Lefkowitz liked Senator Everett Dirksen. He didn’t care for Dirksen’s politics; the Illinois Republican was a moderate only by the standards of his own party. But Dirksen the man was a kick. He had curls that came close to rivaling Harpo Marx’s. And his voice was a pipe organ he could use for any sort of sound effect under the sun.
Best of all, he knew he was a kick. He was the biggest ham outside an Armour can. Even when he was saying nothing, he was good for a story because of the way he said it.
Today, he wasn’t saying anything. He was saying what he would be saying a couple of days from now. He looked and sounded as somber as a bloodhound whose grandmother had just died. “I am going to call for an investigation,” he boomed. “Congress needs to look into this.” He eyed the dozen or so reporters in the small Capitol conference room. “Why, gentlemen, do you know it’s not even a Federal crime to assassinate the President of the United States or any other official of the government? That is--I say, that is--a shame and a disgrace.”
As Lefkowitz scrawled notes, he thought that Dirksen sounded like
Foghorn Leghorn. Didn’t the loudmouthed rooster parody some other
politician? Lefkowitz thought so, but couldn’t remember who.
“I am going to call for changes in legislation that will let the
government of the United States protect and defend its own,” Dirksen
continued. “And I am going to call for an inquiry into how this
particular assassin--Mr. Oswald, if he is proved guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt by a jury of his peers--succeeded in killing not only
the Governor of Texas but a Secret Service agent, and how he might also
have attempted to murder President Kennedy.”
Lefkowitz threw his hand in the air. Dirksen sent him a regal
nod. “Won’t the Texas authorities be conducting the same kind of
investigation, Senator?” he asked.
“Well, I expect they will, Alan.” Dirksen hadn’t talked with
Lefkowitz more than three or four times, but he was a sly old GOP
elephant. He didn’t forget. “I say, I expect they will. But we can
cast a broader net, and one with finer meshes. They may be good at
finding out about what happened in Dallas last Friday, but for what led
up to it, for what led Oswald to do the deed, if indeed he did, a
Federal investigation seems more appropriate to me.”
“Will you look into Oswald’s Cuban and Russian connections?” someone else said.
“I have no doubt we will. If it can be shown that Oswald acted at
the behest of some foreign power, and especially if it can be shown
that he did try to assassinate the President . . . That would be very
serious indeed.” Dirksen could use understatement, too.
“Is the White House encouraging your efforts?” a reporter asked.
Everett Dirksen rolled his eyes. “Well, you know how the White
House is. Any President naturally wishes Congress would roll over on
its belly and wave its legs in the air. The executive branch believes
that to be our proper role. This administration seems no different.
So, no, they haven’t been very encouraging.”
“Why wouldn’t they be?” Lefkowitz asked. “This touches them
closely, after all.” If one of those bullets had touched Kennedy,
Johnson might be President now.
“That may be why. They may think it touches them too closely. Or
they may have some other reason altogether, one they don’t care to
discuss with a mere Senator.” Dirksen made a little self-effacing
gesture that was really nothing of the kind. He got his laugh, as
he must have known he would. But he left Lefkowitz scratching his
head. Why wouldn’t the White House want Congress to look into Oswald
and his connections? How could that harm the administration?
Kennedy was fond of women other than his wife. That was an open
secret in the Washington press corps. But what could that possibly
have to do with whether Oswald--if the Dallas cops had the right
man--took a shot at the President? It wasn’t as if he were an outraged
husband or anything.
Lefkowitz scratched his head some more. No, it made no sense.
#
The administration was conducting its own inquiry, and had its own
reasons for wanting discretion--and for wanting Congress to stay away
from anything that had to do with an assassination attempt on the
President. Oswald’s membership in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee
alarmed both John and Robert Kennedy. With covert help from the Mafia
(which was highly involved in Cuban gambling before Castro toppled
Fulgencio Batista), JFK had unsuccessfully sought to murder the new
Cuban strong man. Was Castro trying to pay him back in the same coin?
Mafia connections also prompted more intimate reasons to wonder
about a possible assassin’s motives. JFK was having an affair with
Judith Campbell Exner, who was also involved with Chicago mob boss Sam
Giancana. Kennedy had used Exner as a messenger to communicate with
Giancana to enlist support for the assassination attempts against
Castro. But he and his brother were at the moment more concerned to
learn whether the mobster’s jealousy prompted him to try to rub out the
President.
They met in the White House with several top associates on the
morning of November 28. According to the testimony of former White
House appointments secretary Kenneth O’Donnell, Robert Kennedy opened
the meeting by waving a copy of the Washington Ledger and declaring,
“Congress has got to keep its nose out of our business.”
Always the more temperate of the two brothers, Jack Kennedy agreed
even so: “They would dig up too many things we’d rather not have them
see.” He said no more than that; not everyone in the room knew of the
connection with Giancana through Exner.
“How do we stop them?” O’Donnell asked. “How do we stop them without making them wonder why we’re stopping them?”
“National security,” Bobby Kennedy said at once. “Whatever we have to do, we go and do, and take the fallout later.”
O’Donnell has testified that this show of arrogance alarmed him.
“They’re part of the government,” he reminded the Attorney General.
“They have a right to know.”
“They think they do.” The younger Kennedy’s contempt was boundless.
But the President suddenly smiled. According to O’Donnell, he
said, “Do you know the best way to kill a cat? You drown it in cream.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” All testimony indicates that Robert Kennedy was in a rotten mood through most the meeting.
John Kennedy, by contrast, lit a cigar. “If they want an investigation, by God, we’ll give them an investigation,” he said.
That only agitated his brother more. “The whole point of this is
that we can’t let those yahoos start poking their noses into things,”
he said. “Once they start, who knows where they’ll stop?”
“We don’t let them.” JFK took a self-satisfied puff on the
stogie. “When I heard what Ev was up to, I got on the phone myself.”
Dirksen and Congressman Charles Halleck of Indiana, the Republican
leaders of the Senate and House, formed the Ev and Charlie Show, the
loyal opposition’s weekly view of events. Dirksen was a lot more
entertaining than Halleck, but every good performer needed a foil.
“Who were you talking to?” Bobby Kennedy asked.
“And why?” O’Donnell added.
“We want an investigation of our own,” the President said, choosing
his words carefully. “Only ours will look at the . . . true facts. We
need to make certain that if certain . . . situations . . . occur that
could undermine national security, well, I took an oath to protect this
country. Am I right here?” The question hung in the air as people
read between the lines.
The Attorney General laughed--harshly, if O’Donnell’s recollection
is accurate. “It’s a damn good thing I pulled the plug,” he said.
O’Donnell remembered that remark because he didn’t understand it.
He did not know a taping system was in place in the Oval Office. He
remembered John Kennedy frowning, as if to say his brother was talking
out of turn. JFK could not do anything but frown, not without
revealing the secret he wanted to continue to hold. “Anyway,” the
President said, “that’s the kind of investigation we need, and that’s
the kind we’re going to get. Serious, sensitive to our security
concerns.” In the Navy, they’d have called it a gundeck job, bullshit
from top to bottom. Kennedy continued, “And I found the perfect man to
head it up.” He grinned, in O’Donnell’s words, “like a cat with canary
breath.”
“Who?” Bobby Kennedy asked, as he was plainly meant to do.
John Kennedy’s smile got wider. “Earl Warren. I asked him, and he
said yes. He said he would be honored, as a matter of fact.”
“Warren? We put the Chief Justice in charge?” Robert Kennedy,
O’Donnell, and the three or four other people in the room were all
equally impressed . . . and equally worried. The Attorney General put
the concerns into words: “Can we trust him not to go wandering off on
his own?”
“I think so,” the President said. “He is still the Chief Justice.
He made it plain to me that would be his first concern even if he took
on this commission, too. I told him that was too bad, but I understood
and I was willing to go along with it.” Again, according to O’Donnell,
he might have brushed feathers off his chin. He continued, “And with
Warren heading it, we’re fireproof. He’s not just the Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court. He’s a Republican, so nobody can say we’re being
partisan.”
“That’s beautiful, Jack,” O’Donnell said. “But don’t forget, he ran with Dewey against Truman in ’48.”
“He sure did,” John Kennedy agreed. “But he’s come left since
then--it’s the Birchers who stick up IMPEACH EARL WARREN! billboards
now.”
“With enemies like that, who needs friends?” Bobby Kennedy said.
“It’s almost as good as having the Communists go after you.” He
started looking happier himself. “And we can give this commission some
bright young men from the Justice Department to help the distinguished
members find what they’re looking for--as long as we want them to look
for it.”
“And to help them not find it if we don’t,” O’Donnell said.
“That would be naughty, Ken,” the President said, and wagged the
cigar at him. The meeting broke up a few minutes later. The
administration had a plan.
#
In Dallas, William Kunstler showed that he intended to carry out an
aggressive defense of Lee Harvey Oswald. In a press conference on the
morning of the twenty-eighth (ironically, only a few minutes after the
fateful meeting at the White House ended), Kunstler proclaimed his
client’s innocence and declared that all of Oswald’s statements before
he gained legal representation were obtained under duress and were
therefore “inoperative”--the attorney’s word, which was later widely
quoted and ridiculed.
“Does that include the statement that he intended to shoot the
President?” a reporter called. It was anything but an orderly press
conference, not least because so many of the people covering it were
hostile to the man holding it. Interruptions were many, raucous, and
often profane.
“All statements includes all statements.” Kunstler was surely
aware of the press’ hostility, but gave no sign of it. “The only
statement Lee Harvey Oswald has made or will make for the record is
that he is innocent in every particular and expects to be vindicated.”
“My balls!” somebody yelled, which produced a moment of pandemonium.
Someone else called, “If Oswald didn’t kill Connally, who the hell did?”
“Look where we are, ladies and gentlemen. This is the buckle of
the Bible Belt.” Kunstler, a New York Jew, spoke with even more scorn
than might have been expected. He went on, “It’s also one of the most
conservative cities in America. General Billy Walker lives here, for
instance, and he was too conservative for the Army, for crying out
loud.”
“Yeah, and didn’t Oswald’s wife say he took a shot at him, too, last spring?” a reporter asked.
Kunstler waved that aside. “Like her husband, she reserves all her
Constitutional rights, and I remind all of you that this is the first
time she has been represented by proper legal counsel, rendering any
statements inadmissible. In any case, a wife can’t be compelled to
testify against her husband.”
“Terrific,” a radio man said. “So who did do it?”
“If you want my opinion, gentlemen, I think you have to consider
the possibility of a grand right-wing conspiracy,” Kunstler declared.
“The President is progressive, and Governor Connally was, well,
progressive for a Texan. Plenty of people with a vested interest in
nipping change in the bud. Oh, my, yes.”
“Conspiracy, nothing. District Attorney Wade says a bullet they
got from Connally matches Oswald’s gun. What have you got to say about
that?” a reporter shouted. Tapes of this press conference show that it
was almost as chaotic as some of the ones to which the Dallas police
brought Oswald just after his arrest.
Nothing fazed Kunstler--and he had a mike. “Henry Wade can say
whatever he damn well pleases. He’s a state lackey, and they pay him
to get convictions. He doesn’t care that he’s prejudicing the jury
pool against my client.”
“Here in Texas, Mr. Kunstler, those are fighting words,” the radio reporter told him.
“I was a tough kid,” Kunstler said calmly. “I’m not afraid to say truth to power and stand by it.”
“Hey, Counselor!” somebody yelled through the din. “Is it true your old man was a proctologist?”
“You better believe it.” William Kunstler looked straight out at
the man who’d asked the question. “Helps me know one when I see one.”
Everybody laughed, even the reporter. No one had any questions after
that.
#
Comments