Lyndon Johnson was a smart man. Once he had made the decision in his own mind to kill Kennedy, he would have known that it was a job that required serious help. LBJ knew he couldn't rely on Mac Wallace or any amateur. Assassinating the President of the United States is a serious business that requires real professionals, people who can get the job done and remain anonymous, people who can be trusted not to talk. So, who did LBJ turn to for help?
The Kennedy brothers had their tentacles all over Washington. This would have made it difficult for LBJ to reach out to anyone in Washington without it somehow getting back to the brothers. The conspiracy was likely born in Texas. LBJ was comfortable in Texas. He had a lot of friends there, and some of those friends would benefit greatly by containing LBJ's scandals and seeing him become President. These men had always had Lyndon's back, and it was in their own best interest to rid themselves of Kennedy. JFK was never going to give them the war they wanted to fuel their defense companies. He was threatening to cut into their oil profits too by altering the Oil Depletion Allowance and was considering raising taxes on millionaires. And most importantly, they too were at risk of the Bobby Baker scandal and other LBJ scandals revealing their own corrupt business dealings and mob ties. LBJ would have felt comfortable approaching these men in Texas with the idea to assassinate JFK.
H.L. Hunt and Clint Murchison would have agreed with Johnson that killing Kennedy was one of the few options LBJ had and it was in all of their best interest. Time was of importance. It would take time to put this fail proof conspiracy together. But, at the same time, LBJ knew time was something they didn't have much of before RFK blew the lid off the whole Bobby Baker scandal, exposing them all. So, by the end of their conversation the conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy was in motion. Who did they draft into their conspiracy?
J. Edgar Hoover knew everything about everyone it seemed. Covering up the true nature of the assassination would have been impossible without Hoover's cooperation. Hoover hated the Kennedy brothers and was in fear that they were about to force his retirement. But it's also important to note that Clint Murchison had been paying for Hoover's lavish vacations for years, hosting the FBI Director and his companion at Murchison's racetrack and resort in California and there are rumors that Murchison had homosexual photos of Hoover that he held over him for blackmail. We don't know if Hoover's involvement in the conspiracy was by choice or by blackmail, but either way Hoover had to be involved.
The other man who knew everything about everyone back then was Allen Dulles, the legendary CIA Director. Dulles and his brother were both allies of the Texas oilmen. But, most importantly, Dulles had been fired by Kennedy after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. Kennedy threatened to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces, and he started the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) in an effort to reduce his dependency on the CIA for covert action. LBJ and the co-conspirators would have felt comfortable approaching Dulles with their idea. The cold warrior saw JFK as being soft on Communism and putting the country at risk by failing to act in Cuba and Vietnam. He too agreed that it was in everyone's best interest to kill Kennedy.
Dulles knew how to commit this assassination in such a way that RFK would never be able to publicly investigate it without destroying his and his brother's reputations. The conspirators would use RFK's own plans for the assassination of Fidel Castro and the invasion of Cuba that was a part of a top-secret operation being ran throughout 1963 that was supposed to culminate in a December 1963 takeover of Cuba. Dulles also knew just the right person to lead this assassination team, Ed Lansdale, an official military general who was actually totally CIA. Lansdale had worked on Operation Mongoose with the Kennedy brothers in 1962. Mongoose was disbanded following the Cuban Missile Crisis and Lansdale reassigned. Lansdale would in turn bring in people he was used to working with to stage coups, overthrow countries, assassinate individuals. Most of these individuals had a grudge against the Kennedy brothers for their failure to execute Operation Mongoose and remove Castro from power. So, who were they? Is it possible to know the identities of the assassins on the ground in Dallas that day in 1963? Maybe in some cases it is.
Photographs taken that day in the aftermath of the shooting show men who bear a strong resemblance to CIA officers E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis, who would both later gain fame as Watergate burglars. A man strongly resembling Ed Lansdale is also seen in the photos. One of Lansdale's long-time colleagues is certain it is Lansdale in the photo. Hunt supposedly confessed shortly before his death.
In addition to these three individuals, long-time CIA officer David Sanchez-Morales was rumored to have bragged to some drinking buddies that he was present at the JFK assassination as well as the RFK assassination nearly five years later. Morales matches the description of someone seen near the sniper's nest in the Dallas School Book Depository building shortly before the shooting started. Morales often worked with Hunt, Sturgis, and Lansdale and had worked on Operation Mongoose with them.
New Orleans D.A., Jim Garrison, received an anonymous tip that David Ferrie, a known associate of Lee Harvey Oswald, was in Texas on the day of the assassination. We have no proof of Ferrie's whereabouts that day, but it's important to note that Ferrie was a pilot who had flown missions during the Bay of Pigs invasion as well as Operation Mongoose. Could Ferrie have been the pilot who flew the assassins out of Dallas that day? We don't know for certain, but there are reports of a small airplane revving its engine and behaving so strangely at Dallas's Red Bird Airport that police were notified. Police failed to respond to the airport because of the chaos of the assassination and the killing of officer Tippit. Was it Ferrie? We'll probably never know.
Because of the nature of their business, the identities of most of the assassins are lost to history, their names and faces will remain anonymous. Once the crime was done, the cover up started. LBJ ordered the blood-soaked limousine Kennedy was killed in to be immediately cleaned and remodeled. The valuable forensic evidence was completely ignored. JFK's body was removed at the protest of Dallas officials and flown back to Washington for an autopsy. The autopsy was conducted by two Navy doctors who had little or no experience in dealing with gunshot wounds. And in Dallas Oswald is arrested and the public is told that he is the man who killed Kennedy and Tippit and the police were pretty sure he had acted alone. Oswald is disposed of two days later. No need for a trial.
LBJ forms a presidential commission a few days later to perform the official investigation into the assassination, ensuring complete control of the investigation. Allen Dulles finds his way onto the commission along with a host of other LBJ friends who have no problem suppressing evidence, ignoring questions, and concluding that Oswald was the lone gunman. The findings are released to the public in September of 1964. LBJ thought he would use the commission to wrap it all up in a nice package that the public would accept, but he was wrong.
LBJ got away with it, dying in 1973 without ever being charged with any of his crimes. But the enduring questions about the Kennedy assassination have persisted throughout the years. It's no longer about prosecuting the conspirators, all or most are dead by now. But the American people still deserve the truth and John F. Kennedy deserves some form of justice. It is in search of the truth that I continue to explore the many questions in this multi-tentacle murder case.
What was Oswald's true role in the assassination? Was he an assassin or a patsy? What about the cop? Was J.D. Tippit simply in the wrong place at the wrong time just doing his job or was he involved in the conspiracy? Did Oswald really kill Tippit or were there others involved? What about the long list of so-called mysterious deaths of individuals linked to this case? What about the two individuals who seemed to have knowledge of the assassination before it happened? How did the man on the police informant recording in Miami and the woman found on the side of the road in Louisiana know JFK was about to be killed? What about the unsolved murder of JFK's mistress in 1964? Did she know something she shouldn't have about the assassination? Why was a CIA agent found breaking into her house the night of her murder? Was RFK's assassination in 1968 committed by the same conspirators who killed his brother? Did Oswald really try to assassinate a Genral in the spring of 1963? These and many other questions related to this case deserve to be explored further for many reasons, but mostly because they are circumstances in a very circumstantial case. LBJ and his co-conspirators weren't about to leave any smoking guns laying around, so circumstantial evidence is what history is left with.
At the end of the day LBJ was successful. He became President and swept all his scandals under the rug. His powerful Texas friends got the profitable war they wanted in Vietnam. J. Edgar Hoover got to stay on as Director of the FBI for the rest of his life. Dulles saw the CIA and the intelligence community in general grow into the force he always dreamed of because they got away with the ultimate crime, treason. Bobby Baker took a small hit for the team, but it was better than the alternative. He could have joined JFK and Grant Stockdale six feet under, and he knew it.
A 2023 Gallup Poll found that 65% of Americans think there was a conspiracy in the JFK assassination, yet our history books teach us that Oswald and Oswald alone killed Kennedy, just like LBJ's commission concluded. Our institutions are designed to protect powerful men like LBJ. But, 65% of the American public aren't buying it. We The People will continue to fight for justice for John F. Kennedy.
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