Tale of the Tape

     In writing Murder, Inc., I had used an audio tape of a conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Senator Richard Russell (D-GA) at 8:55 pm on the night of November 29, 1963. The men had talked earlier in the day at around 4 pm about the president appointing a commission to report on the Kennedy assassination and about who would be on it. Johnson made this second call to tell Russell that he would be on it. The following is part of the transcript which may be found here. 

      I happened to listen to it again recently and several new things caught my attention. First is that Russell didn’t like Earl Warren, didn’t want to serve with him, and didn’t think the Chief Justice should in any event be appointed to such a commission. And second, Johnson hints of something sinister about the assassination and suggests that the investigation could lead to WWIII if mishandled. This latter point surprised me more now than it did when I was writing the book. Before explaining, let me show you excerpts from the phone call. I think there are errors in the online transcript and have substituted corrections and added explanatory material. 

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Russell: “I couldn’t serve on it [the Warren Commission] with Chief Justice Warren… I don’t like that man….I don’t have any confidence in him at all. 

LBJ: [W]e’ve got to take this out of the arena where they’re testifying that Khrushchev and Castro did this and did that and get us into a war that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour and you would put on your uniform in a minute [to prevent WWIII]… and you can do anything for your country and don’t go giving me that kind of stuff about you can’t serve with anybody… you’ll do anything. 

Russell: It is not only that… I just don’t think the Chief Justice should have served on it. 

LBJ: Well the Chief Justice ought to do anything he can to save America and right now… we’ve got a very touchy thing and… wait until you look at this evidence.. you, wait until you look at this report. 

Russell then says Johnson should have told him that he was going to put Warren on the Commission. LBJ counters by saying he had told Russell in the earlier call that he was going to do this. Russell responds, remembering correctly that in the earlier call, which was also recorded, Johnson said he planned to get someone from the Court, but he did not say it would be Warren. When Russell asks Johnson not to name him to the Commission, Johnson tells him that it has already been announced. Russell argues that he doesn’t have time and offers apparent health objections, saying “my future is behind me.” 

LBJ: [A]ll you’ll do [on the Commission] is evaluate the Hoover report he has already made. 

LBJ: [Y]ou’re going to lend your name to this thing because you’re head of the CIA Committee…. Secretary of State came over here this afternoon. He’s deeply concerned Dick [Russell] about the idea that they’re spreading throughout the communist world that Khrushchev killed Kennedy. [This doesn’t make sense. Why would the Soviets want to claim they killed Kennedy].. now he didn’t. He didn’t have a damned thing to do with it. 

Russell: Well, I don’t think he did directly. I know Khrushchev didn’t because he thought he’d get along better under Kennedy. 

LBJ: All right, but we’ve…. 

Russell: I wouldn’t be surprised if Castro had.

Johnson continues to encourage Russell to get along with Warren. “You can give him some confidence” and “I’m not afraid to put your intelligence against Warren’s.” Later, after discussing other, unrelated topics, Johnson brags about how he persuaded Warren to lead the commission. 

LBJ: Well you want me to tell you the truth? You know what happened? Bobby [Attorney General Robert Kennedy] and them went up to see him today and he turned them down cold and said NO. Two hours later I called him and ordered him down here and he didn’t want to come. I insisted he come.. came down here and told me No twice and I just pulled out what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City and I say now, I don’t want Mr. Khrushchev to be told tomorrow and be testifying before a camera that he killed this fellow.. and that Castro killed him and all I want you do to is look at the facts and bring in any other facts you want in here and determine who killed the President.

     The conversation ends a few sentences later. 

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     Several of the things Lyndon Johnson says in this conversation seem out of place when put in the chronology of what was known at the time. They raise questions about whether Johnson really understood the facts or whether he was exaggerating in order to persuade the reluctant Russell. 

     On November 24, five days before this phone call, Hoover had told LBJ’s aide Walter Jenkins that public disclosure of the possibility of foreign involvement should be avoided. Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach gave the same advice to Bill Moyers, another LBJ aide, on November 26. And contrary to what LBJ says in this call, Katzenbach said that the right-wing in the United States, not the communist world, was claiming the communists were behind the assassination. 

     It isn't clear as to what Mexico City incident the president is referring to. The FBI and CIA knew almost immediately after the assassination on November 22 that Lee Harvey Oswald had visited the Soviet and Cuban consulates there, trying to get visas. This is probably not what Johnson had in mind. More likely, he is talking about the so-called Alvardo allegation. A man named Gilberto Alvardo had told Mexican authorities that he had seen Oswald take money from a man at the Cuban consulate. However, by November 28, CIA Director John McCone had sent a memorandum to Johnson’s national security advisor McGeorge Bundy debunking Alvardo’s allegations and planned to cover the matter again with Bundy the next morning, November 29. In other words, by the time of this phone call, Johnson should have known that the CIA at least had concluded Alvardo’s allegations were specious. So again, either Johnson didn’t know the facts or he was exaggerating in order to get Earl Warren and Richard Russell on the commission – or perhaps both were true. 

     One thing is abundantly clear, though.  Lyndon Johnson feared that an investigation might uncover a foreign conspiracy and lead to nuclear war. 

     Finally, the conversation raises a question that I've not seen answered: What if anything had the CIA told Richard Russell about its investigation prior to this conversation. He was chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which was at the time the only Senate committee that oversaw CIA operations.