Warren Commission Got It Wrong

Committee says Warren Commission got it wrong in JFK assassination

http://www.thereporteronline.com/articles/2011/11/22/opinion/doc4ecad980ea628135711161.txt

By Dennis Bartholomew

As the anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy approaches, the debates will resume about "whether the Warren Commission got it right." But what most people do not realize is the United States Congress already decided, many years ago, that the Warren Commission did not get it right.

In the late 1970's, the Congress formed the House Select Committee on Associations (HSCA) to investigate the assassinations of President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King. The HSCA had access to much more information than was available to the Warren Commissions and spent two years researching and reviewing the relevant issues. Its final conclusion regarding President Kennedy was that the President's assassination was "probably assassinated as the result of a conspiracy."

In effect, the HSCA determined that the Warren Commission's finding that Lee Harvey Oswald "acted alone" was incorrect. But equally important was the HSCA's explanation of why the Warren Commission was incorrect. The HSCA emphatically stated that the CIA and the FBI had not provided complete and accurate information to the Warren Commission. The HSCA summarized the CIA's performance by stating that "the Central Intelligence Agency was deficient in its collection and sharing of information both prior to and subsequent to the assassination." With respect to the FBI, the HSCA stated that it "failed to conduct an adequate investigation into the possibility of a conspiracy in key areas, and it was deficient in its sharing of information with the Warren Commission."

To be fair to the Warren Commission, its conclusion recognized its dependency on the investigative agencies, as the final report stated "[o]n the basis of the evidence before the Commission, it concludes that Oswald acted alone."

Another issue of great importance in the HSCA report was its discussion of Oswald's association in New Orleans with the right-wing anti-communist community. Oswald was found to have had well-substantiated contacts with Guy Banister, an ex-FBI agent, and David Ferrie, both of whom were extreme right-wingers who worked with the anti-Castro Cubans in their effort to overthrow the Castro regime. The HSCA expressed puzzlement about why Oswald, the alleged disaffected Marxist who defected to the Soviet Union, would be associating with the anti-Castro community. In all likelihood, the HSCA was aware of an obvious explanation for Oswald's confusing behavior, but, as a committee of the House of Representative, it could not state everything it knew for political reasons.

The obvious explanation is that Oswald was not a disaffected Marxist, but was really an intelligence operative working in that role in New Orleans. In the late 1950's and early 1960's, several U.S. citizens defected to the Soviet Union, then changed their minds and returned home. These individuals are now believed by many to have been part of a false defector project that was intended to get CIA operatives into the Soviet Union.

Assassination researchers have long noted the ease in which Oswald received an early dismissal from the Marines, the lack of an explanation or how he was able to find his way into the Soviet Union, and the ease in which he was able to return to the U.S. Clearly, Oswald has assistance from some organization in getting into and out of the Soviet Union. His activities in New Orleans were undoubtedly part of another intelligence operation. Then, in the fall of 1963, Oswald abruptly left New Orleans and made a strange visit to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. After leaving Mexico City, he did not return to New Orleans, but instead went to Dallas, where he became involved with the Kennedy assassination. It is still not clear whether he was a willing participant or merely a patsy, as he claimed.

All of the above information is well-know to assassination researchers. It can easily be found by reading the HSCA reports or by reading any of a number of books on the assassination. So why do many government officials and members of the news media continue to focus on the Warren Commission, ignoring the more recent HSCA findings? Is it because people are reluctant to admit that one of our intelligence operatives somehow got mixed up in the assassination of President Kennedy?

Anyone who performs a through and unbiased review of the available information, will clearly see Oswald's involvement with what appear to be various covert operations. Isn't it time for the intelligence community and the media to admit the Kennedy assassination was not the work of one "lone nut"?

The Doomsday Project and Deep Events

The Doomsday Project and Deep Events: JFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11
Peter Dale Scott
Dallas COPA November 2011

For links that work please visit:
http://japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3650

I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency [the National Security Agency] and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."
-- Senator Frank Church (1975)

I would like to discuss four major and badly understood events – the John F. Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11. I will analyze these deep events as part of a deeper political process linking them, a process that has helped build up repressive power in America at the expense of democracy.

In recent years I have been talking about a dark force behind these events -- a force which, for want of a better term, I have clumsily called a “deep state,” operating both within and outside the public state. Today for the first time I want to identify part of that dark force, a part which has operated for five decades or more at the edge of the public state. This part of the dark force has a name not invented by me: the Doomsday Project, the Pentagon’s name for the emergency planning “to keep the White House and Pentagon running during and after a nuclear war or some other major crisis.”1

My point is a simple and important one: to show that the Doomsday Project of the 1980s, and the earlier emergency planning that developed into it, have played a role in the background of all the deep events I shall discuss.

More significantly, it has been a factor behind all three of the disturbing events that now threaten American democracy. The first of these three is what has been called the conversion of our economy into a plutonomy – with the increasing separation of America into two classes, into the haves and the have-nots, the one percent and the 99 percent. The second is America’s increasing militarization, and above all its inclination, which has become more and more routine and predictable, to wage or provoke wars in remote regions of the globe. It is clear that the operations of this American war machine have served the one percent.2

The third – my subject today -- is the important and increasingly deleterious impact on American history of structural deep events: mysterious events, like the JFK assassination, the Watergate break-in, or 9/11, which violate the American social structure, have a major impact on American society, repeatedly involve law-breaking or violence, and in many cases proceed from an unknown dark force.

There are any number of analyses of America’s current breakdown in terms of income and wealth disparity, also in terms of America’s increasing militarization and belligerency. What I shall do today is I think new: to argue that both the income disparity – or what has been called our plutonomy -- and the belligerency have been fostered significantly by deep events.

We must understand that the income disparity of America’s current economy was not the result of market forces working independently of political intervention. In large part it was generated by a systematic and deliberate ongoing political process dating from the anxieties of the very wealthy in the 1960s and 1970s that control of the country was slipping away from them.

This was the time when future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, in a 1971 memorandum, warned that survival of the free enterprise system depended on “careful long-range planning and implementation” of a well-financed response to threats from the left.3 This warning was answered by a sustained right-wing offensive, coordinated by think tanks and funded lavishly by a small group of family foundations.4 We should recall that all this was in response to serious riots in Newark, Detroit, and elsewhere, and that increasing calls for a revolution were coming from the left (in Europe as well as America). I will focus today on the right’s response to that challenge, and on the role of deep events in enhancing their response.

What was important about the Powell memorandum was less the document itself than the fact that it was commissioned by the United States Chamber of Commerce, one of the most influential and least discussed lobbying groups in America. And the memorandum was only one of many signs of that developing class war in the 1970s, a larger process working both inside and outside government (including what Irving Kristol called an “intellectual counterrevolution”), which led directly to the so-called “Reagan Revolution.”5

It is clear that this larger process has been carried on for almost five decades, pumping billions of right-wing dollars into the American political process. What I wish to show today is that deep events have also been integral to this right-wing effort, from the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963 to 9/11. 9/11 resulted in the implementation of “Continuity of Government” (COG) plans (which in the Oliver North Iran Contra Hearings of 1987 were called plans for “the suspension of the U.S. constitution”). These COG plans, building on earlier COG planning, had been carefully developed since 1982 in the so-called Doomsday Project, by a secret group appointed by Reagan. The group was composed of both public and private figures, including Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

I shall try to show today that in this respect 9/11 was only the culmination of a sequence of deep events reaching back to the Kennedy assassination if not earlier, and that the germs of the Doomsday Project can be detected behind all of them.

More specifically, I shall try to demonstrate about these deep events that

1) prior bureaucratic misbehavior by the CIA and similar agencies helped to make both the Kennedy assassination and 9/11 happen;
2) the consequences of each deep event included an increase in top-down repressive power for these same agencies, at the expense of persuasive democratic power;6
3) there are symptomatic overlaps in personnel between the perpetrators of each of these deep events and the next;
4) one sees in each event the involvement of elements of the international drug traffic – suggesting that our current plutonomy is also to some degree a narconomy;
5) in the background of each event (and playing an increasingly important role) one sees the Doomsday Project -- the alternative emergency planning structure with its own communications network, operating as a shadow network outside of regular government channels.

Bureaucratic Misbehavior as a Factor Contributing to both the JFK Assassination and 9/11

Both the JFK assassination and 9/11 were facilitated by the way the CIA and FBI manipulated their files about alleged perpetrators of each event (Lee Harvey Oswald in the case of what I shall call JFK, and the alleged hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi in the case of 9/11). Part of this facilitation was the decision on October 9, 1963 of an FBI agent, Marvin Gheesling, to remove Oswald from the FBI watch list for surveillance. This was shortly after Oswald’s arrest in New Orleans in August and his reported travel to Mexico in September. Obviously these developments should normally have made Oswald a candidate for increased surveillance.7

This misbehavior is paradigmatic of the behavior of other agencies, especially the CIA, in both JFK and 9/11. Indeed Gheesling’s behavior fits very neatly with the CIA’s culpable withholding from the FBI, in the same month of October, information that Oswald had allegedly met in Mexico City with a suspected KGB agent, Valeriy Kostikov.8 This also helped ensure that Oswald would not be placed under surveillance. Indeed, former FBI Director Clarence Kelley in his memoir later complained that the CIA’s withholding of information was the major reason why Oswald was not put under surveillance on November 22, 1963.9

A more ominous provocation in 1963 was that of Army Intelligence, one unit of which in Dallas did not simply withhold information about Lee Harvey Oswald, but manufactured false intelligence that seemed designed to provoke retaliation against Cuba. I call such provocations phase-one stories, efforts to portray Oswald as a Communist conspirator (as opposed to the later phase-two stories, also false, portraying him as a disgruntled loner). A conspicuous example of such phase-one stories is a cable from the Fourth Army Command in Texas, reporting a tip from a Dallas policeman who was also in an Army Intelligence Reserve unit:

Assistant Chief Don Stringfellow, Intelligence Section, Dallas Police Department, notified 112th INTC [Intelligence] Group, this Headquarters, that information obtained from Oswald revealed he had defected to Cuba in 1959 and is a card-carrying member of Communist Party.”10

This cable was sent on November 22 directly to the U.S. Strike Command at Fort MacDill in Florida, the base poised for a possible retaliatory attack against Cuba.11
The cable was not an isolated aberration. It was supported by other false phase-one stories from Dallas about Oswald’s alleged rifle, and specifically by concatenated false translations of Marina Oswald’s testimony, to suggest that Oswald’s rifle in Dallas was one he had owned in Russia.12

These last false reports, apparently unrelated, can also be traced to officer Don Stringfellow’s 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit.13 The interpreter who first supplied the false translation of Marina’s words, Ilya Mamantov, was selected by a Dallas oilman, Jack Crichton, and Deputy Dallas Police Chief George Lumpkin.14

Crichton and Lumpkin were also the Chief and the Deputy Chief of the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit.15 Crichton was also an extreme right-winger in the community of Dallas oilmen: he was a trustee of the H.L. Hunt Foundation, and a member of the American Friends of the Katanga Freedom Fighters, a group organized to oppose Kennedy’s policies in the Congo.

We have to keep in mind that some of the Joint Chiefs were furious that the 1962 Missile Crisis had not led to an invasion of Cuba, and that, under new JCS Chairman Maxwell Taylor, the Joint Chiefs, in May 1963, still believed “that US military intervention in Cuba is necessary.”16 This was six months after Kennedy, to resolve the Missile Crisis in October 1962, had given explicit (albeit highly qualified) assurances to Khrushchev, that the United States would not invade Cuba.17 This did not stop the J-5 of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the JCS Directorate of Plans and Policy) from producing a menu of “fabricated provocations to justify military intervention.”18 (One proposed example of “fabricated provocations” envisioned “using MIG type aircraft flown by US pilots to … attack surface shipping or to attack US military.”)19

The deceptions about Oswald coming from Dallas were immediately post-assassination; thus they do not by themselves establish that the assassination itself was a provocation-deception plot. They do however reveal enough about the anti-Castro mindset of the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit in Dallas to confirm that it was remarkably similar to that of the J-5 the preceding May – the mindset that produced a menu of “fabricated provocations” to attack Cuba. (According to Crichton there were “about a hundred men in [the 488th Reserve unit] and about forty or fifty of them were from the Dallas Police Department.”)20

It can hardly be accidental that we see this bureaucratic misbehavior from the FBI, CIA, and military, the three agencies with which Kennedy had had serious disagreements in his truncated presidency.21 Later in this paper I shall link Dallas oilman Jack Crichton to the 1963 emergency planning that became the Doomsday Project.

Analogous Bureaucratic Misbehavior in the Case of 9/11

Before 9/11 the CIA, in 2000-2001, again flagrantly withheld crucial evidence from the FBI: evidence that, if shared, would have led the FBI to surveil two of the alleged hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaz al-Hazmi. This sustained withholding of evidence provoked an FBI agent to predict accurately in August, 2001, that “someday someone will die.”22 After 9/11 another FBI agent said of the CIA: “They [CIA] didn’t want the bureau meddling in their business—that’s why they didn’t tell the FBI.... And that’s why September 11 happened. That is why it happened. . . . They have blood on their hands. They have three thousand deaths on their hands”23 The CIA’s withholding of relevant evidence before 9/11 (which it was required by its own rules to supply) was matched in this case by the NSA.24

Without these withholdings, in other words, neither the Kennedy assassination nor 9/11 could have developed in the manner in which they did. As I wrote in American War Machine, it would appear that Oswald (and later al-Mihdhar) had at some prior point been selected as designated subjects for an operation. This would not initially have been for the commission of a crime against the American polity: on the contrary, steps were probably taken to prepare Oswald in connection with an operation against Cuba and al-Mihdhar [I suspect] for an operation against al-Qaeda. But as [exploitable] legends began to accumulate about both figures, it became possible for some witting people to subvert the sanctioned operation into a plan for murder that would later be covered up. At this point Oswald (and by analogy al-Mihdhar) was no longer just a designated subject but also now a designated culprit.25

Kevin Fenton, in his exhaustive book Disconnecting the Dots, has since reached the same conclusion with respect to 9/11: “that, by the summer of 2001, the purpose of withholding the information had become to allow the attacks to go forward.”26 He has also identified the person chiefly responsible for the misbehavior: CIA officer Richard Blee, Chief of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit. Blee, while Clinton was still president, had been one of a faction inside CIA pressing for a more belligerent CIA involvement in Afghanistan, in conjunction with the Afghan Northern Alliance.27 This then happened immediately after 9/11, and Blee himself was promoted, to become the new Chief of Station in Kabul.28

How CIA and NSA Withholding of Evidence in the Second Tonkin Gulf Incident, Contributed to War with North Vietnam

I will spare you the details of this withholding, which can be found in my American War Machine, pp. 200-02. But Tonkin Gulf is similar to the Kennedy assassination and 9/11, in that manipulation of evidence helped lead America – in this case very swiftly – into war.

Historians such as Fredrik Logevall have agreed with the assessment of former undersecretary of state George Ball that the US destroyer mission in the Tonkin Gulf, which resulted in the Tonkin Gulf incidents, “was primarily for provocation.”29 The planning for this provocative mission came from the J-5 of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the same unit that in 1963 had reported concerning Cuba that, “the engineering of a series of provocations to justify military intervention is feasible.”30

The NSA and CIA suppression of the truth on August 4 was in the context of an existing high-level (but controversial) determination to attack North Vietnam. In this respect the Tonkin Gulf incident is remarkably similar to the suppression of the truth by CIA and NSA leading up to 9/11, when there was again a high-level (but controversial) determination to go to war.

Increases in Repressive Power After Deep Events

All of the deep events discussed above have contributed to the cumulative increase of Washington’s repressive powers. It is clear for example that the Warren Commission used the JFK assassination to increase CIA surveillance of Americans. As I wrote in Deep Politics, this was the result of the Warren Commission’s controversial recommendations that the Secret Service’s domestic surveillance responsibilities be increased (WR 25-26). Somewhat illogically, the Warren Report concluded both that Oswald acted alone (WR 22), . . . and also that the Secret Service, FBI, CIA, should coordinate more closely the surveillance of organized groups (WR 463). In particular, it recommended that the Secret Service acquire a computerized data bank compatible with that already developed by the CIA.31

This pattern would repeat itself four years later with the assassination of Robert Kennedy. In the twenty-four hours between Bobby’s shooting and his death, Congress hurriedly passed a statute — drafted well in advance (like the Tonkin Gulf Resolution of 1964 and the Patriot Act of 2001) — that still further augmented the secret powers given to the Secret Service in the name of protecting presidential candidates.32

This was not a trivial or benign change: from this swiftly considered act, passed under Johnson, flowed some of the worst excesses of the Nixon presidency.33

The change also contributed to the chaos and violence at the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968. Army intelligence surveillance agents, seconded to the Secret Service, were present both inside and outside the convention hall. Some of them equipped the so-called “Legion of Justice thugs whom the Chicago Red Squad turned loose on local anti-war groups.”34

In this way the extra secret powers conferred after the RFK assassination contributed to the disastrous turmoil in Chicago that effectively destroyed the old Democratic Party representing the labor unions: The three Democratic presidents elected since then have all been significantly more conservative.

Turning to Watergate and Iran-Contra, both of these events were on one level setbacks to the repressive powers exercised by Richard Nixon and the Reagan White House, not expansions of them. On the surface level this is true: both events resulted in legislative reforms that would appear to contradict my thesis of expanding repression.

We need to distinguish here, however, between the two years of the Watergate crisis, and the initial Watergate break-in. The Watergate crisis saw a president forced into resignation by a number of forces, involving both liberals and conservatives. But the key figures in the initial Watergate break-in itself – Hunt, McCord, G. Gordon Liddy, and their Cuban allies -- were all far to the right of Nixon and Kissinger. And the end result of their machinations was not finalized until the so-called Halloween Massacre in 1975, when Kissinger was ousted as National Security Adviser and Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller was notified he would be dropped from the 1976 Republican ticket. This major shake-up was engineered by two other right-wingers: Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney in the Gerald Ford White House.35

That day in 1975 saw the permanent defeat of the so-called Rockefeller or liberal faction within the Republican Party. It was replaced by the conservative Goldwater-Casey faction that would soon capture the nomination and the presidency for Ronald Reagan.36 This little-noticed palace coup, along with other related intrigues in the mid-1970s, helped achieve the conversion of America from a welfare capitalist economy, with gradual reductions in income and wealth disparity, into a financialized plutonomy where these trends were reversed.37

Again in Iran-Contra we see a deeper accumulation of repressive power under the surface of liberal reforms. At the time not only the press but even academics like myself celebrated the termination of aid to the Nicaraguan Contras, and the victory there of the Contadora peace process. Not generally noticed at the time was the fact that, while Oliver North was removed from his role in the Doomsday Project, that project’s plans for surveillance, detention, and the militarization of the United States continued to grow after his departure.38

Also not noticed was the fact that the US Congress, while curtailing aid to one small drug-financed CIA proxy army, was simultaneously increasing US support to a much larger coalition of drug-financed proxy armies in Afghanistan.39 While Iran-Contra exposed the $32 million which Saudi Arabia, at the urging of CIA Director William Casey, had supplied to the Contras, not a word was whispered about the $500 million or more that the Saudis, again at the urging of Casey, had supplied in the same period to the Afghan mujahedin.40 In this sense the drama of Iran-Contra in Congress can be thought of as a misdirection play, directing public attention away from America’s much more intensive engagement in Afghanistan – a covert policy that has since evolved into America’s longest war.

We should expand our consciousness of Iran-Contra to think of it as Iran-Afghan-Contra. And if we do, we must acknowledge that in this complex and misunderstood deep event the CIA in Afghanistan exercised again the paramilitary capacity that Stansfield Turner had tried to terminate when he was CIA Director under Jimmy Carter. This was a victory in short for the faction of men like Richard Blee, the protector of al-Mihdhar as well as the advocate in 2000 for enhanced CIA paramilitary activity in Afghanistan.41

Personnel Overlaps Between the Successive Deep Events

I will never forget the New York Times front-page story on June 18, 1972, the day after the Watergate break-in. There were photographs of the Watergate burglars, including one of Frank Sturgis alias Fiorini, whom I had already written about two years earlier in my unpublished book manuscript, “The Dallas Conspiracy” about the JFK assassination.

Sturgis was no nonentity: a former contract employee of the CIA, he was also well connected to the mob-linked former casino owners in Havana.42 My early writings on the Kennedy case focused on the connections between Frank Sturgis and an anti-Castro Cuban training camp near New Orleans in which Oswald had shown an interest; also in Sturgis’ involvement in false “phase-one” stories portraying Oswald as part of a Communist Cuban conspiracy.43

In spreading these “phase-one” stories in 1963, Sturgis was joined by a number of Cubans who were part of the CIA-supported army in Central America of Manuel Artime. Artime’s base in Costa Rica was closed down in 1965, allegedly because of its involvement in drug trafficking.44 In the 1980s some of these Cuban exiles later became involved in drug-financed support activities for the Contras.45

The political mentor of Artime’s MRR movement was future Watergate plotter Howard Hunt; and Artime in 1972 would pay for the bail of the Cuban Watergate burglars. The drug money-launderer Ramón Milián Rodríguez has claimed to have delivered $200,000 in cash from Artime to pay off some of the Cuban Watergate burglars; later, in support of the Contras, he managed two Costa Rican seafood companies, Frigorificos and Ocean Hunter, that laundered drug money.46

It is alleged that Hunt and McCord had both been involved with Artime’s invasion plans in 1963.47 It was I believe no accident that the organization of Hunt’s protégé Artime became enmired in drug trafficking. Hunt, I have argued elsewhere, had been handling a U.S. drug connection since his 1950 post in Mexico City as OPC (Office of Policy Coordination) chief.48

But McCord not only had a past in the anti-Castro activities of 1963, he was also part of the nation’s emergency planning network that would later figure so prominently in the background of Iran-Contra and 9/11. McCord was a member of a small Air Force Reserve unit in Washington attached to the Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP); assigned “to draw up lists of radicals and to develop contingency plans for censorship of the news media and U.S. mail in time of war.”49 His unit was part of the Wartime Information Security Program (WISP), which had responsibility for activating “contingency plans for imposing censorship on the press, the mails and all telecommunications (including government communications) [and] preventive detention of civilian ‘security risks,’ who would be placed in military ‘camps.’”50 In other words, these were the plans that became known in the 1980s as the Doomsday Project, the Continuity of Government planning on which Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld worked together for twenty years before 9/11.


A Common Denominator for Structural Deep Events: Project Doomsday and COG

McCord’s participation in an emergency planning system dealing with telecommunications suggests a common denominator in the backgrounds of almost all the deep events we are considering. Oliver North, the Reagan-Bush OEP point man on Iran-Contra planning, was also involved in such planning; and he had access to the nation’s top secret Doomsday communications network. North’s network, known as Flashboard, "excluded other bureaucrats with opposing viewpoints…[and] had its own special worldwide antiterrorist computer network, … by which members could communicate exclusively with each other and their collaborators abroad."51

Flashboard was used by North and his superiors for extremely sensitive operations which had to be concealed from other dubious or hostile parts of the Washington bureaucracy. These operations included the illegal shipments of arms to Iran, but also other activities, some still not known, perhaps even against Olof Palme’s Sweden.52 Flashboard, America’s emergency network in the 1980s, was the name in 1984-86 of the full-fledged Continuity of Government (COG) emergency network which was secretly planned for twenty years, at a cost of billions, by a team including Cheney and Rumsfeld. On 9/11 the same network was activated anew by the two men who had planned it for so many years.53

But this Doomsday planning can be traced back to 1963, when Jack Crichton, head of the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit of Dallas, was part of it in his capacity as chief of intelligence for Dallas Civil Defense, which worked out of an underground Emergency Operating Center. As Russ Baker reports, “Because it was intended for ‘continuity of government’ operations during an attack, [the Center] was fully equipped with communications equipment.”54 A speech given at the dedication of the Center in 1961 supplies further details:

This Emergency Operating Center [in Dallas] is part of the National Plan to link Federal, State and local government agencies in a communications network from which rescue operations can be directed in time of local or National emergency. It is a vital part of the National, State, and local Operational Survival Plan.55

Crichton, in other words, was also part of what became known in the 1980s as the Doomsday Project, like James McCord, Oliver North, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney after him. But in 1988 its aim was significantly enlarged: no longer to prepare for an atomic attack, but now to plan for the effective suspension of the American constitution in the face of any emergency.56 This change in 1988 allowed COG to be implemented in 2001. By this time the Doomsday Project had developed into what the Washington Post called “a shadow government that evolved based on long-standing ‘continuity of operations plans.’”57

It is clear that the Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP, known from 1961-1968 as the Office of Emergency Planning) supplies a common denominator for key personnel in virtually all of the structural events discussed here. This is a long way from establishing that the OEP itself (in addition to the individuals discussed here) was involved in generating any of these events. But I believe that the alternative communications network housed first in the OEP (later part of Project 908) played a significant role in at least three of them: the JFK assassination, Iran-Contra, and 9/11.

This is easiest to show in the case of 9/11, where it is conceded that the Continuity of Government (COG) plans of the Doomsday Project were implemented by Cheney on 9/11, apparently before the last of the four hijacked planes had crashed.58 The 9/11 Commission could not locate records of the key decisions taken by Cheney on that day, suggesting that they may have taken place on the “secure phone “ in the tunnel leading to the presidential bunker – with such a high classification that the 9/11 Commission was never supplied the phone records.59 Presumably this was a COG phone.

It is not clear whether the “secure phone” in the White House tunnel belonged to the Secret Service or (as one might expect) was part of the secure network of the White House Communications Agency (WHCA). If the latter, we’d have a striking link between 9/11 and the JFK assassination. The WHCA boasts on its Web site that the agency was “a key player in documenting the assassination of President Kennedy.”60 However it is not clear for whom this documentation was conducted, for the WHCA logs and transcripts were in fact withheld from the Warren Commission.61


The Secret Service had installed a WHCA portable radio in the lead car of the presidential motorcade.62 This in turn was in contact by police radio with the pilot car ahead of it, carrying DPD Deputy Chief Lumpkin of the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit.63 Records of the WHCA communications from the motorcade never reached the Warren Commission, the House Committee on Assassinations, or the Assassination Records Review Board.64 Thus we cannot tell if they would explain some of the anomalies on the two channels of the Dallas Police Department. They might for example have thrown light upon the unsourced call on the Dallas Police tapes for a suspect who had exactly the false height and weight recorded for Oswald in his FBI and CIA files.65

Today in 2011 we are still living under the State of Emergency proclaimed after 9/11 by President Bush. At least some COG provisions are still in effect, and were even augmented by Bush through Presidential Directive 51 of May 2007. Commenting on PD-51, the Washington Post reported at that time.

After the 2001 attacks, Bush assigned about 100 senior civilian managers [including Cheney] to rotate secretly to [COG] locations outside of Washington for weeks or months at a time to ensure the nation’s survival, a shadow government that evolved based on long-standing “continuity of operations plans.”66

Presumably this “shadow government” finalized such long-standing COG projects as warrantless surveillance, in part through the Patriot Act, whose controversial provisions were already being implemented by Cheney and others well before the Bill reached Congress on October 12.67 Other COG projects implemented included the militarization of domestic surveillance under NORTHCOM, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Project Endgame—a ten-year plan to expand detention camps at a cost of $400 million in fiscal year 2007 alone.68

I have, therefore, a recommendation for the Occupy movement, rightfully incensed as it is with the plutonomic excesses of Wall Street over the last three decades. It is to call for an end to the state of emergency, which has been in force since 2001, under which since 2008 a U.S. Army Brigade Combat Team has been stationed permanently in the United States, in part to be ready “to help with civil unrest and crowd control.”69

Democracy-lovers must work to prevent the political crisis now developing in America from being resolved by military intervention.

Let me say in conclusion that for a half century American politics have been constrained and deformed by the unresolved matter of the Kennedy assassination. According to a memo of November 25 1963, from Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, it was important then to persuade the public that “Oswald was the assassin,” and that “he did not have confederates.”70 Obviously this priority became even more important after these questionable propositions were endorsed by the Warren Report, the U.S. establishment, and the mainstream press. It has remained an embarrassing priority ever since for all succeeding administrations, including the present one. There is for example an official in Obama’s State Department (Todd Leventhal), whose official job, until recently, included defense of the lone nut theory against so-called “conspiracy theorists”71

If Oswald was not a lone assassin, then it should not surprise us that there is continuity between those who falsified reports about Oswald in 1963, and those who distorted American politics in subsequent deep events beginning with Watergate. Since the deep event of 1963 the legitimacy of America’s political system has become vested in a lie -- a lie which subsequent deep events have helped to protect.72

Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Drugs Oil and War, The Road to 9/11, and The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War. His most recent book is American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection and the Road to Afghanistan. His website, which contains a wealth of his writings, is here http://www.peterdalescott.net/q.html

Recommended citation: Peter Dale Scott, 'The Doomsday Project and Deep Events: JFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11,' The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 47 No 2, November 21, 2011.

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• Peter Dale Scott, Norway’s Terror as Systemic Destabilization: Breivik, the Arms-for-Drugs Milieu, and Global Shadow Elites
• Tim Shorrock, Reading the Egyptian Revolution Through the Lens of US Policy in South Korea Circa 1980: Revelations in US Declassified Documents
• C. Douglas Lummis, The United States and Terror on the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11
• Peter Dale Scott, Rape in Libya: America’s recent major wars have all been accompanied by memorable falsehoods
• Peter Dale Scott, The Libyan War, American Power and the Decline of the Petrodollar System
• Peter Dale Scott, Who are the Libyan Freedom Fighters and Their Patrons?
• Herbert P. Bix, The Middle East Revolutions in Historical Perspective: Egypt, Occupied Palestine, and the United States

Notes
1 Tim Weiner, “The Pentagon’s Secret Stash,” Mother Jones Magazine Mar-Apr 1992, 26.
2 J.A. Myerson “War Is a Force That Pays the 1 Percent: Occupying American Foreign Policy,” Truthout, November 14, 2001, link. Cf. Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 6, etc.
3 Scott, Road to 9/11, 22, 29, 98.
4 Scott, Road to 9/11, 22, 97.
5 Scott, Road to 9/11, 21, 51-52; Kristol as quoted in Lewis H. Lapham, “Tentacles of Rage: The Republican Propaganda Mill, a Brief History,” Harper’s Magazine, September 2004, 36.
6 E.g. Peter Dale Scott, American War Machine, 204-05.
7 Peter Dale Scott, The War Conspiracy, 354.
8 Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics II, 30-33; Scott, The War Conspiracy, 387; Scott, American War Machine, 152.
9 Clarence M. Kelley, Kelley: The Story of an FBI Director (Kansas City, MO:
Andrews, McMeel, and Parker, 1987), 268, quoted in Scott, The War Conspiracy (2008), 389.
10 Scott, Deep Politics, 275; Scott, Deep Politics II, 80, 129n; HSCA Critics Conference of 17 September 1977, 181,link. Stringfellow worked under Jack Revill in the Vice Squad of the DPD Special Services Bureau. As such he reported regularly to the FBI on such close Jack Ruby associates as James Herbert Dolan, a “known hoodlum and strong-arm man” on the FBI’s Top Criminal list for Dallas (Robert M. Barrett, FBI Report of February 2, 1963, NARA#124-90038-10026, 12 [Stringfellow]; cf. NARA#124-10212-10012, 4 [hoodlum], NARA#124-10195-10305, 9 [Top Criminal]). Cf. 14 WH 601-02 Ruby and Dolan]. Robert Barrett, who received Stringfellow’s reports to the FBI, had Ruby’s friend Dolan under close surveillance; he also took part in Oswald’s arrest at the Texas Theater, and claimed to have seen DPD Officer Westbrook with Oswald’s wallet at the site of the Tippit killing [Dale K. Myers, With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J.D. Tippit (Milford, MI: Oak Cliff Press, 1998), 287-90]).
11 It was sent for information to Washington, which received it three days later (Scott, Deep Politics, 275; Scott, Deep Politics II, 80, 129n; Scott, War Conspiracy, 382).
12 Warren Commission Exhibit 1778, 23 WH 383. (Marina’s actual words, before mistranslation, were quite innocuous: “I cannot describe it [the gun] because a rifle to me like all rifles” (Warren Commission Exhibit 1778, 23 WH 383; discussion in Scott, Deep Politics, 168-72).
13 Stringfellow himself was the source of one other piece of false intelligence on November 22: that Oswald had confessed to the murders of both the president and Officer Tippit (Dallas FBI File DL 89-43-2381C; Paul L. Hoch, “The Final Investigation? The HSCA and Army Intelligence,” The Third Decade, 1, 5 [July 1985], 3),
14 9 WH 106; Scott, Deep Politics, 275-76; Russ Baker, Family of Secrets, 119-22.
15 Rodney P. Carlisle and Dominic J. Monetta, Brandy: Our Man in Acapulco (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 1999), 128.
16 Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Courses of Action Related to Cuba (Case II),” Report of the J-5 to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1 May 1963, NARA #202-10002-10018, 12. Cf. pp. 15-16: “The United States should intervene militarily in Cuba and could (a) engineer provocative incidents ostensibly perpetrated by the Castro regime to serve as the cause of invasion…”
17 Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 568; James A. Nathan, The Cuban missile crisis revisited, 283; Waldron and Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, 9.
[18 Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Courses of Action Related to Cuba (Case II),” Report of the J-5 to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1 May 1963, NARA #202-10002-10018, 12.
19 “Courses of Action Related to Cuba (Case II),” NARA #202-10002-10018, 20. I see nothing in this document indicating that the President should be notified that these “fabricated provocations” were false. On the contrary, the document called for “compartmentation of participants” to insure that the true facts were not leaked (“Courses of Action Related to Cuba (Case II),” NARA #202-10002-10018, 19).
20 Quoted in Baker, Family of Secrets, 122. One of these, DPD Detective John Adamcik, was a member of the party which retrieved a blanket said to have contained Oswald’s rifle; and which the Warren Commission used to link Oswald to the famous Mannlicher Carcano. Adamcik was later present at Mamantov’s interview of Marina about the rifle, and corroborated Mamantov’s account of it to the Warren Commission. There is reason to believe that Mamantov’s translation of Marina’s testimony was inaccurate (Scott, Deep Politics, 268-70, 276).
21 See James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008).
22 9/11 Commission Report, 259, 271; Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower:
Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Knopf, 2006), 352–54 (FBI agent).
23 James Bamford, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies (New York: Doubleday, 2004, 224. For a fuller account of the CIA’s withholding before 9/11, see Kevin Fenton, Disconnecting the Dots; Rory O’Connor and Ray Nowosielski, “Insiders Voice Doubts about CIA’s 9/11 Story,” Salon, October 14, 2011,link.
24 Fenton, Disconnecting the Dots, 7-12, 142-47, etc.
25 Scott, American War Machine, 203.
26 Fenton, Disconnecting the Dots, 371, cf. 95. Quite independently, Richard Clarke, the former White House Counterterrorism Chief on 9/11, has charged that "There was a high-level decision in the CIA ordering people not to share information" (Rory O’Connor and Ray Nowosielski, “Insiders Voice Doubts about CIA’s 9/11 Story,” Salon, October 14, 2011).
27 Coll, 467-69.
28 Fenton, Disconnecting the Dots, 107-08.
29 James Bamford, Body of Secrets, 201. Cf. Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 200, citing John Prados, The Hidden History of the Vietnam War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995), 51.
30 “Courses of Action Related to Cuba (Case II),” Report of the J-5 to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, May 1, 1963, JCS 2304/189, NARA #202-10002-10018, link.
31 Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, 280.
32 Public Law 90-331 (18 U.S.C. 3056); discussion in Peter Dale Scott, Paul L.
Hoch, and Russell Stetler, The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond (New York: Random
House, 1976), 443–46.
33 Army intelligence agents were seconded to the Secret Service, and at this time there was a great increase in their number. The Washington Star later explained that “the big build-up in [Army] information gathering…did not come until after the shooting of the Rev. Martin Luther King” (Washington Star, December 6, 1970; reprinted in Federal Data Banks Hearings, p. 1728).
34 George O’Toole, The Private Sector (New York: Norton, 1978), 145, quoted in
Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, 278–79.
35 Scott, Road to 9/11, 52-53.
36 Scott, Road to 9/11, 53-54.
37 Scott, Road to 9/11, 50-64.
38 Peter Dale Scott, “Northwards without North,” Social Justice (Summer 1989). Revised as "North, Iran-Contra, and the Doomsday Project: The Original Congressional Cover Up of Continuity-of-Government Planning," Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, February 21, 2011.
39 Scott, Road to 9/11, 132.
40 Jonathan Marshall, Peter Dale Scott, and Jane Hunter, The Iran-Contra Connection, 13 (Contras); Richard Coll, Ghost Wars, 93-102 (mujahedin).
41 Richard Coll, Ghost Wars, 457-59, 534-36,
42 According to testimony from CIA Deputy Director Vernon Walters, only “Hunt and McCord had ever been CIA full-time employees. The others [including Sturgis] were contract employees for a short duration or a longer duration” (Watergate Hearings, 3427). Cf. Marshall, Scott, and Hunter, The Iran-Contra Connection, 45 (casino owners).
43 Peter Dale Scott, “From Dallas to Watergate,” Ramparts, December 1973; reprinted in Peter Dale Scott, Paul L. Hoch, and Russell Stetler, The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond, 356, 363.
44 Peter Dale Scott, Crime and Cover-Up, 20.
45 Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics, 25-32, etc.
46 Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs, and the Press (London: Verso, 1998), 308-09; Martha Honey, Hostile Acts: U.S. Policy in Costa Rica in the 1980s (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1994), 368 (Frigorificos).
47 Tad Szulc, Compulsive Spy: The Strange Career of E. Howard Hunt (New York: Viking, 1974), 96-97.
48 Scott, American War Machine, 51-54. Hunt helped put together what became the drug-linked World Anti-Communist League. Artime’s Costa Rica base was on land whose owners were part of the local WACL chapter (Scott and Marshall,Cocaine Politics, 87, 220).
49 Woodward and Bernstein, All the President’s Men (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974), 23
50 Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda (New York: Random House, 1984), 16, citing Department of Defense Directive 5230.7, June 25, 1965, amended May 21, 1971.
51 Peter Dale Scott, "North, Iran-Contra, and the Doomsday Project: The Original Congressional Cover Up of Continuity-of-Government Planning," Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, February 21, 2011. Cf. Peter Dale Scott, "Northwards Without North: Bush, Counterterrorism, and the Continuation of Secret Power." Social Justice (San Francisco), XVI, 2 (Summer 1989), 1-30; Peter Dale Scott, "The Terrorism Task Force." Covert Action Information Bulletin, 33 (Winter 1990), 12-15.
52 Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 140-41, 242 (Iran, etc.); Ola Tunander, The secret war against Sweden: US and British submarine deception in the 1980s, 309 (Sweden).
53 Scott, Road to 9/11, 183-87.
54 Russ Baker, Family of Secrets, 121.
55 “Statement by Col. John W. Mayo, Chairman of City-County Civil Defense and Disaster Commission at the Dedication of the Emergency Operating Center at Fair Park,” May 24, 1961, link.
Six linear inches of Civil Defense Administrative Files are preserved in the Dallas Municipal Archives; a Finding Guide is viewable online here. I hope an interested researcher may wish to consult them.
56 Scott, Road to 9/11, 183-87.
57 Washington Post, May 10, 2007.
58 9/11 Report, 38, 326, 555n9; Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America, 224.
59 Scott, Road to 9/11, 226-30. A footnote in the 9/11 Report (555n9) says:
“The 9/11 crisis tested the U.S. government’s plans and capabilities to ensure the continuity of constitutional government and the continuity of government operations. We did not investigate this topic, except as needed to understand the activities and communications of key officials on 9/11. The Chair, Vice Chair, and senior staff were briefed on the general nature and implementation of these continuity plans.”
The other footnotes confirm that no information from COG files was used to document the 9/11 report. At a minimum these files might resolve the mystery of the missing phone call which simultaneously authorized COG, and (in consequence) determined that Bush should continue to stay out of Washington. I suspect that they might tell us a great deal more.
60 “White House Communications Agency,” Signal Corps Regimental History, link.
61 The Warren Commission staff knew of the WHCA presence in Dallas from the Secret Service (17 WH 598, 619, 630, etc.).
62 Statement of Secret Service official Winston Lawson, 17 WH 630 (WHCA radio).
63 Pamela McElwain-Brown, “The Presidential Lincoln Continental SS-100-X,” Dealey Plaza Echo, Volume 3, Issue 2, 23,link (police radio); Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, 272-75 (Lumpkin).
64 In the 1990s the WHCA supplied statements to the ARRB concerning communications between Dallas and Washington on November 22 (NARA #172-10001-10002 to NARA #172-10000-10008). The Assassination Records Review Board also attempted to obtain from the WHCA the unedited original tapes of conversations from Air Force One on the return trip from Dallas, November 22, 1963. (Edited and condensed versions of these tapes had been available since the 1970s from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas.) The attempt was unsuccessful: “The Review Board’s repeated written and oral inquiries of the White House Communications Agency did not bear fruit. The WHCA could not produce any records that illuminated the provenance of the edited tapes.” See Assassinations Records Review Board: Final Report, chapter 6, Part 1, 116, link. In November 2011 AP reported that Gen. Chester Clifton’s personal copy of the Air Force One recordings was being put up for sale, with an asking price of $500,000 (AP, November 15, 2011, link).
65 See Scott, War Conspiracy (2008), 347-48, 385-87.
66 Washington Post, May 10, 2007.
67 Dick Cheney, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir (New York: Threshold Editions, 2011), 348: “One of the first efforts we undertook after 9/11 to strengthen the country's defenses was securing passage of the Patriot Act, which the president signed into law on [sic] October 2001.” Cf. “The Patriot Act, which the president signed into law on October 2001,″ link; “Questions and Answers about Beginning of Domestic Spying Program; link.
68 Scott, Road to 9/11, 236-45; Peter Dale Scott, "Is the State of Emergency Superseding our Constitution? Continuity of Government Planning, War and American Society," November 28, 2010, http:/1/japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3448.
69 “Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1,” Army Times, September 30, 2008, link. As part of the Army’s emergency plan GARDEN PLOT in the 1960s, there were until 1971 two brigades (4,800 troops) on permanent standby to quell unrest.
70 “Memorandum for Mr. Moyers” of November 25, 1963, FBI 62-109060, Section 18, p. 29, link. Cf. Nicholas Katzenbach, Some of It Was Fun (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008), 131-36.
71 Leventhal’s official title is (or was) “Chief of the Counter-Misinformation Team, U.S. Department of State” (link). In 2010 the U.S. State Department “launched an official bid to shoot down conspiracy theories….The "Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation" page… insists that Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F Kennedy alone, and that the Pentagon was not hit by a cruise missile on 9/11” Daily Record [Scotland], August 2, 2010, (link). The site still exists here, (“Conspiracy theories exist in the realm of myth, where imaginations run wild, fears trump facts, and evidence is ignored.”) The site still attacks 9/11 theories, but a page on the Kennedy assassination has been suspended (link). Cf. Robin Ramsay, “Government vs Conspiracy Theorists: The official war on "sick think,” Fortean Times, April 2010, link; “The State Department vs 'Sick Think'
The JFK assassination, 9/11, and the Tory MP spiked with LSD,” Fortean Times, July 2010, link; William Kelly, “Todd Leventhal: The Minister of Diz at Dealey Plaza,” CTKA, 2010, link.
72 For Nixon’s sensitivity concerning the Kennedy assassination, and the way this induced him into some of the intrigues known collectively as Watergate, see e.g. Scott, Hoch, and Stetler, The Assassinations, 374-78; Peter Dale Scott, Crime and Cover-up (Santa Barbara, CA: Open Archive Press, 1993), 33, 64-66.

JFK, ONI & Captain Kirk

Captain Alan Kirk - US Naval Attache - US Embassy, London - Later Director ONI

Kirk was later appointed US Ambassador to the Soviet Union and worked in psychological operations, organizing the staff of Radio Liberty and AMCOMLIB - the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism.

JFK, ONI and Captain Alan Kirk

According to the Raab Collection abstract related to the sale of the Air Force One Radio Transmission tape, JFK enlisted in the Navy with the help of Captain Alan Kirk, the Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence and a friend of JFK's father.

From his official record, Alan Kirk was indeed a Naval attache stationed at the US Embassy in England when JFK's father was the US Ambassador to the Court of St. James.

JFK was himself attached to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) until his escapades with a European beauty queen and North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA) correspondent caught the attention of J. Edgar Hover. Since JFK's girlfriend had previously known Hitler from the Berlin Olympics, Hover suspected she was a spy, and reportedly tape recorded their interactions during a weekend at Charleston, South Carolina, after which JFK left ONI and assumed the command of PT-109 in the Pacific.

Alan Kirk also went on to become an important Naval officer during the war, commanding all US navy actions in the English Channel during he D-Day invasion of France.

Here's what the Raab report has to say, and the official background on Captain Kirk.

http://www.raabcollection.com/art-of-collecting/the-young-kennedy/

...seeing (as most did not) that the war was inevitably coming to America too, he determined to join the U.S. Navy. Since he had a bad back and was really a candidate for 4F status, Kennedy only managed to enlist with the active help of Captain Alan Kirk, the Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence, a friend of his father, Joseph Kennedy. In October 1941, Kennedy was appointed an Ensign and joined the staff of the Office of Naval Intelligence. By the start of 1943, he was in the combat zone and was given command of a torpedo boat named PT-109…..

Alan Goodrich Kirk (born October 30, 1888, Philadelphia,Pennsylvania; died October 15, 1963, Washington, D.C.) was anadmiral in the United States Navy and an American diplomat.

Biography

He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1909 and served in the United States Navy during World War I and World War II. During his wartime naval service, Alan Kirk became the U.S. naval attaché in London (1939 to 1941). He was Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence from March 1941 but, obstructed and opposed by Rear Admiral Richmond Turner, he was unable to develop the office into an effective centre along the lines of the British Royal Naval Operational Intelligence Centre (which he had seen whilst in London). Eventually, he requested a transfer to an Atlantic destroyer squadron.

Kirk served as an amphibious commander in the Mediterranean in 1942 and 1943 (the Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy). In addition, he was the senior U.S. naval commander during the Normandy landings of June 6, 1944 embarked on the heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31), and as Commander U.S. Naval Forces, France during 1944 and 1945. He retired from the Navy as a full admiral in 1946.

After retirement from the United States Navy, Kirk embarked on a diplomatic career, and subsequently served in several United States embassies abroad, beginning with the combined posting of U.S. Ambassador to Belgium/U.S. Envoy to Luxembourg (resident in Brussels, Belgium), 1946–49; as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, July 4, 1949 to October 6, 1951; and finally as United States Ambassador to Taiwan, June 7, 1962 to January 16, 1963.

Admiral Alan G. Kirk took his post as the second president of Amcomlib, in February 1952. As a former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, he oversaw the recruitment of emigres in New York and Munich, a group that would later form the core of Radio Liberty's staff. Less than a year after taking office, Kirk was forced to resign due to poor health. Also in 1952, he served briefly as Director of the Psychological Strategy Board, which planned for and coordinated government psychological operations.[2]

Gannon, Michael (1991). Operation Drumbeat. New York: Harper Collins. pp. 160–161. ISBN 0-06-092088-2.
"Staff Member and Office Files: Psychological Strategy Board Files". Harry S. Truman Presidential Library.
Kohnen, David, “Alan Goodrich Kirk: U.S. Navy Admiral of Intelligence and Diplomacy” in John Hattendorf and Bruce Elleman, eds., Nineteen Gun Salute: Profiles in U.S. Navy Leadership in Wartime Operations (Newport, Rhode Island: Naval War College Press, 2010), 75-92.

Media related to Alan Goodrich Kirk at Wikimedia Commons


Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio ... By Arch Puddington

http://books.google.com/books?id=bElE1TT5xFgC&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155&dq=Amcomlib&source=bl&ots=asoSBBVNHN&sig=gidTJbpEE4G8tOBiji__wi4OMak&hl=en&ei=ambITraLDoT10gHrv4j5Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Amcomlib&f=false


The American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism began operations in 1950 and was officially incorporated in January 1951. Amcomlib did not begin operations with the fanfare and high visiblity that had marked the launching of the Radio Free Europe Committee. There were no public campaigns or crusades on Amcomlib's behalf. It did not send leading exiles on public speaking tours, nor did its board of directors consist of a blue-ribbon roster of eminent leaders from business, labor, the military, the press, and the entertainment world. Amcomlib's funds were provided exclusively by the American government through the budget of the Central Intelligence Agency. To question the source of the revenue, Amcomlib officials would say that the money was donated by wealthy individuals who were interested in the organization's mission. No names were mentioned, and reporters did not press the matter further.

The man responsible for assembling Amcomlib's board of directors was Franklin A. Lindsay, an aide to Frank Wisner at the Office of Policy Coordination. Whereas board members for the Free Europe Committee were selected for their wealth, public visibility, and influence in Washington, the principal criterion for membership on Amcomlib's board was familiarity with conditions in the Soviet Union.

The first chairman was Eugene Lyons, a Reader's Digest editor and former correspondent in Moscow who, having become disillusioned with the Soviet system, had written The Red Decade, a classic study of Communist influence in American culture....


Also on the board: William H. Chamberlain, William Y. Elliott (Harvard), William L. White (publisher of the Emporia Gazette in Kansas), Allen Grover (asst. to Henry Luce at Time)...

In announcing its formation, Amcomlib was blunt about its purpose: to provide assistance to anti-Communist exiles who were working for the overthrow of the Soviet regime...

Williams was soon replaced by Isaac Don Levine,...

Thomas Braden and Cord Meyer were the CIA officials responsible for the freedom radios.

The man responsible for assembling Amcomlib's board of directord, Franklin A. Lindsay, an aide to Frank Wisner at the Office of Policy Corrdination.

Howland H. Sargeant was the fourth Amcomlib chief, succeeded by Adm. Leslie C. Stevens

Also see:

Sparks of Liberty: An Insider's Memoir of Radio Liberty By Gene Sosin

http://books.google.com/books?id=d3u9Y3zuP5EC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=Amcomlib&source=bl&ots=sKV1VsRBwD&sig=_TctSLrif4EPL3sOsZYLGy91gFY&hl=en&ei=ambITraLDoT10gHrv4j5Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFYQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=Amcomlib&f=false



.

Air Force One Radio Call Signs/Code Key

Radio Call Sign Code Identification Keys
(In the order of their use on the AF One Radio Tapes)

Zulu – Greenwich Mean Time – (Military 24 hour time)
AP - Associated Press (aka “the ticker”)
ETA – Estimated Time of Arrival.
On the block – Time of plane arrival at destination.

SAM 26000 - Two Six Thousand - The Presidential aircraft, when the President is not aboard.

Air Force One – AF1 - The Presidential aircraft, when the President is aboard.
Capt. James Swindal, pilot (AKA Tiger)
Master Sgt. John C Trimble and Joseph Ayres, radio operators.

SAM 86972 – (AKA 972) The State Department aircraft carrying the Press Secretary Salinger (Wayside), Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Agriculture Orville Freeman and other Cabinet members and Administration officials. When the assassination occurred, this aircraft was enroute from Hawaii to Japan; subsequent to the assassination, the aircraft returned to Hawaii to refuel, and then flew directly from Hickam AFB in Hawaii to Andrews AFB near Washington DC.

Andrews - Andrews Air Force Base (Md/DC). Airman Gilmore answers for Andrews AFB throughout the tape and appears to be the central player attempting to facilitate all patches.

Tanker - Major Michael Cook - Also at Andrews
Air Force Command Post – Sgt. Phillips. Major Benson
SAM Command Post - Special Air Mission, SAC Offut AFB, Omaha, Nebraska Col. Hornbuckle.
National Military Command Post – Pentagon, Washington DC
Crown – White House (aka Front Office)
Situation Room (Basement at Crown) – Oliver Hallett, USN/NSA McGeorge Bundy
Carswell – Carswell Air Force Base, Fort Worth, Texas.
Dallas – (Love Field, Dallas, Texas)
Hic Cup – Hickam Field, Hawaii.
CINCPAC – Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command HQ.
Tokyo – Destination of Cabinet Plane (86972)
Valley – The Elms, LBJ DC Residence.
Liberty – Sideband Radio Relay Station – Collins Radio, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Wayside – Pierre Salinger, aboard 86970
Dagger – Rufus Youngblood, USSS
Digest – Roy Kellerman, USSS (Aboard AF1)
Duplex – Jerry Behn
Wing - Gen. McHugh. President's personal physician.
Watchman – Gen. Chester Clifton (Aboard AF1)
Slugger – Capt. Cecil Stoughton
Stranger – Major H. R. Patterson (White House Communications Agency WHCA)
Tanker – Air Force Major Michael Cook (Andrews)
Tiger – Col. Swindal, pilot, AF1.
Warrior – Malcolm Kilduff
Winner – Andrew Hatcher. Aka Andy. At Crown.
Witness – Capt. Tazewell Shepard (USN)
Volunteer – LBJ
Victoria – Lady Bird
Lancer - JFK
Charcoal - Present location of the President
Castle - Presiden't Naval Aid Taz Shephard
Lace – Mrs. Jackie Kennedy
Race - Unidentified
Tillerman - Unidentified
Sing Sing – Unidentified
Dean Rusk – Secretary of State (aboard 86972)
George Ball – Undersecretry of State
McGeorge Bundy – National Security Advisor to the President
Bromley Smith – Executive Secretary, National Security Council
Murray Jackson – State Department
Malcolm Kilduff – Assistant Press Secretary
Dr. John Walsh - D.C. Jackie Kennedy’s physician.
Vigilant - Walter Jenkins – LBJ’s Deputy (in DC)
Colonel Toomey – AF1
Col. Holland - AF1
Admiral Burkley – JFK’s private physician (Aboard AF1)
General Leonard Dudley Heaton – Surgeon General US Army (in DC)
Mrs. Rose Kennedy (JFK's mother in Massachusetts)
Mrs. J. B. Connally (Dallas)
Governor John Connally – (Parkland Hospital)
Scott - Radio Operator
Airman Stanz - Radio Operator
Newport Jerry – Radio Operator
Roy - Radio Operator
Weather Officer (at AF Command Post)

Additional Radio Communication Codes

Grandson - AF Gen. Curtis LeMay

LOCATIONS

Andrews AFB - Acrobat aka Andrews.
Auchincloss Estate - Hamlet
Camp David - Cactus
Command Post - SAM Special Air Mission CP - Offut AFB, Nebraska
Site R- Ft. Ritchie - Cosmic
Glen-Ora - Chateau (JFK's rural Va. residence)
Hic Cup - Hickam Field, Hawaii
High Point - Crystal
Liberty - Radio Relay Station, Collins Radio HQ, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Net Control – WHCA - Crown - White House
Olmstead AFB - Astro
Washington Field Office - Hedge
VP EOB - Valdosta
VP Capitol Office - Vendor
VP Senate Office - Valentine
VP Residence (Elms) - Valley LBJ's Home.
White House - Crown

CARS

Pres. Follow-up -Halfback
VP Follow-up -Varsity
Bomb Disposal -Hammer
Bomb Patrol -Halo

AIRCRAFT

Presidential - Angel SAM 26000 aka Air Force One when President on board
Vice Presidential - Angel Two

HELICOPTERS

Army-Davidson Field - Pat
Army-Anacostia - Alpha
Marine-Anacostia - Nighthawk
Air Force - Botany

FIRST FAMILY

President -Lancer
Mrs. Kennedy -Lace
Caroline -Lyric
John Jr. -Lark

VICE PRESIDENT’S FAMILY

Vice President -Volunteer
Mrs. Johnson -Victoria
Lynda Johnson -Velvet
Lucy Johnson -Venus

STAFF & AIDES

Kenneth O’Donnell -Wand
Pierre Salinger -Wayside
Andrew Hacker -Winner
Malcolm Kilduff -Warrior
Evelyn Lincoln -Willow
Dr. George Burkley -Market
Secretary Dean Rusk -Freedom
General Chester Clifton -Watchman
Capt. Tazewell Shepard -Witness
Gen. Godfrey McHugh -Wing
Walter Jenkins -Vigilant

CHIEF’S OFFICE

Chief Rowley -Domino
Deputy Chief Paterni -Diamond
Asst. Chief Wildy -Debate

WASHINGTON FIELD OFFICE

SAIC Geiglein -Diesel
ASAIC Dahlquist -Driftwood

WHITE HOUSE DETAIL

SAIC Behn -Duplex
ASAIC Boring -Deacon
ASAIC Kellerman -Digest
ATSAIC Stout -Dipole
ATSAIC Roberts -Dusty
ATSAIC Godfrey -Dangle
ATSAIC Rodham -Dogwood
SA Clint Hill -Dazzle
SA Paul Landis -Debut
SA Lynn Meredith -Drummer
SA Mugsy O’Leary -Dapper

VICE PRESIDENT’S DETAIL

SAIC Stuart Knight -Dividend
ASAIC Rufus Youngblood -Dagger
SA Paul Rundle -Dixie
SA Jerry Kivett -Daylight
SA Lemuel Johns -Dandy
SA Glen Weaver -Derby

BOATS

Crashboat PT 109 -Novice
Honey Fitz -Nomad
Patrick J -Neptune
Marlin -Marlin
Presidential chase -Horsewhip
Jet boats -Guardian 1 & 2
86’ Coat Guard -Waterwagon
33’ Navy -Rockfish
Vice President -Vanguard
VP Chase -Village

ABBREVIATIONS

AP - Associated Press (aka “the ticker”)
AFAUSSS -Association of Former Agents of the USSS
ASAIC -Assistant Special Agent in Charge
ATSAIC -Assistant to the SAIC
BOSSI -Bureau of Special Services and Investigations
EOB -Executive Office Building
ETA – Estimated Time of Arrival.
SAIC -Special Agent in Charge
PRS -Protective Research Section
WHCA -White House Communications Agency

[Some of these are from the Appendix of The Kennedy Detail – JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence by Gerald Blaine with Lisa McCubbin (Gallery, Simon & Schuster, 2010).]

Air Force One Radio Transcript - 11/22/63

Air Force One Flight Path - Love Field, Dallas - Andrews AFB, Md. 11/22/63

Air Force One Radio Room - circa 1963.

Air Force One Radio Transmission Transcript

KELLY NOTES: THIS IS CURRENTLY BEING UPDATED AND REVISED WITH THE ADDITION OF THE LATEST AUDIO TAPE FROM GEN. CLIFTON/RAAB COLLECTION. 1/31/2012 -

[Transcribed by William Kelly Any corrections or comments bkjfk3@yahoo.com]
Last Update Oct. 30, 2010

TRANSCRIPT - AIR FORCE ONE RADIO TRANSMISSIONS – November 22, 1963.

Listen to the audio version at Mary Ferrell:
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Audio_-_Other

This was previously posted:
http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2010/10/air-force-one-radio-tranmissions.html

Name/Call Sign - Code Identification Key

SAM 26000 - Two Six Thousand - The Presidential aircraft, when the President is not aboard.

Air Force One – AF1 - The Presidential aircraft, when the President is aboard.
Capt. James Swindal, pilot (AKA Tiger)
Master Sgt. John C Trimble and Joseph Ayres, radio operators.

SAM 86972 – (AKA 972) The State Department aircraft carrying the Press Secretary Salinger (Wayside), Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Agriculture Orville Freeman and other Cabinet members and Administration officials. When the assassination occurred, this aircraft was enroute from Hawaii to Japan; subsequent to the assassination, the aircraft returned to Hawaii to refuel, and then flew directly from Hickam AFB in Hawaii to Andrews AFB near Washington DC.

Andrews - Andrews Air Force Base (Md/DC). Airman Gilmore answers for Andrews AFB throughout the tape and appears to be the central player attempting to facilitate all patches.

Tanker - Major Michael Cook - Also at Andrews
Air Force Command Post – Sgt. Phillips. Major Benson
SAM Command Post - Special Air Mission, SAC Offut AFB, Omaha, Nebraska Col. Hornbuckle.
National Military Command Post – Pentagon, Washington DC
Crown – White House (aka Front Office)
Situation Room (Basement at Crown) – Oliver Hallett, USN/NSA McGeorge Bundy
Carswell – Carswell Air Force Base, Fort Worth, Texas.
Dallas – (Love Field, Dallas, Texas)
Hic Cup – Hickam Field, Hawaii.
CINCPAC – Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command HQ.
Tokyo – Destination of Cabinet Plane (86972)
Valley – The Elms, LBJ DC Residence.
Liberty – Sideband Radio Relay Station – Collins Radio, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Wayside – Pierre Salinger, aboard 86970
Dagger – Rufus Youngblood, USSS
Digest – Roy Kellerman, USSS (Aboard AF1)
Duplex – Jerry Behn
Wing - Gen. McHugh. President's personal physician.
Watchman – Gen. Chester Clifton (Aboard AF1)
Slugger – Capt. Cecil Stoughton
Stranger – Major H. R. Patterson (White House Communications Agency WHCA)
Tanker – Air Force Major Michael Cook (Andrews)
Tiger – Col. Swindal, pilot, AF1.
Warrior – Malcolm Kilduff
Winner – Andrew Hatcher. Aka Andy. At Crown.
Witness – Capt. Tazewell Shepard (USN)
Volunteer – LBJ
Victoria – Lady Bird
Lancer - JFK
Charcoal - Present location of the President
Castle - Presiden't Naval Aid Taz Shephard
Lace – Mrs. Jackie Kennedy
Witness - Unidentified
Winner - Unidentified
Race - Unidentified
Tillerman - Unidentified
Sing Sing – Unidentified
Dean Rusk – Secretary of State (aboard 86972)
George Ball – Undersecretry of State
McGeorge Bundy – National Security Advisor to the President
Bromley Smith – Executive Secretary, National Security Council
Murray Jackson – State Department
Malcolm Kilduff – Assistant Press Secretary
Dr. John Walsh - D.C. Jackie Kennedy’s physician.
Walter Jenkins – LBJ’s Deputy.
Colonel Toomey – AF1
Col. Holland - AF1
Admiral Burkley – JFK’s private physician.
General Heaton – Surgeon General of the Army
Mrs. Kennedy (Massachusetts)
Mrs. J. B. Connally (Dallas)
Governor John Connally – Parkland Hospital
Scott - Radio Operator
Airman Stanz - Radio Operator
Newport Jerry – Radio Operator
Roy - Radio Operator
Weather Officer (at AF Command Post)

On the block – Time of plane arrival at destination.
ETA – Estimated Time of Arrival.
Zulu – Greenwich Mean Time – (Military 24 hour time)
AP - Associated Press (aka “the ticker”)

AIR FORCE ONE RADIO TRANSMISSIONS – November 22, 1963.

http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Audio_-_Other

[Transcribed by William Kelly- Any corrections or comments bkjfk3@yahoo.com]

Reel 1, Side One

Announcer’s Introduction:

The following recording has been reproduced from ground recorded non-high fidelity tape to re-cord record patch communications of Air Force One also includes 86972 – the Cabinet plane carrying Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Presidential Secretary Pierre Salinger and other dignitaries enroute between Honolulu and Japan. The following information relative to presidential aircraft radio call signs is given for clarification due to interchangeable use.

Air Force One and Angel are used when the President is aboard the aircraft, Air Force Two-Six-Thousand (26000) is used at all other times.

This tape has been edited and condensed to contain only pertinent information relative to events during 22nd of November, 1963. Only material available from radio circuits used is available.

Reel 1, Side 1 (30:55) - Patch 1

- 86972 [Cabinet plane], Andrews. You are readable at this time, sir. Also be advised Two-Six-Thousand (26000 – Air Force One) coming up on this frequency shortly. Request that you contact Andrews on One-Five, Sir.
- Okay, One-Five. Relay. Will be off Honolulu at seventeen oh-three (1703), estimated approximate windshift, 2-1-4-0-2-2.
- 86972, Roger, copy. Thank you much.
- Break, Command Post, Air Force One, 1725. Carswell.
- Air Force One, understand. Airborne. One, seven, two, five (1725) Zulu. Do you have an ETA? Over.
- Estimated 40 minutes, enroute. I’ll show a log time in a couple of minutes.
- Roger, Air Force One. Command Post listening. Out.
- Pickup 1700 Zulu, weather please.
- Standby One, I have weather officer I can give it to you know, if you are ready to copy. Over.
- Okay, go ahead.
- 1700 Zulu weather, 6000 broken, 15 miles plus visibility, temperature – five-seven, ramp temperature, six-two, wind southwest ten, altimeter setting two-niner, decemil eight-seven. I just talked with the Ramp (?) and they indicate it is clearing rather rapidly there.
- Roger. Copy, thank you, out.
- Weather out.

Reel One, Side One - Patch 2

- Andrews, Air Force One, the Command Post List.
- Andrews, Air Force One, standby.
- Command Post altimeter.
- This is Airman Gilmore, I have Air Force One for a patch.
- Standby please.
- Air Force One, Air Force Command Post on the line, go ahead sir.
- Roger, Command Post, Air Force One, our estimated time on the block, Dallas will be One, Seven, Four, Zero….( 1740)…
- Roger. I understand. Seventeen forty on the block.
- Roger, Out.

Reel One, Side One – Patch 3

- Air Force One, Andrews.
- Roger, Roger Command Post, please.
- Standby sir.
- Command Post.
- I have Air Force One for a patch.
- Bring him up.
- Standby.
- Air Force One, Andrews. Command Post on the line, give them a call, sir.
- Roger, Command Post.
- Air Force One on the ground 1738 Zulu.
- Air Force One, understand. On the ground, seventeen thirty eight Zulu. Command Post listening.
- Air Force One.

Reel 1 Side One – Patch 4

(Unintelligeable)...static.
- Air Force One?
- Hello? Liberty!...Liberty?
- Roger, I have White House Situation Room, Sam 86972,....Over.
- (Static) ... signal...unintelligable…..
- 86972 do you read me? Over.
- White House?
- White House on.
- Standby.
- White House, this is SAM 86972. How do you read? Over.
- 86972, I read you loud and clear, loud and clear.
- Roger, standby One, please, we have another phone patch going on with Sing Sing, but we do have traffic for you, so hold on for a moment please.
- Roger, Roger 86972.

Reel 1 Side One – Patch 5 (6:30)

- White House, Situation Room, do you read me?
- White House, White House, this is Wayside, do you read me?
- This is White House. I read you loud and clear Wayside. Over.
- Can you give me the latest situation on President? Over.
- You want the Situation Room?
- Repeat that...
- This is Crown, This is Crown. Do you want Situation Room?
- I want the Situation Room That’s affirmative. Roger.
- Stand by Please.
- Wayside, Wayside, this is Crown. Situation Room is on. Go ahead.
- Situation Room. This is Waysdie, do you read me? Over.
- This is the Situation Room. I read you. Go ahead.
- Give me all available information on President. Over.
- All information on President follows. Ah, …He and Governor Connally were hit in the car in which they were riding. We do not know how…..no information. Mister Bromley Smith is back here in the Situation Room now. We are getting our information over the tickers. Over.
- That is affirmative. That is affirmative. Please keep in mind and be advised that this is the plane on which the cabinet is on the way to Japan. Those heading to Honolulu are turning around and will be there in about two hours.
- I understand. Those heading to Japan are turning around and heading to Honolulu and will be back there in two hours. Is that correct? Over.
- That’s Affirmative. Affirmative. Will need information to decide whether some of this party should go directly to Dallas.
- This is Situation Room. Say again your last please?
- Will need to be advised on whether to determine some members of this party should go directly to Dallas? Over.
- Roger, you wish information on whether some members of that party should go to Dallas.
- Affirmative.Affirmative.
- Do you have anything else, Wayside?
- Any information you can give me as quickly as possible.
- The Associated Press has just come out with a bulletin that the President hit in the head. That just came in. Over.
- Roger. Will get any new information to you.
- Where are you Wayside?
- Wayside is off the line. This is the radio operator. We are returning to Honolulu and should be back in Honolulu in about two hours. Will be in the air for about two hours and you can contact us on the ground there later.
- I understand. This is…..Hold on the line there Wayside, we have some more information coming up.
- Ah, Waysside, Wayside, this is Situation Room. I read from the AP bulletin. Kennedy apparently shot in head, fell face down on the backseat of his car. Blood was on his head. Mrs. Kennedy cried “Oh no,” and tried to hold up his head. There was blood on his face and forehead. The President and Governor were rushed to Parkland Hospital near the Dallas Trade Mart where Kennedy was to have made a speech. Read that? Over.
- I read that over.
- This is Situation Room. I have nothing further for you now. I will contact you if we get more.
- Wayside, Roger out.

Reel 1 Side One - Patch 6

- 26000, Andrews, I have the White House.
- Okay, thank you.
- And I want to keep this frequency open.
- The frequency has been taken …
- …give ….a copy
- Roger.
- 86972 is good and readable. I have a party on that wants to talk to you. Stand by.
- Standing by.
- Hello? What is your name again?
- Jackson.
- Mister Jackson?
- Yes.
- Okay. Hold on line one.
- 86972, 86972 I have a Mister Jackson, a Mister Jackson on. Will you give him a call, please?
- Mister Jackson, this is SAM 86972.
- I read you very well 72. I would like to talk to Colonel Toomey or Colonel Holland please.
- Okay. Colonel Toomey is coming on right now,
- Roger. This is Colonel Toomey. Go ahead. (11:35)
- Colonel Toomey, this is Murray Jackson. The President of the United States has been shot and seriously wounded in Dallas, Texas. The President of the United States, John F. Kennedy has been shot and seriously wounded in Dallas, Texas. Governor Connally was also shot at the same time. Would you please get the message to Secretary of State Rusk, and I will stand by. Over.
- Roger, Murray. We have already received the news. We have the UPI on. We have turned around. We are returning to Hawaii. We are estimating Hawaii in one hour and twenty minutes. We will be on the ground in Hawaii in one hour and twenty minutes and will be returning to Washington or Dallas. We have another airline alerted to take part of the party to Dallas, and we are returning to Washington.
- Thank you very much Colonel Toomey. I will relay that information to Mr. Ball right away. Over and out.
- Okay, the secretary has talked with his office in Washington, I believe and also Pierre Salinger has been in contact with the White House from the aircraft. Over.

Reel 1 Side One - Patch 7

- 26000, Andrews. Go ahead sir.
- Loud and clear. A signal check please.
- 26000, I read you loud and clear, here also, sir. Stand by on this frequency.
- Right. Thank you.

Reel 1 Side One - Patch 8

- Andrews sideband. Airman Gilmore.
- Roger. Are you in contact with the party coming back from Tokyo? Go ahead.
- Yes sir. We’re going through Liberty airwaves for that aircraft.
- Roger, can you connect me with Wayside?
- Standby One Six.
- Sir?
- Yes Sir?
- There’s Mister Jackson running a patch to that aircraft at this time, would you like to listen in or would you like me to break the patch sir?
- Ah, could I wait please?
- Yes, you can standby. You’re number two.
- 86972, Andrews.
- 86972.
- Roger, standby. I have another one.
- Who is this sir?
- This is the White House.
- Okay, standby please.
- 86972, 86972, Andrews, I have Crown on, will you give them a call please?
- This is 86972, go ahead.
- This is Crown, we wish a phone patch to Wayside.
- Roger, standby for Wayside.
- Roger, go ahead please.
- Wayside? Wayside? This is Stranger. Do you read me? Over.
- This is Wayside. Go ahead.
- Kilduff has asked that all cabinet members return to Washington immediately. Over.
- We are enroute to Honolulu, where we have ah….Washington. Over….Situation…depart to go to Dallas. ……
- Roger, Roger, we do not have any firm….as to go…..Dallas….Wayside…..Standby for Situation Room.
- Go ahead Wayside.
- Wayside, this is Situation Room. I read you the latest bulletin. President Kennedy has been given blood transfusion today at Parkland Hospital in an effort to save his life after he and Governor John Connally of Texas were shot in an assassination attempt. Over the TV we have the information that the governor has been moved to the operating room. The president is still in the emergency room at Parkland Hospital....Do you read me so far? Over.
-I read you loud and clear.
- Wayside. This is Situation Room. Are you getting the press coverage or do you want us to continue to relay it to you? Over.
- (garbled)….keep informed. Over. (15:18)
- This is Situation Room. Roger. New subject. We will have all information for you on whether to proceed to Dallas by the time you land at Honolulu. Over.
- That’s an affirmative ……Secretary of State….Over.
- This is Situation Room. Roger. Will do. Get determination on whether Secretary should also go to Dallas.
- Wayside. Out.
- This is Situation Room. Out

Reel 1 - Side One - Serial Patch 9

-86972. 86972.
- 86972. Andrews. I have a party that would like to talk to Wayside. Will you give them a call?
- Wayside. The party is on the line now.
- 86972, I have a party that would like to talk to Wayside.
- Wayside is coming on now.
- All right, fine there’s no rush. I’ll just talk to you. This is the Situation Room. We’ll standby. We are looking for confirmation of something. Standby for a moment. We are getting confirmation now. Please standby. We are getting confirmation now. Please stay on the line. This is Situation Room standing by. I read you loud and clear. Nothing further for you yet.
- Ah, Wayside. This is Situation Room. We have conflicting reports now. We have no confirmation yet. We will call you again. I have relayed your intentions and current position to the Front Office. Your office has the word. We will call you again when we get confirmation. Over.
- This is Wayside. Out.

Reel 1 Side One - Patch 10.

- Andrews, 26000. Radio Check.
- 26000 (Two Six Thousand), Andrews, loud and clear.
- [Third voice] 26000, Liberty, loud and clear. Will you try to notify if you close down for good? Go ahead.
- Roger. Will do.
- Roger, Liberty.

Reel 1 Side One - Patch 11

- Andrews. Sideband. Airman Gilmore.
- Gilmore, this is Murray Jackson at State again. Can you get me Seven Two again?
- Could you say again, sir, you are very, very week.
- This is Murray Jackson at the State Department.
- Yes sir?
- I talked with Seven Two a little while ago. Can you get me Seven Two on a single sideband again?
- Mister Jackson, be advised that Seven Two is in a patch with the Situation Room at the present time sir. If you wish to standby.
- That’s all right. They’re talking to them now?
- Yes sir. They are in a patch at the present time.
- All right, very good. Can you listen in on this?
- Ah, not from this console, no sir.
- Well, what we want to tell the plane is that Under Secretary Ball requests that the Secretary and all the passengers return directly to Washington instead of going to Dallas.
- Yes sir, I believe they have received that message sir.
- Very good. Thank you.
- Thank you very much sir.
- Oh, hello?
- Yes sir?
- One other thing. The Secretary is supposed to call Mrs. Ball when he gets on the ground in Honolulu.
- Okay sir, I’ll relay that as soon as possible.
- Thank you very much.

Reel 1 Side One - Patch 12

- Andrews sideband, Airman Gilmore.
- Airman Gilmore, this is Murray Jackson again at the State Department.
- Yes sir?
- The message I just gave you about Mr. Ball wanting the Secretary and all of the passengers of the plane to return directly to Washington has now been reconfirmed by McGeorge Bundy. He has called and also said that the plane and all its passengers should return immediately to Washington, rather than Dallas.
-Standby
- Standby.
- Allright.
- 86972. 86972. Andrews.
- Andrews. Loud and clear. You have Mister Jackson on the line. Will you give him a call sir?
- Mister Jackson, 86972. Go ahead sir.
- I have a message from Undersecretary Ball and from McGeorge Bundy at the White House. They request that the Secretary of State and ALL passengers on the aircraft return to Washington immediately. Over.
- Roger. The message is from Undersecretary Ball and Mr. Bundy advised that the Secretary of State and ALL passengers return to Washington immediately. Over.
- That is correct. Over and out.
- Okay. Thank you.

Reel 1 Side One - Patch 13

- Start again please, the party is on.
- Be advised there’s another patch from Wayside. Do you with to break Command Post?
- Yea, break it.
- Yes sir.
- 86972, 86972, Andrews.
- 972. Go ahead.
- Roger sir, I have Crown on. Will you give him a call sir?
- Crown. Go ahead.
- This is Situation Room. Relay following to Wayside. We have report quoting Mr. Kilduff in Dallas that the President is dead. That he died about 35 minutes ago. Do you have that? Over.
- The President is dead. Is that correct? (22:43)
- That is correct. That is correct. New subject. Front Office desires plane return Washington with no stop Dallas. Over.
- Wayside, copy. All okay. We return direct to Washington without stopping in Dallas.
- This is Situation Room, out.

Reel 1 Side One - Patch 14

- Andrews, give me the Situation Room please.
- 972 Andrews, standby, one sir.
- Crown on.
- Situation Room please.
- (phone ringing) Yea?
- Is this the Situation Room?
- Yes.
- I have 972 on sideband for another patch sir.
- It’s 972 again.
- This is Situation Room.
- Standby sir.
- 972, I read you.
- This is Situation Room. Over.
- Situation Room, 972. Wayside would like to know the whereabouts of the Vice President. Over.
- Yes (Background conversation) …Vice President is in Dallas. …
- Ah, Wayside, from Situation Room. The Vice President is in the hospital building, Parkland Hospital, in Dallas. He is not injured. I repeat, not injured.
- I copy. I will call you right back.
- Right.

Reel 1 Side One - Patch #15

- Andrews, 26000. Standby to take off.
- 26000.
- Andrews, 972, Command Central….
- Roger…..Command Post.
- I have 972 for a patch.
- All right. Go ahead.
- 86972, Andrews, Command time, go ahead sir.
- SAM Command, 86972, and we are returning directly to Washington, as latest instructions are to return direct to Washington from Hic Cup. Hic Cup is working up a flight plan and as quickly as we can get the enroute time and on the ground time, we will give you an ETA Washington.
- Roger, Roger 72. Can you give me your present ETA?
- In about 45 minutes was the last one that I heard. It should be about twenty-thirty Zulu...
- Zulu over.
- Roger, Roger. As far as you know right now you’re coming directly to Washington? Is that affirmed?
- That is correct. Over.
- Roger 72. Give us any changes that you have sir.
- Okay, will do.
- 26000. Andrews.
- Loud and clear.
- Roger, you are both loud and clear.
-I hear you both loud and clear.
- 26000, do you copy my teletype?
- 26000 is…
- Okay. He’s too busy over there.
- Right.
- You might want to check with him to make sure that he’s getting through.
-Okay, standby.
- 26000. Andrews, coming up.
- 26000, check please.
- 26000 Andrews. Loud and clear.
-26000 Andrews. Loud and clear.
- We’ll be moving out pretty shortly.
- 86972. Standby.
- 972 go ahead sir.
- Okay, we’re coming pretty close to Honolulu landing ah. I don’t know if we’ll be able to or not but I’m going to or not but I’m going to try to keep this equipment up, ah, but I’m not certain I’ll be able to do it. Understand that thirteen is pretty good. ….Is that correct?
- This is Andrews. That is affirmed. 26000 is now getting ready to take off. He’s on One Three. If you standby, One, I’ll confer with Liberty and see what frequency, in case you do drop out, what frequency we’ll have standing up on waiting for your call.
- Okay, do that. Get them all set up. I might not be able to keep it open.
- Roger. Standby One.
- Okay, Liberty? Yea, we got One Three and One Five up right now, besides going through you. I don’t know if One Three is going to be tied up or not. And ah, what frequencies do you think you can have set up in case he drops out on so you he’ll know what frequencies we’re listening on?
- I’ll be on One Eight, One Five and One Three. And we can hold on One Eight for a while because we got Newport Jerry up there.
- Right. Do you have another one, a little bit lower maybe?
- We could drop down from eighteen to One Five to thirteen.
- How about Tripple One?
- Ah, on the sideband.
- Okay, I’ll tell him we’ll be on eighteen, thirteen, One Five and Triple One, all uppers, right?
- All right.
- Except this one, we’re on lower.
- Go ahead.
- Okay.
- 86972, Andrews.
- Roger, Andrews is going to be standing by and Liberty on Triple One upper, Triple One Seven Six upper, One Five Zero One One upper, One Five Zero One One upper, One Three Two Zero Seven upper and One three one seven, lower.
- Okay, very good. Out
- Roger

Reel 1 Side One - Patch 16

-86972 Go ahead.
- Air Force Command Post, this is mission 139, mission One, Three, Niner, arriving Honolul Two Two diagonal, Two Six, Zulu, TV, Two One five Zulu for Andrews, over.
- 86972, Roger, copy. Standing by sir.
- Okay, I’ll be on this frequency and I’ll advise you when I leave it.
- Roger sir.

Reel 1 Side One - Patch 17

- 26000
- Give me Crown please.
- Just a minute.
- Crown.
- 26000 for a patch.
- Roger.
- Crown on. Go ahead.
- Roger, Crown, 26000, will you get a patch for…..
- Roger, stand by.
- 26000. Duplex is on, go ahead.
-Standby for One.
- Hello?
- Okay… Go ahead……..

END Reel 1, Side 1 (30:55)


Air Force One Radio Transmissions

Reel 1 Side Two – (30:57) - Patch 1

- Duplex - Okay, go ahead.
- We are waiting for the swearing in at the plane before take-off.
- Of, the….That’s Volunteer?
- Roger.
- Say again, Roy, say again.
- We are awaiting for a judge to appear for a swearing in.
- That’s for Volunteer, is that right?
- Yes. We are having it done before takeoff.
- That’s an affirmative. Do you have any idea yet what Race wants to do and what Volunteer wants to do on their arrival here?
- No. But I will call you back, we have 208….15 flights into Andrews. We have a full plane with at least 40.
- Okay, go ahead.
- I’ll have to call you again as to body however, I’m sure the Volunteer’s party….and so forth… we will be there with several others….
- All right, let me know what Volunteer wants to do. If they want to come into Crown by helicopter?
- Roger, I’ll call you again.
- Okay.

Reel 1 Side 2 – Patch 2.

- 26000, Andrews
- Okay, go ahead.
- …give them a call.
- Go ahead.
- Roger.
- Air Force Command Post.
- Can you give me Estimated Time of Departure from Dallas?
- From Dallas? Go ahead.
- Would you repeat your estimated time of departure from Dallas?
- Roger. It could be estimate in the next ten minutes. Go ahead.
- Roger. Could you give me a call when you’re airborne? And can you give me any additional information?
- Not at this time.
- Roger. Thank you.
- Will call on takeoff.
- Andrews, Air Force One.
- Air Force One, Andrews, go ahead sir.
- Andrews,… Andrews Air Force Base.
- Roger, standby.
- (background commotion)
- Air Force Command Post.
- Air Force One, standby please.
- Air Force One, Andrews. Give them a copy.
- Command Post, Air Force One, how do you read?
- Fine, sir. Go ahead.
- ...Dallas...Four seven Zulu.will call Andrews.
- ...approximate time, sir?
- Well, two plus one zero go ahead.
- Two plus one zero. And do you have any passengers on board?
- Roger.
- ...on board?
- ...on board?
- None?
- I’ll call you back, Command Post.
- All right, sir.
- Air Force One, Andrews. I have SAM Command Post standing by sir.
- Command Post, Air Force One, go ahead.
- Roger, Roger.
- This is Colonel Hornbuckel….in Operations. We have a request from…….Do you have…body on board?
- Okay, Air Force One. Affirmative on all those questions. Go ahead.
- Roger, thank you very much. Out.

Reel 1 Side Two - Patch 3

- Air Force One for a radio check.
- Air Force One, Andrews, loud and clear.
- Loud and clear, Liberty.
- Roger.
- Scott, loud and clear.
- Air Force One, standing by.
- 26000
- 26000
- Air Force One, go ahead please.
- Roger, Air Force One, are you airborne at present? Are you airborne at present?
- Affirmative. Airborne at Two Zero Four Seven, 2047. Estimated time on the block at Andrews is Two Three Zero Five – 2045.
- Roger, Roger, Air Force One, understand, 2047, ETA Andrews, 2035, is that Charlie?
- That is Charlie.
- Roger, Roger Air Force One, SAM Command Post clear.
- Air Force Command Post, go ahead.
- I have Air Force One standing by, stand by please.
- Air Force One, give Command Post a call please.
- Command Post, Air Force One.
- Go ahead Air Force One, this is Command Post.
- Okay, departure 2-0-4-7, estimated Andrews 2-3-0-5, and we are rounding off at flight altitude 2-9-0. Over.
- Roger, understand. Standby One, please.
- Go ahead.
- Air Force One, this is the Air Force Command Post. If possible, request the names of passengers on board please?
- We have a party of…..
- Forty people, is that affirmative?
- That’s affirmative.
- Can you tell me in regards as to ah, one and two, the top people?
- Roger. The president is on board, the body is on board, and Mrs. Kennedy is on board.
- Can you confirm once again your takeoff time and your estimated time of arrival at Andrews?
- Two Zero Seven…Andrews, two three zero five.
- Roger, thank you. This is Command Post out.
- Air Force One, Command Post.
- Roger.
- Roger 26000
- Air Force One, give me a shout please?
- Air Force One, standby sir.
- Crown? This is….on standby please.
- Air Force One, Andrews, give them a call please.
- Right.
- Air Force One, Andrews, give them a call please.
- Air Force One, Andrews, give them a call please.
- Crown, Air Force One.
- This is Crown, go ahead.
- Surgeon General of the Army Heaton…..
-Please repeat the message.
- We need a patch with General Heaton. Heaton present whereabouts….
- Roger, Roger. That’s General Heaton, the Surgeon General of the Army. Over.
- That is correct.
- Roger, Roger, standby.
- Air Force One, Crown. Standby please. This is the general now, over.
- Command Post weather is 26000, please.
- Okay, Air Force One, standby.
- Roger.
- ….right now….Air Force one, Air Force One, Andrews on One Five, I’ll Copy sir.
- Yes, sir?
- You’ll have to hold on there. We’re in a long patch going out now.
- Right, I’ll hold.
- Okay, sir.
- 26000
- One, Andrews.
- Roger sir…give them a call….
- Are we on….One…Eight….pick up on meg….
- We could try…frequency….13 -18…also….
- One, Five, Zero, One, One.
- Roger….is that correct?
- Roger, one of them is. The other is a backup and the other will be busy in a couple of minutes.
- Roger with the….
- Roger, very good.
- Roger, can you patch me through with Air Force One please?
- Who is this please?
- This is Airman Stanz.
- Standby, you are number three.
- Okay, right.
- Will you call me back through Command Post?
- Because this is taking quite a while holding onto the line….
- …..Forecast….
- Okay, right sir.
- ...Say again.

Reel 1 Side 2 - Patch 4

- Air Force One, Crown. Hello?
- Air Force One, this is Crown, do you read me? Over.
- Roger, Roger, Crown. Air Force One.
- Hello? (9:45)
- Air Force One, this is Crown. You were cut off. General Heaton is at Walter Reed Hospital. You will have to stand by for a moment or let me call you back when I get him on the line. It will take about a minute to reach him.
- Air Force One, Crown, do you Roger? Over.
- Crown, Roger. Try and get General Heaton, and in the meantime, try to get the Deputy Surgeon General. We will talk to either of them.
- This is Crown. Roger. Will you standby, and let me call you back? Over.
- This is important.
- Roger. I’ll put an emergency on it and we will get him as soon as possible.
- Roger, Roger.
- We are standing by.
- I’ll give you call in just a while.
- …Air Force One, go ahead.
- …Air Force One, Crown.
- ….standby for a message.
- ….Dr. Burkley….?
- Dr. Burkley, this is Crown. You’re cutting out, you’re cutting out. You’ll have to repeat, over.
- This is Dr. Burkley. I want to get in touch with General Heaton or General Heaton’s deputy.
- Dr. Burkley, this is Crown. We are working as fast as possible trying to get the call through for you. He’s at Walter Reed. We are unable to locate him. Still searching. Over.
- The Deputy must be in the General’s office over at the main Navy building.
- Roger, Roger. If you’ll standby, we’ll try to reach him.
- Market….This is Crown. You Roger? We’re trying to reach one of them. If you’ll standby please.
- Roger.
- Air Force One, on fifteen.
- Air Force One, loud and clear.
- Okay, do you have another line in to Crown?
- This is Andrews. Roger.
- Okay, go ahead.
- Roger. Stand by One. (11:45)
- (female switchboard operator).
- Hello, can you give me White House switchboard, please?
- Thank you.
- Signal.
- Right….ah……
- Crown, I have Air Force One.
- Roger, Roger…Air Force One, Andrews, Crown is on, go ahead sir.
- [(Silence)….break in tape?] ……
- Roger, Roger. Duplex is on the line, go ahead.
- ….(Static) … arriving Andrews…five…I repeat….
- Duplex, this is Duplex. [break in tape?]
- Arrival Andrews, Six-Zero-Five, standby.
- Arriving Andrews, Fifteen, Zero, Five, rather…
- Have received.

Reel 1 Side 2 - Patch 5
(16:06)

- Duplex….arrival Andrews, Six Zero Five, standby,….ambulance from Walter Reed…transport body Over.
- Arrangements have been made for a helicopter for Bethesda Naval Medical Center. Over.
- Standby, Jerry, we’re going to have to get Berkley here.
- Okay. Go ahead.
- Air Force One, Andrews. Duplex is on. Duplex is on the air.
- Duplex is on. This is Dr. Burkley. What arrangements have been made with regard to the reception of the President?
- The….everybody aboard Air Force One, everyone aboard Air Force One, with the exception of the body, will be choppered into the South Ground. The body will be choppered to the Naval Medical Center at Bethesda. Over.
- The body will be choppered or go by ambulance to the Navy Medical Center?
- Will be choppered, will be choppered.
- I’ll call General Heaton and ask him to….Washington in regards to this. Would you call him and cancel the….Walter Reed….I didn’t know the arrangements were already made. [1738]
- Say again, say again Doctor.
- The body is in a casket, you know, and it will have to be taken by ambulance and not by chopper.
- Alright. I’ll tell Captain Shepard that.
- Be sure to contact…..
- (female operator) General Heaton is on, this is Doctor Burkley.
- Yes, Burkley?
- Air Force One.
- Yes?
- I read you Admiral Burkley.
- Hold for a minute, please. General Clifton here….
- Ah….this is General Clifton.
-Yes General Clifton?
- We do not want a helicopter for Bethesda Medical Center. We do want the ambulance and a ground return from Andrews to Walter Reed. And we want the regular post mortem that has to be done by law, under guard, performed at Walter Reed. Is that clear? Over.
- That is clear General Clifton. You want an ambulance and a ah….another limousine at Andrews and you want the regular post mortem by law done at Walter Reed.
- That is correct. Hold on for a minute. Over.
- I’ll hold on.
- Air Force One?
- Air Force One, Andrews. Go ahead sir.
- Okay, I think our patch was cut there on 13.
- Air Force One, will you give the ground party give a call sir. [20:07]
- Hello? Jerry?
- Go ahead.
- Jerry, what arrangements have you made?
- We have made no arrangements, but will follow through on what you just told me. An ambulance and a limousine at Andrews and in regards to the post mortem studies.
- General Heaton, will you kindly hold, we have arrangements already made….and will have to clear that before we do anything further.
- An ambulance and a limousine at Andrews (background conversation).
- Air Force One, repeat your last transmission….
- …….
- Hello Andrews? This is Crown. (21:12)
- Crown, go ahead.
- Ah, we have Captain Shepard here who has evidently made some arrangements on the funeral and so forth here in Washington, and bringing the body back and so forth. He would like to get on and talk with Air Force One when General Heaton is finished. It might be possible to put him up on a conference so they can all make the arrangements together? I understand that Captain Shepard the Naval aid e has made some arrangements also. So you might explain this to Air Force One and tell them we’ll try to put them on a conference, if they like. [21:59]
- Andrews, standby, we have Admiral Burkley.

Reel 1 Side 2 - Patch 6

- Air Force One, Andrews.
- Andrews to Liberty.
- Liberty to Andrews, go ahead.
- Did you copy the full 9-7-2 off Hickman? 2-1-1-1 Zulu, estimated Andrews Zero Five Three Zero Zulu, ultimate….
- Liberty, Andrews, Roger.
-Forward to Air Force One.
-Liberty, Andrews, Roger.

Reel 1 Side 2 - Patch 7

- (female operator) Go ahead, Duplex is on one, sir.
- Air Force One, Andrews. Give your party a call.
- Okay, Duplex, Duplex, this is Watchman. Over.
- Go ahead Watchman. Over.
- Duplex, this is Watchman. I understand that…ambulance… to Bethesda….is this correct? Over.
- Watchman. It has been arranged to helicopter, helicopter the body to Bethesda. Over.
- This is Watchman. That is okay if it isn’t dark. What about the First Lady? Over.
- Everybody else aboard, everybody else aboard, it has been arranged to helicopter into the South Grounds.
- Watchman….helicopter operation will work because we have a very heavy casket? Over.
- Ah, according to Witness, yes.
- This is Watchman. …. don’t take a chance on that. Have a mortuary type ambulance standing by in case the helicopter doesn’t work.
- That’s affirmative.
- That’s affirmative. I receive.
- Now some other instructions. Listen carefully. We need a ramp, a normal ramp at the front of the aircraft, on the right hand side, just behind the pilot’s cabin in the galley. We are going to take the First Lady off by that route. Over. Do you understand?
- I receive. Affirmative.
- Also, by the right rear, on no, the left rear, the left rear of the aircraft, where we usually dismount, disembark, we will need a fork lift rather than a ramp because it will be too awkward. We will need a platform to walk out on, and a fork lift to put it on. Is that possible? Over.
- Say again, say again Watchman.
- I say again. The casket is in the rear compartment, and we suggest, because it is so heavy, that we have a fork lift, a fork lift there to remove the casket. But if this is too awkward, we can get along with a normal ramp and several men. Over.
- Affirmative. We will try for the fork lift.
- Next item. Duplex, Duplex. Ah ….The press, according to Mr. Johnson, the press is to have a normal…at Andrews field, and he is going from there by helicopter to the White House.
- Say again, Watchman, say again please.
- Watchman, this is Duplex, say again.
- The press, the normal corral, it will have to be in front of the aircraft, because that is where President Johnson will come off. Okay?
-Will you say that again?
- I say again. On the right front, a ramp for Mrs. Kennedy, on the left rear, if possible, a fork lift for the casket, and in the right front, near the pilot, a normal ramp….. Over.
- Say again, Watchman, you’re breaking.
- (non-broadcast communications – someone else behind radio operator) I got that, on the left front, I got that, normal ramp for President Johnson…on the left front…all right.
- Did everybody get that clear? Over.
- That is affirmative.
- Hold One, …Tillerman would like to talk to you.
- Standby One. Are you there?
- Watchman, Watchman, this is Duplex.
- Duplex, this is Watchman, Over. Go ahead.
- Watchman, should the Secretary of Defense and others be at Andrews on your arrival?
- No, I am about, no negative….Have them call the White House. President Johnson will meet with the White House staff….the leadership of Congress, and as many of the Cabinet members as possible at the White House as soon as we get there, approximately eighteen thirty - one, eight, three, zero. Over.
- Will you say again…you got it?
- (unbroadcast communications) President Johnson is supposed to meet as many of the cabinet members at the White House at 1830.
- This is Watchman. Did you get it all? Members of the White House staff. Also the leadership of Congress. Also as many Cabinet members as available at the White House at 1830.
- That is affirmative Watchman. That is affirmative.
- Repeat that to me.
- All leaders of Congress, as many Cabinet members as possible at the White House at 1830- The key members of the White House staff. That is Bundy, Sorrensen, etcetera.
- That is correct.
- Okay.

Reel 1 Side 2 - Patch 8

- Digest to Duplex, come in.
- Go ahead Digest, this is Duplex.
- ...sir.
- ...helicopter transportation for President Johnson.
- Air Force One, Andrews.
- Air Force One, Andrews. Because you changed position, you have a bad microphone.
- Okay, how’s this?
- Air Force One, Roger. Go ahead with your traffic now sir.
- Go ahead, this is Duplex.
- Again, I repeat, three helicopters to transport people to the White House lawn. Okay?
- That is affirmative.
- Roger, okay. White House 102 and 405x, for transportation to Navy hospital, okay?
- That is affirmative.
- That’s a Roger. I am keeping ah….will join Hill and his party at the Navy Hospital. Okay?
- Digest, this is Duplex. You accompany the body aboard the helicopter?
- Roger, request, I was unable to get ahold of……. (break in tape – midsentence)

END OF TAPE – Reel 1, Side 2 (30:57)


AIR FORCE ONE RADIO TRANSMISSIONS

Reel 2, Side 1 (29:42) Patch 1

Duplex – Gerald Behn USSS (At Crown/White House)
Digest – Roy Kellerman (Aboard AF1)
Dagger – Rufus Youngblood (Aboard AF1)
Lace – Lady Bird Johnson
Valley – LBJ and Lady Bird’s Residence in DC

- Andrews. Duplex.
- Go ahead Digest, this is Duplex.
- Static…… (unintelligible) …. okay?
- Say again Digest.
- …..static……were not notified……(unintelligible)
- Okay.
- ...unintelligible)...
- Say Again, Sir. (third voice – radio operator).
- That is affirmative Digest.
- Okay, Jerry. One more… Standby.
- Okay one more. ....(unintelligible) ...coverae is on six, nine, seven oh.
- Right....go ahead Digest.
- Say again sir. (radio operator)
- Go ahead Digest
- Repeat. Number…. Six nine seven oh (6-9-7-0). Okay?
- That’s affirmative. I receive.
- Ah, do you have any questions? Is that enough?
- Not at the moment. But if we do we’ll call back.
- That’s a Roger, but hold on.
- I got…. (muffled background conversation)...the aircraft...good.
- Digest for Duplex. Go ahead.
- Go ahead Digest, this is Duplex.
- Could you call Dr. John Walsh in Washington and advise him of our arrival?
- That is affirmative.
- Okay.
- Where does Lace want to meet her? Where?
- Say again sir.
- Digest, this is Duplex. Where does Lace want Doctor Walsh to meet her?
- Ah,…at the White House when we get there with her.
- (At the White House)…..That’s affirmative.
- Standby. I don’t have anything but I think they want the line open here.
- This is Crown. I have Witness standing by.
- Get up, hang up, ah. There’s another call here.
- Digest? Digest, Digest, this is Crown, come in?
- Digest, Digest, this is Crown, come in?
- Stand by Crown. (radio operator)
- Air Force, Air Force One, Andrews. (radio operator)
- Negative Crown, negative Crown.
- Air Force One, Andrews, say again sir.
- Air Force One, Air Force One, this is Crown, come in.
- This is negative Crown...I have traffic only.
[Break in tape?]

Reel 2, Side One - Patch 2

- Andrews Sideband, radio.
- Command Post Weather. We’re still waiting to bring up Air Force One. We’ve been waiting now for fifteen minutes, what’s up?
- Yes sir. We are running two patches at once into the White House and they are real busy. We can’t get through to them. They’re making arrangements to take the body off and everything else.
- Let me patch in for Air Force Weather so they know.
- I already told them that earlier.
- Go ahead.
- Go ahead sir.
- Weather’s on.
- Hello sir?
- We’re running two patches at one time from Air Force One to the White House, and they are making arrangements to take the casket and stuff off and we can’t get through to you, and as soon as we can we’ll give you a call.
- Okay, he needs that temperature before he gets there.
- They should be done soon. They’ve been on it for quite a while now.
- Okay, Air Force One. Loud and clear.
- [ Break in on other conversation]……Standby and we’ll have General Heaton come on this other line.
- Sir, Command Post weather has been trying to get a patch. Can we run it at this time, sir?
- Command Post? I have weather.
- Weather’s on. Go ahead.
- Weather on Air Force One, give them a call please?
- Weather, Air Force One, go ahead. (4:50)
- This is Command Post Weather, be advised of a severe weather area from forty miles west of Fleetwood, Mississippi, to twenty miles west of Glanville, Arkansas extending one twenty miles, one hundred miles to the east for tornadoes, tops five zero thousand, fifty thousand. I want you to be advised of that. I have a revised landing forecast for Andrews. If you are ready to copy, over.
- I will have to call you back on it.
- Roger.
- Air Force One. Copy sir…
- Liberty.
- Roger Liberty. Loud and clear.
- (Static)
- Roger, Roger, okay, Take …. Correction. Take this and relay it for me and then I want to patch it. …
- (Static)
- Liberty. Air Force One?
- Air Force One. This is Andrews.
- Air Force One, Andrews, go ahead sir.
- Okay, you can set up Command Post? Bring up to two, three zero, zero.
- This is Andrews. Roger copy. We’ll rely that.
- Okay and pick up the weather warning from the Air Force Command Post and see if there’s anything to it please, we’ve got…..
- Roger. Standby One.
- Static…..bring up to nine zero….
- Air Force Command Post. Major Benson.
- Right. Can I have weather please?
- Just a minute.
- Weather on.
- Sir, I have Air Force One. He’s real busy and he wants to know how severe this weather warning is, if it was severe?
- It’s for tornadoes. That’s pretty severe.
- Okay. Hold on.
- Right.
- Air Force One. Air Force One. Andrews.
- Do you read six, seven. Six, seven?
- Read…
- Air Force One.
- I have the weather on and weather is pretty important sir. Will you give them a call sir?
- Air Force One, go ahead.
- All right. Break in weather.
- Be advised. Be advised that the severe weather area is for tornadoes, tornadoes is the severity. Radar reports tops in the area at the present time from forty seven to Fifty one thousand. Over.
- What area was that? I didn’t get it before.
- This is for an area forty miles west of Greenwood, Mississippi to forty miles west of Glanville , Arkansas, and one hundred twenty miles east of both of these locations. It is on your flight path. Over.
- That is twenty miles east of both of those locations, is that correct?
- Yea, right. If you draw a line from Greenwood to Glanville, and a hundred twenty miles east of that line.
- Okay.
- Your temperature at landing at Andrews six two, sixty two degrees.
- Roger that. Thank you. Over.

Reel 2 Side One - Patch 3

- Air Force Once, this is Crown, come in.
- This is Dagger on Air Force One, to Crown.
- (Women’s voice) Roger, Roger. I have Freedom …I have Witness standing by for a patch.
- We’ll have Witness in one minute. Could we go ahead with traffic for -
- Roger. You have someone calling Bain. Is that a Roger?
- This is Dagger calling Bain.
- Stand by.
- Dagger.
- Duplex is on, go ahead.
- Dagger to Duplex
- This is from Volunteer and Victoria relative to activities tonight.
- Go ahead Dagger, this is Duplex.
- You are aware that we will go to Crown for meeting?
- That is affirmative.
- Go ahead.
- Volunteer will reside at Valley for an indefinite time. I repeat Volunteer will reside at Valley for an indefinite time. Victoria requests… to go to Valley with agents.
- Will you say again? Will you say again? Venus will go to Valley with agents?
- That is a Roger. Venus will go to Valley with agents.
- Victoria will go to Valley after first going to Crown. Over.
- Victoria will go to Valley after first going to Crown. Okay.
- That’s affirmative.
- Do you also understand that for residential purposes Volunteer will reside at Valley?
- That is affirmative. That is affirmative.
- Alright. That is all the traffic I have. ….you will get.
- Okay, okay.

Reel 2 Side One - Patch 4

- Will you give me a patch into Crown please?
- Roger, Standby One.
- White House. (Male operator picks up phone).
- Roger. Standby for Air Force One.
- Roger.
- Air Force One. Andrews. Crown. (11:08)
- Crown, Air Force One. This is a message from Wing to Slugger. Slugger is to meet aircraft as soon as possible. If he cannot do this, he is to see Wing as soon as possible, as soon as possible. Go ahead.
- Roger. Roger. Wing to Slugger. Meet aircraft as soon as possible, if this is impossible, see Wing as soon as possible, go ahead.
- That is correct. Or contact him anyway feasible.
- Roger. Roger, Crown understands. Anything further?
- This weather is…
- Roger. Roger.

Reel 2, Side One - Patch 5

- …..land.
- Air Force One. Air Force One, this is Crown, come in.
- Request Victoria … repeat … cance l … for commercial telephones. That is Volunteer and Victoria’s commercial telephones at Valley should be temporarily discontinued and security lines should be put in ,… get ……land…. personnel on that…..do you understand? Over.
- That’s a Roger Roger, cancel commercial lines at Valley, at Valley, and install blocker circuits, blocker circuits. Is that a Roger?
- That’s a Roger.
- Roger. Will Do.
(13:13)

Reel 2, Side One - Patch 6

Winner – Andrew Hatcher, Aka “Andy” (At Crown)
Warrior – Malcolm Kilduff

- Air Force?
- Air Force One. Andrews, go ahead.
- Crown please?
- Roger eight one…go ahead.
- Winger?
- Stand by for Air Force One….Roger, Crown.
- Air Force One, Andrews, give Crown a call.
- Roger, Air Force One. We would like a patch with Winner, and ah, the patch is coming from Warrior. Go ahead.
- Roger, Roger, standby.
- Crown, Crown, this is Warrior, how do you read? Over.
- Warrior from Crown, you are loud and clear. (13:37) I am putting Winner on now to you. Roger.
- Crown. This is Warrior, I want Winner, I want Winner, over.
- Warrior, Warrior, from Crown, go ahead. Winner, Winner is on the line.
- Winner, Winner. This is Warrior. Do you read me, over?
- I hear you. Over.
- Winner, Winner, this is Warrior. Will you please advise press that normal press coverage including live TV will be allowed at the base. Volunteer, repeat, Volunteer will make statement on arrival, will make statement on arrival. Did you read that? Over.
- I read you clearly.
- Will you listen to my question? Is Mrs. Kennedy aboard Air Force One?
- Warrior. That is a Roger. That is a Roger. Over.
- Alright, the other thing is I am setting up a press section on the south lawn about 50 yards from the position of Helicopter Number One. Would that meet Mrs. Kennedys and the President’s approval?
- Winner, they are not returning to the house, they are not returning to the house, for your own information. They are going someplace else. I don’t want to go in on the radio with this one. So there will be an arrival there, but it will be Volunteer. It will be Volunteer. Over.
- Thank you. I will hold that information. And we can say something after you arrive. Hold it just a second. Let me see my list of questions. Is it true that the body of President Kennedy will go to Bethesda Naval Hospital?
- That is a Roger, that is a Roger, but we are not saying that yet. Over.
- Well we already said it. I should have checked it with you before doing it. But I don’t think it makes much difference. It takes a lot…It takes a lot off of us by doing it. I was in error. Over.
- So far as the there is no objection on the south lawn. There is no objection to that.
- (Unintelligible) lies, lies…Okay. Is there anything else?
- Will you repeat that?
- Is there anything else that I should know?
- Wait a minute. You are breaking. But let me think about this just a second will you?
- Yes, the power on this aircraft………We lost ….bell…..somewhere along the line, we don’t have AP aboard. But I have given them the statement…… he will make at the airport. Over.
- I understand you. Okay, over and out.
- Don’t go out on me yet. Are you still there?
- Yes I am here.
- I think we are going to tell the press that on arrival, hold on, just a minute, wait a minute, I have Clifton here, he is trying to give me something, hold it, over…… (background conversation, muffled).
- (muffled conversation).
- Winner, Winner, this is Warrior, the…..you can announce on arrival, on arrival, he will meet with….at the White House……(static – ten seconds) ……later he will meet with the leadership, with the leadership. Did you read that? Over.
- Yes I did read that.
- Wait a minute. You are breaking badly. I cannot read. …
- Yes, yes. I understand, I will announce.
- Very good Winner. Now wait a minute, there is something else I want to relay to you. Hold on. They said that on arrival at the house, the president will meet with MacNamara and Bundy. And also if Rusk is in town he will meet with Rusk but I think he is in the Far East so it will probably be Ball. And after, a half hour after that meeting is over, we will meet with Congressional leadership at at,… now wait a minute, that’s eight o’clock, he will meet with leadership…. at eight o’clock, eight o’clock. Did you read that? Over.
- I read it. Now is that bipartisan leadership or Democratic leadership?
- That is only bipartisan, only bipartisan.
- I understand you.
- Hold on for some other information. Do you mind holding Andy?
- No go right ahead. (ten seconds).
- I have no more at this time. I hope you will be available so I can reach you if I get more information as it develops? Over.
- Yes, over and out.

Reel 2, Side One - Patch 7

- Air Force.
- Air Force One. This is Crown.
- This is Warrior to Crown, Crown, are you reading. Over.
- This is Crown, loud and clear.
- Hold on for transmission from Witness. From Witness.
- Roger, Roger, would also like to confirm at this time, would also like to confirm at this time, the request from AF One…Watchman. Over.
- This is Crown. Go ahead …
- Can you put Mister Bundy on?
- You were broken. You were broken, say again.
- Crown, this is Watchman. Please put Mister Bundy on the line. Over.
- Roger, Roger, standby.
- You’re party on this end is on. Go ahead and transmit to him.
- Watchman….
- ……Mac,…….second and secretary MacNamare at six thirty at the White House. If Mr. Rusk is in town…..Mr. Rusk…..we do not, we do not, that’s negative, we do not want the acting secretary. Over.
- Correct. Tell him that the acting cabinet will be at the airport to greet him. He can bring MacNamara and me in his chopper to the White House. Over.
- That is fine. That is all right. We can do that. Take another message.
- Yea.
- Secondly. I talked to Jerry Behn about a White House staff meeting. There will be No White House staff meeting tonight, that will be tomorrow.
- I have it. Let me repeat your message. Over.
- Okay.
- First that the President would like to meet with the Secretary and me at the White House on return from Andrews. Second that there will be no other meeting this evening. There will be ….tomorrow. Is that correct? Over.
- No that is not correct. He wants to meet with the leadership about seven-thirty, the leadership at seven-thirty.
- Does he want us to arrange that?
- He wants you to arrange that. Two meetings tonight. MacNamarea and Bundy.
- Does he mean only the Democratic leadership only? Over.
- Bipartisan leadership; and I’ll give you some names. Over.
- Speaker of the House. [John McCormak (D. Mass.)
- Yea.
- Carl Albert. [D. Oklahoma]
- Carl Albert.
- Hal Boggs.
- Yea.
- Charles Halleck [R. Indiana]
- Wait a moment. Say that one again.
- Leslie Arends [R. Illinois]
- Arends. Yea.
- (From) the Senate. Are you listening? Over.
- I have…Will you take from me what I have? Then we can go on.
- I’ll listen to you. Over.
- I have Speaker Carl Albert, Hale Boggs, and Leslie Arends. Over.
- This is Watchman. That is correct, and I will now continue with the Senate. Over.
- Mansfield. [D. Montana]
- Right.
- Humphrey [D. Minnesota].
- Yea.
- And Dirksen [R. Illinois].
- Hang on, hold it. Wait a moment. I have the first three, over.
- Repeat over.
- This is Watchman. Out.
- Hello, sir? Standby please. (radio operator)
- Yea.
- Watchman, Andrews. We’re still standing by for orders to carry out, sir.
- Crown, this is Angel. Crown, this is Angel. Out.
- Crown, Angel?
- This is Angel.
- Crown, Angel.
- Listen Angel, Would you? I broke down with Mister Bundy. Would you check his Senate list for me? Over
- I have Mansfield, Humphrey, Smathers. Over.
- This is Watchman. In addition to Mansfield, Humphrey, Smatters, we want Dirksen.
- Yea (24:03)
- Kuchel and [Bourke] Hickenlooper [R. Iowa]. Over.
- Dirksen, Kuchel, Hickenlooper. Over.
- That is correct. For about seven thirty. Over.
- Seven thirty at the White House? Over.
- Seven thirty in the Cabinet Room. Over.
- Tell the Vice President [Sic ] the Cabinet Room is under rearrangement, but the Oval Room will be ready. Over.
- The Oval Room it will be, you mean the Fish Room?
- I mean, both the Fish Room, and the President’s Study and we will try to have the Cabinet Room. But that’s a detail, we can work that out. Over.
- This is Watchman. [Gen. Clifton] HE DOES NOT WANT TO GO IN THE MANSION OR IN THE OVAL ROOM OR THE PRESIDENT’S STUDY OR THE PRESIDENT’S OFFICE. (Loud and with emphasis)
- Correct. [Bundy].
- IF THE CABINET ROOM ISN’T READY PUT IT IN THE FISH ROOM. OVER.
- I have you. I understand. Always in the West Wing. Over.
- I have nothing further. Over.
- This is Watchman, now please brief Duplex about the changes, so we don’t confuse it. . Duplex is Jerry Behn. Over.
- Alright I will.
- See you in a little while. Over.
- Okay.

Reel 2, Side One - Patch 8 –

- Air Force One
- This is Warrior to Crown, Crown
- Are you reading? Over.
- Warrior, Warrior. This is Crown. Loud and clear.
- Hold for Witness. This is Watchman. Over.
- Standby One I have another patch.
- I have Air Force One Andrews, please.
- Air Force One. Come in on another line down please.
- Andrews. Andrews sideband, will you give me Crown please?
- Give you who sir?
- Andrews?
- Who did you want to give a call?
- Crown. White House.
- White House. (Male voice)
- Roger. Stand by for Air Force One.
- Roger.
- Air Force One White House on.
- How do you read? Over.
- Crown, you are loud and clear, go ahead
- White House, White House, will you give me another patch to Winner, Another patch to Winner.
- Roger, Standby.
- We are still standing by for Crown.
- Andrews, Andrews, this is Air Force One. Do I have that patch with Crown. Over.
- Andrews, Air Force One. We are still standing by for Winner through Crown.
- Will you repeat?
- We are still standing by for Winner. We are still standing by for Winner.
- That’s a Roger.
- Air Force One, Andrews.
- Crown, Crown. This is Warrior. Over.
- Warrior, Stand by. Winner is still in another patch, still in another patch.
- Crown.
- Will you repeat?
- Roger. We are still standing by for Winner. We are still standing by for Winner.
- That’s a Roger.
- One Andrews.
- Crown, Crown, this is Warrior. Over.
- Warrior, Andrews. Winner is still in another patch. Winner is still in another patch. I have another message for radio operator on Air Force One.
- Crown, Crown. Who is Winner on a patch with? Over.
- Hello Andrews?
- Yea?
- Will you break in for me?
- Yes.
- Warrior? Crown.
- Crown, give him another call?
- Warrior, Warrior, this is Crown.
- Go ahead Crown.
- Warrior, this is Crown. We are having some difficulty in locating ah, Winner. Will you stand by please?
- That’s a Roger Crown, this is Warrior.
- Air Force One? Andrews? Hello?
- Is this Air Force One?
- Can you give me a quick check on that?
- How about bringing that thirteen through Liberty on the nose, and come back with it?
- Stand by.

End of Reel 2, Side 1 (29:42)


Reel 2, Side 2 (30:06) - Patch 1

- Now….
- Roger, Roger.
- Hello? (Women’s voice)
- Just a moment, Mrs. Kennedy.
- Just one moment now please.
- ….are you up?
- Hello?
- Standby One now please.
- One, Air Force One, Air Force One, from Crown, come in.
- Crown, this is Air Force One, do you read us? Over……
- Are you ready for Volunteer? Go ahead.
- Yes, we are ready, can you put her on and I’ll turn you over to him. Over.
- Roger, Roger, she is coming now.
- Air Force One from Crown. Mrs. Kennedy on, go ahead please.
- Hello, Mrs. Kennedy? Hello Mrs. Kennedy, we are talking from the airplane, can you hear me all right? Over.
- Thank you. Hello?
- Yes, Mrs. Kennedy, I have….could hear you.
- Mrs. Kennedy?
- Yes, Yes Mr. President, Yes?
- I wish to God there was something I could do. And I want to tell you that we are grieving with you.
- Yes, well thank you very much. Thank you very much. I know, I know that you loved Jack and that he loved you.
- (Lady Bird) Mrs. Kennedy….we…..together….We……son…..
- Thank you Lady Bird, thank you very much. Goodbye.
- …. In our prayers ….all of you.
- All right. Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye. (Phone hangs up).
- Crown, Crown, this is Warrior. I think that’s it. It’s over. Is that a Roger? Over.
- That’s a Roger, Warrior. Mrs. Kennedy hung up. Go ahead.

Reel 2 Side One - Patch 2

- Crown, now will you get me that patch to Walter Jenkins in President Johnson’s office? Over.
- Roger, Standby One.
- And Crown, get somebody to come up on the Charlie set please?
- Liberty to Air Force One, are you on Nine?
- Roger, I still have…standing by for Warrior.
- Okay, bring him up on Nine, please. Crown, give Air Force One a call now.
- Air Force One, Air Force One, this is Crown, come in.
- Air Force One, Andrews, Crown is on, go ahead.
- Air Force One, Andrews, Crown is on, give them a call please.
- Crown, this is Warrior, do you read me? Over.
- Roger Warrior, this is Crown, standby for Winner. Go ahead.
- That’s a Roger, you are loud and clear.
- Warrior, Warrior, Winner is on, go ahead.
- Winner, this is Warrior, do you read me? Over.
- I read you.
- Winner, that first meeting will be Bundy and McNamara only. The President will meet with Rusk, U.S. Senators….probably going to be a different, be a different ah event….ah.
- I read you.
- Did you read that Winner?
- Yes, Yes.
- Crown, Crown, this is Warrior, do you read me? Over.
- Yes I do Warrior, I read you.
- ….aboard….I need Crown back again. I need Crown back again. Over.
- Yes, over and out. And I’ll….
- Crown
- Liberty?
- Crown?
- Yes?
- Roger, give Air Force One a call please.
- Roger. Air Force One, Air Force One, this is Crown, come in. Air Force One, this is crown, come in.
- Crown, Crown, this is Warrior, do you read me? Over.
- Warrior, this is Crown, ah Roger, you are at Five Five, go ahead.
- Will you get me a patch with Mister Walter Jenkins….ah,…at President Johnson’s office. Over.
- Roger, Warrior, standby.
- Kill this call! Kill this call! I think we are overlapping on another call. Over.
- Roger.
- This is Warrior. I mean Crown. This is Warrior on Air Force One. Go ahead.
- Roger, Roger. On your request for Jenkins, he is on route to Andrews, on route to your destination. Go ahead.
- That’s a Roger Crown. I will pass that word on.

Reel 2 Side Two - Patch 3.

- Air Force One, Volunteer would like a patch to the Governor Connally…that’s Governor Connally of Texas. Mrs. Connally, the Governor’s wife. Go ahead.
- Volunteer would like a patch with Mrs. Connally, Governor Conally’s wife. Is that a Roger?
- That is a Roger.
- Roger, Roger, we have Dallas on the line and are trying to contact her now. Standby please.
- Standing by.
- Crown, come in.
- ….so far….
- Roger, Roger that’s right, Standby One.
- Crown to Air Force One.
- Air Force One from Crown. The Connally residence in Dallas is on the line, on the line, and Mrs. Connally is available to speak with Mister Johnson if he can get to the phone patch. Go ahead.
- Roger, he wants specifically to speak with her. Go ahead.
- Roger, standby just a moment. AF One, AF One from Crown, will you put Volunteer on please? Mrs. Connally is on the line, standing by for his call.
- Standby One.
- Can you hear me?
- …..reasuring….the surgeon….John….is so reassuring…how about it…..(static)
- I can’t hear you too well.
- …Can you hear me? (Volunteer/LBJ)
- Yes.
- (LBJ) I know that everything is going to be all right, isn’t it?
- (Women’s Voice/Nellie Connally) Yes, it’s going to be all right.
- God bless you darlin’.
- The same to you.
- …for me….
- Good luck.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Air Force One, Andrews, Go ahead. Crown/
- Roger, we have an echo. Is that you or down the line?
- I believe it is down the line, sir. Call….
- Air Force One.
- Air Force One. Crown. Go ahead.
- Roger. That about completes it for now.
- If you could standby Air Force One, we have a couple of people down the line who would like to talk to you, if you could standby.


Reel 2 Side One - Patch 4

- Roger, go ahead.
- Command Post.
- Air Force One, go ahead Command Post.
- Air Force Command Post.
- Go ahead Command Post, Air Force One.
- 3-7-3- ….2-1-4-1 Zulu.
- ….
- Roger, do you copy?
- ….this information passed to…
- ….this information go to? Go ahead.
- Say again? [10:14]
- Information passed to….
- Air Force One, Air Force One. I read you loud and clear. I understand Three, Three departed at Two One Four One. Who do you wish to notify about this? Go ahead.
- Ah, it is very clear sir, that the time of departure is…with the president cars on board.
- Roger, will pass that …know where that goes now.
- Thank you.
- Okay, will you call Command Post and request two, scratch that, four air police meet the airplane? We want two in the front of the airplane and two in the rear. Go ahead.
- Air Force One. You are requesting four staff cars, two staff cars with air police, two in front and two in the rear. Is that correct?
- We don’t want cars, we want air police. We want security people, we want four of them. Two at each door of the airplane. Go ahead.
- Air Force One, Andrews. Roger. Will abide. SAM.
- Roger, thank you.
- A F One, A F One from Crown, come in.
- Crown, Air Force one, go ahead.
- Roger, Roger, stand by for a patch from Tanker, Tanker
- Roger.
- A F One, A F One, Tanker on the line. Go ahead Tanker.
- Hello Andrews, hello Andrews, may I speak with Watchman or Tiger, Watchman or Tiger? Over. Watchman on another line.
- Standing by for Tiger.
- Tiger, how do you read?
- Five by Five, Tiger, Five by Five. I have been informed from Dallas that it was desired that the aircraft be parked at an isolated spot when you arrive here. However, Watchman had a long discussion with ah, Bain, and nothing about that was mentioned. And the present plan on the ground here is to spot you at the regular place, unless Watchman says now that this is not desired. Over.
- I believe that we would park at the regular place, Tiger. Where did you get that information down at Dallas? Over.
- It was from the U.S. A F Command Post agent there. And I understand from him that you had told him to do this. Over.
- We told him to look into that. We were going to discuss it in flight. Go ahead with the regular plan and park in the regular place. Ask…..to get in touch with you and pass on instructions to him. We need steps to the right front of the aircraft. The press box will be on the left front of the aircraft, and President Johnson will deplane at the front of the aircraft. And we need a fork lift at the rear of the aircraft….will deplane on the right front. Over.
- Understand. Tiger. Understand those instructions, and they have all been carried out. We will continue with the plan to spot you in the regular place. There will be a ramp left front, a ramp right front, a fork lift left rear, press area left front. Over.
- Keep in touch. Roger and out.


Reel 2 Side Two - Patch 5

- Crown, patch … call anybody you want.
- Roger.
- A F One, A F One, from Crown.
- Crown, A F One. Go ahead.
- Roger, Roger. Could you pass this to Wing. Pass this to Wing, that on his message to Slugger, Slugger was still in Dallas, still in Dallas, and has been advised to contact Wing as soon as he possibly can.
- Roger, Air Force One, copy. Will pass.
- Roger, Roger. Crown out for now. Do you have anything further A F One?
- Roger, Standby One, we have another patch for Warrior.
- Crown? Give Air Force One a call.
- Air Force One, Crown, go ahead.
- Okay, I need Capitol Four, Three, Two, Nine, One, extension Four, Nine Three.
- Four, Three, Two, Nine, One, extension Four, Nine Three.
- Roger, Roger. Understand. Anyone particular there?
- Roger, anyone at that number.
- Roger, Roger, standby.
- A. F. One, A. F. One from Crown, was that extension Four, Nine Three?
- That is affirmative. Congressman Thomas’ office.
- Say again the Congressman’s name, as they say they have no such extension.
- Congressman Thomas. Hotel, Oscar, Biker, Alpha, Sierra.
- Roger, Roger, standby, Congressman Thomas’ office on the line.
- Roger, this is the airplane. The congressman is requesting that you place his door key under, ah….the doormat of his ah… residence. Go ahead.
- (Women’s voice) Okay. Hello?
- Hello? Did you hear me? Are you there?
- There will be someone at the residence.
- I understand the house will be open and there will be someone at the residence. Is that right?
- Hello. This is Crown. I understand that the residence will be occupied and there will be someone at the residence.
- Okay, fine Crown. Thank you very much.
- Roger, Crown out.
- Andrews, will you check on the ground temperatures when you get a moment?
- Roger.
- The last …was if Volunteer was aboard? Go ahead.
- Just a moment.
- Andrews, the temperature, the present temperature is 64 degrees.
- Okay.
- Crown. Zulu time.
- Zulu?
- Make it 62.
- 63?
- 62.
- 62. Got it.
- Will have to rescind …...
- ...Yes, yes, we’re not going to be able to rescind…we only get them on one circuit now.
- Oh, I see. We’ll just notify the people.
- All right, thank you very much….
- This is Liberty. Roger.
- Air Force One, Andrews.
- Air Force One. Go ahead.
- Roger, Present temperature is 64 degrees. 2300 forecast, Six two degrees.
- Roger. Thank you.
- Air Force one. Will you give me the Command Post please?
- Roger, sir.
- Air Force Command Post…
- Sideband…Air Force One for a patch.
- Roger, Stand by for Air Force One.
- Air Force One, Command Post. Go ahead.
- Roger Command Post, Air Force One, we checked Crown Royal at 2242, and are descending…remains 2305, go ahead.
- Roger. Air Force One. Command Post…..
- (women’s voice) … (unintelligible)
- Standby…ah, he’s on the teleyision set right now.
- (women’s voice) It’s very important.
- Who’s calling please?
- ….in Dallas.
- Can you standby? Over.
- This is Air Force One. Warrior is unable to speak with you at the present time, and asks you if you will please call the White House in about 30 minutes.
- Roger. Out.
- Roger.

Reel 2, Side 2 - Patch 6

- Andrews, this is Air Force One.
- Air Force One. Go ahead.
- Can you give me Air Force Command Post please?
- SAM Command Post. Captain Benson.
- Roger, sideband on Air Force Once for a patch.
- Okay, go ahead.
- Roger, Air Force One, Andrews, SAM Command Post on, go ahead.
- Roger. Do you have an ET on the C130 with the vehicles?
- Negative, sir. Haven’t heard a thing.
- Ah, okay, right, thank you.
- We will check it out.
- Air Force Command Post…sir.
- Sideband from Air Force One coming in.
- White House (operator)
- Standby for Air Force One.
- Roger.
- Go ahead Andrews.
- Command Post, Air Force One landed Andrews at 2300 – Two Three Zero Zero.
- Roger…2300
- Loud and clear.
- Andrews, make it ah….Zero Four please.
- Air Force One, Andrews, arrived on the block at Zero Four. Good Day sir.
- Thank you.

END OF TAPE