The Man Who Killed Kennedy Read online

  Copyright © 2013 by Roger Stone with Mike Colapietro

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Stone, Roger J.

  The man who killed Kennedy : the case against LBJ / Roger Stone, with Mike Colapietro.

  pages cm

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 978-1-62636-313-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963—Assassination. 2. Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908-1973. 3. Conspiracies—United States—History—20th century. I. Colapietro, Mike. II. Title.

  E842.9.S74 2013

  973.923092—dc23

  [B]

  2013029015

  Printed in the United States of America

  To my beloved wife,

  Nydia Bertran Stone, who has suffered through my political enthusiasms, victories, and defeats—all with good humor and steadfast support.

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER ONE Lyndon Johnson—The Man

  CHAPTER TWO Landslide Lyndon

  CHAPTER THREE Curses

  CHAPTER FOUR Nemesis

  CHAPTER FIVE Hoover

  CHAPTER SIX A Thousand Pieces

  CHAPTER SEVEN Mob Boys

  CHAPTER EIGHT Contact

  CHAPTER NINE The Road to Watergate

  CHAPTER TEN Carlos

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Relationships

  CHAPTER TWELVE Wheeler Dealers

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Location

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Lynchpin

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Patsy

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN Ruby

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Poppy

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN A Few Good Men

  CHAPTER NINETEEN At Land’s End

  CHAPTER TWENTY Cui Bono

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  INDEX

  PREFACE

  I recognize that those who question the government’s official contentions regarding the assassination of John F. Kennedy are labeled by many in the mainstream media as “nuts,” “kooks,” and worse. Yet the events of November 22, 1963, have haunted and interested me since the time—as an eleven-year-old boy—I saw the indelible image of John-John saluting his father’s flag-draped coffin and wept. My family is Catholic and, although I’m sure my Republican parents voted for Richard Nixon in 1960, they were still proud of our first Roman Catholic president.

  I realize that delving into the world of assassination research and a belief in a conspiracy will lead some to brand me as an extremist or a nut, but the facts I have uncovered are so compelling that I must make the case that Lyndon Baines Johnson had John Fitzgerald Kennedy murdered in Dallas to become president himself and to avert the precipitous political and legal fall that was about to beset him.

  I feel that I am uniquely qualified to make the case that LBJ had John F. Kennedy killed so that he could become president. I have been involved in every presidential election since 1968 with the exception of 1992, when I sat out Republican efforts and George H. W. Bush—who, as a Reaganite myself—I never had much regard for anyway, went down to ignominious defeat. I first met the then former Vice President Richard Nixon in 1967. In 1968, I was appointed chairman of Youth for Nixon in Connecticut by Governor John Davis Lodge. I later attended George Washington University in Washington DC by night and worked in the Nixon White House press operation by day. In 1972, I was the youngest member of the senior staff of the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP).

  Ambassador John Davis Lodge was the brother of JFK’s ambassador to Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge. John Davis Lodge was a congressman and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He was also governor of Connecticut, Eisenhower’s ambassador to Spain, Nixon’s ambassador to Argentina, President Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to Switzerland, and my mentor.

  It was John Lodge who introduced me to former Vice President Richard Nixon when I was sixteen years old in 1968. Lodge was an old school Brahmin who nonetheless spoke Spanish, Italian, French, and German. He enjoyed a brief career as a B-movie actor in Europe, appearing onscreen with Marlene Dietrich and Shirley Temple.

  When Lodge was in his eighties, he served vigorously as the chairman of Ronald Reagan’s campaign for President in Connecticut, a post I had recruited him for as the Northeast regional director.

  In 1979, we sat in his Westport, Connecticut, home enjoying a cocktail. I knew that JFK had planned to fire ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge upon his return from Dallas on November 24, 1963. I also know that Lodge knew why he had been summoned to see the President.

  Lodge had done Kennedy’s dirty work coordinating a campaign with the CIA to assassinate Catholic Vietnamese President Diem. I couldn’t resist asking John Lodge about his brother.

  “Did you ever ask your brother who really killed Kennedy?” I said.

  His lips spread in a tight grin. “Cabot said it was the Agency boys, some Mafiosi,” he looked me in the eye … “and Lyndon.”

  “Did your brother know in advance?” I asked.

  Lodge took a sip of his Manhattan.”He knew Kennedy wouldn’t be around to fire him. LBJ kept him at his post so he could serve his country.”

  Seven weeks before the JFK assassination, Richard Starnes for the Washington Daily News wrote an article titled “‘Spooks’ Make Life Miserable for Ambassador Lodge” and subtitled “Arrogant’ CIA Disobeys Orders in Viet Nam.” The article slammed the CIA’s role in Vietnam as “a dismal chronicle of bureaucratic arrogance, obstinate disregard of orders, and unrestrained thirst for power.” The article went on to chronicle the turf war between US Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and the CIA. “Twice the CIA flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, according to a high United States source here.” The article continued: “‘If the United States ever experiences a ‘Seven Days in May’ it will come from the CIA, and not from the Pentagon,’ one U.S. official commented caustically.” Seven Days in May was a prescient book, read and endorsed by JFK, that gave a fictional chronicle of an attempted military coup in America. John Kennedy was so impressed by that book and its message that he even let them film the movie adaption at the White House while he was away one weekend.

  The Starnes’ source ominously referencing Seven Days in May was probably from someone in the military, and not Lodge, but it is nonetheless significant. Another source told Starnes “They [CIA] represent a tremendous power and total unaccountability to anyone.” Starnes continued: “Coupled with the ubiquitous secret police of Ngo Dinh Nhu, a surfeit of spooks has given Saigon an oppressive police state atmosphere.”

  The Starnes article was a caustic and detailed denunciation of the CIA’s authoritarian behavior in Vietnam and its uncontrollability by the Kennedy Administration. “One very high American official here,” the article continued, “a man who has spent much of his life in the s
ervice of democracy, likened the CIA’s growth to a malignancy, and added he was not sure even the White House could control it even longer.”

  That last quote probably came out of the mouth of Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge.

  The next day on October 3, 1963, Arthur Krock, a columnist for the New York Times and a close friend of the Kennedy’s wrote a column “The Intra-Administration War in Vietnam” that was based on the Starnes article. The Krock column featured those incendiary quotes that Richard Starnes had collected about the CIA from their opponents in the State Department and Pentagon. The CIA wanted to keep the Diem-Ngu regime and the bitter enemy of both the CIA and Diem was Vietnam Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge who was the point man in the Kennedy Administration for getting rid of Diem and Ngu.

  On November 1, 1963, the Diem-Nhu regime was removed in an American backed coup. Kennedy had been on the fence regarding their removal and he was shocked when Diem and Nhu were both assassinated and not allowed exile. Just as many in the CIA bitterly opposed Kennedy over Cuba policy, there is no doubt that the removal of Diem was a bitter nut to swallow for many in the Agency.

  Three weeks later there was Dallas.

  It was then that I eventually decided to write this book.

  Nixon introduced me to his former campaign aide, John P. Sears, who would hire me for the staff of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns in 1976 and 1980. President Reagan then asked me to coordinate his re-election campaign in the Northeastern states in 1984, a slightly broader reprise of my role in his 1980 election.

  In my capacity as Reagan’s Regional Political Director for the Northeast, I helped coordinate thirteen presidential trips, giving me a unique perspective on how the Secret Service interacts with presidential aides during a presidential visit. This perspective, I believe, has given me keen insight into the many anomalies in the way the Secret Service and Vice President Johnson’s aides acted in the run-up to President Kennedy’s visit to Dallas.

  It was in Nixon’s post-presidential years that I spent the most time with the former president. The Washington Post said I was “Nixon’s man in Washington.” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd called me “the keeper of the Nixon flame.” Nixon had a voracious appetite for political intelligence and gossip; I fed him a steady diet of both. It was also in this period that Nixon asked me to evaluate various speaking requests he received.

  I spent hours talking one-on-one with former President Nixon in his office at 26 Federal Plaza in downtown Manhattan, his apartment on the East Side, and later in his modestly appointed townhouse in Saddle River, New Jersey. Nixon was neither introspective nor retrospective in the conversations. “The old man,” as staff called him behind his back, was passionately interested in what was happening today and what would happen in the future, but it was difficult to get him to dwell on the past. Generally speaking, when we talked about his peers and the circumstances surrounding the Kennedy assassination, he would grow taciturn, blunt, and sometimes cryptic. When I asked him point blank about the conclusions of the Warren Commission into the assassination of President Kennedy, he said “Bullshit” with a growl, but refused to elaborate.

  Nick Ruwe was an advance man who joined the Nixon campaign in 1960 and served as Nixon’s chief advance man during his comeback bid for presidency in 1968. Ruwe would become deputy chief of protocol, a position in which he directed the state funerals for former presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower before going on to serve as President Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to Iceland. Ruwe liked vodka martinis, unfiltered Camels, Brooks Brothers button-down shirts, solid grenadine ties, and the 21 Club in New York City. Ruwe hailed from an old money family in Grosse Point, Michigan. In 1961, Nixon would send him to Texas to aid in the election of Republican college professor John Tower, who won LBJ’s Senate seat in a special election when Johnson resigned to become vice president. Ruwe once told me, “When spending time with RN, speak only when you are spoken to.” He would serve as Nixon’s chief of staff in his post-presidential years. “If the boss is in a chatty mood, he’ll engage you in conversation. Otherwise shut the fuck up, and you’ll get along with him fine.” Thus, I would often have to wait until the right time to ask the former president the probing questions that peaked my curiosity.

  Nixon liked to be alone with his thoughts and often would sit silently for long stretches of time before engaging in spirited conversation. At the same time, I learned that alcohol made our thirty-seventh president loquacious. Nixon’s tolerance for alcohol was low, and two martinis would more than loosen his tongue.

  Fate would have former vice president and then private lawyer Nixon in Dallas on November 21st and 22nd. It is important to recognize that Richard Nixon was both formally out of power and considered politically washed up in 1963.

  I believe, however, that LBJ knew that Nixon was the one man with intimate knowledge of the CIA, organized crime figures that had supported both him and Johnson financially, the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover, the Cuban exile community, and rightwing Texas oilmen to figure out that Johnson had directed the plot to murder John Kennedy in order to become president.

  Based on my conversations with him contained in this book, Nixon indicated that Johnson was a conspirator and ordered the CIA to deliver all records pertaining to the Kennedy assassination to the White House after his inauguration in 1969 in order to confirm his belief. As we will see later, this request would play a key role in Nixon’s downfall in Watergate.

  Former Attorney General John Mitchell, who managed Nixon’s 1968 campaign, was gracious with his time and memory. I knew he too had spent hours talking to the former president because he had been the only man in Richard Nixon’s political career to whom Nixon actually abrogated campaign authority. Even those who were closest to Richard Nixon knew that he was a complicated enigma.

  Mitchell lived in a Georgetown mansion with his lady friend Mary Gore Dean in the years after his time in prison following the Watergate scandal. The former attorney general ran a small consulting firm from a Georgetown office.

  I first met John Mitchell when I was assigned to a messenger pool as a volunteer for Nixon in the 1968 Republican Convention in Miami Beach. Mitchell would give me envelopes, which carried communications or, in some cases, I suspected, cash. I would deliver them to the intended recipient, questions unasked. He would always pull a $10 bill from his own money clip for cab fare. One night around dinnertime, Mr. Mitchell came by the messenger pool, handed me a $10 bill, and told me to go across the street to LUMS, a popular beer joint, and buy two beer-steamed hotdogs covered with sauerkraut. He instructed me to slather both with mustard and, with a wink, he said, “eat them both.”

  When I was on the Committee to Reelect the President staff in 1972, direct communications with “Mr. Mitchell” as everyone called him, were a violation of the chain of command. I reconnected with the former attorney general during my service in Ronald Reagan’s 1976 presidential campaign. Mitchell helped recruit former Kentucky Governor Louie Nunn for the small Reagan for President Committee headed by Senator Paul Laxalt. I saw Mitchell pretty regularly from 1976 to 1988.

  Mitchell, who had discussed Nixon’s thoughts and beliefs regarding the Bay of Pigs and the JFK assassination, helped me interpret many of Nixon’s more oblique references to both. Mitchell knew he was revealing truths that, prior to the 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations hearings, would be viewed as “kooky.”

  Even then, I was fascinated by the controversy surrounding JFK’s murder. “I might write a book about it someday,” I told Mitchell. He took the out the pipe that had been clenched between his teeth, “Wait until the fiftieth anniversary,” he said. I agreed. For those who wonder why I have waited until now to write this book, you now have your answer.

  I am grateful to Mitchell for sharing his own conversations with the thirty-seventh president and others in an attempt to figure out what really did happen in Dallas.

  Another reason that this book is unique, unlike many books publish
ed on the fiftieth anniversary of the JFK assassination is that I do not deify the Kennedys. John and Robert Kennedy were not saints. Both Jack and Bobby Kennedy were well aware of the mob’s assistance in the West Virginia Primary in which the campaign they ran against Hubert Humphrey was so vicious that Muriel Humphrey would not speak to either Kennedy again. Bobby Kennedy’s pursuit of the mob as attorney general is laudable, but he didn’t seem to have much trouble with their substantial assistance in Jack’s election.

  John Kennedy was also a habitual user of injectible amphetamines. Richard A. Lertzman’s and William J. Birnes’s incredible book, Dr. Feelgood, makes the case that Kennedy was being injected by celebrity doctor Max Jacobson—also known as “Doctor Feelgood”—with a highly addictive liquid mix of methamphetamine and steroids. JFK was hopped up on meth during the presidential debates with Richard Nixon, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during the Bay of Pigs invasion, and presumably during his many sexual trysts. JFK also arranged for Doctor Jacobson to inject First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Methamphetamine and steroids affect mood and judgment.

  The Kennedy civil rights record is also a myth. JFK mined for black votes in 1960. His bold call to Dr. King’s wife when King was jailed in Selma and Bobby Kennedy’s call to the judge in the King case—which lawyer Nixon wouldn’t even consider—brought the important endorsement of Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr. and a major swing of black votes against Nixon. Nixon, who had first invited King to the White House and had supported all of the civil rights and anti-lynching bills in the Senate—which LBJ killed—and enjoyed the endorsement of baseball legend Jackie Robinson, would hemorrhage blacks votes in the final days of the 1960 campaign. Yet JFK would drag his feet on civil rights. He would appoint a record number of segregationist federal judges, with Bobby Kennedy brokering the appointments with the Southern titans in the Senate. The open-housing and voting rights acts promised by JFK were late coming and stalled in the Congress when he was killed.