50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: General McHugh And JFK

In his book High Treason 2: The Great Cover-Up, Harrison Edward Livingstone noted that a member of JFK's White House staff on November 22, 1963 named General Godfrey McHugh "was from a wealthy family and had close ties with some of the rich Texas oilmen" and "In fact, the night before Kennedy's assassination, General McHugh was at the home of two brothers, Robert N. and E.J. McCurdy, both oilmen in Fort Worth" who "both intensely disliked Kennedy." High Treason 2 also asserted that "McHugh just happened to be with JFK when he was shot, and on Air Force 1, where the body was" and "Godfrey McHugh was listed in Who's Who In The CIA, a book confirmed in the Pentagon Papers as being accurate." High Treason 2 also argued that "if the body was stolen from Air Force 1 in Dallas, the time it was done was during LBJ's swearing-in, when only General McHugh was on guard."

General McHugh also was apparently close to JFK's alleged body around the time a controversial autopsy was performed on it. According to Warren Commission Exhibit 1024, on November 30, 1963 Secret Service Special Agent Clinton Hill stated that after JFK's body was flown back to Washington and taken by ambulance to the U.S. Naval Hospital, "Mrs. Kennedy, the Attorney General [Bobby Kennedy], Special Agent Landis and I went immediately inside and via elevator to the 17th floor of the hospital, the location of the Presidential suite" while "The president's body was taken to the morgue..." Later, according to Secret Service Agent Hill "at approximately 2:45 a.m., November 23 [1963], I was requested by ASAIC Kellerman to come to the morgue to once again view the body" and "When I arrived the autopsy had been completed and ASAIC Kellerman, SA Greer, General McHugh and I viewed the wounds."

Coincidentally, a brigadier general who identified himself as "the president's air force aide" appeared to get extremely uptight at a November 22, 1963 Texas Hotel breakfast in Fort Worth just a few hours before JFK was to be shot, when his right of entry was challenged by Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce Sports Committee member Donald Bubar. According to Warren Commission Exhibit 1020, on December 3, 1963 Bubar wrote the following in a letter to U.S. Secret Service Chief James Rowley:

"I was one of 30 men chosen from the Chamber of Commerce Sports Committee in Fort Worth to assist the Secret Service at the Texas Hotel [on November 22, 1963]...The only untoward incident which I was involved in that morning was in the Ballroom when a Brigadier General walked in without either a ticket to the breakfast or any other credentials except his uniform and decorations...The woman taking the tickets told me that a general had walked in without any identification and walked over toward the next door...I was then told that someone in an officer's uniform had walked out the other door into the foyer.

"Shortly after that, the general came back in the door where I was stationed, and the woman taking the tickets turned to me to report that this was the general who had come in earlier unidentified. I told him to wait a moment; that I would get a member of the Secret Service to identify him, since he had no ticket and no badge which we were instructed to acknowledge. He was quite incensed that he should be stopped and told me that he was the President's Air Force Aide...

"The General...seemed to feel that he had been humiliated in some respect, and told me that in his three years' experience...no one had ever before challenged his right of entry...

"The General continued to press the point, telling me that it was strange that he would have to come back to his hometown to be treated in any such fashion. I reminded him that I could walk down to the Army store and buy a uniform, stars, and all the decorations he wore, and could very easily masquerade as a brigadier general. I was quite astonished that anyone in his position should have felt that he was above all security regulations."

(Downtown 1/20/93)