Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

• 4/1964 Hearings on Bobby Baker are permanently discontinued. (Rowe, Bobby Baker Story)
  
• 4/1964 Tippit murder witness Helen Markham's son is taken back into custody for parole violation and arrested for alleged involvement in two burglaries.
  
• 4/1964 Hoover was quoted in the press as having testified that "Communist influence does exist in the civil rights movement." Dr. King reacted sharply: "It is very unfortunate that Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, in his claims of alleged Communist infiltration in the civil rights movement, has allowed himself to aid and abet the salacious claims of Southern racists and the extreme right-wing elements. We challenge all who raise the "red" issue, whether they be newspaper columnists or the head of the FBI himself-to come forward and provide real evidence which contradicts this stand of the SCLC. We are confident that this cannot be done." Going further, King repeated the charge of FBI inaction in the South that had provoked the anti-King campaign: "It is difficult to accept the word of the FBI on Communist infiltration in the civil rights movement, when they have been so completely ineffectual in resolving the continued mayhem and brutality inflicted upon the Negro in the deep south."
  
• 4/1964 The FBI told Dean Andrews they could find no Bertrand in New Orleans, and he told them he made the whole story up. Andrews was given a formal subpoena from the WC to appear; they "commanded" him to bring "all records, papers, notes and other documents in your possession or under your control pertaining to any possible representation of Lee Harvey Oswald by you during the period April 1, 1963, through December 31, 1963; including any such writings indicating that Oswald called in your office, either alone or in the company of others, or any such writings indicating any attempt which may have been made by any person including one Clay Bertrand, to retain your services on behalf of Lee Harvey Oswald..."
  
• 4/1964 The administration's Operation Farmhand (permitting US pilots to fly combat missions in Vietnam) was revealed when an Air Force captain complained of the duplicity in letters to his wife. She made the letters public via Dirksen and Charles Halleck after her husband died in a crash.
  
• Spring 1964 Jackie Kennedy sits down for lengthy taped interviews with Arthur Schlesinger Jr. They were to be kept secret until 50 years after her death, but Caroline released them in 2011.
  
• 4/1/1964 CIA report on the Alliance for Progress; it was sent to Mac Bundy 4/17. It explained that political movements in Latin America were making unrealistic promises to people: "In part because of the Latin American paternalistic tradition, the public blames governments for most evils and failures, while both governments and peoples look abroad for convenient scapegoats." The CIA also worried that Cuban-influenced statist economies were becoming popular in the region.
  
• 4/1/1964 LBJ calls Sen. Russell, and Hale Boggs calls LBJ. (Act of Treason)
  
• 4/1/1964 FBI firearms expert Cortlandt Cunningham again appears before the WC.
  
• 4/1/1964 De Gaulle assassination attempt.
  
• 4/1/1964 Dallas Sheriff constable Seymour Weitzman gave a deposition to the Commission staff in Dallas on April 1, 1964 (7H105ï·“9). Under questioning, he described "three distinct shots," with the second and third seeming almost simultaneous. He heard some one say the shots "come from the wall" west of the Depository and "I immediately scaled that wall." He and the police and "Secret Service as well" noticed "numerous kinds of foot prints that did not make sense because they were going in different directions." This testimony seems to have been ignored. He also turned a piece of the President's skull over to the Secret Service. He got it after being told by a railroad employee that "he thought he saw somebody throw something through a bush." Then he went to the sixth floor where he worked with Boone on the search. With Weitzman on the floor looking under the flats of boxes and Boone looking over the top, they found the rifle, "I would say simultaneously . . . It was covered with boxes. It was well protected . . . I would say eight or nine of us stumbled over that gun a couple of times . . . We made a man-tight barricade until the crime lab came up . . ." (7H106). When shown three unidentified photographs that seem to be those the police took, Weitzman said of the one with the hidden rifle, "it was more hidden than there" (7H108). If it had not been so securely hidden, he said, "we couldn't help but see it" from the stairway (Ibid).
  
• 4//1964 CIA Document 632-796 reports that the French intelligence service wants help in locating one Jean Souetre, a French OAS terrorist considered a threat to the safety of French President Charles de Gaulle. The document further asserts that Souetre was in Fort Worth, Texas on the morning of November 22, 1963. Souetre was also in Dallas during the afternoon of the assassination where he was picked up by U.S. authorities and immediately expelled from the United States. It further states that Souetre also uses the names Michel Roux and Michel Mertz. The document also states that the FBI has told the CIA that it has nothing in its files on the subject.
  
• 4/2/1964 In a meeting with his security advisers, LBJ agrees to increase military and economic aid to South Vietnam.
  
• 4/2/1964 Dealey Plaza witness Lee Bowers testifies before the WC.
  
• 4/3/1964 Hoover memo to Sullivan: "Their [the WC's] so-called compliments of the Bureau's work are empty and have no sincerity...The questions are those of a cross-examination of the FBI..." (Who Was Jack Ruby? p87)
  
• 4/3/1964 WC counsel Burt Griffin memo raised questions the Commission would not address: "Is there any significance in the fact that Helen Markham…who witnessed the killing of Officer Tippit by Lee Harvey Oswald, has known Jack Ruby for the past two years or more? Ruby is a customer at the Eat Well Café where Miss Markham is employed as a waitress…Does the connection between Markham and Ruby suggest any reason for Oswald's being at the corner of 10th and Patton when he shot Tippit? Does Miss Markham's explanation of why she was at 10th and Patton give any clue as to why Oswald might also have been there?" (McBride, Into the Nightmare)
  
• 4/3/1964 FBI questioned-documents expert James Cadigan appears before the WC.
  
• 4/3/1964 Malcolm X speaks at a CORE-sponsored meeting on "The Negro Revolt-What Comes Next?" In his speech "The Ballot or Bullet," Malcolm warns of a growing black nationalism that will no longer tolerate patronizing white political action.
  
• 4/3/1964 DPD Detective John P. Adamcik testifies for the WC about his search of the Paine home and his questioning of Oswald.
  
• 4/3/1964 FBI document specialist James Cadigan testified before the WC today. Mr. Eisenberg. Do you know why Exhibit No. 820 was not reprocessed or desilvered? Mr. Cadigan. No, this is a latent fingerprint matter. [WCH7, 418] But as recently released WC transcripts have shown, this is not at all what Mr. Cadigan said in answer to Eisenberg's question. Here is his real answer: Mr. Eisenberg: Do you know why 820 was not reprocessed or desilvered? Mr. Cadigan: I could only speculate. Mr. Eisenberg: Yes? Mr. Cadigan: It may be that there was a very large volume of evidence being examined at the time. Time was of the essence, and the material, I believe, was returned to the Dallas Police within two or three days, and it was merely in my opinion a question of time. We have a very large volume of evidence. There was insufficient time to deliver it. And I think in many instances where latent fingerprints are developed they do not deliver it.
  
• 4/4/1964 At a press conference, Johnson was asked about reports that he had driven reporters around his ranch at speeds of up to 90 mph, creating "concern that you are putting yourself in danger." LBJ denied ever having driven past 70 mph.
  
• 4/4/1964 Panama resumed diplomatic relations with the US.
  
• 4/4/1964 Memo to Kirk Douglas about the universally favorable reaction in Europe, especially in France, to the film Seven Days in May.
  
• 4/4/1964 WC assistant counsel Leon D. Hubert wrote an April 4, 1964 memo to Howard P. Willens, another assistant counsel who, according to the WCR, "acted as liason between the Commission and the Department of Justice. The memo was cc'd to chief counsel J. Lee Rankin. In his memo, Hubert wrote: "1. At the staff meeting on Friday, I raised objections to 'editing' of the transcripts of depositions; but I did not make one objection which I thought of later and what perhaps is stronger than any else I made." Later in the memo, Hubert added: "4. With regard to unsigned depositions, the foregoing is also applicable. A waiver of signature certainly does not include permission to alter ['alter' is crossed out and 'change' handwritten in] meaning...."
  
• 4/5/1964 Gen. Douglas MacArthur dies at age 84.
  
• 4/5/1964 The Best Man, a film about two rivals for the presidency blackmailing each other to try to win their party's nomination, makes its premiere. Based on a Gore Vidal play, it stars Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson.
  
• 4/5/1964 Jim Lehrer of the Dallas Times Herald reported that an unnamed WC investigator (Burt Griffin) had been quietly removed from the Dallas phase of the investigation after arguing with a witness.
  
• 4/6/1964 Time magazine reported on Johnson's driving spree at the ranch with reporters; he drank beer from a paper cup as he drove recklessly across Texas roads at 90mph. LBJ impressed them with his knowledge of cattle, and reporter Marianne Means, who was present, cooed, "Mr. President, you're fun." This provoked a mini-crisis for Johnson, who was criticized for risking his life and setting a bad moral example. The country also has no Vice-President in place yet.
  
• 4/6/1964 Letter from Hoover to Rankin stated, "A file concerning Oswald was opened at the time newspapers reported his defection to Russia in 1959, for the purpose of correlating information inasmuch as he was considered a possible security risk in the event he returned to this country." (CE 833, H 17 787)
  
• 4/6/1964 CE 833 15 Letter from Hoover to WC: "Pages 279 through 283 of the report of SA Gemberling dated February 11, 1964, were prepared at the time such report was being typed by the Dallas Office during a few-day period immediately preceding submission of such report to FBI headquarters by the Dallas Office. In this connection, your attention is also directed to this Bureau's letter to the Commission dated February 27, 1964, enclosing an affidavit executed by SA Robert P. Gemberling explaining in detail his handling and reporting of data in Lee Harvey Oswald's address book. You will note that in his affidavit, SA Gemberling explains why certain data in Oswald's address book was reported in his December 23, 1963, report, whereas the remaining data ... was reported in SA Gemberling's February 11, 1964, report." Gemberling's affidavit was not among the published Exhibits.
  
• 4/6/1964 CE 2718 FBI reply to a series of WC questions: "8.QUESTION: The report of SA Hosty of September 10, 1963 contains the following item: 'On April 21 1963 Dallas confidential informant T-2 advised that Lee H. Oswald of Dallas, Texas, was in contact with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New York City at which time he advised that he passed out pamphlets for the [FPCC]. According to T-2, Oswald had a placard around his neck reading, "Hands off Cuba Viva Fidel."' Is this information correct as of the date indicated, and does it describe activities which occured before Oswald's move to New Orleans? ANSWER: Information from our informant, furnished to us on April 21, 1963, was based upon Oswald's own statement contained in an undated letter to the [FPCC] headquarters in New York City. A copy of this letter is included as Exhibit 61 in our Supplemental Report...Our informant did not know Oswald personally and could furnish no further information. Our investigation had not disclosed such activity on Oswald's part prior to this type of activity in New Orleans." The FBI also stated that it was determined 11/2/1959 that "no derogatory information was contained in the USMC files concerning Oswald" and that "ONI advised that no action against him was contemplated in this matter." (Question 1)
  
• 4/7/1964 Letter of Gerald Ford concerning expediting the FBI investigation. 1976 the National Archives reported that this document was missing from their files.
  
• 4/7/1964 Victoria Elizabeth Adams testifies for the WC. Depository employee William Shelley testifies to the Warren Commission that he saw Oswald when he (Shelley) "came down to eat lunch about ten to twelve." TSBD employee Joe Molina, who was in the DPD subversive files, testified today.
  
• 4/7/1964 Sergeant W. E. Barnes of the Dallas police laboratory -- the man who photographed the J.D. Tippit murder scene on Nov. 22, 1963 -- gives testimony to the Warren Commission regarding a dashboard clipboard in Tippit's patrol car which is clearly visible in one of the photographs. He tells the Commission that, as far as he knows, no one ever bothered to read whatever notes may have been written on Tippit's clipboard the day he was killed. There might have been, as some researchers have surmised, notations on that clipboard which might have cast light on Tippit's activities before he was shot -- notations which might have strengthened the basis for the Commission's speculations, or shown them to be mistaken.
  
• 4/7/1964 Johnson announces that US is willing to participate in "unconditional" talks with Hanoi.
  
• 4/7/1964 LBJ speaks with Hale Boggs three times today. (Act of Treason)
  
• 4/7/1964 LBJ discontinues all sabotage and raids against Cuba. One CIA officer who is present at the Special Group meeting remembers LBJ saying: "Enough is enough."
  
• 4/8/1964 Massive state funeral for Douglas MacArthur. RFK told Lady Bird Johnson, "We seem always to be meeting at funerals." (White House Diary)
  
• 4/8/1964 Railroad unions struck the Illinois Central line. The railroads had demanded new contracts in 1959, to eliminate redundant and unnecessary workers. Walter Heller urged LBJ to intervene to avoid economic catastrophe. He got the union and railroad negotiators to come to the White House, gave them the "Johnson treatment," and they agreed to a 15-day delay.
  
• 4/8/1964 Assistant Special Agent In Charge (ASAIC) Floyd M. Boring, also not on the Texas trip, dealt primarily with the November 18, 1963 Tampa, Florida trip in his report (dated April 8, 1964, the first report to Rowley), while also mentioning the July 2, 1963 Italy trip, alleging that President Kennedy made the request for agents to stay off the car for both stops. Boring made the Florida trip in place of Mr. Behn.
  
• 4/8/1964 FBI agent James Bookout is deposed by the WC.
  
• 4/8/1964 Eddie Piper testifies in an appearance before the Warren Commission that he saw and spoke to Oswald "just at twelve o'clock, down on the first floor" of the TSBD. Charles Givens testifies before the WC today. Jack Dougherty, a TSBD employee, testifies today before the WC that he has been misquoted in the FBI report attributed to him. The FBI report states that Dougherty says the shot sounded like it came from the floor above him. When asked if that is what he told the FBI, Dougherty replies, "No." (Meagher)
  
• 4/8/1964 Three Warren Commission attorneys travel to Mexico City, where they will spend four days. They meet with the U.S. Embassy's CIA and FBI staff, and retrace LHO's movements. They interview none of the witnesses or possible suspects. In their memo, summing up the trip, staffers write, "We did not want any appointments made at this time ... We wanted to leave the entire problem open."
  
• 4/9/1964 LBJ makes a phone call to Sen. Russell. (Act of Treason)
  
• 4/9/1964 THE STATE OF TEXAS vs. JACK RUBENSTEIN -- Defense counsel files first amended motion for a new trial. Defense also files a motion for an extension of time to file a second amended motion for a new trial. Judge Brown overrules motion
  
• 4/9/1964 Rome Daily reports on Mark Lane's recent speeches in Italy on the assassination.
  
• 4/9/1964 The Neshoba (Miss.) Democrat warned Northern civil rights activists, "Outsiders who come in here and try to stir up trouble should be dealt with in a manner they won't forget."
  
• 4/10/1964 John Hart Ely, a staff attorney for the Warren Commission, was responsible for gathering biographical information on Marguerite and Lee Oswald for Warren Commission counselors Albert Jenner and Wesley J. Liebeler, who were in charge of the area of Oswald's background. Ely forwarded Palmer McBride and William Wulf's FBI interviews to Senior Counselor Jenner and Junior Counselor Liebeler on March 30, 1964. From the FBI interview of McBride, Liebeler would have known of Oswald's employment at Pfisterer's in 1957 and 1958. From Oswald's Marine records he knew Oswald was supposed to have been in Japan at the same time, at the air base in Atsugi where Oswald was a radar operator. Oswald in New Orleans and Japan at the same time for nearly a year posed a serious problem. It could not be explained, so it had to be neutralized. On April 10, 1964, Albert Jenner wrote a memorandum to J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel for the Warren Commission. He said, "our depositions and examination of records and other data disclose there are details in Mr. Ely's memoranda which will require material alteration and, in some cases, omission." When you read the *Warren Report,* you can now understand why they are careful to state that Oswald worked at J. R Michels in 1956 and then at Pfisterer's for "several months thereafter," without giving any specific dates. The FBI would produce fake W-2 forms that have numbers actually dating to January 1964 for Oswald's employers in the 1950s.
  
• 4/10/1964 Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge (ATSAIC) Emory P. Roberts (on the Florida and Texas trips), the commander of the Secret Service follow-up car: The late Mr. Roberts dealt exclusively with the November 18, 1963 Tampa, Florida trip in his report (dated April 10, 1964, number 2): Boring was Roberts' sole source, via radio transmission from the limousine ahead of his follow-up vehicle, for JFK's alleged request that agents stay off the car.
  
• 4/11/1964 Special Agent (SA) John David "Jack" Ready (on the Texas trip): Ready's very brief report (dated April 11, 1964, number 3) deals exclusively with the November 18, 1963 Tampa, Florida trip. However, Mr. Ready was not on this specific trip: Mr. Boring was, once again, his source for JFK's alleged request that agents stay off the cars. SA Clinton J. "Clint" Hill (on the Texas trip): Hill also deals with the November 18, 1963 Tampa, Florida trip and Boring second-hand in his (strangely un-dated and, presumably, the last) report: Mr. Hill was not on this trip, either. Behn's, Boring's, and Hill's reports are not even on any Secret Service or Treasury Dept. stationary, just blank sheets of paper. In fact, as noted above, Hill's report is undated, a bizarre error to make in an official government report written by request of the head of the Secret Service. All are supposedly evidence of JFK expressing his desire to keep Secret Service agents off the limousine, particularly in Tampa, Florida on November 18, 1963. Still, thanks to the Secret Service reports above (and, in large measure, to Agent Boring himself), three massive best-sellers still in printthe Warren Report, Manchester's The Death of a President, and Bishop's The Day Kennedy Was Shothave created the myth that JFK was difficult to protect and had ordered the agents off his car and the like, a dangerous myth that endures to this day in classrooms and in the media, thus doing great damage to the true historical record. The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) Final Report continued the Secret Service myth of "blaming the victim" in the late 1970s in this fashion: "… [JFK] almost recklessly resisted the protective measures the Secret Service urged him to adopt … He [allegedly] told the Special Agent in Charge of the White House Detail [Behn] that he did not want agents to ride on the rear of his car." Also, the Committee wrote, "He scoffed at many of the measures designed to protect him …." Finally, in the coup de grace, the Report states: "Had the agents assigned to the motorcade been alert to the possibility of sniper fire [?], they possibly could have convinced the President to allow them to maintain protective positions on the rear bumper of the Presidential limousine ... the Committee recognized, however, that President Kennedy consistently rejected the Secret Service's suggestions that he permit agents to ride on the rear bumper of the Presidential limousine." (Vincent Palamara)
  
• 4/12/1964 Mrs. Wilma Tice, who testified she saw Jack Ruby at Parkland Hospital, receives a call from a man claiming to be a newspaper reporter. He asks her about the Parkland encounter with Ruby, then advises her not to talk about the incident.
  
• 4/13/1964 THE STATE OF TEXAS vs. JACK RUBENSTEIN -- Defense counsel files a supplemental motion for an extension of time to file second amended motion for a new trial. Judge Brown again overrules the motion.
  
• 4/13/1964 Robert F. Kennedy interviewed by John Bartlow Martin. RFK told him that Hoover was 'rather a psycho'...the FBI was 'a very dangerous organization...and I think he's...become senile and rather frightening.'" (RFK and His Times p 279; Richard Powers, Secrecy and Power p397) Later in the year he told Anthony Lewis that "I think [Hoover] he's dangerous."
  
• 4/14/1964 The Journal American runs a column by Dorothy Kilgallen which opens up many embarrassing questions for the Dallas Police concerning the JFK assassination.
  
• 4/14/1964 King Hussein of Jordan came to Washington to meet with LBJ.
  
• 4/14/1964 The autopsy doctors and government ballistics experts view the Zapruder film.
  
• 4/14/1964 Waggoner Carr meets with LBJ at the White House. (Act of Treason)
  
• 4/16/1964 Letter from Hoover to Rankin. "Reference is made to your letter dated 4/9/1964, covering transmittal to the FBI Laboratory of Governor John Connally's coat, shirt, trousers and tie and requesting an examination of these items. The results of the examinations are set forth below. For your information the coat has been designated C311, the trousers C312, the shirt C313 and the tie C314. Nothing was found to indicate which holes were entrances and which were exits. The coat, shirt and trousers were cleaned prior to their receipt in the Laboratory, which might account for the fact that no foreign deposits of metal or other substances were found on the cloth surrounding the holes. Further, no characteristic position of the fibers of the cloth around the holes, which is one of the factors considered in determining whether a hole is an entrance or an exit hole, was found. The sizes of the holes in the clothing do not necessarily aid in this determination since a hole can be enlarged if a bullet strikes at an angle, sideways or partially sideways, or if it passes through a fold in the cloth. Also, if a bullet is irregularly mutilated, an entrance hole could be larger than an exit hole. It was not possible from an examination of the clothing to determine whether or not all of the holes were made by the same projectile or projectile fragments." (Post Mortem 605)
  
• 4/16/1964 Griffin memo to Slawson: RE: Interview with Dr. Burton C. Einspruch, Dallas, Texas: "Secret Service Agent William Patterson and I spoke with Dr. Einspruch at Parkland Hospital. Dr. Einspruch, a psychiatrist, stated that he has treated Miss Odio since approximately April 1963 and that he saw her on the average of once a week from the beginning of that period until the President was assassinated. Dr. Einspruch described Miss Odio as coming from a very high social position in Cuba. He stated that she had been educated for 5 years in Philadelphia, that she had written some stories which had been published in Latin American journals, and that she composes poetry. He described her as a beautiful brilliant, well-spoken, charming woman. Dr. Einspruch confirmed the stories Mrs. Connell had given us concerning the anti-Castro activities of Miss Odio's Father. He stated that Miss Odio's father had organized an anti-Castro group while he was in prison in Cuba. Dr. Einspruch further stated that Miss Odio has two brothers, two sisters and four children with her in Dallas. She also has a brother, Cesare Odio in Miami. Miss Odio's ex-husband, Guillermo Hemera, is believed to be living in Ponce, Puerto Rico. In describing Miss Odio's relationships with Dallas Cubans, Dr. Einspruch stated that she was never really part of the Cuban community but that her real place was at the very top of the social ladder among American Dallas socialites. He stated that her social position in Dallas results from having exploited her father's business contacts in the United States. He confirmed Mrs. Connell's statement that Miss Odio had worked for a while at Niemann-Marcus. In describing Miss Odio's personality, Dr. Einspruch stated she is given to exaggeration but that all the basic facts which she provides are true. He stated that her tendency to exaggerate is an emotional type, characteristic of many Latin-American people, being one of degree rather than basic fact. He stated that Miss Odio is friendly with two Cuban psychiatrists. He said that, in general, Cuban activities in Dallas center around the church, but he did not describe the extent of Miss Odio's participation. Dr. Einspruch stated that he had great faith in Miss Odio's story of having met Lee Harvey Oswald. He stated that, in the course of psychotherapy, Miss Odio told him that she had seen Oswald at more than one anti-Castro Cuban meeting. One of these meetings was apparently at her house, he believed, and Miss Odio's sister also saw Oswald at the house. Dr. Einspruch says that Miss Odio reported to him that Oswald made inflammatory comments about Cuba. The term "inflammatory" is Dr. Einspruch's and he could not clearly indicate what it was that Oswald had said. In fact, I got the impression these comments were pro-Castro."
  
• 4/16/1964 Specter memo on the remaining work in his area of the investigation; it included "Obtain further medical evidence" and "Photographs and X-rays of the autopsy should be examined..."
  
• 4/16/1964 SS agent in charge of the White House Detail Gerald A. "Jerry" Behn report (dated April 16, 1964, the fourth report to Rowley) stated unequivocally that JFK "told me that he did not want agents riding on the back of his car." "As late as November 18 [1963] … he [JFK] told ASAIC Boring the same thing."
  
• 4/17/1964 LBJ met with the American Society of Newspaper Editors at the White House.
  
• 4/17/1964 Time magazine quoted an anonymous railroad president as saying that LBJ "was practically on his knees...really demeaned himself with his begging and pleading" of the union leaders to postpone a strike.
  
• 4/17/1964 A declassified letter from Lewis F. Powell (president of the American Bar Association and future Supreme Court justice) to Rankin revealed that the former inquired: "There ought to be some way for the bar to discipline people like [Mark] Lane, as he is certainly bringing serious discredit to the legal processes of this country." (They've Killed the President 73; Plausible Denial 24)
  
• 4/17/1964 Letter from Hoover to Rankin: "Carlos Prio Socarras and a number of others including McKeown, was involved in a conspiracy to ship arms, munitions, and other war materials to Fidel Castro to assist him in his efforts to overthrow the Batista regime..." (Coincidence or Conspiracy 513)
  
• 4/18/1964 LBJ orders study to assess the need for a military draft.
  
• 4/18/1964 10:42 AM Johnson makes a phone call to Sen. Russell. (Act of Treason)
  
• 4/19/1964 As the railroad negotiators continued to struggle over an agreement to prevent a strike, LBJ continually pushed both sides to work out their differences.
  
• 4/20/1964 The Warren Commission's J. Lee Rankin, Howard Willens and Norman Redlich send a letter to Hoover asking him point-blank if the FBI has supplied all available information regarding the possibility of Oswald being linked to any foreign or domestic criminal group. (H 17 857)
  
• 4/20/1964 An affidavit from Dallas police detective V.J. "Jackie" Brian about his and Lt. Revill's encounter with FBI agent Hosty in the police basement. He recalled that Hosty said the FBI had known that Oswald was a communist and that he worked at the TSBD. But Brian said he missed parts of their conversation because of "excitement and commotion" in the basement.
  
• 4/21/1964 LBJ tells an group of out-of-town editors and reporters that the WC had no particular deadline for its final report. But privately the White House had begun to pressure Warren to wind up everything by June 1. (Kantor, Who Was Jack Ruby?)
  
• 4/21/1964 Memo from J Edgar Hoover to Rankin says that Life magazine supplied the authorities with 169 frames of the Zapruder film (though only 164 were published by the WC.). (Photographic Whitewash)
  
• 4/21/1964 Dr. Joseph R. Dolce and Dr. Frederick W. Light Jr, associated with the Biophysics Division at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, along with Dr. Alfred G. Olivier (a veterinarian and chief of the division) appeared at a Warren Commission conference, along with Parkland doctors Shaw and Gregory, several FBI agents, Rankin, McCloy, Norman Redlich, Specter, Belin and Eisenberg. (Eisenberg memo 4/22/1964; McKnight, Breach of Trust) They viewed the Z-film. Dolce believed that Connally was hit by two separate bullets, and that CE399 was too pristine to have broken bones. Olivier withheld his view until he could make some tests on animal tissue and bone with the Carcano rifle.
  
• 4/21/1964 The Parkland doctors view the Zapruder film. During his second Commission interview on 4/21/64, Dr. Shaw said, "I feel that there would be some difficulty in explaining all of the wounds [both Kennedy and Connally had sustained] being inflicted by bullet Exhibit 399 without causing more in the way of loss of substance to the bullet or deformation of the bullet." Appearing with Dr. Shaw, and next to be questioned before the Commission, Dr. Gregory was treated to Specter's famous begged question about the throat wound that asked him to assume one bullet had done all the damage. Despite Specter's clear signals, Gregory, who, like Shaw, had also seen the additional evidence, remained skeptical. He answered, "I am not persuaded that this [the Single Bullet Theory] is very probable ...."
  
• 4/21/1964 Gov. John Connally testified before the WC today that he was hit by a different bullet than the one that hit JFK.
  
• 422/1964 LBJ announced that the railroad negotiators had reached a compromise to avoid a strike.
  
• 4/22/1964 Ruby's lawyers file a motion to have Ruby hospitalized; Judge Brown overrules the motion. THE STATE OF TEXAS vs. JACK RUBENSTEIN -- Defense counsel files motion for the hospitalization of Jack Ruby. Judge Brown overrules motion.
  
• 4/22/1964 Trip to Mexico City (Slawson memo for the record)
  
• 4/22/1964 Melvin A. Eisenberg memo for the record (Conference of April 14, 1964, to determine which frames in the Zapruder movies show the impact of the first and second bullets): "In a discussion after the conference, Drs. Light and Dolce expressed themselves as being very strongly of the opinion that Connally had been hit by two different bullets, principally on the ground that the bullet recovered from Connally's stretcher could not have broken his radius without having suffered more distortion. Dr. Oliver withheld a conclusion until he has had the opportunity to make tests on animal tissue and bone with the actual rifle."
  
• 4/22/1964 The Warren Commission got a lot of vague runaround regarding how the CIA knew what it was telling them during the early months of 1964, until finally in April three staffers were sent by the Commission to Mexico City to try and get some harder information. But even the seventy-page internal report of this trip, written by David Slawson in April 1964 but not released until 1996, never directly says that the tapes had been listened to, instead referring to transcripts: "Mr. Scott's narrative of course took a rather long time to complete, and we interrupted him at many points with specific questions. During the course of the narrative we were shown the actual transcripts, plus the translations, of all the telephone intercepts involved, and we were also shown the reels of photographs for all the days in question that had been taken secretly outside the Cuban and Soviet Embassy entrances" [David Slawson Warren Commission report entitled "Trip to Mexico City", 4-22-64, RIF #104-10011-10097].
  
• 4/22/1964 CE 864,868: Rankin letters to FBI and CIA asking for "any information hitherto not disclosed to this Commission concerning the association of Lee Harvey Oswald with any Communist or subversive organization or individual either in the United States or abroad, or with any criminal or criminal groups either in the United States or abroad." No mention was made of Cuban exile groups. (H 17 857,864)
  
• 4/23/1964 Bill Hunter is killed in a Police Station in Long Beach, California. He was one of five men who met in Jack Ruby's apartment after visiting him in jail a few hours after he shot LHO. Of the five men, (Jim Martin, George Senator, Tom Howard, Jim Koethe & Bill Hunter) three are murdered within a year. Hunter dies in an "accidental shooting" when a police officer claims he drops his gun and it goes off when it hits the floor. This statement is later changed when the trajectory of the bullet shows that it did not come from the floor. The incident is quietly covered up and forgotten. Hunter covered the Kennedy assassination more or less on a lark. He was a police reporter for the Long Beach paper and a good one, with a knack for getting along with cops. He drank with them, played cards with them in the press room---he was a sharp and lucky player---and they would often call him at home when a story broke. Hunter was a big man, described by friends as rough, jovial, "very physical," with an attractive wife and three children. There was no real need for the Long Beach paper to send a reporter to Dallas, but Hunter, who grew up there, managed to promote a free trip for himself with the city desk. In Dallas he ran into Jim Koethe, with whom he had worked in Wichita Falls, Texas. Koethe asked him to come along to the meeting in Ruby's apartment; they arrived to find Senator and Tom Howard having a drink. Bill Hunter was killed just after midnight on the morning of April 23, 1964---only a few hours after George Senator testified before Warren Commission counsel that he "could not recall" the meeting in Ruby's apartment. Hunter was seated at his desk in the press room of the Long Beach public safety building when detective Creighton Wiggins Jr. and his partner burst into the room. A single bullet fired from Wiggins' gun struck Hunter in the heart, killing him almost instantly. The mystery novel he was reading, entitled Stop This Man!, slipped blood-spattered from his fingers. Wiggins' story underwent several changes. His final version was that he and his partner had been playing cops and robbers with guns drawn when his gun started to slip from his hand and went off. The two officers were convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Sentence was suspended. There were so many contradictions in Wiggins' testimony that Bill Shelton, Hunter's city editor and old friend from Texas, is "still not satisfied" with the official verdict. He declines to comment about any possible connection between Hunter's death and the Kennedy assassination. "But I'd believe anything," he says. It is a curious footnote that Shelton's brother Keith was among the majority of Dallas newspapermen who found it expedient to leave their jobs after covering the assassination. Keith was president of the Dallas Press Club and gave up a promising career as political columnist for the Times-Herald to settle in a small north Texas town. One reporter who was asked to resign put it this way: "It looks like a studied effort to remove all the knowledgeable newsmen who covered the assassination." (Penn Jones)
  
• 4/24/1964 McNamara was asked by reporters what he thought about the war being called "McNamara's War" by Sen. Wayne Morse. He replied, "I must say, I don't object to its being called McNamara's War. I think it is a very important war and I am pleased to be identified with it and do whatever I can to win it."
  
• 4/24/1964 McNamara announced the closing of another 63 military bases/installations, which would save $68 million a year.
  
• 4/24/1964 Socorro, New Mexico: a highway patrolman, Lonnie Zamora, witnesses a flying saucer land nearby; it rested on tripod legs, leaving traces on the ground. Zamora was reluctant to tell anyone about it; he first talked to a priest because he thought he might have seen something diabolical. The craft carries an insignia on its side; Zamora's description of it prompts Jacques Vallee to think that it "looks very much like the logo of Astropower, a subsidiary of the Douglas Aircraft Corporation. I found the logo in an ad they recently published in an engineering journal…To my knowledge there has never been a genuine report of a saucer with an insignia painted on the side. Could the Socorro object be a military prototype?" (Forbidden Science p118)
  
• 4/24/1964 Cuba claimed U-2 flights had violated its airspace 546 times since 1/1/1963.
  
• 4/24/1964 Story by Hugh Aynesworth in the Dallas Morning News claimed that FBI Agent Hosty knew before the assassination that Oswald was a communist and "was capable of assassinating the president, but we didn't dream he would do it." The source for this was Jack Revill. The story quoted Curry as saying that if the police had known about Oswald "we would have been sitting on his lap." Detective Sgt. H.M. Hart later told Hosty that the police didn't have anyone - Right or Left - under surveillance when the President came to town. (Assignment Oswald p119) The FBI tried to respond by using FBI-friendly Felix McKnight at the Dallas Times Herald. Meanwhile, Hosty took a UPI reporter's call and said Aynesworth's story was completely false. Hoover was livid that Hosty kept stepping into the media spotlight.
  
• 4/24/1964 memo from Eisenberg to Redlich, Specter, Belin: 1. My memos of the conferences of April 14, 1964, and April 21, 1964, designate the frames in the Zapruder film which portray or may portray the impact of the first and second bullets. My memo of earlier conferences designated the frames in the Zapruder, Nix, and Muchmore films which portray the impact of the third shot. In order to translate these determinations into actual distances, it appears to me to be necessary to go to Dallas. 2. The first step to take in Dallas is to place viewfinders on the spots at which Zapruder, Nix and Muchmore were standing, and place a replica car, bearing six occupants on Elm Street. The replica car should then be positioned so that, viewed through the viewfinders, the relationship between the actual car and the landmarks on November 22, as shown in the designated frames. 3. Pictures should be made showing the car (positioned under paragraph 2) from the following vantage points: (a) the spots at which the photographers were standing; (b) a point in the TSBD approximating the point at which the muzzle of the rifle was located; and © several point on the overpass. Still pictures, and moving pictures taken through the cameras actually used by Zapruder, Nix, and Muchmore should be taken from vantage point (a). Two sets of still pictures, one through a 4x telescopic sight, should be taken from vantage points (b) and ©. 4. Tapes should then be laid on Elm Street over the points or ranges at which the President and Governor were located when the three shots struck. Each tape should be marked to show every designated frame, and at the first tape should also be marked at the point where the President first became visible from vantage point (b) after emerging from behind the tree. On-the-street measurements should then be taken of the distances (i) from the marked points on each tape to the marked points on every other tape and (ii) from the marked points on each tape to the mid-point of a line connecting the southeast and southwest curbs of Elm street. 5. The position of the tapes and all marked points thereon should then be mapped on a survey, and the lengths of the various possible trajectories should be measured by the surveyor on a trigonometric basis, measuring from the point at which the muzzle was probably located to the beginning, end, and marked points of each tape. The surveyor should also determine the angle each trajectory makes with the horizontal. Copies of the surveyor's work-sheets and calculations should be sent to us. 6. The steps outlined herein are not to be deemed as exclusive. In particular, an attempt should be made to photograph various relative positions of the persons simulating the President and Governor Connally with a view to determining whether the first bullet probably did or did not hit the Governor as well as the President.
  
• 4/25/1964 Jack Ruby tried to electrocute himself with the light fixture in his cell.
  
• 4/25/1964 At a news conference after his appointment, Commander William Westmoreland stated: "It is inconceivable that the Viet Cong could ever defeat the armed forces of South Vietnam."
  
• 4/27/1964 LBJ told the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington that it was essential to combat poverty.
  
• 4/27/1964 Hoover letter to Rankin enclosing an affidavit from Hosty denying that he had ever said to Revill that Oswald was capable of killing JFK. (CE 831)
  
• 4/27/1964 US Army Wound Ballistics did further tests on the Carcano rifle. Specter recalled that their purpose was to determine if the rifle had enough penetrating power to fire a bullet through two objects, but they found this "too complicated" and so bullets were not fired through more than one object at a time. (Inquest 97) United States Army wound ballistics experts conduct further tests on the 6th floor rifle. Arlen Specter, who supervises these tests, says that their primary purpose is to determine the penetrating power of the bullets, and specifically whether or not the bullets would penetrate a second object after exiting from the initial object.
  
• 4/27/1964 THE STATE OF TEXAS vs. JACK RUBENSTEIN -- Defense counsel files a request for a sanity hearing.
  
• 4/27/1964 Jimmy Hoffa goes on trial in Chicago beginning today. By this year, employers are shoveling $6 million a month into Hoffa's Teamster pension fund, the assets of which now exceed $200 million. Hoffa so dominates the pension fund's board of directors that he alone decides where to put out capital, normally at below-market interrest to guarantee a maximum of political and commercial leverage. Over 60 percent is in real estate, most of it speculative. From this fund, there are sizable loans to Clint Murchison Sr. and Junior. I. Irving Davidson borrows $5 million for a D.C. hotel. (Davidson and Murray Chotiner, the mob lawyer who will eventually mastermind Richard Nixon into the presidency and wind up with a White House office, are linked by longstanding bonds to Carlos Marcello.) In July, Hoffa will be convicted on four counts for conspiring to defraud and doliciting kickbacks while granting fourteen loans. Hoffa will receive a five-year sentence, to run consecutively with the eight years awaiting him for jury tampering. RFK later remarks: "If I get to be president, Jimmy Hoffa will never get out of jail and there will be a lot more of them in jail."
  
• 4/27/1964 United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar formed.
  
• 4/27/1964 Memo from Norman Redlich to J. Lee Rankin said "Our report presumably will state that the President was hit by the first bullet, Governor Connally by the second, and the President by the third and fatal bullet. The report will also conclude that the bullets were fired by one person located in the sixth floor southeast corner window of the TSBD building. As our investigation now stands, however, we have not shown that these events could possibly have occurred in the manner suggested above. All we have is a reasonable hypothesis which appears to be supported by the medical testimony but which has not been checked out against the physical facts at the scene of the assassination. Our intention is not to establish the point with complete accuracy, but merely to substantiate the hypothesis which underlies the conclusions that Oswald was the sole assassin." He expressed concern about proving the physical possibility of the shooting: "Our failure to do this will, in my opinion, place this Report in jeopardy since it is a certainty that others will examine the Zapruder films [sic] and raise the same questions which have been raised by our examination of the films....I should add that the facts which we now have in our possession, submitted to us in separate reports from the FBI and Secret Service, are totally incorrect and, if left uncorrected, will present a completely misleading picture." (Photographic Whitewash)
  
• 4/28/1964 LBJ had business leaders over for a black-tie dinner. They included William Battens of J.C. Penney, Roger Blough of US Steel, Gussie Busch of Anheuser-Busch, Henry Ford II, Crawford Greenewalt of E.I. duPont, Frederick Kappels of AT&T, Tom McCabe of Scott Paper, David Rockefeller, James S. Rockefeller, Bob Stevens (formerly in the Ike administration), Walter Touhy of C&O Railway. (White House Diary p127)
  
• 4/29/1964 THE STATE OF TEXAS vs. JACK RUBENSTEIN -- Judge Brown refuses to allow the defense's second amended motion for a new trial to stand and refuses to hear witnesses on the motion for a new trial. Defense's motion for a new trial is overruled and notice of appeal is filed with the Court of Criminal Appeals.
  
• 4/29/1964 6:26PM LBJ makes a phone call to Abe Fortas. (Act of Treason 527)
  
• 4/30/1964 Letter from Hoover to WC, enclosing a 22-page report on the tracing of all documents relating to the Carcano C2766 rifle. "...the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was manufactured in Italy from 1891 until 1941; however, in the 1930s Mussolini ordered all arms factories to manufacture the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. Since many concerns were manufacturing the same weapon, the same serial number appears on weapons manufactured by more than one concern. Some bear a letter prefix and some do not." (CE 2562)
  
• 4/30/1964 Letter from Hoover to Rankin, assuring him that the FBI has already provided all material on Oswald's possible ties "with any...criminals or criminal groups either in the United States or abroad." (H 17 858)
  
• 4/30/1964 FBI document specialist James Cadigan testified again today.
  
• 4/30/1964 Arlen Specter memo - he wrote, "It is indispensable that we obtain the photographs and x-rays" from the autopsy. Rankin didn't tell Specter that he already had possession of the autopsy materials. (Never Again, Weisberg p64)
  
• 4/30/1964 In an oral history recording, RFK told John Bartlow Martin that JFK had felt "we should win the war" and there had been no consideration of pulling out of Vietnam. Arthur Schlesinger says that RFK was barely kept informed of JFK's real feelings about the war. Of the 8/24/1963 cable authorizing anti-Diem actions in Saigon, RFK said that his brother thought the cable "had been approved by McNamara and Maxwell Taylor and everybody else, which it had not...I became much more intimately involved in it then." He recalled that "the government was split in two" over whether to oust Diem. He said that his brother didn't want to remove Diem unless they could be sure that the government that replaced him would be better. (RFK and his Times 748, 768) In 1964, RFK did an oral history interview where he recalled that in late 1963, "there were a lot of stories that my brother and I were interested in dumping Lyndon Johnson and that I'd started the Bobby Baker case in order to give us a handle to dump Lyndon Johnson...there was no plan to dump Lyndon Johnson. That didn't make any sense...I hadn't gotten really involved in the Bobby Baker case until after a good number of newspaper stories had appeared about it...Abe Fortas was his lawyer." In an oral history this year, RFK recalled that reporter William Lambert found out that Hoover stayed in a hundred-dollar-a-day suite in Florida every year and it was paid for by Clint Murchison.
  
• 4/30/1964 Castro says that his forces will shoot at US reconnaissance planes flying over Cuba.
  
• 4/30/1964 WC executive session. The Commissioners were surprised that LHO was not on the Secret Service's PRS alert list. Rankin and Dulles discussed how much biographical material on Oswald to include in the Report; Rankin said, "Some of it will be necessary to tell the story and to show why it is reasonable to assume that he did what the Commission concludes that he did." Because of ongoing controversy regarding the allegations of Oswald's informant status and intelligence connections, the Commission decided to take testimony on the matter from senior officials of the FBI and CIA. The Commission also discussed preparations for a visit to Dallas to see the assassination site. Commissioners also discussed the voluminous testimony taken by staff and the upcoming early portions of the report being drafted. There was also discussion of conspiracy allegations by Thomas Buchanan and Mark Lane, as well as all of Europe, and the need to "search these out and attack them." Regarding publishing Commission exhibits to accompany the Report, Dulles said "I don't think anybody would pay any attention to it to begin with." A discussion of the need to obtain the autopsy photographs included Rankin's statement that "I think that the Attorney General would make them available now -- although they were denied to us before because he said that he didn't think that there was a sufficient showing of our need." The Commission already had possession of the autopsy photos, what was at issue was the desire, as Rankin put it, "to avoid those pictures being a part of our record."