Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
It's November twenty ninth, nineteen sixty three, seven days after
the assassination of President Kennedy. The White House is in chaos.
Lyndon Johnson is now president, having been sworn in on
Air Force one while it was still on the ground
at Dallas Love Field.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
That moment's become memorialized in an iconic photo that shows
Jackie Kennedy standing at his side with the blood of
her dead husband splattered on her pink suit.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
A week into his job, President Johnson is sitting behind
the desk in the Oval Office. He's fielding calls from
world leaders who want to know what's going on. He's
holding the hands of politicians, assuring everyone that it will
not throw off the global balance of power, that World
War III is not imminent. The country needs to know
(01:00):
that they're in safe hands.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
They need answers. The man suspected of murdering the president
has just been murdered too.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
On live TV, by a two bit nightclub owner named
Jack Ruby. Everyone wants to know who is responsible for
all this. President Johnson is concerned about the attention that
a public investigation would bring. He gets a call from
the head of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover, who will
be leading the initial investigation. Hoover wants to keep it contained.
(01:32):
Of course, we're saying that it would be bad to
have a rash of investigations, but that's exactly what started
to happen. There were rumblings in the House and Senate
about forming committees to expand on the FBI's investigation. Johnson
wants to shut it down.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Tehouse to go ahead with an investigation.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Yes, a bunch of televisions going, and I ought they
see that to be a three ring circuit.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
So Rob, what's at stake here?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Well, if it's discovered that Kennedy's assassination was somehow connected
to the Soviets or the Cubans, it could trigger a
nuclear holocaust. Another reason they want to keep a tight
lid on the investigation is because they're afraid that a
broad investigation would expose the CIA and the FBI. In
(02:31):
another attempt to limit the investigation, this document I'm holding
is considered by many to be a smoking gun. I'm
going to let Dick Russell explain.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
This memo was hidden from the public for a decade
after the assassination. It's referred to as the Katzenbach Memo.
Nicholas Katzenbach was the Deputy Attorney General. He wrote the
memo to Hoover just a few days after the murder.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
So here's what the document says, 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.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
It says that the goal of the investigation is to
convince people of a specific, predetermined result. Two days after
the assassination. These are marching orders from the official investigation
into the assassination of President Kennedy. If Oswald had been
allowed to stand trial, his lawyers would have had a
(03:36):
field day with a statement like that, this was not
an investigation, It was a fate, a compleat.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
This is who killed JFK. Sixty years later, What can
we uncover about the greatest murder mystery in American history?
Why does it still matter today? I'm your host, Solidad O'Brien.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
To recap JFK reputedly threatens to splinter the CIA into
a thousand pieces, then fires Dulles and his top two lieutenants.
He completely goes around the military industrial complex to avoid
World War three during the Cuban missile crisis, and then
he starts a back channel with Khrushchev and Fidel Castro.
(04:27):
Then at American University, he publicly proclaims that he wants
to forge a new path towards peaceful coexistence. He's alienating
a lot of incredibly powerful and determined people.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
And then he's murdered.
Speaker 6 (04:44):
And then he's murdered.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
We're deep into the murder mystery. And now rob has
just handed me this letter where j Edgar Hoover, the
head of the FBI, is basically advising that they make
sure to pinned it all on Oswald.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Of course, President Johnson sent a completely different message to
the country.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
He put out an executive order in nineteen sixty three
that said the Commission would quote evaluate all the facts
and circumstances surrounding such assassination. President Johnson called on Earl Warren,
the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, to head up
the investigation. Warren initially said no, but Johnson then bullied
(05:29):
him into it, telling him the nuclear war was hanging
in the balance Warren eventually said yes. Years later he
said he regretted it.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
President Johnson and j Edgar Hoover came up with a
strategy on how to handle the investigation.
Speaker 6 (05:49):
Here's President Johnson.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
The only way would stop on it put somebody into it,
pretty good on.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
It, that I could select out of the government.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
He's saying, the only way to stop them is to
put somebody that's pretty good on it that I can
select out of the government.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
What do you think about Alec dun I think he
would be a good.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Man, Johnson suggests Alan Dulles. Hoover says he'd be a
good man. They figure they can make it work for
them if they appoint someone they can trust.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
He suggested. Alan Dulls the man Kennedy fired after the
Bay of Pigs. He's known as the godfather of the CIA.
Speaker 7 (06:27):
Alan Dellson's role on the Warren Commission was not to
find the truth, was to cover up the truth.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
That's David Talbot. Rob says that if we're going to
talk about Alan Dallas, you have to speak to David Talbot.
He's the founder of Salon magazine. He literally wrote the
book on Dalles. It's called The Devil's chessboard.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Do you think that it's an accident that Alan Dulles
was put in charge of being the gatekeeper to the
Warren Commission.
Speaker 7 (06:58):
No, I believe that he lawed to be put on
that commission. There is no better figure, from a cover
up point of view, to have on that commission.
Speaker 6 (07:06):
The now a Dalls.
Speaker 7 (07:08):
He leaks up to the press, to the CIA. He
essentially led them down. The Primrose Path said that Lee
Harvey Oswold act alone.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
So after the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy fires him, why
is he on the commission?
Speaker 7 (07:23):
That what was surprising there was no discussion in the media.
There's no controversy around the appointment. The media herald of
Dallen Dalls as a very respected figure above politics. Nothing
could be further from the truth.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
This was a moment in history when the general public
didn't question the government in the same way we do today.
In nineteen sixty four, seventy seven percent of Americans said
they trusted the government to quote do the right thing.
In twenty twenty three that numbers sixteen percent. American exceptionalism
(08:05):
was in full force, and the media was not intent
on bringing that down. And you can't help, but wonder
what they could have uncovered if they'd just been looking.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
So the Warrant Commission publishes its report in nineteen sixty four,
and they do essentially what they set out to do.
They pinned all on Oswald case closed. There were a
few journalists who started poking around at the Warren Report
just because they thought it was odd, but some came
(08:38):
into it accidentally, like Gayton Phonsie.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
There's quite a bit about Fonsie in the archives, thanks
in part to his wife Marie, who continues to tell
his story today. In the nineteen sixties, Gaydon Fonsie was
an investigative journalist for Philadelphia Magazine. Phonsie, like most Americans,
was shocked and saddened the loss of Kennedy, but it
wasn't something that was on his radar as a journalist.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
A year after the report was published, Arl Inspector, who
had made a name for himself as a member of
the Warren Commission, returned to Philadelphia. He ran for District
attorney and he won, and Phonsie thought it would be
a good piece to be written Amonspector. Returning home after
his time on the Warren Commission, Arl Inspector is largely
known for creating something called the single bullet theory.
Speaker 8 (09:29):
Yeah, I know all about the single bullet theory, right,
and we will dig into the science and the forensics
of that later on, But for now, all you need
to know is that the single bullet theory is the
backbone of the Warren Commission report.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Without the single bullet theory, you cannot pin the crime
on Oswald alone. Now, just to give you an idea
of what this is, the Commission made a contention that
only three shots were fired. The first one missed. That
left two shots hitting President Kennedy. The third shot was
the fatal shot.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
To his head.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
The second shot that was the single bullet. And because
Governor Connolly, who was sitting in front of Kennedy, was
also shot, that single bullet had to travel through Kennedy's neck,
then hit Connelly in the back, go through to his wrist,
and wind up in his thigh.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
So Gayton Fonsie is preparing for his interview, he comes
across Spector's single bullet theory. He starts looking into it
and as you can imagine, he finds several discrepancies and
then a confront Spector in a series of interviews.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
The interviews are hard to follow without getting too deep
into the weeds of the single bullet theory, but just
know this. When Phonsie presses Specter about whether he factored
eyewitness accounts into the construction of his theory, Specter responded
by saying, quote, that's a good question. You're the first
person to ask me that question, and I have to
(11:04):
think about it for a minute. Phonsie publishes his article
in Greater Philadelphia Magazine on August first, nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
He wrote, quote, Arlen Spector knows it is difficult to
believe some of the fundamental conclusions of the war On
Commission report. Well, it came out years later. At Specter,
the man responsible for investigating the source and path of
the bullets, did not directly speak to the Secret Service
agents riding in the car behind Kennedy, who had a
(11:36):
clear view of the shots, and he ignored the statements
of several eye witnesses that he never looked at photos
of the autopsy or woods.
Speaker 6 (11:44):
He only looked at sketches.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And then he pieced his incomplete evidence together by manipulating
the path of one single bullet into something that made
absolutely no sense. The things he ignored or twisted to
make his theory work is legendary. But it wasn't just Specter.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
The whole investigation was a mess. They didn't interview Jack
Ruby for nearly a year. Ruby even said that he
would tell them everything if they moved him from Dallas
to Washington, d C.
Speaker 6 (12:16):
And they declined.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
They also didn't interview JFK's personal doctor, who was with
Kennedy within minutes of him arriving at Parkland Hospital, and
then when a witness approached with new information two months
before they were supposed to publish, General Counsel Jay Lee
Rankin said quote, at this stage, we are supposed to
be closing doors, not opening them. A Secret Service agent
(12:41):
even offered a lead, and then that agent was thrown
in jail. Investigators uncovered the Dulles had this habit of
briefing the members of the Warren Commission on what questions
to ask the CIA witnesses, and he would brief the
CIA witnesses and tell them what questions were coming and
what to say. John mccoon, who was director of the
(13:03):
CIA at the time, even admitted that he lied to
protect the agency during the Warren Commission's investigation.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
In twenty fifteen, Politico reported that a declassified CIA report
showed that mcohne and other senior CIA officials were quote
complicit in keeping quote incendiary information from the Warren Commission.
The report says that macoone was at the heart of
a quote benign cover up at the spy agency. Didn't
(13:34):
any of these things come out?
Speaker 6 (13:37):
They almost did.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
A few weeks before the Warren Commission report came out,
one of the staffers wrote a memo to the lead investigator.
The author was Wesley Leebler, and his memo was twenty
six pages long. It detailed the reasons he was uncomfortable
with the way evidence was being used selectively to make
sure Oswald was proven guilty. Well, the lead investigator refuse
(14:00):
to accept the memo. Well, clearly, this was not a
serious investigation. And in the end they found out exactly
what they wanted to find out, and they thought that
the public was just going to buy it, that we
would just accept the report because it was from people
like Warren and Dulles, and that we would just move
on with our lives.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
When the Warren report came out, that was fall of
nineteen sixty four, polls showed that fifty six percent of
Americans agreed with that lone gunman theory, and then only
two years later a new poll showed that that number
dropped a thirty six percent, So only a third of
Americans believed that Oswald acted alone. That's a huge drop
(14:43):
in a very short period of time.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah, but that doesn't surprise me. By then, the report
was met with a lot of scrutiny. People started to
talk about it publicly. In nineteen sixty six, Mark Lane
published his book Rush to Judgment, and he was critiquing
the Warren Commission. It kicks started public suspicion, which bubbled
beneath the surface for ten years until finally in nineteen
(15:07):
seventy five, the story broke through. In nineteen seventy five,
the Church Committee, headed up by Idaho Senator Frank Church,
had just released a trove of documents exposing the CIA
(15:30):
and other government officials of some very horrific abuses of
power throughout the sixties.
Speaker 9 (15:36):
The Church Committee hearings of nineteen seventy five revealed that
there were at least three foreign assassination operations mounted by
CIA officials in the nineteen sixties against the leaders of Cuba,
the Dominican Republican, the CONGO.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
That's Jefferson Morley again, former Washington Post reporter and creator
of jfkfax dot org.
Speaker 9 (15:58):
So the exists of an organized CIA capacity for political
assassinations was revealed and convincingly, without any doubt, well documented.
So that was the first time that the CIA was
really called to account for these types of activities. It
was the first time that the public ever knew that
that's what the CIA was doing.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
And then on March fifth, nineteen seventy five, thanks to
a stand up comedian who appeared on an evening talk show,
everything changed.
Speaker 7 (16:33):
How Are You?
Speaker 10 (16:35):
Dick Gregory is one of America's foremost comedians. His comedy
doesn't just make people laugh, it makes them think as well.
Speaker 6 (16:41):
Please welcome Dick Gregory.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
In nineteen seventy five, Heraldo Rivera hosted a monthly show
on ABC called good Night America.
Speaker 10 (16:53):
Now, if you can remember back and be honest to
when all these theories about conspiracies first came out in
the mid sixties, then we treated the researchers and the
people doing this investigation is kind of paranoid coups. I mean,
let's be honest, that's.
Speaker 6 (17:08):
The way it was. But now we've all lived through the.
Speaker 10 (17:10):
Pentagon papers, Watergate, dirty tricks, and even the allegations. And
I stressed the point that there are only allegations that
the CIA and the FBI institutions that are so solid
in American history, in the fabric of American society, have
engaged in illegal operations against American citizens. Well, because of
(17:32):
all that, I think that most people are now more
willing to listen to opposing points of view. And I
think one thing is certain. There are just too many
loose ends. John Kennedy was murdered, and we at least
owe him the duty of doing everything possible to find
out who all was involved. Now, possibly, just possibly, the
Warrant Commission was right, but what if it wasn't.
Speaker 11 (17:54):
As I started meeting various people that was looking for
something else, I found out that there was a whole
like a cult out here that didn't believe it. But
we just kept looking and kept waiting for the press.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
That's comedian Dick Gregory. He was also suspicious of the
Warren Report, so in the early seventies he started going
to these gatherings kind of like conferences where other doubters
brought all their independent research in an attempt to piece
it all together. In nineteen seventy five, at one of
these early conferences, Dick Gregory meets a young guy named
(18:28):
Robert Groden. Groden is sitting on something incredible. He's got
an original copy of the Subruder film.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
The Zubruder film is famously an eight millimeter film shot
by a local dressmaker named Abraham Zabruder. He just happened
to be set up at Dealey Plaza with his camera
and captured the whole thing on film.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
In the film, you see everything that happens, from when
the motorcade turns onto Elm Street to the President getting shot,
and then the car speating away down the underpass. There
were a few other people filming that day, but nobody
captured it quite as clearly as Zapruter. The Secret Service
promised Suppruter that the film would only be used for
an official investigation. It was quickly taken to a Kodak
(19:13):
film processing facility in Dallas, where it was developed and
three copies were made. Two of the copies were handed
off to the Secret Service and sent to Washington. The
third copy of the film was given back to Zapruter.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
The media caught wind and immediately there was a bidding
war for the rights to Zubruder's film. He eventually sold
it to Life Magazine for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
a lot of money at the time. Life printed several
still frames in their magazine, and after the Warren Commission
used the film for their investigation, they also published black
(19:49):
and white stills, but the moving image was never shared
with the public.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Then, one day Life Magazine reached out to a film
lab for a standard contract job.
Speaker 12 (20:01):
We blew up eight millimeter home movies up to thirty
five millimeters so that we had a professional grade that
could be transferred to final print, and nobody else did
the work we did. Five Magazine found out about it,
and they wanted to see if the Zabruder film would
hold a resolution and clarity blowing up from eight to
thirty five.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
That's Robert Groden at the time in nineteen seventy one.
He was a twenty six year old staff technician in
the film lab. That day the Zabruder film landed on
his desk.
Speaker 12 (20:34):
Well, they brought it to us. We did it and
sufficed to say an extra copy was made they didn't
know about.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Roden was shot by what he saw, and he made
his own personal copy of the Zapruder film.
Speaker 12 (20:48):
That's what I released on the TV show Good Night
America back in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 10 (20:57):
And I want to introduce another guest. We have Robert Groden,
who was celebrating his eighteenth birthday on the twenty second
of November in nineteen sixty three. Robert, welcome, and I
wish you could set up the Zapruta film a bit
for us, and we'll get right into it.
Speaker 6 (21:11):
Okay.
Speaker 13 (21:12):
Abraham Supruter was a Dallas dress manufacturer and it was
pure accident that he brought the camera with him that day.
He got what his frame for frame, the most valuable
historical document of all time.
Speaker 12 (21:25):
I was scared of him, out of my wits because
I wasn't supposed to have the film in the first place.
Speaker 6 (21:30):
I was afraid to release it.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
You became a whistleblower.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
Really, yeah, that's exactly what I was.
Speaker 10 (21:37):
I'm telling you right straight out that if you are
at all sensitive, if you're at all queasy, then don't
watch this film. It's the execution of President Kennedy. Okay,
so the cars are coming along now into d Lee Plaza.
Speaker 6 (21:51):
He is shot. Then Governor Connolly is shot.
Speaker 13 (21:54):
Now Jackie doesn't realize what's happened yet, she goes to
his aid.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
And now that's a live audience reacting to the fatal shot.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
That's the shot that blew up his head. That's an
Austin horrifying thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 13 (22:10):
Now, the Warree Commission said that all of the shots
were fired from behind by Lee Harvey Oswald alone assassin
firing out the president. And as you could see clearly,
the head is thrown violently backwards, completely consistent with the
shot from the front.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
The President's head goes back and to the left. There
is no way that could happen if he was shot
from behind.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
And this is the very first time the American public
is seeing this footage correct.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
And then Dick Gregory closes the show with an incredible
call to action.
Speaker 11 (22:45):
I'm outraised over the fact that the American press should
be doing what we are doing today. I would like
to see the American press, even the press that say
everything we have is not true, to come out and
do the research and let the American people know.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Was it a trick?
Speaker 11 (23:03):
Was it a conspiracy? And let's open up the Warren report,
let's talk about a new investigation. If we don't, I
think this country's going to be in a lot of trouble.
Speaker 6 (23:13):
All right.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
And amazingly, that's exactly what happened. In nineteen seventy six,
after the Zappruder film aired on Good Night America, a
(23:39):
new congressional committee, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, officially
reopened the case.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Gaydon Phonsie was appointed to the committee. You'll remember him
as the journalist who questioned Specter on the single bullet theory.
The commission also appointed Robert Grodin to the investigation team.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
I was more than half mean to do it. I
was very proud to be able to do it. And
there's a history to the House Committee, and.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
That history starts with a man named Richard Sprague.
Speaker 14 (24:12):
Richard Sprague was the original chief counsel, and he wanted
to treat the assassination conspiracy as an unsolved murder. He
was just started from not assuming I was was waskilled,
but going from beginning to end with what actually did exist.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Dick Russell interviewed Richard Sprague in nineteen seventy eight, did.
Speaker 15 (24:35):
You ever have the feeling that what you were dealing
with as far as investigating the assassination of President Kennedy
went beyond the assassination itself and into very sensitive areas
of intelligent skit In what way.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
I was raising questions concerning the connections of any between
Oswood and the CIA. I was raising questions as to
whether the information at the CIA had presented the fact
was reliable information. Making it clear at this same time
(25:17):
that I would not sign any of the agreements with
the CIA, FBI, Justice Department that other committees had.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
Sawn Sprague not only had to sign a non disclosure agreement,
but he also had to give some control of his
investigation over to the CIA and FBI.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
I took the view that for this to be a thorough,
hard hitting, impartial investigation, they could not control the staff. Secondly,
they cannot control that which gets disclosed. The purpose of
the investigation is ultimate disclosure. So I was refusing to
sign that kind of agreement.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
And so they fired Sprague because he wouldn't let the
CIA and FBI determine what he was able to see
and who he was able to talk to.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
I am absolutely convinced that the Congress of the United
States has not the slightest interest in a thorough, in
depth investigation into the assassination of President.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
That wasn't the end of the HSCA. The head of
the committee called someone else to take Sprague's place, a
man named Robert Blakey.
Speaker 16 (26:35):
He said he word in a professional investigation. I said,
I would give him one.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Blakey was an attorney and law professor who'd got national
attention for his work on what's known as the Rico Laws,
which targeted organized crime in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
And that is important here.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
There was a clear relationship between the mafia and the
CIA in the sixties. Organized crime was tree did like
another weapon in the CIA's arsenal.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
It's interesting because when you search the Warren Report for
the terms mafia or organized crime, they're rarely mentioned, and
when they are it's just to say, yeah, they were around,
but they weren't responsible for any part of the murder.
Speaker 16 (27:17):
We called in the senior people from the war In
Commission and asked them whether the CIA mafia plots were
ever revealed to them, and they said no. In fact,
it was withheld from them and whether the presence of
that would have changed the nature of their investigation.
Speaker 6 (27:40):
And they said, yes, there you go.
Speaker 16 (27:43):
What we did is we set up before again an
investigation that was open to a single assassin and was
also open to a conspiracy, and we went down the
usual suspects.
Speaker 6 (27:58):
Did the Russians do it, Did the Cubans do it?
Speaker 16 (28:01):
Did a particular agency of the United States do it?
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Clearly, this is a much different approach than the Warrant Commission.
Speaker 16 (28:09):
THEIRS was a shooter investigation. Ours was a full investigation.
We entered into formal agreements as to how we would
have access to the most secret materials, including the super secrets,
from both the FBI and the CIA. I dealt with
the director of the FBI and the admiral that was
(28:33):
running the CIA, and we got a statement from them
both saying, you were being interviewed by a legitimate congressional committee.
You were not authorized to lie to these people to
save sensitive sources and methods. In other words, give it up.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
They were given a directive that said you're not allowed
to lie to protect classified information. You must tell the truth.
And that directive was written out in a document when.
Speaker 16 (29:04):
We interviewed FBI or CIA people. We showed them these documents.
Speaker 6 (29:10):
And do you think they lived up to that agreement?
Speaker 17 (29:13):
I did until the joann Edes scandal broke. I uncovered
this story in two thousand and one.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
That's Jefferson Morley again, creator of jfkfax dot org.
Speaker 9 (29:30):
The CIA sent a man named George Joannedes to serve
as the liaison to the House slect Committee on Assassinations.
And a liaison position in this type of investigation, your
job is to help the investigators get access to executive
branch material.
Speaker 16 (29:47):
Joe Needs had supervision over the relationship between the CIA
and the group.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Guess what the CIA failed to tell Blakey about joann
Edes That he was.
Speaker 16 (30:00):
He's a supervisor of the relationship between the agency and
in particular group of Cubans.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
In his self published two thousand and one expose, Morley
uncovered that during the Kennedy administration, George Joanedes was chief
of the Psychological Warfare branch of the CIA's Cuban Exile
group in Miami.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
The anti Castro exiles were plotting covert ways to remove
Castro from power. What's important to understand here is that
joann Edes was supporting and financing this group, and now
this guy is the CIA laison to the House Committee.
Speaker 9 (30:43):
Even when he was asked direct questions by the HSCA
Council Bob Blakey and by the HSCA investigators. They asked
him who was in charge of this Cuban student director
in nineteen sixty three, and Joanniti said he didn't know.
He in fact, was the answer to their question. They
were looking at the answer to their question in the face.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Morley published his expose about Joe and Edies in two
thousand and one, and when Blakey read it, he was shocked.
Speaker 16 (31:16):
If I had known that he was a supervisor of
the relationship between the agency and a particular roupe of Cubans,
I would have put him into hearings, and I would
have had him under oath, and I would not have
hired him as a facilitator. I would have subpoened him
as a witness.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
Blakey and the rest of the HSCA published their report
in January of nineteen seventy nine, completely oblivious at that
time to how Joe and Edes obstructed the investigation.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
So this is where they put out their vague statement
that deemed that President Kennedy was killed as a result
of a quote conspiracy. They disagreed with the Warren Report,
which fifteen years early. Yer said Oswald acted alone. Here's
exactly what they say, quote President John F. Kennedy was
probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee
(32:11):
is unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent
of the conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
They also said that the FBI and the CIA were
definitely not involved. So they made some progress. They followed Leeds.
The Warrent Commission didn't. But Joe and Needes was basically
a goalie protecting the CIA.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Were you mad?
Speaker 6 (32:34):
Furious? He was the.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Perfect person to derail the committee, and when you drilled
down on his backstory, you're going to find a big
clue in this case, Dick, can you explain.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
As we mentioned, Joan Needes was the head of the
CIA program they supported a group of anti Castro Cuban exiles. Well,
there were a couple of officers who managed that group,
and it turns out in the months leading up to
the assassination those CIA officers, the same ones established contact
(33:05):
with an ex marine in New Orleans, a guy who
didn't know it yet, but his days would be numbered.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
The contact they made, you guessed it Lee Harvey Oswald.
Speaker 6 (33:24):
So let's sum it up.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
A CIA group led by George Joanedes establishes contact with
Oswald weeks before the President's murder. Then the head of
that group goes on to block the House Select Committee
on Assassinations, the very group that was tasked with revisiting
the warr report which penned it all on Oswald.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Okay, so I am fully open to hear what you
think happened on that day. Where does this investigation start?
Speaker 1 (33:54):
At the scene of the crime, the bullets, the wounds,
the forensic evidence will show a clear path towards conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Next episode on Who Killed JFK?
Speaker 9 (34:07):
Missus Kennedy stop right behind where she had been sitting,
there was a pristine board.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
We tackled the infamous single bullet theory through the eyes
of a secret Service agent who was there.
Speaker 6 (34:19):
When I saw a picture of the baller. My immediate reaction, Hey,
that's my ball.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
And then it gets really unhinged.
Speaker 14 (34:29):
The government had a serious problem, and the problem was
called The Dallas Doctor.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Who Killed JFK? Is hosted by Rob Reiner and me
Solidad O'Brien and Our executive producers are Rob Reiner, Michelle Reiner,
Matt George, Jason English, David Hoffman, and Me Solidad O'Brien.
Our writer is David Hoffman, with research by Dick Russell.
Our story editors are Rob Reiner and Julie Pigner. Our
(35:01):
senior producer is Julie Pineto. Our producers are Tristan Nash,
Dick Russell, Michelle Goldfein and Amari Lee. Our editors are
Tristan Nash, Julie Pineto, and Marcus de Lauro. Our project
manager is Carol Klein. Our associate producer is emilse Kiros. Mixing,
(35:22):
mastering and sound design by Ben La Julie and archival
audio in this episode thanks to Heraldo Rivera and Dick Russell.
Research and fact checking by Girl Friday and emilse Kiros.
Our consulting producer is Rozanne Galliini. Business affairs by Hennan
Naea and Jonathan Furman. Recorded in part at CDM Studio
(35:47):
and Fourth Street Recording Studio. Show logo by Lucy Quintanilla.
Production assistants by Rocco Del Prior and Grace Barron. Special
thanks to Johonig Rose Arse and Dan Storper. If you
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on your favorite podcast platform. Who Killed j f K
(36:07):
as a production of Solidad O'Brien Productions and iHeart Podcasts.