Not in Your Lifetime: The Defining Book on the J.F.K. Assassination (62 page)

370
     Farmers Branch meeting: copy of sound tape obtained by author in 1978 from retired Dallas Police Lieutenant George Butler; HSCA
Report, pp. 132, 613n39; copy of tape held in files of researcher Mary Ferrell;
Dallas Morning News
, August 14, 1978.

371
     Chicago and Miami threats: HSCA Report, p. 230– and notes; (Chicago) “The Plot to Kill JFK in Chicago,”
Chicago Independent
, November 1975; Warren XXVI.441; Fensterwald/Ewing,
op. cit.
, p. 56; ints. retired Miami Police Intelligence Captain Charles Sapp and former Lieutenant Everett Kay (who preserved original surveillance tape of Milteer), 1978; article in
Miami News
by Bill Barry, February 2, 1967; “JFK, King: The Dade County Links,”
Miami
magazine, September 1976; int. member of presidential party in Miami; CD 1347 p. 119- (which omits mention of tape-recording); (earlier Sapp warning) Sapp memo to Asst. Chief of Police Anderson, April 4, 1963; and HSCA sources as for Miami threat
supra
.

Note 7
: The claim of a second Chicago plot was made by former Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden. Although another agent has also recalled such a threat, the Assassinations Committee found no corroboration in the record. Bolden left the Secret Service under a cloud, and served time in prison for offenses allegedly committed during his government service. He said the charges were trumped up. See Abraham Bolden,
The Echo from Dealey Plaza
, New York: Broadway, 2009, which the author has not.

Note 8
: See Chapter 20,
supra
.

373
Tampa alert:
Miami Herald
,
November 23 & 24, 1963.

Miami speech:
JFK Public Papers
, 1963, p. 875–;

374
     FitzGerald helped etc.: Sen. Int. Cttee.,
Performance of Intelligence Agencies
, p. 19–.

Note 9
: According to Kennedy historian Arthur Schlesinger, the speech was intended, rather, to buttress what William Attwood was saying in his conversations with the Cubans—that normal relations could be possible could Cuba break its ties to the Soviet bloc. The speech does not, however, read like an encouraging message to
Castro. If that was what was intended, it was clumsy indeed—and unnecessary, as he was already receiving credible messages through the Attwood channel. (Schlesinger,
Robert F. Kennedy
,
op. cit.
, p. 554n, & int. Schlesinger, 1978)

Note 10
: President Kennedy left Miami at 9:13 p.m., according to Dave Powers, the curator of the John F. Kennedy Library. The information in Attwood’s two relevant books, and interviews with Attwood—who consulted his diary—suggests that the conversation with Havana described here occurred very late on November 18 and in the early hours of November 19. (Powers letter to author, 1979, Attwood,
The Reds and the Blacks
, p. 144, Attwood,
The Twilight Struggle
, p. 262, & ints. Attwood.)

375
     Daniel:
New Republic
, November 7 & 14, 1963.

376
     Echevarria: HSCA Report, pp. 134, 236; CD 87.

CIA meeting, November 22/Ruiz-Williams: See
VF
, December 1994, drawing on research of Lamar Waldron. Author also saw relevant interviews; Warren Hinckle & William Turner,
Deadly Secrets: The CIA-Mafia War Against Castro and the Assassination of JFK
, New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1992, p. 251; int. William Turner, 1994; (in RFK’s confidence) see other cites in
Deadly Secrets
; Talbot, pp. 11–, 178, 183.

FitzGerald in 1964: Joseph Burkholder Smith,
Portrait of a Cold Warrior
, New York: Putnam, 1976, p. 143; int. Joe Smith, 1994.

Sanchez: CIA document 201-252234, April 13, 1966, CIA box 36, folder 29, NARA.

377
Note 11
: Accounts differ as to whether Cubela accepted the device, rejected it outright, or took it but later threw it into the River Seine. (HSCA Report, p. 112–; Sen. Int. Cttee.,
Performance of Intelligence Agencies
, p. 16–; Latell,
op. cit.
, pp. 203–, citing int. by House Assassinations Committee)

never revealed etc: Evan Thomas,
The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared, the Early Years of the CIA
, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995, p. 307–; Dick Russell,
op. cit.
, p. 535.

Note 12
:
Howard died of an overdose of sleeping pills, reportedly having been depressed following a miscarriage. The evidence indicated that she committed suicide. (
New York Times
,
Dallas Morning News
, July 5, 1965)

Note 13
: There has been debate as to whether Kennedy said this to Johnson or Ruiz-Williams, who then repeated it to Johnson. (Haynes Johnson in
Washington Post
, April 17, 1981, November 20, 1983; int. Johnson, 1988; Talbot,
op. cit.
, pp. 10, 412n10; Deadly
Secrets
, cited
supra
, p. 273; & Richard Sprague notes of int. Johnson, 1973;
VF
, December 1994.)

378
     McCone: Walter Sheridan Oral History, cited in Schlesinger,
Robert F. Kennedy
,
op. cit.
, p. 616.

McCone out of loop: Sen. Int. Cttee.
Assassination
Plots
, p. 92; Talbot,
op. cit.
, p. 7.

“I asked him” Arthur Schlesinger,
Journals, 1952–2000
, London: Atlantic, 2008, p. 214.

Wondered: Talbot,
op. cit.
, p. 7–.

Wofford: Harris Wofford,
Of Kennedys and Kings
, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980, p. 415.

“National security”: int. Attwood by Mark Redhead, 1986.

22. Casting the First Stone

379
     Shakespeare quote:
The Rape of Lucrece
, II.939–940.

Johnson summons Warren: Earl Warren,
The Memoirs of Chief Justice Earl Warren
, New York: Doubleday, 1977, Chapter 11; Warren Commission memo by Melvin Eisenberg, February 17, 1964; Manchester,
op. cit.
, p. 730–, citing Warren int.

“a little incident”: LBJ phone call, November 29, 1963, transcript at www.history-matters.com.

380
     Blakey: conv. 1980 & corr. February 2013.

Hosty: James Hosty with Thomas Hosty,
Assigment Oswald
, New York: Arcade, 1996, p. 219.

DEFCON 4/3: Memo for Bromley Smith, December 4, 1963, NARA 202-10002-10180.

Cuba’s position: statement by Carlos Lechuga,
Four Days, Historical Record of the Death of President Kennedy
, Rockville, MD: American Heritage Publishing Co., 1964, p. 115.

381
     Daniel:
New Republic
, December 7, 1963.

Note 1
: Castro was Prime Minister in 1963. He did not become President until 1976.

382
     U.S. reaction: (editorials)
Dallas Morning News
, November 26, 1963; (poll)
Dallas Morning News
, December 6, 1963.

Alexander: Manchester,
op. cit.
, p. 326 & see Henry Wade testimony, June 8, 1964, V.213–. The Johnson aide who called Wade was Cliff Carter.

Warren and “Castro plot” in 1967: Sen. Int. Cttee.,
Performance of Intelligence Agencies
, p. 80.

383
     Smith:
New York Times
,
June 25, 1976.

Note 2
: Johnson had not been formally off the record during the interview with Cronkite, but insisted later that for “national security” reasons the exchange about the assassination should not be broadcast. It was transmitted only after his death. (Walter Cronkite int. of Johnson, September 1969, Lyndon Johnson Library, “The Assassination Tapes,” relevant part viewable at www.youtube.com, &
Atlantic Monthly
, June 2004)

Janos:
Atlantic Monthly
, July 1973.

Marianne Means:
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
, April 25, 1975.

Note 3
: Johnson also referred to his doubts about the assassination to his aide Marvin Watson—saying he felt “the CIA had something to do with this plot”—in 1967. He mentioned his suspicions of Castro to Joseph Califano and Jack Valenti, other White House aides. (Watson: Powers,
op. cit.
, p. 121; DeLoach to Tolson, April 4, 1967, FBI 44-24696; Califano/Valenti: Jeff Sheshol,
Mutual Contempt
:
Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy and the Feud That Defined a Decade
, New York: Norton, 1997, p. 131–).

Drew Pearson account/Morgan: “The Assassination Tapes,” article by Max Holland,
Atlantic Monthly
, June 2004.

384
     HSCA on
Roselli claims: HSCA Report, p. 114.

feedback: Sen. Int. Cttee.,
Performance
of
Intelligence
Agencies
, p. 84.

Note 4
: Lyndon Johnson’s biographer Robert Caro quoted the former President’s friend Joe Kilgore as saying he “could believe what he wanted to believe … could convince himself of anything, even something that wasn’t true.” Others shared this impression. The weakness of the “Castro-did-it” claim, as relayed to him in 1967, was apparent to Johnson himself. He said on a White House recording of a March 2, 1967 phone call, “If you go looking at it [hard], as Abe [his friend Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas] said, who is it that’s seen Castro? Or heard from Castro? Or knows Castro … that’s [in a position to] … [who] could be confirming all this? [Fortas said] that we just hear that this is what he did, but nobody points to how we hear it.” (Caro: Robert Caro,
Means of Ascent
, New York: Vintage, 1991, p. 52–; (March 2, 1967 call: Max Holland,
The
Kennedy
Assassination
Tapes
, New York: Knopf, 2004, p. 408 & see p. 396. Holland’s book is masterful on this episode.)

Note 5
: There is some small room for doubt as to how that remark, ominous on its face, got into the AP report. While the epithets against Kennedy appeared in the report of the same conversation by AP’s rival UPI, the sentence that seemed to threaten the U.S. leadership did not. Available documentation does not clearly indicate whether both the AP’s Harker and the UPI correspondent were present when Castro was speaking, or whether the UPI story was merely a pick-up from the AP story.

Fabián Escalante, a former Cuban intelligence chief who met with researchers, including this author, in 1996, did not deny the essence of the remark but said it had been distorted. He told the author that AP reporter Harker had been “reported” during an earlier stint in Havana for using his journalistic privileges “to send information unrelated to his
work as a reporter.” That should be taken with a sizable pinch of salt—few honest reporters long avoid the wrath of regimes whose own press is fettered. All the same, and given later revelations about the CIA’s use of journalists, the Harker report—in light of its impact—deserved more investigation than it received. (AP/UPI stories: cited in CD 1135,11–, Memo for the record, November 8, 1976, CIA doc. 80T01357A; Review of Selected Items in the LHO File, April 15, 1975, NARA 104-10322-10001; distorted: Fabián Escalante,
JFK: The Cuba Files
, Melbourne, Australia, Ocean, Dick Russell in
High Times
, March 1996; “information unrelated”: int. Fabian Escalante, Bahamas, 1996,
High Times
,
March 1996).

Widely interpreted: e.g. CIA memo to David Belin, director of Rockefeller Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States, May 30, 1975.

Castro to HSCA: HSCA Report, p. 126–; HSCA III.216, 220 & see HSCA X.181–.

386
     “Threat” remark in New Orleans: Russo,
Brothers
in
Arms
, New York: Bloomsbury, 2008, pp. 295, 502, citing
New Orleans Times-Picayune
, September 9, 1963.

Oswald on JFK: (under questioning) Report, p. 609; (radio debate) XXI.641; (Martello) X.60.

387
     “persuasive”: HSCA Report, p. 129.

Note 6
: The timing of Alvarado’s visit to the Embassy is important. Whether he made up the story himself or did so at the suggestion of others, he came up with it very rapidly once the fact of an Oswald visit to Mexico had become public knowledge. Although the story was slow in making news in the United States, it was in the Mexican newspaper
Excelsior
on the evening of November 24. At noon the following day, Alvarado was telling his story about Oswald at the U.S. Embassy. Until the appearance of the
Excelsior
story, the Oswald visit to Mexico was theoretically known only to Oswald’s wife, Soviet and Cuban Consulate staff, and U.S. and Mexican intelligence. The “high source”
Excelsior
quoted as the origin of its story was probably
Mexican—Mexican agents worked closely with the CIA on the Embassy surveillance.

Alvarado episode: Sen. Int. Cttee.,
Performance of Intelligence Agencies
, pp. 28–, 41–; Report, p. 308–; XXV.647; int. Thomas Mann, 1978, ints. former staff at U.S. Embassy in Mexico; Phillips,
op. cit.
, p. 141–; (Mann background) Schlesinger,
Robert F. Kennedy
,
op. cit.
, pp. 630–636; (Mann on Oswald’s motivation, etc.) Mann cable to Secretary of State Rusk, November 28, 1963. Also see refs. in Peter Dale Scott,
Deep Politics and the Death of JFK
, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993; ints. Laurence Keenan, 1993.