CHAPTER 1
ON THE AFTERNOON OF DECEMBER 17, 1963, I TRIED TO SIT UP STRAIGHT and look respectfully across a large desk at the chief justice of the United States, Earl Warren, who had been appointed the chairman of the presidential commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy. A thirty-two-year-old Justice Department lawyer, I had been “volunteered” by Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach to assist the chief justice in getting the commission under way. The chief justice explained how he had reluctantly accepted President Johnson’s request to lead the commission and the importance of the commission’s work. He was a handsome man—with blue eyes, broad shoulders, and a thicket of white hair—who looked me in the eye as he spoke with the calm assurance of the accomplished politician that he was. I certainly was intimidated. When he asked me to serve in a liaison capacity with the commission, I said I was available to do anything he wanted.
When I returned to the department, I told my boss, Assistant Attorney General Herbert J. (“Jack”) Miller, about the meeting with Chief Justice Warren. Miller was the head of the criminal division, and I was one of his two deputies. He and I had learned of the assassination after a late lunch together on November 22. Washington was chilly that day, but sunny. Finished with our customary hamburgers at a nearby restaurant, we headed back to the department a few blocks away, across Pennsylvania Avenue. As we approached the stoplight at Pennsylvania, we were surprised to see a young lawyer from our division rushing toward us and shouting. The words hit like blows to the chest: “The president has been shot.”
Jack and I nearly ran the rest of the way to the department. Inside, Jack hurried to the attorney general’s office, where he told me later that he had found Robert Kennedy’s secretary in tears. I joined the group of criminal division lawyers milling in the halls of the division and listening to a radio in the reception area outside of Jack’s office. About thirty minutes later, we learned that the president was dead. Within an hour or so, reports confirmed that a suspect had been apprehended by the Dallas police.
Hoover and the FBI Take the Lead
J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation since 1935, wanted the FBI to have complete control of the investigation of the Kennedy assassination. Although there was no federal law making the assassination of the president a crime, President Lyndon Johnson announced to the public that he had instructed the FBI to take charge and to report directly to him. He commanded that all other federal agencies, including the CIA and the Secret Service, cooperate with the FBI. The decision whether there was any way to prosecute the killing of Kennedy and the murder of Oswald by Ruby under existing federal laws would be made by the Department of Justice. At the same time, the two murders were under investigation by the Dallas Police Department for possible prosecution in the local Dallas court. The Texas attorney general initiated the creation of a special court of inquiry under Texas law to conduct an independent investigation at the state level. Several congressional leaders were eager to undertake investigations of the assassination and, in particular, the failure of the Secret Service to protect the president.
Many important facts became known almost immediately. President Kennedy and Governor Connally were hit by shots fired at the presidential motorcade after it had turned onto Elm Street and passed the Texas School Book Depository. Three shots were fired in rapid succession. The vehicle took the president immediately to Parkland Hospital, about four miles away. The doctors there found an extensive wound in the president’s head and a small wound approximately one-fourth inch in diameter in the lower third of his neck. In an effort to facilitate his breathing, the doctors performed a tracheotomy by enlarging the throat wound and inserting a tube. They never turned the president over for an examination of his back. At about 1 P.M., some thirty minutes after the shooting, all heart activity ceased and a priest administered last rites. President Kennedy was dead.1
Local police and Secret Service officials at the assassination scene went into action quickly. They interviewed witnesses who recounted seeing a rifle firing from the southeast corner window on the sixth floor of the depository. One witness described the man he saw firing from the building, and police broadcast this description of the suspected assassin over the police radio at 12:45 P.M. Other witnesses reported that after the shots were fired, they had seen Lee Harvey Oswald, a new employee at the depository, walking toward the front of the building where an elevator and a short flight of stairs led to the main entrance of the building on the first floor.2
About forty-five minutes after the assassination, J. D. Tippit, a Dallas police officer on patrol, spotted a man on the street who met the general description of the suspected assassin. Tippit pulled his patrol car up to this man, who responded by walking over to the passenger side of Tippit’s car. Tippit got out and started to walk around the front of his car, when the man drew a revolver and fired four shots into Tippit, killing him instantly. Some eyewitnesses saw the killing and others observed the gunman leave the scene and enter a movie theater several blocks away without buying a ticket. They called the Dallas police and within minutes officers swarmed to the theater. When police approached the man in the theater, he drew a gun and struck one of them. After a struggle, the police officers subdued the man, arrested him, and hustled him to police headquarters. They arrived there at about 2 P.M. The man was Lee Harvey Oswald.3
Meanwhile, having learned of Kennedy’s death at Parkland Hospital, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, left under guard for the airport. Although Johnson became president immediately upon Kennedy’s death, he wanted the formal swearing-in ceremony to take place as soon as possible. He called the president’s brother, Robert Kennedy, in part to satisfy himself that the attorney general did not oppose a prompt swearing-in, but also to obtain the precise language of the oath to be administered. Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach subsequently dictated to Johnson’s secretary the thirty-seven-word oath of office contained in the Constitution. Johnson also insisted that Mrs. John F. Kennedy participate in the swearing-in ceremony and return to Washington on the presidential plane with him. He believed that no single gesture “would do more to demonstrate continuity and stability” in the United States after the assassination “than the attendance at his swearing-in ceremony of the late President’s widow.” At 2:38 P.M., Mrs. John F. Kennedy, in her bloodstained pink suit, was standing at Johnson’s side as he was sworn in as the thirty-sixth president of the United States by Federal District Court Judge Sarah T. Hughes.4
When the plane arrived in Washington, DC, a police-escorted ambulance took Kennedy’s body to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. The doctors there performed the autopsy. They examined the massive head wound observed at Parkland and the one in the front of the neck, which had been enlarged by the Parkland doctors when they performed the tracheotomy. The autopsy report described both of these as being “presumably” exit wounds. The doctors in Bethesda also noticed two wounds missed at Parkland: a small wound of entry in the rear of the president’s skull and another wound of entry near the base of the back of the neck. The autopsy report described the bullets that struck the president as having been fired “from a point behind and somewhat above the level of the deceased.”5
The confusion at the assassination scene and the many conflicting versions from eyewitnesses and local officials about what had happened immediately raised questions regarding the number, identity, and location of the likely assassin or assassins. Reporters from around the world descended on Dallas to pursue any and all details about the assassination and quickly published any newly acquired information regardless of source or credibility. Some witnesses as well as commentators who saw films of the motorcade alleged that one or more shots had been fired from the president’s front because of the backward motion of his head after being hit. In addition, one of the Parkland Hospital doctors had speculated about the president’s wounds, in response to press inquiries, in a way that contributed to public confusion about the direction of the shots.
After Oswald was apprehended, snippets of information about his background—defection to the Soviet Union in 1959, his effort to renounce his American citizenship, his return to the United States in 1962 with a Soviet wife and young daughter, and his pro-Cuba activities—raised immediate suspicions of possible foreign involvement in the assassination. The most pressing questions about him in the first few hours concerned logistics: How had he been able to recently get a job at a location on the motorcade route, how had he acquired a rifle and secreted it in the book depository, and how had he planned to escape?
A day after the assassination, Hoover produced a five-page memorandum for the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, and Jack Miller as head of the criminal division. The FBI named Oswald as the assassin, identified the depository as the location where he fired the shots, and described the rifle and other physical evidence found at the scene. Their report also gave us some quickly gathered information regarding Oswald’s defection to Russia in 1959, his return to the United States in 1962, his trip to Mexico in 1963 in an effort to go to Cuba, and his activities for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
Immediately after the assassination, Katzenbach essentially became the “acting” attorney general to whom the new president and Congress looked for guidance in coping with this tragedy. The grief-stricken Robert Kennedy had personal and family responsibilities that limited his role at the Justice Department for several weeks after the assassination. A former Rhodes Scholar and a professor of law at Yale, Katzenbach had come to the department as the assistant attorney general in charge of the office of legal counsel on the recommendation of Byron “Whizzer” White, who was then Kennedy’s deputy attorney general. When White was elevated to the Supreme Court in 1962, Katzenbach became the new deputy.
Nick Katzenbach was a truly remarkable man. Several inches over six feet, with a large frame and head, he always stood out in a crowd. He left Princeton to join the Air Force during World War II, and after his plane crashed was a prisoner of war for some two years. He escaped more than once, but was recaptured each time. During his imprisonment he read an estimated four hundred books, and based on this self-education, persuaded the Princeton faculty to award him his degree after passing the required tests. At the Justice Department, he consistently addressed problems in a thoughtful manner, with considerable patience, and an unusual readiness to listen carefully to everyone, regardless of age, title, or political affiliation.
Within hours of the assassination, rumors began to circulate in the United States and abroad that Oswald was selected as the triggerman in an assassination plot engineered by right-wing extremists in the United States. During his short term in office, Kennedy had initiated liberal programs that challenged the established practices of some of the largest corporations in the country, and many were outspoken in their opposition to his administration. Commentators all over the world reported that the assassination had been the work of Kennedy’s most violent political opponents. In the following months we would learn that the Soviet government had originated this rumor. The CIA found that Radio Moscow was the first news service in the world to suggest that ultra-rightists in the United States were responsible for the president’s death. Eastern European radio stations fell into line, and the story began to spread.6
Two days after the assassination, another unthinkable act occurred. Jack Ruby, the manager of a small Dallas nightclub, slipped into the basement of police headquarters as officers were transferring Oswald to a more secure county jail. Even though there had been threats against Oswald’s life, the basement was crowded with news reporters and curious bystanders anxious to get a look at the accused assassin. As Oswald emerged from the jail office with detectives on either side of him, Ruby darted out from Oswald’s left and fired one shot into his stomach. A television camera caught the entire event. Oswald was immediately taken to Parkland Hospital, where he never regained consciousness, and was declared dead less than two hours after he was shot. In custody, Ruby denied that his action was in any way connected with a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. He claimed “that he had killed Oswald in a temporary fit of depression and rage over the president’s death.”7
Oswald’s murder immediately spawned countless new conspiracy theories based on the proposition that Oswald had been “silenced” to protect the true architects of the assassination. It also supported a spreading popular belief that law enforcement officials were complicit in the president’s killing. How could Ruby have been allowed to enter the basement just minutes before Oswald came into the room? It seemed inconceivable that this was a chance occurrence rather than a planned conspiracy in which Ruby got help from Dallas police officers, and perhaps from the same groups that had assisted Oswald in the assassination.
Ruby’s criminal record and reported associations with the underworld prompted suspicions of a connection among Ruby, Oswald, and organized crime. Most versions of this allegation rested on speculation that Ruby and the Dallas police conspired to kill Oswald. The Washington Post reported that in Europe, rumors circulated that the assassination had been instigated by those challenged by the president and his brother, such as the Teamsters Union, the Mafia, or Texas oil interests. Writing in Paris Match in December, a leading European commentator pointed out that “while most Americans seemed to accept ‘FBI leaks’ that Oswald was a loner, Europeans rejected the claim ‘almost universally.’” He added that “they absolutely [his italics] do not believe the ‘laughable’ story that Ruby—a gangster—acted out of patriotic indignation.”8
Hoover urgently wanted his report to reassure the president that there was no conspiracy. The day after Ruby killed Oswald, the FBI supplied additional information regarding both Oswald and Ruby. Although the FBI is a branch of the Justice Department and therefore subordinate to the attorney general, the reality was that for decades Hoover had run the agency as his own independent fiefdom. Consistent with this practice, those of us in the department remained in the dark about the FBI’s continued investigation of these crimes and the timing of its report.9
On November 26, Hoover talked with Katzenbach about the upcoming FBI report and later told his associates that Katzenbach believed the report should “settle the dust, insofar as Oswald and his activities are concerned, both from the standpoint that he is the man who assassinated the president and relative to Oswald himself and his activities and background.” As I would later learn, Hoover’s version of facts and reports of conversations were often unreliable. Hoover wanted the FBI report to address definitively “all allegations and angles” relating to possible conspiracies and had established a target date of November 29 for delivery of the report to President Johnson. Several years later, it emerged that at least one of his assistant directors cautioned about trying to attain that goal because of the “literally hundreds of allegations regarding the activities of Oswald and Ruby” that needed to be investigated.10
The Criminal Division Undertakes Its Own Effort
We lawyers in the Department of Justice were just as susceptible as the rest of the nation to the emotions prompted by these extraordinary events. But we had an additional perspective as well—resulting from the fact that our attorney general was the brother of President Kennedy. The career lawyers in the department—those who had not come with the new administration—may have greeted Robert Kennedy’s appointment with some apprehension because of his youth and relationship to the president. But for me and other new appointees in the department, no reservations diluted our enthusiasm. We relished the opportunity to work with him and embraced the energy and commitment that he brought to the department. By 1963, the attorney general commanded intense loyalty from the lawyers and staff. We realized immediately that President Kennedy’s death marked the end of this unique experience under our attorney general.
I returned to my office at the department on Saturday, November 23, the day after the assassination. I was surprised by the empty, silent corridor of the Justice Department’s second floor, which housed the criminal division. All the offices were dark. The only person I ran into was a Wall Street Journal reporter who, in those days before security guards, was free to enter the department whenever the doors were open. “Do you think things are going to be different at the department after the assassination of the attorney general’s brother?” he asked me. I recall only that my response reflected my exasperation and impatience with the question. Everyone knew that the department’s singular prominence within the Kennedy administration was because the attorney general and president were brothers.
Whatever Hoover’s plans, Jack Miller didn’t intend to stay on the sidelines. He recognized that the FBI was not going to seek any input from the criminal division’s lawyers or share the results of its ongoing investigation with us. He directed several of the most experienced lawyers in the division to canvass their contacts in law enforcement agencies and to start thinking about how to organize a comprehensive investigation of the assassination. For several days after the assassination, it was unclear whether the federal government had the authority to initiate a prosecution based on the facts being developed by the FBI. If so, Miller’s division would be taking the lead within the department and he wanted to be prepared to propose a course of action to Katzenbach. Within a few days of the assassination, the division’s lawyers produced a detailed outline of a proposed report that would address the factual and legal issues with respect to the assassination and Ruby’s killing of Oswald under the applicable federal civil rights laws. Based on this work, Miller went to Katzenbach on November 27 with a detailed proposal for action.11
Jack Miller had energy and enthusiasm to spare. He was not tall, but had a large, muscular frame with noticeable biceps and a taut stomach, the results of his hobby of splitting wood by hand with an axe. The wood splitting happened at his home in Potomac, Maryland, where he had acreage enough for his wife to raise racehorses. Jack often said that racehorses were one of the most efficient means of disposing of excess wealth. Although born of Swedish and German stock and raised in Minnesota, Jack was as gregarious—with his big smile, hearty handshake, loud laughter, and terrible puns—as the Irish American friends that congregated around him. As a lawyer, he was very careful, and insistent on doing his own research; he was an effective advocate in court or conference, a truly creative lawyer, and unafraid of making the difficult judgments that came his way.
I had been at the Justice Department for a little more than two and a half years at this point. It was customary then for each assistant attorney general in charge of a division to have two deputies—one typically a career department attorney and the other someone brought in from the private sector. I was Jack Miller’s “second” deputy. I had worked for Miller at a Washington law firm, which I joined after graduating from Yale Law School and serving two years in the Army. Jack and I had represented a board of monitors appointed by a federal court to enforce new policies and practices aimed at eliminating corruption in Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters Union. It was in connection with this assignment that Miller came to the attention of Robert Kennedy, who was then working for a Senate committee investigating labor racketeering.
Miller was a committed Republican and his appointment to head the criminal division in this Democratic administration was an exceptional departure from previous administrations. After Miller left the law firm in February 1961 for the Justice Department, I pestered him repeatedly to let me join him at the department. It was one of those unique opportunities for public service that had brought me to Washington, rather than Chicago, where I had grown up. Like countless others, I was excited by President Kennedy’s election and his call to public service. Miller finally relented and, after obtaining my security clearance, I joined the division in May 1961.
Under Robert Kennedy, the criminal division’s lawyers increased from about 90 in 1961 to an anticipated 150 in 1964, primarily due to the new emphasis on organized crime and labor racketeering. Jack Miller depended on the division’s first assistant, Bill Foley, and me (as executive or second assistant) to review the steady flow of memoranda, correspondence, legislative proposals, and recommendations for prosecution and to advise which required his personal attention. Relations with the more than ninety appointed US attorneys around the country, especially where important cases were involved, almost always required the assistant attorney general’s attention. Each evening we prepared a report for Miller on the most important developments of the day, which he then delivered personally to the attorney general. In addition, he regularly asked me to work on special projects, which on occasion required independent research and analysis, coordination with other federal agencies, working with a team of lawyers investigating a potential case, or preparing a memorandum for the attorney general or the White House on matters with political implications.
In my role as Jack’s general factotum after the assassination, I tried to coordinate what we knew about the assassination and to help plan an appropriate department response. Other agencies in the federal government were quick to provide information possibly relevant to the investigation. Thomas Ehrlich, a lawyer friend in the State Department, sent us files on Oswald’s departure to (and return from) the Soviet Union, as well as a chronological summary of State’s information relating to Oswald and his military record. The Intelligence Office at the Internal Revenue Service gave us information regarding its interest in Jack Ruby’s brother Earl, who was living in Detroit. The internal security division within the Justice Department quickly gathered information from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (then a part of the department) on Oswald’s background and his promoting of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, whose materials Oswald was distributing in New Orleans in August, three months before the assassination, when he was arrested for disturbing the peace.12
By November 25, federal officials, as well as media commentators, were expressing alarm about the detailed, often conflicting, and potentially prejudicial reports originating from the Dallas Police Department and the local Dallas prosecutor. Katzenbach took his concerns to Bill Moyers, who was our go-to person in the White House. Referring to some of the statements made by the Dallas police, Katzenbach’s memo for Moyers pointed out that “the matter has been handled thus far with neither dignity nor conviction. Facts have been mixed with rumor and speculation. We can scarcely let the world see us totally in the image of the Dallas police when our President is murdered.” He suggested “making public as soon as possible a complete and thorough FBI report on Oswald and the assassination,” although he knew that the FBI report would likely contain facts inconsistent with statements by Dallas police officials.13
Katzenbach asked Miller to go to Dallas to get a better idea of what the Texas authorities were doing and saying. It also provided an opportunity for Jack to learn more about the FBI investigation being conducted there. Miller flew down to Dallas in a government Lear jet, putting on radio earphones as the plane approached the airport to discuss with Harold Barefoot Sanders, the US attorney for the Northern District of Texas, how best to avoid the “absolute mob scene of reporters at the main terminal.” Sanders and Jack Miller were a perfect match. Both lacked pretension, had an easygoing manner, and were decisive and confident in their decision making. Having successfully avoided the crowd by landing far from the main terminal, Miller went to Sanders’ office in Dallas where they decided that their principal objective was to get the local prosecutor off of television news programs in order to reduce the flow of potentially prejudicial publicity. With this objective in mind, they met with Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade that evening and tried to persuade him not to make any further statements about the case to the media.14
A day or so later, Miller was preparing to return to Washington when Katzenbach called to report that the Texas attorney general was about to announce in Austin the formation of a Texas court of inquiry to investigate the assassination, which he would claim had the blessing of the White House. Later, Jack would remember: “Nick and I discussed what a lousy idea it was for Lyndon Johnson’s home state to conduct an inquiry into that assassination, but that was one of those brainless things that happen, I guess.” Nonetheless, he had his “marching orders” to drive to Austin to deal with the situation, and he and Sanders set out with Sanders driving. As Miller recalled the drive: “I remember both Barefoot and I had quit smoking. He had an old Oldsmobile, and we were barreling along the road about a hundred miles an hour, and he said I can’t stand it, and I said neither can I. He slammed the brakes on, and we went and both bought two packs of cigarettes. We were puffing like mad all the way trying to figure out what to do.”15
Miller and Sanders managed to get to Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr and some of his aides before his press conference. They pointed out some of the difficulties with conducting any kind of inquiry in Texas and tried to persuade Carr not to initiate such an investigation. Carr decided to go ahead anyway. Miller told Carr that, if asked at the press conference about the Justice Department’s view on the matter, he would say that the department would cooperate with the Texas investigation but would go ahead and conduct its own investigation—and he did. When a reporter asked Carr if the White House had approved this Texas investigation, he said that it had and mentioned Abe Fortas as one of the persons who had given the go-ahead. Abraham (“Abe”) Fortas, a partner in a prominent Washington law firm, was a key adviser to President Johnson going back to 1948, when he represented Johnson in a legal dispute over a congressional primary election in Texas, which Johnson ultimately won.16
President Johnson Appoints a Commission
Katzenbach was well aware of the likely criminal prosecutions and proposed court of inquiry in Texas and possible congressional investigations in Washington. He suggested to Moyers the alternative of a presidential commission to examine the evidence and announce its conclusions. He appears to have been among the first to do so. He told Moyers, however, that such an approach had both advantages and disadvantages and that a decision regarding such a commission should wait until after the FBI report was made public. Katzenbach pressed this suggestion because the president could select people of impeccable integrity and distinguished credentials to serve on such a commission, without any connection or obligation to the State of Texas or the federal government. Their sole mission would be to search for the truth and to make that truth public. Such a prestigious commission, he hoped, might persuade other potential investigators to defer their own efforts—at least until they saw the presidential commission’s findings.17
President Johnson was initially opposed to the idea of appointing a commission, reflecting the views of Hoover and Fortas. Fortas saw no reason to believe that the public would accept the findings of such a commission nor any advantage to the president in getting involved in an investigation of his predecessor’s murder. It was a state responsibility, Fortas argued, and should be left to Texas.18
Hoover took his objections to Walter Jenkins, one of the president’s trusted assistants. In a phone call on November 24, Hoover argued that the investigation should be left to the FBI. After it submitted its report, Johnson could decide which portion to make public. Hoover worried that a presidential commission would disclose the use of sensitive “sources and methods”—namely, CIA telephone intercepts in Mexico City and FBI mail openings in Washington. What would not emerge for some time, though, was that Hoover’s most pressing concern was to prevent anyone from criticizing the FBI for not notifying the Secret Service before the Dallas motorcade of Oswald’s presence in Dallas, based on the FBI’s ongoing investigation of Oswald after his return to the United States in 1962. Late that same day, Johnson called Katzenbach and told him that he wanted the investigation of the assassination to be left to normal legal processes, specifically the FBI report and concurrently a court of inquiry under Texas law. The next morning, Johnson informed Hoover of that decision and asked Hoover for help in persuading the Washington Post not to endorse the concept of a presidential commission.19
Despite Johnson’s wariness of involving himself in the investigation, it became clear that something had to be done. The prospect of four separate investigations (County of Dallas, State of Texas, US Congress, and US Department of Justice) persuaded Fortas and other reluctant presidential advisers to support the creation of a presidential commission. After reconsidering the question in light of these developments, President Johnson agreed and announced the creation of a commission on November 29, 1963, seven days after the assassination. He called Hoover before this decision was made public. Hoover’s version of the conversation was that “[t]he President stated he wanted to get by just with my file and my report. I told him I thought it would be very bad to have a rash of investigations. He then indicated the only way to stop it is to appoint a high-level committee to evaluate my report and tell the House and Senate not to go ahead with the investigation.” On another occasion, Hoover described the president’s decision as “very wise, because I feel that the report of any agency of government investigating what might be some shortcomings on the part of other agencies of government ought to be reviewed by an impartial group such as this [new] commission.”20
However reluctant he may have been, Johnson’s decision to create a commission was both necessary and appropriate. It was the only available mechanism that held out any hope of preventing, or at least delaying, the simultaneous (and inevitably conflicting) investigations by Texas and federal authorities. It also responded to the widespread public demand for a professional and non-political examination of the facts and the various conspiracy allegations that were being so widely publicized around the world—a demand that could not be even partially satisfied by any trial of Oswald or possible conspirators not yet identified. The commission’s goal was to report the truth as far as it could be known, not to prosecute a crime.
Hoover’s statement highlighted yet another reason for such a commission. It was obvious that the performance of the nation’s key investigative agencies—the FBI, CIA, and Secret Service—in connection with the assassination needed to be critically examined. It was far better that this task be undertaken by a presidential commission than be pursued by Texas authorities or congressional committees.
The President’s Executive Order No. 11130 directed the commission:
to examine the evidence developed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and any additional evidence that may hereafter come to light or be uncovered by federal or state authorities; to make such further investigation as the Commission finds desirable; to evaluate all the facts and circumstances surrounding such assassination; including the subsequent violent death of the man charged with the assassination, and to report to me its findings and conclusions.
The executive order empowered the commission to prescribe its own procedures and to employ such personnel as it deemed necessary.21
The seven members of the commission illustrated the president’s sure hand at political matters. He selected Earl Warren, the current chief justice of the US Supreme Court, as chairman. Warren had come up through the ranks as district attorney in Alameda County, California, and then as state attorney general, before being elected governor three times. He had been the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee in 1948 when Truman upset Dewey. Initially, Warren was reluctant. He told Katzenbach and Solicitor General Archibald Cox that all previous such nonjudicial assignments by Supreme Court justices had been divisive and disruptive of the court.22
But Johnson overcame his objections at a meeting later that day. Johnson told the chief justice about his personal concerns about the assassination and the need for an objective exploration of the facts and statement of conclusions that would be respected by the public. Otherwise, he said, “it would always remain an open wound with ominous potential.” The president emphasized to the chief justice the possible international repercussions and also made a personal appeal, reminding the chief justice of his time as a soldier in World War I. “There was nothing you could do in that uniform comparable to what you can do for your country in this hour of trouble,” he said. Warren relented.23
Four members, constituting a majority of the commission, were drawn from Congress—Senator Richard Russell, a Democrat from Georgia; Senator John Sherman Cooper, a Republican from Kentucky; Representative Hale Boggs, a Democrat and the majority whip, from Louisiana; and Representative Gerald Ford, a Republican from Michigan. All were experienced politicians aware of the public’s expectations for the investigation and the political aspects of any report they might issue.
Johnson was particularly concerned to have Russell on the commission because he was the leader of the states’ rights contingent in the Senate. As colleagues in the Senate, the two had shared most views, except those bearing on race. Russell also had long experience in overseeing the CIA, and Johnson had witnessed firsthand Russell’s dignified management of the controversial hearings in 1951 over President Truman’s firing of General MacArthur. Johnson trusted his judgment. Russell, too, was reluctant to serve; he disapproved of the Warren Court’s liberal rulings. However, he felt personal loyalty to the president—and he didn’t really have a choice anyway. Johnson had already publicly announced Russell’s appointment.24
Johnson had asked Robert Kennedy to suggest possible commission members from the private sector. Kennedy proposed Allen W. Dulles, the former CIA director, and John J. McCloy, the former president of the World Bank. President Johnson agreed. Although now in the private sector, both men had many years of experience in government.25
Dulles was a corporate lawyer and a partner in a prominent New York law firm. Before World War II, he had served as a diplomat in Europe and wound up in Switzerland during the war, where he directed US intelligence operations. After the war, Dulles became the first civilian to head the CIA, where he remained until 1961, when President Kennedy replaced him and other agency officials after the failed Bay of Pigs operation.
McCloy had been an assistant secretary of war during World War II, a US high commissioner for Germany after the war, and a president of the World Bank. A frequent adviser to many presidents, he also had many contacts in foreign countries. Earlier in his career, during and after World War I, he had developed investigative skills looking into crimes committed by German government agents in the United States—murder, arson, explosions, and sabotage—while this country held to its neutral status in that war.26
While the media generally responded well to the selection of commission members, their prestigious stature raised some concerns about the crimes they were to investigate. After commenting that “it would be hard to imagine a more high-powered commission,” one reporter suggested that the appointment of such an “ultra-high-level Commission has increased suspicion” and “caused foreign governments to be puzzled and to wonder if there isn’t much more in the Oswald-plus-Ruby affair than meets the eye.” There was also a sprinkling of concerns about the vagueness of the commission’s charter of investigation. The charter was indeed very broad and clearly required an examination of those federal agencies charged with the responsibility of protecting the president. Under its own reading of its charter, however, all the commission could do was report its factual findings and make recommendations to the established institutions of government regarding such matters as prosecutions, new legislation, or agency reforms.27
Within the criminal division there was broad approval for the creation of the commission. At this point, we thought it was obvious that the commission should receive a copy of whatever report the FBI had prepared for the president and that the decision of how to handle the report would now rest with the commission. The internal debate at the Justice Department focused on our major concern that the FBI report was necessarily (due to time constraints) only a first effort at determining the facts and answering the endless questions being raised about Oswald, Ruby, and possible conspiracies. We also suspected that the FBI would maintain that it should be the only investigative agency responsible for conducting such further inquiries as the commission thought was necessary. Giving the FBI any such exclusive investigating function would grant Hoover full control over the information flow to the commission and seriously restrict the commission’s ability to accomplish its mission.28
The FBI delivered its report to the department late on December 5—a week after Hoover’s initial target date. I remember “being called to the Deputy’s office and asked to take possession of one of the few copies and review it before it went to the White House.” I prepared “a short two-page release regarding the finding of the report.” The report reflected a prodigious investigative effort conducted by the bureau in less than two weeks. It represented the work of some 150 agents under the direction of Gordon Shanklin, the head of the Dallas field office, who in turn reported to Alexander (“Al”) Rosen, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s general investigative division.29
The report was seventy-five pages long, supplemented by a thirteen-page index and three volumes of exhibits. Part I described the assassination and identified Oswald as the killer. Part II set forth the evidence “conclusively showing that Oswald did assassinate the President.” Part III discussed what the FBI knew about Oswald prior to the assassination and reported the results of the FBI’s investigation, after the assassination, of Oswald’s background, activities, and associates. The exhibits included the documents relating to Oswald’s contacts with the Soviets and the Communist Party. The FBI found no evidence that Oswald was part of a conspiracy to kill the president. Although the scope of the investigation and the documentation in the FBI report were impressive, I immediately noticed some critical errors that required further review. I concluded that this initial report could not be accepted as a complete or authoritative assessment of the facts relating to the assassination.30
The Commission’s First Challenge: Review or Investigate
Hoover staked out a clear position from the outset: if the president had to have this commission, its function should be to receive the FBI’s report, review it, ask questions aimed at clarifying its findings, then endorse the report and disband. All of the members of the commission appreciated the difficulties that Hoover might cause if he perceived the commission to be an adversary.
The commission held three meetings before I became a member of its staff—on December 5, 6, and 16. All of the commission meetings were private, and a court reporter transcribed their deliberations. I joined the staff on December 17. My journal reflects what I learned secondhand about these first commission meetings and later meetings as well.31
At these early meetings, Katzenbach served as the department’s contact with Warren and the commission, which had been quickly labeled the “Warren Commission.” Katzenbach attended the first meeting, but the FBI declined to send a representative or to brief Katzenbach about its investigation before he attended. Assistant Director Alan Belmont explained that the FBI had not yet completed its report, which was delivered to the department later that very day. Some people thought Hoover was deliberately insulting Katzenbach and the Warren Commission. Katzenbach viewed it differently. Until Hoover approved and released the report, no FBI representative would be permitted to comment on its contents. Under these circumstances, Katzenbach thought it was reasonable for the FBI not to attend the meeting.32
At that first meeting, Katzenbach invited the members to excuse him from their proceedings at any time; he wanted to avoid any appearance of Justice Department interference with the commission’s work. He explained the inquiry that Texas planned to initiate and said that the White House had approved that inquiry before the commission had been appointed. He also said he and others in the administration did not regard the Texas investigation as a desirable mechanism for developing the facts relating to the assassination. That was why President Johnson had ultimately agreed to appoint the commission. 33
Katzenbach told the commission that the Texas lawyers leading the investigation (Robert Storey and Leon Jaworski) would consider postponing their investigation out of deference to the commission. After Katzenbach left the meeting, Warren told the other members that he had learned the previous evening that the Texas lawyers would defer their proceedings so long as there was a suitable level of cooperation by the Warren Commission. The commission was pleased to accept the Texas deferral.34
Katzenbach and the commission also discussed a news article from two days earlier that described the purported findings of the not-yet-delivered FBI report. Katzenbach had raised this leak with Hoover and Belmont and both denied that it had come from the FBI. Katzenbach said “with candor to this committee, I can’t think of anybody else it could have come from, because I don’t know of anybody else that knew that information.”35
By now a veteran of the department’s difficult relations with Hoover, Katzenbach thought the FBI’s leaking the story to favored reporters resulted from their resentment about the appointment of the Warren Commission. In later years, he said, “They very much wanted the report to be made public. They very much wanted to get all the credit for it. They very much wanted the center stage. When that was frustrated, I think they took steps of leaking the information. They have done that in many lesser contexts many, many times when I was in the department.” Katzenbach offered the commission any Justice Department assistance it wanted, but noted that the commission was now fully in charge of the investigation as directed by the president.36
I never thought that the Justice Department abdicated its responsibilities with respect to the investigation of the assassination, as some have suggested. The department certainly had enormous resources—its specialized investigative sections and attorneys, as well as the powers and capabilities of a federal grand jury and the granting of immunity—but I thought that Katzenbach had it right. Initiation of a public investigation by the Department of Justice in the days following the assassination would have destroyed the political accommodation that had been reached with the Texas authorities and congressional committees by the creation of the commission. Any such investigation before the FBI completed its work would have clashed with established department practice and with President Johnson’s decision to rely on a commission, rather than the customary federal agencies, to investigate the assassination.
FBI officials were displeased when they heard of the commission meetings in December. Representative Gerald Ford talked confidentially with a senior FBI official in his office on two occasions during the first few weeks of the commission’s existence. The official reported both conversations to Hoover. Ford explained years later to a congressional committee that he had a long-standing relationship with Cartha DeLoach (and his predecessor) at the FBI, and that these officials would periodically drop by his congressional office. Ford had some reservations about the chief justice’s initial decisions with respect to the commission and was concerned, along with other commission members, that Warren “appeared to be moving in the direction of a one-man Commission.” He was especially concerned with the chief justice’s strong advocacy in support of a fellow Californian as a potential general counsel and saw a risk that Warren would seek to dominate the commission’s work in a way that did not reflect the concerns of the other members. Ford passed on to DeLoach some of these concerns, as well as Katzenbach’s suggestion that the FBI probably leaked portions of its anticipated report to members of the press.37
Katzenbach’s remark about the leak especially offended Hoover. He told his FBI confidants that Katzenbach had lied, and that Katzenbach had leaked the report himself. Hoover added in a handwritten note that Katzenbach’s allegation regarding the FBI “showed his true colors.” Having bristled under the direction of an attorney general who was a brother of the president, Hoover was not warmly disposed toward Katzenbach. He was looking forward to a day when he regained the independence in running the FBI that he had enjoyed for several decades.38
At its second meeting on December 6, the commission approved a letter drafted by Warren to the Texas authorities that set forth the basis for the commission’s cooperation in return for the deferral of any Texas court of inquiry. This was a very significant accomplishment by the commission and was due in large measure to the chief justice’s political sensitivities and the prestige that he brought to the table in dealing with the Texas officials. Giving the commission both the opportunity and the responsibility for conducting its investigation of the assassination without the confusion and duplication of concurrent Texas (and congressional) inquiries created a clear path forward.39
The commission agreed to ask Congress for the subpoena power and the authority to grant immunity to witnesses that it might summon to testify. This was the first step toward a thorough and independent investigation. The subpoena power grants the authority to require a person or organization to appear and provide oral testimony, documents, and physical objects. The authority to grant immunity prevents any state or federal prosecutor from using what a witness says, or the documents that a witness produces, to build a criminal case against that witness. The FBI did not have these investigative powers, which the commission could use to go far beyond what the FBI had produced in its investigation. Both were readily granted by a law enacted on December 13.40
At this second meeting, the commission members appointed J. Lee Rankin as general counsel, but only after rejecting Warren’s choice of Warren Olney. There was no discussion among the members of their reasons for rejecting Olney, but his background and close relationship with the chief justice was almost certainly the cause. Looking for someone acceptable to the chief justice (but not so close to him) led the commission members to Rankin, who accepted the offer and came to the commission’s next meeting on December 16.41
Rankin had attended his home state’s University of Nebraska for both undergraduate and law school, and then joined a law firm in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he became a partner, in 1935, and remained for eighteen years. In 1952, he managed the Eisenhower presidential campaign in Nebraska. After Eisenhower appointed Herbert Brownell Jr. of Nebraska as his attorney general in 1953, Brownell had selected his friend and fellow-Nebraskan Rankin to serve as assistant attorney general in charge of the office of legal counsel, the same office that Katzenbach filled a decade later.
Rankin argued against the “separate but equal” doctrine before the Supreme Court in the monumental desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education. In 1956, by then the US solicitor general, Rankin became deeply involved in legislative reapportionments cases. He was principally responsible for developing the Justice Department’s position that led to the “one person, one vote” doctrine. When Eisenhower’s second term ended, Rankin returned to private law practice, this time in New York City. He continued to appear before the Supreme Court, representing the American Civil Liberties Union in Gideon v. Wainwright, another significant case, which strengthened the right of an indigent person accused of a crime to have legal counsel at public expense.
Though Rankin was not his first choice, Warren liked Rankin’s straightforward Midwestern style and his quiet demeanor. It probably did not detract from the chief justice’s view of Rankin’s legal skills that he and a majority of the other justices agreed with nearly every position Rankin had advocated before the court. The other commission members—all lawyers—were also suitably impressed.
Like its first two meetings, the third commission meeting was held at the National Archives because the commission had not yet obtained its own space. Warren announced that he and Rankin had secured offices for the commission on the fourth floor of a new Veterans of Foreign Wars building located just a block away from the Supreme Court and close to congressional offices. Warren was enthusiastic about the space—commenting that it was as “clean as a whistle.” He also reported that the General Services Administration, the federal government’s general manager of buildings and grounds, had supplied an office manager and that the National Archives had provided an archivist to assist the commission.
The commission had a long discussion about the FBI report and its annexes, which the members had received a week earlier. Warren and Russell noted that virtually everything contained in the FBI report had already appeared in the press. One major issue that came up right away was the bureau’s preliminary finding regarding the bullets that struck President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally. The FBI concluded that two bullets had struck the president and a third had wounded Connally. To support this assessment, the FBI relied in part on the initial, but inaccurate, information from Parkland Hospital that the first bullet that hit Kennedy had not exited from his body. As captured in the transcript of the meeting, the members did not react favorably.
BOGGS: “There is nothing in there about Governor Connally.”
CHAIRMAN: “No.”
COOPER: “ And whether or not they found any bullets in him.”
MCCLOY: “This bullet business leaves me confused.”
CHAIRMAN: “It’s totally inconclusive.”
[…]
MCCLOY: “I think you ought to have the autopsy documents.”
CHAIRMAN: “By all means we ought to have the medical reports.”
McCloy reminded members that the FBI had been under considerable pressure to complete the report.42
Warren proposed that the commission request all agencies submitting reports to provide the underlying investigative materials on which they were based. He told the members that after reading the FBI report he had the feeling that “unless we had the raw materials that went into the making of this report and had an opportunity to examine those raw materials and make our own appraisal, that any appraisal of this report would be little or nothing.” He added that the commission should continue to get such raw materials as they are obtained from the agencies so that it could be kept current regarding ongoing investigations. The commission unanimously approved his motion and followed this practice with respect to all the summary reports submitted by the FBI, CIA, and Secret Service. By emphasizing its need to see the basic investigative materials—the interview reports, the ballistic and other scientific analyses, and key documents—the commission was driving home the message that it alone had the responsibility to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions.43
The commission knew that the initial FBI conclusion that Oswald acted alone was received with great skepticism at home and abroad. Once it became known that Oswald had lived for three years in the Soviet Union and returned to the United States with a Soviet wife, suspicions of possible Soviet involvement gained wide currency. The United States and the Soviet Union had been engaged for more than a decade in a cold war that had worldwide implications. In 1962, the Soviet Union’s effort to bring missiles to Cuba provoked a dispute between the two countries that threatened a nuclear confrontation. Fear and apprehension of the Soviet Union was widespread in the United States in 1963 and the possibility that the Soviet Union was behind the assassination of President Kennedy had to be considered. The contention that the assassination resulted from a Communist conspiracy quickly became “the standard propaganda line of the extreme right wing in the United States,” with the John Birch Society being its principal advocate.44
The possible involvement of Castro’s Cuban government also demanded critical analysis. Information about Oswald’s activities on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and his efforts in Mexico to get a visa to go to Cuba raised questions about his possible connection with Cuban officials. All the commission members were familiar with US policy toward Cuba, and Allen Dulles had detailed information regarding CIA covert programs directed against Cuba during his tenure at the CIA. The Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, only a few months after Kennedy became president, had involved a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles whose objective was to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The Cuban armed forces defeated the invaders within three days, which the anti-Castro exiles blamed on the failure of the United States to produce its promised support. In succeeding years, US policy had remained firmly hostile toward Cuba, but reverted to reliance on covert actions. In September, before the assassination, Castro had made a widely publicized speech in which he suggested that retaliation against the United States might be appropriate if these covert efforts did not cease.
As the commission got organized, these and other conspiratorial possibilities were circulated widely in the press. In addition to the allegations that arose immediately after the assassination, new contentions held that Oswald was not in fact the assassin. For its part, the Soviet Union’s propaganda focused on the possibility that Oswald was the dupe of a conspiracy by parties unknown. The Soviet publication Pravda on November 28 alluded to a “growing conviction in the United States” that the president had been shot by someone else whom “the Dallas police are carefully protecting.” The paper quoted unnamed “specialists” who said that it could be “assumed that the attempt was made not by one person” and that shots were fired from more than one rifle.45
Speculation concerning Oswald’s innocence increased significantly after the publication of a “defense brief” written by Mark Lane, a thirty-six-year-old New York lawyer with a flair for publicity. In this article, published in the National Guardian on December 19, Lane contended that Oswald was not the person with a rifle in the depository and did not kill Patrolman Tippit. He maintained there were two assassins, five shots instead of three, and that the fatal bullets had come from the front. He contended further that the autopsy reports had been altered, witnesses harassed, and statements distorted. After a copy of his “defense brief” was sent to Oswald’s mother, she hired him to represent her son and argue before the commission that he had not killed the president.46
Lane traveled around the United States to publicize his views about the assassination and his lack of confidence in the newly appointed Warren Commission. His arguments were serialized verbatim in a Soviet news magazine beginning in late December, and an abridged version appeared in the Soviet newspaper Izvestia in early January. Within a week, similar summaries were published in Polish and Czech papers. Also in January 1964, a sensational version of the assassination appeared in an Italian neofascist daily, reporting that Texas political and criminal interests hired Ruby to plan the murder of the president. These stories, along with Lane’s theories, afforded Soviet propagandists an opportunity to build on their standard line that right-wing extremists had killed Kennedy.47
Staffing for an Independent Investigation
At the December 16 meeting, Warren raised the question of staffing the commission. He wanted lawyers added and assigned to specific areas of critical importance to the commission’s investigation, such as Oswald’s life, Ruby’s life, the assassination itself, and the relationship among the FBI, CIA, and Secret Service. Rankin suggested that Frank Adams, a former New York police commissioner and distinguished lawyer, was available to assist the commission.48
Russell emphasized the need for someone on the staff “with a most skeptical nature, sort of a Devil’s Advocate, who would take this FBI report and this CIA report and go through it and analyze every contradiction and every soft spot in it, just as if he were prosecuting them or planning to prosecute.” Warren agreed and announced that he had checked out Albert Jenner, one of Chicago’s leading trial lawyers, with several people with whom Jenner had worked, including former Supreme Court justice Tom Clark and former secretary of state Dean Acheson. According to them, Jenner “was an indefatigable worker and will never commit himself to the proposition of anything unless he’s certain.”49
The commission agreed to hire those two senior lawyers, and more like them, as well as younger lawyers to work on a full-time basis. The members differed as to whether they could expect lawyers like Adams and Jenner to work full-time for the commission. They left that issue for Rankin to resolve with individual lawyers.
The commission turned back to the FBI report. Members agreed that they should visit Dallas and inspect all aspects of the assassination site. Rankin raised the question whether the commission would need investigative services from outside the federal government. He said that Warren and he had agreed that the commission might need such help under circumstances where a federal agency like the FBI was simply unable to provide a work product that would fully satisfy the commission’s needs or, on some technical issues, where a second opinion should be sought from outside of the federal government. Russell, who previously thought that the commission wouldn’t need much staff, now recognized that the members might require the independent capability to address issues and that a small commission staff would be needed for this purpose.50
The commission had earlier deferred the question whether it should issue a public statement after it had received the FBI report. Before appointing the commission, President Johnson had announced that the FBI report would be made public. Based on their initial review of the FBI report, the commission members did not wish to endorse or reject the bureau’s conclusions until the commission itself had examined the underlying materials and conducted the additional investigation necessary. Consequently, after adjournment that day, Warren told reporters that the commission would not be issuing any summary of the FBI report or any statement about it. That struck me as a wise decision. Any endorsement of the report at that early stage of the commission’s existence would have thoroughly compromised its mission, in light of the widespread skepticism about the FBI report and the outstanding questions not addressed by it.
Hoover was displeased. He complained to his lieutenants that Warren’s insistence on seeing the supporting materials for the report was an insult. He described Warren’s comment as “entirely unwarranted” and could have been better phrased “so as not to leave the impression, at least by innuendo, that the FBI had not done a thorough job.”51
By this time Hoover had told Assistant Director Belmont that he would be “personally responsible for reviewing every piece of paper that went to the Warren Commission” and had designated Inspector James Malley to be the FBI liaison to the commission. Malley was a high-ranking official in the general investigative division of the FBI, which was responsible for handling most of the bureau’s criminal investigations, but was entirely separate from the more specialized FBI sections dealing with organized crime, the Soviet Union, and Cuban-related matters. Malley later said that his instruction from Hoover was to provide the commission with whatever assistance it requested.52
When Jack Miller called me into his office on the morning of December 17, I had no idea what was on his mind. He told me that Katzenbach had just called and asked whether I was available to assist the Warren Commission. Jack and I did not have a long, or serious, discussion about whether I should take this on. I was excited by the opportunity to participate in this historic assignment. And I think that Jack was pleased that the deputy attorney general had shown this confidence in someone that Jack had brought into the department. I asked Jack whether he could manage the criminal division without my assistance. He laughed and told me to keep in touch.53
After getting an “overdue haircut,” I called Rankin and made an appointment to see him later that morning. When I visited the VFW building for the first time, Rankin discussed the unique task before the commission and asked if I would be willing to assist. I said that I would and explained some of the work that we had done in the criminal division before the commission was appointed. He asked me to return in the afternoon to be interviewed by Chief Justice Warren.54
I had a favorable impression of Rankin at our first meeting. He was in his fifties, slender, of ordinary size, wore glasses, and had light brown hair and blue eyes. He listened with steady attention, never interrupted, and smiled only sparingly. He spoke carefully, with well-modulated tones. He was well aware of the enormous task that he had undertaken, but reflected a quiet confidence that he could do the job if I, and others, helped him. He gave me every indication that he wanted me to come on board and that we would be able to work together as colleagues, despite our differences in age and experience. I did not know much about Rankin at the time, although I knew that his service as solicitor general was much admired among knowledgeable practitioners before the Supreme Court. Lawyers in the department remembered him as having an exceptional intellect, but also great modesty. Tangling with the Supreme Court on a regular basis, which Rankin had done, demands a commanding analytical ability and deft verbal skills. So, there was no doubt that he was up to the task. Another fact stood out: Warren obviously liked him a lot.
During my meeting with the chief justice that afternoon, Warren “indicated that he had decided not to have any government people on the staff of the Commission since it would appear as though they were being influenced by their governmental positions.” His concern about government lawyers working for the commission was certainly understandable, and widely shared. This is what led me to believe that he thought I “would serve as a sort of liaison officer,” help to get the commission operational, and then return to my day job at the department. I did not raise this subject with Rankin when I returned to his office after my interview with the chief justice. I told Rankin that I could spend one half of each of the next two days at the commission and be ready to work full-time on Friday, December 20.55
By this time, the commission had received the FBI’s report regarding Ruby and the murder of Oswald. This thirty-page report discussed the killing of Oswald; Ruby’s background; the FBI interview of Ruby; Ruby’s whereabouts on November 22–24, 1963; his purchase of the gun used to kill Oswald; and Ruby’s arrest record. It included two exhibits: a photograph of the shooting and a diagram of the Dallas police headquarters basement. The preface to this report acknowledged its limitations, emphasizing the fact that no records were kept of the police officers or news media representatives who were in the basement at the time of the shooting. It pointed out, however, that the FBI had already interviewed 98 Dallas police officers and was attempting to identify others who would also be interviewed. The FBI reported that it had been able to identify and interview 51 news media representatives, out of an estimated 150 who were in the basement. This Ruby report indicated, as did the Oswald report, that the investigation “will continue until every possible source of pertinent information has been exhausted.”56
Beginning on December 20, 1963, I devoted the next three weeks to assisting Rankin in getting the commission staffed and organized. He asked that I review all applications we received and prepare recommendations of qualified candidates to fill our younger lawyer slots, reserving the selection of senior lawyers to Warren and himself. We implemented the commission’s desire for underlying investigative materials by getting letters out to a long list of federal agencies requesting documents and information about any relationship the agencies might have had with Oswald, his wife Marina, his family, or his associates. I began to prepare an outline of the overall investigation for his consideration, building on the earlier effort by criminal division lawyers. And, as the FBI began to provide the underlying supporting materials, I undertook to review them, however superficially, in an initial effort to determine where they fell within the range of the commission’s work, so that they could be duplicated and ready for distribution to our lawyers when they arrived.57
The commission worked in circumstances far different from those of today. There were no computers and no Internet. Xerox photocopy machines had become available only very recently. Most copies of documents were prepared using carbon paper. Communication with outside offices was done by telephone, mail, or messengers. Secretaries, almost always women, were indispensable to the lawyers for whom they worked. A secretary maintained the lawyer’s calendar and files, arranged meetings and telephone calls, and guarded her lawyer’s privacy. Secretaries took dictation from their bosses using shorthand, transcribed their shorthand notes on typewriters making any necessary clarifying changes, waited for the lawyer to make further revisions, and repeated this process until the final written product was approved by the lawyer. Few of the older lawyers could use a typewriter; most of the younger lawyers had perfected this skill at least by the time they got to law school.
Rankin made his next hire for the staff in the midst of all this activity. He recruited Norman Redlich, a professor at New York University Law School, to be his special assistant. Redlich had invited Rankin to attend a summer workshop held at NYU Law School in 1961 for professors of constitutional law, which led to a close friendship. Redlich had grown up in the Bronx and served in the Army in World War II. After the war, he went to Williams College and Yale Law School, graduating from Yale in 1950 with an outstanding record. He worked in a family manufacturing business for ten years while pursuing graduate work in tax law. He began teaching at NYU Law School in 1959.
During the 1950s, Redlich became an articulate opponent of the death penalty and represented death-row inmates on a pro bono basis. He also joined one of many groups opposing the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the excesses of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. He played an important role in the community effort in Greenwich Village to prevent a major highway from destroying the neighborhood. Redlich was an extraordinarily talented lawyer, a soft-spoken but prodigious worker, and a thoughtful observer of life. During his time at the commission, he invited everyone to speak their mind on the issues and problems they encountered. He was also willing to share his views, so you always knew where you stood with him.
Rankin also recruited two other senior lawyers, Joseph Ball from California and William Coleman from Philadelphia. Ball was a very experienced criminal trial lawyer whose talent for finding the weaknesses in the prosecutor’s case against his client would be invaluable as the commission’s work proceeded. Coleman had graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and at a relatively young age achieved national recognition for his success as a corporate lawyer and civil rights advocate. He was the first African American law clerk at the Supreme Court, working for Justice FelixFrankfurter.
In identifying younger lawyers who might be hired, I reviewed a few hundred letters and recommendations that we had received. The easily stated objective was to hire candidates with outstanding credentials and some diversity in residence, legal experience, and political affiliation. It was definitely a mark of the times that all the members of the commission, the general counsel, and all fourteen of the assistant counsels (except Coleman) were white males with very similar backgrounds. The only woman considered as a member of the professional staff was Alfredda Scobey of Atlanta, who was a law assistant in the Georgia Court of Appeals and assisted Senator Russell.
Even after narrowing the candidates down with respect to age and experience, the number was still very large. Getting people on board as soon as possible was essential, and the urgency of the commission’s needs shaped my further review of the applications. I thought it was very important that an applicant be well known either to me or to some colleague in Washington on whose judgment I could rely. There was no time for bringing dozens of candidates to Washington for interviews, and I thought we should not rely on the references included in their letters without such interviews. As a result, I basically decided to add candidates by seeking recommendations from some ten to fifteen friends in Washington and elsewhere.
I knew three lawyers personally who had the necessary professional and personal qualifications: David Belin, Arlen Specter, and Sam Stern. So I recruited them.
David Belin had been a few years ahead of me at the University of Michigan, where he also went to law school. At the time of my call in December, Belin had been practicing law in Des Moines, Iowa, for nine years. Belin was, of course, surprised to hear from me. When I asked whether he would consider working for the commission, he quickly said that he would enthusiastically accept an offer if it were extended to him.
Arlen Specter was a classmate of mine at the Yale Law School and was an assistant district attorney in the Philadelphia prosecutor’s office. Specter initially turned me down because of his ongoing commitments within the district attorney’s office. That evening—New Year’s Eve—Specter mentioned my overture to one of his lawyer friends, who urged him to pursue the matter or, alternatively, to recommend him for the job. Specter changed his mind and sent me his résumé.58
Sam Stern was a Washington lawyer who had gone to Harvard Law School and served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Warren during the court’s 1955–56 term. Stern had written the chief justice after the commission was established to offer his assistance. Stern was now a partner with a newly formed firm in Washington and pleased to hear that he would be considered for a position on the staff.
I continued to review other potential candidates, as well as work on my other assignments, until the end of December. As the year ended, I told Jack Miller that the commission assignment was going to be full-time, and he would see even less of me than he had anticipated. We had taken significant steps to staff the commission and organize its work, but key decisions by Rankin and the commission had to be made in January to implement these proposals.
Throughout the country, holiday celebrations were more solemn than usual, as Americans were still trying to comprehend the events of November and looking to the commission for clarity and certainty. The purveyors of rumors and conspiracy theories took no holiday and the pressure mounted on the commission to get going on its investigation. I knew that 1964 was going to be the most important and challenging year in my brief legal career.