Last Tuesday, master CIA spy, Watergate mastermind, and Dealey
Plaza attendee, E. Howard Hunt died at the age of 88.
Anticipating the release of his final book in April, he pointed the finger of
suspicion at the involvement of President Lyndon Johnson in the assassination
of John F. Kennedy.
Included here is a link to side by side photos of Hunt from Watergate
and the assassination days.
I found the Hunt article shortly after the publication of my
article, America�s shadow, which concerned
LBJ�s involvement in JFK�s demise. Then a bonanza of information arrived from a
friend and reader that augmented my �shadow� piece.
Through a Google search of Hunt�s allegations, my friend came
across a suppressed documentary from the History
Channel. It was to be the final segment in the 2003 documentary series,
�The Men Who Killed Kennedy.� This multi-hour set of factual reports was shown
repeatedly around the time of the 40th anniversary of the assassination. But
the last segment never was. It�s a one-hour blockbuster, here via YouTube right now,
though it may be gone any minute. It develops in striking detail E. Howard
Hunt�s theory of LBJ�s deep involvement.
The documentary uses elements of various assassination
theories with a number of very credible witnesses. This includes testimony from
the woman who claimed to have been Johnson�s former mistress, Madeleine Duncan
Brown, as well as from one of LBJ�s former attorneys, Barr McClellan. If the
name sounds familiar, he�s the father of George W. Bush�s former press
secretary, Scott McClellan, and the Bush�s former Medicare and Medicaid chief,
Dr. Mark McClellan.
In 2003, Barr McClellan published a book, Blood,
Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K..
The documentary amazingly features the Parkland Memorial
emergency room physician who was trying to save Oswald�s life (as well as JFK�s
several days earlier), Dr. Charles A. Crenshaw (1933�2002). Dr. Crenshaw
claimed LBJ directly interfered with his treatment of Oswald, whom he actually
expected to live through his Ruby-inflicted wounds. Dr. Crenshaw also claimed
JFK had two bullet wounds that hit from the front, not a �magic bullet� from
the rear that went on to bounce around in Texas Governor John Connelly.
Conspirators rounded up in the documentary include LBJ, FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoover, Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, Texas oilmen Clint
Murchison and H. L. Hunt, along with John Connally reputed to have �suckered
Kennedy� into coming to Dallas, and Richard Nixon for reasons you can easily
imagine, along with some other known figures tangentially involved.
If these allegations have any validity at all, the Republic
fell to a right-wing coup d�etat 44 years ago and has not yet recovered, as I
postulated in �America�s shadow.� In fact, the appearance of all this material
now makes me feel that certain people want the story known, and also want known
who is still in charge.
Other odd coincidences discovered
The documentary led my friend and reader to look into the
circumstance of some other figures involved, particularly Bobby Baker. LBJ�s
former top aide was purported to have been corrupt and sleazy. When LBJ was
Senate majority leader, Baker was Johnson�s chief aide, and allegedly solicited
and served as �paymaster� for various bribes.
Curiously, another person tangentially involved, former US
Sen. George Smathers (D-Fla.) died on January 20. Hunt�s allegations about LBJ
are interwoven with Sen. Smather�s situation in 1963.
Bizarrely, Mary Jo Kopechne of Chappaquiddick fame was a
secretary to Sen. George Smathers in 1963. Her roommate at the time in the
Washington area was Carole Tyler, who was a secretary of bad boy Bobby Baker,
close associate of LBJ. You could say that at the time Bobby Baker was Vice
President Johnson�s Scooter Libby.
But Baker was allegedly an all-around ne�er-do-well,
particularly in association with casino interests in the Caribbean and military
contractors. Since Baker is still alive, his stories are not yet fully told.
Baker owned the house where Tyler and Kopechne were roommates, which he
continued to use for hosting various parties while the girls lived there.
Later, Carole Tyler was said to be quite upset when Baker
didn�t leave his wife to marry her -- and she unfortunately died in 1965 in the
crash of small plane in Ocean City, Maryland, where Baker owned the Carousel
Hotel, on the beach at 118th Street. Notably, in November, 1963, Baker made the
cover of Life Magazine above a
headline, �Bobby Baker�s Bombshell,� which told of a Department of Justice
investigation into tax evasion and fraud in regards to the financing of the
construction of the massive Carousel resort a year or two earlier.
Between these two 23-24-year-old party girls, it is alleged
that a story was leaked to press acquaintances that JFK was going to dump LBJ
as vice president in 1964, due to the incipient scandals associated with Bobby
Baker that went far beyond the financing of the Carousel. JFK even hinted at
this in a press conference not long before he died.
This was all part of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy�s
effort to �flip� Baker to testify against LBJ and his corrupt Texas and US
Senate cronies. The two women also leaked the allegation that JFK had offered
the slot to Sen.Smathers. This fact was later confirmed by JFK�s personal
secretary, Evelyn Lincoln. Ms. Lincoln did say that JFK had also been
considering offering the job to Gov. Terry Sanford of North Carolina.
Ms. Kopechne later went to work for Sen. Robert F. Kennedy,
until he was assassinated in June 1968, a story unto itself. In December 1968,
Ms. Kopechne went to work for a political consultancy firm in McLean, Va.,
founded by Matt Reese, who was a close political associate of JFK and RKF. In
July 1969, Mary Jo drowned when a car in which she was riding, driven by Sen.
Edward M. Kennedy, which veered off that bridge in Chappaquiddick.
Returning to the documentary�s LBJ hypothesis
In any case, the suppressed History Channel documentary
reports allegations that the assassination of JFK may have been committed
through an unholy alliance of a number of groups. These include:
1) LBJ, who feared going to jail as a consequence of RFK�s
investigations of his former aide, Bobby Baker, as well as those of his
hatchet-men associates, Billie Sol Estes and Malcolm Wallace. Almost
unbelievably, Wallace�s fingerprint was found with a rock-solid 34-point match
on a cardboard box that partly enclosed the �sniper�s nest� on the 6th floor of
the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. Wallace, in the documentary, is a
reputed LBJ hitman. His fingerprint-match was discovered in 1998 but the FBI
subsequently suppressed the information, which had actually been advanced to them
by the Dallas Police.
At the very least, Johnson would have been unceremoniously
dumped from the 1964 Democratic ticket by JFK. Few historians dispute that
point.
2) The purported conspirators also include Texas oilmen
Clint Murchison and H.L. Hunt, who would have lost billions to JFK�s proposal
to limit the 27.5 percent oil-depletion allowance, which was a scandalous tax
giveaway to the oil industry. It was reduced to 22 percent in 1970 and
completely abolished for large producers in 1975. These were the sleazy Texas
oilmen portrayed in Oliver Stone�s other milestone movie, Nixon. In it, they plied politicians with prostitutes at
Murchison�s fancy Hotel del Charro in La Jolla, Calif. Not too curiously, J.
Edgar Hoover and his �constant companion,� FBI Associate Director Clyde Tolson
regularly vacationed at the del Charro, all-expenses paid, as did New Orleans
and Dallas mob boss Carlos Marcello.
3) Of course FBI Director Hoover feared being fired by RFK
given the number of skeletons (and tutus) in his closet.
4) Then there were CIA operatives who feared JFK�s proposal
to neuter the CIA�s operations branch. It�s reported that Kennedy was drawing
up reorganization plans to return the CIA to its original Truman-era charter to
be solely the coordinator of intelligence analysis; this was JFK�s long-term
response to the illegal Bay of Pigs action, as well as the earlier (and
successful) CIA efforts to sabotage Pres. Eisenhower�s dealings with Khrushchev
with the U-2 incident.
5) Add to the list, Mafia/Cuban interests, who were upset
over the Bay of Pigs fiasco and wanted their Havana casinos back. Plus, they
felt betrayed by RFK and his aggressive prosecutions, particularly of Carlos
Marcello, whom Kennedy was attempting to deport to Guatemala, which Marcello
had falsely declared his country of birth. He was actually born to Sicilian
parents in Tunis.
6) Include Military contracting concerns, who were upset
with Kennedy�s October 1963 directive (NSAM 263 mentioned in my earlier
article) to have all US troops out of Vietnam by 1965. JFK�s directive (also
mentioned) was promptly reversed by LBJ in his NSAM 273, which immediately
�augmented� the American forces in Vietnam in 1963 and greatly escalated the
war after 1965.
Lawyer Barr McClellan is convinced that documentary records
still exist in the files of LBJ�s lead personal attorney (and reputed �fixer�)
in Austin, Ed Clark, founder of the law firm of Clark, Thomas & Winters,
where McClellan had been a partner for five years but resigned in 1977 after an
argument with attorney Clark. Apparently, Clark handled LBJ�s dirty work, which
included his disputed 1948 Senate election and his dealings with RFK�s Justice
Department.
My contributing friend warns that with E. Howard Hunt�s
death in recent days, increased attention will be drawn to that YouTube posting of the HistoryChannel documentary. It is likely to be removed soon due to
copyright concerns. The question is does copyright take precedence over public
access to what could very well be the truth about the most important crime of
the 20th century in America?
At the very least, the information from the documentary,
which I have seen, confirms my earlier writing, and proves once again how
pathetically incomplete the work of the Warren Commission was. My thanks to
those involved in helping me to gather the information for this piece.
Links to other references
Dr. Charles A. Crenshaw's book (2001 revision of 1992
original, this one written with Oliver Stone and his investigators):Trauma
Room One: The JFK Medical Coverup Exposed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Murchison,_Jr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Baker
http://www.maryland.com/articles/article.php/a_id/1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Jo_Kopechne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Smathers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapata_Oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Howard_Hunt
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/junkie/links/reese.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKtylerN.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barr_McClellan
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/linkscopy/CrenshawDies.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Sol_Estes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Marcello
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_edgar_hoover
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living New
York City. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.