Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

• 3/1967 The official list of secret Warren Commission documents in the National Archives contained seven files on Mark Lane, which were classified because of "national security." They included 'Mark Lane, Buffalo appearances' (CD 489), 'Various Mark Lane Appearances' (CD 694), 'Mark Lane Appearances' (CD 763), 'Mark Lane and his trip to Europe' (CD 1457).
  
• 3/1/1967 David Sanchez Morales joins former JM/WAVE station chief Ted Shackley to implement the Phoenix Program in Vietnam. It is a plan devised by future CIA director William Colby to eliminate the Vietcong infrastructure. It results in the assassination of 40,000 individuals. Morales works under cover of the Agency for International Development's Vientiene area community development administration. (Fonzi chronology)
  
• 3/1/1967 David William Ferrie is buried. A low requiem mass is said for him at St. Matthas' Church. Only two mourners attend. Interment follows in near solitude at St. Bernard's Memorial Cemetery. His body is claimed by Parmalee T. Ferrie of Rockford, New York, understood to be a brother.
  
• 3/1/1967 The Supreme Court turns down Jimmy Hoffa's last appeal of his conviction for jury tampering in Tennessee. This same day, Frank Chavez, one of Hoffa's goons and the head of the Teamsters Union in Puerto Rico, boards a plane for Washington to kill RFK. Kennedy is warned and given armed guards. Hickory Hill is placed under surveillance. It is Hoffa himself who talks Chavez out of shooting RFK. Fearful that we will never get out of jail if the Teamsters are caught trying to kill RFK, Hoffa demands that Chavez turn over his gun. (A few months from now, Chavez will be murdered by his own bodyguard.)
  
• 3/1/1967 A March 1, 1967 memo directed to all USAF divisions, from USAF Lt. General Hewitt Wheless, Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, stated that unverified information indicated that unknown individuals, impersonating USAF officers and other military personnel, had been harassing civilian UFO witnesses, warning them not to talk, and also confiscating film, referring specifically to the Heflin incident. AFOSI was to be notified if any personnel were to become aware of any other incidents. (Document in Fawcett & Greenwood, 236)
  
• 3/1/1967 The House voted 307 to 116 to exclude Rep. Adam Clayton Powell from the 90th Congress; he was accused of using government money for personal business. Powell called it "lynching Northern style."
  
• 3/1/1967 At 5:30 PM, Jim Garrison issues an arrest warrant for Clay L. Shaw, a prominent New Orleans business and social figure. He intends to implicate Shaw in the JFK assassination. Only seventeen months earlier, the city of New Orleans bestowed upon Shaw its highest honor, a medal for the International Order of Merit. Clay Shaw is subpoenaed by the DA's office; Garrison tells his lawyer, Salvatore Panzeca, that Shaw has to take a lie detector test "right now or we'll arrest him." Shaw was then arrested and was interrogated by Garrison for 2.5 hours; he denied having anything to do with the Kennedy assassination. He also insisted he didn't know Ferrie or Oswald. William Gurvich told the press that Shaw was charged with "participation in the conspiracy to murder John F. Kennedy" under an alias - Clay Bertrand. Shaw exclaimed, "You've got to be kidding." (New York Times 3/14/1967) Garrison then applied for a warrant to search Shaw's premises; he based this on a "confidential informant" that told of Shaw's involvement in a plot. (Counterplot 51-2) Russo was also permitted to watch Shaw being questioned via a two-way mirror. (American Grotesque 145)
  
• 3/1/1967 CIA "Memo for Deputy Director for Support": "The CI [counter-intelligence] staff, in a detailed staff study of the Garrison investigations, has noted past CIA contact with only two figures named in the inquiry, Clay L. Shaw and Carlos Bringuier, in both cases the contact was limited to domestic contact service activities." This was declassified in 1976, though substantial portions of it were withheld.
  
• 3/1/1967 Russo was hypnotized by Dr. Esmond Fatter, though he had no background in using hypnosis to elicit criminal testimony. The transcript showed that Fatter, using a Garrison memo, planted the idea of a Clay Shaw conspiracy in Russo's head while he was hypnotized: "Picture that television screen again, Perry, and it is a picture of Ferrie's apartment and there are several people there and there is a white-haired man. Tell me about it....There will be a Bertrand, Ferrie and Oswald and they are going to discuss a very important matter and there is another man and girl there and they are talking about assassinating somebody. Look at it and describe it to me." Then Russo gave the details of the plot. (PHELAN 153)
  
• 3/1/1967 Dean Andrews appeared before the grand jury in New Orleans; he had just told the press, when asked if Shaw and Bertrand were the same man, "I don't know if he is and I don't know if he isn't." Oswald had become "just a vague memory." (Oswald In New Orleans 139) Andrews told the grand jury, in response to a question about Shaw's height: "I see him on TV. He is a tall cat - I don't believe the person I know as Clay Bertrand is as tall as him. I don't know. I can't say yes, and I can't say no. As God is my judge I have to go back to the same thing I am telling you - I go to a fag wedding reception - and he is standing up and he is well dressed - I don't measure the guy...the voice I recall is somewhat similar to this cat's voice...deep, cultured, well educated voice - he don't talk like me..." When asked if Shaw was Bertrand, "I can't say that he is and I can't say that he ain't." Andrews admitted knowing Ferrie and having handled Marcello's deportation defense. (Oswald In New Orleans 140)
  
• 3/1/1967 Ramsey Clark was quoted in the New York World-Journal Tribune as saying he didn't think Garrison had any evidence that would indicate a conspiracy, that Garrison should turn over any evidence to the federal government, and seemed to be under the impression that Garrison was postulating a pro-Castro conspiracy. The story also reported that "the FBI has scrutinized all aspects of Garrison's probe very carefully."
  
• 3/2/1967 In a dramatic address on the Senate floor, Robert Kennedy had made his break with the Administration's policy on Vietnam official.
  
• 3/2/1967 Perry Russo is hypnotized by Garrison's people.
  
• 3/2/1967 Gerald Ford stated, "Any analysis of today's political picture in America of necessity revolves about a single phrase...'a crisis of confidence'...the credibility gap continues..."
  
• 3/2/1967 Acting Atty General Ramsey Clark left his confirmation hearings in Washington and was besieged by reporters asking him about Shaw. The AP press reported, "Atty. Gen. designate Ramsey Clark said today the Federal Bureau of Investigation already has investigated and cleared Clay L. Shaw...of any part in the assassination... Clark said the Justice Department knows what Garrison's case involves, and does not consider it valid...Clark said Shaw 'was included in an investigation of November and December of 1963. We have the evidence and we can assume what their conclusions are,' Clark said. 'On the evidence that the FBI has, there was no connection found' between Shaw and the assassination...'He was checked out and found cleared?' Clark was asked. 'That's right,' Clark replied." The story also reported that J. Lee Rankin said, "as far as I know, we've never heard of this person [Shaw]." (New York Post 3/2/1967). But no such investigation of Shaw had ever taken place, and some (particularly Shaw's lawyer Edward F. Wegmann) began to ask why, if Shaw never had any connection to the assassination, was he supposedly investigated? Nowhere in the WR or in Andrews' testimony did the WC reveal that it knew the identity of Clay Bertrand. These statements were widely reported, but the media didn't seem to notice the discrepancy. NY Times reporter Robert Semple wrote that the Justice Dept was convinced that "Mr. Bertrand and Mr. Shaw were the same man." (New Orleans Times-Picayune 5/6/1967) Semple then went to the National Archives seeking WC references to Shaw; when he found none, he was told that the Justice Dept believed that Bertrand and Shaw were the same person, and this was the basis for the AG's statement. (Destiny Betrayed, 1[SUP]st[/SUP] ed 171-2)
  
• 3/2/1967 Shaw was released on $10,000 bond. Garrison told the press that Shaw "was none other than Clay Bertrand." That afternoon, in a press conference, Shaw read from a prepared statement; he labeled the charges as "fantastic." He said he "had only the highest and utmost respect and admiration" for JFK. "I do not know Harvey Lee Oswald (sic) nor, to the best of my knowledge, do I know anyone who knew him...I am incapable of being involved in a plot like this." He was unaware of, and did not know why the FBI had already investigated him previously, but suggested that it was "because of the distribution of pro-Castro leaflets outside the International Trade Mart." (Oswald in New Orleans)
  
• 3/2/1967 Call From Texas Governor John Connally (who is in New York) to LBJ:
  

CONNALLY: I'm sorry to bother you. Can you listen to me for about five minutes?
JOHNSON: Sure.
CONNALLY: All day today I have been interviewed up here ... they're continually breaking stories on this conspiracy thing ... based on what this fella, this DA in New Orleans talks about, [this DA] named Garrison.
I have just been interviewed again. And of course, I just simply say that I know nothing about it. But a newsman named Paul Smith has just been here to interview me again. They have a long story on the radio tonight, over WINS, a news radio station here in New York. Charley Payne is the [WINS] general manager, and [has] talked to me off and on all day [trying to keep] me posted on it. They [WINS] supposedly have a story from a man who saw the files in Garrison's office ... he is the DA in New Orleans. I don't have the whole story, but here's what they say.
That Garrison has information that would prove that there were four assassination [teams] ... assassins in the United States, sent here by [Fidel] Castro, or Castro's people. [Sent] not by Castro himself, but one of his lieutenants. One team was picked up in New York ... but did not ... was picked up and interviewed by the FBI and the Secret Service, but did not reveal a great deal of information which was available.
One of the teams was composed of Lee Harvey Oswald; this fella [Clay] Shaw, that has just been arrested in New Orleans yesterday; and the [deceased] man [David] Ferrie; plus one other man. They were teams of four. And there were two other teams that I know nothing about.
WINS Radio has had some reporters, according to the media here, in Cuba ... working on various angles of this thing for the past [few] days. They also have a team of reporters in New Orleans with Garrison. In Cuba they found, according[and] this is very confidential, and all of this is not goin' on the air ... at all.15 But in Cuba ... and the two reporters that they had there were working from different angles and came together with exactly the same story.
The storythat they're not going to publishis that after the [1962] missile crisis, President Kennedy and [Nikita] Khrushchev had made a deal to leave Castro in power. But about six months after the missile crisis was over, the CIA was instructed to assassinate Castro ... and sent teams into Cuba. Some of 'em were captured and tortured, and Castro and his peopleand I assume Che Guevaraheard the whole story.16 The information they have here, which they're not gonna run, is that President Kennedy did not [issue] the order to the CIA, but that some other person extremely close to President Kennedy did. They did not name the man ... but the inference was very clear. The inference was ... that it was his brother [who] ordered the CIA to send a team into Cuba to assassinate Castro. Then one of Castro's lieutenants, as a reprisal measure, sent four teams in[to] the United States to assassinate President Kennedy. [And] that Lee Harvey Oswald was [one of the] members of the team operating out of New Orleans.
Now this is the story that they think they have. This is the information that was given to me tonight, less than an hour ago, by a reporter named Paul Smith who came here to [indistinct] Charley Payne, whom I knew in Texas. [Payne was] a radio man down there and he's now the general manager of WINS.
I thought this would be of interest to you. I know nothing more about it than that, but I thought you oughta know that.
JOHNSON: Good. This is confidential too. We've had that story on about three occasions, and the people here say that there's no basis for it.
CONNALLY: Hmm.
JOHNSON: I have had some ... I've given a lot of thought to it. First, one of [Jimmy] Hoffa's lawyers went to one of our mutual friends
CONNALLY: Yeah.
JOHNSON: and asked him to come and relay that to us ... just about like you have related it.17 [A] week or two passed, and then Pearson came to me, Drew Pearson
CONNALLY: Yeah.
JOHNSON: [and he] told me that the lawyer, Edward Morgan here [in Washington], had told him the same thing and said that they would plead ... they would tell all the story after November when the [statute of] limitation[s] ran out. I don't know ... our lawyer [Ramsey Clark] said they couldn't believe that there's any [statute of] limitation[s] on a [concealed] conspiracy, but ... [Then] I talked to another one or two of our good lawyers that I have recognized
CONNALLY: Yes, sir.
JOHNSON: [who's] pretty high-placed, a few months ago
CONNALLY: Yes, sir.18
JOHNSON: He evaluated [it] pretty carefully and said that it was ridiculous.
With this CIA thing breaking and the thing turning, as it did, in reconstructing the requests that were made of me back there, at the [beginning], right after I became President, I have talked to some more [people] about it, and I've got the A[ttorney] G[eneral] coming down to see me tomorrow night ... to spend a weekend with me.19 I thought I'd go over it with him again just so that they could ... so [the FBI director J. Edgar] Hoover and 'em could watch it very carefully.
They say that ... there's not anything to the Garrison story, [at] least Hoover says so, as near as he can tell. He says that they interviewed Ferrie, and they interviewed this other fella [Dean Andrews], very carefully and closely.20 And the fella [Andrews] claims that he got a call from Oswald, but they [the FBI] can't find any record of it. And the doctor that had him [Andrews] under surveillance said that he wasn't in a position to talk on November the twenty-third, and [that] he [was] under very heavy sedation.
And that the [Clay] Shaw thing is a phony, and that Ferrie died of natural causes, and that that was a phony. But thatsome of these same sources that were preventin' ... tryin' to involve this jail thing ... have been feeding stuff to Garrison as they did here.21
I don't know whether there's any basis for it or not. I noticed even LarryLarry Blackmon, yesterday, was in to see me on another matterand he started makin' a big pitch about this other situation.22 So I don't know how much of it is being fed out through their network and through their channels, and how much of it anybody would know. It's pretty hard to see how ... we would know directly ... what Castro did.
CONNALLY: Yeah.
JOHNSON: The story varies a good deal. If you go to lookin' at it [hard], as Abe said, who is it that's seen Castro? Or heard from Castro? Or knows Castro ... that's [in a position to] ... [who] could be ... confirming all this? [Fortas said] that we just hear that this is what he did, but nobody points to how we hear it.
CONNALLY: Yeah.
JOHNSON: So we will look into it, and I appreciate very much your callin' me, and I'll try to bear this in mind. I may have you talk to the other fella when you get back home, just for a minute, because I think that it's somethin' we have to be aware of and watch, without gettin'
CONNALLY: Caught either way. He [Payne] made me promise
JOHNSON: caught either way.
[Brief discussion about Robert Kennedy's call for a pause in the bombing of North Vietnam.]
CONNALLY: I just thought [that] since this was out in the communications
JOHNSON: Yeah ... yeah, I think that's right. I think that's good ... and I think it's right. I think
CONNALLY: I don't know how ... I don't know what either. I thought it might tie in with somethin' you knew, and I don't want to know anything. I don't need to know it, but I just wanted [you] to know
JOHNSON: Well ... no ... I've told you all I know. That's all we know. And the FBI thinks that both Ferrie and Shaw are fraudsI mean, that Garrison is usin' 'em as a fraud, that they have interviewed both of 'em at great length.
CONNALLY: Yeah.
JOHNSON: They have heard these things, and they interviewed 'em back in [1963-1964], for the Warren Commission.23 They do not give any credit to it, but we can't ever be sure, and we just want to keep watchin' and so on [and] so forth.
CONNALLY: Okay, sir. I'm sorry to disturb you.
JOHNSON: Thank you, Johnny.

• 3/3/1967 Jack Anderson (Drew Pearson's associate) column makes first public mention of CIA-Mafia plots against Castro: "an unconfirmed report that Sen. Robert Kennedy may have approved an assassination plot which then possibly backfired against his late brother." Castro, "with characteristic fury...is reported to have cooked up a counterplot against President Kennedy...This report may have started...Jim Garrison on his investigation of the Kennedy assassination, but insiders believe he is following the wrong trails." Anderson's source for this was Johnny Roselli. The column began, "President Johnson is sitting on a political H-bomb, an unconfirmed report that Senator Robert Kennedy may have approved an assassination plot [against Castro] which then possibly backfired against his late brother." The column was so thinly sourcedit admitted that the story was a rumorthat The Washington Post and the New York Post refused to publish it. But hundreds of other newspapers went ahead. Anderson had rushed into print almost certainly because he feared being scooped by Jim Garrison. The column observed that the allegation it described "may have started New Orleans' flamboyant District Attorney Jim Garrison on his investigation of the Kennedy assassination," but that insiders "believe he is following the wrong trails."
  
• 3/3/1967 Washington Post article by George Lardner Jr: "Jim Garrison accused businessman Clay Shaw yesterday of plotting President Kennedy's assassination with David W. Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald in the flat where Ferrie died last week...Released on $10,000 bond, Shaw called the arrest "fantastic." At a news conference in his attorney's office, he protested that he was "completely innocent" and said he never knew Oswald or Ferrie. Shaw also denied using the name 'Clay Bertrand.'...Attorney General Ramsey Clark told newsmen here that the FBI had already investigated and cleared Shaw in the weeks following the assassination on Nov 22, 1963. 'He was checked out and found clear?' Clark was asked after a hearing on his nomination to become attorney general. 'That's right,' Clark replied. The FBI, however, neither investigated nor cleared anyone named Shaw. It did check briefly into allegations surrounding a 'Clay Bertrand' and decided they were without substance...The Attorney General's remarks consequently amounted to an acceptance of Garrison's charge that Clay Shaw and "Clay Bertrand" are one and the same. 'It's the same guy,' said one source in the Justice Department. The FBI, it was understood, pursued some leads on "Bertrand," but abandoned them as fruitless before he could located."
  
• 3/3/1967 Time magazine runs an article entitled "Bourbon Street Rococo" -- a critical review of Jim Garrison and his investigation.
  
• 3/3/1967 Washington Post reported on conspiracy researcher Harold Weisberg and the influence he was having on the Garrison investigation. "Weinsberg [sic] had a hard time getting "Whitewash" printed at all. He sent it to 63 US publishers, finally put it out in a limited edition at his own expense, calling it "The Book That Couldn't Be Printed." He darkly suggested that the publishers were afraid to risk government wrath. Dell Publishing Co. subsequently picked it up last fall as a paperback."
  
• 3/3/1967 George Lardner Jr. wrote in the Post about Ramsey Clark's remarks about Clay Shaw: "The Attorney General's remarks consequently amounted to an acceptance of Garrison's charges that Clay Shaw and 'Clay Bertrand' are one and the same. 'It's the same guy,' said one source in the Justice Department." Lardner also reported that the "broad outlines" of Garrison's investigation came from Harold Weisberg's Whitewash.
  
• 3/3/1967 The New York Times' Gene Roberts reported, "Wesley J. Liebelor [sic]...said that a 'very substantial' investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation had shown that Mr. Ferrie was not a part of any assassination plot."
  
• 3/3/1967 WINS radio (New York) reported that newsman Doug Edelson said a "responsible, unimpeachable source who had access to Garrison's files" told him that Garrison "believes President Kennedy was murdered by a group of plotters directed from Cuba."
  
• 3/3/1967 Preliminary hearing on Shaw began.
  
• 3/4/1967 Earl Warren, in Peru, is quoted as saying, "I have not heard anything which would change the Report in any way, shape or form."
  
• 3/4/1967 Robert Kennedy's secretary phones the CIA Director's office and asks for a copy of the Edwards memorandum on the May 7, 1962 meeting with Kennedy when he was Attorney General, at which time he was briefed on the Castro assassination operation. (RFK also calls J. Edgar Hoover for his copy of the memorandum.) RFK knows of the Drew Pearson article of March 3, 1967 and wants to check his recollection of what he had been told by Edwards and Houston on May 7, 1962. The Attorney General's copy of the memorandum for the record of that briefing is in the archives of the Attorney General's office. Richard Helms subsequently has lunch with Senator Kennedy. He takes a copy of the memorandum with him and allows RFK to read it. He does not leave a copy with RFK. RFK arranged to have lunch on March 4 with Richard Helms, who probably told him that the President hadn't yet asked anything about it.
  
• 3/5/1967 Warren Hinckle III, editor of Ramparts Magazine, hosted a "rockdance-environment happening" benefit in honor of the CIA (Citizens for Interplanetary Activity) at California Hall, San Francisco.
  
• 3/5/1967 Garrison first announced that there were two assassins (New York World Journal Tribune; Counterplot p78)
  
• 3/6/1967 Letter and attached memo from Hoover to Attorney General Clark titled 'Central Intelligence Agency's Intentions to Send Hoodlums to Cuba to Assassinate Castro.' The FBI "checked matter with CIA on 5/3/61 and learned CIA was using Robert Maheu as intermediary with Sam Giancana relative to CIA's "dirty business" anti-Castro activities. By letter 5/22/61 we furnished former Attorney General Kennedy a memorandum containing a rundown on CIA's involvement in this. The originals of the letter and memorandum were returned to us for filing purposes. A copy of that memorandum is being attached to instant letter being sent to Attorney General. On 5/9/62 Kennedy discussed with the Director a number of matters, including admission by CIA that Robert Maheu had been hired by that Agency to approach Sam Giancana to have Castro assassinated at a cost of $150,000. Kennedy stated he had issued orders that CIA should never undertake such steps again without first checking with the Department of Justice and stated because of this matter it would be difficult to prosecute Giancana or Robert Maheu then or in the future." The FBI learned 6/20/1963 that the CIA-Mafia contacts had "continued up until that time when they were reportedly cut off." The memo also stated that one Mafia member was "using his prior connections with the CIA to his best advantage." (Final Disclosure 110) Another memo from the same day (3/6/1967) stated that Robert Kennedy had made the FBI aware of the plots 5/9/1962, and that Giancana couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department because he would blow the whistle on the CIA-Mafia plots. (Final Disclosure 111)
  
• 3/6/1967 The ACLU of Louisiana criticized Garrison for his method of release evidence to the press, calling the investigation "a Roman circus."
  
• 3/61967 Newsweek magazine runs an article entitled: "Carnival in New Orleans" - a critical review of Jim Garrison and his investigation.
  
• 3/6/1967 The New York Times quoted Warren saying at various press conferences that he was "personally satisfied with the conclusions of the Warren Report."
  
• 3/7/1967 The ACLU of Louisiana criticized Garrison's investigation for being financed by private sources.
  
• 3/7/1967 Jack Anderson/Drew Pearson's column discussed the possibility of Castro being behind the JFK assassination. The CIA's Inspector General Report was the result of an investigation ordered in 1967 by President Johnson, after a Drew Pearson-Jack Anderson column of March 7, 1967, had published for the first time details of "a reported CIA plan in 1963 to assassinate Cuba's Fidel Castro." However Johnson never got to see the actual report: Helms merely spoke to him from a set of notes which excluded the key events of late 1963. President Nixon never got to see it either, although it would appear that he had his aide John Ehrlichman try over many months to pry it out of CIA Director Richard Helms.
  
• 3/7/1967 Jimmy Hoffa begins an eight-year jail term.
  
• 3/8/1967 Waggoner Carr, former Texas AG, was quoted as saying that "as far as I'm concerned [Garrison's] way out on a limb...due to my complete confidence in the Warren Commission, he is going to have to show me..."
  
• 3/8/1967 The biggest UFO sighting flap in March, 1967 occurred on a WednesdayMarch 8. There were numerous sightings in Minnesota, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Maryland, Montana, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas. John Keel, Operation Trojan Horse: "These twenty-two reports are a mere sampling, but they provide an idea of what happened on a single Wednesday night in March, 1967. This was not an exceptional flap. It was, in fact, a rather ordinary one, and none of these incidents is of special interest. There were seventy-four flap dates in 1966, many of them much larger than that of March 8, 1967. The flap of March 8 seemed to be largely concentrated in the states of Kansas and Illinois. In fact, much of the UFO activity in recent years has been focused on the Midwestern states. Until the fall of 1967, a simple pattern seems to have emerged: Less densely populated areas had a higher ratio of sightings than heavily populated sections. The Air Force discovered this odd fact back in the late 1940's. If this were a purely psychological phenomenon, then there should be more reports in the more densely populated areas. Instead, the reverse has been true. The objects still apparently prefer remote sectors such as hill country, deserts, forested areas, swamplands, and places where the risk of being observed is the least. As you will note from the sample cases mentioned previously, the majority of the sightings were made between 7:30 and 9:30 P.M. But throughout rural America, most of the population is at home and planted in front of the TV sets at that hour, particularly on weekday nights. In other studies we have determined that the majority of the reported landings occur very late at night in very isolated locales, where the chances of being observed are very slight. In most farming areas, the people are early risers, and therefore most of the population is in bed before 10 P.M. It is after 10 P.M. that the unidentified flying objects cut loose. When they do happen to be observed on the ground, it is either by accident or design. And usually they take off the moment they have been discovered, or they inexplicably disappear into thin air!"
  
• 3/9/1967 JCS Chairman Wheeler responded to a report to him by Westmoreland that the communists were growing in offensive strength. Wheeler told Westmoreland to withhold this information from everyone except those with "an absolute need to know." Otherwise, "they would, literally, blow the lid off of Washington." (The Captive Press p146)
  
• 3/9/1967 NY Times reported that the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore della Domenica, expressed doubts about the Warren Report.
  
• 3/11/1967 Barry Goldwater, who previously said he supported the ... consular treaty, came out today for an amendment the pact's supporters say would kill it. New York Times [AP]
  
• 3/12/1967 Attorney General Ramsey Clark, on CBS' Face the Nation, declined to talk about his remarks concerning Shaw, but demanded that Garrison turn over all evidence he had on the JFK assassination to the federal government. He said he "will be very much surprised if any [new evidence] exists." When asked about the possibility of Castro being behind the assassination, he replied, "There have been studies of these matters. We have nothing that indicates any evidence of a conspiracy...I am much disturbed and saddened that so much publicity, so much agitation, so much doubt is created." He was then asked by CBS correspondent George Herman about the FBI's classified files on Dave Ferrie, and why they were still being withheld even though Ferrie was dead. Clark replied, "...those documents are under the general jurisdiction of the General Services Administration at this time." This was also untrue, since these documents had been specifically classified under orders from J Edgar Hoover and his aides. A few days later, Clark retracted his previous statement through a subordinate: "The Attorney General has since determined that this was erroneous. Nothing arose indicating a need to investigate Mr. Shaw." (New York Times 6/3/1967)
  
• 3/13/1967 After a Ramparts article, the National Student Association admitted it had received over $3 million from the CIA through dummy foundations.
  
• 3/13/1967 Max Holland: "In the early evening of March 13 Johnson met privately with Earl Warren for forty minutes, with only Marvin Watson, the White House staffer who served as liaison with the FBI, in attendance. Little is known about this meeting. Since January, Warren had been aware of the story that the CIA had utilized the Mafia to try to assassinate Castro; Pearson had told him three days after telling Johnson. But until he stepped into the Oval Office that evening, he did not know that the story was true. Warren's rock-solid belief in the report that bears his name must have been weakened, at least momentarily. The meeting had two consequences. The Chief Justice was, of course, thoroughly conversant with the evidence against Oswald, and he probably renewed Johnson's confidence in that part of the Warren Report. But the finding that Oswald was responsible for all the shots fired in Dealey Plaza didn't rule out a conspiracy. And now there was more reason than ever to believe that Fidel Castro had instigated a counterplot in retaliation for attempts on his life. So Johnson, perhaps with Warren's encouragement, became determined to get the rest of the story from the CIA."'
  
• 3/13/1967 Newsweek article ("Sideshow") concluded that Garrison was "still making headlines, rather than history."
  
• 3/14/1967 Preliminary hearing for Clay Shaw. Russo testified that he had known Ferrie since 1960 and had an "open-book invitation" to visit any time he wanted. 9/1963, at Ferrie's apartment, he met a young bearded man with an "old-fashion bolt-action rifle" who was introduced by Ferrie as "Leon Oswald." A few days later he attended a party at Ferrie's place which eventually "narrowed down to three persons besides myself" - Ferrie, Oswald, and Clem Bertrand. Russo identified Shaw as Bertrand in the courtroom. Russo then said that the three men planned the murder of JFK while he was there. "Ferrie took the initiative in the talk, pacing back and forth...discussing diversionary tactics." They talked about "triangulation of cross fire," the choosing of a "scapegoat" and the "availability of exits." (Counterplot 54) Shaw's lawyer asked why the trio would so openly talk about killing the President in front of Russo; he replied that Ferrie had told the others that "he is all right." Russo said that he had heard of "Leon Oswald," not "Lee Harvey Oswald." He denied waiting until after Ferrie was dead before coming forward with his story so that Ferrie could not contradict him. Vernon Bundy also told his story about seeing Shaw pass money to Oswald.
  
• 3/14/1967 A New York Post columnist ridiculed the Garrison investigation, refering to "Big Jim," "Ferrie the Wig" and "Torpedo," a mysterious Cuban.
  
• 3/14/1967 On this date, work crews are making preparations to excavate JFK's grave at Arlington Cemetery. The body is to be moved to a new site. Permanent landscaping has been completed, including new stonework quarried on Cape Cod in the early 19th century, and a plaque in the walk declares the dates of JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY (1917 - 1963). JFK's body will be moved - along with the bodies of his two infant children. Before the workmen begin their excavation of the grave, some 300 military personnel arrive and close Arlington National Cemetery to the public, clearing it of all unauthorized persons. An Army roadblock shuts down Arlington Memorial Bridge. The Military District of Washington establishes a command post at the guard house near the grave sites. A 50-man reserve troop stands by for summoning on short notice. Meanwhile, troops ring the area, which is screened by canvas and open to only "key personnel" with "a specific job." At approximately 6:10 PM, Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara arrive. The ground breaking immediately begins. At 7:00 pm, Senator Ted Kennedy arrives, accompanied by Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston and another priest named McGuire - both of whom are scheduled to bless the graves of the President and his two children the next day. At 8:45 pm, the mourners depart the property. By 11:00 pm, they return - this time, RFK is accompanied by his wife, his brother Ted, Warren Billings and Jacqueline Kennedy. They remain at the site until just before midnight. They will return in the morning for the actual re-interment proceedings. In 1976, RFK's former press aide, Frank Mankiewicz, tells HSCA Counsel Robert Blakey that he thinks that the "President's brain is in the grave. LBJ, Ted, Bobby, and maybe McNamara buried it when the body was transferred. Ted seemed to confirm it later." Asked about JFK's brain in 1992, Evelyn Lincoln becomes upset and finally replies: "It's where it belongs." John Mezler is superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery from 1951 to 1972. His contact report (HSCA Agency File 008148) includes this statement: "At the time of the [initial] burial, Mr. Mezler watched the coffin being placed in a Wilbur' [Wilbur Vault Company] vault. He saw the lid lowered and the vault sealed. The lid and vault had a tongue and groove' system, which permitted a tight fit. There was tar present at the points of contact of the tongues and grooves, making the seals a permanent one. Mr. Mezler said the only way the vault could be opened subsequently would be by breaking open' the lid or main part of the vault." The Military District of Washington also keeps a detailed log of activites during the reinterment. In this very detailed listing there is no record of a brain, or of a brain container, ever being placed into the vault. Mr. Mezler supervises the reinterment. He is present at all times, both during the opening of the old site and during preparations for the new site, including the transfer [by crante] of the vault through a distance of 30 feet.
  
• 3/15/1967 Russo was cross-examined at the preliminary hearing. He admitted that he had not been able to identify Oswald positively until an artist in the DA's office had spent six hours drawing different beards on photos of Oswald. He was asked about his 2/24 TV statements. "I knew Leon Oswald, who was slightly whiskered...I did not, myself, honestly, know a Lee Harvey Oswald." He explained that the picture in his mind of Lee Harvey Oswald "was not identical" with that of "Leon Oswald." Russo claimed that Ferrie didn't worry about Russo being present, saying, "Forget him, he is all right, he don't know anything, and it don't make any difference with him." When asked why he hadn't told his story back in 1963, he answered, "At the time, right after the assassination, I had an involvement with school that was more pressing to me. If they wanted [to] ask me anything, they could...I had no reason to disagree with these people. They are professionals...Dave Ferrie was never implicated as far as I knew." When he read about Garrison's investigation in the paper, he claimed that he didn't know it was the same Ferrie he had known (the paper had refered to him as "David W. Ferrie"). He admitted to having been hypnotized three times, and had been under psychiatric treatment for 18 months, ending in late 1960. (Counterplot 55-7)
  
• 3/16/1967 NY Times reported that at a preliminary court hearing three presiding judges rejected a motion to admit the Warren Report into evidence, on the grounds that it was a compound of hearsay and error. Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston said, "I think they should follow it through...I never believed the assassination of President Kennedy was the work of one man." (NYT)
  
• 3/16/1967 Gordon Novel, perhaps the primary CIA contact for the New Orleans part of the anti-Castro efforts, discusses some general matters before the Grand Jury in New Orleans. He is scheduled to return on March 22 for more detailed questioning. Some researchers believe Gordon Novel was on the grassy knoll at the time of the assassination. Novel's specialty is electronics. He has been connected to David Ferrie and Guy Banister.
  
• 3/16/1967 Marina Oswald was quoted as saying she had never met Dave Ferrie or Clay Shaw. (NYT)
  
• 3/16/1967 Dean Andrews was indicted for perjury.
  
• 3/16/1967 Early in the morning on the March 16, 1967 at Malmstrom AFB in Montana, occurred one of the most extraordinary events in the history of military-UFO encounters. Under a clear and dark Montana sky, an airman with the Oscar Flight Launch Control Center (LCC) saw a star-like object zigzagging high above him. Soon, a larger and closer light also appeared, and acted in similar fashion. The airman called his NCO, and the two men watched the lights streak through the sky, maneuvering in impossible ways. The NCO phoned his commander, Lieutenant Robert Salas, who was below ground in the launch control center. "Great," Salas said. "You just keep watching them and let me know if they get any closer." A few minutes later, the NCO called again, shouting that a red, glowing UFO was hovering outside the front gate. "What do you want us to do?" asked the NCO. Salas told him to make sure the site was secure while he phoned the command post. "Sir," replied the NCO, "I have to go now, one of the guys just got injured." Before Salas could ask about the injury, the NCO was off the line. The man, who was not seriously injured, was evacuated by helicopter to the base. Salas woke his commander, Lieutenant Fred Meiwald. As he briefed Meiwald, an alarm went off in the small capsule, and both men saw a "No-Go" light turn on for one of the missiles. Within seconds, several more missiles went down in succession. Twenty miles away, at the Echo-Flight Launch Facilities, the same scenario was taking place. First Lieutenant Walter Figel, the Deputy Crew Commander of the Missile Combat Crew, was at his station when one of the Minuteman missiles went into "No-Go" status. He called the missile site and learned that a UFO had been hovering over the site. Like Salas, Figel doubted the story. But just then, ten more ICBMs in rapid succession reported a "No-Go" condition. Within seconds, the entire flight was down. Strike teams were dispatched to two launch facilities, where maintenance crews were already at work. Figel had not told the strike teams about the UFO report. Upon their arrival, however, the teams reported back to him that all of the maintenance and security personnel had been watching UFOs hover over each of the sites. The missiles were down for most of the day. Neither the Air Force investigation, nor the laboratory tests at Boeing's Seattle plant found any cause for the shutdown. According to the Boeing engineering chief, "there was no technical explanation that could explain the event." UFOs were not part of this analysis.
  
• 3/17/1967 Senate approves consular treaty, 66 to 28.
  
• 3/17/1967 The three-judge panel presiding over Shaw's preliminary hearing ruled that "sufficient evidence has been presented to establish probable cause that a crime has been committed...to justify bringing into play the further steps of the criminal process against the arrestee, Clay L. Shaw." Shaw remained free on $10,000 bail.
  
• 3/17/1967 Memo from Cartha DeLoach to Clyde Tolson: "Watson stated that the President still desired that the FBI conduct the interview in question. I told Watson that, under the circumstances, we had no alternative but to make this attempt; however, I hoped he and the President realized that this might be putting the FBI into a situation with District Attorney Garrison, who was nothing more than a publicity seeker."
  
• 3/17/1967 The London Daily Mail reported that Shaw had recently been in London, where he intended to move.
  
• 3/18/1967 Westmoreland requested 200,000 more troops, expanded bombing of the North and ground operations into Laos and Cambodia.
  
• 3/18/1967 National Guardian quoted the Italian paper Paesa Sera as saying that Shaw had links with various right-wing groups and possibly the CIA. It reported that he was a member of the board of directors of the Centro Mondiale Commerciale from 1961 until around the time he retired from the Trade Mart. The Italian paper charged that CMC was a CIA front for funneling money into Italy. The Guardian also added, "Shaw reportedly played a part in arranging for Kennedy to speak at the Dallas Trade Mart on Nov. 22, 1963..." though no source was given for this.
  
• 3/18/1967 New York Post attacked Garrison's investigation ("A Morbid Frolic in New Orleans"), saying that Warren and Rankin should conduct their own new investigation, because until "such responsible exercise is begun, fools and charlatans - and well-intentioned amateur detectives - will run wild."
  
• 3/20/1967 Newsweek: "In Europe, where thousands still cling to the conspiracy theory in spite of the Warren Commission's conclusion...Garrison and his investigation have been the stuff of page-one headlines."
  
• 3/20/1967 The lawyer interviewed by the FBI field office in Washington will not identify his source of the information that Castro plotted JFK's death.
  
• 3/21/1967 NY Post quoted Mark Lane as saying that Garrison knew the identities of the real assassins.
  
• 3/22/1967 Grand jury formally indicted Shaw, charging him with "willfully and unlawfully conspiring with David W. Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald to murder John F. Kennedy."
  
• 3/22/1967 Rep. Roman C. Pucinski of Illinois stated, "I'm very surprised more attention hasn't been paid to the ruling that Clay Shaw go on trial...These aren't nuts but three judges talking. It's a new ball game."
  
• 3/22/1967 LBJ asked Richard Helms, who had been the CIA liaison to the Warren Commission in 1964 and the director of the Agency since June of 1966, to prepare a full report on the allegations in Anderson's column. It is not known whether the President divulged to Helms what he already knew from the FBI memorandum, or whether he pretended to find the claim outlandish in order to test Helms's candor about such a sensitive matter. In either case, Johnson asked "[not] idly or in passing ... but asked directly, formally, and explicitly, in a tone and manner which did not admit of evasion," as the historian Thomas Powers has written. The President is the one person whose requests for information the CIA must honor in full, and Helms had no alternative but to come back with a specific and complete answer.
  
• 3/22/1967 Leopold Sedar Senghor, president of Senegal, was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt.
  
• 3/22/1967 Gordon Novel, scheduled to appear before a New Orleans Grand Jury, disappears. He has sold his interest in a restaurant and has cleared out his apartment. He begins a national and international junket denouncing Jim Garrison from Columbus, Ohio, McLean, Virginia, and Montreal, Canada - sidestepping Garrison's efforts to extradite him.
  
• 3/23/1967 Richard Helms assigns the CIA inspector general to report on assassination attempts against Castro.
  
• 3/23/1967 MLK joined Benjamin Spock (a proposed running mate in his possible third-party candidacy) in his first anti-war march, through downtown Chicago
  
• 3/23/1967 Bob Considine criticized "the outrageous coverage which the European press is giving to Jim Garrison's politically-oriented investigation' in New Orleans." (New York Post)
  
• 3/24/1967 Max Lerner wrote in his New York Post column, "Some have suggested that we call off the current New Orleans investigation...because it may further hurt the American image abroad. But this kind of defensiveness is self-defeating. Tocqueville noted one trait of American society as the most hopeful of all - its self-corrective capacity. What we need to tell our friends and enemies is not that America has no faults - it has plenty of them - but that over the years it has found ways of dealing with its social and psychic wounds...the probing, however painful, will go - whatever the world may think about it."
  
• 3/25/1967 States-Item story by Neil Sanders: "New Orleanians who knew Lee Harvey Oswald when he last lived here are mystified by the ill-kempt, unshaven picture drawn of him by witnesses in the Garrison investigation. They remember the accused assassin...as a neat dresser who was always clean shaven."
  
• 3/25/1967 Right-wing columnist Victor Lasky wrote a glowing review of Charles Roberts' book The Truth About the Assassination, which defends the WC.
  
• 3/27/1967 Newsweek article reported that "In 1964, Ruby, who feared that his cell was bugged, signaled lawyer Joe Tonahill for a sheet of notebook paper and a pencil. He scribbled a note that Tonahill only now has revealed. It read, 'Joe you should know this. Tom Howard told me to say that I shot Oswald so that Caroline and Mrs Kennedy wouldn't have to come to Dallas to testify. OK?'" Posner says that Ruby was just trying to get revenge on his lawyers because he "was furious with...their handling of his case and actually thought they were part of a conspiracy to frame him." Bill Alexander told Posner, "I saw Ruby at the jail before Tom Howard ever arrived, and he was telling people then that he had shot Oswald because he was so upset about Mrs. Kennedy. No one told Jack to say that." (Case Closed 398)
  
• 3/27/1967 Washington Post reported that in August 1962 the CIA managed to contaminate some sugar bound for Russia from Cuba, hoping that the now bad-tasting sugar would cause the Soviets to stop buying the Cuban product. When JFK found out, he was furious; he warned the Russians about the tainted sugar and warned the Agency not to do it again.
  
• 3/28/1967 FBI memo reported that "Garrison plans to indict Carlos Marcello in the Kennedy assassination conspiracy because Garrison believes Marcello is tied up in some way with Jack Ruby."
  
• Spring 1967 "The Assassins" by John Kaplan The American Scholar, Volume 36, No. 2 (Spring 1967), pp. 271306 John Kaplan is a professor of law at Stanford University.
  
• 4/1967 In 1967 as a federal prisoner in Springfield, Missouri, Richard Case Nagell contacted New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. For Garrison's investigation of the Kennedy assassination, Nagell offered to turn over the tape recording he had made containing evidence of a conspiracy. Nagell said he had secretly taped a meeting he attended in late August 1 963 with three other low-level participants in the plot to kill Kennedy. He identified the three voices on the tape beside his own as those of Oswald, Angel, and "Arcacha "-very likely Sergio Arcacha Smith, a Cuban exile leader who had worked closely with Guy Banister before moving from New Orleans to Texas in 1962. (Jim Garrison's CIA-connected staff member William R. Martin reported back to Garrison on his prison interview of Nagell: "When questioned as to the identity of the persons speaking on the tape the subject stated openly that one of them was 'Arcacha' and another individual whom the subject would only identify as ' Q . ' The subject did not wish to go into more detail concerning the tape at that time since he, all during our previous conversations, had indicated that our conversation could possibly be bugged. " William R. Martin Memorandum to Jim Garrison, April 18 , 1967. Cited by James DiEugenio in Assassinations, p. 2 3 7 . In Nagell's own written comments on another Martin memorandum to Garrison, he described further the four persons on the audiotape as: ( 1 ) Oswald; (2) Nagell himself, who served as Oswald's interpreter for the predominately Spanish conversation; ( 3 ) an unidentified person; (4) Angel. Cited by Russell in Man Who Knew Too Much, p. 425.) Nagell withdrew the offer of the tape, however, when Garrison's staff member and intermediary, William R. Martin, told him he had been a CIA officer. Nagell suspected Martin's association with the CIA had not ended, as Garrison himself would later conclude.
  
• 4/1967 Gore Vidal: "JFK is already the subject of a cult that may persist, through the machinery of publicity, long after all memory of his administration has been absorbed by the golden myth now being created in a thousand books to the single end of maintaining in power our extraordinary holy family...if it is true that in a rough way nations deserve the leadership they get, then a frivolous and apathetic electorate combined with a vain and greedy intellectual establishment will most certainly restore to power the illusion-making Kennedys." (4/1967 Esquire)
  
• 4/1967 Weisberg's book Photographic Whitewash is published.
  
• 4/1967 In Harper's, Tom Wicker interviewed George Wallace, who told him why he welcomed support from the KKK: "At least a Klansman will fight for his country. He don't tear up his draft card."
  
• 4/1/1967 The CIA memo to station chiefs "Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report" caused quite a stir when it was discovered in 1977. Dated 4/1/67, and marked "DESTROY WHEN NO LONGER NEEDED", this document is a stunning testimony to how concerned the CIA was over investigations into the Kennedy assassination. Emphasis has been added to facilitate scanning. CIA Document #1035-960, marked "PSYCH" for presumably Psychological Warfare Operations, in the division "CS", the Clandestine Services, sometimes known as the "dirty tricks" department.
  

RE: Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report
1. Our Concern. From the day of President Kennedy's assassination on, there has been speculation about the responsibility for his murder. Although this was stemmed for a time by the Warren Commission report, (which appeared at the end of September 1964), various writers have now had time to scan the Commission's published report and documents for new pretexts for questioning, and there has been a new wave of books and articles criticizing the Commission's findings. In most cases the critics have speculated as to the existence of some kind of conspiracy, and often they have implied that the Commission itself was involved. Presumably as a result of the increasing challenge to the Warren Commission's report, a public opinion poll recently indicated that 46% of the American public did not think that Oswald acted alone, while more than half of those polled thought that the Commission had left some questions unresolved. Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse results.
2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization. The members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society. Moreover, there seems to be an increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as the one person who might be said to have benefited, was in some way responsible for the assassination. Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government. Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.
3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active [business] addresses are requested:
a. To discuss the publicity problem with [?] and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors), pointing out that the Warren Commission made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.
b. To employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (II) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories. In the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon of criticism, a useful strategy may be to single out Epstein's theory for attack, using the attached Fletcher [?] article and Spectator piece for background. (Although Mark Lane's book is much less convincing that Epstein's and comes off badly where confronted by knowledgeable critics, it is also much more difficult to answer as a whole, as one becomes lost in a morass of unrelated details.)
4. In private to media discussions not directed at any particular writer, or in attacking publications which may be yet forthcoming, the following arguments should be useful:
a. No significant new evidence has emerged which the Commission did not consider. The assassination is sometimes compared (e.g., by Joachim Joesten and Bertrand Russell) with the Dreyfus case; however, unlike that case, the attack on the Warren Commission have produced no new evidence, no new culprits have been convincingly identified, and there is no agreement among the critics. (A better parallel, though an imperfect one, might be with the Reichstag fire of 1933, which some competent historians (Fritz Tobias, AJ.P. Taylor, D.C. Watt) now believe was set by Vander Lubbe on his own initiative, without acting for either Nazis or Communists; the Nazis tried to pin the blame on the Communists, but the latter have been more successful in convincing the world that the Nazis were to blame.)
b. Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others. They tend to place more emphasis on the recollections of individual witnesses (which are less reliable and more divergent--and hence offer more hand-holds for criticism) and less on ballistics, autopsy, and photographic evidence. A close examination of the Commission's records will usually show that the conflicting eyewitness accounts are quoted out of context, or were discarded by the Commission for good and sufficient reason.
c. Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc. Note that Robert Kennedy, Attorney General at the time and John F. Kennedy's brother, would be the last man to overlook or conceal any conspiracy. And as one reviewer pointed out, Congressman Gerald R. Ford would hardly have held his tongue for the sake of the Democratic administration, and Senator Russell would have had every political interest in exposing any misdeeds on the part of Chief Justice Warren. A conspirator moreover would hardly choose a location for a shooting where so much depended on conditions beyond his control: the route, the speed of the cars, the moving target, the risk that the assassin would be discovered. A group of wealthy conspirators could have arranged much more secure conditions.
d. Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it; they also scoff at the Commission because it did not always answer every question with a flat decision one way or the other. Actually, the make-up of the Commission and its staff was an excellent safeguard against over-commitment to any one theory, or against the illicit transformation of probabilities into certainties.
e. Oswald would not have been any sensible person's choice for a co-conspirator. He was a "loner," mixed up, of questionable reliability and an unknown quantity to any professional intelligence service. [Archivist's note: This claim is demonstrably untrue with the latest file releases. The CIA had an operational interest in Oswald less than a month before the assassination. Source: Oswald and the CIA, John Newman and newly released files from the National Archives.]
f. As to charges that the Commission's report was a rush job, it emerged three months after the deadline originally set. But to the degree that the Commission tried to speed up its reporting, this was largely due to the pressure of irresponsible speculation already appearing, in some cases coming from the same critics who, refusing to admit their errors, are now putting out new criticisms.
g. Such vague accusations as that "more than ten people have died mysteriously" can always be explained in some natural way e.g.: the individuals concerned have for the most part died of natural causes; the Commission staff questioned 418 witnesses (the FBI interviewed far more people, conduction 25,000 interviews and re interviews), and in such a large group, a certain number of deaths are to be expected. (When Penn Jones, one of the originators of the "ten mysterious deaths" line, appeared on television, it emerged that two of the deaths on his list were from heart attacks, one from cancer, one was from a head-on collision on a bridge, and one occurred when a driver drifted into a bridge abutment.)
5. Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission's Report itself. Open-minded foreign readers should still be impressed by the care, thoroughness, objectivity and speed with which the Commission worked. Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics.

There was also an "Attachment 1: Background Survey of Books Concerning the Assassination of President Kennedy." It outlined strategies for arguing against the claims of critics. "Some writers appear to have been predisposed to criticism by anti-American, far-left or Communist sympathies. The British 'Who Killed Kennedy Committee' includes some of the most persistent and vocal English critics of the United States, eg., Michael Foot, Kingsley Martin, Kenneth Tynan, and Bertrand Russell. Joachim Joesten has been publicly revealed as a onetime member of the German Communist Party (KDP)...Joesten's American publisher, Carl Marzani, was once sentenced to jail by a federal jury for concealing his Communist Party (CPUSA) membership in order to hold a government job....Mark Lane was elected Vice Chairman of the New York Council to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee on 28 May 1963; he also attended the 8th Congress of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (an international Communist front organization) in Budapest from 31 March to 5 April 1964, where he expounded his (pre-Report) views on the Kennedy assassination...Some newspapermen (eg., Sylvan Fox...Leo Sauvage...) have published accounts cashing in on their journalistic expertise...some people have apparently published accounts simply because they were burning to give the world their theory, eg., Harold Weisberg, in his Whitewash II, Penn Jones,....and George C. Thompson...The impact of these books will probably be relatively slight, since their writers will appear to readers to be hysterical or paranoid...Epstein adopts a scholarly tone...Here it should be pointed out that Epstein's competence in research has been greatly exaggerated....the FBI flew the photo [the CIA photo of "Oswald"] directly from Mexico City to Dallas immediately after Oswald's arrest, before Oswald's picture had been published, on the chance it might be Oswald. The reason the photo was cropped was that the background revealed the place where it was taken....The likelihood of further criticism is enhanced by the circumstance that Communist propagandists seem recently to have stepped up their own campaign to discredit the Warren Commission...there seems reason to suspect that Joesten's book and its exploitation are part of a planned Soviet propaganda operation..." "Attachment 2: The Theories of Mr. Epstein" outlined arguments to be used to counter Epstein's criticisms. (Killing of a President; Destiny Betrayed 313-20)

• 4/1/1967 New York Daily News quoted former Ruby lawyer Joe Tonahill: "Garrison's case is basically grounded in political expediency. He is dealing with Warren Commission rejects, witnesses that the government knows all about. I am calling this a phony investigation."
  
• 4/2/1967 Armed communist revolt broke out in Cambodia's Battambang province.
  
• 4/3/1967 President Johnson tells staff aide Marvin Watson he is convinced there was a conspiracy to assassinate JFK, including CIA involvement.
  
• 4/3/1967 Sergio Arcacha Smith of the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC) - and manager of an air conditioner firm in Dallas - is arrested at home, in front of his family, by officers sent from Jim Garrison's office. Arcacha refuses to speak with them. They continue to insist that Arcacha speak with them alone, without his attorney present. After posting $1,500 bail, Arcacha is released. This touches off a five-month battle in which Garrison seeks to extradite Arcacha from Texas to Louisiana. However, Texas Governor John Connally befriends Arcacha and refuses to sign extradition papers within the required 90 days.
  
• 4/3/1967 Jim Garrison calls a press conference to announce that he has identified the men involved in the conspiracy to assassinate JFK. Garrison says that most of the participants "are in Texas and Dallas particularly where they are protected - one, by the Dallas law enforcement establishment and two, by the federal government."
  
• 4/3/1967 Larry O'Brien announced his idea to turn the Post Office into a privately-run corporation.
  
• 4/4/1967 William Manchester is