Here is the full quote from the Cray book about the alleged conversation.
And this:
Question: If the claim is that WC was ordered not to look into any Soviet involvement why did Warren say there was great pressure to show there was no Soviet involvement? Wouldn't he say we were told not to look for any? Here he is saying something different; they were pressured to show - not hide - any Soviet involvement.
Full book is here: https://archive.org/details/chiefjusticebiog0000cray/page/428/mode/2up
Thanks for that, Steve. Like the infamous Katzenbach "convince the public" memo, I think you can look at the language in various ways,
Cui bono? pointed so obviously to the Soviets (in light of Oswald's background) that I think it would have been unrealistic to say "Don't look into it." I take what Warren was saying by "show" was "Look into it but make sure you conclude there was no Soviet involvement."
John’s posts got me sounding like I think LBJ
was involved in the JFKA, whereas my first post hopefully makes clear that I think precisely the opposite was the case.
One of the truly fascinating things about the JFKA is that (1) the LN narrative says a mixed-up nobody had a brain fart and killed JFK for no clear reason, but (2) so many, many powerful individuals and groups hated JFK for diverse reasons and stood to benefit from his death that
Cui bono? points all over the map and it’s almost impossible to believe none of them had any involvement. Ya gotta love it.
Speculation about LBJ began
immediately, which is precisely why the WC was under “great pressure” to exonerate him. They did so only half-assedly, by concluding Oswald acted alone.
This all reminded me of a fascinating little book I wasn’t aware of until perhaps three years ago, when I stumbled upon a 2005 thread at the Ed Forum in which John Simkin mentioned it as having possibly solved the JFKA before the WR was even issued. See
https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/2846-thomas-buchanan-did-he-solve-the-jfk-case/#comment-18261. Simkin’s first post is well worth reading, especially for the curious way the book came about (involving the author being contacted by a concerned staffer at the WC, who put him in touch with Ted Kennedy, who put him in touch with Nicholas Katzenbach).
The book is
Who Killed Kennedy? by Thomas G. Buchanan. It was published in Europe in May 1964 – first having been serialized in a French newspaper the previous month – and later published in a revised version in the U.S. Because I’m fussy, I tracked down the European original on Advanced Book Exchange.
Buchanan was no wacko. He was a respected journalist, novelist, and civil rights advocate who was blacklisted after joining the Communist Party.
https://thomasgbuchanan.com/biography/ Indeed, CIA Director John McCone encouraged Earl Warren to take a close look at
Who Killed Kennedy? and deal with the claims. Warren suggested having Buchanan testify, which McCone discouraged because it would obviously give Buchanan a wider forum for his claims.
Who Killed Kennedy? was, of necessity, highly speculative and demonstrably incorrect in some details. The basic thesis is that JFK was killed by ultra-rightwing Texas oil millionaires who were incensed by JFK’s plan to eliminate their fantastically profitable oil-depletion allowance. The book is Texas, Texas, Texas. What’s interesting is that Buchanan realizes his thesis logically implicates LBJ but pointedly doesn’t “go there,” at least by name. As I recall, he posits a mastermind called Mr. X who is pretty clearly LBJ.
Oh, yes, plenty of people were focusing on LBJ early on. That’s my only point. If you haven’t read it,
Who Killed Kennedy? in its European version is fascinating as one of the earliest (pre-WR) conspiracy tomes and one that is still highly regarded. Here's the European version, readily available at Advanced Book Exchange. The U.S. edition is on Amazon, but it's quite different.
