I decided to review JFK’s Joint Chiefs of Staff who operated during his presidency. I’ve been looking at this for a while but, after reading Joseph Horne’s “JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment”, I realized Kennedy had three distinct JSCs sitting for three distinct crises during his time in office:

1. Bay of Pigs
2. Cuban Missile Crisis
3. Dealey Plaza

There are five seats on the JSC. The chairman and the four heads of branches of the military. Interestingly, the chairman in many cases was less influential than certain members. Following a crisis, some members were replaced. Before a crisis, some members were replaced. Replacement sometimes was a choice between two evils. One member had no impact on any of the crises and endured throughout. One member had impact but no written history. Another member was never mentioned in Horne’s essays about the National Security Establishment.

This study will look at each of the three crises and each of the sitting JSC members. Pertinent background, action and results to be included. JFK looked to these men, among others, to give him the best information for critical decision making in a time nuclear weapons being in Russian hands as well as American. The deck was stacked against objectivity in military circles, to some extent because recent war experience but also due hubris and contempt on the part of these trusted advisers. It is no wonder that our commander and chief had to reevaluate his trust in the advice these men proffered following the first two crises.

Bay of Pigs Crisis

Thomas White led the Air Force as Chief of Staff with the election of Kennedy. His JSC position began with Eisenhower in 1957. There is little information available outside of his war record. Less about his short stint in JFK’s JSC, which ended with his retirement on 6/30/1961. However, here is a quote from one of Horne’s essays:

“Predictably, (General Curtis) LeMay, whom Kennedy had promoted toAir Force chief of staff the year before, after cashiering the belligerent Thomas White after the Bay of Pigs disaster”.

I couldn’t find any corroboration for the “ belligerent Thomas White” assertion.

Wikipedia had this tidbit which gives General Thomas White, USAF, some further dimension:

White was a fisherman, aquarist and amateur ichthyologist and while in Brazil he collected Zoological specimens with his wife, Constance, including the type of the Rio pearlfish Nematolebias whitei which was named in his honor.^[1]

Marine Corps Commandant General David Shoup served Kennedy from the time of the hand off from Eisenhower (1/1/1960) until the end of the year of following the assassination, 12/31/1963. Shoup at best remained passive during Bay of Pigs and at worst supported both sides of the argument on the Cuban Missile Crisis, depending on who was in the room. Still mentally in WWII, he seemed to know little of the current crisis plans and nothing of the subject, Cuba. The missile crisis found him accommodating the intimidating Air Force Chief of Staff, Curtis LeMay.

Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh Burke served Eisenhower, 8/17/1955 and then Kennedy until after the Bay of Pigs, retiring on 8/1/1961. Kennedy lost faith in Burke after BOP. JFK concluded that the Admiral joined others, notably the JSC Chairman (Lemnitzer) and CIA, in trying to manipulate a young, naïve president into a fight. Kennedy wanted facts for decision making, not prejudiced advice. The President agreed with Secretary of Defense McNamara that new faces were needed in the Pentagon.

Burke took a swing at being JSC Chairman when Lyman Lemnitzer went off to South Vietnam on assignment. The acting Chairman announced in a White House meeting that “…if the U.S. did not fight in Southeast Asia it would lose the entire region; he further stated that if the U.S. did fight, it would be a long war and the U.S. would have to use nuclear weapons to win.” Suggesting the use of nuclear weapons was a bridge too far for Kennedy. And it was the last straw when Burke continued to press for it and eventually got him thrown out of the White House and, finally, retired on 8/1/1961.

From the failure of facts on 4/17/1961, to the fight for nuclear use on 4/27/1961, then retirement three months later, Admiral Burke went from CNO to no go. He had a ship named in his honor and an impressive WWII record. But served Kennedy not.

Chapter 25 Ruby the Buff

 Condensations from Sylvia Meagher’s Accessories After the Fact          

Jack Ruby shot accused JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, a failure in security measures which should have disgraced the Dallas police force. Witnesses testified that Ruby enjoyed complete access to the police premises for two days, and on the third day he shot to death the most important prisoner in the country. Ruby’s known intimacy with the police force generated a miasma of the conspiratorial. Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade knew Ruby but denied it. In fact, you no longer could find a policeman in town who said that knew Ruby.

            However, in spite of the testimony of newsmen, law enforcement and the general public, the Warren Commission claimed there was no evidence that implicated the police or newsmen in Ruby’s actions on that fateful day. Police Chief Jesse Curry estimated Ruby acquaintance with less than 5% of his force but the actual tally would be north of 50%. The Commission found no evidence of any suspicious relationships between Ruby and any police officer, while the evidence found plenty.

            Looking at Ruby and his arrest record with Dallas PD, reveals some idea of his intimacy.  Out of eight documented arrests between 1949 and 1963, Jack essentially walked every time. Concealed weapons, liquor and night club violations, assault and traffic summonses…five dismissed, one not guilty and two fines totaling $60. Yes, they knew him and yes, they liked him.

            Of the 75 policemen who were present when Oswald was killed, at least 40 knew Ruby. Extrapolating this figure, Ruby must have known more than 500 of the policemen. One witness estimated Ruby knew at least 75% of the 1,175-man force. A mob attempt to bribe the Dallas sheriff involved Ruby but was covered up and the testimony of a key witness, Dallas Police Lt. George E. Butler, ignored by the WC.             Curiously, in the testimony of one Thayer Waldo of the FW Star-Telegram, Lt. Butler presents a rather suspicious entity. On the 22^nd and 23^rd, Waldo consistently used Butler as a source of information as to the disposition of Oswald. The reported described Butler, in those two days as “stolid poise, perhaps phlegmatic poise” which all but deserted him completely, “extremely nervous, lips trembling”, on the fateful morning the 24^th.

What evidence can a nurse have which the pathologist does not?

The remains of the day on November 22^nd, 1963 were those of the President of the United States. When nurses Diana Hamilton Bowron and Margaret M. Henchliffe, who had assisted the team of doctors in the emergency room, saw a back wound (a bullet entry wound was found several inches below the collar line and lodged deep in his shoulder) while undressing and cleaning the deceased.

This contradicts the Warren Commission finding that the wound was near the base of the neck. Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman verified that the dead President had a hole in his shoulder when he was lifted up in the morgue. Also, Kellerman added the throat had hole (an entrance wound at the Adam’s apple). Secret Service agent Glen A. Bennett saw that shot hit the President about four inches down from his right shoulder.

Why would a inquest present an artist rendering of a deceased wounds when autopsy photos are available?

Dr. Humes presented schematic drawings prepared under his supervision by a medical artist which show the wound in the lower neck. But in his handwritten autopsy report, a diagram shows the wound below the neckline.

When should a pathologist burn his original autopsy notes?

Commander J.J. Humes performed the autopsy. He stated that he burned his preliminary draft autopsy report in the fireplace of his recreation room. In the same Warren commission exhibit he stated that he transmitted “all” other papers related to the autopsy to “higher authority”. Humes autopsy report bears no date and was not released until weeks after the report was completed.

Who has the authority to direct autopsy?

It wasn’t Humes.

Which hospital did a body first arrive to?

It wasn’t Bethesda. It was Walter Reed. There is a plaque commemorating the event.

Where is the brain that tells the direction of fire?

It wasn’t taken by Bobby Kennedy.  It disappeared from the archives.

How many bullets entered the victim’s body?

It wasn’t two. The neck the back and two in the head.

How much time does it take to fire a bolt action rifle?

It wasn’t six seconds.

The year 1977 produced a bumper crop of candidates for listing under convenient deaths connected to the JFK assassination—including the deaths of six top FBI officials, all of whom were scheduled to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Topping this list was former number-three man in the FBI William C. Sullivan, who had already had a preliminary meeting with investigators for the House committee. Sullivan was shot with a high-powered rifle near his New Hampshire home by a man who claimed to have mistaken him for a deer. The man was charged with killing a human being by accident” and released into the custody of his father, a state policeman. There was no further investigation of Sullivan’s death.

William Sullivan was shot dead near his home in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, on 9th November 1977. An inquest decided that he had been shot accidentally by fellow hunter, Robert Daniels, who was fined $500 and lost his hunting license for 10 years.  Sullivan had been scheduled to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Sullivan, one of six top FBI officials who died in a six-month period in 1977. At the time of his death Sullivan was working on a book with journalist Bill Brown about his experiences with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover‘s FBI was published posthumously in 1979. The book was highly critical of both J. Edgar Hoover and Lyndon B. Johnson. William Sullivan was one of the former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s top aides, originally, then had a falling out with Hoover. He was scheduled to be questioned by the Assassinations Committee in 1977. As mentioned earlier, he was found shot dead in a shooting accident having been mistaken for a deer. He had been head of the FBI’s Division Five, which handled the King and Kennedy investigations. There was a claim by William Sullivan’s friend Robert Novak that William Sullivan specifically predicted that his own death by the following words “Someday you will read that I have been killed in an accident, but don’t believe it; I’ve been murdered.”

Louis Nicholas-special assistant to J. Edgar Hoover and his liaison with the Warren Commission died from HEART ATTACK in June 1977 with no evidence of foul play. He was a Former No. 3 man in FBI who worked on JFK assassination investigation.

Alan H. Belmont– special assistant to Hoover died in August 1977 from NATURAL CAUSES due to a long illness” with no evidence of foul play. He had previously testified to the Warren Commission.

James Cadigan – FBI document expert with access to documents that related to death of John F. Kennedy DIED FROM A FALL in his home in August 1977 with no evidence of foul play. He had previously testified to the Warren Commission.

J. M. English headed the FBI laboratory where Oswald’s rifle and pistol were tested. He was former head of FBI Forensic Sciences Laboratory died in October 1977 from Heart Attack with no evidence of foul play.

Donald Kaylor was FBI fingerprint expert examined prints found at the assassination scene. He was one of hundreds of FBI employees with marginal connection to assassination who died in October 1977. He was a FBI fingerprint chemist who examined prints found at the assassination scene and the cause of death was from HEART ATTACK.

None of these six bureau officials lived to tell what they knew to the House committee.

ALSO Regis Kennedy Regis Kennedy- Heart attack on the day he was to testify on confiscation of home movies of assassination.

Notes from Jim Marrs book Crossfire, Part III AFTERMATH, Section Dallas

Dallas

Dallas police blocking the nearby intersections with no orders to the contrary— recall the eight-minute disruption of the Dallas police radio motorcade channel during the time of the shooting—released traffic, which began pouring through the crime scene.

There was no shortage of lawmen as nearly twenty sheriffs deputies, following sheriff Bill Decker’s orders, ran to the railroad yards behind the Grassy Knoll.

It is significant to recall that James Tague, who was slightly wounded when a bullet fragment struck the Main Street curb near the Triple Underpass, last spoke with deputy sheriff Buddy Walthers before having to move his car…12:40 p.m.

Captain Will Fritz…told the Warren Commission he began making detailed notes after hearing of the assignation at the Trade Mart.

Recall that witness Ed Hoffman was able to drive from Stemmons Freeway to the railroad yards behind the Depository, circle the area, and leave unchallenged.

The point is that there was no effective containment of the crime scene or of the Depository for at least ten minutes—and perhaps as much as twenty-eight minutes—after the shooting.

By the time it was determined that Oswald was gone (from the Texas School Book Depository) —about 2:30 p.m.—he was already in police custody.

…Dallas Morning News reporter Kent Biffle,

Note: A reporter for The Dallas Morning News, [Homer Kent] Biffle was one of the only journalists inside the Texas School Book Depository while investigators gathered evidence on the sixth floor of the building. He later covered Jim Garrison’s New Orleans investigation for Newsweek magazine. In 1959, as a reporter for the Fort Worth Press, he wrote stories about Lee Harvey Oswald’s defection and tried to reach Oswald by telephone in Moscow. Recorded June 28, 1993. Mr. Biffle passed away on August 23, 2015. 

News cameraman Harry Cabluck photographed the scene and recalled seeing more than one gouge in the ground. He, too, was told that a bullet had struck there. One photograph of the slug even appeared in the November 23, 1963, edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, with the caption: ASSASSIN’S BULLET: One of the rifle bullets…lies in the grass across Elm…

Note: Harry Cabluck career has spanned more than fifty years — forty of which were spent at the AP. He was in the presidential motorcade on that balmy day in November 1963 when John F. Kennedy was shot

Other witnesses to the bullet marks on the south side of Elm Street were Wayne and Edna Hartman, who were in Dallas for jury duty. After hearing shots in Dealey Plaza, the couple “ran like the devil” down to the grassy middle area of the plaza. Mrs. Hartman told this author:

Edna, “What are these two mole hills?”

Policeman, “Oh no, ma’am, that’s where the bullets struck the ground.”

Edna, “…people were telling us the bullets came from over there (Grassy Knoll).”

If one or more bullet slugs were in the grass, what happened to them? What role did an extra slug play in the assassination?

…the bullet in question landed inches away from the manhole cover…Later on the day of the assassination, the Stemmons Freeway sign, which according to some bystanders was struck by a bullet, disappeared. It is missing in photographs made in Dealey Plaza the next day.

In 2004 the Asahi Television Network of Japan procured two separate copies of the Zapruder film, both of which contained approximately six frames missing from the copies shown around the world to the public…in the missing frames…a small hole appears in the Stemmons sign…this is a bullet hole.

In 1974, Richard Lester, using a metal detector, discovered a bullet fragment on the far south side of Dealey Plaza just east of the Triple Underpass. 

Note- a bullet fragment found in 1974 near the triple overpass in Dealey Plaza by Richard Lester. (52) Lester turned it over to the FBI on December 1, 1976, requesting that an analysis be conducted to determine if it might be connected with the assassination. (53) The FBI laboratory obtained from the National Archives the bullets test-fired in the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle in 1963, and on July 28, 1977, examined the bullet fragment and compared it to the Mannlicher-Carcano test-fired bullets. (54) The laboratory determined that both the Lester bullet and the test-fired bullets were 6.5 millimeter caliber, but the Lester bullet was found to be a jacketed, soft- point or jacketed, hollow-point sporting bullet, whereas the Mannlicher-Carcano bullet was to be a full metal-jacketed, military-type. Although the rifling impressions were similar, four lands and grooves, right twist, the widths of the land and groove impressions were found to vary by about 0.01 inch. The individual identifying characteristics were found to be different. Thus, the laboratory concluded that there was no indication the Lester bullet had been fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. (55) The laboratory returned the test-fired bullets to the Archives (56) and the fragment to Lester at the completion of its examination. (57) The select committee obtained the bullet from Lester on November 10, 1977. (58)

An intact .45-caliber bullet was discovered in May 1976 by Hal Luster

Note: A whole, unfired .45 caliber bullet was found in 1976 by Hal Luster by > the concrete retaining wall on the knoll (Dallas Morning News, > December 23, 1978).

Dean Morgan of Lewisville, a suburb of Dallas, related that in 1975

Note: Dean Morgan: In 1975 a maintenance man named Morgan, while working on the roof of the County Records Building in Dealey Plaza, found a 30.06 shell casing lying under a lip Of roofing tar at the base Of the roof’s parapet on the side facing the plaza, according to his son, Dean Morgan. The shell casing is dated 1953 and marks on it indicate it was made at the Twin Cities Arsenal. One side of the casing has been pitted by exposure to the weather, suggesting that it was exposed on the roof for some time. The casing, which is still in Morgan’s possession, has an odd crimp around its neck (Marrs 317; Roberts 80-81

According to Morgan, his father, while searching for water leaks, discovered a 30.06-caliber shell casing

The shell casing is dated 1953 and marks indicate it was manufactured at the Twin Cities Arsenal.

Rifle experts have explained to Morgan that this is evidence that a sabot[1] may have been used to fire ammunition from a 30.06 rifle.

In other words, assassination conspirators could have fired 6.5-millimeter bullets from the Oswald rifle into water, recovered them, then reloaded them into the more accurate and powerful 30.06 with the use of a sabot—which is held in place by crimping the cartridge.

…a member of the anticommunist Minutemen organization, led by Missouri biochemist Robert DePugh,

Note: DePugh said several days…maybe as much as a week after the shooting he got a large envelope in the mail from the Dallas area. One of his members (he refused to identify the man) wrote Bob that several days after the assassination he was taking a slow walk around the plaza and happened upon a small circular piece of plastic in the grass at which he picked up, pocketed and then walked away…in case anyone was watching.

…a college student named Billy Harper …

Note: Billy Harper, who discovered the piece of bone when he was in Dealey Plaza on November 23rd taking pictures, took the fragment to his uncle, a Dr. Jack C. Harper, and Dr. Harper took the bone to Methodist Hospital where it was examined by Dr. A. B. Cairns, who was chief pathologist.  Cairns opinion was that “the bone specimen looked like it came from the occipital region of the skull.”

Richard Carr, …

Note: After the war Carr worked as a steel construction worker in Dallas. On 22nd November 1963, Carr was working on the seventh floor of the new courthouse building on the corner of Houston Street in Dealey Plaza. Just before President John F. Kennedy was shot Carr saw a heavy-set man with horn-rimmed glasses and a tan sport jacket on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository.

James R. Worrell Jr.,

Note: A man and woman in their 20’s became Dallas’ 115th and 116th traffic fatalities of the year Saturday when they were killed in a motorcycle accident shortly before 2:30 p.m. in the 2100 block Of Gus Thomasson. Dead in arrival at Parkland Hospital was James R. Worrell Jr., 23, of 13510 Winterhaven, Farmers Branch, operator of the motorcycle. His passenger, Miss Karron Lee Hudgins, 22, of 9756 Skyview, died shortly after arrival at Parkland. Both suffered severe head and internal injuries.

Acquilla Clemons,

Note: Shirley Martin also interviewed Acquilla Clemons who had also seen the events around the killing of J. D. Tippit. As John Kelin, the author of Praise from a Future Generation (2007), has pointed out: ‘As Shirley Martin, accompanied by her children, interviewed Acquilla Clemons. Mrs. Martin was not at all confident that she would be granted the interview, so her daughter Vickie carried a tape recorder hidden in her purse. Vickie later transcribed the surreptitious recording of their conversation with Mrs. Clemons, and the tape was passed on to Mark Lane. As they prepared for the interview, the Martins did not yet know that, like Helen Markham, Acquilla Clemons had been visited by menacing authorities who advised her not to talk about what she had seen.” At first Clemons refused to answer questions but eventually confirmed that two men were involved in the killing.

Ed Hoffman,

Note: Four witnesses of varying degrees of credibility, Gordon Arnold, Cheryl McKinnon, Lee Bowers, and Ed Hoffman, also claimed to have experienced shots or other sinister activity on the grassy knoll.

Page: 309 Sandy Speaker,

Note: “It has also been suggested that [Howard] Brennan, like a number of other witnesses, was pressured into changing his story. His job foreman, Sandy Speaker, told author Jim Marrs, “They took [Brennan] off for about three weeks. I don’t know if they were Secret Service or FBI, but they were federal people. He came back a nervous wreck and within a year his hair had turned snow white. He wouldn’t talk about

[the assassination]

after that. He was scared to death. They made him say what they wanted him to say.” (Marrs, Crossfire, p. 26) Whether Speaker’s story is true or not, it is interesting to note that years later Brennan refused to cooperate with the HSCA.

Howard Brennan,

Note: Howard Leslie Brennan (March 20, 1919 — December 22, 1983)[2][3][4] was a witness to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. According to the Warren Commission, Brennan’s description of a sniper he saw was probative in reaching the conclusion that the shots came from the sixth floor, southeast corner window of the Texas School Book Depository Building.[5] Indicating that Epstein wrote that Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball told him that he was “extremely dubious” about Brennan’s testimony and that Brennan was unable to discern a figure in the building’s sixth floor window, Gavzer and Moody quoted Ball denying that he had made those statements about Brennan.[22] They also noted that Lane wrote about Brennan’s statement to the Commission that he had poor eyesight, but that Lane did not mention that Brennan testified he was farsighted at the time Of the assassination nor did he emphasize that the vision loss Brennan sustained occurred two months after the assassination.[22]

A. J. Millican.

Note: A. J. Millican, who testified that: Just after the President’s car passed, I heard three shots come from up toward Houston and Elm right by the Book Depository Building, and then immediately I heard two more shots come from the Arcade between the Book Store and the Underpass, and then three more shots came from the same direction only sounded further back. (Decker Exhibit 5323, 19H486) Millican also testified that: “A man standing on the South side of Elm Street, was either hit in the foot, or the ankle and fell down.” (ibid.)

[1] Sabot: a device which ensures the correct positioning of a bullet or shell in the barrel of a gun, attached either to the projectile or inside the barrel and falling away as it leaves the muzzle.