces could
have provided essential clues as to the number and direction of shots.

After the assassination, Governor Connally's clothing-also vital
evidence-was taken from the office of Congressman Henry Gonzalez by
Secret Service agents sent by Johnson aide Cliff Carter. Connally's clothing was cleaned and pressed by the time it was handed over to the Warren
Commission and, hence, was useless for study as evidence.

One of Johnson's actions that caused researchers of the assassination no
end of problems was Executive Order 11652, which locked an immense
amount of assassination evidence and documents in the National Archives
away from the American public until the year 2039. It was this act, more
than any other, which has caused so much speculation about a possible
role by Johnson in the assassination.

It is now becoming publicly known that Johnson's mental state deteriorated significantly in the years following his predecessor's assassination.
Former aide and speechwriter Richard Goodwin, who helped fashion
LBJ's "Great Society," has written that Johnson became obsessed with
the idea that America was being taken over by his enemies-Communists
and "those Kennedys." Goodwin said he and aide Bill Moyers even
consulted psychiatrists about his boss's behavior.

Madeleine Brown, reported to have been Johnson's mistress for twenty
years, has publicly stated that Johnson had foreknowledge of the assassination.

But did Johnson really have enough power to initiate the assassination
and force literally dozens of government officials and agents to lie and
cover up that fact? Probably not.

Furthermore, if Johnson played some role in an assassination plot, he
would have taken great pains to distance himself from such a conspiracy.
Evidence of such a role would certainly not be readily available. Therefore, today it is only possible to point out that Johnson-above everyone
else-benefited most from Kennedy's death.

With the assassination, Johnson achieved his lifelong goal of gaining the
presidency, his business and oil backers were rid of Kennedy's interference, and his supporters who wanted an Asian war-notably Brown &
Root and ranking officers at the Pentagon-were free to pursue a widening conflict.

A final point is that Johnson-always conscious of his role in historymust have feared appearing to be a dunce by continuing to support the
Warren Commission "lone assassin" myth.

In an interview with Walter Cronkite in the early 1970s, Johnson
expressed the belief that the assassination involved more than one person,
then asked network executives to delete his remarks from the broadcastwhich they did.

Johnson was quoted in Atlantic Monthly in 1973: "1 never believed that
Oswald acted alone although I can accept that he pulled the trigger."

Johnson even voiced the suspicion that the CIA had a hand in the
assassination, according to an FBI document released in 1977. The document quotes Johnson's postmaster general and close friend Marvin Watson
as relaying to the Bureau: ". . . that [President Johnsonl was now convinced there was a plot in connection with the assassination. Watson stated
the President felt the CIA had something to do with this plot."

Yet this, too, was kept hidden from the public for years.

Was Johnson well aware of such a plot and only mentioned it in later
years so that future historians would not classify him as dense and unaware`?

While this ambitiously driven man from Texas most probably did not
initiate a death plot against Kennedy, everything known about the manfrom the deaths and coverups of Texas scandals to his continued prosecution of the unpopular Vietnam War-indicates that Johnson may have had
the willingness to join in a conspiracy that would place him in the White
House.

As commander-in-chief of the armed forces and close confidant to the
powerful J. Edgar Hoover, Johnson certainly had the ability to erase or
mask all evidence that might lead to the truth of the assassination.

Although his efforts were belated and timid, President Kennedy nevertheless did more to further the cause of civil rights in the United States
than any of his predecessors. This human-rights activity earned him the
undying hatred of racist conservatives.

One of the leaders of right-wing extremists in 1963 was Dallas-based
Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker, who was the victim of a gunman's attack in
the spring of that year. The Warren Commission confidently concluded:
"Oswald had attempted to kill Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker (Resigned,
U.S. Army) on April 10, 1963, thereby demonstrating his disposition to
take human life." However, many facts of the Walker shooting-witnesses
who saw several men in suspicious cars, early reports of a different type of
ammunition, and a photograph of Walker's home that was mutilated while
in the hands of federal authorities-raise serious questions about Oswald's
guilt.

Meanwhile, Kennedy managed to anger the U.S. business community
by the use of his office to compel steel manufacturers to roll back price
increases and the introduction of tax-reform legislation that would have
closed corporate tax loopholes and abolished or reduced the lucrative oil
depletion allowance.

Former vice president Richard Nixon-who lost to Kennedy in 1960 and
went on to become this nation's only president to resign under threat of
impeachment-had many strange and troubling connections with the assassination. Nixon flew out of Dallas the day Kennedy was killed, yet was
ambiguous when questioned by the FBI later in 1963. There is also the
incident of an FBI document that indicates that Jack Ruby worked for
Nixon in 1947. The Bureau claimed this document was a fake.

In the summer of 1963, Kennedy ordered the Treasury Department to print
more than $4 billion in "United States Notes," thus bypassing the powerful Federal Reserve system, which undoubtedly angered international bankers.

It may be pertinent that a member of the Texas oil communitygeologist George DeMohrenschildt-was the last-known close friend to
Lee Harvey Oswald. DeMohrenschildt, with his background in Russia, oil,
and intelligence work, adds greatly to the suspicion that Oswald was being
manipulated by someone with intelligence connections in the spring and
summer of 1963. It may be that the DeMohrenschildts were simply used to
maneuver Oswald and then, over the years following Kennedy's death,
offered as red herrings to draw researchers away from the real plotters.

It is significant that one of the strongest allies of the Texas oilmen who
loathed Kennedy was Vice President Lyndon Johnson. Johnson's ties with
Herman Brown of Brown & Root which grew to be the world's largest
construction company thanks to lucrative government contracts in Vietnam,
and with Texas oil interests are legend.

Several people close to the assassination-notably Jack Ruby and former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison-have accused Johnson of
some role in an assassination conspiracy.

And there can be no question that Johnson, above all others, clearly
benefited the most from Kennedy's death. Likewise, Johnson's close
friend and neighbor, J. Edgar Hoover, also benefited.

Both Johnson and Hoover reportedly were about to lose their lifelong
careers since it was rumored that the Kennedys were going to drop
Johnson from the 1964 Democratic ticket and force Hoover's retirement.

Both Johnson and Hoover certainly had the power to subvert a meaningful investigation into Kennedy's death-and a wealth of evidence suggests
just such subversion. Did Johnson and Hoover contract with the mob to
kill Kennedy? Or did the mob approach them? Or did they simply turn a
blind eye to a plot already activated? The truth of their involvement may
not be proven for years. However, a conspiracy involving Lyndon Johnson
and his buddy Hoover as an alternative to the Warren Commission's
discredited lone-assassin theory goes farther in tying together the disparate
bits of assassination evidence than any theory offered to date, and it cannot
be easily dismissed.

As president and commander-in-chief, history will surely hold Lyndon
Johnson responsible-if not for involvement in the assassination itself, at
least for failing to uncover the conspiracy during his leadership.

We must guard against ... the military-industrial complex.

-President Dwight D. Eisenhower

In more than two hundred years the military forces of the United States
have accumulated a distinguished history. From the Revolution-era citizen
who could become a fighting man ready to protect his community in a
minute to the professional Marines who grimly stood between the warring
factions in Beirut, Lebanon, the American soldier has proved his worth
time and again. Even during the bitter dissension produced by U.S. policy
in Southeast Asia, few people seriously questioned the ability or bravery of
the individual G.I.

And American military use of technology and logistics during World
War II contributed greatly to the defeat of Nazism and the Japanese
militarists.

However, throughout world history, it has proven extremely difficult to
return to peacetime, civilian-control of government once power has been
invested in the military. From the takeover of the Roman Empire by the
Praetorian Guard up until today, military leaders have tried to maintain
their power and control.

This situation was aggravated in the United States during World War II
by a combining of military and industrial power.

On January 17, 1961, three days before John F. Kennedy took office as
president, President Dwight Eisenhower gave his farewell address to Congress. In this talk he coined the phrase "military-industrial complex" and
warned against potential abuses by such an entity. He said:

Our military establishment today bears little relation to that known by
any of my predecessors in peacetime . . . Until the latest of our world
conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as
well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of
national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income
of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large
arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influenceeconomical, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every State
House, every office of the Federal government .. .

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition
of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced
power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our
liberties or democratic processes .. .

Eisenhower's warning was especially timely. The role of the militaryindustrial complex in American life has continued to grow under the
presidencies of his successors.

The rise of the military-industrial complex can be charted by annual
military budget expenditures. In 1950 the military budget was $13 billion;
by 1961, this had risen to $47 billion; and by the end of the Vietnam War
in 1975, it was $100 billion. By 1986 annual expenses by the Department
of Defense had risen to nearly $170 billion.

Few Americans even realize how much power is wielded by the military, which-since the disaster of the Vietnam War-has tended to take a
low public profile.

A large part of the argument for maintaining an ongoing war economy
has come from men and women who lived through the shock of Pearl
Harbor. Vowing never to allow the United States to be caught unaware by
an enemy again-although there is now substantial evidence available
showing that the Japanese attack was not wholly unexpected in certain
Washington circles-these people argue that assembly and production lines
must be kept operating so that America can convert to war production
quickly, if needed. This argument-plus the fact that millions of American
jobs are dependent on defense contracts-has been instrumental in maintaining the war economy.