Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

• 6/1964 Harold Wilson narrowly elected new Labour Party PM of Britain
  
• 6/1964 Barry Goldwater described Nixon as "another [Harold] Stassen" with his persistent ambition to be President. (Evans & Novak, Esquire, 11/1964)
  
• 6/1964 Dr. King's book Why We Can`t Wait is published by Harper & Row.
  
• In late June of 1964, Oswald's alleged "historic diary" from his Russian days appeared in Hugh Aynesworth's newspaper with a commentary by the reporter. Two weeks later it also appeared in U. S. News and World Report. An FBI investigation followed to see how this material leaked into the press. In declassified documents, it appears that the diary was pilfered from the Dallas Police archives by the notorious assistant DA Bill Alexander and then given to his friend Aynesworth. Aynesworth then put it on the market to other magazines including Newsweek. It eventually ended up in Life magazine also. Alexander, Aynesworth and the reporter's wife Paula split thousands of dollars. Oswald's widow was paid later by Life since, originally, Aynesworth had illegally cut her out of the deal. In another FBI report of July 7th, it also appears that Aynesworth was using the so-called diary for career advancement purposes. A source told the Bureau that part of the deal with Newsweek was that Aynesworth was to become their Dallas correspondent. As the Bureau noted, Aynesworth did become their Dallas stringer afterward. (It is interesting to note here that the "diary" has been shown to have been not a real diary at all. That is, it was not recorded on a daily basis but rather in two or three sittings.)
  
• 6/1/1964 By this deadline, only Specter had turned in his final report (the source of the shots); Warren was furious that the deadline would not be reached. (Inquest)
  
• 6/1/1964 Rankin pressured Leon Hubert to resign from an active role in the Ruby investigation, though he had been led to believe that he would be allowed to attend Ruby's WC interview. Ruby was interviewed in Dallas 6/7 and Patrick Dean on 6/8 and Hubert wasn't advised. (Ruby Cover-Up p18)
  
• 6/1/1964 Meeting in Honolulu about Vietnam; everyone was gloomy except Lodge. There was no agreement over how to proceed with the war.
  
• 6/1/1964 The NYT ran a Page One exclusive, "Panel to Reject Theories of Plot in Kennedy's Death," which amounted to an extensive preview of the Warren Report nearly four months prior to its official release. It depicts the SS photo showing two agents with JFK's wound location drawn far down on agent's back. Anthony Lewis (NY Times) wrote an exclusive on the Warren Commission, based on inside sources: "...it has no credible evidence of any conspiracy...A spokesman for the Commission said that none of these critical works, both foreign and domestic, had come up with any factual information. He said the Commission had found 'just a rehash of the same material, the same questions which each man had presented before'...In some cases, the skeptics have raised questions about the number of shots fired. The Commission's data has shown that there were three, one that hit Mr Kennedy in the back, wounding him, probably not fatally. The fatal shot followed. A third bullet, fired either before or after these two went wild. A Commission spokesman expressed conviction that the Report when issued would rebut such theories as presented by [author] Mr Buchanan. He said that 'not even the authors of the theories will stand by them. We'll knock them out of their positions,' he said."
  
• 6/2/1964 JCS sent a memo to McNamara urging that steps be taken to neutralize North Vietnam; no specific plan to do this was mentioned, however.
  
• 6/2/1964 In Havana, three men are executed for allegedly being CIA spies.
  
• 6/2/1964 LBJ stated, "America keeps her word. We are steadfast in a policy which has been followed for 10 years in three administrations. In the case of Viet-Nam, our commitment today is just the same as the commitment made by President Eisenhower to President Diem in 1954 - a commitment to help these people help themselves."
  
• 6/2/1964 The pristine bullet - CE-399 - is sent from Washington to Dallas in order for it to be identified by those who handled it on Nov. 22, 1963. Darrell Tomlinson, the Parkland Hospital orderly who originally found the bullet cannot identify it. The bullet is returned to Washington on June 22.
  
• 6/4/1964 WC meeting; its transcript was first reported by Tad Szulc 9/17/1975 (Washington Star.) It revealed that "Ford provoked a near uproar in the panel when, on June 4, 1964, he charged that outside forces were trying to pressure the Commission to decide in advance that Oswald was the solitary assassin." Ford told the HSCA in 1978 that he couldn't remember anything about this meeting, but recalled that "there was no pressure."
  
• 6/4/1964 This short meeting was called to discuss statements in various news media that a spokesman for the Commission had indicated that "Commission members have come to the conclusion that President Kennedy's assassination was the act of a lone individual." McCloy suggested making a statement that the Commission's "taking of testimony is nearing an end, that the Commission....has made no final conclusions as yet." This statement was approved.
  
• 6/4/1964 The federal agents who participated in the assassination reconstruction in Dallas testify before the Warren Commission. FBI Agent Lyndal Shaneyfelt testifies to the W.C. that the limo in which JFK was assassinated was traveling on Elm Street at an overall average speed of 11.2 miles per hour. This determination is based upon the May 24th reenactment conducted by the FBI that measured how far the limo traveled between frames of the Zapruder film. It was calculated the vehicle traveled a distance of 136.1 feet between frames 161 and 313. The Zapruder camera operated at 18.3 frames per second.
  
• 6/4/1964 William Manchester interviewed Hoover in his office at 10:10am. An internal FBI memo by DeLoach revealed that three times Hoover told Manchester he had entered the JFK case on 11/22/1963 without any legal authority to do so.
  
• 6/5/1964 Dallas Times Herald story reported about an unnamed victim of a missed shot in Dealey Plaza (this would turn out to be James Tague). UPI picked up the story and ran it the same day. Tague was motivated to contact the paper because a week earlier Dallas' KRLD-TV had carried an extensive story from "a source close to the Warren Commission" saying that their report would conclude that JFK and Connally had been hit by the first shot and the second shot had hit JFK in the head. There was no mention of a missed shot; Tague had reported to the FBI about the mark on the curbstone 6 months earlier. The WC did its best to ignore Tague for as long as possible. (McKnight)
  
• 6/5/1964 Barney Ross (Rasofsky), a friend of Ruby's, told the FBI that he and Ruby had delivered sealed envelopes at $1 per for Al Capone in Chicago. (BLAKEY 185,283; HSCA 9 199; FBI telex, SAC San Francisco to SAC Dallas and Las Vegas, 11/26/1963; Las Vegas Sun, 10/9/1978; CD 4 p13-18,160-63)
  
• 6/5/1964 Maxwell Taylor, after reading JCS memo of 6/2, warned McNamara that it "raised considerably the risks of escalation."
  
• 6/5/1964 The Cuban Revolutionary Council, which launched the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, disbands today and passes the torch of anti-Castro leadership to a new, referendum-backed group -- the Cuban Representation in Exile (RCE), led by a five man board.
  
• 6/5/1964 By this date, Arlen Specter has submitted a draft of his chapter for the Warren Commission's report dealing with the basic facts of the assassination. The facts and premises set forth in the chapter are selected and organized so as to support the single-bullet hypothesis. The chapter is eventually toned down by the Commission, but still asserts (by quoting Robert Frazier) that: "[the bullet which first hit Kennedy] probably struck Governor Connally." And on this basis, the single-bullet hypothesis continues to be advanced.
  
• 6/6/1964 4:30am McGeorge Bundy woke LBJ to report that a US recon plane had been shot down over Laos. LBJ remarked, "We've got our planes ready to go in if absolutely necessary. Everybody's in agreement that we can't turn and run." (White House Diary p157) The plane had been launched from the carrier Kitty Hawk.
  
• 6/6/1964 Guy Banister is found dead at his apartment in New Orleans. He is pronounced dead at 8:00 PM by Orleans Parish Coroner Dr. Nicholas Chetta. Banister officially died of coronary thrombosis just prior to the closing of the Warren Commission investigation. Investigators had intended to question him regarding the following topics: "CIA", "Ammunition and Arms", "Civil rights program of JFK", "Fair Play for Cuba Committee" and "The International Trade Mart". Banister's files went missing after his death. Later, New Orleans Assistant District Attorney Andrew Sciambra interviewed Banister's widow. She told him that she saw some Fair Play for Cuba leaflets in Banister's office when she went there after his death. (Summers, Not in Your Lifetime)
  
• 6/6/1964 Texas oilman George Herbert Walker Bush wins the Texas Senate Primary in a landslide triumph over veteran campaigner Jack Cox. The victory sends Bush into the general election against Democratic Sen. Ralph Yarborough in November.
  
• 6/7/1964 A US plane over Laos is hit and damaged by anti-aircraft fire.
  
• 6/7/1964 Earl Warren went to Dallas for a first-hand look at Dealey Plaza, and Arlen Specter explained his single-bullet theory to him. Then they interviewed Jack Ruby in his jail cell. The two WC staffers assigned to investigating Ruby, Hubert and Griffin, are not brought along. Warren later recalled, "the fellow was clearly delusional when I talked to him. He took me aside and he said, Hear those voices? Hear those voices?' He thought they were Jewish children and Jewish women who were being put to death in the building there." (Chief Justice p424) Jack Ruby begs that be be taken to Washington to get the truth of his testimony. Representing the Commission is Chief Justice Earl Warren and Representative Gerald R. Ford along with general counsel J. Lee Rankin, staff attorneys Arlen Specter and Joseph Ball. Also present are attorneys Leon Jaworski and Robert G. Storey, who are acting as liaison between the Commission and Texas authorities: Secret Service agent Elmer W. Moore; Dallas assistant district attorney Jim Bowie; Sheriff Bill Decker; Ruby attorney Joe Tonahill; and several Dallas police officers. Ruby: "Gentlemen, my life is in danger here ... Do I sound sober enough to you as I say this? ... Then follow this up. I may not live tomorrow to give any further testimony... the only thing I want to get out to the public, and I can't say it here, is with authenticity, with sincerity of the truth of everything and why my act was committed, but it can't be said here... . Well, you won't ever see me again. I tell you that ... A whole new form of government is going to take over the country, and I know I won't live to see you another time."
  
• 6/8/1964 Memo from Helms to Rankin responding to questions about Ruby. It was classified for 12 years though it contained no startling revelations.
  
• 6/8/1964 When interviewed by the Warren Commission on 8th June, 1964, Waggoner Carr, Texas State Attorney, claimed the following: As I recall, it was around 8 or 9 o'clock at night on November 22, 1963, when I received a long-distance telephone call from Washington from someone in the White House. I can't for the life of me remember who it was. A rumor had been heard here that there was going to be an allegation in the indictment against Oswald connecting the assassination with an international conspiracy, and the inquiry was made whether I had any knowledge of it, and I told him I had no knowledge of it. As a matter of fact, I hadn't been in Dallas since the assassination and was not there at the time of the assassination. So the request was made of me to contact Mr. Wade to find out if that allegation was in the indictment. I received the definite impression that the concern of the caller was that because of the emotion or the high tension that existed at that time that someone might thoughtlessly place in the indictment such an allegation without having the proof of such a conspiracy. So I did call Mr. Wade from my home, when I received the call, and he told me very much what he repeated to you today, as I recall, that he had no knowledge of anyone desiring to have that or planning to have that in the indictment…
  
• 6/8/1964 Henry Wade, Dallas D.A., testified before the WC. I talked to Jim Bowie, my first assistant who had talked to, somebody had called him, my phone had been busy and Barefoot Sanders, I talked to him, and he they all told that they were concerned about their having received calls from Washington and somewhere else, and I told them that there wasn't any such crime in Texas, I didn't know where it came from, and that is what prompted me to go down and take the complaint, otherwise I never would have gone down to the police station. J. Lee Rankin: Did you say anything about whether you had evidence to support such a complaint of a conspiracy? Mr. Wade: Mr. Rankin, I don't know what evidence we have, we had at that time and actually don't know yet what all the evidence was I never did see, I was told they had a lot of Fair Play for Cuba propaganda or correspondence on Oswald, and letters from the Communist Party, and it was probably exaggerated to me, was told this. I have never seen any of that personally. Never saw any of it that night. But whether he was a Communist or whether he wasn't, had nothing to do with solving the problem at hand, the filing of the charge.
  
• 6/8/1964 The Commission asked the Marine Corps for information "relative to Marksmanship capabilities of Lee Harvey Oswald." From the Headquarters of the Marine Corps came a response dated June 8, 1964, by Lieutenant-Colonel A. G. Folsom, Jr., head of the Records Branch of the Personnel Branch, "by direction of the Commandant of the Marine Corps" (19H16-8). Colonel Folsom also correlated proficiency with practice. He stated, "The Marine Corps considers that any reasonable application of the instructions given to Marines should permit them to be qualified as at least a marksman. To become qualified as a sharpshooter, the Marine Corps is of the opinion that most Marines with a reasonable amount of adaptability to weapons firing so become qualified. Consequently a low marksman qualification indicates a rather poor 'shot' and a sharpshooter qualification is a fairly good 'shot'."
  
• 6/8/1964 LBJ ordered strikes on Pathet Lao anti-aircraft positions near Phongsavang, Laos. Radio Hanoi announced the attack to the world, and the next day the administration was forced to admit it.
  
• 6/9/1964 Nixon flew to Cleveland for the national Governor's Conference, and attacked Goldwater's positions: "It would be a tragedy for the Republican Party in the event that Senator Goldwater's views...were not challenged and repudiated." Nixon hoped to produce a convention deadlock which would turn to him as a consensus candidate. But within a week he began to look to 1968 instead, and decided to back Goldwater all the way. (The Republican Establishment p168-9)
  
• 6/9/1964 Capt. Fritz writes a letter to the Warren Commission regarding spent shells found in the Texas School Book Depository. This letter is later found to be missing from the National Archives. In an affidavit dated June 9, 1964, Fritz said of the third shell, "I told Detective Dhority that after these hulls were checked for prints to leave two of them to be delivered to the FBI and to bring one of them to my office to be used for comparison tests here in the office, as we were trying to find where the cartridges had been bought. When Detective Dhority returned from the Identification Bureau, he returned the one empty hull which I kept in my possession. Several days later, I believe on the night of November 27, Vince Drain of the FBI called me at home about one o'clock in the morning and said that the Commission wanted the other empty hull and a notebook that belonged to Oswald. [Hardly possible because the Commission was not appointed until two days later.] I came to the office and delivered these things to the FBI." (7H404)
  
• 6/9/1964 J. Edgar Hoover, in a letter to Rankin dated today, notifies the Warren Commission that Jack Ruby had been a confidential FBI informant in 1959. The letter will not be published in the Commission's report. Ruby had "expressed a willingness to furnish information" to the FBI in 1959. This memo was not declassified until 1971.
  
• 6/9/1964 Barefoot Sanders wrote to Rankin about the bullet mark on the curb in Dealey Plaza.
  
• 6/9/1964 The CIA's Board of National Estimates reported that the loss of South Vietnam to the Communists would seriously damage US prestige and advance the cause of Asian Communism. (In Retrospect p124) But the CIA felt that an immediate domino effect would not take place.
  
• 6/9/1964 Sen. Mansfield wrote a memo to LBJ warning him that he had better persuade the country before planning a major war in Vietnam.
  
• 6/9/1964 St. Augustine, Florida: Klansman Connie Lynch addressed a white mob: "Martin Lucifer Coon! That nigger says it's gonna be a hot summer. If he thinks the niggers can make it a hot summer, I will tell him that one-hundred-forty-million white people know how to make it a hotter summer!…Now I grant you that some niggers are gonna get killed in the process, but when war's on that's what happens." After the speech, a screaming white mob attacked 400 blacks as they peacefully marched through the city's plaza.
  
• 6/10/1964 Sen. Dirksen threw his support behind the Civil Rights bill as "an idea whose time has come," and cloture was achieved.
  
• 6/10/1964 Arlen Specter wrote a draft of his section of the Warren Report. (McKnight)
  
• 6/10/1964 Dean Rusk testifies before the Warren Commission: "I have seen no evidence that would indicate to me that the Soviet Union considered that it had any interest in the removal of President Kennedy ... I can't see how it could be to the interest of the Soviet Union to make any such effort."
  
• 6/11/1964 memo from Specter to Rankin: "If additional depositions are taken in Dallas, I suggest that Jim Tague, 2424 Inwood, Apartment 253, and Virgie Rackley, 405 Wood Street be deposed to determine the knowledge of each on where the missing bullet struck. These two witnesses were mentioned in the early FBI reports, but they have never been deposed."
  
• 6/11/1964 Earl Warren wrote RFK asking if there was "any additional information relating to the assassination...which has not been sent to the Commission" and "any information suggesting that the assassination...was caused by a domestic or foreign conspiracy." RFK did not respond until 8/4 when he denied that there was any more information in the possession of the Justice Department. (The Nation 11/29/1993)
  
• 6/11/1964 Marina testified before the WC.
  
• 6/11/1964 RFK wrote LBJ that he was willing to go to Vietnam "in any capacity" to help the administration there. Jack Valenti later recalled that LBJ didn't want him to go out of fear that he might be assassinated by Vietnamese seeking revenge for Diem's death. (A Very Human President p141)
  
• 6/11/1964 Two black students enroll at the University of Alabama despite opposition from Gov. Wallace and local protest.
  
• 6/11/1964 J. Edgar Hoover sends a letter to the Warren Commission denying its request to have the FBI administer a polygraph test to Jack Ruby. Hoover claims the test is unreliable.
  
• 6/12/1964 As conspiracy rumors swirled in Europe, Time published an article called 'JFK: The Murder and the Myths': it blamed any conspiracy speculation on "leftist" writers and those seeking a "rightist conspiracy."
  
• 6/12/1964 Gen. Khanh and Air Marshall Nguyen Cao Ky call for air strikes against North Vietnam.
  
• 6/12/1964 In a memo to J. Edgar Hoover from the special agent in charge of the New York office information from an informant maintains that Fidel Castro has conducted his own ballistics tests based on the "official" scenario of the JFK assassination and has decided "it took about three people" to assassinate JFK. Castro, who considers himself a sharpshooter, has attempted to recreate the shooting, using a high powered rifle with a telescopic sight. "Conducting the tests was Castro's own personal idea to prove to himself that it could not be done and that when Castro and his men could not do it, Castro concluded Oswald must have had help." Castro, based on his findings, speculated that the assassination was probably the work of three people. "Castro is said to have expressed the conclusion that Oswald could not have fired three times in succession and hit the target with the telescopic sight in the available time, that he would have needed two other men in order for the three shots to have been fired in the time interval. The source commented that on the basis of Castro's remarks, it was clear that his beliefs were based on theory as a result of Cuban experiments and not on any firsthand information in Castro's possession." Hoover passes this information along in a confidential letter to J. Lee Rankin 6/17, general counsel for the Warren Commission. According to Hoover, Castro also said that when Oswald was refused a visa at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City several weeks before the assassination, he left saying, "I'm going to kill Kennedy for this." Existence of the Hoover letter and some of its contents won't become generally known until the mid-1970s. The letter itself won't be made public until March 30, 1995.
  
• 6/12/1964 RFK receives a letter from Earl Warren informing him that the Commission wishes to hear directly from the attorney general. "In view of the widely circulated allegations on this subject, the Commission would like to be informed in particular whether you have any information suggesting that the assassination of President Kennedy was caused by a domestic or foreign conspiracy. Needless to say, if you have any suggestions to make regarding the investigation of these allegations or any other phase of the Commission's work, we stand ready to act upon them." RFK writes the words "Nick, what do I do?" on the letter and forwards it to Nicholas Katzenbach. Katzenbach works out a deal for RFK with Warren and the commission's chief counsel, Lee Rankin. In return for being excused from testifying before the commission, RFK is required to sign a letter written by Warren Commission attorney Howard Willens: "I would like to state definitely that I know of no credible evidence to support the allegations that the assassination of President Kennedy was caused by a domestic or foreign conspiracy." The signed letter is not received by the Commission until August 4th.
  
• 6/14/1964 Henry Cabot Lodge told the White House he wanted to resign.
  
• 6/14/1964 COFO volunteers attended an orientation sponsored by the National Council of Churches at the Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio. They were given crash courses in how to survive in Mississippi. Students were taught what to do if attacked or arrested. It was made clear to them that they might get killed. One of the volunteers was a 20-year-old NYC student named Andrew Goodman. Also present were James Chaney and Mickey and Rita Schwerner.
  
• 6/14/1964 Chinese government news agency announced that US planes and pilots were fighting in the Congo. 6/15 the State Dept denied it. 6/16 the Chinese provided specific details, and 6/17 the administration admitted that it had furnished "contract fliers" and transports to the Congo. The Washington Post around this time attacked the administration for its secrecy: "The country has come to a sad pass when it must turn to Communist China's New China News Agency for reports on covert military operations being conducted by the United States. Yet this incredible inversion has taken place twice within the last week. What in heaven's name does the United States think it is doing by trying to keep these air strikes secret?"
  
• 6/15/1964 Supreme Court ruled that both houses of state legislatures had to be apportioned by population, again reflecting one-man, one-vote (Reynolds v. Sims). Conservative outcry was again loud and angry. Goldwater tried to make the Supreme Court an issue in the campaign. Reynolds had an enormous impact in creating new districts represented by minorities, and in helping the Republicans to break the one-party system in the South.
  
• 6/15/1964 Joseph Alsop came to the White House and told LBJ that if he didn't commit troops to Vietnam, he'd be presiding over the first real defeat for the US in history. He explained that there was no honorable way out of our commitment there. (White House Diary p168)
  
• 6/15/1964 US News and World Report commented, "Signs point toward Mississippi as a major battleground in this summer's campaign. White students from the North are moving in to help Negroes - and white Mississippians are preparing their defenses."
  
• 6/16/1964 CE2560: attached to CE 2559, FBI document. "Memo for the record. Mr Eisenberg. Telephone message received from Mr. Meade Warner of the FBI of the Aberdeen Proving Ground on April 6, 1964: 'There were three pieces in the scope examined by the FBI gunsmith. Two pieces were .015 inches thick so placed as to elevate the scope with respect to the gun. One piece was .020 inches thick so placed as to point the scope leftward with respect to the gun. The gunsmith observed that the scope as we received it was installed as if for a left-handed man."(H 25 799)
  
• 6/16/1964 United Nations memorandum, Top Secret, from Adlai Stevenson to President Johnson, June 16, 1964. Stevenson sends the "verbal message" given to Lisa Howard to Johnson with a cover memo briefing him on the Castro dialogue started under Kennedy and suggesting consideration of resumption of talks "on a low enough level to avoid any possible embarrassment."
  
• 6/16/1964 THE STATE OF TEXAS vs. JACK RUBENSTEIN -- Defense counsel files motion for continuance in sanity hearing.
  
• 6/16/1964 A joint meeting of Klansmen from Meridian and Philadelphia, Mississippi discussed how they were going to kill Mickey Schwerner. They decided to go to the Mount Zion United Methodist Church in Neshoba County, where Schwerner had been seen in his attempts to start a freedom school. They learned that Schwerner was still in Ohio, so the Klansmen burnt down the church and beaten several blacks. The incident wasn't even reported in local newspapers.
  
• 6/17/1964 Hoover memo to Rankin: "Through a confidential source which has furnished reliable information in the past, we have been advised of some statements made by Fidel Castro, Cuban Prime Minister, concerning the assassination of President Kennedy. In connection with these statements of Castro, your attention is called to the speech made by Castro on November 27, 1963, in Havana, Cuba, during which Castro made similar statements concerning this matter. The pertinent portions of this speech are set out in the report of Special Agent James J. O'Connor dated May 8, 1964, at Miami, Florida, beginning on page 30. According to our source, Castro recently is reported to have Said, "Our people in Mexico gave us the details in a full report of how he (Oswald) acted when he came to Mexico to their embassy (uncertain whether he means -Cuban or Russian Embassy)," Castro further related, "First of all, nobody ever goes that way for a visa. Second, it costs money to go that distance. He (Oswald) stormed into the embassy, demanded the visa, and when it was refused to him, headed out saying, 'I'm going to kill Kennedy for this.'" Castro is alleged to have continued and asked, "What is your government doing to catch the other assassins?" and speculated, "It took about three people." The source then advised that Castro's speculation was based on tests which Castro and his men allegedly made under similar conditions with a similar rifle and telescopic sight. Castro is said to have expressed the conclusion that Oswald could not have fired three times in succession and bit the target with the telescopic sight in the available time, that he would have needed two other men in order for the three shots to have been tired in the time interval. The source commented that on the basis of Castro's remarks, it was clear that his beliefs were based on theory as a result of Cuban experiments and not on any firsthand information in Castro's possession."
  
• 6/17/1964 Memo from Hoover to Rankin: "Mr. Arlen Specter of the Commission's staff provided this Bureau with four photographs and the clothing worn by Governor John Connally on November 22, 1963, for use in connection with the re-enactment of certain aspects of the assassinations of President Kennedy at Dallas, Texas. The photographs and the clothing, consisting of Governor Connally's coat, trousers, shirt and tie...were returned to Miss Mary North at the Commission on June 16, 1964." (Post Mortem p126)
  
• 6/17/1964 The Warren Commission announces that its hearings are completed. By July, Adams, Coleman, Ball, Hubert and Jenner had returned to their private practices and made almost no contribution to the writing of the Report. Norman Redlich and Alfred Goldberg were the primary authors of the WR, and Warren kept pushing the deadline back as the project dragged on. (Inquest)
  
• 6/18/1964 Richard Russell, speech in the Senate on his opposition to the Civil Rights Act (18th June, 1964) I am proud to have been a member of that small group of determined senators that since the 9th of March has given ... the last iota of physical strength in the effort to hold back the overwhelming combination of forces supporting this bill until its manifold evils could be laid bare before the people of the country. The depth of our conviction is evidenced by the intensity of our opposition. There is little room for honorable men to compromise where the inalienable rights of future generations are at stake. . . . Mr. President, the people of the South are citizens of this Republic. They are entitled to some consideration. It seems to me that fair men should recognize that the people of the South, too, have some rights which should be respected. And though, Mr. President, we have failed in this fight to protect them from a burgeoning bureaucracy that is already planning and organizing invasion after invasion of the South... our failure cannot be ascribed to lack of effort. Our ranks were too thin, our resources too scanty, but we did our best. I say to my comrades in arms in this long fight that there will never come a time when it will be necessary for any one of us to apologize for his conduct or his courage.
  
• 6/18/1964 During his Warren Commission testimony, Secret Service Chief Rowley was asked the following: Mr. Rankin: "Chief Rowley, I should like to have you state for the record, for the Commission, whether the action of President Kennedy in making these statements was understood by you or properly could have been understood by the agents as relieving them of any responsibility about the protection of the President." Mr. Rowley: "No; I would not so construe that, Mr. Rankin. The agents would respond regardless of what the President said if the situation indicated a potential danger. The facilities were available to them. They had the rear steps, they would be there as a part of the screen. And immediately in the event of any emergency they would have used them."… "Now, if the thing gets too sticky, you put the agent right in the back seat, which I have done many times with past Presidents."
  
• 6/19/1964 Senate passes the Civil Rights Bill 73-27.
  
• 6/19/1964 U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy is involved in a plane crash in which one of his aides and the pilot were killed. He was pulled from the wreckage by fellow senator Birch E. Bayh II and spent weeks in a hospital recovering from a broken back, a punctured lung, broken ribs, and internal bleeding. Joachim Joesten: "Edward Kennedy at first gave some underhanded support to some people who urged him to undertake a private investigation of his brother's death. He had occasion to rue this short fling at bravery. On June 21, 1964 [sic], he came close to losing his life in the crash of his private airplane near Northampton, Maas. Although there were clear-cut indications that the plane had been sabotaged before the take-off from Washington, the cause of the accident was glossed over, as usual. Teddy was cured; he never tried to play the hero again after that. His mother Rose, who had also for a while considered launching a private investigation into the murder of her son, the President, now also read the writing on the wall correctly and stayed her hand. The whole clan withdrew into its shell, well aware that it would be too dangerous to fight the Usurper. And so they decided to play his game. Robert, the head of the clan took the lead with that unconscionable statement in Cracow - one week after his brother Ted had narrowly escaped death in the airplane crash."
  
• 6/19/1964 TIME story told of Marina being recalled by the WC to testify about her husband's threats against Nixon. The story speculated, "When the full report of the Warren Commission is published it may well reflect the theory that Lee Harvey Oswald had an obssessive yen to kill not just John F. Kennedy, but any notable person."
  
• 6/19/1964 CIA sends a memo on Soviet mind-control techniques to the WC: "1. There are two major methods of altering or controlling human behavior, and the Soviets are interested in both. The first is psychological; the second, pharmacological. The two may be used as individual methods or for mutual reinforcement. For long-term control of large numbers of people, the former method is more promising than the latter. In dealing with individuals, the U.S. experience suggests the pharmacological approach (assisted by psychological techniques) would be the only effective method. Neither method would be very effective for single individuals on a long term basis. 2. Soviet research on the pharmacological agents producing behavioral effects has consistently lagged about five years behind Western research. They have been interested in such research, however, and are now pursuing research on such chemicals as LSD-25, amphetamines, tranquillizers, hypnotics, and similar materials. There is no present evidence that the Soviets have any singular, new, potent drugs to force a course of action on an individual. They are aware, however, of the tremendous drive produced by drug addiction, and PERHAPS could couple this with psychological direction to achieve control of an individual. 3. The psychological aspects of behavior control would include not only conditioning by repetition and training, but such things as hypnosis, deprivation, isolation, manipulation of guilt feelings, subtle or overt threats, social pressure, and so on. Some of the newer trends in the USSR are as follows: a. The adoption of a multidisciplinary approach integrating biological, social and physical-mathematical research in attempts better to understand, and eventually, to control human behavior in a manner consonant with national plans. b. The outstanding feature, in addition to the interdisciplinary approach, is a new concern for mathematical approaches to an understanding of behavior. Particularly notable are attempts to use modern information theory, automata theory, and feedback concepts in interpreting the mechanisms by which the "second signal system," i.e., speech and associated phenomena, affect human behavior. Implied by this "second signal system," using INFORMATION inputs as causative agents rather than chemical agents, electrodes or other more exotic techniques applicable, perhaps, to individuals rather than groups. c. This new trend, observed in the early Post-Stalin Period, continues. By 1960 the word "cybernetics" was used by the Soviets to designate this new trend. This new science is considered by some as the key to understanding the human brain and the product of its functioning --psychic activity and personality--to the development of means for controlling it and to ways for molding the character of the "New Communist Man". As one Soviet author puts it: Cybernetics can be used in "molding of a child's character, the inculcation of knowledge and techniques, the amassing of experience, the establishment of social behavior patterns...all functions which can be summarized as 'control' of the growth process of the individual." 1/Students of particular disciplines in the USSR, such as psychologist and social scientists, also support the general cybernetic trend. 2/ (Blanked by CIA) 4. In summary, therefore, there is no evidence that the Soviets have any techniques or agents capable of producing particular behavioral patterns which are not available in the West. Current research indicates that the Soviets are attempting to develop a technology forcontrolling the development of behavioral patterns among the citizenry of the USSR in accordance with politically determined requirements of the system. Furthermore, the same technology can be applied to more sophisticated approaches to the "coding" of information for transmittal to population targets in the "battle for the minds of men." Some of the more esoteric techniques such as ESP or, as the Soviets call it, "biological radio-communication", and psychogenic agents such as LSD, are receiving some overt attention with, possibly, applications in mind for individual behavior control under clandestine conditions. However, we require more information than is currently available in order to establish or disprove planned or actual applications of various methodologies by Soviet scientists to the control of actions of articular individuals.
  
• 6/20/1964 Gen. William Westmoreland succeeded Gen. Paul Harkins as head of US forces in Vietnam.
  
• 6/20/1964 Civil rights activists Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman drove all day to Mississippi, arriving in Meridian in the evening.
  
• 6/20/1964 An FBI airtel of June 20, reveals a snag in the WC/FBI plan -- neither Tomlinson nor Wright (the man who turned the bullet over to the SA Johnsen) could ID CE-399. The airtel also advised: Obtain [CE-399] from FBI Laboratory and thereafter immediately exhibit to SA Robert [sic] E. Johnson [sic], Secret Service, who is attached to White House detail, and to James Rowley, Chief, Secret Service, to have [CE-399] identified. If neither can identify, C1 should then be examined by SA Elmer Lee Todd for the purpose of identifying item by inspection [emphasis added].June 20, 1964 FBI Airtel from SAC, Dallas to J. Edgar Hoover: "... neither Darrell C. Tomlinson, who found bullet [CE # 399] at Parkland Hospital, Dallas, nor O. P. Wright, Personnel Officer, Parkland Hospital, who obtained bullet from Tomlinson and gave to Special Service, at Dallas 11/22/63, can identify bullet ... ."
  
• 6/21/1964 Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman arose early and drove out to inspect the remains of the Mt. Zion church. They talked to the beating victims and asked them if they were willing to sign affidavits. They got back in their Ford station wagon to visit other blacks, but were stopped on Highway 19, three miles east of Philadelphia, by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price for "speeding." He locked all three up in the Neshoba County jail. They were fed a good dinner by the prison matron, and at 10:30pm price told Mickey and his friends they could go if they paid a $20 fine. They paid their fine, and Price told them, "You came here to stir up trouble. These folks were getting along all right before you got here and they can do without your help now." The boys got into their blue station wagon and drove off. Later that night, Price pulled them over again deep in the woods, and turned them over to a group of klansmen. All three were beaten and then shot to death. Goodman and Schwerner were shot once in the heart; Chaney was beaten and then shot three times.
  
• 6/22/1964 As their friends noticed them missing, Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman quickly became a national news story. Mississippi officials and common citizens alike charged that their disappearance was a hoax designed to embarrass the state and help the civil rights movement. Gov. Paul Johnson suggested the boys might be hiding out in Cuba.
  
• 6/22/1964 Prime Tippit murder scene witness, Helen Markham is visited by independent interviewers. She declines to talk to them, but her son, William Markham, consents to an interview. He later tells the FBI that he informs these interviewers that his mother "had lied on many occasions, even to members of her immediate family." Three days later, the Dallas police will arrest another of Mrs. Markham's sons. He will be injured while "trying to escape" from the police at that time. He falls from a window to a concrete driveway about 20 feet below. After recovering from his injuries, he will be sent to the Dallas County Jail.
  
• 6/23/1964 In this WC session, Commissioner Ford brought up the fact that one section of the draft report included references to the views of Soviet defector Yuri Nosenko, when "we have never had Mr. Nosenko before the Commission" and there were questions about his bona fides. Warren concurred that Nosenko should be left out of the report, saying that "I am allergic to defectors...it would be a tragic thing if we were to rely on him to any extent, and then it should later come out that he was a plant..."
  
• 6/23/1964 Henry Cabot Lodge resigns as US ambassador to South Vietnam; Maxwell Taylor replaced him.
  
• 6/23/1964 The burned-out remains of the station wagon the three civil rights workers were driving is found in the Bogue Chitto swamp, north of Philadelphia, Miss., but their bodies were not in it. The FBI now entered the case.
  
• 6/24 or 30/1964 WC announced that the Report would not be released until after the Republican Convention.
  
• 6/24/1964 Note the final notation on the chain-of-custody card in Figure 2, which relates that CE-399 was taken from the FBI Lab by "Elmer Todd WFO [Washington Field Office] 6/24/64." That is exactly what happened; SA Elmer Lee Todd (deceased) showed CE-399 to Rowley and Johnsen at the White House, and neither could identify the bullet as the one they'd handled seven months prior. Not having marked the bullet with their initials, a failure to positively ID the bullet might be written off as bureaucratic CYA caution. Not so, Elmer Todd. Tomlinson, Wright, Johnsen, and Rowley all failed to positively ID CE-399. Thus it fell to Elmer Todd to make the positive ID, which he did. And just how did Todd accomplish that? He purportedly recognized the initials he placed on the bullet on the day of the assassination (CE 2011, at 24H412, CD 2). However, there is no question but that only three sets of initials now appear on CE-399. There is likewise no question that they have all been positively identified: RF is Robert Frazier, CK is Charles Killion, and JH is Cortland Cunningham.
  
• 6/24/1964 De-classified memo from John McCloy to J. Lee Rankin showed that he had doubts about the single bullet theory. "I think too much effort is expended on attempting to prove that the first bullet, which hit the president, was also responsible for all of Connally's wounds," McCloy wrote. "The evidence against this is not fully stated." He added that a section of the report dealing with the possibility of shots being fired at Kennedy's motorcade from an overpass was "not well done." Elsewhere, McCloy questioned the commission's account that a bullet found on a stretcher at Dallas' Parkland Hospital - where Kennedy and Connally were treated after being shot - was the CE399 bullet. He wrote: "The statement concerning the bullet which was found on the stretcher is not particularly persuasive because there is no indication that the stretcher bullet' was in fact the bullet which caused the [Connally] wrist wound." It also contains many other suggestions by McCloy on revising the draft report. Some of those suggestions were adopted by the commission. But the commission did not revise the sections dealing with the "magic-bullet" theory. Nor did it revise other sections criticized by McCloy, dealing with the Kennedy and Connally wounds. He asked at one point, for example: "Why is there no citation of authority with regard to the wound in the president's back and its path through his body?"
  
• 6/24/1964 On orders from LBJ, sailors from the Meridian Naval Air Station arrived at the Bogue Chitto swamp to drag it for the bodies of the missing civil rights workers. They were not found, but as the search spread over the state, the bodies of other missing blacks from years past were discovered. Pressure from LBJ and RFK caused the FBI to form MIBURN ("Mississippi Burning") an investigative unit designed to pick up the ball dropped by local law enforcement. LBJ forced Hoover to open a Bureau office in Mississippi, but Hoover made the best of it with a photo-opportunity on the scene in Jackson. Locals thought the whole thing was ridiculous; one man joked to reporters that finding a dead body in a swamp meant nothing: "We throw two or three niggers in every year to feed the fish."
  
• 6/25/1964 Memo to Hoover from New York field office regarding SOLO (Jack Childs) source's statement from Castro that Oswald charged into the Cuban embassy threatening to kill Kennedy; "immediately the people in the Embassy suspected something wrong - why go to the Soviet Union through Cuba? An attempt is being made to involve Cuba in this conspiracy from the beginning...Castro stated that when Oswald was refused his visa at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, he acted like a real madman and started yelling and shouting and yelled on his way out, 'I'm going to kill that bastard. I'm going to kill Kennedy.'" The source "is of the opinion that Castro had nothing to do with the assassination and was concerned mainly with the question of the guilt of Oswald and that this was a conspiracy not only of Oswald but of two or three other people involved. The informant stated that Castro made no comment as to the fact that he was pleased that President Kennedy was killed and showed no elation about the matter and discussed it in a very serious matter." Castro, to satisfy his own curiosity as an expert sharpshooter, conducted tests with a similar rifle as the Carcano and came to the conclusion that Oswald could not have done the shooting by himself. This was declassified in 1995. (Assignment Oswald p276)
  
• 6/26/1964 Adlai Stevenson wrote a " Secret and Personal " memo to Johnson saying Castro felt that " all of our crises could be avoided if there was some way to communicate; that for want of anything better, he assumed that he could call [Howard] and she call me and I would advise you." Again Johnson gave no response.
  
• 6/26/1964 Look magazine published an exposé by David Wise and Thomas B. Ross which revealed that Zenith was a CIA front. The University of Miami authorities denied knowledge of the CIA operation (though Shackley would claim privately that University President Henry King Stanford was fully aware) and JMWAVE changed its main front company name from Zenith to "Melmar Corporation".
  
• 6/27/1964 THE STATE OF TEXAS vs. JACK RUBENSTEIN -- Defense counsel files a motion for an extension of time to file statement of facts (a court-approved transcript of the trial required by Texas law in order to file an appeal) and bills of exception (a list of challenges that are made considering specific rulings of a judge during a trial). Motion for extension of statement of facts is granted with sixty-day limit. Motion for extension of bills of exception is denied.
  
• 6/28/1964 Malcolm X said in a speech in NY, "We live in one of the rottenest countries that has ever existed on this earth. It's a system of exploitation, of outright humiliation and degradation."
  
• 6/29/1964 Sen. Russell's legal assistant, Alfredda Scobey, had severe doubts about the testimony of Marina Oswald. In fact, in a memo she wrote to him, she all but called Marina a liar. (Scobey Memo to Russell of 6/29/64) She added that there were many parts of her testimony that could be challenged. In fact, in 1965, Scobey wrote an essay for a legal journal pointing out that much of the Warren Commission's case against Lee Oswald rested on Marina's testimony. Yet, if Oswald had stood trial, Texas law prohibited her from testifying against him. (American Bar Association Journal, January 1965, pgs 39-43)
  
• 6/29/1964 In the essay Behind Closed Doors, filmmaker Mark Sobel describes notes of a June 29 meeting found among J. Lee Rankin's papers. If the meeting, which discussed tentative findings of the Commission, was transcribed, that transcript has never been located.
  
• 6/29/1964 Castro's sister defects to the US, accusing him of selling the country out to "Russian imperialism."
  
• 6/29/1964 A letter from this date "concerning Richard Nixon" was reported in 1976 to be missing from the National Archives' WC records. The contents of the letter were unknown. (Coincidence or Conspiracy? 530)
  
• 6/30/1964 NY Times today reported that the Warren Commission Report would not be released until after the GOP convention.
  
• 6/30/1964 Senate Ethics Committee's final report recommends that Bobby Baker be indicted for violations of conflict of interest laws.
  
• 6/30/1964 New York Times quoted a recent interview with Henry Cabot Lodge: "Now, the overthrow...of the Diem regime was a purely Vietnamese affair. We never participated in the planning. We never gave any advice. We had nothing whatever to do with it...I shall always be loyal to President Kennedy's memory on this, because I carried out his policy...When I arrived in Saigon...there was a great deal of police brutality and oppression and everything was pretty much at a standstill." When asked about defoliation, he replied, "Well, we're defoliating every day...You kill the bushes and the trees and it broadens it out and you can't be ambushed." He explained that the VC in the northern part of the South Vietnam were dependent on Hanoi for aid, but the VC in the southern part were self-sufficient because of the "fantastically rich food-growing areas...There are such tremendous long coastlines and tremendous long frontiers - tremendously rough country. There isn't a superhighway that you can blow it up with bombs and stop...the supplies..." Yet, only five days after Diem and Nhu were executed after the coup on November 1, 1963, Lodge had sent a cable to the White House which read, "... the ground in which the coup seed grew into a robust plant was prepared by us and the coup would not have happened without our preparation."