LBJ's silence on JFK conspiracy is a mystery with no answers
- Jan Jarboe Russell
San Antonio Express-News
History is a long-running game of what if.
I was reminded of that by the newly released fulminations of President Lyndon Johnson that make it clear Johnson believed President Kennedy's assassination was in retaliation for CIA plots to assassinate Fidel Castro that date back to 1960.
Two secretly recorded telephone conversations that LBJ had in February and March 1967 show LBJ had good reason to doubt the Warren Report's conclusion that no evidence existed that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy as part of a conspiracy. The conversations are published in an article in the June issue of the Atlantic Monthly.
Throughout his presidency, Johnson publicly backed the Warren Report. But after he left office he told key advisers that, even though he believed Oswald pulled the trigger, he did not think Oswald acted alone. He believed there was a conspiracy involving Cuba.
These newly released tapes reveal why LBJ didn't speak out as president. If he had told the truth — that the CIA teamed up with the Mafia to kill Castro and that these efforts continued until 1962 — it would have implicated Robert Kennedy, former attorney general, who directed the plot. Johnson believed any attack on Robert Kennedy would backfire on him.
Keep in mind it wasn't until 1975 that the public learned what Johnson learned in early 1967 — that the CIA used members of the Cosa Nostra to try to assassinate Castro and that Robert Kennedy knew about it.
In a conversation with acting Attorney General Ramsey Clark on Feb. 20, 1967, Johnson asked if he'd heard about what he called the "incredible" story about the "CIA ... sendin' in the folks to get Castro." Johnson had heard the story from several sources — people he described as "responsible" — but told Clark: "But it just sounded so wild ... just like your telling me that Lady Bird was taking dope. I just wouldn't pay much attention to it."
At the time, Jim Garrison, then the district attorney in New Orleans, had launched his investigation into Kennedy's death, alleging there had been a conspiracy. Of the possibility that Kennedy's death had been organized from Cuba, Johnson told Clark: "I don't believe there's a thing in the world to it."
A month later, on March 2, 1967, LBJ had a second conversation about the possibility of a conspiracy. This one was with Texas Gov. John Connally, who called Johnson.
"The information they have here," said Connally, "is that President Kennedy did not issue the order to the CIA, but that some other person extremely close of President Kennedy did. They did not name the man ... but the inference was ... that it was his brother who ordered the CIA to send a team into Cuba to assassinate Castro."
Johnson couldn't confirm the story. "If you go lookin' at it," he told Connally, "who is it that's seen Castro? Or heard from Castro? Or knows Castro ... who could be ... confirming all this?"
Even after the plot was confirmed in 1975, Johnson still held his official silence. Why?
Max Holland, author of the story in the Atlantic Monthly, speculates that even after leaving the White House, Johnson was trapped by John and Robert Kennedy. He couldn't attack Robert without further angering the liberals in his own party and tarnishing the reputation of John, upon whose myth Johnson built the Great Society.
I agree with that, but can't stop thinking about the what ifs.
What if he had made public Robert Kennedy's involvement in the CIA plot? Kennedy would not have run in 1968 and might not have been assassinated.
And Johnson might have died a happier man — not so disillusioned by the war in Vietnam and his own complex feelings about the assassination — because we would have understood him better. |
