JFK Conspiracy Theorists Who Earn Their Reputation as Crackpots

[Tom Graves]

I was referring to the professed fear of a nuclear Armageddon with the Soviet Union. Thanks to records released in 1993, we know that LBJ pressured Richard Russell and Earl Warren into serving on the WC by telling them that if the government didn't squash rumors that the Soviets and/or the Cubans were behind the JFK assassination, this could push the U.S. into a war that could “kill 40 million Americans in an hour.”

Dear Comrade Griffith,

Why did the world-class humanitarian organization known as the KGB force the evil, evil CIA to do that?

-- Tom

PS "Professed fear"?

[Lance Payette]

But, yes, I was referring to the professed fear of a nuclear Armageddon with the Soviet Union. Thanks to records released in 1993, we know that LBJ pressured Richard Russell and Earl Warren into serving on the WC by telling them that if the government didn't squash rumors that the Soviets and/or the Cubans were behind the JFK assassination, this could push the U.S. into a war that could “kill 40 million Americans in an hour.”

As we used to say about the General Counsel of the Mega Corp at which I worked, "Often wrong but never in doubt." Good thing you have a professional fact-checker like me to keep on your toes.

If not before, Earl Warren revealed what LBJ had said to him in the Memoirs of Chief Justice Earl Warren, published in 1977. You can read the relevant excerpt from his Memoirs here at page 7: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol11/pdf/HSCA_Vol11_WC_1_Operations.pdf. That's HSCA Volume 11, "Creation of the Warren Commission."

The similar argument made to Russell did indeed come to light (as far as I can tell) when the fabled "LBJ tapes" were released by the National Archives in response to ARRB requests in 1993. If the theory is that LBJ made this argument to stack the deck at the WC and ensure a LN outcome, then he miscalculated rather badly in the case of Russell - eh? Russell was not only a naysayer at the WC but was practically a full-tilt CTer after LBJ's death. LBJ's pressure was apparently too subtle for Russell to get the message - eh?

When I'm not wearing my CT propellor beanie, I see no reason to think LBJ was not sincere in his concerns. Your "belief" that LBJ pressured "several senior military officers" with this argument to ensure a LN result at the autopsy has no foundation whatsoever as far as I can discern. We know that the Joint Chiefs had suggested to JFK that the loss of tens of millions of American lives in a nuclear war would be an acceptable price to pay, whereupon a dismayed JFK had said "And we call ourselves the human race." Why would we think your unnamed "senior military officers" would not have responded "Nuclear war? Cool!" to LBJ's argument?