Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

• Early May 1964 Rankin told the staffers to "wrap up" their work and submit their final reports by 6/1; the deadline for release of the Report was 6/30. (Inquest)
  
• 5/1964 China publishes the compilation of Quotations from Chairman Mao (Mao zhuxi yulu, the 'Little Red Book').
  
• 5/1964 Some excerpts from the National Enquirer article by John Henshaw, Enquirer Washington Bureau Chief: Washington--The hottest story making the rounds here is that the U.S. Justice Department prevented the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby BEFORE the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Oswald and the man who killed him, Ruby, were suspect of being partners in crime seven months before the President's death. The incredible details of the story are so explosive that officials won't even answer "no comment" when queried about it But the story being discussed by top-level government officials reveals: 1. That the Justice Department deliberately kept Oswald and Ruby out of jail before the assassination. 2. That Dallas cops suspected Oswald of being the gunman and Ruby the paymaster in a plot to murder former Major General A. Walker--seven months before the President was assassinated. 3. That the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was using Ruby to recruit commandos for raids against Castro's Cuba. To prevent this explosive information from being disclosed, the CIA asked the Justice Dept. to step in and stop the Dallas police from arresting Jack Ruby, as well as Oswald. A top-secret document--a letter signed by a high official of the Justice Dept.--was sent in April 1963 from the Justice Dept. to Dallas Chief of Police Jesse E. Curry requesting the Dallas police NOT to arrest Oswald and Ruby in connection with the attempted slaying of General Walker. After a snipter shot at, but missed, General Walker in Dallas, April 10, 1963, Dallas police suspected that Oswald was the sniper and Ruby the payoff man. The cops were set to arrest the pair. But they never got the chance because of the heavy pressure brought to bear by the Justice Dept. And so Oswald and Ruby were allowed to remain free. An seven months later, on last November 22 in Dallas, Oswald was able to kill the President of the United States. The top-secret document--a copy of it is reportedly in the hands of the Presidential commission investigating the assassination--bares a web of intrigue that involves the Federal Bureau of Investigation, along with the Justice Dept. and the Central Intelligence Agency. It is so politically explosive that the Presidential commission, headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warrent, has even withheld it from one of its own members, Senator Richard Russell (D., Ga.). It is feared that Senator Russell, who leads the South in the fight against the civil rights bill, might use the document against the Justice Dept. and its chief, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, a leader in the fight for civil rights. The document--requesting the cops not to arrest Ruby and Oswald--contradicts the FBI report on the assassination and the subsequent murder of Oswald.
  
• 5/1964 Haynes Johnson's book The Bay of Pigs is published by WW Norton, written with help from Cuban exile leaders. RFK, in a 1964 oral history interview, called it "a pretty accurate account."
  
• 5/1964 This month, RFK writes to J. Edgar Hoover on the occasion of his fortieth anniversary in the job, lamenting that "In the past few months I have not had the pleasure of associating with you as closely as formerly. I regret this but would not want this occasion to pass without congratulating you on this milestone and wishing you well in the future." Privately, Hoover will announce to friends: "I didn't speak to Bobby Kennedy that last six months he was in office."
  
• 5/1964 Thomas Buchanan's book Who Killed Kennedy? is published. Buchanan became very interested in the JFK assassination and took copious notes on it. A friend, formerly of the French Communist party, showed them to a coeditor of L'Express, which then turned them into a series of six articles during February and March of 1964. It was published in May in book form. A revised American edition late in 1964 also discussed the findings of the WC.
  
• 5/1/1964 CE 2766 letter from the program director of the International Rescue Committee, Inc., to Rankin. He stated that his group first heard of Oswald's request for a travel loan in a phone call from the State Department's Special Consular Service, recommending assistance to Oswald. "A few days later we received a letter from Mrs. Harwell of the Wilberger County Chapter, Vernon, Texas [Red Cross], dated January 14, 1962, to which, to the best of my recollection were attached copies of a letter written by Consul Norbury, American Embassy, Moscow, to Lee Harvey Oswald, dated December 14, 1961, and of a letter addressed to the International Rescue Committee, dated January 13, 1961 [sic; should be 1962], and ostensibly written by Oswald...To a layman's eye it would appear that both copies were typed on the same typewriter. I do not know who added the handwritten words, 'Mrs Helen Harwell, Executive Secretary, American Red Cross,' to the Norbury copy. What is most puzzling, although it did not then attract my attention, is that the letter from Oswald, dated January 13, could have reached the United States by January 14, and that it reached us via Texas....On or about February 5, 1962, we did receive a handwritten letter directly from Oswald, dated January 26, which makes no reference to a previous communication of his..."
  
• 5/2/1964 The New Republic commented, "LBJ has been hurling himself about Washington like an elemental force. To be plain about it, he has won our admiration in the last fortnight."
  
• 5/2/1964 In the first major student demonstration against the war, hundreds of students march through Times Square in New York City, while another 700 march in San Francisco. Smaller numbers also protest in New York; Seattle; and Madison, Wisconsin.
  
• 5/3/1964 Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers issued an "Imperial Executive Order" to the Klan: "The military and political situation as regards the enemy has now reached the crisis stage. Our best students of enemy strategy and technique are in almost complete agreement that the events which will occur in Mississippi this summer may well determine the fate of Christian Civilization for centuries to come….This summer, within a very few days, the enemy will lauch his final push for victory here in Mississippi…[using] Agitation, Force by Federal Troops, and Communist Propaganda." He recommended using secretive, hit and run guerilla tactics against individuals rather than trying to oppose federal troops.
  
• 5/4/1964 CE 869 CIA replied to Rankin's 4/22/1964 letter saying that it knew of no ties Oswald had with communist or criminal conspirators.
  
• 5/4/1964 South Vietnam: Gen. Khanh met with Lodge; he changed his mind about attacking the North and called for warning Hanoi that further support of communists in the South would lead to reprisals. Lodge agreed.
  
• 5/5/1964 J. Edgar Hoover leaks derogatory information on Warren Commission staff assistant Norman Redlich to the press. Hoover's supporters immediately call for suspension of the Commission's proceedings until all staff members can be subjected to "full security investigations" by the Bureau. The ferocity of Hoover's attack stuns the Commission, which in turn apparently makes the decision to force J. Lee Rankin to abandon his plan of confronting the Director under oath with both his April 30 denial and Bureau reports suggesting Mafia complicity in the JFK assassination. (Act of Treason) Hoover launches a covert attack on Rankin and his assistants "by seeing to it that derogatory information on…Redlich reached a group of reactionary Congressmen." "[Senator] Mundt demanded that the Warren Commission suspend the taking of all further testimony and hold up on all writing of its report to the American public until Redlich and others on the Commission staff faced the challenge of obtaining complete security clearances.' (Seth Kantor, Who Was Jack Ruby?; Act of Treason) Far-right GOP Congressman Ralph F. Beermann (Nebraska) said on the floor of the House that communists were trying to distort the evidence to place the blame for the assassination on anti-communists. He cited Norman Redlich as an example of the kind of subversives being used by the WC, "despite his known Communist-front affiliations."
  
• 5/5/1964 Secret Service report of 5 May 1964. Miami inquiries regarding several people associated with the Odio story, including Father Walter Machann, turned up blank. Weisberg notes that Machann had been in New Orleans and interviewed by the Secret Service during this period.
  
• 5/5/1964 Secret Service memo to Commission of 5 May 1964. This memo is a report on the interview of Father Machann, who provided information about Sylvia Odio and various other Cubans in Dallas.
  
• 5/5/1964 Nearly a month after their Mexico City trip, these Warren Commission staffers had apparently kept every single Commissioner in the dark about the CIA's sources and methods. Besides the three staffers (Slawson, Coleman, and Willens), apparently only Commission Counsel J. Lee Rankin had been told. A Memo for the Record written by CIA's Thomas Hall of a May 5, 1964 meeting with Slawson notes that: According to Mr. Slawson, only Messrs. Rankin, Willens, Coleman (?) and he presently know of the telephone taps in Mexico City. Slawson, Willens and Coleman were briefed on the taps during their visit to Mexico City.…According to Mr. Slawson, no member of the Commission now knows of the telephone taps in Mexico City (he did not mention Mr. Dulles). Mr. [******** ] carefully briefed Mr. Slawson (probably rebriefed him) on the importance of these telephone taps to U.S. security and the grave damage that would be done to U.S. - Mexican relations if knowledge of their existence became public. Mr. Slawson quite clearly was a bit unhappy that certain information could not be used, since the taps were the only source. Oswald's very bad Russian was the example he used. I asked what opinion Mrs. Oswald had of her husband's Russian. She thought that he spoke it very well [MFR of Thomas Hall of meeting with David Slawson, 5-5-64, at RIF #104-10404-10115].
  
• 5/5/1964 Richard Case Nagell testified at his trial and was vague about his background; he said that 1958 he had been "loaned" by Military Intelligence to "another intelligence agency" for assignments in Hong Kong, Formosa, Korea and Japan. He said the robbery attempt had been a "temporary solution" to an "unbearable problem." (The Man Who Knew Too Much p62-63).
  
• 5/5/1964 Rankin writes to Hoover asking him about allegations that Oswald and Ruby were involved in the Walker shooting. There was a recent National Enquirer article alleging the same. (H 17 855)
  
• 5/5/1964 At 5:22pm LBJ tapes a message for Hoover. (Act of Treason 528)
  
• 5/6/1964 FBI Asst. director Alan Belmont appeared before the WC. Warren refuses to accept Belmont's offer of Oswald's FBI file because he didn't want to have to make it available to the public. Rankin wanted to obtain the file, but not allow the staff to view it. (Epstein, Inquest)
  
• 5/6/1964 David Belin told Earl Warren 5/6/1964 (H 5 1), "We have a report from an FBI document that states Roy Truly when interviewed on November 22, advised that "it is possible Oswald did see him with a rifle in his hands within the past few days," that is as of November 22, "as a Mr. Warren Caster, employed by Southwestern Publishing Co., which company has an office in the same building, had come to his office with two rifles, one was a .22 caliber rifle which Caster said he had purchased for his son, and the other a larger more high-powered rifle which Caster said he had purchased with which to go deer hunting if he got a chance," and Truly said that he examined the high-powered rifle and raised it to his shoulder and sighted over it and then returned it to Caster and Caster left with both rifles. Then Truly went on to state that he does not own a rifle and has had no other rifle in his hands or in his possession for a long-period of time. Now because of the problem that did arise, I believe the staff will promptly go down to Dallas to take the deposition of both Mr. Truly and Mr. Caster to fully get this in deposition form and find out where these rifles were as of November 22."
  
• 5/6/1964 A letter to the Warren commission from J. Edgar Hoover states: "Reference is made to my letter dated April 2, 1964, which enclosed copies of a memorandum revealing the results of a reinterview with Mrs. Jean Lollis Hill. Mrs. Hill commented she observed a white man, wearing a brown raincoat and a hat, running west away from the Texas School Book Depository Building following the shooting. Mrs. Hill did not closely observe this individual; did not know who he was; and never saw him again. Mrs. Hill described this man as "average height and heavy build." Additional investigation has been conducted by this Bureau endeavoring to identify this individual. This investigation included a review of all available film taken near the Texas School Book Depository Building following the shooting; a reexamination of the results of all interviews with individuals who were in the vicinity of the shooting; a review of an additional film taken by Mr. Thomas P. Alyea, WFAA-TV newsman; and interviews with Dallas Police Department and Dallas County Sheriff's Office personnel, none of which revealed the identity of the man described by Mrs. Hill. Investigative results appear on pages 43 through 49 in the report of Special Agent Robert P. Gemberling dated April 15, 1964. This report was furnished to you by letter dated May 4, 1964, and no further action is being taken in this matter."
  
• 5/6/1964 Hale Boggs makes a phone call to LBJ at 6:44pm. (Act of Treason 528)
  
• 5/6/1964 Nagell is found guilty by a jury of intent to rob a bank. In early June he is sentenced by Judge Homer Thornberry to ten years "with the provision that he may be released at any time the US Bureau of Paroles decides."
  
• 5/6/1964 Agent Hosty met with Hoover; he told Hosty that he liked LBJ and had liked JFK, but was "disgusted" by RFK. Hoover gleefully told Hosty that at lunch that day LBJ had said he would waive the mandatory retirement rule for the FBI director. Hosty recalled later that he was sure Kennedy wanted Hoover to retire at 70. Hoover also explained that his sources on the WC said that only Warren and McCloy wanted to blame the FBI for its mishandling of Oswald, though it would turn out that Cooper and Dulles would join in on the criticism. The Director rambled on, telling Hosty about "all his good friends in the Texas oil business"; he also said that Hosty should not talk to the press before the WR was released. (Assignment Oswald p153-6)
  
• 5/7/1964 J. Lee Rankin letter to Hoover: "This commission has been making a careful study of the various motion picture films taken at the scene of the assassination. In this project we have had the valuable assistance of members your Bureau, particularly Inspector James Malley, Inspector Leo Gauthier and Special Agent Lyndal A. Shaneyfelt. As a result of the information obtained from these films, the Commission would like the cooperation of your Bureau in the performance of certain additional investigation at the scene of the assassination. I will personally be available to supervise this work and will have such other staff members present as may be deemed necessary. We would hope to be able to perform this work in Dallas on May 18 and May 19. The purpose of this letter is to set forth the steps which we feel are necessary to properly complete this project."
  
• 5/8/1964 Johnson unveiled Executive Order 10682 in a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House; it waived the compulsory retirement rule for civil servants, due to take effect when Hoover turned 70 in January 1965. He promised Hoover he could stay in office "for an indefinite period of time...a hero to millions of citizens and an anathema to evil men." There was also a ceremony in the Rose Garden honoring his 40th anniversary as Director. Johnson said he signed the order because the nation needed Hoover. "I know you wouldn't think of breaking the law," LBJ told him, describing him as a "household word, a hero to millions of citizens and an anathema to evil men." (NYT 5/9/64) Later that day Hoover wrote LBJ a gushing thank-you letter. In early May '64, Bill Moyers told Ben Bradlee that Hoover was going to be replaced: "We finally got the bastard. Lyndon told me to find his replacement." The leak became widely known, and Bradlee openly began preparing a Newsweek cover story. When LBJ reappointed Hoover, Johnson told Moyers, "You call up Ben Bradlee and tell him, 'Fuck you.'" Bradlee would later recall that people would blame him for Hoover's reappointment. (All the President's Men p289; The Man and the Secrets p560-1)
  
• 5/8/1964 Gary Underhill dies of a gunshot wound to the head. He is found shot in the left side of his head. Underhill is right handed. Ruled a suicide. He is a CIA agent who has claimed the agency was involved in JFK's death.
  
• 5/8/1964 Leon Jaworski writes letter to J. Lee Rankin. In 1976, this letter is missing from National Archives.
  
• 5/8/1964 Hoover responded to Rankin's May 5th letter: "[Dallas Police Chief] Curry was interviewed on May 7…at which time [the National Enquirer] article was exhibited to him…Curry read the entire article after which he advised as follows: Prior to the assassination of President Kennedy neither he nor his Department had ever heard of…Oswald…Curry had no information linking Oswald and Ruby to the plot to shoot General Walker…Curry emphatically stated he…had never been requested by any official of the FBI not to arrest Oswald or Ruby…The files of this Bureau do not contain any reference that an FBI official was asked to request the Dallas Police not to arrest Oswald or Ruby." (H 17 855)
  
• 5/8/1964 Miami FBI agent James J. O'Connor's summary of his investigation into Oswald's ties to Cubans: "Title: Lee Harvey Oswald. Character: Internal Security - R - Cuba. Synopsis: Newspaper articles and investigation set forth concerning Fernando Fernandez, mentioned by Carlos Bringuier...Also set forth is article from magazine Bohemia Internacional, issue of 2/2/64 wherein allegation is made that Fidel Castro, during a speech on 11/27/63, committed a slip of the tongue in stating 'The first time Oswald was in Cuba...' Employee of USIA, Miami, stated that although all public speeches of Castro are monitored, no such slip of the tongue has been detected. He furnished a translation of Castro's speech 11/27/63; however no remark was noted implying that Oswald visited Cuba." (Oswald in New Orleans p150)
  
• 5/12/1964 Twelve young men in New York publicly burn their draft cards to protest the Vietnam war.
  
• 5/12/1964 Arlen Specter memo listing the things that should be done "when the autopsy photographs and X-rays are examined..." But they never were examined by the WC staff. (Never Again p64)
  
• 5/12/1964 J. Edgar Hoover raises the possibility to the Warren Commission that Oswald was a Soviet "sleeper" agent.
  
• 5/13/1964 McNamara and Khanh met in Saigon; Khanh equivocated on attacking the North.
  
• 5/13/1964 When the testimony from Robert Frazier turned to positive scientific identifications of the bullet and fragments in the Commission's possession on Wednesday, May 13, 1964 (5H58ff.), all he said of them was that they were of lead.
  
• 5/13/1964 CIA Counterintelligence Chief James Jesus Angleton calls FBI Domestic Intelligence chief William C. Sullivan to suggest that the FBI, like the CIA, carefully rehearse the testimony of its top officials before the Warren Commission. Angleton says that "it would be well for both McCone and Hoover to be aware that the Commission might ask the same questions, wondering whether they would get different replies from the heads of the two agencies."
  
• 5/13/1964 Recorded telephone conversation between Richard Russell, Lyndon B. Johnson and B. Everett Jordan (13th May, 1964)
  

Richard Russell: I'm mighty sorry I couldn't go to Georgia with you but you had a fine reception down there.
Lyndon B. Johnson: Aw, couldn't have been better. I missed you. That was the only thing wrong with the trip.
Richard Russell: I had to talk to the junior chamber of commerce.. I'm all right with the old ones. I'll never get back in with the young women, but I'm trying to get back in with the young men...
Richard Russell: Now listen, I'm down here with Everett Jordan and he's sweating blood about this danged Bobby Baker thing. They had a hell of a big revival of it up here today. ... It looks to me like they're just trying to keep the damned thing open. . . . Everett is greatly bothered about it. ... He asked me to come down here, said he had to have some help. I don't know how to help him.
B. Everett Jordan: I'm worried. They made a hell of a fight on this thing on the floor today.... They've already said they're going to drag Walter Jenkins down here. Of course, I know they can't, but you'd have to stop it. That'd be embarrassing... They want to get into campaign expenses. Baker putting out money to Senators, controlling who was going on committees.... It's the damnedest mess you ever saw. The press just eats it up. ... I need some help and I need it bad... If you'd call Mike...
Lyndon B. Johnson: I'm not the one to call Mike. ... If I had any influence with Mike, he never would have fired Bobby.
B. Everett Jordan: What about Hubert?
Lyndon B. Johnson: I'm afraid to say I'll talk to anybody 'cause they'll say the White House is calling. . . . But I'll do what I can.
Richard Russell: Dirksen... of course, if it looks like there's going to be an investigation, he's going to run like hell 'cause he's one of the last fellows up here that wants an investigation.
Lyndon B. Johnson: You ought to tell Dirksen that too, Dick. . . .
Richard Russell: I'm doing the best I can, Mr. President, but God knows, I've got a hell of a lot to do. I sat up last night till eleven-thirty reading the FBI reports on some son of a bitch - this fellow Rankin on the Warren Commission. Everybody's raising hell about him being a Communist and all, a left-winger. The FBI was investigating. Eight thousand pages of raw material. There ain't but twenty-four hours a day. 'Course, I know I'm talking to a man that's got a hell of a lot more to do than I have. You's the only man in Washington that does.

• 5/14/1964 The full Senate voted against further hearings on Baker; among those Senators who voted not to investigate further were Sam Ervin, Herman Talmadge, Dan Inouye, Birch Bayh, Robert Byrd, Frank Church, George McGovern, Howard Cannon, Mike Mansfield, and Ed Muskie.
  
• 5/14/1964 Robert F. Kennedy interviewed by John Bartlow Martin
  
• 5/14/1964 J. Edgar Hoover, John McCone and Richard Helms testify before the WC. The FBI would re-write much of Hoover's testimony to make it sound better and correct mistakes; in a 5/19 memo Belmont told Tolson that it was all the court reporter's fault: "...apparently the court reporter did not record the Director's testimony accurately in some instances." Hoover is asked (and answers) a mere one hundred questions - and reportedly commits at least three acts of perjury.
  
• 5/14/1964 TSBD employee Eddie Piper testifies to the WC again.
  
• 5/14/1964 Hubert/Griffin memo to Rankin imploring the WC to explore further the possibility of a conspiracy involving Ruby's killing of Oswald. They also urged that people like Tom Howard and Seth Kantor be deposed by the WC. It mentioned that Ed Bruner, Ruby's attorney, was reported to have met with Ruby three times in 1961 to discuss arms sales to Cuba. (Ruby Cover-up, Kantor p306) Assistant counsels to the Warren Commission Burt Griffin and Leon Hubert write in a memo to Rankin that "we believe that the possibility exists, based on evidence already available, that Ruby was involved in illegal dealings with Cuban elements who might have had contact with Oswald. The existence of such dealings can only be surmised since the present investigation has not focused on that area." They express concern that "Ruby had time to engage in substantial activities in addition to the management of his Clubs" and that "Ruby has always been a person who looked for moneymaking sidelines'." They suggest that since the Fort Worth manufacturer of the famous "Twist Board" Ruby was demonstrating the night after the assassination had no known sales, and was manufactured by an oil field equipment company, that "[t]he possibility remains that the twist board' was a front for some other illegal enterprise." But what Griffin and Hubert keep coming back to is that there is "much evidence" that Ruby "was interested in Cuban matters, citing his relationship to Louis McWillie; his attempted sale of jeeps to Castro, his reported attendance of meetings "in connection with the sale of arms to Cubans and the smuggling out of refugees"; and Ruby's quick correction of Wade's remark that Oswald was a member of the Free Cuba Committee, a group populated with such notables as Clare Booth Luce, Admiral Arleigh Burke, and Hal Hendrix. "Bits of evidence link Ruby to others who may have been interested in Cuban affairs." They recommend: "We suggest that these matters cannot be left hanging in the air.' They must either be explored further or a firm decision must be made not to do so supported by stated reasons for the decision." History has given us the commission's decision on this, but a clue to the motivation shows up in this same memo, in regards to Seth Kantor, who claimed to have seen Ruby at Parkland hospital around the time of Kennedy's death. "We must decide who is telling the truth, for there would be considerable significance if it would be concluded that Ruby is lying." The concern appears to be not what the truth is, but what the truth might mean if it is uncomfortably discovered. (Gunrunner Ruby and the CIA by Lisa Pease)
  
• 5/15/1964 Belin wrote in a memo about John McCloy complaining "that we did not point up enough arguments to show why Oswald was the assassin...we should be rather complete in developing reasons and affirmative statements why Oswald was the assassin - he did not believe that it should just merely be a factual restatement of what we had found."
  
• 5/15/1964 The CIA submitted a special report to the President calling the situation in Vietnam "extremely fragile" with continued deterioration of the South.
  
• 5/16/1964 Writing to LBJ about JFK and the Kennedy Library, Jacqueline Kennedy says: "It is so important to me that we build the finest memorial -- so no one will ever forget him -- and I shall always remember that you have helped the cause closest to my heart."
  
• 5/18/1964 In a sworn statement, CIA Director John McCone states that the CIA had never heard of Lee Harvey Oswald.
  
• 5/18/1964 Paul Rothermel memo to H.L. Hunt; it noted that Nelson Bunker Hunt had been interviewed by the FBI about the black-bordered anti-JFK ad. (Man Who Knew Too Much p590)
  
• 5/18/1964 LBJ requested from Congress $125 million more in aid for Vietnam.
  
• 5/19/1964 Letter from Rankin to Helms asking for a response to Ruby's background check. "At a meeting on March 12, 1964, between representatives of your Agency and this Commission a memorandum prepared by members of the Commission staff was handed to you which related to the background of Jack L. Ruby and alleged associates and/or activities with Cuba. At that time we requested that you review this information and submit to the Commission any information contained in your files regarding the matters covered in the memorandum, as well as any other analyses by your representatives which you believed might be useful to the Commission. As you know, this Commission is nearing the end of its investigation. We would appreciate hearing from you as soon as possible whether you are in a position to comply with this request in the near future." (part of CE 2980)
  
• 5/19/1964 A short affidavit signed by John Rene Heindel of New Orleans (dated today) reads: "I served in the United States Marine Corps from July 15, 1957 until July 15, 1961. I was stationed at Atsugi, Japan, with Lee Harvey Oswald ... While in the Marine Corps, I was often referred to as "Hidell" -- pronounced so as to rhyme with "Rydell." ... This was a nickname and not merely an inadvertent mispronunciation. It is possible that Oswald might have heard me being called by this name; indeed he may himself have called me "Hidell."
  
• 5/19/1964 WC meeting. The Commissioners discussed field reports on their staff, which included questions regarding the loyalty of Norman Redlich and Joseph Ball. Redlich was member of the Emergency Civil Liberties Council (ECLC), which was opposed to the House Un-American Activities Committee, which cited the ECLC as a Communist front organization. Joseph Ball had joined in a resolution denouncing the House Un-American Activities Committee. Rankin endorsed Ball, but said of Redlich: "He, apparently, is a born crusader." Ford, after praising Redlich, noted that the controversy "casts some shadow on what the Commission is doing" and recommended dismissal. In the lengthy discussion of Redlich that followed, Warren in an eloquent statement said the man deserved a trial "where he can defend himself" before action was taken to dismiss him. In the end, the Commission voted security clearances for all staff and kept Ball and Redlich on.
  
• 5/19/1964 US Department of Commerce prohibits shipping of medicines to Cuba.
  
• 5/20/1964 Jack Revill wrote Capt Gannaway (DPD Criminal Intelligence) the following memo: "On November 22, 1963, J.E. Curry...appeared on a television broadcast and made a statement to the effect that agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had prior information and knowledge regarding the subject, and that the subject was a communist. The source reportedly said that shortly after this appearance, Gordon Shanklin...received instructions from his superior in Washington DC to obtain a retraction of the above statement from Chief J.E. Curry. Gordon Shanklin was told that if he did not obtain this retraction, he would be terminated from the Bureau. Mr Shanklin visited Chief J.E. Curry and the following news release was made: Chief Curry stated that to 'his own personal knowledge, the FBI did not have any previous information regarding Lee Harvey Oswald nor about Oswald being a communist.'" (Killing the Truth p510-11)
  
• 5/20/1964 Rankin wrote Hoover complaining that Marina's testimony on the Walker case "was riddled with contradictions". FBI agent Gordon Shanklin then assigned two agents to Marina because he agreed that "her statements just don't jibe." (Breach of Trust p. 57)
  
• 5/20/1964 Texas Atty General Waggoner Carr wrote J. Lee Rankin, "May I also suggest that every effort be made to determine why Oswald was headed in the general direction of Ruby's house at the time he was intercepted by officer Tippit." (McBride, Into the Nightmare)
  
• 5/21/1964 World's first nuclear-powered lighthouse goes into operation in Baltimore, Maryland.
  
• 5/22/1964 LBJ, in a speech at the University of Michigan, articulated to the graduating students his vision of a "Great Society" of hope and opportunity for all Americans.
  
• 5/22/1964 J. Lee Rankin, Norman Redlich and Arlen Specter go to Dallas to conduct the reconstruction of the assassination.
  
• 5/24/1964 FBI/Secret Service reenactment in Dealey Plaza. They used the SS follow-up car instead of the presidential limo. Among those present were Shaneyfelt, Frazier, Rankin, Redlich and Specter. Color photos by Malcolm E. Barker have recently surfaced. A 21-minute film Assassination of President John F. Kennedy was produced, narrated by Jim Underwood and directed by John Joe Howlett and Talmadge Bailey. It was photographed by Eddie Barker, Jim Underwood, Henk Dewit, and KRLD-TV. It is doubtful this film was shown to the public at the time, since it features the unedited Zapruder film (in B&W). Specter had personally requested this reenactment, but the Commissioners agreed only if Rankin supervised it. (Epstein, Inquest) Stand-ins for JFK and Connally were used, and photos were taken through a telescopic sight from the "sniper's nest." It established that an oak tree blocked the view from the sixth-floor window between Zapruder frames 166 and 209, with a brief opening at frame 186. Later that afternoon, Specter did experiments in a local garage to try to recreate the trajectory of JFK's and Connally's wounds. Specter told Epstein that the main purpose of the whole recreation was to test the single-bullet theory. (Inquest) A photo from this re-enactment (in the NYT version of the WR) shows the location of JFK's back wound to be well below the shoulder and exiting from his chest. The FBI reenacts the assassination in Dealey Plaza for the purposes of establishing measurements and timing of events in comparison to the Zapruder film. They fail, however, to conduct any measurements between frames 255 and 313. After measuring in small increments by Zapruder frames down Elm Street, they jump 58 frames from 255 to 313. This is precisely the sequence where, when viewing the Zapruder film, the limousine reduced its speed significantly. At this point in the motorcade, it might be expected that the limo would have speeded up. The overall average speed is calculated, however, to be only 11.2 miles per hour. After making a slow turn onto Elm Street one suspect that the limo would have naturally picked up speed well beyond the average of 11.2 miles per hour. After all, the motorcade was essentially over, the crowds had thinned out, the freeway access was straight ahead, and the heavy vehicle was going down a three degree decline on Elm Street. It is important to also note that FBI agent Lyndal Shaneyfelt provides the Warren Commission with the limo's average speed as calculated only between frames 161 through 313. He will not provide any further information about speed between other frames. Measurements between frames 255 and 313 would have also included landmarks such as the street light by which comparisons could have been made for more accurate speed calculations. Also, the groundskeeper for Dealey Plaza, Emmett Hudson, testifies to the Warren Commission that "they have moved some of those signs" after the assassination. If the Stemmons freeway sign was moved, the question remains as to whether or not it was accurately repositioned before this date's reenactment by the FBI. The Secret Service vehicle, dubbed the Queen Mary, is used in all subsequent reenactments due to its continuous bench style seat that allows a wide latitude for the Connally stand-in to be positioned. The jump seats in the Presidential limousine were not bench style seats and would make the Connally positioning more difficult. This reenactment is later used as source material for the Warren Commission to make several critical determinations: 1) when JFK as well as Governor Connally were hit by bullets, 2) the exact location of the limousine when the occupants were struck, 3) the trajectories from the sixth floor window, 4) the Zapruder frames in which the oak tree obstructed the view of the motorcade from the sixth floor window, and 5) the speed of the limousine as it traveled down Elm Street. This reenactment is orchestrated by Arlen Specter to insure his single bullet theory will not be contradicted. It is important to remember that when the first Secret Service survey was made on December 5, 1963, the Warren Commission was meeting for their first time. As of that date Arlen Specter, the Commission lawyer handling this area of the investigation, had not yet developed the "single bullet theory" necessary for any lone gunman explanation. The introduction of this May 1964 survey plat comes wrapped and sealed in a container -- one which is never opened and to date has never been released to the public. It is Commission Counsel Arlen Specter who asks Chairman Earl Warren that the seal not be broken and the plat not be taken out of its container. Mr. Specter instead introduces what is represented as a cardboard reproduction of Mr. Robert West's survey as CE 883. Mr. West has since expressed astonishment that his May 1964 survey plat was introduced in a sealed container and commented on the altered data block that "whoever changed my numbers didn't even use a Leroy pen (a lettering guide) but did it freehand."
  
• 5/24/1964 In a once-secret, May 24, 1964 memo, Specter wrote Commission chief counsel J. Lee Rankin, advising that, "The films and X-rays should be viewed in conjunction with Commission Exhibit 389 (a photo of the frame of the Zapruder frame 312, taken immediately before the frame showing the head wound) (sic) and Commission exhibit 390 (the frame of the Zapruder film showing the head wound) (sic) to determine for certain whether the angle of declination is accurately depicted in Commission Exhibit 388 [Rydberg's image]."
  
• 5/24/1964 Clifton Daniel, assistant managing editor of the NY Times, wrote a letter to Rankin: "We would certainly print in the international edition an extensive report of the Warren Commission findings, and substantial excerpts from the report...We would also publish...a substantial advertisement, advising readers that they could order copies of the complete report from the Paris office of the New York Times for a modest fee...It happens to be in our interest, as well as the interest of the Commission and the country, to obtain as wide a distribution of this document as we can." (Policoff, New Times, 8/8/1975; Village Voice 3/31/92)
  
• 5/24/1964 A group under George Ball submitted a draft congressional resolution to the NSC; it would give the president to use all necessary measures in Vietnam. (In Retrospect p120)
  
• 5/25/1964 CD 678: a two-page letter from the head of the Secret Service to the WC general counsel. It stated that the tapes of Dr. Malcolm Perry's press interview on 11/22/1963 could not be found.
  
• 5/25/1964 Maggie Daly, a columnist for the Chicago American asks in an article published today: "Isn't it odd that J. W. Altgens, a veteran Associated Press photographer in Dallas, who took a picture of the Kennedy Assassination - one of the witnesses close enough to see the President shot and able to describe second-by-second what happened - has been questioned neither by the FBI nor the Warren Commission?" (Trask)
  
• 5/25/1964 A draft resolution for Congress on actions in Southeast Asia was prepared; Laos and South Vietnam are deemed "vital to [US] national interest and to world peace" and if necessary the President must be able to "use all measures" to prevent a Communist takeover.
  
• 5/26/1964 Supreme Court rules that county public schools on Prince Edward Island, Virginia, which were shut to avoid integration, must re-open and integrate.
  
• 5/26/1964 FBI letter to J. Lee Rankin, 26 May 1964. This letter and enclosures, part of CD 984, includes Weisberg's comments on the FBI's failure to investigate anti-Castro connections to the JFK assassination.
  
• 5/27/1964 Lady Bird Johnson diary entry: "News of Nehru's death was the word that woke us up about 6 this morning, and great repercussions it will have in the world."
  
• 5/27/1964 Ireland's president, Eamon de Valera, arrives in Washington for a visit.
  
• 5/27/1964 Psychiatrist William Beavers recommended a formal sanity hearing for Ruby.
  
• Late May 1964 Warren announced that the volumes of hearings and evidence would not be published due to the expense involved; the Congressional members of the WC disagreed, saying the expense was justified. (Inquest)
  
• 5/27/1964 LBJ phone call to McGeorge Bundy (the recording was released in 1997): "I stayed awake last night thinking about this thing [Southeast Asia] and the more I think of it, I don't know what in the hell...It looks to me like we're getting into another Korea, it just worries the hell out of me, I don't see what we can ever hope to get out of there with once we're committed....I don't think it's worth fighting for and I don't think we can get out, and it's just the biggest damn mess."
  

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: I'll tell you, the more that I stayed awake last night thinking of this thing, the more I think of it, I don't know what in the hell--it looks like to me we're getting into another Korea. It just worries the hell out of me. I don't see what we can ever hope to get out of with once we're committed. I believe the Chinese Communists are coming in to it. I don't think that we can fight em ten thousand miles away from home and ever get anywhere in that area. I don't think it's worth fighting for, and I don't think we can get out, and it's just the biggest damn mess that I ever saw.
McGEORGE BUNDY: It's an awful mess.
PRESIDENT JOHNSON: And we've just got to think about it. I was looking at this sergeant of mine this morning--got six little old kids over there--and he's getting out my things and bringing me in my night reading, and all that kind of stuff, and I just thought if I'd ordered all those kids in there and what in hell am I ordering them out there for. What the hell is Vietnam worth to me? What is Laos worth to me? What is it worth to this country? We've got a treaty but, hell, everybody else has got a treaty out there, and they're not doing anything about it. Now, of course, if you start running from the Communists, they may just chase you right into your own kitchen.
McGEORGE BUNDY: That's the trouble. And that is what the rest of the-- about half of the world is going to think if anything comes apart on us. That's the dilemma.
PRESIDENT JOHNSON: But everybody I talk to that's got any sense and the other, just says, oh, God, please give this thought. Of course, I was reading Mansfield's stuff this morning, and it's just Milquetoast as it can be, it's not fine at all, but this is a terrible thing we're getting ready to do.

• 5/27/1964 US announces that aircraft have been sent to Laos to aid in fight against Communists.
  
• 5/28/1964 An obscure FBI memo titled, "Lee Harvey Oswald, Internal Security - R - Cuba" revealed that "Detective John Caulfield, Bureau of Special Services, York City Police Department" had investigated anti-Castro Cubans in New York during the WC investigation. He provided information on the Cuban Student Directorate, which Oswald had reputedly had contact with. (Coincidence or Conspiracy p519-21)
  
• 5/29/1964 Cubans claim balloons of various sizes carrying bacteriological agents are dropped over the region of Las Villas.