Legacy of Secrecy (40 page)

between the White House and Dallas in an effort to rein in public com-

ments and legal action that could launch an outcry for action against

Cuba or the Soviet Union. Earlier that evening, the Dallas Assistant

District Attorney, Bill Alexander, had talked about filing charges against

Oswald for murdering JFK “as part of an international communist

conspiracy.”26 Reports like that quickly reached Washington, alarming

President Lyndon Johnson, now at the White House. Given the constant

stream of TV news coverage on all three networks, much of it from

Dallas, LBJ knew that one inflammatory statement on live TV by an

official in Texas could generate demands for retaliation that could be

hard for a new president to resist.

On the night of November 22, an LBJ aide placed urgent calls to Texas

Attorney General Carr, US Attorney Sanders, Dallas District Attorney

Wade, and Police Chief Curry. Author Larry Hancock says the message

was the same in each case: “Avoid any official statements, charges, or

discussion relating to conspiracy” that involved Russia, Cuba, or inter-

national communism.27 DA Wade later said that “President Johnson’s

aide called me three times from the White House that Friday night. He

said that President Johnson felt any word of a conspiracy—some plot

by foreign nations to kill President Kennedy—would shake our nation

to its foundation.” Hancock notes that “the FBI also moved quickly to

bring pressure on Chief Curry to retract statements . . . that Oswald was

known to be a Communist and potentially dangerous.”28 Curry agreed,

though it would be a constant struggle for Hoover to limit Curry’s public

statements about the case. Curry had easily grasped that the FBI wanted

the public to know that Oswald was guilty, but he appeared to have

trouble understanding why Hoover’s usually rabidly anticommunist

FBI didn’t want him or anyone else to imply that Cuba, Russia, or com-

munism was behind Oswald’s actions.

Both Hoover and LBJ knew how carefully public statements and

the media had to be managed as the national and international press

converged on Dallas. Numerous reporters, who would later become

famous, first received national notice in Dallas, sometimes becoming

part of the story. We’ve already mentioned Dan Rather, but his succes-

sor as anchor of
CBS Evening News,
Bob Schieffer, also received his big

break that day. As a reporter for the
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
Shieffer not

only gave Oswald’s mother a ride to Dallas; he escorted her into police

headquarters. Peter Jennings from Canada was there, and in addition

to the earlier mentioned Robert MacNeil, his later partner on PBS, Jim

Lehrer, was also covering JFK’s murder, as a reporter for the
Dallas Times-

Herald.
National anchors like Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and Walter

Cronkite held down the fort in New York and Washington; indeed,

Cronkite’s performance on November 22 and throughout the follow-

ing days propelled him to the legendary status he soon attained.

Unfortunately, the fact that so many careers were launched that day

helped to stifle serious journalistic investigation of JFK’s assassination

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for many years. As Dan Rather implied in his autobiography, if there

were a conspiracy behind JFK’s death, why didn’t the reporters there find

it? The answer is also in his autobiography, and in the later comments

of newsmen like Schieffer: The reporters’ biggest concerns were scoop-

ing the competition and getting something sensational out quickly.29

The whole atmosphere was not conducive to careful, methodical inves-

tigation, or questioning the information stated publicly or leaked by

authorities (something that was rare in those pre-Watergate days). In

later years, newsmen like Rather and Cronkite would find themselves

defending the “lone assassin” theory almost as a matter of professional

pride, as if anyone questioning it were somehow calling the newsmen’s

judgment into question.

A good example of the media feeding frenzy in Dallas that weekend

was Oswald’s press appearance, held after midnight on Friday, which

Jack Ruby attended. As described to journalist Jack Anderson by Johnny

Rosselli, after “Oswald was picked up . . . underworld conspirators

feared he would crack and disclose information that might lead to them.

This almost certainly would have brought a massive US crackdown on

the Mafia, so Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminate Oswald.”30 That Friday

evening, as Ruby tried to get close to Oswald, he found himself incred-

ibly busy. Ruby had free access to police facilities because, as Tippit’s

attorney later said, Ruby was “very close friends” with Captain Fritz,

who was running the homicide investigation, and “Ruby, in spite of his

reputation of being a ‘hood,’ was allowed complete run of the Homicide

Bureau.”31

Ruby later admitted he was carrying his pistol that evening. He was

seen on the third floor of police headquarters that night at 6:00 PM (Cen-

tral) and again an hour later. Not long after that, Ruby attempted to open

the door to Captain Fritz’s office, where Oswald was being interrogated.

If Ruby had succeeded, he probably would have done then what mil-

lions of people would see him do on live television less than forty-one

hours later. But that night two policemen stopped Ruby, one cautioning

him, “You can’t go in there, Jack.”

Jack left the police station, but not for long. At 10:30 PM, while Oswald

was being interrogated, Ruby called one of the officers and offered to

bring them sandwiches, but the officer declined. Ruby was seen at the

police station again around 11:30 PM. Soon after, Ruby attended a press

briefing by Chief Curry and DA Wade, where he learned that Oswald

was going to be shown to newsmen in a press conference in the base-

ment. Ruby made sure he was there, and he is clearly visible in film of

Oswald’s brief press conference. However, the film also shows that Ruby

was too far away to get a clear shot at Oswald (and in the packed room,

swarming with police, one shot was all he could count on).

But Ruby was able to helpfully correct Wade when the DA mistak-

enly said that Oswald was a member of the “Free Cuba Committee.”

That was the name of an anti-Castro group run by Eladio del Valle,

the criminal associate of Ferrie, Trafficante, and Masferrer (the last two

also knew Ruby). Ruby shouted out a correction to Wade, saying it was

actually the “Fair Play for Cuba Committee,” which was a pro-Castro

organization.32

During the rowdy press conference, Oswald said in response to a

question that he “didn’t shoot anybody, no sir” and correctly stated

that he had not been charged with shooting the President. Oswald also

asked for someone to “come forward to give me legal assistance,” pos-

sibly an appeal to one of his contacts, like Banister or Phillips, to clear

him with the authorities. (Two lawyers connected to Marcello received

calls about representing Oswald, but Oswald never saw a lawyer while

he was in custody.) Interestingly, Chief Curry later said that “one would

think Oswald had been trained in interrogation techniques and resisting

interrogation techniques,” and that Curry believed Oswald could have

been some type of agent. That was based on the way Oswald handled

himself during the twelve hours of interrogation that weekend, none

of which were recorded or stenographically transcribed. Assistant DA

Alexander said that he “was amazed that a person so young would have

had the self-control he had. It was almost as if he had been rehearsed, or

programmed, to meet the situation that he found himself in.”33

Alexander apparently didn’t consider the possibility that Oswald

had been trained to handle KGB interrogation before he went to Russia,

or to deal with the possibility of interrogation by Cuba’s secret police

if Oswald successfully entered that country. DA Alexander also didn’t

entertain the prospect that Oswald might have been innocent of shooting

JFK. (As many authors, such as Anthony Summers, have documented,

“nobody has ever made the flimsiest allegation that the authentic Lee

Oswald had anything but good to say about John Kennedy.” This was

true in Oswald’s interrogations, his media appearances, and his pri-

vate talks. Three months before JFK’s murder, Oswald had been inter-

viewed by a New Orleans police lieutenant who later said that Oswald

“seemed to favor President Kennedy [and] in no way demonstrated

any animosity or ill feeling toward President Kennedy . . . he liked the

President.”)34

After Oswald had been taken from the room after the press conference,

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Ruby ran up to DA Wade, saying, “Hi, Henry!” Wade shook hands with

Ruby and asked, “What are you doing here?” William Manchester wrote

that “Ruby waved his hand about and said grandly, ‘I know all these

fellows,’” meaning the many policemen in the room.35 Ruby realized he

wouldn’t have any more chances to get to Oswald that night, so he left

and went to a radio station owned by Gordon McClendon, a close friend

of David Atlee Phillips. McClendon was also friends with Ruby, who

had tried to call McClendon’s home earlier that evening.

Oswald was finally charged with killing JFK at 1:30 AM (Central); he

had been charged with killing Tippit earlier, at 7:30 PM. Anthony Sum-

mers writes that Assistant DA Alexander later said Oswald was charged

with killing JFK because of his departure from the Book Depository,

his story about bringing curtain rods to work that morning, and the

“‘communist’ literature found among Oswald’s effects at the rooming

house.”36 (Several years earlier, Guy Banister had found and displayed

for New Orleans media a very similar stash of incriminating communist

literature.)37

By 2:00 AM, Ruby had left the radio station for an suspicious meet-

ing at Simpson’s Parking Garage. There, Ruby met with a Dallas police

officer and his girlfriend, a dancer for Ruby. Those involved gave vary-

ing accounts of the length of the meeting and who was present, but the

policeman said it lasted between two and three hours. That seems like

a long time for a meeting in the middle of the night at a parking garage.

Some have speculated that Ruby was trying to talk the officer into shoot-

ing Oswald, helping Ruby find an officer who would, or helping Ruby

get close enough to Oswald to do the job himself.

Chapter Fifteen

In the predawn hours of November 23, 1963, another piece of evidence

surfaced that would seal the case against Oswald. Historian Richard

Mahoney writes that at “4:00 AM (Central), executives at Klein’s Sport-

ing Goods in Chicago discovered the
American Rifleman
[magazine]

coupon Oswald had allegedly used to order the Mannlicher-Carcano

[found on the sixth floor of the Book Depository.] CIA files from the

Assassination Archives reveal that the first lead as to the location of

the rifle came from the chief investigator of the Cook County Sheriff’s

Office, Richard Cain, a Roselli-Giancana confederate.”1 Like most of

those involved in the JFK assassination operation, Cain also knew Traf-

ficante and had worked on the CIA-Mafia plots—and CIA files confirm

that he knew about the AMWORLD part of the JFK-Almeida coup plan.

Cain, a “made” member of the Chicago Mafia, was also an active CIA

asset at the time.2

Cain had been feeding information to the CIA since August that would

impact the course of the investigation, and he continued to plant phony

stories in the press after JFK’s death, saying that Oswald had received

money in Chicago. However, when Chicago Secret Service Agent Abra-

ham Bolden was asked by the Dallas office to get information about

“Oswald’s rifle and the possibility that Oswald received money from

Chicago . . . neither Bolden, nor any other Secret Service agent, could

get any information on either lead and they were preempted by the FBI,

who had . . . warned all concerned to talk to no one, including the Secret

Service.”3 Because of LBJ’s close relationship with J. Edgar Hoover, the

FBI would win the turf war with the Secret Service over the JFK inves-

tigation. However, both agencies continued to cooperate in squelching

the release of problematic information, including any news about the

Chicago and Tampa attempts.

As for mob lawman Richard Cain, a CIA memo says he was “heav-

ily involved” in the JFK assassination investigation, but almost none of

those files have been released.4 Months later, when Abraham Bolden

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

would try to bring the Chicago and Tampa attempts to the Warren Com-

mission’s attention, Cain would have the motive, means, and opportu-

nity to help frame Bolden.

Thousands of pages have been written about the odd circumstances

of the rifle’s ordering, its abysmal condition, and whether or not the