JFK & the Unspeakable: Why He Died & Why It Matters (75 page)

[
172
]. Black, “Plot to Kill JFK,” pp. 5, 34.

[
173
]. Ibid.

[
174
]. Robert K. Tanenbaum, who was initially in charge of the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation of JFK’s murder, has described a film he saw (in the HSCA evidence) of Cuban exiles in training near Lake Ponchartrain, with scenes that included CIA officer David Atlee Phillips, CIA pilot David Ferrie, and Lee Harvey Oswald. Jim DiEugenio, “The
Probe
Interview: Bob Tanenbaum,”
Probe
(July-August 1996), p. 24; with reference to the film depicted in Robert Tanenbaum’s fictionalized account of his HSCA experience,
Corruption of Blood
(New York: Signet Books, 1996), pp. 168-71. When an orchestrated media campaign forced HSCA director Richard Sprague to resign, Tanenbaum also left the HSCA rather than participate in “American history that I knew to be absolutely false.” Tanenbaum
Probe
interview, p. 16.

[
175
]. “Vallee said he returned to his native Chicago from New York City last August [1963] . . .” From “Quiz North Sider on Weapons Count.”

[
176
]. Inspector’s Copy of December 15, 1913, Building Repair Permit for 625 West Jackson. City of Chicago—Department of Buildings. I am grateful to Craig Tews of the Thomas More Society for his research into the history of 625 West Jackson Boulevard.

[
177
]. Berkeley F. Moyland, Jr., citing Berkeley F. Moyland, Sr. Author’s interview with Berkeley F. Moyland, Jr., January 2, 2005.

[
178
]. Moyland interview.

[
179
]. Ibid.

[
180
]. Special Agent Francis F. Uteg, United States Secret Service Report on Thomas Arthur Vallee, June 23, 1966, re Lieutenant Berkeley Moyland’s description of Vallee. JFK Record Number 180-10080-10131.

[
181
]. Moyland interview.

[
182
]. Uteg Report.

[
183
]. Moyland interview.

[
184
]. Ibid.

[
185
]. Ibid.

[
186
].
FRUS
,
1961-1963,
vol. IV, p. 513.

[
187
]. Rust,
Kennedy in Vietnam,
p. 163; with reference to Church Committee,
Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign
Leaders
(Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), p. 222. Conein said the CIA money he brought with him was also for “death benefits to the families of those [rebel soldiers] killed in the coup.” Ibid.

[
188
].
FRUS
,
1961-1963,
vol. IV, p. 487.

[
189
]. Rust,
Kennedy in Vietnam,
p. 163.

[
190
]. Hammer,
Death in November,
pp. 284-85. Rust,
Kennedy in Vietnam,
p. 163. Zalin Grant,
Facing the Phoenix
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1991), p. 209.

[
191
]. Kai Bird,
The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy, Brothers in Arms: A Biography
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), p. 263.

[
192
]. Ibid.

[
193
]. Don,
Our Endless War,
p. 107.

[
194
]. Hammer,
Death in November,
pp. 292-93; Don,
Our Endless War,
p. 107.

[
195
]. John Michael (“Mike”) Dunn was interviewed by Zalin Grant on November 6, 1986, for Grant’s book,
Facing the Phoenix
. Henry Cabot Lodge died on February 27, 1985.

[
196
]. Grant,
Facing the Phoenix,
p. 211.

[
197
]. Ibid.

[
198
]. Zalin Grant interview of Lucien Conein, September 24, 1986, in
Facing the Phoenix
. Although Don suspected earlier that Diem had escaped, the generals thought he must have remained in the palace, after all, because he was still talking with them on the telephone. The coup leaders had cut most of the phone lines in the Saigon area, but left open a palace line to negotiate Diem’s surrender. Unknown to them, in preparation for such an emergency, Diem had run a secret phone line from the palace switchboard to the house of his friend in Cholon. On Saturday morning when the generals thought they were talking to Diem cornered in the palace, he was actually speaking from his hiding place in Cholon. Grant,
Facing the Phoenix,
p. 212. Rust,
Kennedy in Vietnam,
p. 171.

General Don has claimed that Diem in effect then made his and Nhu’s murders easy by disclosing their location in Cholon to the generals and inviting them to pick them up. Don,
Our Endless War,
p. 108. After interviewing both Dunn and Conein, journalist Zalin Grant suggested another possibility. In describing Diem’s final call to Lodge, Dunn said Lodge “put the phone down and went to check on something,” an odd response to a man’s appeal for his life. Grant pointed out that Lodge’s leaving the line at such a moment “would have given him time to get in touch with Lou Conein,” to pass on a location that Diem may have given to Lodge for a ride to the airport but not to the generals. Grant,
Facing the Phoenix,
p. 213. Grant’s hypothesis is “that Lodge gave Diem up that morning” to Conein, and (through him) to the generals. Ibid., p. 214.

[
199
]. Grant,
Facing the Phoenix,
p. 211.

[
200
]. Hammer,
Death in November,
p. 298.

[
201
]. Brigadier General Nguyen Khanh characterized Captain Nguyen Van Nhung as a professional assassin in an interview with William J. Rust on April 12, 1982. Rust,
Kennedy in Vietnam,
p. 172. When Khanh carried out his own coup d’état in January 1964, he arrested Captain Nhung for resisting it. Don,
Our Endless War,
p. 112. Khanh then investigated Diem’s and Nhu’s assassinations. He said Nhung was responsible. But Nhung “did not live long enough to reveal on whose orders he was acting” and was soon “found dead in his jail cell, apparently a suicide victim by hanging.” Rust,
Kennedy in Vietnam,
p. 172. According to the other alleged assassin, Major Nghia, “the fate of President Diem was decided by the majority of the members of the Revolutionary Committee.” Ibid., p. 173.

[
202
]. Higgins,
Our Vietnam Nightmare,
p. 218.

[
203
]. Hammer,
Death in November,
p. 298; Rust,
Kennedy in Vietnam,
p. 172.

[
204
].
FRUS
,
1961-1963,
vol. IV, p. 559.

[
205
]. Higgins,
Our Vietnam Nightmare,
p. 219.

[
206
]. Don,
Our Endless War,
p. 112.

[
207
].
FRUS
,
1961-1963,
vol. IV, p. 533. Maxwell D. Taylor,
Swords and Plowshares
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1972), p. 301.

[
208
]. Taylor,
Swords and Plowshares,
p. 301.

[
209
]. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,
A Thousand Days
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), p. 997.

[
210
].
FRUS
,
1961-1963,
vol. IV, p. 517.

[
211
]. Herbert S. Parmet,
JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy
(New York: Dial Press, 1983), pp. 334-35.

[
212
]. Tom Wicker, John W. Finney, Max Frankel, E. W. Kenworthy, “C.I.A.: Maker of Policy, or Tool?”
New York Times
(April 25, 1966), p. 20.

[
213
]. Ludo De Witte,
The Assassination of Lumumba
(New York: Verso, 2001). De Witte cites CIA head Allen Dulles’s August 26, 1960, letter concluding that Lumumba’s “removal must be an urgent and prime objective and that under existing conditions this should be a high priority of our covert action.” Ibid., p. 17. Richard Bissell, then head of the CIA’s covert action, said, “The Agency had put a top priority, probably, on a range of different methods of getting rid of Lumumba in the sense of either destroying him physically, incapacitating him, or eliminating his political influence.” Ibid. As De Witte shows, it was the Belgian government that actually carried out Lumumba’s assassination on January 17, 1961, three days before Kennedy became president.