13-07-2009, 08:32 PM
Mark Stapleton Wrote:How could Greer have shot JFK without Nellie Connally or Jackie seeing it?
The first shot would naturally have come as a complete surprise, as none of the occupants would have had the slightest inkling of the SS detail's intentions. Thereafter, I have no doubt the two wives understood perfectly well what had happened.
Do we know what was said in private at Parkland, or on the plane back to Washington? No. Do we have an unexpurgated transcript of Jackie's actual testimony to the WC*? No. We do, though, have a very curious piece of jiggery-pokery by the compilers of the WC, which I'll return to in a later post.
In a footnote to chapter 3, Execution, of Murder From Within (Probe, 1974), Newcomb and Adams write as follows:
Quote:Mrs. Kennedy unsuccessfully tested David F. Powers on this area. Powers was in the follow-up car immediately behind the limousine. Apparently he failed to see the driver. “On the Thanksgiving weekend after the President’s funeral, when Dave was visiting Jackie and her children at Hyannis Port, he showed her the color pictures of herself on the back of the car taken at the scene by Abraham Zapruder’s movie camera and published in that week’s Life…’Dave, what do you think I was trying to do?’ she asked. Dave could only suggest that maybe she was searching for the President’s doctor…” (Kenneth P. O’Donnell and Dave F. Powers with Joe McCarthy, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, p. 29.)
In her brief testimony before the Warren Commission (about ten minutes), she said she didn’t “…recall climbing out on the back of the car.” (v. 5, p. 181.) In this way, she avoided answering the obvious question of why she did climb out on the trunk.
On the day Mrs. Kennedy testified, June 5, 1964, leaks from the Warren Commission to the press were sufficient to indicate that the investigation was complete. She told the Commission, “…I read the other day that it was the same shot that hit them both.” (v. 5, p. 180). As with most important witnesses, she had read about the “lone assassin” as the official version. In effect, this curtailed spontaneous testimony.
The Warren Commission deleted her reference to wounds (v. 5, p. 180). The General Counsel for the Commission, in a letter of Dec. 10, 1964, explained the removal “…as a matter of good taste and because it could contribute nothing to the inquiry.”
During a Commission meeting of Dec. 16, 1963, Commissioner John McCloy suggested that the Commission ought to question Mrs. Kennedy before her memory faded. He said, “She’s got it very definitely in mind now, and I’m told she’s physically in a position where she can do it, but I don’t have that at first hand. She may not be the chief witness as to who did the job. She’s the chief witness as to how those bullets hit her husband.” Chief Justice Warren replied, “I wonder if the report we get from the Secret Service wouldn’t pretty much clear that up. If it doesn’t, Good Lord, what can they report to us on, that will help us. They were there, right at the car, and know exactly what happened.” (Document Addendum, op. cit., p. 55.) As Epstein noted, “On June 5 Mrs. John F. Kennedy testified before the Chief Justice at home. She was the last witness to testify on the assassination itself.” (Inquest, p. 25.)
Around January 1965, Mrs. Kennedy told Mary Gallagher to “be careful” about transportation in cars. She said, “You should get yourselves a good driver so that nothing ever happens to you.” (Mary B. Gallagher, My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy, p. 351.) A caption in Ms. Gallagher’s book of group photograph at the White House mess refers to “…Roy H. Killerman [sic]…” (Ibid., photo section, unpaginated.]
Mrs. Kennedy later sent William R. Greer, the driver of the Presidential limousine, a handwritten note. It said, “For Bill Greer, whom the President loved, and who was with him until the very end. Thank you.” (New York Times, July 2, 1966, p. 10.)
Lyndon Johnson also believed that a good driver was important and readily indicated the matter was both urgent and of great significance. According to Youngblood, “A few days after he became President, LBJ held a conference with me. ‘I’ve got a lot of important things to do, Rufus, and I’m gonna assign one of the most important projects to you. Get Norman [Edwards, a Senate employee who Johnson had as a driver during his term there] for me. I need him as much as I need you and Lady Bird.’” (Youngblood, 20 Years, p. 154.)
And we do know that the Secret Service was very active at Parkland in attempting to ascertain what Nellie et al had taken in; and in urging reticence.
Quote:AP (Dallas), “Connally no longer in danger,” Saturday (morning), 23 November 1963, section 1, p.1: “Mrs. Connally was questioned by Secret Service agents attempting to reconstruct the assassination.”
Jim Bishop. The Day Kennedy Was Shot (Toronto: HarperPerennial, 1992 reprint), p.224: As Huber** left the hospital, “Two Secret Service men took the priest by the arms. ‘Father,’ one of them said, ‘you don’t know anything.’ He understood.”
As for Connally, it's worth taking a look at who provided his bodyguard during his 1980 run for the presidency. It sure as heck wasn't the SS, for, as a relative of his explained on a Houston radio station at the time, he didn't trust them!
* Another footnote from MFW's chapter 3, Execution:
Quote:Recently declassified portion of Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy’s testimony before the Commission, obtained by Paul Hoch from the National Archives.
When Hoch compared the official transcript with the published version, he found a total of 23 substantive changes in Mrs. Kennedy’s testimony. For example, in the published version, she said that if she been looking at the President when the first shot hit, “…then I could have pulled him down, and then the second shot would not have hit him.” (v. 5, p. 180.) The transcript reads: “…then the second shot would have gotten Governor Connolly.” In another instance, the published version has her saying, “But I do not remember, just as I don’t recall climbing out on the back of the car.” (v. 5, p. 181.) The transcript has, “But as I don’t recall climbing out, like those pictures.” Just who authorized these changes in the record is unknown.
** Huber told at least one pressman as he left the hospital that there was a wound above Kennedy's left eye. He thus shared the verdict of most of the Parkland doctors who treated or had occasion to observe the President: the head entrance wound was in the left temple.