Ep 69: The FBI (Part 3)

There are countless issues that we could cover when it comes to the FBI’s involvement in the JFK Assassination. For the purpose of our inquiry in this Season 3 of Solving JFK, the two big questions that we need to answer are whether the FBI had foreknowledge of the assassination in any way and whether the FBI facilitated a cover up of the assassination after the fact.

In this episode, we turn our attention to the FBI’s investigation of the assassination. What did J. Edgar Hoover do in the immediate aftermath of President Kennedy’s murder? What Hoover’s relationship like with the Warren Commission? And what was the ultimate role of Hoover, if any, in the murder of President Kennedy?

Hoover’s Initial Reaction

On November 22nd, 1963, shortly after J. Edgar Hoover returned to the FBI office from having lunch, he received a phone call from J. Gordon Shanklin, the Special Agent In Charge of the FBI Dallas office. Shanklin told Hoover that the president had been shot.[1] Hoover’s first call after hearing this news was to Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy. RFK’s lunch meeting at his McLean, Virginia estate was interrupted with the news of his brother’s death.[2]

Around 4pm Eastern, after Lee Harvey Oswald was in the custody of the Dallas police, Hoover followed up with Bobby Kennedy to tell him QUOTE “we have the man”.[3] While Hoover wasn’t very specific with Bobby, it’s notable that Hoover would express such confidence that Oswald was the president’s assassin three hours after JFK’s death. That’s because Hoover doesn’t sound nearly as confident about Oswald’s guilt when he talks to President Johnson on the phone the next day. Similarly, an FBI memo to President Johnson regarding Oswald’s interrogation from that Friday afternoon concludes with QUOTE “Present Status: Arrested in connection with killing of Dallas policeman. No direct link with assassination. Reported to be refusing to answer questions.”[4]

On the Saturday morning after the assassination, Director Hoover called President Johnson. That call starts out with Hoover saying QUOTE, “I just wanted to let you know of a development which I think is very important in this case. This man in Dallas. We, of course, charged him with the murder of the president. The evidence that they have at the present time is not very very strong.”[5] Later in the call Hoover says QUOTE “The case as it stands now isn’t strong enough to be able to get a conviction.”[6]

But, the real headline about this phone call between the two former neighbors of 19 years is where Hoover says that someone impersonated Oswald in Mexico City. The relevant section is as follows:

LBJ:    Have you established anymore about the visit to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico in September?

JEH:   No. That’s one angle that’s very confusing for this reason: We have up here the tape and the photograph of the man who was at the Soviet Embassy, using Oswald’s name. That picture and the tape do not correspond to this man’s voice, nor to his appearance. In other words, it appears that it was a second person who was at the Soviet Embassy down there.

We previously covered Hoover’s claim that there was an Oswald impostor in Mexico City in Episode 54. Based on what Hoover is saying here, the implications are that there is some sort of plot where Oswald is being made to look a certain way, which for almost anyone, would be enough to establish that Oswald could not have acted alone, if at all. This phone call transcript is definitely on the list of top documents to prove a conspiracy.

Now, the counterpoint against Hoover saying Oswald was impersonated is that the audio tape of Oswald in Mexico City never actually made it to Dallas. Instead, the argument is that there were just transcripts of the tape. This is supported by a Cablegram sent from the FBI Legal Attache in Mexico City to Hoover that says that only transcripts were taken to Dallas. No tapes. In further support of the official story is that the Committee did not interview any FBI agents who recalled hearing the tape in Dallas.[7]

On the other hand, as noted in Episode 54, Hoover followed up his phone call to Johnson with a detailed 5 page memo about the FBI agents listening to the tape in Dallas. Hoover also wrote a memo to Secret Service Chief James Rowley saying the same thing. Also, two Warren Commission staffers, David Slawson and William Coleman, are on the record saying that they listened to the tape months after the CIA says it had been destroyed.[8]

I believe there was a tape because Hoover never changed his tune about it. There is no example on the record of Hoover ever walking back his statement about the Oswald impostor in Mexico City. Instead, seven weeks after this phone call to Johnson, Hoover wrote in the margin of an FBI memo about the CIA, QUOTE ““Ok. But, I hope you are not being taken in. I can’t forget the CIA withholding the French espionage activities in the USA and the false story re Oswald’s trip to Mexico, only to mention two instances of their double dealing.”[9]

Hoover/LBJ Tape Destroyed

So, that’s the story of the Oswald/Mexico City tape that was played for FBI agents, which allowed them to reach the conclusion that the man on the tape wasn’t Oswald. But, let’s get back to the phone call between Hoover and Johnson on the morning after the assassination where Hoover makes this claim about Oswald being impersonated. All that we have left from that phone call is a 3 page transcript. But, the phone call itself was supposed to be recorded. Mysteriously, that recording is no longer available.

Researcher Rex Bradford tried to get the original recording of this phone call from the LBJ Presidential Library. The LBJ library provided Bradford with a cassette tape that had numerous phone  calls on it. But, the one call that he was looking for, the one between Hoover and Johnson on November 23rd, was missing. In the place where that call should have been was machine noise that sounded like static.[10] Here’s what’s on the tape in the 14 minute section where the Hoover-Johnson call should be:

[STATIC TAPE NOISE][11]

There were 12 other phone calls on the same side of the tape. The other 11 phone calls all sounded great, including the calls immediately before and immediately after the Hoover-Johnson call. When Rex Bradford asked the LBJ library about the tape, they told him that it was inaudible. Bradford then pointed out that only one very important conversation was inaudible.[12] 

Almost two years after Bradford first raised the issue of the Hoover/Johnson call potentially being erased, the LBJ library responded to Bradford as a result of pressure from other researchers. It turns out that the LBJ library previously commissioned a study to be done on the exact issue that Bradford was talking about. In 1999 – before Bradford even began asking about the tape – the LBJ Library had a professional analysis done by The Cutting Corporation, who often worked with the National Archives. The result of that study was that there was QUOTE “repetitive, cyclical occurrence of very brief …bursts of noise and word syllables at 6 to 7 second intervals” and that QUOTE “most likely the belt was intentionally erased by the bar magnet included in most models of the magnetic belt machines but a small portion was missed.”[13]

In other words, the LBJ library hid the fact from Rex Bradford that a single conversation on the tape he asked for, had, in fact, been specifically erased on purpose. Now, to their credit, the library eventually came clean after Bradford’s article was widely circulated. The big question for me on this phone call is whether there is additional information that wasn’t captured in the transcript that was erased – or whether the transcript captures the entire conversation and the destruction of the tape underlines just how important Hoover’s statement was about Oswald being impersonated in Mexico City.

The Katzenbach Memo

On Sunday, November 24th, Jack Ruby shot and killed Lee Oswald on live television – fundamentally changing the nature of any investigation into the president’s murder. After all, now that the prime suspect was dead, there would be no trial. And there would be no one to legally challenge the government’s theory that Oswald acted alone.

Deputy Attorney General, Nicholas Katzenbach, was loyal to his boss, Bobby Kennedy. But, in the wake of his brother’s sudden death, the attorney general was effectively out of commission. This meant that Katzenbach would serve as RFK’s stand-in for all matters related to the government’s handling of the president’s assassination.[14] 

After phone calls with both Director Hoover and President Johnson (neither of which were recorded) on the evening of Sunday, November 24th, Nicholas Katzenbach sat down to write what would later be known as the Katzenbach Memo.[15] Remember, this is hours after Ruby killed Oswald. The memo said QUOTE:

The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large, and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.

Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis for rebutting [the] thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing conspiracy to blame it on the Communists. Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too pat--too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.).[16]

Katzenbach concludes the memo with QUOTE “We need something to head off public speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort.”[17] Director Hoover agreed. He told Johnson’s aid, Walter Jenkins, that he shared Katzenbach’s concern QUOTE “in having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.”[18] Katzenbach was so focused on convicting Oswald in the court of public opinion that he set up a departmental task force at the DOJ to prepare counterarguments to any allegations that someone other than Oswald killed the President.[19]

With Katzenbach, I see an American institutionalist who was concerned about the image of the United States that was being portrayed abroad. He thought that the lack of certainty around who was responsible for the assassination needed to be pro-actively addressed, especially after Ruby killed Oswald. It’s also true that President Johnson was strongly implying to several people (including Senator Richard Russell and Chief Justice Warren) that a thorough investigation of the facts may lead to a conspiracy between Oswald and the Soviets, which would result in nuclear war. So, while Katzenbach’s memo articulating a need to convict Oswald in the mind of the public is understandable in that context, it is not the type of document that one writes who is in pursuit of the objective truth.

Shooting Scrapes  

President Johnson wanted the FBI to finish its report by Tuesday, November 26th - just four days after the assassination. Johnson’s plan was to then have Robert Kennedy rubber stamp the FBI report.[20] But, LBJ’s strategy ran into an obstacle when the New York Times called for a presidential assassination commission on November 25th. On the same day,  the Washington Post was about to write a similar editorial.  Here’s President Johnson talking to Hoover on Monday the 25th about how to proceed with the investigation:

“Two things, apparently some lawyer in justice is lobbying with the Post because that’s where the suggestion came from for this Presidential Commission, which we think would be very bad and put it right in the White House. And we can’t be checking up on every shooting scrape in the country. But they’ve gone to the Post now to get em an editorial and the Post is calling up and saying they’re gonna run an editorial if we don’t do things.[21]

President Johnson’s plan was to have two simultaneous, but coordinated, investigations by Hoover’s FBI and the Texas Attorney General, Waggoner Carr. Johnson was absolutely against appointing a committee. It’s hard to not be taken aback by Johnson referring to the assassination of his predecessor just three days earlier as a “shooting scrape”. [Audio clip] And we can’t be checking up on every shooting scrape in the country. Johnson’s point was that he didn’t want to involve the White House in the investigation, but the way he talks about it, is perhaps a window into what he really thought of President Kennedy.

The next day, Hoover writes a memo to the FBI’s General Investigative Division that says QUOTE “Wrap up investigation; seems to me we have the basic facts now.”[22] This change in positions by Hoover is disorienting. Hoover went from saying the evidence was not very very strong on Saturday to telling his agents to stop investigating on Tuesday. And he made that leap without explaining his logic. There was no new smoking gun piece of evidence in that time. The only thing that changed in the case between Saturday the 23rd and Monday the 25th was that the alleged killer, Oswald, had been gunned down by Ruby.

Nature of FBI Investigation

On the same day that Hoover instructed agents to wrap up the investigation, Alan Belmont, who was the FBI’s point man on the assassination, wrote about the purpose of the FBI’s report. Belmont said QUOTE “This report is to settle the dust, in so far as Oswald and his activities are concerned, both from the standpoint that he is the man who assassinated the President, and relative to Oswald himself and his activities and background, et cetera.”[23]

The FBI’s report was issued on December 5th, 1963 – only 2 weeks after the president’s death. The report found that two bullets hit President Kennedy and one bullet hit Governor Connally. It completely ignored the bullet that hit the concrete near James Tague. The Bureau was aware of the Tague injury, but it didn’t investigate it until August of 1964.[24]

As early as the day of the assassination, the FBI was focused on Oswald alone. On that day, a Richardson, Texas cop called the FBI Dallas office about a possible suspect who was a white supremacist. The FBI’s file on this report from the day of the assassination says QUOTE “not necessary to cover as true suspect located.”[25]

The day after the assassination, the FBI New Orleans office was directed to cease contacts with QUOTE “informants and other sources with respect to bombing suspects, hate groups, and known racial extremists,” and to instead focus on QUOTE “Lee Harvey Oswald or anything possible on his background…”[26]

On the same day, Director Hoover personally ordered the termination of all FBI contacts with Cuban sources. Hoover also ordered the FBI’s Cuba Section of the Domestic Intelligence Division to stop from investigating Oswald’s time in Mexico City.[27] On the other hand, Hoover did ask Clark Anderson, the FBI’s Legal Attache in Mexico City to investigate all aspects of QUOTE “false Oswald” sightings and “possible Russian direction [of the] assassination.”[28] Hoover gave this order in response to a Cablegram on Monday November 25th from Thomas Mann, the US Ambassador to Mexico which said that Castro (and maybe the Soviets) paid Oswald to kill President Kennedy.[29]

According to the head of the FBI’s General Investigative Division, Alex Rosen, the FBI finished its basic investigation on November 26th. After that, Rosen characterized the FBI as QUOTE “standing around with pockets, open, waiting for evidence to drop in” when it came to the JFK Assassination.[30]

Shutting Down The Cuban Angle

On Wednesday, November 27th, the FBI was solely focused on Oswald, but there was still an open question as to whether Oswald had help fromd the Cubans or the Soviets.

Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach suggested that Director Hoover send someone from the FBI to go to Mexico City who had QUOTE “all the facts”. Warren Commission expert, Gerald McKnight, notes that sending an agent to Mexico City with “all the facts” was Katzenbach’s way of telling Hoover to make sure that everyone in the FBI understood that the agreed upon plan was to focus on Oswald as a lone assassin – not to explore Oswald’s other potential contacts.[31] Hoover then sent Agent Laurence Keenan to Mexico City to clarify QUOTE “all the facts” of the case with Ambassador Mann and CIA Station Chief Winston Scott.[32]

On December 6th, the FBI learned that New Orleans Secret Service agent, John Rice, was investigating Oswald’s Fair Play for Cuba handbills. Rice had asked the New Orleans FBI for the name of the company where Oswald had his handbills printed. This resulted in the local FBI alerting Agent Joseph Sizoo, the assistant to William Sullivan, about the Secret Service’s investigation. The FBI then contacted Secret Service Chief James Rowley to tell John Rice to stand down, which he did.[33]

On December 12th, the FBI Washington office issued a memo ordering all agents to restrict communications to QUOTE “information pertaining to Oswald and to allegations that a person or group had a specific connection with him in the assassination.”[34]

Hoover and the Warren Commission

We’ve talked about Hoover’s initial reaction to the assassination, his conversations with President Johnson, and the FBI’s limited investigation focused solely on Lee Harvey Oswald. But, what was Hoover’s relationship like with the Warren Commission?

On November 29th, President Johnson, who was reluctant to have a commission at all, ran the potential commissioners by J. Edgar Hoover:

LBJ:    Are you familiar with this proposed group that they’re trying to put together on this study of your report and other things? Two from the House. Two from the Senate. Somebody from the Court. A couple of outsiders?

JEH    I haven’t heard of that. I’ve seen the reports on the Senate Investigating Committee that they’ve been talking about.

LBJ     Well, we think if we don’t have…I want to get by just with your file and your report.

JEH    I think it would be very very bad to have a rash of investigations on this thing.

LBJ     Well, the only way we can stop them is probably to appoint a high level one to evaluate your report and put somebody that’s pretty good on it that I can select out of the government. And tell the House and Senate not to go ahead with their investigations because they’ll get a lot of television going. And I think it would be bad.

JEH    That’s right. It would be a three ring circus.[35]

President Johnson then asks for Hoover’s opinion on potential Warren Commissioners. Hoover gives his full approval for everyone except John McCloy, who Hoover viewed as a publicity seeker.[36] As we just heard from President Johnson, the motivation for forming the Warren Commission was not to seek the truth. It was instead to ensure that there were no other investigations. Since Johnson already knew the FBI Report’s conclusion was that Oswald acted alone, he assumed the Warren Commission would give a rubber stamp approval to the FBI’s report.

Once the commission was formed, Hoover’s relationship with it, was often a rocky one. It started out with the FBI leaking its report to the press, presumably with Hoover’s knowledge.[37]

Still, Hoover found common ground with Warren Commissioners Allen Dulles, Gerald Ford, and John McCloy. The four men shared the goal of making sure Warren Olney did not become the Commission’s chief counsel. Olney was a boat-rocker who was loyal to Earl Warren and was known as someone who would tell the truth. Hoover disliked Olney because he publicly challenged Hoover’s contention that organized crime was not increasing and because Olney was a strong supporter of the Civil Rights Movement. As one FBI agent put it, QUOTE “Olney was the only guy who had balls enough to stand up to Hoover.”[38] In an attempt to stop Olney from working on the Commission, Hoover then told number 3 man at the FBI, Cartha DeLoach, to identify QUOTE “a number of sources to confidentially brief” the Commissioners on why OIney was unfit for the job.[39] This resulted in the chief counsel job instead going to J. Lee Rankin, the former United States Solicitor General who previously represented the FBI before the Supreme Court.

Once the commission got started with its work, a few things its members said and did rubbed Hoover the wrong way. For example, when Earl Warren told the press that the FBI’s report, which had been leaked, was in QUOTE “skeletal form” and that the Commission would need to examine the raw materials itself, Hoover wrote on the newspaper story QUOTE “certainly a needless, dirty, dig by the chief justice.”[40] In March of 1964, J. Lee Rankin, the Commission’s chief counsel, sent a list of detailed questions to the FBI about its relationship with Oswald. Hoover ordered his staff to make Rankin’s request a top priority and respond to QUOTE “these obviously loaded questions.”[41]

Director Hoover didn’t like to be in the dark about what was going on behind the doors of the Committee. He knew that the final Warren Commission report could make the FBI look bad. So, Hoover had the FBI Crime Records Division prepare dossiers on each member of the Commission and all of the Commission staffers too.[42] On top of that, Hoover enlisted the help of one of the Commissioners, Gerald Ford, to keep the FBI in the loop of what the Commission was up to. And Ford was happy to help keep Hoover in the loop. He even smuggled a copy of the Commission’s July 1964 version of the Warren Report to the FBI.[43]

Hoover’s Ultimate Role

So what was the ultimate role of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy? There are three questions here: Was Hoover a conspirator? Did he have foreknowledge? And was he involved in a cover up?

On the first question, my conclusion is that Director Hoover was not involved in a plot to kill President Kennedy. Yes, Hoover had relationships with Lyndon Johnson, Clint Murchison, and several Mafia figures. And Hoover personally despised John and Bobby Kennedy. But, there is no evidence to draw a line to Hoover’s involvement in any sort of plot.

However, Agent Marvin Gheesling, who turned off the FLASH on Oswald the day before it would have been triggered, is a person of interest. As noted in the last episode, Gheesling’s explanation for his actions makes no sense. And Gheesling never testified under oath to the Warren Commission or the HSCA. The still unknown question is whether someone else told Gheesling to remove the FLASH, or whether he did it on his own.

As for the next question, ‘Did Hoover have foreknowledge of the assassination?’ I find the answer to be inconclusive. There are two FBI reports from informants tied to Santo Trafficante and Carlos Marcello that say there was going to be an attempt on President Kennedy’s life in the South before the 1964 election. Hoover knew about these reports, but he failed to pass the information on to Bobby Kennedy or the Secret Service. Unlike author Mark North, I don’t find Hoover’s inaction on those 2 files to be an act of treason. After all, it would not be the least bit surprising to hear the Mafia say they wanted to kill the head of the government that was currently coming after them. The mere fact that some connected mafioso was running his mouth about killing the president isn’t the same thing as knowing it’s going to happen. Nevertheless, Hoover was probably grossly negligent for not passing these two threats on to the Secret Service. 

Finally, the last question, was J. Edgar Hoover involved in a cover-up of the assassination? For me, the answer is undeniably, yes! Hoover, with the assistance of President Johnson (and to some extent Nicholas Katzenbach), was crucial in orchestrating the cover-up of President Kennedy’s assassination.

Remember, on November 23rd, Hoover point blank tells President Johnson that Oswald was impersonated at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. This wasn’t a misunderstanding. Hoover’s Oswald impersonation claim was supported by multiple memos and never retracted by Hoover. Indeed, Hoover later wrote about the CIA’s double dealing and false story about Oswald in Mexico City. This tells me that Hoover had knowledge that Oswald was impersonated, which means he likely knew that the CIA was behind the impersonation. Notably, the Oswald impostor topic was never raised again after the November 23rd phone call with Johnson.

In that same Saturday phone call with Johnson, Hoover says the evidence is not very very strong against Oswald. Yet, Hoover also instructs the FBI to focus on Oswald as the sole assassin as early as the day of the assassination.

It seems at this point in the case – on Saturday, November 23rd when Oswald was still alive – Hoover is open to finding out more about Oswald’s ties to other conspirators, especially the Mexico City angle. But, after Oswald was killed by Ruby, Hoover immediately got on board with Katzenbach and Johnson’s idea to stop emphasizing connections between Oswald and the Soviets and Cubans – which, as Johnson had warned, could lead to nuclear war – and instead, to have a razor sharp focus on Lee Harvey Oswald as a lone nut.

Of course, the question is why would Hoover cover it up? Yes, Hoover liked Johnson and hated the Kennedys. That had to be some small part of his motivation. But, knowing what we do about Hoover, one possibility is that he still desperately wanted a presidential exemption from his upcoming mandatory retirement. Hoover knew that working with his old friend Lyndon Johnson meant that he would likely get that exemption. And, sure enough, in May of 1964, shortly before Hoover testified to the Warren Commission, President Johnson issued an Executive Order giving Hoover an exemption from mandatory retirement.[44]

Another possible motive for Hoover’s cover-up would be to hide the FBI’s mistakes from the world so that the agency Hoover worked his entire life to build would not completely lose credibility. This is especially true when it comes to the actions of Marvin Gheesling.

Hoover could see the writing on the wall. He could either work against his longtime friend, the president, and potentially lose everything he worked for his entire life. Or Hoover could get in line with President Johnson, and, eventually, the Warren Commissioners, to execute the plan outlined by Katzenbach to paint Oswald as a lone gunman.

NEXT TIME ON SOLVING JFK: We’ll have a recap and rebuttals episode on Hoover and the FBI. And after that, we turn our attention to President Lyndon Johnson. 

[1] Cartha DeLoach to Mohr, 6/4/1964, FBIHQ JFK Assassination File, 62-109060-NR; Cartha “Deke”DeLoach, Hoover’s FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover’s Trusted Lieutenant, at 115.

[2] Gerald McKnight, Breach of Trust at 10.

[3] Richard Gid Powers, Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover, at 383.

[4] https://www.discoverlbj.org/item/19631122-35b

[5] https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/lbjlib/phone_calls/Nov_1963/html/LBJ-Nov-1963_0029a.htm

[6] https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/lbjlib/phone_calls/Nov_1963/html/LBJ-Nov-1963_0030a.htm

[7] https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/180-10110-10484.pdf, at 520 (p 10)

[8] https://www.solvingjfkpodcast.com/post/ep-54-oswald-in-mexico-city-part-2

[9] Id.

[10] https://www.history-matters.com/essays/frameup/FourteenMinuteGap/FourteenMinuteGap.htm

[11] https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/lbjlib/phone_calls/Nov_1963/audio/LBJ-Hoover_11-23-63.mp3

[12] Id.

[13] https://www.history-matters.com/essays/frameup/FourteenMinuteGap_Update/FourteenMinuteGap_Update.htm

[14] McKnight at 21.

[15] Id. at 19, 22.

[16] Katzenbach Memo - https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62268#relPageId=30

[17] Id.

[18] McKnight at 31.

[19] Id. at 23; Rankin Papers, Investigation and Evidence, Record Group 12, box 8, folder 7, NARA, 14-15.

[20] McKnight at 20.

[21] https://discoverlbj.org/item/tel-00044

[22] McKnight at 20.

[23]http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files%20Original/F%20Disk/FBI/FBI%20Report,%20CD-1/Item%2005.pdf

[24] McKnight at 27.

[25] I.C. Renfro to SAC, Dallas, 11/22/63, Main Dallas JFK Assassination File, 89-43-804; Branigan to Sullivan, 11/22/63, FBIHQ Assassination File, 62-109060-NR).

[26] Memo from SAC New Orleans to File, 11/23/63, Main New Orleans Oswald File, 89-69-29 and 89-69-54.

[27] McKnight at 86-87.

[28] Hoover to Legat Mexico, 11/25/63, FBIHQ Oswald File, 105-82555-NR.

[29] Telegram from Thomas Mann to White House, FBI and Justice Department, 11/25/63; (McKnight at 24.)

[30] McKnight at 87.

[31] Id. at 25.

[32] Id.

[33] SAC, New Orleans to file, 12/6/63, Main New Orleans Oswald File, 100-16601-119 (McKnight at 17.)

[34] To All Agents (105-406), SAC, Little Rock, 12/12/63, Main JFK Assassination File, 105-406-39. (FBI’s practice was to use Little Rock as the designated office of the outgoing message.)

[35] https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/lbjlib/phone_calls/Nov_1963/html/LBJ-Nov-1963_0236a.htm

[36] Id.

[37] See Warren Commission, December 5, 1963 executive session transcript, NARA 8-9; January 22, 1964 executive session transcript, NARA 11-13; https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcexec/wcex1216/html/WcEx1216_0014a.htm

[38] McKnight at 41.

[39] Id.

[40] FBIHQ Liaison with Commission File, 62-109090-NR.

[41] McKnight at 105.

[42] Id. at 142.

[43] Id. at 43.

[44] https://web.archive.org/web/20160919230405/http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=106266