LBJ's Phone Call with Hoover 11/24

[Steve M. Galbraith]

The day after the assassination, about 24 hours later, LBJ calls Hoover for an update on the investigation. Hoover is confused and provides LBJ, even about a day later, with astonishingly incorrect information.

Like this (he tells LBJ that Oswald killed a police officer during a gun battle in the theater):



Transcript is here: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/lbjlib/phone_calls/Nov_1963/html/LBJ-Nov-1963_0029a.htm

[Mike Orr]

Good Posting Steve !

  I have never read this conversation with Hoover and LBJ before about the handgun and the rifle . Could you point me toward the conversation between Hoover and LBJ about this exchange the two had on the phone about the two guns . With the files that have not been released , I think we will never find out the scenario that took place involving the assassination . Between JFK , MLK , RFK , Malcolm X ,OKC Murrah Bldg. and 911 we are in an area that we might not ever know what really happened .
 Thanks Steve

[Martin Weidmann]

The day after the assassination, about 24 hours later, LBJ calls Hoover for an update on the investigation. Hoover is confused and provides LBJ, even about a day later, with astonishingly incorrect information.

Like this (he tells LBJ that Oswald killed a police officer during a gun battle in the theater):



Transcript is here: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/lbjlib/phone_calls/Nov_1963/html/LBJ-Nov-1963_0029a.htm

There clearly was a lot of confusion and speculation in those first 24 hours, because all sorts of people in law enforcement were making statements that simply did not match the actual facts and/or each other. Hoover was clearly misinformed. What is surprising and highly irresponsible is that he just passed on this unverified and incorrect information to Johnson. He should have known better or, alternatively, he had an agenda of his own.

[Lance Payette]

Poor old Jedgar. In the same conversation, he also identified Ruth Paine as Oswald's mother (hey, maybe she WAS!!!). Here is a more complete transacript and link from a thread John Simkin started at the Ed Forum back in 2004: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/1909-lbj-tapes-the-key-evidence/. Simkin says the call was at 10:01 AM on November 23.

[John Corbett]

Over the course of several conversations JEH had with LBJ he made a number of ludicrous misstatements of facts. That's why I said a few weeks ago in another thread that JEH was clueless regarding the facts of the shooting and it seems to me he was trying to fake his way through his conversations with LBJ the way a school kid who hadn't read the assigned text might do.

[Lance Payette]

Anyone with a TV set or newspaper seemingly would have known more by the morning of November 23 than LBJ or Jedgar apparently did, which is rather puzzling and somewhat frightening. Having now read all of Robert Caro's voluminous books on LBJ, I would have expected him to be on top of all the details and not having to rely on old Jedgar. Maybe LBJ was just playing dumb - let's take that ball and run with it, CTers. In fact, maybe both were playing dumb - the whole conversation was staged!

[Jarrett Smith]

Anyone with a TV set or newspaper seemingly would have known more by the morning of November 23 than LBJ or Jedgar apparently did, which is rather puzzling and somewhat frightening. Having now read all of Robert Caro's voluminous books on LBJ, I would have expected him to be on top of all the details and not having to rely on old Jedgar. Maybe LBJ was just playing dumb - let's take that ball and run with it, CTers. In fact, maybe both were playing dumb - the whole conversation was staged!

Hoover was glad he was dead and could care less about it. It has been said JEH enjoyed telling RFK his brother was killed.