Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (98 page)

After discussing whether or not to forward the FBI assassination report
to the CIA, Senator Russell summed up the problem of dealing with the
various government agencies by saying:

I have never been able to understand why it is that every agency acts
like it's the sole agency in the government. There is very little interchange of information between the departments in the United States
Government.

The Commission members then debated how soon to interview Mrs.
Kennedy. All seemed loath to interview the widow, yet most agreed that
she would constitute a most important witness. McCloy stated: "She's got
it very definitely in mind now . . . She may not be the chief witness as to
who did the job. She's the chief witness as to how those bullets hit her
husband. She saw both of them."

On January 21, 1964, the Commission met for the fourth time. Warren
optimistically predicted an early end to the investigation, although there
continued to be debate over whether to hurry up the Commission's work
prior to the election-year conventions or slow it down pending the outcome
of the Texas trial of Jack Ruby, which was about to begin.

And again the issue of FBI reliability was raised, this time in connection
with the conflicting information commissioners were getting concerning
the President's wounds. McCloy said:

Let's find out about these wounds, it is just as confusing now as could
be. It left my mind muddy as to what really did happen. . . . why did
the FBI report come out with something which isn't consistent with the
autopsy . . . ?

Rankin urged avoiding embarrassment in questioning the FBI, saying:
"... it would make our relations difficult and make it hard for us to get
the other material if we needed it later."

Senator Russell even suggested double-checking the FBI studies, but no
action was taken.

A lengthy discussion ensued regarding the Commission's responsibility
to question Mrs. Kennedy and the new President, Lyndon Johnson. However, almost a dozen pages of this discussion were marked "classified"
and kept from the public.

The Commission then discussed the possibility of moving Oswald's
body, including another autopsy and even cremation. Although the transcripts make no mention that they suspected impersonation at this time, it
is significant to note the Commission's interest in Oswald's body. McCloy
said: "I don't think we ought to have on the record that we are moving in
this thing [an Oswald exhumation]. We are not saying anything about it."

In response to news articles that Marina Oswald was being held against
her will, Warren suggested allowing someone with the American Civil
Liberties Union to meet with her. Rankin added: "We do have a little
problem because the Secret Service came to us and said, `Shall we quit our
surveillance over her?' . . . I said we can't do that because she would slip
right across the border and be gone ..."

The Commission again grappled with the problem of interagency rivalries.

On January 22, 1964, the Warren Commission was hurriedly called into
secret session because of the explosive news that Texas authorities were in
possession of information that Oswald had been an undercover informant
for the FBI. Reports of this meeting were not made public until 1975.
Rankin told members:

Yes, it was being rumored that [Oswald] was an undercover agent. Now
it is something that would be very difficult to prove out. There are
events in connection with this that are curious, in that they might make
it possible to check some of it out in time. I assume that the FBI records
would never show it. . . . or if their records do show anything, I would
think their records would show some kind of number that could be
assigned to a dozen different people according to how they wanted to
describe them. . . . [Oswald] did use postal boxes practically every
place he went, and that would be an ideal way to get money to anyone
that you wanted as an undercover agent . . .

Rankin wondered aloud if Oswald had been operating for the FBI during
his trip to Russia, but Warren pointed out ". . . they haven't any people in Russia ..... Rankin was still wondering: "One of the strange things that
happened . . . is the fact that this man who is a defector, and who was
under observation at least by the FBI . . . could [obtain] a passport that
permitted him to go to Russia. "

Rankin then connected his musings to the Commission's problems with
the Bureau:

... the FBI is very explicit that Oswald is the assassin or was the
assassin, and they are very explicit that there was no conspiracy, and
[yet] they are also saying in the same place that they are continuing their
investigation. Now in my experience of almost nine years, in the first
place it is hard to get them to say when you think you have got a case
tight enough to convict somebody. . . . In my experience with the FBI,
they don't do that. They claim that they don't evaluate . . . secondly,
they have not run out of all kinds of leads in Mexico or in Russia and so
forth which they could probably. . . . But they are concluding that there
can't be a conspiracy without those [leads] being run out. Now that is
not [normal] from my experience with the FBI. . . . it raises questions.

The specter of Oswald being identified as an FBI agent caused great
difficulty for the Commission. There appeared no way to fully resolve the
matter, and, as Representative Boggs pointed out: "[The] implications of
this are fantastic, don't you think so? . . . I don't even like to see this
being taken down."

Dulles agreed: "Yes, I think this record ought to be destroyed.'-'-

Five days after this secret meeting, the Commission met formally. The
minutes of this meeting, January 27, 1964, show that commissioners were
still agonizing over the question of Oswald's possible involvement with the
FBI. More than two hours of its three-and-a-half-hour afternoon session
was spent trying to decide how to broach the subject with Director J.
Edgar Hoover. The problem was compounded by rumors that added the
CIA to Oswald's suspected intelligence connections.

The stories of Oswald's spy connections were traced back from Texas
attorney general Waggoner Carr to Dallas D.A. Henry Wade and more
specifically Assistant D.A. William Alexander. Alexander claimed he got
the story from Houston Post reporter Alonzo Hudkins, who said he got it
from Dallas deputy sheriff Allan Sweatt. Sweatt revealed his source for the
story was none other than Alexander-who was on the scene of the Tippit
slaying and reportedly also present at Oswald's capture at the Texas
Theater.

Apparently no attempt was made to determine just where Alexander got
his information that Oswald was FBI informant S-179 being paid two
hundred dollars a month.

Rankin dismissed the possibility of approaching Attorney General Robert
Kennedy with the problem, saying:

As the head of the [Justice] department, the FBI, of course, is under the
attorney general, but I think we must frankly recognize amongst ourselves that there is a daily relationship there . . . and we wouldn't want
to make that more difficult . . .

He then raised the possibility of going straight to FBI director J. Edgar
Hoover. But since Hoover was already on record denying that Oswald had
any connection with the Bureau, Commission members were hesitant to
anger the dour Hoover by initiating their own inquiries. Senator Russell
said: "There is no man in the employ of the federal government who
stands higher in the opinion of the American people than J. Edgar Hoover."

Furthermore, Commission member Allen Dulles, former head of the CIA,
while admitting that government agencies and even local police departments
employed "terribly bad characters" as undercover agents, bluntly implied
there was no way to prove such allegations during the following exchange:

REP. BOGGS: Let's say [someone] . . . was recruited by someone in the
CIA. The man who recruited him would know, wouldn't he'?

DULLES: Yes, but he wouldn't tell.

CHAIRMAN WARREN: Wouldn't tell it under oath?

DULLES: I wouldn't think he would tell it under oath, no . . . He ought
not tell it under oath. Maybe not tell it to his own government but
wouldn't tell it any other way.

MCCLOY: Wouldn't he tell it to his own chief?

DULLES: He might or might not. If he was a bad one then he wouldn't.

Dulles added that he would not reveal CIA business to anyone except the
President and that questioning Hoover would not necessarily get to the
truth. Dulles explained:

... if [Hoover[ says no, I didn't have anything to do with it. You can't
prove what the facts are. There are no external evidences. I would
believe Mr. Hoover. Some people might not. I don't think there is any
external evidence other than the person's word that he did or did not
employ a particular man as a secret agent. No matter what.

Member McCloy voiced the Commission's exasperation with its total
dependence on the FBI: ". . . the time is almost overdue for us to have a
better perspective of the FBI investigation than we now have. . . . We are
so dependent upon them for our facts ... "

Commission members also were becoming suspicious that the Bureau
was not being totally open with them regarding certains aspects of the
assassination. For example, Rankin recalled that Marina Oswald told about
her husband meeting with two FBI agents for nearly two hours shortly
after their return from Russia, but said: ". . . we don't have any report
that would cover anything like a two-hour conversation."

Senator Russell summed up the Commission's dilemma:

It seems to me we have two alternatives. One is we can just accept the
FBI's report and go on and write the report based on their findings and
supported by the raw materials they gave us, or else we can go and try
to run down some of these collateral rumors that have just not been dealt
with directly in this raw material that we have.

The Commission opted to allow Rankin to approach Hoover in the
manner he thought best. But after all was said and done, the Warren
Commission elected to accept the FBI's information and conclusions without independent verification.

During the same meeting that commissioners agonized over the question
of Oswald's possible connection with the FBI, Rankin outlined at length
the six major areas of the Commission's investigation.

Area I was "The Basic Facts of the Assassination," dealing with the
number and source of the shots. In charge of this area were Commission
assistant counsels Francis W. H. Adams, who had served as a special
assistant to the U.S. attorney as well as police commissioner and
chief assistant U.S. attorney in New York City, and Arlen Specter, a Yale
Law School graduate and an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia. In
March 1964, Adams announced he could not fulfill his responsibility in the
investigation. Specter went on to singlehandedly manage this critical area.

Area 2 was to establish the "Identity of the Assassin." In charge were
David Belin, an Iowa attorney with a distinguished academic record, and
Joseph A. Ball, an Iowa-born attorney who was teaching criminal law and
procedures at the University of Southern California. Belatedly, an investigation of the murder of policeman J. D. Tippit was added to this area.

Area 3 was a study of "Oswald's Background," an aspect of the probe
that clearly indicated the Commission's predisposition toward Oswald's
guilt.

Area 4 was to determine "Possible Conspiratorial Relationships." It
was headed by William T. Coleman, Jr., a Pennsylvania attorney who had
served as law clerk to U.S. Court of Appeals judge Herbert F. Goodrich
and Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter as well as a consultant with
the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and W. David Slawson,
a Denver, Colorado attorney educated at Amherst College, Princeton, and
Yale.

Area 5 was the study of "Oswald's Death." In charge were Burt Griffin
and Leon Hubert, both former assistant U.S. attorneys.

Area 6 was added at a later date and dealt with "Presidential Protection," a study of the security precautions of the Secret Service and the
FBI. Samuel Stern, a former law clerk to Chief Justice Warren, was
assigned to the job, but Chief Counsel Rankin supervised this "politically
sensitive area."

Rankin also outlined the questions already arising over the medical
evidence. He said:

... We think that the wound in the neck has to be related to one of
these others, but the problem is difficult to determine because we have a
statement from the hospital that the bullet that was more whole than the
other was found on the stretcher which they brought the President in to
the hospital on and then we have testimony later that goes back over the
same ground . . . [saying] that this bullet was found under the blanket
on the stretcher Gov. Connally was on.

It was the beginning of years of controversy over the basic medical and
ballistic evidence.