50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: LBJ's Hoover Commission

Although former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was apparently not too fond of JFK, he was apparently quite fond of LBJ. As Alien Ink: The FBI's War On Freedom Of Expression recalled:

"On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas...A Hoover friend of over 20 years was sworn in as President...Johnson was the only American President whose autographed photograph hung on the living-room wall of J. Edgar Hoover's home. The Director also kept a bust of Johnson in his dining room.

In his 1970 book, Hoover's FBI: The Men And The Myth, former FBI Agent William Turner described the nature of LBJ's relationship to former FBI Director Hoover:

"One of Lyndon Johnson's first requests upon ensconcing himself in the White House was for 1,200 dossiers on his political adversaries from the FBI's supposedly confidential files, plus the Bobby Baker volume [of LBJ's former aide]. Hoover, whose time for mandatory retirement was looming (only the president could extend it), was happy to oblige...

"Popular fable has it that the Hoover-Johnson friendship stemmed from nothing more than the fact they were neighbors when Johnson was in the Senate...

"But it was much deeper than that. In a very real sense, Hoover was part of the Texan's political family. [LBJ aide] Walter Jenkins' brother had long been an FBI agent in Amarillo, and one of LBJ's shirttail relatives moved from Texas state politics to the FBI (despite the fact that he was slightly under the height minimum), where his rise through the ranks was mercurial. And then there was old Clint Murchison, Hoover's bosom pal, who was one of Johnson's earliest political benefactors...

"The assassination of President Kennedy brought out the Hoover-Johnson team at its precision best. As Congress cranked up to investigate the momentous crime, Johnson took over with the announcement that he was forming his own blue-ribbon commission of inquiry and had asked the FBI to investigate. Less than three weeks after the assassination, far too little time to cover all the ground, Hoover handed the president a confidential summary report that concluded there was `no conspiracy.' Simultaneously...he leaked the report's contents to the press. Thus was the public inculcated with the `no consnpiracy' theory, and the Warren Commission was handed it as a fait accompli..."

(Downtown 4/14/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Bush I And The JFK Assassination

Coincidentally, a few days after JFK was ambushed on November 22, 1963, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent a memorandum to the U.S. State Department regarding the JFK assassination. According to an article, "`George Bush' C.I.A. Operative" by Joseph McBride, which appeared in the July 16/23, 1988 issue of The Nation magazine, this November 29, 1963 FBI memorandum was "subject headed `Assassination of President John F. Kennedy Nov. 22, 1963" and "In it, Hoover reports that the bureau had briefed `Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency' shortly after the assassination..."

The same Nation article also revealed that "a source with close connections to the intelligence community confirms that Bush started working for the agency in 1960 or 1961, using his oil business as a cover for clandestine activities." The Nation's intelligence community source had "worked with the agency in the late 1950s and through the 1960s" and he stated that Bush "was involved in the Caribbean" and "I know he was involved in the suppression of things after the Kennedy assassination.'"

Plausible Denial: Was The CIA Involved In The Assassination of JFK? by Mark Lane also noted that:

"There is evidence suggesting that [George] de Mohrenschildt served as a CIA control officer who directed Oswald's actions. De Mohrenschildt died from a gun shot just as he was about to be questioned by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. After his death, his personal telephone book was located. It contained this entry: `Bush, George H.W. (Poppy) 1412 W. Ohio also Zapata Petroleum Midland.'"

(Downtown 6/17/92)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Oswald's FBI Monitor Met With Army Intelligence Agent Prior To JFK Assassination

Coincidentally, the same Dallas FBI agent who visited the Paine-Oswald residence twice and made a pretext call to the personnel department of the Texas School Book Depository inquiring about Oswald a few weeks before JFK was ambushed, met with an Army intelligence agent just prior to JFK's assassination on November 22, 1963.

During FBI agent James Hosty's May 5, 1964 testimony before the Warren Commission, the following exchange took place between Warren Commission Assistant Counsel Samuel Stern and FBI agent Hosty:

MR. STERN: "What next occurred on the 22nd, Mr. Hosty?"

MR. HOSTY: "After the conference that lasted until about 9 a.m. I then left the office and joined an Army Intelligence agent...We had a conference...This conference lasted most of the morning until about 11:45. At 11:45 the Army Intelligence agent and myself left, and walked over towards Main Street. The motorcade was scheduled to pass down Main Street near our office at approximately noon..."

(Downtown 6/10/92)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Who Authorized George De Mohrenschildt and George Bouhe To Help The Oswalds?

Prior to the JFK ambush, Oswald and his wife had received some financial assistance fom George De Mohrenschildt. In his April 23, 1964 testimony before Warren Commission Assistant Counsel Albert Jenner Jr., De Mohrenschildt noted that he and George Bouhe had checked with their FBI or CIA contacts prior to helping the Oswalds survive between Sept. 1962 and November 22, 1963:

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT: May I say a few things here that I remember. As I told you before, we met the Oswalds through Bouhe, and then we talked about them to Max Clark, and again to Bouhe. And I asked Mr. Bouhe `Do you think it is safe for us to help Oswald?...'

MR. JENNER:...Why did you raise that question?

MR. DE MOHRENSCHILDT: I raised the question because he had been to Soviet Russia. He could be anything, you see. And he could be right there watched day and night by the FBI. I did not want to get involved, you see. And I distinctly remember, No. 1, that George Bouhe said that he had checked with the FBI...I have the impression to have talked--to have asked about Lee Oswald also Mr. Moore, Walter Moore.

MR. JENNER: Who is Walter Moore?

MR. DE MOHRENSCHILDT: Walter Moore is the man who interviewed me on behalf of the Government after I came back from Yugoslavia--G. Walter Moore. He is a Government man--either FBI or Central Intelligence...Many people consider him head of FBI in Dallas...We became quite friendly..."

(Downtown 4/29/92)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: FBI Director Hoover's LBJ Connection

Some peoople claim that former FBI Director Hoover met with Richard Nixon at Clint Murchison's house in Dallas on the night before JFK was ambushed there and Nixon has admitted telephoning Hoover less than two hours after JFK was eliminated.

Coincidentally, former FBI Director Hoover was also a close friend of Lyndon Johnson at the time JFK was ambushed. In a March 6, 1964 memo to Hoover, former Assistant FBI Director Cartha De Loach reminded Hoover that the newly installed President Johnson "for 19 years was an across-the-street neighbor of yours, had had you down to his ranch in Texas, and had been a close personal friend."

The FBI's Nov. 5, 1963 Visit To The Paine-Oswald Residence

In addition to, coincidentally, informing an FBI agent of Oswald's place of temporary employment at the Texas School Book Depository when the FBI agent visited the Paine-Oswald residence on November 1, 1963, Ruth Paine also evidently spoke with FBI agents again on November 5, 1963, according to her March 23, 1964 testimony before Warren Commission Assistant Counsel Albert Jenner Jr. When Jenner asked Mrs. Paine "On the 5th day of November did an agent of the FBI come for a second time to interview you?," Mrs. Paine replied: "I didn't recall the day, but I have been told it was that day--yes."

(Downtown 4/29/92)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: The FBI's Pre-JFK Assassination Contact With The Texas School Book Depository

According to the Warren Commission Exhibit 832, Texas School Book Deposistory employee Lee Oswald "claimed to be on the first floor when President John F. Kennedy passed" the building and "frantically denied shooting Dallas police officer Tippett or shooting President John F. Kennedy."

But the FBI had made a special point of learning where Oswald worked only a few weeks before JFK was ambushed. According to Warren Commission Exhibit 837, an April 6, 1964 memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover to the Warren Commission, after the roommate of Oswald's wife, Mrs. Ruth Paine, "advised on Nov. 1, 1963, of Oswald's employment at the Texas School Book Depository, a pretext telephone call was made to the Texas School Book Depository to determine Oswald's residence address" and "advice was received that Oswald was working at Texas School Book Depository..."

Coincidentally, after JFK was ambushed near the Texas School Book Depository on Nov. 22, 1963, the FBI blamed the assassination on the Texas School Book Depository employee who had been under its surveillance.

(Downtown 4/15/92)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover's Nov. 21, 1963 Dallas Meeting

According to High Treason: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy--What Really Happened? by Robert J. Groden and Harrison Edward Livingston, "Penn Jones, Jr. claims that Hoover and Nixon were at" multi-millionaire Clint "Murchison's house" in Dallas on "the night before the assassination" for "a meeting."

And according to The Day Kennedy Was Shot by Jim Bishop, during the afternoon of November 22, 1963, "Richard Nixon reached his home in New York and dialed J. Edgar Hoover," a few hours before Lyndon Johnson got around to telephoning J.Edgar Hoover.

(Downtown, 3/4/92)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: The FBI's Pre-JFK Assassination Telex

According to On The Trail Of The Assassins by Jim Garrison, "five days before the assassination the New Orleans F.B.I. office received a telexed warning that an attempt would be made to assasinate the President in Dallas at the end of the week" [in November 1963] and "shortly after the assassination the telex message was removed from the file drawer of the New Orleans office of the Bureau."

(Downtown 3/4/92)

Gordon Friesen's `The Strange Death of Phil Ochs' Broadside Magazine Article of 1976 Revisited

(In the October-December 1976 issue of the now-defunct Broadside: the topical song magazine,” a founder and longtime editor of that non-profit folk music publication who died in 1996, Gordon Friesen, provided U.S. music fans with the following interesting alternative take on the 1960s topical and anti-war protest folk singer-songwriter Phil Ochs’s strange death to that presented in the 2011 documentary film about Phil Ochs, There But For Fortune, which was later broadcast in January 2012 on the PBS series, American Masters)

It is indicative of the depth of the brainwashing to which the American people have been systematically subjected that too many of them accept Phil Ochs’ death as a not too uncommon breakdown of a personality. But the accumulated facts raise more than a suspicion that a plot existed leading to his deliberate destruction. Let us look at some of these facts which would impel the reactionary, fascist-type U.S. imperialists to reach the decision that Phil Ochs must die.

The brainwashing of the people by the U.S. ruling class has created a tendency by artists, especially dissident songwriters, to underestimate the ferocious measures the ruling class will employ to destroy them. We know that the Wobbly balladeer Joe Hill was framed and executed by a firing squad (Phil knew this and even wrote a song expressing his admiration of Joe Hill). The woman radical songwriters, Fannie Sellins and Ella May Wiggins, were shot to death by police. Aunt Molly Jackson and her fellow songwriting relatives, Jim Garland and Sara Ogden, were forced to flee for their lives from the Harlan County, Kentucky, coal fields.

A fascist vigilante mob, aided by N.Y. State and local police, tried to murder Paul Robeson at Peekskill. He was finally silenced and driven into exile by the U.S. government. Even Woody Guthrie stated in print he was under surveillance by what he called the F-B-Eyes. Many Pete Seeger concerts were picketed by John Birchers handing out inflammatory leaflets urging at least by implication, violence against him. In 1940 the Oklahoma Red Dust Players were raided and scattered to the winds.

One can conclude that Phil Ochs was an even greater threat than these to the U.S. imperialists. In his early songs he defended Castro Cuba and the Vietnamese liberation fighters against the imperialistic designs of Washington. His songs became more and more pointed. “White Boots Marching In A Yellow Land”, “Santo Domingo”, “United Fruit” (where he approves of “young men going to the mountains to learn the way of the rifle” instead of slaving at pitiful wages for the American exploiters). But it was “Cops Of The World” with such lines as “here’s a kick in the ass, boys”, and “clean your johns with your flag” because “we’re the cops of the world”, and “Ringing Of Revolution” where he looks forward to the destruction of the last vestiges of the desperate decaying ruling class by the exploited masses, which really stuck like a bone in the throat of the U.S. imperialists.

A special threat was the wide circulation of Phil’s songs abroad. Books containing materials about him and his work were published in Spain, France, and other countries. The Spanish book reprinted “Cops Of The World” for its example of an Ochs song and the author likened Phil’s guitar to a machine gun. The first edition sold out so quickly, mainly to students, that the Franco regime did not have time to suppress it, as it did any further reprintings. Individuals and groups sang his songs in Japan, Scandinavia, Holland, W. Germany and many other countries.

It was naïve on Phil’s part to think when he undertook several jaunts in the early seventies to foreign nations that he would be treated like an ordinary tourist. He was met at two South American airports by police who arrested him, jailed him overnight and deported him the next day. From recent revelations it becomes obvious that the local authorities were acting under orders from the C.I.A. He was welcomed only in Chile where he sang together with Victor Jara, the popular Chilean peoples’ singer (Jara was destroyed in a bestial fashion when the C.I.A.-Ford-Kissinger sponsored Chilean fascists overthrew Allende in 1973. The police smashed Victor’s hands with their rifle butts, gave him his guitar and taunted “Now play and sing.” Then they murdered him).

When Phil tried to visit his ancestral Scotland the London police intercepted him and put him on a plane back to the United States. He got off at Dublin. Here communications between the C.I.A. and the Irish authorities seemed to have lagged, for Phil was allowed to stay all of two days in Dublin before being deported to New York.

On an African trip he was set upon by three thugs who paid special attention to crushing his voice box. Again the participation of the C.I.A. seemed unmistakably obvious. He came home barely able to croak and could never again sing like in the old days.

Meantime the activities and programs of the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. were slowly coming to light through hearings in Washington and books by former agents who could no longer endure the inhumanity of these secret organizations—their assassination plots, poison dart-guns, drugs to induce incoherency, burglaries, arming foreign fascists to overthrow their democratic governments, the use of informants and disrupters, spreading of lies, clawing through personal mail, bugging telephones, planting listening devices in citizens’ cars. And so far this seems only the tip of the iceberg.

The F.B.I. even had an elaborate program designed to induce dissidents to commit suicide. They confessed they had tried it on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In this instance they failed. But who knows in which cases they have succeeded. In 1965 another Broadside songwriter “committed suicide.” He was Peter La Farge, adopted son of Oliver La Farge, first winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature—the book was “Laughing Boy,” a sympathetic treatment of the Navajo Indians. The F.B.I. took an interest in Peter and began hounding him when he organized FAIR (Federation for American Indian Rights). Several months before he died, the F.B.I. raided his New York apartment at midnight. They scattered and tore up his papers; they put handcuffs on him and dragged him to Bellevue in his pajamas. They put pressure on Bellevue to declare him insane, but Bellevue could find nothing wrong and turned him loose.

When Phil came back to New York last summer [in 1975] he was still full of plans. He was arranging to go to a place in New Jersey for a six-weeks “drying out” period under supervision by medical experts. Then he planned to set up what he called Barricade House, where he would issue a newspaper, record protest singers and make films. He already had the building picked out in SoHo.

People ask us what motivation would the F.B.I.-C.I.A. have in wanting to see Phil dead when he could no longer sing or write. We answer that this was their motivation: Phil still had tremendous organizing ability, as witness his organizing the Chilean benefit. Barricade House would have been a great threat to the ruling class. We can visualize the F.B.I. doing one of their infamous psychological profiles on Phil Ochs. They asked the computer, what is his greatest weakness? The computer spat back: ALCOHOL! The next step of the F.B.I. is to assign agents to exploit this weakness in their intended victim; I would be very suspicious of the “friends” who attached themselves to Phil and kept plying him with alcoholic drinks.

I am afraid we didn’t take to seriously Phil’s daily insistence that the C.I.A. and F.B.I., and later with the collaboration of Mafia hit men, were out to murder him. He sought a place to hide and tried to hire a bodyguard; he carried an iron bar, a big scissors and other means with which to defend his life.

Where did these threats come from? What really happened? Perhaps some commission five or ten years from now will bring out the true details of how Phil Ochs met his strange death. We should finally learn how the great song-poem “Crucifixion” became a personal prophesy of the fate of its author.

--Gordon Friesen (Broadside, 10-12/76/issue 133)

42nd Anniversary of Kent State Massacre

May 4, 2012 marks the 42nd anniversary of the 1970 killing of four students at Kent State University by members of Ohio's National Guard. Barry Levine was the boyfriend of Allison Krause, one of the slain students. In his eulogy for her, Levine described what happened on May 4, 1970 in Kent, Ohio:

"...We stood for a few seconds watching the soldiers move out behind a screen of gas, before deciding to retreat with the crowd of students.

"...A gas cannister landed at our feet, exploding in our faces...

"After a few seconds of recovery, Allison turned in her tracks and froze. She stood in the path of the pursuing troops screaming at the top of her lungs...The hand drawn to her face, holds a wet rag used to protect herself from the gas, and her other hand holds mine, with which I pulled her over the hill and into the parking lot, a safe distance from the troops.

"For several minutes we stood in the parking lot watching these men threaten us with their rifles...And then they turned..."

In his 1981 book, Mayday: Kent State, J. Gregory Payne also noted the following:

"

In the fall of 1980, additional information from the FBI investigation on Kent State housed at the National Archives was released to the public. This information revealed that President Nixon instructed FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover--who thought the four victims `got what they deserved'--to find information in the fall of 1970 to substantiate the Guardsmen's claims about the incident. Nixon's directove was issued during the FBI's investigation of the incident. Despite the recent shocking revalations, thousands of pages of the FBI report remain classified, therefore, unavailable for public scrutiny..."

(Downtown 4/27/94)