It's Not A Stretch To Say Nunes' House Intel Committee Bears Analogs To LBJ's Warren Commission

Devin Nunes - turned the House Intelligence Committee into a political charade for Trump and his own personal PR machine to attack other investigations. In may ways the whole fiasco - and Nunes' role in it- bears numerous similarities to LBJ's use of the Warren Commission to cover his ass, and deflect serious scrutiny, in that case - into the JFK assassination.

"This Intelligence Committee Report is a farce in so many ways. It's a farce in view of what happened - allowing witnesses to come in and refuse to answer questions and then no follow up, no subpoenas, no attempt to hold anyone in contempt. And it's a farce in claiming Putin wasn't  trying to elect Trump. Not just because the intelligence agencies have concluded otherwise, but a grand jury of 23 average Americans returned an indictment that explicitly said the Russians were trying to elect Donald Trump. They're ignoring that evidence completely ."  Former DOJ specialist Matt Miller, on 'All In' last night


Who would ever have believed another abominable "investigation"  like the politically motivated Warren Commission's could ever be resurrected again? For those who need a memory jog, this charade was conceived by LBJ to provide protective cover for himself by launching into a pseudo-investigation of the assassination of JFK.   Like the just concluded House Intelligence Committee - largely run as a charade to protect Trump by his water boy Devin Nunes- the Warren Commission was designed as an elaborate foil to protect Johnson.  And as I will show,  many of the negative aspects applicable to the WC also applied to the Nunes' fake House Intel investigation, including omitting key witnesses, ignoring issuing subpoenas, not calling back witnesses and not properly questioning others.

Faced with clearing his name from any suspicious involvement in Kennedy's assassination  (though Jackie suspected his role until her dying day - as she revealed in taped conversations to historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.) he first attempted to form a “Texas Commission”, with staff entirely composed of Texans. He soon realized this wouldn't wash as it would appear too cozy, too inbred.

So he conceived of going for name cachet and gravitas in then Chief Justice Earl Warren,  to head the "Warren Commission". Johnson needed the credibility of Warren so the media would accept the commission as a bona fide government entity as opposed to a creature of Johnson's whim and machinations. The problem was Warren iitially rejected LBJ's pleas  to lead the Commission. But the ol'  polecat Lyndon wasn't done.  He managed to coerce Warren into service by threatening exposure of his FBI files. Johnson's taped words were - after speaking to Warren (cf. Michael R. Beschloss, Taking Charge:The Johnson White House Tapes 1963-64, 1997, p. 72, as cited by Russ Baker, in 'Family of Secrets', p. 46): 

"Warren told me he wouldn't do it under any circumstances...He came down here and told me 'No'...twice. And I just pulled out what[FBI Director} Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City....And he started crying and said: 'I won't turn you down...I'll just do whatever you say' "

The incident showed LBJ would  even resort to rank blackmail to get his way to endow his political whitewash with name cachet and specious validity.  In an analogous sense we've seen how Devin Nunes would resort to actual treason - via release of classified files- to confer false gravitas on his House Intel committee investigation, even after he'd recused himself.

And just as Nunes cherry-picked and distorted witness testimony as well as evidence, so also the W C distorted and cherry-picked its own evidence. For example, Commissioner Gerald Ford altered the initial autopsy report from:

A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder to the right of the spine."

To read:

"A bullet had entered the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine."

This was done to conform with  WC lawyer Arlen Specter'single bullet myth. Thr death certificate revealed the back wound to be at the president's "third thoracic vertebra.”  The neck has seven CERVICAL vertebrae, and this observed and verified wound was described as three THORACIC vertebrae lower than the neck itself..  Ford insisted this was “a small change, …intended to clarify meaning, not alter history”. But alter history is exactly what it did! For by altering the original autopsy report, Ford and his cohorts succeeded in conferring a measure of validity on Specter’s single bullet theory. This is despite the fact that analysis of the resulting trajectory doesn’t even conform to basic laws of Newtonian dynamics.

This evoked memory of Nunes' performance in March last year when he ran to the White House claiming to have "new information' about the House committee's findings.  In truth, he did not release any real information, he only put up an elaborate facade  by going hysterical over the "unmasking" of Trump campaign personnel - which was totally valid given foreign intel intercepts had shown their communications with the Russians.  which induced the media to make its own interpretations. Hence, he created a smokescreen for what he was really up to, i.e. distracting from the Mueller investigation while trying to impugn it at the same time..  This is analogous to the smokescreen created by Ford, Specter and the Warren Commission in their alteration of the autopsy report in the JFK assassination.

Nunes' performance  had all the hallmarks of a classic disinformation and obfuscation hit which I've seen many times before in other investigations, not only the WC. These disinfo hits usually occur just as said "noose" is tightening or when an investigation is finally coming toward a unifying resolution.  For example, just as the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1978 was finally coming to a definitive conclusion for a grassy knoll head shot in the JFK assassination, based on acoustic tests by Weiss and Barger, two MIT scientists, up pops Norman Ramsey - an outlier no one ever heard of. Never mind, Ramsey's panel (with little or no experience and background compared to the MIT team) managed to muddy the waters sufficiently by their absurd interjections. The Ramsey Panel analysis was alleged to have  'refuted' the original Weiss -Barger study, but in fact only showed that the Weiss group had omitted some considerations. The Ramsey analysis certainly does not 'nullify' the Weiss/Barger analysis since up to now it has not been  reproduced, so cannot be accepted as a bona fide scientific conclusion. 

Perhaps the most cogent similarity lies in the failure to call key witnesses. In the case of the WC, as reported by former Justice Dept. agent Walt Brown, 200 witnesses- "each with knowledge at least as valuable as that given by the 488 commission witnesses" were not asked questions.   These included:

- Tom Alyea (who allegedly first filmed the sniper's 'nest')

 - Charles A. Crenshaw (Parkland surgical resident at the time – who observed the gaping rear head wound)

 -   Julia Ann Mercer - spotted a truck on the triple underpass with a rifle inside, driven by Jack Ruby

 -  William Harper -  found the occipital bone fragment 25’  behind the limo

 -  Guy Banister - ran the Camp St. office from which Oswald  distributed leaflets;

 -   Joseph Milteer -the right wing zealot who predicted the assassination by sniper;

 -  Sergio Archacha Smith -believed to be the person who fired at Gen. Edwin Walker;

  - Mary Moorman -took the Moorman photo at the instant of the head shot;

   - Aquilla Clemons - observed the Tippitt shooting, and saw another man – not Oswald, doing it;

   - Silvia Duran - consul employee who could have testified to the identity of the ‘Oswald' seen in Mexico City;

-  Gordon Arnold : stood on the grass in front of the knoll's picket fence when a shot made him hit the dirt - (later sent to Alaska);

-  Orville Nix - took the Nix film from the opposite side of Elm St. to Abraham  Zapruder ;

-  Mary Muchmore- whose original film was cut/mutilated on return;

In the case of the House Intelligence Committee, member Democrats have estimated that "scores of key witnesses" were never brought forth for questioning.  These have included:

- George Papadopoulos who had admitted contacts with the Russians long before Christoper Steele's dossier emerged

-  Carter Page, deemed a key Russian agent, implicated from 2013 via intel intercepts and other communications

- Wilbur Ross, who had become head of a Cyprus bank that helped Russian oligarchs launder money e.g.

https://boingboing.net/2017/02/28/new-secretary-of-commerce-wil.html

Other witnesses, e.g.  Eric Prince, up to his ears in shady dealing with the Trumpies in the Seychelles, were brought in but not fully questioned. For example, Prince may have been key to setting up a Trump-Russia backchannel through an Emirati conduit, but this was never pursued/ Much like the alleged Oswald pot shots at Gen. Edwin Walker were never pursued by the WC. It is worthwhile to note that not even Walker himself, in a deposition, believed Oswald made the shot.  (This was supported by Robert Surrey, one of Walker’s aides who spotted two men prowling around the residence days before the shooting.  The car was described as a 1957 Chevrolet and one of the man as dark-complexioned.)

Other superficially vetted  House Intelligence witnesses included Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr.. Neither of whom fully answered questions or provided ancillary documents to support their claims.

In other cases (e.g. Hope Hicks, Steve Bannon) there was total stonewalling, under some specious "order"  from the White House.   NO subpoenas were issued by the House Committee to force any cooperation whatsoever. They didn't even try.  So it is kind of choice to read now, according to one House member, a Texas Republican:

"We found no evidence that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it colluded with the Russians,"

So just like the Warrenites concluded no conspiracy after their pseudo investigation so also the House Intel Committee  concluded that no conspiracy existed between Trumpies and Russians - despite all the evidence to the contrary.

In the case of the Kennedy assassination, it was left to the HSCA to conclude in 1979 for a "probable conspiracy" (96 percent probability) based on the 4 shots (appearing as impulses) in the acoustic record of  Weiss and Barger. In an analogous sense, it appears it will be up to the Robert Mueller investigation to find for evidence of conspiracy (often incorrectly called "collusion") in the Trump - Russia case.  In the meantime, the ranking member of the House Intel Committee - Adam Schiff - had these words to offer about the conclusion:

"By ending its oversight role in the only authorized investigation in the House, the Majority has placed the interests of protecting the President over protecting the country, and history will judge its action harshly."

Interestingly, the same general take, of mischievously "protecting a President" instead of protecting the country, could now be said of history's parsing of the Warren Commission.  We now know this was purely an elaborate political and PR charade designed to tamp down national fears and exonerate Johnson from having any role in the tragic events of Nov. 22, 1963.  As one wit put it: "To commit the perfect crime, all that's needed is to be in charge of the investigation that follows."

See also:

• Trey Gowdy admits that the Republican House Intelligence report is fundamentally wrong 

Frequently Asked Questions on the JFK Assassination (Pt. 8): The Nix and Zapruder Films and the Evidence Therein.

What is the difference between Nix and Zapruder films?

The Nix film was filmed by Orville Nix, just on the opposite side of Elm St. from where Abraham Zapruder filmed his. More precisely, he was located at the corner of Main and Houston Streets. Both films show various details of the fatal head shot though, to be sure, the Z-film (as the Zapruder film has been called) has been the more extensively studied, and is perhaps the most analyzed film in history.


A frame from the Nix film may be seen in Robert Groden’s pictorial record of the assassination, (The Killing of a President, p32). There are also Nix film versions available on the internet (Youtube), but none of the ones I’ve seen are the original. How do I discern the original? It is the one featured in stop-motion on the Italian documentary The Two Kennedys which uses a reference circle for an obvious piece of dislodged skull hurtling over the rear of the limo. This is the film that needs to be seen. One can also clearly see a smoke puff rising from behind the fence of the Grassy Knoll - just as described by a number of witnesses standing on the Elm St. Overpass including: Richard Todd, and S.M. Holland (see, the video 'Rush to Judgment' and segments of interviews with Holland, Todd, Lee Bowers and others therein).

Re: the fragment of skull (occipital) bone seen rocketing over the trunk of the car in 'The Two Kennedys', there is not the least doubt in my mind that this is indeed a dislodged skull fragment, and more than likely the selfsame fragment (occipital) found by William Harper subsequently, about 25-35' behind where the limo was when the shot was fired.(Also noted by Mr. Charles Brehm who was standing only 30' from the limo at the time, but never called by the Warren Commission). A missing occipital bone would also comport with the hole in the head as described, for example, by Parkland surgeon Charles Crenshaw[1].

From a purely physics point of view, the motion of the fragment over the trunk clearly shows the direction of the projectile’s linear momentum.  Its motion is also perfectly consistent, and matched to the other kinetics visible. This also indicates irrefutably, that the shot that produced this backward propulsion of bone had to have come from the front. (Note Jackie can also be seen in the film starting to move over the trunk in an attempt to snatch the flying fragment (cf. Z-film  frames 325-58)and her own testimony appearing in transcripts confirms it[2]:

"I was looking this way, to the left, and I heard these terrible noises. You know. And my husband never made any sound. So I turned to  the right. All I remember seeing is my husband, he had this sort of quizzical look on his face, and his hand was up, it must have been his left hand. And just as I turned and looked at him, I could see a piece of his skull and I remember it was flesh-colored."

Adding:

"You know, then, there were pictures later of me climbing out the back, but I don't remember that at all."

And from her secret (secluded) testimony (excised from original version):

 
 

"I was trying to hold his hair on. But from the front there was nothing. I suppose there must have been. But from the back you could see, you know, you were trying to hold his hair on, and his skull on."

 

Charles Brehm in a video interview ('Rush to Judgment', 1986) also notes  the displacement of what he believed to be a skull 'particle' to the left  and rear of the limo.

Reference has been made to Martin Shackelford commenting that "it seems like a skull fragment flying through the air would be in more than one frame"[3] - but it is clear that what Shackelford was looking at was not the original - intact Nix film, but rather a doctored substitute that emerged after "the original film was  lost during the HSCA investigations"[4].   As to the most plausible method for doctoring the image, it would have been aerial imaging photography.

Thus, the actual original Nix film was projected frame by frame onto the rear of a glass screen, This corrupted copy was then filmed frame by frame and when the frames nearing the skull fragment were approached, appropriate “touch ups” were performed to eliminate the unwanted whitish blob. It may have appeared then, at most, in one frame – but no more. Since only a few frames would have had to be re-filmed, and the touchups were generally non-descript, no one would have been the wiser. Why go to all this trouble? Because a key evidentiary piece (showing a shot from the grassy knoll) would be obfuscated.

Certainly, the version of the Nix film I have (from 'The Two Kennedys') shows more than one frame and, as I indicated, it is tracked with the aid of a reference circle (estimated duration: 0.5-0.6 s ). It’s evident to me that more than one version of the Nix film is in circulation, and that there is no assurance that anyone looking at a copy minus the reference circle is seeing the intact version.  Orville Nix himself (interview, 'Rush to Judgment' video) notes that there was an original of his film (which went to UPI) and a copy of which went to the federal investigators. When his film was returned to him by the government, Nix pointedly noted that it was not the same as the one he’d originally given them. In fact, he observed "a frame here and there was missing". Assuming that no one knows his film better than Nix himself, this leads one to suspect that at least three versions of the Nix film are in circulation:

- The original (UPI) unedited version (also in 'The Two Kennedys')

- The tampered version returned to Nix (frames missing)

- A 2nd tampered version - after a copy 'disappeared' during the HSCA investigation

Harrison Livingstone notes [5]:

"Doug Mizzer reports evidence of forgery with this film, with a frame having been removed following the headshot. His theory is that the first frame shows the vapor from the brain shot at the moment of impact on the front of the head, and the following frame shows a large piece of skull fragment in the air coming from the back of the head. This would be conclusive proof that the shot came from the front."

 
 

Mark Lane also notes, in regard to the Nix film, that it[6]:

 

"provides graphic evidence that she (Jackie) apparently was reaching for a portion of the President's skull that seemed to be driven over the back of the automobile.”

By contrast, the version of the Nix film shown at the beginning of Part 3 of the Nigel Turner  (BBC) series 'The Men Who Killed Kennedy' is decidedly different. It’s shorter (estimated 1/10 sec - 1/20 sec) and the bone fragment can’t be seen other  than in the very initial part of the sequence, maybe then for 1/10 second. Indeed, the fragment shot is so ephemeral that one could indeed come away with the impression it is an artifact or 'light trick'. I have little doubt that a similar version is the one viewed by Martin Shackelford, from which he opined that such a fragment should be visible in more than one frame.

Obviously, however, the perpetrators haven’t been able to get all copies replaced, since  as I indicated, mine shows the whole trajectory.  But does it really matter? Bear in mind as author Noel Twyman (Bloody Treason)  has put it, the cover-up conspirators were totally pragmatic in their methods. Obviously, they realized they only needed to compromise one or two versions then circulate them – with the clear objective to arouse ambiguity and obfuscate the identity of the real Nix film.

As with every other piece of evidence that made it though the covert net of concealment, the fallback defense is one of neutralization by counterpoint and spurious information. This has been the ongoing predicament faced by conspiracy researchers. The psy-ops warriors and pawns who have deliberately tainted the evidence, have kept the didactic dynamic in a state such that "anything can be believed" but "nothing can be known".

I have an intact (so far as I can ascertain) copy of the Nix film, but 'Joe Schmoe' will simply assert: “So what? How can you prove your version is more authentic than any others out there?”

2.  Was the Zapruder film tampered with? How?

Yes, according to H.E. Livingstone and photo-optics specialist Robert Groden[7]: "the only available print of the Zapruder film at the time was extensively tampered with. Frames 155 and 156 do not exist".  The film was spliced initially at this location, though the owner (TIME-LIFE, Inc.) denied this was the case.  Also: "the Warren Commission only began to print the film starting with frame 171".[8]

Eventually, the story making the rounds was that a 'junior employee' - put to work on it in the course of enlarging, 'damaged the key frames' [9]. Some personal (e-mail) communications (by persons referring to various copies of the Z-film (like the Nix film) assert it appears to have the skull fragment airbrushed out. (Jackie is seen pursuing it over the trunk - but now it isn't there).  Also, there has been speculation, still highly controversial, that the Z-film  was altered to conflate two separate shots into one, or 'nearly' one, near frames Z312-13.  In this case, if the alteration hadn't been done two rapid shots in succession would have been evident: the first from the rear propelling JFK slightly forward (and causing the forward blood spatter) and the second- from the front, or grassy knoll,  driving him backwards.

 Again, the aim of such film altering is obfuscation and ambiguation so that no clear, incontestable evidence exists. The aim of all the cover-up artists is to keep discussions going endlessly and never have anything resolved - so the Warrenite version always becomes the default.

Photo-analyst Mark Crouch has been quoted[10]:

“The truth about the Z-film is that it was never meant to be micro-analyzed the way it was…The ‘real evidence’ of the Z-film is more subjective than objective. If you believe- as I do-  that a trained and directed team of assassins was in the Plaza, then you must assume they observed Zapruder standing up there with his camera. The assassins would have no way of knowing if he innocently panned his camera toward them just before or during the assassination”

Crouch goes on to assert said assassins would thus have had to be “very concerned with what Zapruder’s camera recorded” …which would have necessitated the attention to manipulating the Z-film – and by extension, confiscating as many others as possible. (Since the Nix film was made from across Elm Street and may also have caught the assassins).  Again, aerial imaging photography would have been used to reduce blood spatter or back spatter – including any dislodged skull fragment.

3. Who was Abraham Zapruder?

 

While the media scuttlebutt is that Abraham Zapruder was just a little clothing store owner who happened to be at the right place and right time to film the assassination, researcher Russ Baker points out ('Family of Secrets', p. 116):

 

 

"Innocent he may well have been but hardly unknown in Dallas intelligence circles. It turns out that the short, bald recorder of history was also a former colleague of Mrs. de Mohrenschildt, who worked with her at Nardis when she first moved to Dallas. Zapruder also sat on the board of Neil Mallon's Dallas Council on World Affairs."

 

 

Meanwhile, some researchers have speculated that when the CIA's Mafia Axis (useful in the ZR/Rifle program)  recruited Italian mob assistance for a 3rd (GK) sniper  (via Carlo Marcello), their (Mafia) operatives wanted proof of the kill shot to be delivered to them intact. This came via the Nix film, and at least this same version was obtained by the Italian film maker Giovanni Bisach for his (1976) documentary.

 

 

4. Are there any other films of which we ought to be aware?

 

 

Yes, and perhaps the foremost one is (Mary) Muchmore's  film near the time of the shot. See a comparison of four still images from excised frames of four films here :

http://www.jfkfiles.com/jfk/html/badgeman_5.htm


Based on a computer-enhanced analysis of the next to last frame of the Muchmore film  by Jack White at least one assassin was caught in outline on the grassy knoll- aiming his rifle. The flash of a badge discloses he was wearing a police uniform. The interesting aspect here, is that from White’s analysis (see in episode 6 of ‘The Men Who Killed Kennedy’) the shooter was within about 1-2 m of the position assigned using the acoustic testing evidence, and reconfirmed by D.B. Thomas in his (2001) analysis.

5. Would tampering with the Zapruder or Nix film affect out interpretations of the events in terms of the dynamics? If not, why not?

The computation of putative changes is based on what’s called the ‘hypergeometric p-function’ assuming a sonar model of  the acoustic impulses is used in conjunction with the film(s).  What I did is (based on the rifle tests carried out in Dealey Plaza by the HSCA in August, 1978), assume that at least 4-5 frames of the Z-film have been tampered with- then asked how this would have affected the actual echograms of the shots that day. The primary effect would be to introduce an uncertainty into the position of the grassy knoll shooter, such that one must remove (subtract) one degree of freedom from the statistical computations. With the single degree of freedom subtracted, the new hypergeometric p –function is calculated from the set {M, N, n,i} = {86, 10, 8, 5}.  The new result yields: p= 0.000333  = 3.3 x 10^-4 .

Or about 3 in 10,000 odds against the null hypothesis.  (The null hypothesis is that which states the echo patterns recorded can be explained by random noised, i.e. the backfires of motorcycle engines).  Similar results apply for supposed tampering in the Nix film – since again, a grassy knoll shooter is  assumed there as well.

 

---

[1] The Harper bone fragment itself (found 25' behind the limo) was later identified as a piece of the rear skull, Or "occipital region" bone. The report of the "occipital bone" missing would comport with the statements of Drs. Carrico and Crenshaw (in his book, JFK: Conspiracy of Silence, 1993) and also with the finding of the occipital bone fragment - which had clearly been dislodged.

 

[2] WC Testimony, Vol. V, p. 180

[3] H.E. Livingstone, Killing The Truth, pp. 76-77

[4] G. Fonzi, The Last Investigation, p. 78.

[5] Livingstone, op. cit., p. 77.

[6] Mark Lane, 1992: Rush to Judgment, Thunders Mouth Press, p. 57.

[7] Groden and Livingstone, op. cit., p. 185.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Op. cit., p. 186.

[10] Livingstone, op. cit., p. 140. Crouch also goes into extensive detail on the following page to do with how  minor touchups” could have concealed the extent of head damage and also “conceal the evidence of a bullet striking the forehead at the hairline”. All this would be to assist in reinforcing the perception of Oswald as the perpetrator – while hiding the key evidence that the kill shot came from the right front.

Frequently Asked Questions on the JFK Assassination (4a): The Warren Commission

BACKGROUND: Arguably, the Warren Commission lies at the heart of the near 50-year old coverup of the facts pertaining to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The players, the investigation itself, and above all the person who orchestrated it: Lyndon Baines Johnson.("The best way to commit the perfect crime is to be in charge of the investigation that follows.”) Among the chief clues for Johnson's involvement, is the fact that the members were all hand-selected -appointed by LBJ who, in the words of researcher Russ Baker:

"was the chief beneficiary of the assassination, having immediately replaced the dead President to become the 36th President of the United States."

Obviously, this alone doesn't amount to much unless we also dig deeper and understand what the deep politics were leading up to the hit. There was first Johnson's profound sense of entitlement to the highest office. Johnson personally felt Jack stole the 1960 nomination from him using a political end around worked out by the Kennedy campaign planners, including his father Joe in cahoots with Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago. Johnson felt a supreme entitlement to the Presidency (some would say he believed he had a destiny), based on his Senate leadership, but he was wrong. Jack Kennedy outmaneuvered him in the primaries and had the mainstays of the Party sign on to ensure his success at the LA Convention. (In fact, as the authors of Dallas 1963 document, there was actually a brawl on the convention floor (unattended to by the national media) between the Texas delegation and Massachusetts when Kennedy was nominated on the first go round and LBJ wasn't.

But instead of acting like a grownup, LBJ forever pouted and held in his grievance that the office had been "stolen", by his overt and covert behavior. This is very well confirmed in Evelyn Lincoln’s book: Kennedy and Johnson, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968, pp. 149-151. Therein JFK’s former Secretary makes known how LBJ would enter the West Wing each morning – through one of the doors into her office, and "hang around". On one occasion, Kennedy surprised him by already being present in his office. He later went to Lincoln and asked her: “What is he doing in these offices?” Clearly, LBJ felt he belonged in those (West Wing) offices, perhaps one reason he once suggested “sharing” the presidency as “co-president”. (Jack wouldn't take him remotely seriously, dismissing the suggestiion as a poor joke before shagging LBJ back to his own humble digs- and providing him with extra make-work!)

While the Bill Sol Estes circus slowly seeped into the background by mid-1963, the same couldn’t be said for Johnson’s close personal friend, Robert G. (“Bobby”) Baker- the Secretary to the Senate Democratic Caucus, and key player as the Baker scandal erupted. The scandal revolved around Baker’s influence peddling and by mid –September it had become embarrasingly public. Kennedy, always leery of his political self-interest, gave the go-ahead for full and open investigation, leading to Baker’s public resignation on Oct. 7, 1963.)

Kennedy ultimately realized that any 1964 ticket with LBJ would be irreparably tarred, and this probably resulted in his expressed intent to have him removed, as signified by his last dictation to Secretary Evelyn Lincoln, before his Texas trip (documented in her aforementioned book). This assuredly signed Kennedy’s death warrant. It meant that Johnson had to organize some way of eliminating Kennedy, since there was no other way to ascend to the highest office. LBJ knew from his pal Hoover that even JFK’s dalliances wouldn’t cost him politically, he was too popular, charismatic.

Beyond all this, Johnson's own words comprise perhaps the biggest 'smoking gun'. They were caught on tape in a phone call to Sen. Richard Russell, after LBJ had been initially rejected by Earl Warren to lead the Commission. Johnson needed the credibility of Warren so the media would accept the commission as a bona fide government entity as opposed to a creature of Johnson's whim and machinations. (Johnson’s first kneejerk reaction was to form a “Texas Commission” to look into the assassination, with staff entirely composed of Texans.). Anyway, Johnson's taped words were - after speaking to Warren (cf. Michael R. Beschloss, Taking Charge:The Johnson White House Tapes 1963-64, 1997, p. 72, as cited by Russ Baker, in 'Family of Secrets', p. 46):

"Warren told me he wouldn't do it under any circumstances...He came down here and told me 'No'...twice. And I just pulled out what[FBI Director} Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City....And he started crying and said: 'I won't turn you down...I'll just do whatever you say.'

Texas hogswill? Hardly. Not when seen in the context of other LBJ actions. What we have here is insight into the man's character and that he wasn't anything near the upstanding "liberal" Prez so many of his followers (like Bill Moyers) have made him out to be. It shows he'd resort to blackmail to coerce the Chief Justice to confer gravitas on his commission - and in so doing it shows he'd stoop to anything to have that commission be a political whitewash. Now on to the questions:

Who were the Warren Commissioners?

In alphabetical order, the Warren Commissioners were:

Rep. Hale Boggs
Sen. John Sherman Cooper
Mr. Allen Dulles
Rep. Gerald R. Ford
Mr. John J. McCloy
Sen. Richard B. Russell
Chief Justice Earl Warren

What were the backgrounds of the Commissioners?

Hale Boggs

Hale Boggs was a representative from Louisiana. By 1971 he began to have reservations about the Warren Commission. About a year later Boggs was killed in a mysterious plane crash in Alaska.

John Sherman Cooper

John Sherman Cooper was a Republican Senator from Kentucky, with diplomatic corps background. Also, he joined forces with Richard Russell and threatened to write a minority report if the Commission did not stress the 'information gap' regarding Oswald's alleged activities in Mexico City.

Allen Dulles:

Allen Dulles, was the CIA Director until fired by JFK after the Bay of Pigs. Up to that time, Dulles "was the CIA", he shaped it into an invisible government during his eight years as head of the agency. Without a doubt Dulles controlled much of the information, files available to the Commission. If it didn't meet his covert agenda, the Commission didn't see it. This includes Oswald's 201 files.

Gerald R. Ford:

Gerald R. Ford was a Republican Michigan House Representative. Ford was also the author of a subsequent book 'Portrait of the Assassin' about Lee Harvey Oswald's role as the alleged lone assassin. Ford - since further files have been released- is perhaps most infamous for altereing key words, sentences in an autopsy report to mislead on the location of the bullet to Kennedy's back. He altered the report to try to portray the bullet as striking in the base of the neck. To see more on this, including the actual changed notes, as well as a NY Times piece on it, check out my Oct. 20 blog ('Joe Klein Loses It').

He also denied that he used "secret materials (not previously published by the Commission) for his book on Oswald and when questioned about this in his 1973 vice presidential confirmation hearings, would deny it.

John J. McCloy:

McCloy, as many sources note, could almost be an honorary member of the Rockefeller family. The law firm he was associated with had represented Standard Oil, a Rockefeller property, in the 1920's and 1930's." (Coup d'etat in the United States, p. 184) McCloy's career, it should be noted, began long before and lasted long after Kennedy's presidency. In addition to being on the WC, McCloy was chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, a member of the CFR (Council of Foreign Relations) and of the Ford Foundation' as well as President of the World Bank; High Commissioner in Germany after World War II; and a representative of the major oil companies. McCloy was also the one who engineered the merger of the Chase and Manhattan banks into the Chase Manhattan.(ibid. ).

An insight into the McCloy's character is provided by the fact that he was the one who supervised the infamous wartime internment program, in which more than 100,000 Japanese- American citizens were rounded up and placed in prison camps. His fascist nature also emerged when asked about this policy and he responded: "Why the Constitution is just a scrap of paper to me"

Richard B. Russell:

Richard B. Russell was a Democratic Senator from Georgia. Like Cooper and Boggs, he parted company with many of the Commission's findings. In January 1970, for example, he publicly expressed doubts about the validity of the Commission's findings on a WAB-TV interview taped in Atlanta. A short time later he died of 'natural causes'.

Earl Warren:

Chief Justice at the time, and originally appointed to the Supreme Court by President Eisenhower in 1953. On examining the composition of the Commission - particularly its Rockefeller finance-intelligence links, it's clear that Warren was merely a "titular head of the Warren Commission" with the real power and direction emanating from 'elsewhere'- like Dulles. As we saw Warren was forcibly "drafted" by LBJ using blackmail - compliments of some of Hoover's choice files.

Who were the 'key players' on the Commission?

According to the sheer proportion of questions asked, the two 'key players' were: Allan Dulles (the CIA's man on the commission - never mind he was fired, he was still the primary liasion with the 'company') and Gerald Ford (the FBI's man on the Commission) ('Treachery in Dallas', 1995: Brown, W., Carroll & Graf Publishers, p. 278)

Of all 7 commissioners, Dulles asked the highest frequency of questions: 2,514 (ibid.) and Ford was next with 1, 722 (ibid.)

Other commissioners and frequencies (op.cit., p278):

John Sherman Cooper - 926

John McCloy - 795

Earl Warren - 608

Hale Boggs - 460

Richard Russell - 249

This is a grand total of 6,964 total questions asked by the seven formal Commissioners per se, of which 4,236 or nearly 61% were asked by Dulles and Ford.

Were the Commissioners the only ones that asked questions?

No. A total of 30,133 other questions were asked by Commission Staff Counsels (e.g. David Belin, William Coleman etc.) with the Commissioners present.

This means there were only a total of (6,964/ 37,097) or about 18.8% of questions that were by the Commissioners themselves, of witnesses in their presence. However, the ancillary support staff asked another 72,833 questions with the seven Commissioners *not* present.(op.cit., pp278-81).

This means that a total of only (6,964/ 109,930) or 6.33% of questions were asked directly by the seven Commissioners themselves - of the total questions asked by them and their support staff or counsels etc.

This minuscule proportion comports with a comment made by McCloy himself, to wit: (op. cit., p276):

"The commissioners themselves regarded their committment to the investigation as a part time responsibility....There was neither the time *nor the political will* to conduct a thorough investigation."

Point: If most of the key players (e.g. Ford, McCloy, Dulles) knew the whole thing was a sham and a whitewash, compliments of LBJ, why would they bother to invest anything more than part time attention?

McCloy's remark, clearly, is a direct admission that the WC scope was delimited from the outset - not only by dint of volume of work to do, but because political issues were at work (i.e. Saving LBJ's ass.) This is something the Warren Commission adherents must acknowledge, at the very least, if they are to be taken honestly. Such remarks (as have circulated among some true lone nut believers from time to time)like: "the Commissioners all had full jobs, they did this part time" - is certainly not commendable. Indeed, it shows the Warren Commission for the snow job it was, i.e. that it invoked the name cachet of these seven gentlemen (dubious for 3 of them), to bestow the aura of 'official sanction', then used lower level lawyers and lackeys for the real work. The crucial work of questioning witnesses and asking real questions - not 'mock' questions.

Finally, it is worthwhile to note (ibid.):

"The Warren Commission asked 109,930 questions to 488 witnesses from February 3, 1964, to September 15, 1964. It is a clear indication of the uselessness of the commission's work that they were 'created' on November 29, 1963, but heard no witnesses for sixty six (66) days."

To be continued...