November 22, 2024 • 39 mins
Sixty-one years ago, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. That tragedy still haunts America today. In 2022, the Biden Administration released more than 13k records on the assassination. More than 3,000 records remain unreleased or are redacted. During President Elect Donald Trump’s campaign, he pledged to release the remaining files. Do you think the remaining JFK assassination files should be released? Tom Samoluk, former Deputy Director of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board joined Dan to discuss a heartbreaking moment in American History.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Costin's new radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
And I gave it a great ideal of all.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Here is a bulletin from CBS News in Dallas, Texas.
Three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas.
The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously
wounded by this shooting.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
The voice of Walter Cronkite on it was a Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 5 (00:33):
Oh no, I don't let me.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
It was a Thursday afternoon. Excuse me, it's a Thursday afternoon.
In nineteen sixty three, when John Kennedy was assassinated by
a gunman, shooting out of the fifth floor of the
Texas school Book Depository as his depository, as his motorcade
made its way through Dealey Plasm. I have followed that
(00:58):
case for a long time. Ported on the assassination on
the fifteenth anniversary in nineteen seventy eight, twentieth anniversary and
nineteen eighty three from Dallas, Texas. Interviewed most many of
the principles. But no one who I know knows as
much about what happened and also as much about what
(01:18):
we don't know. Is my friend Tom Semilac. Tom Semilac,
in the mid nineteen ninety served as the deputy director
of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board,
an independent federal agency that was responsible for the review
and public release of classified records on the assassination, which
you now housed at the National Archives. Tom has been
my guest before, and he joins us again tonight. Tom,
(01:42):
another sad anniversary. Sixty one years ago today we lost
the thirty fifth President of the United States.
Speaker 6 (01:51):
Good evening, Dan, and thanks for having me. Yes, it's
hard to believe that it's sixty one years ago today
that President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, And of course
for those of US Bostonians and New Englanders, and of
course all Americans, but particularly here a special and very
profoundly sad impact.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Tom. You've had a stellar legal career.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
You're the general counsel, head of government relations for John Hancock,
the US segment of the Toronto based manual Life and
you're also a member of that company's leadership team. You've
been with John Hancock since nineteen ninety nine, twenty five
years now. You also had served as an Assistant Attorney
(02:38):
General here in Massachusetts, I believe when Scott Harshbarker was
Attorney General. So you've had a very interesting career. But
I want to focus on your work with the Kennedy
Assassination Records Review Board. You were intimately evolved in this
in the nineteen nineties, which would have been about thirty
some odd years after the assassination. We are now sixty
(03:03):
one years after the assassination. How much more do we
know now than when your organization that tried to do
such great work and often I think felt steymied. How
much more information have we learned quantitatively in the last
thirty years in your opinion.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
Well, Dan, I think that the barometer of how much
more we've learned can be gauged by what authors, historians,
and researchers have done with the records that the Assassination
Records Review Board declassify and sent to the National Archives
Facility in College Park, Maryland, and that's where the records
(03:46):
are housed. There are records that are available online, and
it really is satisfying to know that the work of
the Review Board has led to a more complete history,
if you will, of the assassination and the events surrounding it.
(04:06):
The mandate for the Review Board was not to reinvestigate
and come to any conclusion following up on what the
Warren Commission had done in nineteen sixty four and the
House Select Committee on Assassinations had done in the late seventies. Rather,
it was at that point, as you noted, thirty years
after the assassination, rather to release the records for all
(04:31):
Americans to go find and research and delve into and
if they won't come to their own conclusions about what happened, well,
this was.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
The murder of a president of the United States in
broad daylight in Dallas, Texas at high noon. Just to
get people a little bit familiar who weren't around at
that time. And again at sixty one years so you
would have had to have been eight or two years
old to really have specific memory. Rob, I know you
(05:03):
have three cuts. Play the second catch. Just to continue
to continue the theme.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
The best picture has just been transmitted by wire. It
is a picture taken just a moment or two before
the incident. If you can zoom in with that camera,
we can get a closer look at this picture.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Yeah, and that was probably one of the last pictures
of President Kennedy alive just before before the shooting. And
then of course there was the announcement that Walter Cronkite
need at least it probably was made of the other networks.
But we learned that afternoon around this was one thirty
(05:44):
Boston time, maybe well maybe a little bit. It's more
like two o'clock Boston time, because the shooting had occurred
about twelve thirty Dallas time, and this was the This
was when the nation learned from Walter Cronkite that indeed
President Kennedy had been assassinated cut three rob.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
From Dallas, Texas.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
The flash apparently official President Kennedy died at one pm
Central Standard time two o'clock Eastern Standard time, some thirty
eight minutes ago. Vice President and Johnson has left the
(06:25):
hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where
he has proceeded. Presumably he will be taking the oath
of office shortly and become the thirty sixth President of
the United States.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Cronkite at all he could do but to compose himself,
and of course Linda Johnson did take the oath of
office from a federal judge. On what that had become
if force one and everyone remembers the picture of Linda Johnson,
obviously in a state of shock, and his wife, Lady
(07:03):
Bird Johnson, and President Kennedy's widow, Jacqueline Kennedy standing next
to the president as that as that plane left left Dallas,
heading back to Washington with the president's body.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
My guest is Tom sam Aluk. Tom, I.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Want to chat a little bit more about your thoughts,
and I go, I know you're not speaking here officially,
but I'm fascinated by the fact that.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
We still really don't know for sure.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
What events set in motion the assassination of President Kennedy.
I know you've it's been your life, life's work, and
I'm sure people will have questions and theories, and I
just didn't want this night to pass without our understanding
and acknowledgment of a very important night. I remember, I
know exactly what I was doing on this very night
(08:04):
sixty one years ago. Tonight, I was playing hockey, high
school hockey, pre season hockey game, you know, without coaches,
at a rink somewhere in the South Shore, which i'd
have to I wouldn't be able to find for a
million dollars, may not even exist. So much time has passed,
but it all seemed very weird. You're younger than I am, Tom,
(08:27):
if I'm not mistaken, I don't know if you recall
what you were doing that night, you probably would glued
to the television like most of America was.
Speaker 6 (08:34):
Well, i'll date myself, Dan. I am a little younger
than you, and I was in the first grade, and
I remember, interestingly, they had not told us at school
that the president had been shot. And so I got
off the school bus after a complete day of school
and was met by my younger brother, Bob, who was
(08:57):
four years old, two years younger than me, and I
remember exactly what he said, and he had learned from
being around the TV. And my mother was home, and
I stepped off the bus and he was waiting for me,
and he said President Kennedy was shot and jumped in
missus Kennedy's lap. That's what a four year old had
(09:20):
for an understanding of what had happened. And walked up
the street with him into my house. And it was
not unusual that my mother was in the family room ironing,
but what was different was that the TV was on,
but it was news and she was crying, and I
(09:44):
didn't quite understand. I knew that we had followed President Kennedy,
and my oldest sister Carol, had had scrap books from
when President Kennedy had been elected Senator from Massachusetts. But
this was different because I knew we didn't know him.
But my mother was crying and I knew was it
(10:05):
was bad news. And like so many million Americans that
do have memories of that day, it's kind of seared
in your memory forever.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Even the memory of a first grader. My guess it's
Tom Semilak served as deputy director the President John F.
Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board. We will continue our conversation
with Tom Samilak if you would like to join the
conversation six one seven two five four ten thirty or
six one seven a nine ten thirty.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
My name is Dan Ray. This is night Side. This
is a moment in.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Time that changed our generation. It changed the world. It
was the opening, it was the ending moment of the
peace and prosperity of the nineteen fifties post World War Two,
and it opened up some tumultuous years which involved other
(11:02):
assassinations and political unrest and upheaval. And we'll get to
all of that with my guest Tom semelek Uh, and
we're gon we're gonna drill down a little bit, particularly
on now President elect Trump's pledge to get all of
the records. And I think I'm correct when I say that.
If I'm not, Tom my friend will correct me. But
(11:24):
I believe that Donald Trump has made a pledge that
he will get all of the Kennedy assassination records out
into the light of public day and transparent and done transparently.
We'll continue on Nightside.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
Stay with us.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
It's going to be an interesting program. I promise you
if you if you're young enough and you don't know
a lot about the Kennedy assassination, you definitely want to
stick with us. And if you're a little old and
you remember it, we'd love to hear your recollections as well.
Back on Nightside right after this.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
to Night Side Studios. I'm WBS Radio.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
You know, I think I misspoke. Kennedy was actually shot
on a Friday. So it was it just so happened
that the twenty second of November falls on a Friday.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
There was it was and you know, this is better
than I do.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Tom, I misspoke. I said it was it was a Thursday.
It was actually a Friday that November twenty second. It
was a Friday this year. It was a Friday sixty
one years ago.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
I I just I was talking to someone today, having
interviewed Jim Levelle, the Dallas police detective who had was
handcuffed handcuffed to Walt Oswald when Oswald was shot by
Jack Ruby.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
Vell was an interesting guy.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
I did you guys ever get a chance to talk
with him?
Speaker 6 (12:53):
No, we did not. We focused on where the records were,
and we did come into contact with a lot of
interesting players and characters. One that comes to mind was, actually,
if people saw the nineteen ninety one Oliverstone movie JFK.
(13:15):
Kevin Costner plays Jim Garrison, and there were records to
be found in New Orleans, and Garrison was deceased by
the time we were in business, but we dealt with
people who had records, and we actually dealt with Garrison's successor,
who was Harry Connick Senior, who interestingly the father of
(13:39):
the well known entertainer and he had succeeded Garrison, and
we dealt with his office on the records from the
Garrison investigation.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Well, Garrison, if I recall, correctly, had some very specific
beliefs and he then got ripped pretty good. I always
felt I wasn't sure if Garrison was as nutty as
people as the media portrayed him, or if he was
(14:10):
right over the target conversely, and that there were people
who wanted to, you know, to discourage people listening to him.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
What was your impression of Garrison?
Speaker 6 (14:20):
Well, I think that it's funny that debate continues even today.
He did become a judge after Connick defeated him for
a district attorney. I think he probably got some things right,
but he kind of served the assassination up on a
buffet platter.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
It was like.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
Everything was there and it probably didn't occur like that.
We may not know everything that happened, but it wasn't
every theory that you can imagine.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
Yeah, well, it was interesting just getting back to this
Dallas police detective. Anybody who's seen the picture of Oswald
being shot, His name was Jim Level and I interviewed
him in nineteen seventy eight. He would have been at
that point he was I guess he was born in
nineteen twenty maybe I'm guessing nineteen twenty or something like that.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
So when I interviewed him, he.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Was very sharp, you know, he was I mean, you know,
wasn't even probably fifty years of age at that point.
He would he survived Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
He was.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
He actually was in the Navy and was on duty
as a twenty one year old third class petty officer
in Pearl Harbor. So he was at these two significant
events that sort of book ended an era in American history,
Pearl Harbor to the assassination of Kennedy. When you think
(15:50):
about it, I mean, World War two ended with the
United States having dropped the bomb and becoming the premiere
power in the world, and yet in nineteen sixty three,
the Kennedy assassination kind of turned the world, our worlds up,
our world upside down, followed closely by, you know, the
(16:14):
Quagmar of Vietnam, civil rights assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
as well as doctor Martin Luther King. Just an interesting guy,
almost like a not a Forrest Gump guy, because obviously
this guy was a lot more together.
Speaker 5 (16:32):
But it's I remember sitting with him and just thinking.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
This guy was I did not realize, and he lived
until he was ninety nine years of age. He lived
a very full life and died in twenty nineteen. So
I mean he was He was born in nineteen nineteen
twenty and as they say, when I interviewed him in
nineteen seventy eighteen, would have been doing the math fifty
(16:57):
eight years of age. He was sharp as attack, recalling
how he reacted and when when Ruby stepped out of
the crowd. What's your sense the big picture here? Do
you think we will ever find out the truth? For
a long time, I thought someone was going to give
us a deathbed confession that he was the person who
(17:20):
did this or did that. The longer we go, Tom,
the less likely I think that is.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
To be right. I think that Dan, many of us
who have followed the assassination and bet involved in either
rec release or in one way or another, have come
to the conclusion in a long time that the unequivocal
truth is lost to history. That's unfortunate. It was probably
(17:48):
lost to history a long long time ago, not far,
not long after the assassination itself, because of mistakes that
were made in the investigation, because of the Cold War
environment at the time. I think that there were a
lot of people who did not want to open any
(18:09):
doors beyond a lone gunman that could have, in their view,
made a very complex and dangerous world even more complex
and dangerous if it was a conspiracy. They didn't want
to find out, so they wanted it to be simple.
And as a result, here we are six sixty one
(18:30):
years later and not knowing what the truth is. And
that's not fair. It has been fair to the American public,
and that's why the review board for which I worked
made the effort to at least to be able to
say that all the records are released. Unfortunately, as we'll
(18:52):
probably get into here, that is not yet the case.
But I hope it will become the case that we
can say everything that we know to be part of
the records is available to the American public.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Well, I guess it's Tom Samlik. He's was the deputy
director of the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records and review
Board President Trump. And if I'm wrong, Tom, correct me here,
because I just got to jump to news in a moment.
Had made an issue of this on the campaign trail,
He made an issue of it in twenty sixteen that
he would release all the records that were available. That
(19:29):
did not happen. We can talk about maybe why it
didn't happen. But now President Trump has a second bite
at that apple, and I, for one hope, hope that
this great mystery of our lives tom will somehow be
clarified for us. Do you read what President Trump said,
(19:52):
both in twenty sixteen or in advance of the twenty
sixteen election and in advance of this election as his
intention at least whether he follows through And we'll have
to wait and see. But am I reading what he
has said correctly?
Speaker 6 (20:05):
Oh, you are definitely correct, Dan. He did not release
all the records when he was president in twenty seventeen.
He said that he would, but he was advised by
certain people in the administration not to do so, so
that left many records, uh not released. But you're correct.
(20:25):
During the campaign he said that he would as a
priority that he would he would release the remaining records
if he became president again. And as we know, January twentieth,
he will be sworn in as the forty seventh president.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
And that is again eight years ago. So as you
mentioned to me today, eight years has passed by. We'll
get into a little bit more. We go to news.
If you want to call, we got a couple of
lines that are available six, one, seven, two, five, four,
ten thirty six one seven, nine, three, one, ten thirty.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
I'm more than willing to talk.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
About this longer than this hour, so don't hesitate to
fill these phone lines up. We will be back right
after this with Tom Samlac, a great friend and a
great attorney who served as deputy director on the John F.
Kennedy Assassination Records and Review Board, coming back on night Side.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
You're on Night Side with Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
I guess it's Tom Samulak, deputy Director John F. Kennedy
Assassination Records and Review Board. Tom, you again know so
much more about this than any of us know. I
just got to ask a couple of questions that I
want to get the phone calls. Do you think that
(21:41):
the records which would tell us how this assassination plot
came to be?
Speaker 5 (21:48):
Because that's that's what we don't know right.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
Right? And Dan, I think that I've read some articles
today on the sixty first, an first anniversary of the assassination,
and about what remains classified and what they may mean
to the assassination. People should understand that there are no
(22:13):
smoking gun documents to be released because the review board
for which I worked in the mid nineties would have
released them at that time. What isn't released and what
we kept classified at the time, what was supposed to
have been released in twenty seventeen and hopefully will be
are things such as sources and methods, names of individuals
(22:38):
who were still alive. So what would happen when we
were in operation was the CIA or the FBI would
meet with us and they would be records that we
had in the queue to be released, and they would
give reasons why they couldn't be released, and typically they
would say something like this individual named in the doc
(23:00):
or sometimes even more a series of documents retired undercover
in Europe, and if this record is released again this
is in the mid to late nineties, if the record
is released, that person could be killed if their name
is made public. So the review will would say, okay,
(23:23):
the compromise is that we will redact the name of
the individual but release the record, but the name will
be released within twenty five years or upon the death
of the person, so that was the compromise that we
often reached because who were we, as the review would
(23:44):
to jeopardize someone's life that the intelligence community said would
have been at risk.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
But okay, yeah, I understand, Yeah, I do understand that.
Would have these been Americans who are now living abroad
who had worked for one of the these agencies or
what have they been a source of a foreign source
who might have provided some information along the way?
Speaker 6 (24:10):
Well, it was a range, Dan in some instances. My
recollection is that it might have been a foreign official
that had provided information to the US Intelligence Community CIA
or another agency. So it could it could be any
any one of the situations you mentioned.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Last question for me, then we're going to go to
phone calls. Last question for me is I remember the
book that was written by Mark Lane in the wake
of the Warren Commission report, Rushed to Judgment, which was
a criticism of the Warren Commission report, if I recall correct, Yes, Okay,
(24:53):
who was closer to the reality if you can answer
this question to the reality of what happened the Warren Commission,
which released its report ten months later in September of
sixty four, or Mark Lane, who basically wrote a critique
of the Warren Commission report in retrospect in your opinion.
Speaker 6 (25:12):
Well, let me put it this way, Dan, and invoking
again the House Select Committee investigation of the late seventies, which,
by the way, the Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey
Oswald acted alone. In sharp contrast, fifteen sixteen years later
in the late seventies, the House Select Committee concluded that
(25:33):
there probably was a conspiracy involved more than Oswald.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
So that was what was I think referred to as
the Blaky report.
Speaker 5 (25:43):
Was a professor of.
Speaker 6 (25:44):
Yah, Robert Yes, exactly. Yeah, And so those are kind
of the book ends of the investigation. And the reality
is that Mark Lane did great research on a lot
of testimony that, if cass together would would run counter
(26:07):
to the War Mission's final conclusion. However, will, as we
said earlier, will never know because the Warrant Commission didn't
want to open any doors, and by the time the
House Select Committee came along, as Robert Blake the General
Council said, the trail had run cold long before they
(26:31):
got there. But they did uncover some new records, and
we released some of the House Select Committee records that
had been kept classified between night say nineteen seventy nine
and the mid nineties. And I have to say, when
I saw the unredacted versions, I said, these are leades
that should have been pursued. They were not, but they
(26:55):
just run cold now. But I think that certainly there
are possibilities that there was more to Bory Warren Commission articulated.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
All right, let's let's get some phone calls in here
and see what people have to say or ask of
my guest, Tom Semok, former director deputy director of the
John F. Kennedy Assassination Records and Review Board. Robin Boston
will start us off. Rob, you go right ahead. You
got first on first crack at the question of comic
Go ahead, Rob.
Speaker 7 (27:26):
Hey, thanks for thinking. My car says I've been waiting
for this because I was five years old, and get
sent on from kindergarten. The documentary that I just last
saw show that JFK's brain was stolen or missing or lost.
The one piece of evidence that could have shown different
(27:49):
trajectories of more than one bullet and the magic bullet
that entered and entered the body. That brain was put
into a metal canvas that with themaldehyde, and they given
to his secretary who put it into like a metal
storage chest, and that was the last they ever saw
a JFK's brain. What is that? What is that? Is
(28:11):
that fact?
Speaker 6 (28:14):
That is a pretty accurate account. I have to say
the brain was lost for lack of a better way
of characterizing it. And Dan, you may remember the fame pathologist,
and he was also a lawyer from Pittsburgh, Cyril Weck,
(28:34):
who didn't die that that long ago, and he was
a medical consultant to the House Select Committee and also
a longtime critic of the Warren Commission. He actually discovered
in trying to conduct research I think it was maybe
nineteen seventy two, so almost ten years after the assassination,
(28:55):
that they didn't know where the president's brain was. As
startling as that is to hear, that is the reality,
and it's a key piece of evidence.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
Why would anybody have put it into a canister and
given it to well, his secretaries was Evelyn Lincoln. I mean, well,
I've never heard this one before, but this is a
great piece of information.
Speaker 6 (29:20):
Go ahead, sir, Well there are Dan, various theories on
what happened in the president was reinturned I think in
nineteen sixty seven at Arlington Cemetery, And there was some
speculation that it was at that point that the that
(29:40):
the president's brain was put in the casket, and when
the casket was put back in the ground, it was there.
No one has any definitive evidence on that, but that's
a theory that's floated around for years.
Speaker 7 (29:57):
But French trajectories is gone.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
We got we got that. It was an interesting tom.
Speaker 7 (30:05):
That's the war machine went on to make seven hundred
and twenty eight billion dollars with the Vietnam War. The
mob went on with Cuba to uh do whatever they did.
JFK was the mob.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
The mob by sixty three was well out of Cuba. Rob,
you could put that one away, okay, Rob, The mob got.
Speaker 7 (30:27):
Run out of They wanted to dismantle. They were talking
about dismantling, you know, the syndicates and things, and and
they had a lot of people scared. I mean, how
many times did they try and assassinate Castro? I mean
did he not have a have an interest in in
in CND and and and the Domino theory that if
(30:49):
they did not want Vietnam to fall because they felt
that communism would persist and they did not want the
Kennedy brothers to be one half through another in succession
and run the country for twenty four years, which which
motivated the government to take him out. It's just too
much coincidence.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
Yeah, a lot, a lot there.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
That could take four hours of conversation on all of those,
but Rob, the one about the brain, I'd never heard of.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
Thank you for that information. That was real interesting.
Speaker 7 (31:19):
Thank you great.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Thanks, You're welcome, my guest, Tom Samlick. You would think, Tom,
that that there was someone who would have if that's true,
and it may be true, that someone would have been
able to would have had to have been there, who
would have been when if his body was disinterred in
nineteen sixty seven, you think that there would have been
a lot of new stories about it.
Speaker 5 (31:41):
And that's that's the first I've heard of that story.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
And I thought I knew a lot, a lot about this,
but obviously you've heard of that before. As they said,
you know more about this than I do. So that's
why I appreciate you being with us tonight. And the
number is mentioned.
Speaker 6 (31:57):
Yeah, yeah, in subsequent books over the years, it has
been uh has been raised.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Yeah, let's take a quick break back with Tom SAMMELUK
got John, Peggy and Jane coming up, and I'm more
than willing.
Speaker 5 (32:12):
To take this into the next hour.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
I'm not gonna uh make Tom stick for two hours,
but we we very well may carry this for a
couple of hours back on Nightside right after this.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Now back to Dan Ray Mine from the Window World
night Side Studios on w b Z.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
The news radio.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
I'm going to try to get everybody in he let
me go to John and Bellingham. John, you're all my guest,
Tom Samluck, Deputy Director of the JFK Assassination Records and Review.
Speaker 8 (32:39):
Well, go ahead, John, Good evening, gentlemen. How are you?
Speaker 4 (32:43):
We're good with you, tight on time? You go right ahead.
What's your comment? A question for Tom Samlock.
Speaker 8 (32:48):
I just have a comment. I was I was ten
years old at the time, and I remember we had
an announcement at school that we had to all go
home early. Nobody knew what was going on, and we
all got on the buses and the town I lived in,
in the town of Shirley, Mass I have a friend
(33:08):
that was we didn't know at the time, friends with
the Kennedy family and we were almost home when three
police cruisers pulled up to the bus and stopped us
in the middle of the road and took our friend
off the bus, not knowing that they were friends, and
Jacqueline Kennedy had asked that the family meet them in Washington.
(33:30):
They were that close of friends. But it was scary.
I mean the girl, the girl's name was Joan and
her father was president of Suspend h Uh, a sweater
(33:50):
factory in Manchester, New Hampshire, a really famous fetter sweater company.
I guess they were friends for a long time. Pandora sweat. Yeah, okay,
and all right, pretty scary, but still still in our
heads for the rest of our lives, you.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Know, absolutely, absolutely, John appreciate that that story.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
That's interesting.
Speaker 8 (34:13):
It's interesting. Thanksgiving, Hey, save.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
To you and yours. Let me go next real quickly.
If I can to Peggy in South Austin, Peggy next
on nights, I.
Speaker 5 (34:22):
Go right ahead.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Oh.
Speaker 9 (34:25):
I was twenty six years old and I voted President Kennedy.
I had the whole family. Just came back from lunch
working downtown to Boston. When my Brooss told us that
President Kennedy was assassinated. All we could do was cry,
(34:45):
and he sent us. He sent us home. Also those Kennedy,
you know what I wad it and now and he
got brought two minutes for me, all right, two.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
Minutes for you, Peggy, to be honest with you. I
have Tom Sai. I'm alect my guest, and I'm looking
for people to ask questions. Let's go next to Jane
in Shrewsbury.
Speaker 10 (35:05):
Go ahead, Jane, Hi, Dan, I wanted to ask Tom
about if he's familiar with the book called Mortal Error,
The Shot that Killed JFK, which was written by Bonar
Menninger and co authored originally by Howard Donahue as a
co author. Yes, I'm familiar with it, and do you
(35:27):
have any opinion?
Speaker 6 (35:29):
I thought it was one of the most I thought
it was one of the most bizarre theories and not
based in fact at all as to what happened. If
I recall correctly, the theory was, and Dan, you'll be
able to picture this as many listeners will be from
the Zapruder film and other films from that day, that
(35:51):
the Secret Service vehicle is right behind the presidential limousine.
So this bizarre theory was that it was actually Secret
Service agent that fired the fatal shot that inadvertently hit
the president in the in the back of the head.
There were lawsuits about this, and it's it's I think
it's been debunked for years now, but there's thousands and
(36:15):
thousands of books literally on the assassinations to get everything.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Theory of this book that it was done intentionally or unintentionally.
Speaker 6 (36:24):
It was unintentional. It was the shooting had started, the
Secret Service agent purportedly inadvertently discharged his his long long gun.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, I think I had heard of that,
and of course that is the because they had went forward.
Speaker 5 (36:46):
As well as backwards.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
I guess, uh, well, sorry, Jane, are you a believer
in that theory or just no.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
No, no, I haven't read the book. Somebody else asked
me to ask about it. But I was looking on
the Wikipedia page about the book, and it says that
the theory did not rule out that the second shot
could have been a critical wound anyway, but it was
just one of the possibilities that somehow a Secret Service
agent fired because they never did a ballistics check or
(37:15):
something like that.
Speaker 10 (37:16):
Something like that, But I haven't read it.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Okay, well, thanks, okay, okay, any other comment on that one?
Speaker 6 (37:25):
Tom, I know just that there were ballistics done. Some
people find fault in the ballistics testing that was done,
but it doesn't lead to that that theory that the
author put out there.
Speaker 4 (37:39):
Okay, Tom, I got a bunch of calls here. Do
you want to stick with me for maybe one segment
in the next hour. I'm sure some of these folks will.
Speaker 6 (37:46):
Have questions in for you, because it's because it's you.
I'll do whatever you want me to do. How's that.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
Okay, Well, it's late on a Friday night. I'll try
to see if we can wrap the question. So we're
looking for people who have questions. Peggy, I think, wanted
to tell us the story of her experience that afternoon,
which I'm sure was a terrible experience, but I wanted
to stick with them with my guest and questions for
the guest. We'll take a very quick break. We'll be
back with Tom Sammelak. He had served as the deputy
(38:15):
director the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records and Review Board.
I thought the question from Jane and Shrewsby was a
good one in the sense that it explored a theory
that apparently has been discounted. This is the crime of
the twentieth century, and it's a crime, Tom Samluk, that
(38:37):
I guess we're never going to solve. But I want
to see Donald Trump, President elect Trump, release every one
of those records. You told me today, and I don't
know if you can say it on the air tonight.
Who was it that advised him not to release the records?
Speaker 6 (38:51):
Well, I think that it was President elect Trump himself
who recently said that it was Secretary of State Pompeo
that had advised him not to release the records back
in twenty seventeen, after he had said that he would,
but then it didn't actually happen then.
Speaker 5 (39:14):
And you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
I put that together with Donald Trump saying a week
or so ago that there would be two people who
would not be in the cabinet, the former governor of
South Carolina, NICKI Haley, for obvious reasons. And also he
mentioned Mike Pompeo, and that if he felt that Pompeo
maybe misled him, that might be the reason why he
(39:36):
made that statement. No way of proving it, but at
least think about it. Connect the dots. We'll be back
on Nightside with Tom Samulak talking more about the Kennedy assassination,
which happened sixty one years ago today and sixty one
years ago tonight.
Speaker 5 (39:51):
People were in mourning
Speaker 4 (39:52):
Across America, back on Night's side right after the ten
collect News
It's night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Costin's new radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
And I gave it a great ideal of all.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Here is a bulletin from CBS News in Dallas, Texas.
Three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas.
The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously
wounded by this shooting.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
The voice of Walter Cronkite on it was a Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 5 (00:33):
Oh no, I don't let me.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
It was a Thursday afternoon. Excuse me, it's a Thursday afternoon.
In nineteen sixty three, when John Kennedy was assassinated by
a gunman, shooting out of the fifth floor of the
Texas school Book Depository as his depository, as his motorcade
made its way through Dealey Plasm. I have followed that
(00:58):
case for a long time. Ported on the assassination on
the fifteenth anniversary in nineteen seventy eight, twentieth anniversary and
nineteen eighty three from Dallas, Texas. Interviewed most many of
the principles. But no one who I know knows as
much about what happened and also as much about what
(01:18):
we don't know. Is my friend Tom Semilac. Tom Semilac,
in the mid nineteen ninety served as the deputy director
of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board,
an independent federal agency that was responsible for the review
and public release of classified records on the assassination, which
you now housed at the National Archives. Tom has been
my guest before, and he joins us again tonight. Tom,
(01:42):
another sad anniversary. Sixty one years ago today we lost
the thirty fifth President of the United States.
Speaker 6 (01:51):
Good evening, Dan, and thanks for having me. Yes, it's
hard to believe that it's sixty one years ago today
that President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, And of course
for those of US Bostonians and New Englanders, and of
course all Americans, but particularly here a special and very
profoundly sad impact.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Tom. You've had a stellar legal career.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
You're the general counsel, head of government relations for John Hancock,
the US segment of the Toronto based manual Life and
you're also a member of that company's leadership team. You've
been with John Hancock since nineteen ninety nine, twenty five
years now. You also had served as an Assistant Attorney
(02:38):
General here in Massachusetts, I believe when Scott Harshbarker was
Attorney General. So you've had a very interesting career. But
I want to focus on your work with the Kennedy
Assassination Records Review Board. You were intimately evolved in this
in the nineteen nineties, which would have been about thirty
some odd years after the assassination. We are now sixty
(03:03):
one years after the assassination. How much more do we
know now than when your organization that tried to do
such great work and often I think felt steymied. How
much more information have we learned quantitatively in the last
thirty years in your opinion.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
Well, Dan, I think that the barometer of how much
more we've learned can be gauged by what authors, historians,
and researchers have done with the records that the Assassination
Records Review Board declassify and sent to the National Archives
Facility in College Park, Maryland, and that's where the records
(03:46):
are housed. There are records that are available online, and
it really is satisfying to know that the work of
the Review Board has led to a more complete history,
if you will, of the assassination and the events surrounding it.
(04:06):
The mandate for the Review Board was not to reinvestigate
and come to any conclusion following up on what the
Warren Commission had done in nineteen sixty four and the
House Select Committee on Assassinations had done in the late seventies. Rather,
it was at that point, as you noted, thirty years
after the assassination, rather to release the records for all
(04:31):
Americans to go find and research and delve into and
if they won't come to their own conclusions about what happened, well,
this was.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
The murder of a president of the United States in
broad daylight in Dallas, Texas at high noon. Just to
get people a little bit familiar who weren't around at
that time. And again at sixty one years so you
would have had to have been eight or two years
old to really have specific memory. Rob, I know you
(05:03):
have three cuts. Play the second catch. Just to continue
to continue the theme.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
The best picture has just been transmitted by wire. It
is a picture taken just a moment or two before
the incident. If you can zoom in with that camera,
we can get a closer look at this picture.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Yeah, and that was probably one of the last pictures
of President Kennedy alive just before before the shooting. And
then of course there was the announcement that Walter Cronkite
need at least it probably was made of the other networks.
But we learned that afternoon around this was one thirty
(05:44):
Boston time, maybe well maybe a little bit. It's more
like two o'clock Boston time, because the shooting had occurred
about twelve thirty Dallas time, and this was the This
was when the nation learned from Walter Cronkite that indeed
President Kennedy had been assassinated cut three rob.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
From Dallas, Texas.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
The flash apparently official President Kennedy died at one pm
Central Standard time two o'clock Eastern Standard time, some thirty
eight minutes ago. Vice President and Johnson has left the
(06:25):
hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where
he has proceeded. Presumably he will be taking the oath
of office shortly and become the thirty sixth President of
the United States.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Cronkite at all he could do but to compose himself,
and of course Linda Johnson did take the oath of
office from a federal judge. On what that had become
if force one and everyone remembers the picture of Linda Johnson,
obviously in a state of shock, and his wife, Lady
(07:03):
Bird Johnson, and President Kennedy's widow, Jacqueline Kennedy standing next
to the president as that as that plane left left Dallas,
heading back to Washington with the president's body.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
My guest is Tom sam Aluk. Tom, I.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Want to chat a little bit more about your thoughts,
and I go, I know you're not speaking here officially,
but I'm fascinated by the fact that.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
We still really don't know for sure.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
What events set in motion the assassination of President Kennedy.
I know you've it's been your life, life's work, and
I'm sure people will have questions and theories, and I
just didn't want this night to pass without our understanding
and acknowledgment of a very important night. I remember, I
know exactly what I was doing on this very night
(08:04):
sixty one years ago. Tonight, I was playing hockey, high
school hockey, pre season hockey game, you know, without coaches,
at a rink somewhere in the South Shore, which i'd
have to I wouldn't be able to find for a
million dollars, may not even exist. So much time has passed,
but it all seemed very weird. You're younger than I am, Tom,
(08:27):
if I'm not mistaken, I don't know if you recall
what you were doing that night, you probably would glued
to the television like most of America was.
Speaker 6 (08:34):
Well, i'll date myself, Dan. I am a little younger
than you, and I was in the first grade, and
I remember, interestingly, they had not told us at school
that the president had been shot. And so I got
off the school bus after a complete day of school
and was met by my younger brother, Bob, who was
(08:57):
four years old, two years younger than me, and I
remember exactly what he said, and he had learned from
being around the TV. And my mother was home, and
I stepped off the bus and he was waiting for me,
and he said President Kennedy was shot and jumped in
missus Kennedy's lap. That's what a four year old had
(09:20):
for an understanding of what had happened. And walked up
the street with him into my house. And it was
not unusual that my mother was in the family room ironing,
but what was different was that the TV was on,
but it was news and she was crying, and I
(09:44):
didn't quite understand. I knew that we had followed President Kennedy,
and my oldest sister Carol, had had scrap books from
when President Kennedy had been elected Senator from Massachusetts. But
this was different because I knew we didn't know him.
But my mother was crying and I knew was it
(10:05):
was bad news. And like so many million Americans that
do have memories of that day, it's kind of seared
in your memory forever.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Even the memory of a first grader. My guess it's
Tom Semilak served as deputy director the President John F.
Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board. We will continue our conversation
with Tom Samilak if you would like to join the
conversation six one seven two five four ten thirty or
six one seven a nine ten thirty.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
My name is Dan Ray. This is night Side. This
is a moment in.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Time that changed our generation. It changed the world. It
was the opening, it was the ending moment of the
peace and prosperity of the nineteen fifties post World War Two,
and it opened up some tumultuous years which involved other
(11:02):
assassinations and political unrest and upheaval. And we'll get to
all of that with my guest Tom semelek Uh, and
we're gon we're gonna drill down a little bit, particularly
on now President elect Trump's pledge to get all of
the records. And I think I'm correct when I say that.
If I'm not, Tom my friend will correct me. But
(11:24):
I believe that Donald Trump has made a pledge that
he will get all of the Kennedy assassination records out
into the light of public day and transparent and done transparently.
We'll continue on Nightside.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
Stay with us.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
It's going to be an interesting program. I promise you
if you if you're young enough and you don't know
a lot about the Kennedy assassination, you definitely want to
stick with us. And if you're a little old and
you remember it, we'd love to hear your recollections as well.
Back on Nightside right after this.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
to Night Side Studios. I'm WBS Radio.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
You know, I think I misspoke. Kennedy was actually shot
on a Friday. So it was it just so happened
that the twenty second of November falls on a Friday.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
There was it was and you know, this is better
than I do.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Tom, I misspoke. I said it was it was a Thursday.
It was actually a Friday that November twenty second. It
was a Friday this year. It was a Friday sixty
one years ago.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
I I just I was talking to someone today, having
interviewed Jim Levelle, the Dallas police detective who had was
handcuffed handcuffed to Walt Oswald when Oswald was shot by
Jack Ruby.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
Vell was an interesting guy.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
I did you guys ever get a chance to talk
with him?
Speaker 6 (12:53):
No, we did not. We focused on where the records were,
and we did come into contact with a lot of
interesting players and characters. One that comes to mind was, actually,
if people saw the nineteen ninety one Oliverstone movie JFK.
(13:15):
Kevin Costner plays Jim Garrison, and there were records to
be found in New Orleans, and Garrison was deceased by
the time we were in business, but we dealt with
people who had records, and we actually dealt with Garrison's successor,
who was Harry Connick Senior, who interestingly the father of
(13:39):
the well known entertainer and he had succeeded Garrison, and
we dealt with his office on the records from the
Garrison investigation.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Well, Garrison, if I recall, correctly, had some very specific
beliefs and he then got ripped pretty good. I always
felt I wasn't sure if Garrison was as nutty as
people as the media portrayed him, or if he was
(14:10):
right over the target conversely, and that there were people
who wanted to, you know, to discourage people listening to him.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
What was your impression of Garrison?
Speaker 6 (14:20):
Well, I think that it's funny that debate continues even today.
He did become a judge after Connick defeated him for
a district attorney. I think he probably got some things right,
but he kind of served the assassination up on a
buffet platter.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
It was like.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
Everything was there and it probably didn't occur like that.
We may not know everything that happened, but it wasn't
every theory that you can imagine.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
Yeah, well, it was interesting just getting back to this
Dallas police detective. Anybody who's seen the picture of Oswald
being shot, His name was Jim Level and I interviewed
him in nineteen seventy eight. He would have been at
that point he was I guess he was born in
nineteen twenty maybe I'm guessing nineteen twenty or something like that.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
So when I interviewed him, he.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Was very sharp, you know, he was I mean, you know,
wasn't even probably fifty years of age at that point.
He would he survived Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
He was.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
He actually was in the Navy and was on duty
as a twenty one year old third class petty officer
in Pearl Harbor. So he was at these two significant
events that sort of book ended an era in American history,
Pearl Harbor to the assassination of Kennedy. When you think
(15:50):
about it, I mean, World War two ended with the
United States having dropped the bomb and becoming the premiere
power in the world, and yet in nineteen sixty three,
the Kennedy assassination kind of turned the world, our worlds up,
our world upside down, followed closely by, you know, the
(16:14):
Quagmar of Vietnam, civil rights assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
as well as doctor Martin Luther King. Just an interesting guy,
almost like a not a Forrest Gump guy, because obviously
this guy was a lot more together.
Speaker 5 (16:32):
But it's I remember sitting with him and just thinking.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
This guy was I did not realize, and he lived
until he was ninety nine years of age. He lived
a very full life and died in twenty nineteen. So
I mean he was He was born in nineteen nineteen
twenty and as they say, when I interviewed him in
nineteen seventy eighteen, would have been doing the math fifty
(16:57):
eight years of age. He was sharp as attack, recalling
how he reacted and when when Ruby stepped out of
the crowd. What's your sense the big picture here? Do
you think we will ever find out the truth? For
a long time, I thought someone was going to give
us a deathbed confession that he was the person who
(17:20):
did this or did that. The longer we go, Tom,
the less likely I think that is.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
To be right. I think that Dan, many of us
who have followed the assassination and bet involved in either
rec release or in one way or another, have come
to the conclusion in a long time that the unequivocal
truth is lost to history. That's unfortunate. It was probably
(17:48):
lost to history a long long time ago, not far,
not long after the assassination itself, because of mistakes that
were made in the investigation, because of the Cold War
environment at the time. I think that there were a
lot of people who did not want to open any
(18:09):
doors beyond a lone gunman that could have, in their view,
made a very complex and dangerous world even more complex
and dangerous if it was a conspiracy. They didn't want
to find out, so they wanted it to be simple.
And as a result, here we are six sixty one
(18:30):
years later and not knowing what the truth is. And
that's not fair. It has been fair to the American public,
and that's why the review board for which I worked
made the effort to at least to be able to
say that all the records are released. Unfortunately, as we'll
(18:52):
probably get into here, that is not yet the case.
But I hope it will become the case that we
can say everything that we know to be part of
the records is available to the American public.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Well, I guess it's Tom Samlik. He's was the deputy
director of the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records and review
Board President Trump. And if I'm wrong, Tom, correct me here,
because I just got to jump to news in a moment.
Had made an issue of this on the campaign trail,
He made an issue of it in twenty sixteen that
he would release all the records that were available. That
(19:29):
did not happen. We can talk about maybe why it
didn't happen. But now President Trump has a second bite
at that apple, and I, for one hope, hope that
this great mystery of our lives tom will somehow be
clarified for us. Do you read what President Trump said,
(19:52):
both in twenty sixteen or in advance of the twenty
sixteen election and in advance of this election as his
intention at least whether he follows through And we'll have
to wait and see. But am I reading what he
has said correctly?
Speaker 6 (20:05):
Oh, you are definitely correct, Dan. He did not release
all the records when he was president in twenty seventeen.
He said that he would, but he was advised by
certain people in the administration not to do so, so
that left many records, uh not released. But you're correct.
(20:25):
During the campaign he said that he would as a
priority that he would he would release the remaining records
if he became president again. And as we know, January twentieth,
he will be sworn in as the forty seventh president.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
And that is again eight years ago. So as you
mentioned to me today, eight years has passed by. We'll
get into a little bit more. We go to news.
If you want to call, we got a couple of
lines that are available six, one, seven, two, five, four,
ten thirty six one seven, nine, three, one, ten thirty.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
I'm more than willing to talk.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
About this longer than this hour, so don't hesitate to
fill these phone lines up. We will be back right
after this with Tom Samlac, a great friend and a
great attorney who served as deputy director on the John F.
Kennedy Assassination Records and Review Board, coming back on night Side.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
You're on Night Side with Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
I guess it's Tom Samulak, deputy Director John F. Kennedy
Assassination Records and Review Board. Tom, you again know so
much more about this than any of us know. I
just got to ask a couple of questions that I
want to get the phone calls. Do you think that
(21:41):
the records which would tell us how this assassination plot
came to be?
Speaker 5 (21:48):
Because that's that's what we don't know right.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
Right? And Dan, I think that I've read some articles
today on the sixty first, an first anniversary of the assassination,
and about what remains classified and what they may mean
to the assassination. People should understand that there are no
(22:13):
smoking gun documents to be released because the review board
for which I worked in the mid nineties would have
released them at that time. What isn't released and what
we kept classified at the time, what was supposed to
have been released in twenty seventeen and hopefully will be
are things such as sources and methods, names of individuals
(22:38):
who were still alive. So what would happen when we
were in operation was the CIA or the FBI would
meet with us and they would be records that we
had in the queue to be released, and they would
give reasons why they couldn't be released, and typically they
would say something like this individual named in the doc
(23:00):
or sometimes even more a series of documents retired undercover
in Europe, and if this record is released again this
is in the mid to late nineties, if the record
is released, that person could be killed if their name
is made public. So the review will would say, okay,
(23:23):
the compromise is that we will redact the name of
the individual but release the record, but the name will
be released within twenty five years or upon the death
of the person, so that was the compromise that we
often reached because who were we, as the review would
(23:44):
to jeopardize someone's life that the intelligence community said would
have been at risk.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
But okay, yeah, I understand, Yeah, I do understand that.
Would have these been Americans who are now living abroad
who had worked for one of the these agencies or
what have they been a source of a foreign source
who might have provided some information along the way?
Speaker 6 (24:10):
Well, it was a range, Dan in some instances. My
recollection is that it might have been a foreign official
that had provided information to the US Intelligence Community CIA
or another agency. So it could it could be any
any one of the situations you mentioned.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Last question for me, then we're going to go to
phone calls. Last question for me is I remember the
book that was written by Mark Lane in the wake
of the Warren Commission report, Rushed to Judgment, which was
a criticism of the Warren Commission report, if I recall correct, Yes, Okay,
(24:53):
who was closer to the reality if you can answer
this question to the reality of what happened the Warren Commission,
which released its report ten months later in September of
sixty four, or Mark Lane, who basically wrote a critique
of the Warren Commission report in retrospect in your opinion.
Speaker 6 (25:12):
Well, let me put it this way, Dan, and invoking
again the House Select Committee investigation of the late seventies, which,
by the way, the Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey
Oswald acted alone. In sharp contrast, fifteen sixteen years later
in the late seventies, the House Select Committee concluded that
(25:33):
there probably was a conspiracy involved more than Oswald.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
So that was what was I think referred to as
the Blaky report.
Speaker 5 (25:43):
Was a professor of.
Speaker 6 (25:44):
Yah, Robert Yes, exactly. Yeah, And so those are kind
of the book ends of the investigation. And the reality
is that Mark Lane did great research on a lot
of testimony that, if cass together would would run counter
(26:07):
to the War Mission's final conclusion. However, will, as we
said earlier, will never know because the Warrant Commission didn't
want to open any doors, and by the time the
House Select Committee came along, as Robert Blake the General
Council said, the trail had run cold long before they
(26:31):
got there. But they did uncover some new records, and
we released some of the House Select Committee records that
had been kept classified between night say nineteen seventy nine
and the mid nineties. And I have to say, when
I saw the unredacted versions, I said, these are leades
that should have been pursued. They were not, but they
(26:55):
just run cold now. But I think that certainly there
are possibilities that there was more to Bory Warren Commission articulated.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
All right, let's let's get some phone calls in here
and see what people have to say or ask of
my guest, Tom Semok, former director deputy director of the
John F. Kennedy Assassination Records and Review Board. Robin Boston
will start us off. Rob, you go right ahead. You
got first on first crack at the question of comic
Go ahead, Rob.
Speaker 7 (27:26):
Hey, thanks for thinking. My car says I've been waiting
for this because I was five years old, and get
sent on from kindergarten. The documentary that I just last
saw show that JFK's brain was stolen or missing or lost.
The one piece of evidence that could have shown different
(27:49):
trajectories of more than one bullet and the magic bullet
that entered and entered the body. That brain was put
into a metal canvas that with themaldehyde, and they given
to his secretary who put it into like a metal
storage chest, and that was the last they ever saw
a JFK's brain. What is that? What is that? Is
(28:11):
that fact?
Speaker 6 (28:14):
That is a pretty accurate account. I have to say
the brain was lost for lack of a better way
of characterizing it. And Dan, you may remember the fame pathologist,
and he was also a lawyer from Pittsburgh, Cyril Weck,
(28:34):
who didn't die that that long ago, and he was
a medical consultant to the House Select Committee and also
a longtime critic of the Warren Commission. He actually discovered
in trying to conduct research I think it was maybe
nineteen seventy two, so almost ten years after the assassination,
(28:55):
that they didn't know where the president's brain was. As
startling as that is to hear, that is the reality,
and it's a key piece of evidence.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
Why would anybody have put it into a canister and
given it to well, his secretaries was Evelyn Lincoln. I mean, well,
I've never heard this one before, but this is a
great piece of information.
Speaker 6 (29:20):
Go ahead, sir, Well there are Dan, various theories on
what happened in the president was reinturned I think in
nineteen sixty seven at Arlington Cemetery, And there was some
speculation that it was at that point that the that
(29:40):
the president's brain was put in the casket, and when
the casket was put back in the ground, it was there.
No one has any definitive evidence on that, but that's
a theory that's floated around for years.
Speaker 7 (29:57):
But French trajectories is gone.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
We got we got that. It was an interesting tom.
Speaker 7 (30:05):
That's the war machine went on to make seven hundred
and twenty eight billion dollars with the Vietnam War. The
mob went on with Cuba to uh do whatever they did.
JFK was the mob.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
The mob by sixty three was well out of Cuba. Rob,
you could put that one away, okay, Rob, The mob got.
Speaker 7 (30:27):
Run out of They wanted to dismantle. They were talking
about dismantling, you know, the syndicates and things, and and
they had a lot of people scared. I mean, how
many times did they try and assassinate Castro? I mean
did he not have a have an interest in in
in CND and and and the Domino theory that if
(30:49):
they did not want Vietnam to fall because they felt
that communism would persist and they did not want the
Kennedy brothers to be one half through another in succession
and run the country for twenty four years, which which
motivated the government to take him out. It's just too
much coincidence.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
Yeah, a lot, a lot there.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
That could take four hours of conversation on all of those,
but Rob, the one about the brain, I'd never heard of.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
Thank you for that information. That was real interesting.
Speaker 7 (31:19):
Thank you great.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Thanks, You're welcome, my guest, Tom Samlick. You would think, Tom,
that that there was someone who would have if that's true,
and it may be true, that someone would have been
able to would have had to have been there, who
would have been when if his body was disinterred in
nineteen sixty seven, you think that there would have been
a lot of new stories about it.
Speaker 5 (31:41):
And that's that's the first I've heard of that story.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
And I thought I knew a lot, a lot about this,
but obviously you've heard of that before. As they said,
you know more about this than I do. So that's
why I appreciate you being with us tonight. And the
number is mentioned.
Speaker 6 (31:57):
Yeah, yeah, in subsequent books over the years, it has
been uh has been raised.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Yeah, let's take a quick break back with Tom SAMMELUK
got John, Peggy and Jane coming up, and I'm more
than willing.
Speaker 5 (32:12):
To take this into the next hour.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
I'm not gonna uh make Tom stick for two hours,
but we we very well may carry this for a
couple of hours back on Nightside right after this.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Now back to Dan Ray Mine from the Window World
night Side Studios on w b Z.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
The news radio.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
I'm going to try to get everybody in he let
me go to John and Bellingham. John, you're all my guest,
Tom Samluck, Deputy Director of the JFK Assassination Records and Review.
Speaker 8 (32:39):
Well, go ahead, John, Good evening, gentlemen. How are you?
Speaker 4 (32:43):
We're good with you, tight on time? You go right ahead.
What's your comment? A question for Tom Samlock.
Speaker 8 (32:48):
I just have a comment. I was I was ten
years old at the time, and I remember we had
an announcement at school that we had to all go
home early. Nobody knew what was going on, and we
all got on the buses and the town I lived in,
in the town of Shirley, Mass I have a friend
(33:08):
that was we didn't know at the time, friends with
the Kennedy family and we were almost home when three
police cruisers pulled up to the bus and stopped us
in the middle of the road and took our friend
off the bus, not knowing that they were friends, and
Jacqueline Kennedy had asked that the family meet them in Washington.
(33:30):
They were that close of friends. But it was scary.
I mean the girl, the girl's name was Joan and
her father was president of Suspend h Uh, a sweater
(33:50):
factory in Manchester, New Hampshire, a really famous fetter sweater company.
I guess they were friends for a long time. Pandora sweat. Yeah, okay,
and all right, pretty scary, but still still in our
heads for the rest of our lives, you.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Know, absolutely, absolutely, John appreciate that that story.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
That's interesting.
Speaker 8 (34:13):
It's interesting. Thanksgiving, Hey, save.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
To you and yours. Let me go next real quickly.
If I can to Peggy in South Austin, Peggy next
on nights, I.
Speaker 5 (34:22):
Go right ahead.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Oh.
Speaker 9 (34:25):
I was twenty six years old and I voted President Kennedy.
I had the whole family. Just came back from lunch
working downtown to Boston. When my Brooss told us that
President Kennedy was assassinated. All we could do was cry,
(34:45):
and he sent us. He sent us home. Also those Kennedy,
you know what I wad it and now and he
got brought two minutes for me, all right, two.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
Minutes for you, Peggy, to be honest with you. I
have Tom Sai. I'm alect my guest, and I'm looking
for people to ask questions. Let's go next to Jane
in Shrewsbury.
Speaker 10 (35:05):
Go ahead, Jane, Hi, Dan, I wanted to ask Tom
about if he's familiar with the book called Mortal Error,
The Shot that Killed JFK, which was written by Bonar
Menninger and co authored originally by Howard Donahue as a
co author. Yes, I'm familiar with it, and do you
(35:27):
have any opinion?
Speaker 6 (35:29):
I thought it was one of the most I thought
it was one of the most bizarre theories and not
based in fact at all as to what happened. If
I recall correctly, the theory was, and Dan, you'll be
able to picture this as many listeners will be from
the Zapruder film and other films from that day, that
(35:51):
the Secret Service vehicle is right behind the presidential limousine.
So this bizarre theory was that it was actually Secret
Service agent that fired the fatal shot that inadvertently hit
the president in the in the back of the head.
There were lawsuits about this, and it's it's I think
it's been debunked for years now, but there's thousands and
(36:15):
thousands of books literally on the assassinations to get everything.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Theory of this book that it was done intentionally or unintentionally.
Speaker 6 (36:24):
It was unintentional. It was the shooting had started, the
Secret Service agent purportedly inadvertently discharged his his long long gun.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, I think I had heard of that,
and of course that is the because they had went forward.
Speaker 5 (36:46):
As well as backwards.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
I guess, uh, well, sorry, Jane, are you a believer
in that theory or just no.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
No, no, I haven't read the book. Somebody else asked
me to ask about it. But I was looking on
the Wikipedia page about the book, and it says that
the theory did not rule out that the second shot
could have been a critical wound anyway, but it was
just one of the possibilities that somehow a Secret Service
agent fired because they never did a ballistics check or
(37:15):
something like that.
Speaker 10 (37:16):
Something like that, But I haven't read it.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Okay, well, thanks, okay, okay, any other comment on that one?
Speaker 6 (37:25):
Tom, I know just that there were ballistics done. Some
people find fault in the ballistics testing that was done,
but it doesn't lead to that that theory that the
author put out there.
Speaker 4 (37:39):
Okay, Tom, I got a bunch of calls here. Do
you want to stick with me for maybe one segment
in the next hour. I'm sure some of these folks will.
Speaker 6 (37:46):
Have questions in for you, because it's because it's you.
I'll do whatever you want me to do. How's that.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
Okay, Well, it's late on a Friday night. I'll try
to see if we can wrap the question. So we're
looking for people who have questions. Peggy, I think, wanted
to tell us the story of her experience that afternoon,
which I'm sure was a terrible experience, but I wanted
to stick with them with my guest and questions for
the guest. We'll take a very quick break. We'll be
back with Tom Sammelak. He had served as the deputy
(38:15):
director the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records and Review Board.
I thought the question from Jane and Shrewsby was a
good one in the sense that it explored a theory
that apparently has been discounted. This is the crime of
the twentieth century, and it's a crime, Tom Samluk, that
(38:37):
I guess we're never going to solve. But I want
to see Donald Trump, President elect Trump, release every one
of those records. You told me today, and I don't
know if you can say it on the air tonight.
Who was it that advised him not to release the records?
Speaker 6 (38:51):
Well, I think that it was President elect Trump himself
who recently said that it was Secretary of State Pompeo
that had advised him not to release the records back
in twenty seventeen, after he had said that he would,
but then it didn't actually happen then.
Speaker 5 (39:14):
And you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
I put that together with Donald Trump saying a week
or so ago that there would be two people who
would not be in the cabinet, the former governor of
South Carolina, NICKI Haley, for obvious reasons. And also he
mentioned Mike Pompeo, and that if he felt that Pompeo
maybe misled him, that might be the reason why he
(39:36):
made that statement. No way of proving it, but at
least think about it. Connect the dots. We'll be back
on Nightside with Tom Samulak talking more about the Kennedy assassination,
which happened sixty one years ago today and sixty one
years ago tonight.
Speaker 5 (39:51):
People were in mourning
Speaker 4 (39:52):
Across America, back on Night's side right after the ten
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