Fourth Reich Archaeology - #067 - The Warren Commission Decided 14: Deep Cover(Up), Side B

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Here it is folks! Side B of our final episode of the Warren Commission Decided. We think you'll really like this one, and truth be told, it was a little tough to say goodbye to those 8 goofy fellas and the rotating cast of characters swirling around them after spending the better part of a year digging into their exploits. Recall from Side A that we have been navigating through the commissioners' executive sessions in roughly chronological order from December 1963 all the way up to when the commissioners presented their report to President Johnson in September 1964. The executive sessions were formal meetings, on the record, in which the commissioners discussed the case, made major decisions, and roadmapped their investigation. It is also where the Commission's chief counsel, J. Lee Rankin, broke the news that Lee Harvey Oswald was an undercover FBI agent.In Side B, we lock in on our boy Jerry and all the work he was doing as the FBI’s man on the commission.  Jerry was devoted to Hoover and kept the FBI abreast of all the developments on the commission on a confidential basis. We explore all the dirt that Jerry (allegedly) did for Hoover while serving on the commission. And we explore a more salacious story about how Jerry (again, allegedly) was the target of a honeypot operation involving Ellen Romestch. It’s the end of the line folks, and we thought we ought to end things with a lil’ sexpionage. Enjoy! 

Colonialism or imperialism as the slave system of the West is called is not something that's just confined to England or France or the United States. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. So it's one huge complex or combine. Either you are with us. You are with us or you are with the terrorists. And this international power structure is used to suppress the masses of dark-skinned people all over the world and exploit them of their natural resources.

We found no evidence of a conspiracy, foreign or domestic, the Warren Commission of science. I'll never apologize for the United States of America, ever, and I don't care what the fact are. In 1945, we began to require information, which showed that there were two wars kind of. His job, he said, was to protect the Western way of life. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders the more easy victims of a big lie than a small one. For example, we're the CIA. No, he has a mile.

He knows so long as a nine, or freedom can never be secure. It usually takes a national crisis. freedom can never be secure. Pearl Harbor. A lot of killers. You've got a lot of killers. Why you think our country's so innocent? This is a day.

This is a model. Bigged poor thrice is coming. Bigged for Threichaelic. Archaeology. This is for Threich Archaeology. I'm Dick. And I'm Don. Hello.

Thanks for tuning in and welcome back to our returning listeners. We are so glad to have you here with us today. This week we are releasing on the free feed the second half of the last chapter in our series The Warren Commission decided. This one was an emotional one for us as it marks the end of an era. We are closing the book on the Warren Commission. that great cover-up of the great coup in Dallas in November 1963. We never thought that when we started this project, we would get so deep into all of the things that we have gotten into. And on that point, I'll say for all of our new listeners, maybe you're first time tuning in, maybe you tuned in last week when we were doing our coverage on the No King's protests. We are so glad to have you here with us, but this one, I think it, I encourage you to maybe stop listening now if you haven't heard any of our Warren Commission series and start from the beginning, start from episode one, and really actually just go back to the beginning of our

entire project and start from the beginning there, because we really think that you will have a much more enriching and enjoyable listener experience if you engage in these materials in that chronological order because we are building up a narrative. We are doing a bit of world building, so to speak, and I think that the best way to really appreciate that is to consume these episodes in order. I got to say I just listened to this one again. We recorded it a few weeks ago now, maybe even a little more than a month ago now. And I got to say, I am damn proud of the work we've done with the Warren Commission decided.

And this one, which is the tail end of the whole thing, it really does bring it all together in my book. But before we get into all of that, I want to take care of the usual preliminaries. Once again, thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you out there who have liked the pod, subscribed to the pod, who have left a thoughtful comment on the pod. Basically, all of you out there who are doing God's work, in my opinion, in spreading the word about forthright. archaeology. We really do rely on our community to get this message out there to the people. We strive to be completely at free, completely free of corporate interests.

And as a result, we do have a Patreon where we are actively and openly seeking funding. You can hop on over to Patreon. We have a tiered patronage. system. And, you know, if you are able to, please give us a contribution in the amount that you think is fair. And if you aren't able to give us some money, that is fine too. Please continue listening. Please continue to enjoy what we are doing here. I ask that if you do really like what we have to offer, tell your friends, tell your family, tell people, in real life, go to the message boards, tell the world, tell it on the mountain, that there is this podcast out there that is speaking truth to power and is really a great time. So please,

please do spread the word. Last and certainly not least, we are out here online on social media. you can find us at Fourth Reich Pod on Instagram and on X. And we are, of course, always happy to see correspondence from our fans, from our listeners, from our community. You can please write us at forthrightepod at gmail.com, if you feel so inclined. We are always happy to hear. what you have to say. Tell us what you think. Tell us what you would like to hear from us and tell us how it's going for you. Okay, and just as a very quick recap to reorient you to where we are in this story about the Warren Commission, recall that we are using this last episode to explore

the commission's executive sessions. Those sessions are, of course, these formal meetings where the commission members, they would discuss the major issues of the commission, sort of the big picture strategic decisions. For example, whether and how they would use the subpoena power or things like which direction to take the investigation. And largely, as we had talked about in the last episode, the pretty quickly these executive sessions, they sort of get hijacked by this breaking news that Lee Harvey Oswald may have been on the FBI's payroll. And really where we started this exploration was with the executive session, I think it was in January of 1964, where Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin, broke the news to the rest of the commissioners that, yes, there was this rumor that, Lee Harvey Oswald was a FBI informant.

And we've been using these executive sessions as sort of our final dig site because these sessions really do showcase what the Warren Commission was all about. And that was covering up any whiff of a conspiracy. And this news about Lee Harvey Oswald working for the FBI, it's a perfect showcase of all of that. because it really brings front and center this idea, the goal, goal number one, was always to package up the narrative to the public. Even if it were true that Lee Harvey Oswald was on the FBI's payroll, first of all, there was no way they could prove it one way or the other, but second, it would be just so disastrous if that news got out to the public. the executive sessions are also a great way to reintroduce our true main character in this story of ours jerry

ford and in this episode we go even deeper on jerry and his almost supernatural ability to rise to the occasion and serve the powers that be it also serves as another good case study another good lesson on how all is not what it seems when it comes to Jerry Ford. And what I mean by that is that when the commissioners were all together receiving that news that Lee Harvey Oswald was potentially an FBI informant, while six of those commissioners didn't realize was that they were sitting in the room with yet another FBI informant, namely Jerry Ford. Because at the time, Jerry was very, Jerry was very, much in contact with the FBI through his contact Cartha Deloche. And that's really where we're

going to pick up today is this deep connection that Jerry had with Hoover's FBI and all of the work that he was doing for Hoover while he was on the commission, basically serving as his man, his ears and eyes on the commission to make sure that things play it out just as Jay Edgar wanted them to play out. So without further ado, I think it's time that we just pick up right where we left off on side A and get digging. Now, Walter tells me, Walter Jenkins, it's huge does he make deep to work with us like you did on the hell. I have you. I said you, I should appreciate that. I just appreciate that. I just asked for it because i knew you you had to run your business better than anybody else i just want to tell you

though what we consider as high-class as you do and it's a mighty gracious thing you do and we'd be mighty happy and we we salute you for knowing how to take good men we know that's about a knife you and the president and again i'm quoting mr deloche here for it indicated he would keep me thoroughly advised as to the activities of the commission he stated this way would have to be done on a confidential basis. However, he thought it should be done. He also asked if he could call me from time to time and straighten out questions in his mind concerning our investigation. I told him by all means he should do this. He reiterated that our relationship would, of course, remain confidential. Mr. President, I would like to ask you some questions about this

if I could. And if the committee will permit, I will read a prepared because I wish to be very accurate in this regard. I do not have any memoranda, which shows that after December 19, 1963, I had any contact with Mr. Deloche, and I know of no other memoranda from any source. He's got the works, is your sweet taste.

Am I to understand that because of the confidentiality of the nature of these two meetings with Mr. Deloche that the other members of the Warren Commission at the time were not aware of the fact that you had met with Mr. Deloge. To my best recollection, I didn't indicate to them that I'd had those meetings, no. I don't recall that any advice or suggestions he made were conveyed by me back to the commission, no. Jerry was cozy, cozy with the FBI. He was loyal to Hoover. He was in contact with Deloche. And even before the Warren Commission, I mean, he had a longstanding relationship with the FBI.

with the FBI's liaison to Congress. And recall, you know, Betty was very interested in like tours of the FBI building. So there was a fandom there, I would say, a fandom. Yeah. And like you mentioned, it was sort of a thing in the time, right, like to be a G-man, to be a part of Hoover's FBI.

To be part or at least to be a friend because, you know, you got to have friends in high places and there was really no higher place in Washington, D.C. than the guy who had the dirt on everybody, which was J. Edgar Hooper. Absolutely. Everybody wanted to be on good terms with him. And really, he was, he was the institution. for the better part of the 20th century. Put it that way. Yep.

But I think that really the way that sort of the insinuations of Jerry's connections with the FBI and the way it comes up is in connection with Bobby Baker's allegations. I think that's like the first time it comes up when. And Bobby Baker is sort of giving an oral history to Congress about why Jerry Ford was beholden to Hoover. Yeah, it's kind of bizarre because this oral history is not until many decades after the fact that Bobby Baker is doing this series of interviews. I think it was in the 2000s. okay so maybe not the first time that this news breaks of insinuations of jerry's connections with the FBI but one of the times where it really hits the mainstream this allegation that jerry was

working for the FBI on the commission it's just so funny how according to Bobby how it comes about to be yeah and maybe we should say just a word about Bobby Baker and who he was, he's come up on the pod before in connection with this general meme of Lyndon Johnson as an utterly corrupt politician and president. Bobby Baker was known as Little Lyndon. He was his muscle. His enforcer. Yeah. The guy he had like a private club. Yeah, exactly. He was his bagman, his enforcer, and his blackmail manager slash pimp. He ran something called the Quorum Club that was a private club in a hotel on Capitol Hill where there was ladies of the night who allegedly would entertain politicians. and, you know, out of sight of the wives, out of sight of the press,

but not out of sight of Bobby Baker, importantly. So for those that don't remember or don't know, Bobby Baker was a fixer. He would fix guys with gals. Those guys would usually be politicians and congressmen. For our purposes, Bobby Baker fixed JFK, right? it was JFK and a gal by the name of

Ellen Grimich. Yeah, and not just any gal. A tiger and madame ladies and gent I give you that international sensation. This is a German

gal. You have to understand the way I am, mine hair. A tiger is a tiger, not a lamb, mine hair. A German gal

who, was alleged to have been a spy for East Germany, that even though her nationality was West German and her cuckolded many times over husband was in the West German military, and that was the cover reason for why they were in Washington, D.C., that he was connected to the diplomatic mission. She was a 27-year-old wife of a sergeant

in the West German military mission in Washington. Then in 1963, an informant told the FBI that she was connected at the highest level to the East German Communist Party. And it was pretty well documented that Ellen Romech was visiting with JFK. Rometch became a regular at Bobby Baker's quorum club, which was a watering hole for powerful politicians. Baker knew their personal tastes through his job as secretary to the Democratic Party in the Senate.

Most politicians are unusually horny. That's all they talked about was who could do what. And according to Bobby Baker, JFK reported that Ellen Roebate, match gave what JFK called, quote, the best head job of his life. President Kennedy's best friend and his wingman Bill Thompson was there and he came over to me and he said, we're in the hell did you get this beautiful girl. And Bill Thompson asked me if she could go have dinner with the president. So I arranged for Ellen Romich to go to Bill Thompson.

apartment and he took her to the white house on many occasions he called me after his first meeting with ellen and said that that was the best world sex he'd ever had uh so this was her specialty uh she was like the german nancy reagan if you will the o g nancy reagan yeah exactly exactly And so, according to Bobby Baker, he says, quote, So Hoover had this tape where Jerry Ford was having oral sex with Ellen Romitch. You know, his wife had a serious drug problem back then. Hoover blackmailed Ford. Tell him what they were doing.

That's the quote from Bobby Baker's. oral history at least there's some doubts cast about the veracity of this quote however at which maybe bear a quick summary yeah do you want me to do that yeah go for it i don't even know how to get into this because it's it's a nuts story so here we have bobby baker saying that jerry ford was having oral sex with ellen bromich and that hoover had This recorded at a tape where he was holding it over Jerry's head in exchange for cooperation. Yeah. Yeah, I guess cooperation and information about the goings-on in the Warren Commission.

And it's interesting because the historian we cover, the historian we've been relying on, Richard Norton Smith, who is sort of the foremost Jerry Ford historian, mainstream historian. He has a bit of a defense for Jerry here. Yeah. The first point of his is that Jerry is famously a loyal man who denied having any sort of of extramarital relations ever in his life famously quoted saying to you know others in congress who were like chasing women how how bad it would be for their personal lives i really think it bears reading in i have this myth oh yeah and i think it bears reading in yeah exactly what jerry ford said about you know affairs in general and about sexual promiscuity among congress members

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is probably what I was thinking about. So it's not like a specific denial of any discreet allegation against him, but just in general what Jerry said was. I was never intrigued with any of the females on Capitol Hill. Number one, because of our marital circumstances. And two, I knew that it was dynamite. you have to think of the ten bad things that could happen to you from something like that

and the one good thing and tell yourself the one good thing will get taken care of some other way maybe but you know if indeed ellen romich had the talents that she is reputed to have possessed maybe there is no other way to get that exact one good thing. So there's that. The other defensive justification that Smith gives is that Jerry didn't need blackmail to serve J. Edgar Hoover and to be his mole. And that one I think is a little bit more persuasive. although again not really determinative one way or the other like it is true that jerry for all the reasons we've already said was inclined to help hoover out however he could but hoover was equally solicitous of blackmail on his friends

as he was on his enemies. You know, for example, Hoover was famously long-time pals with Lyndon Johnson. And if you think that Hoover didn't have some dirt on Johnson, well, I've got some real estate that I'd like to sell you because I guarantee you that Hoover kept a file on Johnson. Yeah, you was equal. opportunity surveyor. For sure, exactly.

But there's another angle, which is, I think, kind of BS, but nonetheless, where Smith says that this couldn't have been the case because Bobby Baker's theory that Jerry was thrown into the arms of Ellen Romich, you know, the reason for that happening being Betty Ford's drug addiction, alcoholism. The dates don't mind up because Betty, Betty's pill addiction was tied to a back injury that occurred after the Warren Commission. Yeah, it was in August of 1964, and so, you know, the Warren Commission, of course, the report gets turned in. In September, it would not leave any meaningful amount of time

for Jerry to be blackmailed in a meaningful way if indeed the affair was tied to Betty's drug addiction. But then again, that's kind of a big if, right? And that's kind of what we've said about this take yeah well let's get into our takes after i do his his last so so smith's last point on this is that so bobby baker may have had an axe to grind against ford because ford was on this review panel

so bobby baker you know on top of being and indeed because he was lbj's fixer because he was like secretary of senate what was he had like a He was employed by Congress. Yeah. And while in that role, he got caught doing some bad things. And Jerry Ford was on that review panel and was one of the, I guess, more aggressive people, one of the more anti-Bobby Baker people on that panel.

Which makes sense, right? Jerry Ford was in the Republican congressional leadership, and Bobby Baker was the hatchet man for the Democrats. So they're natural rivals, if not straight up, enemies. Yeah, totally. Okay. So do you want to go first or should I? For me, it's a inconclusive as to whether Jerry actually engaged in any sexual relationship with Ellen Roemetch. And also the one weird thing about the timing that jumps out to me that Smith didn't really glom onto is Romatch after her affair with JFK got out and came to the attention of Bobby Kennedy in 1963.

Bobby Kennedy had her deported back to Germany. and so she had been removed from the country and in order for her to get back in 1964 you know she would have presumably had a hard time and there's not really any other reports or evidence or at least not that I've come across I don't know about you dick but for what I can tell it's actually not completely established that Rometch ever did come back to the U.S. in 1964. So it's possible that Baker just made the whole thing up because there's certainly some problems with the story. And yeah, on the other point about Betty's drug addiction and the timing, I just think it's a big if.

really who cares like bobby baker surmised that it was the same time as betty's drug addiction that doesn't necessarily mean that it is tied in time to betty's drug addiction like he could have had this affair before betty got into drugs yeah for some other reason I mean, I saw a picture of Ellen. She's a looker. She's got sort of that, like, steely Eastern European look to her. Yeah, but she's often been compared to Elizabeth Taylor. And you can see her picture online.

I think she's slightly more buxom than Liz Taylor. But, yeah, she's got a certain. and Jeune Secois. And it's possible, but I think at the end of the day, kind of agree with Smith, that for Jerry, his collaboration with Hoover

was not contingent on him being blackmailed. What do you think? You know what I think? I think he did that shit, man. I think he did it, and I'll tell you why. All right, first of all. all at that moment it wasn't jerry ford what we what we were experiencing i guess what ellen was experiencing that was leslie lynch king junior 100% coming in hot here's the thing first of all

jerry he says a lot of shit and none of it not most of it is not true motherfucker says family first or whatever and he was never home you know he he says a lot of shit jerry yeah he also loves he loves the ladies he loves beautiful women i'm not going to deny him that that's true he's got a track record even betty there's some interview with betty that i saw where she's like well i would be when he stops looking and turning his head at a beautiful woman. Exactly. Exactly. Would you ever have any doubts about your husband and about some of the attractions in this city?

I have perfect faith in my husband, but I'm always glad to see him enjoy a pretty girl. When he stops looking, then I'm going to begin to worry. But right now he still enjoys a pretty girl. And he really doesn't have time for outside entertainment, because I keep him busy. There's also the private club element of it. Like Bobby Baker probably had Jerry at his club at some point, right? Even though they didn't like each other.

Yeah. And I don't know, man. I feel like Jerry knew the drill with these private clubs, these smoky back rooms. His whole life he did that shit. And who knows? Oh, the other thing. Who, the way Bobby Baker says it. what does he say he says jerry ford was having oral sex with ellen romich

to me you know to me that that's open to interpretation like who's having oral sex with who situation you know it's not saying ellen romich was giving jerry ford a head job right I don't know I'll say inconclusive weighing in no I'll say he did that shit yeah

yeah there's plenty of reason to believe it but I definitely think I mean I agree with you that the Richard Norton Smith sort of defense that he puts up is really it's kind of shaky right the whole point where

it's like Hoover didn't need to have any dirt on Jerry because Jerry was just so darn loyal to him. Yeah, that's the only convincing explanation, but again, it doesn't rule anything out by a long shot. Bye, bye, my libe. It was a fine affair, but now it's over. And though I used to care, I need the open air, You're better off without me mine hair. Don't dab your eye, mine hair, or wonder why mine hair.

I've always said that I was a rover. You mustn't knit your brow, you should have known by now, Now you'll every cause to doubt me mine hair. But, okay, but in any event, this salacious tabloid story aside, Jerry Ford very much was the FBI's inside man on the Warren Commission. No? That is a fact. That's for sure.

Maybe we should just talk about a few of the things that he did as their inside man. Yeah, so, I mean, the main thing that he did was obviously, The FBI did not have a guy in the room, right? We know from the Johnson Hoover phone calls that we covered way back at the beginning of the series that Johnson was very much in cahoots with Hoover to put a nice bow on the official narrative and to cover up any potential leads that would suggest a conspiracy behind the Kennedy assassination. But Johnson wasn't in the room either.

And Johnson's man inside, Dick Russell, was also not really playing the part that I think Lyndon envisioned for him at the outset. I mean, Russell really becomes the squeaky wheel over time to the point where at the end of the commission, he wants to put in a dissenting report because he doesn't believe the single bullet theory. So it, there is a need for Hoover to have eyes and ears in that room and to understand what's going on. Because as we have now explained, the commissioners pretty quickly abandoned the initial idea that the Warren Commission would simply repackage. the FBI's findings, right? The FBI mucked it up enough that they could not do that. They had to do

their own investigation and undoubtedly that investigation would clash at certain points with the work that the FBI had done. For Hoover goal number one is preservation of the FBI. He's clutching onto the FBI like an old lady clutches her pearls. And his directorship of the FBI. Yes, of course. I don't think we've mentioned to the listener, Hoover's mandatory retirement age was on the horizon at this point. I think it was like January of 65 or something like that. He was going to have a birthday which would force him into retirement absent some affirmative action by the President of the United States to waive his mandatory retirement and retain him as director of the Bureau. JFK was very much decided against taking that action,

even though he officially sort of strung Hoover along. and let him think that he was going to get waived in. But LBJ was much more amenable to actually doing that. And a bad headline, a big scandal, fucking up the assassination of the president, could certainly make it impracticable. And if there's any president that would step up to Hoover, it would be fucking LBJ.

He's the big bully that would meet Hoover right where he is and not really give a shit. I think he's a very peculiar fella. Start wearing purple, where and purple. He's been around the goddamn thugs

all of his life so many and he doesn't trust his mother. All your sanity. I think what you could do is say to him, ask you drop by, I say, Would you mind coming by? I want to get some advice. So, yeah. He wants to be popular with accomplished,

and he would want to be popular with you, and he would consider it a common. All your sanity and which they will all vanish, I promise. Here's it just a matter of time. I know you since you want. When there are some people walk a little bit off, but often they be queer,

I think a little bit off of me, maybe queer. I guess you're going to have to teach me something about this stuff. I swear, I can't recognize them. I don't know anything about it. So yeah. It's a thing that you just can tell. We salute you for knowing how to take good men. Well, that's by the night of you, Mr. President.

See you. And so that's kind of Jerry's, at least as I see it, his principal role as Hoover's mole was to report back to the FBI what the commission was finding about the FBI's investigation, what criticisms it had, and what holes it was finding with the FBI's investigation. what criticisms it had and what holes it was finding with the FBI's work so that Hoover and his people could be on alert and do whatever damage control they might in order to patch those holes up. But I guess that's not all that Jerry did, right? Yeah, okay. so like some of the stuff we've already talked about but for example the appointment of warren only jerry passes that information along to deluge and deluge pushes back on that and so ford is very vocal he sort of takes the lead on making sure only is out there's also the bullet location stuff

right that ultimately gets revised by for the language the actual words on the page get changed by jerry ford and then there is norman redlich norman redlich was this guy was jay lee rankins assistant and a lawyer and throughout his career he gained this reputation is just a real grinder, right? The legend was he could work from 8 a.m. to 3 a.m. every day. And, of course, Rankin loved him very much as an assistant. My man had, like, all kinds of prescriptions to those 60s stimulants, I'm sure. Fucking prel it in. He was on that Jack Ruby pack.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, we should say he went to, he served in World War II, he went to Williams College, he went to Yale Law School. So he has a little bit of that streak in him, but unlike everybody else, he was a political activist. From the point of view of J. Edgar Hoover, right? Like, which is anybody to the left of Genghis Khan is a political activist to Edgar Hoover. I mean, the big sin that Redlich was accused of having committed was being a part of this group, the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, which opposed the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Red Scare Witch Hunts of the 1950s. So it's not, you know, certainly for the time,

reflects a slight departure from the mainstream, but he's not burning the flag or anything like that. In any event, he has the tinge of being a lefty, a communist. Well, I mean, the guy did. He was a lawyer in his free time. He would give pro bono service to death row inmates, right? So he wasn't, I think he, I don't say he's an activist. I think he was a good lib.

Yeah, he was a good lib. But anyway, so Jerry gets news of this from Louisiana Dixie Grat, Edwin Willis, probably got news of it at the quorum club, honestly. If it was still having drinks. Jerry gets word that this red lick guy is, he's got a little stink to him. and then he pushes to get him out, right? So there is a pretty steady paper trail of Jerry working for the FBI while he's on the Warren Commission. And I'm not going to say he was on the payroll, but he was very loyal.

yeah and to just so that the listeners not left hanging i mean the red lick issue it was really poorly timed like the guy had already been hired he had already started working for the commission as a staffer by the time the complaints about him start rolling in so whereas warren only was nipped in the bud and he was eliminated from the commission before he got hired in the first place redlic was already hired he was already doing some work and the eyebrows went up when it was learned that he had been hired and so really what ends up happening in the executive session meeting is you know ford and others as well are calling for his ouster and Earl Warren kind of puts his foot down and is not having it. And he's like, well, I'm not going to get rid of him. Like if you want to formally

submit in writing a request for his removal from the committee, you know, you may submit that with your reasons given and just kind of puts a high bar to and putting the onus on redlicks detractors to do the work of putting their name on this ouster this post hoc ouster from the staff and nobody wants to do that because it's just a distraction a bad look and Jerry backs down he requests at that point in the executive session to go off record so the transcription ceases and we don't know what was said during that off record part of the discussion but suffice it to say that they continue the conversation redlick stays on Jerry maybe, I mean, what Richard Norton Smith speculates is that Jerry apologized for making a stink about Redlich and kind of puts the blame on his right-wing colleagues in the Congress for putting him up to doing this, you know, making this big deal about Redlich.

So Redlick stays on. Yeah, what does he say? So when Warren wants, when he's like, all right, well, you're going to put up your reasons. And I think Jerry says, all right, I'll do it if you'll also let me add, like, if I knew about his background before hiring him, I wouldn't have hired him. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. He's like just saving face at that point. I like with Jerry.

So just from what he did say. about him. He did the, I think it was the Tom Cruise thing on the movie set, or Christian Bale, where he's like, I like the guy. I like him. We're just, professionally, it's not going to work out. Right? He says, I like him. I don't want to hurt him the slightest. He's talking about getting rid of him. And then Warren goes, Jerry, there are no charges against this man. Classic Warren. and it it was a good thing for the credibility of the Warren Commission in the long run perhaps ironically that this all happened because Redlich is a big Warren Commission

defender for the rest of his life and the fact that he had these sort of left-leaning political Bonafides, I think puts even more potential legitimacy on the Warren Commission's conclusions because it's not like a right-wing wash job, right? If you have people who are critical, who may even have communist sympathies or whatever, like Norman Redlich, and those people, are just as invested in the lone nut theories as the furthest right-wing people like Alan Dulles with actual skin in the game, then, you know, that says something to the kind of casual skeptic about the legitimacy of the commission's findings. At least that's how I

I kind of read, I think they did the commission a favor by keeping Redlich on despite Jerry's protestations. You know, I guess knowing that their conclusion would be there was no conspiracy, having Redlich on makes sense. But in the moment, I have to think that Jerry's thinking, like, this guy is going to take the train off the rails, you know? So with hindsight, knowing that the conclusion was. what it was I think it totally makes sense to have as many lefties on there signing on to that

thing as possible but the danger I guess was was real at least from from Jerry's point of view and certainly from Hoover's point of view yeah yeah well it's not worth the risk right it's not where I think when it's happening in in the moment it's not worth the risk now let's get back to the commission's executive sessions we left off it was January 20 it was January 22nd 1964 the news of Oswald's FBI connections had just broke and then it sort of takes up all of the oxygen for for the commission like I don't remember I think it's like 14 or 15 executive sessions they have they have like four or five that are administrative and then they have like four or five on how to handle the FBI stuff so it it really like takes over their

focus and going back to what you said earlier in this episode I think like to the extent the CIA wanted to do this to sort of throw a chaff grenade into the Warren commission's boardroom it's pretty successful, I'd say, right? It makes a whole side show of it. The first order of business is that, you know, obviously Rankin and the commission, they want all of these people from Texas, the Texas AG, the DA,

they want the Texas officials to come to Washington. And they do and they meet in a special closed-door session. And, you know, we had, I think we talked about it earlier, but it was like really comes down to this one person's. It's a journalist's unnamed source that is the source of the information. Nonetheless, Rankin decides to go over to Hoover and present him with the information.

and to see how it goes. How does it go? I mean, what's Hoover going to say? Right. Right. He denies it. It's like what Dulles would say. Yeah, it's like what Dulles says.

Like, if it were even true, how could he even confirm or deny it? And not only a denial, but it's a pretty aggressive denial, right? I would imagine that Rankin maybe even got a little. shook up by Hoover but ultimately like we teased Hoover puts together he gets his staff he gets some key guys

and I think he himself submit affidavits testifying that there's like no connection with Oswald and that's that I mean that is the end of the matter we might have said this already but despite the fact that as John McCloy stated on the record at one of the executive sessions, the journalist does not have

a legal privilege to withhold the identity of his source from the commission. The commission lets him do that. Nevertheless, they do not press him to reveal his source, and his source never is revealed and so to this day i believe there's no information about who accused oswald of being a paid FBI informant so our accusation that it was the CIA still is not disproved And I'm going to stick with that because I really don't... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. It's very compelling, I think, and I'm not just saying that because you're my bro. But it is compelling.

I want to just bring us back on track here, though, because we've got to land this plane. But, okay, so now it's the affidavits thing, right? Now it's February 1964, and the commission does meet. They meet February 24th, 1964, the topic of discussion is the affidavits from the FBI. And then they just have one meeting in March, I think. Yeah, the March meeting is pretty uneventful. And there's another meeting on April 30th that's a lot more interesting. The idea of conspiracy theories comes up.

And they're discussing some books that are being written contemporaneously by Mark Lane and by another conspiracy-minded author that are making a lot of waves in Europe. And John J. McCloy talks about, he says, it lets to the best of our ability, search these out and attack them. In response, Alan Dulles suggests that he can get in touch with his old contacts in the British services to obtain an advanced copy of one of these books that's due to be published, so much for the idea that he was no longer actively involved in intelligence services. This is the same meeting where Alan Dulles says, his famous line with respect to publishing the exhibits that nobody's going to read them anyways. And finally, the April 30th meeting is where they plan to take a trip to Dallas in the month of May.

When they go to the actual site, D. Lee Plaza, Jerry does his famous test run, literally. is it do you know this one is it i think it's like the same day right they the same day they interview ruby they're also at the book depository it might be there was many trips down to dallas that consisted of different subgroups of commissioners you could just imagine the scene and we haven't covered in depth the assassination details and all of that stuff, which we direct you elsewhere, you know, solving JFK, for example, a great place to get the play-by-play on that. But one of the key facts about the assassination and about Oswald's ability to have been the lone gunman is how could he have gotten from the

sixth floor where he allegedly fired the shots where the sniper's nest and the shell casings were found by that window all the way down to the second floor where he was spotted by other eyewitnesses in the building including i think police that had entered the building to look for potential shooters and to take a roll call of the people present in the building and they see Oswald drinking a Coke in the cafeteria. And so he had a very short period of time to get from point A to point B. And Jerry Ford, the former college football star, just imagine him wearing a suit.

you know he takes off his jacket maybe rolls up the sleeves maybe even tucks his tie into his shirt he's got a stopwatch in hand he's sprinting down these stairs full pump full pump and i think he even did it for the rest of oswald's path too because the whole movements of oswald on the day to get later to first to his rooming house and then to the spot where he allegedly shoots J.D. Tippett on the street and then to the Texas theater where he's arrested. And so Jerry's like running all over Dallas with his little stopwatch. You've got to imagine my man working up a sweat doing his paces. that's one of my favorite, like, Warren Commission images. Like, Warren is standing out or is in Daly Plaza looking up, you know,

talking, talking to Spector or something, inspectors giving him the single-bolic theory. And he's like, well, I suppose, a single assassin could. And Jerry's just in the background, like, you know? Maybe get some push-ups in afterwards. Now that his heart rates up, he's loose, he's limber. Sweat beating from his brow.

He drinks the Coca-Cola, too, to make it fully authentic. Jerry reporting back to them about how it could be done. Well, gentlemen, I think clearly a man, 25 years younger than myself, could easily make this trajectory in the allotted time And they're all probably like, that's nice, Jerry. Yeah, and Dulles has got to be just like a glint,

a gleam in Dulles's eye. I knew I made a good pick with this boy. Oh, man. Did you have an opportunity as part of the commission to retrace Lee Harvey Oswald's steps from his, is rooming house to the shooting of Mr. Tibbitt and then to the... Yes, I went to Dallas with the Chief Justice. And we spent a full day not only interrogating Jack Ruby,

but going over precisely Oswald's movements as we understood them during that whole period. And we went, again, I can't recall the number, to buy the house where the woman was on the porch, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, and all of this is in the shadow of the early executive sessions where the ambit of the ambit of the. the commission's work expands. There's a real mission creep at first. They're thinking about maybe we'll take a couple of interviews. They have the subpoena power, but they're not even

envisioning using that subpoena power at the very beginning, even through these January meetings. But then as the time goes on, you know, end of January into February, they vastly expand the amount of work that they're going to have to do in order to satisfy the American people. And that's always the language that they're using. And that's so important to keep in mind that the idea from the very beginning that the truth is our only client, that famous quote that I think one of the staffers, even named his book. Rankin.

Yes. I think that was Rankin that said it. Yep. And it becomes clear as you read through these transcripts that the actual goal, the actual objective on everyone's mind is not learning the truth. It's satisfying the American people. It's all the way back to the goal as articulated by Nicholas Katzenbach in his November 25th memo where he's already saying we've got to shore up Oswald as the lone assassin. And if there was any difference of opinion among the commissioners early on about that,

it disappears in the springtime of 1964 when they are not only taking testimony and doing, you know, field research or whatever you want to call the on-the-ground activities that they're undertaking. But they're also distilling their theory, right? like Arlen Specter is presenting them with the ultimatum during this time, right? He's saying, look, we've got the forensics, the way you basically have to look at it this way, or you're going to be talking about a conspiracy. Yep. And again, to refer back to our McLeoy episodes, this is also the point in time when John J. McCloy takes a real 180, which,

which we've also kind of pinpointed to one of these trips that he takes with Dulles to Dallas, after which he does not look back on his initial doubts about there being only one shooter. I think likewise Cooper has the same sort of come to Jesus' moment where he, and it's just the stakes of it all, I think, more than anything, it's the stakes of it all that I guess as Alan Dulles says it right we couldn't convince everybody there's no way we could convince the world that there wasn't some conspiracy you just couldn't do that what we were trying to do is sort of our best to to you know say this is what the evidence is and this it doesn't support it right exactly and so at this time they're collecting the evidence

And I think it also warrants pointing out that the September date at which the final report is eventually turned in to the president, that's a significant departure from the initial plan, right, Dick? Yeah, totally. So Warren had the goal to get the report out by June 1964. And why was that? Well, it was because 1964 is an election year. And Warren wanted to avoid presidential politics from getting into the mix. So it's this, man, Warren must have been so pissed. It's this classic group project thing.

And this is such a self-owned for them. They set their own deadline. and what do they say about setting if you're going to set a deadline? Yeah, you don't want to set it too soon. You don't want to set a deadline you're not going to keep. You look like a buffoon. You look like an absolute clown. And these guys blew past, or I should say,

it became pretty clear they're not going to meet their June deadline. Yeah, and I mean, it's not their fault entirely because the more they investigated, the more these different threads led them in a million different directions. And this goes to the whole bigger picture of the JFK assassination that the more that I've studied it and learned about just the vast number of inflection points where reasonable minds could differ about how to interpret a given. piece of evidence or set of facts. Right, the Ellen Romich-Falachio story, for example. Yeah, even that.

Even something as simple as a head job presents just an unsolvable puzzle of ambiguity. Imagine that times a million, and that's what was in front of these guys. And you got to think, like, knowing the master, the orchid master himself, Jim Angleton, and his literary, poetic mind at work, you know, with a deep understanding of textual ambiguity and with an uncanny ability to point things in different direction. you know it seems like a very well constructed labyrinth with a million dead ends with no real exit at all and the door closes behind you as soon as you're in like it is again Oliver Stone writing the dialogue for Joe Pesci's David Ferry nailed it when he called it a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

Totally. Totally. I guess we should just, we should get to September. Yeah, we get to September. I mean, you get to September. They finish the report. Even the finish report just punts on half of the pressing questions of the assassination. What was Oswald's motive?

The report doesn't find a motive. It just punts. There's nothing. Nothing. We don't know. Could have been a lot. They say, I think the report does say that they should have had the bubble top on. Oh, thanks.

Thanks for that. It does have these little recommendations. Yeah, the recommendation section. And we talked about that in. an earlier episode too It was the very first That was the very first episode I think Classic

We went through the findings Yeah so it's September 1964 The group is done with their project And they I want to say carpool To the White House With the report in hand

All seven of them All eight of them I think Rankin was there too And honestly It's like in how we have an idea of what the Soviets are like it's like we're just like the Soviets where there's just this pomp and pagetry over a report and like seven people walking it over to LBJ taking pictures with the report yeah it's it's quite a scene everyone like smiling thumbs up yeah and according to one of his aides, Cooper was hiding in shame on Picture Day.

To the White House in Washington comes the final verdict on the fateful tragedy which engulfed the nation 10 months ago. U.S. Chief Justice Earl Warren is the bearer of the sad epilogue. The report on the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy compiled by the commission created by President Johnson, which was headed by the Chief Justice himself. today the warren report attempts to unravel the dark twists into which the national tragedy was thrown and bookstores the world over are besieged it's just so awesome it's like you nailed it it's like they turn it in they turn it in pretty half-baked and cherry on top is they turn it in kind of late

it's like the ultimate college group project gone wrong yeah i mean if you're talking about not wanting to impact a presidential election at the beginning of November and you turn it in basically a month before on September 24th. And it hits the bookstores after that, right? They turn it in on September 24th. It's a few weeks later. So right before the election that it actually gets sold to the public available for perusal by the public. There's, of course, the famous Alan Dulles quote from one of these executive sessions that one of the things that they're mulling over is how much of our evidence should we publish alongside of it? And most people are of the view to not publish any of the supporting evidence

but then Dulles, savvy guy that he is, errs on the side of a data dump and just let's just put it all out there separate from the report and nobody will look at it. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. I'm with Dulles, man. That's the move.

That is the move. That is the move. The American people don't read. But leave it to a fucking sexist like Dulles. And, you know, fourth-right archaeology, feminist podcast, 100%. Because what a blind spot that man had, because many of the very first people to pour over the volumes upon volumes of evidence are women. Right. Yeah. Fuck yeah. We got to give it up for the likes of Sylvia Marr, May Brussels.

Mary Farrell? Mary Farrell. All of these women put the attention to the detail and made a mockery of the report in very short order. I think Sylvia Marr's first book was published in like six. And, you know, maybe we'll piss some people off, but much more rigorous than Mark Lane, who also got a tip of hat, for sure. But he was a lot more bombast and oftentimes lost the details or made incorrect statements or whatever. and it just, it's a great irony, I think, that Alan Dulles, this total asshole, just did not see coming the fact that people would look. But Johnson carried the 64 election handily.

Yes, he won the election. He did not buy the report. and we have LBJ speaking for himself in 1969 Walter Cronkite filmed an interview with President Johnson they talked about the Kennedy assassination one portion of the interview was not broadcast at the president's insistence on grounds of national security but subsequent disclosure of Mr. Johnson's opinions by Califano and others made it no longer necessary to withhold the film Cronkite asked President Johnson whether he was satisfied that there was no international conspiracy in the assassination.

I can't honestly say that I've ever been completely relieved of the fact that there might have been international connections. You mean you still feel that there might have been? Well, I have not completely discounted. Well, I would seem to indicate that you don't have full confidence in the Warren Commission. No, I think the Warren Commission study and I think first of all is composed the ablest, most judicious, bipartisan men in this country. Second, I think they had only one objective and that was the truth. The third, I think they were competent and did the best they could.

But I don't think that they are, me or anyone else, who's always absolutely sure of every thing that might be. might have motivated Oswald or others that could have been loved but was quite a mysterious fellow and he did have a connection that bore examination and the extent of the influence of those connections on him I think history will be with much more than we're able to amount. Yeah, he expressed his own doubts about the single bullet theory. Dick Russell, very vociferous in his. his dissent.

I mean, we went into a lot of detail on a lot of the stuff about the final report in past episodes and keep going back to the McCloy episodes, especially because... Those are some banger, banger episodes. Oh, those are great ups, yeah. Those are definitely bangers. Because his skill set, his unique set of abilities to put all this. ducks in a row to lawyer the shit out of the language were so clutch in those final days you know jerry ford like you mentioned you know he moves the wound he makes the edit that actually i think we should

be specific about it so ford changed a single sentence in the final report that altered what had been written as the upper back as the sight of the entry wound for the magic bullet. And what Jerry Ford did was to revise that to say at the back of his neck. The original sentence read, A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder, and to the right of the spine. It's not that well written in the first instance

because above the shoulder, what it's really talking about is a shoulder blade bone, not shoulder as in, you know, where your arm comes out. And what Ford edited to was a bullet had entered the back of his neck at a point slightly to the right of the spine. and that of course is incorrect and somebody i don't know if it was mccloy or somebody else even tweaked jerry's language a little bit so what the final report read was a bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine and as we discussed in the specter episodes in great detail that is

not accurate. That is not accurate at all. Your neck doesn't go five inches below the collar line. That is not human anatomy. So in some, it was misleading and it was deliberate to render the single bullet theory more plausible given the location of the exit wound, which of course was at the knot of Kennedy's necktie. Or I should put exit wound in quotes there, right? Because it's not even clear that that was an exit wound at all in the front of Kennedy's throat. so jerry defied the actual scientific findings to make this change and what jerry ford said my changes had nothing to do with a conspiracy theory my changes were only an attempt to be more precise

just lying his ass off in a telephone interview from Beaver Creek, Colorado nearby his mants out there in Vail where he spent so much of his

post-presidential life and that is amazing Yeah, yeah. And his other, well, first I'm going to say, I want to go back to the point with Alan Romich. I'm going to say, you know who would live in Beaver Creek? Someone who loves having oral sex with Eastern European women. So that's another notch on the sex scandal. But the language stuff, the other, I think the other sort of in conversation with this little tweak in the language is the famous. we found no evidence of a conspiracy. Yes. That's a Jerry Ford original.

And he would always say, look, we're not saying there was no conspiracy. Maybe one day there is some evidence that comes forward. And if that is the case and there's evidence that supports conspiracy, the Warren report should be amended. What we're saying is that we found no evidence. It's that same thing with language that he does, where it's just vague enough. And I think that's where we've got to tie up the whole series here, and we can spend a few minutes now about the legacy, both of the Warren Commission

and of particularly Jerry Ford's role in shoring up the legacy of the Commission. So what you just said is a great place to start, because Jerry, until his dying day, would go on saying, well, if there is any evidence of a conspiracy, then I would be open to changing my judgment. And, but I've never seen that evidence, and as far as I'm aware, it's never come up. but nobody really like confronted him with any evidence except the Bob Costa sorry yeah I was gonna say it's funny that his line is so hilarious because Bob Costa of all people Bob costas which say what you will about Bob Costas he sort of fumbles it too but there's an interview where he points out to Jerry like hey there was the congressional I think he even says like the Senate Committee on Assassination.

He brings up the H.SCA and their conclusion, and what does Jerry say? He says, in response to that, to the point, Bob cost his whole point is like, well, there was this other committee that did an investigation, and they actually found that there had to have been another shooter, or it was more likely than not that there was another shooter. He's like a robot. Jerry's just like, well, that's their evidence. It's not any new evidence, but that is what they. are concluding from their evidence that they're looking at and we have our

evidence you mentioned the Warren Commission earlier you were on that commission only seven or eight people on I'm the only surviving member oh is that right are you convinced now as apparently you were then that the Warren Commission findings were correct I'm absolutely convinced today as it was then that our basic conclusions were correct and those were that Lee Harvey Oswald committed the assassination. And secondly, that our commission found no evidence of a conspiracy, foreign or domestic. Now, that last phrase is key, because I understand you lobbied for it to be worded that way. Not that there could not have been a

conspiracy, but that we honestly found no evidence of a conspiracy. But then that raises the question, was there a so-called rush to judgment? Might there have been? been evidence of a conspiracy yet to be uncovered that simply didn't come to the attention of the Warren Commission, but the obvious motive to wrap this thing up, heal the national wound and move on, made them less diligent than they should have been. We did not rush to judgment. We spent 10 full months. We deliberated and came to what I think were very sound conclusions.

conclusions are as sound as they were when we made the decisions wasn't there a Senate select committee on assassinations that concluded they couldn't be 100% sure but they were 90% I think they termed it sure that there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll and he fired and missed I think you're referring to the House committee okay that had an investigation they came up with some other theories. They didn't have any new evidence. They just took our evidence and came up with a different conclusion. It's amazing. It is amazing. It's sort of like the precursor to the alternate

facts deal. You know, we have our facts and they have theirs. Don't be so overly dramatic about it, Chuck. You're saying it's a falsehood and they're giving Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that, but the point remains that there's... Yeah, and Jerry was the only member of the Warren Commission to have seen the 1991 film, JFK, by Oliver Stone, that the story goes that he inadvertently saw it because it was playing on a commercial airliner that he was flying on back in the day when there was only one movie on in the plane and everybody

watched it on the screens at the same time and so he had to sit through it but would only give very generic and generalized retorts to say that oh that wasn't accurate at all and it was a fantasy of mr stone and whatever the fuck else but never actually refuted any of the specifics and again just like amazingly was never confronted with the specifics i mean kind of like what we talked about in the arlen specter episode where he eventually um when he finally said that he finally said down with Vince Salandria, Arlenz Bechter did, late in his life. And the best that he could do was to say, well, at least could you say that I was incompetent instead of dishonest? And, um, no, yeah, Celandria says, such a boss move by Celandria. Hell yeah. Gangster. So

gangster like only yeah so gangster let job let god judge you so jerry lifelong defender but we've kind of skipped over the fact that before he was a lifelong defender of the report he was its original propagandist so even before the ink was dry on the final report jerry for was already in talks with Life Magazine about publishing an insider's account of the Warren Commission process and investigation. And remember that Life Magazine at this time, to say you're in talks with Life Magazine

is essentially saying that you're in talks with the CIA because this was the property of Henry Luce, close personal friend of Alan Dulles, and lifelong deep state fourth Reichsman. And the editor was C.D. Jackson, who himself had been in the OSS during the war, and was again in the same circle of friends with the Dulles' The Wisdom. the Phil Grams, all of these Cold War old boys who conspired to shape the world that we live in today. So Jerry gets his article published there in, was it October 64? That sounds right. Yeah, it sounds right. It was right on the heels of the report. It's like very soon after.

and then spins that out into a book-length take on the assassination entitled Portrait of the Assassin, which he publishes in 1965 with, I believe, a $10,000 advance he had gotten for that book. So he was cashing in on his service in a monetary way. And you've got to think that our hustle and grind man, Jerry Ford, had that in the back of his mind when he signed up for this shit in the first place, right? Not even Richard Norton Smith will defend this part. So he did get a $10,000 advance. he split it with John Stiles

they failed to sell their 10,000 copies so they never even made the publisher never made its money failed to make the initial run the initial 10,000 copies not even Richard Norton Smith

is defending the book I think he calls it like a cut pace job pretty accurate I mean that is what it is yeah it's and Simon and Schuster was the publisher, too. So, you know, no slouch of a publishing house. That's a big one. And so, and I want to just read the Douglas Kiker Book Week review, which is, since it adds nothing new and fails to improve on the old, writes Kiker, is it really needed?

Well, and maybe you can spin a little yarn on this and answer Doug's question. Why would we need such a book? portrait of the assassin having both we've both read it I tend to agree that it's just a cut and paste job but there is a reason for it and I think I mean you've talked about it offline maybe you want to speak on that a bit yeah I mean I think that it's useful as propaganda it's a selective cut and paste job like the book I would say at least two-thirds of it, maybe three-quarters of it, and maybe even more, consists of block quotes from selected testimony that you could presumably find in the appendices to the Warren Report. There's a lot of stuff from Oswald's diaries, which many of them may not have

even been written by Oswald at all. There's a lot of stuff from Marina Oswald's testimony, from Marguerite Oswald's testimony. It's styled as a biography, but what it really is is a packaging of the Oswald story within the context of the bigger picture of the bigger picture of the Cold War. And I'm going to read a passage from the very, very end of the book. So the way that Jerry ends the book is thus. The commission found that Lee's urge to try to find a place in history and his despair at times over failures and his various undertakings were factors leading to

his heinous crime. There will be those who read this biography of an assassin who will single this out as the overriding consideration. As a member of the commission, I feel sure that this was indeed a consuming drive behind Lee Oswald's motley career, even if he wasn't aware that it was recognition and fame he was seeking when he committed the most craven crime in the most craven crime in history, all his pretensions of reforming the world, creating a better society, protesting injustices to mankind were as empty as anything could be. That Lee Harvey Oswald did have the capacity for the kind of violence he was guilty of in Dallas is well established by the witnesses. However, I would like to say a few words about the last of the points in

regard to his motivation brought out in the commission report, namely that Lee's avowed commitment to Marxism and communism was an important factor in explaining his behavior. There will be some who will scoff at this factor. Few can deny that many of the great traditions of modern free government, of democracy indeed, find their origins deep in the traditions. of Christian ethics. Alexis de Tocqueville, that incisive observer of American institutions,

pointed out well over a hundred years ago that self-government and personal freedom flourished in America because of the tradition among settlers. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Freedom and democracy depend on self-restraint. They depend on voluntary consideration of the other fellow. In my judgment, if one were to stress the thing I consider most deceptive about communism, it is the failure of its advocates to recognize the importance of reasonable human relationships. To my mind, here lies the treacherous fallacy of the creed Lee Oswald embraced. Lee Oswald was not an ordinary assassin whose brutal act was the product of an addled head. It was not just his head that was addled.

It was his heart as well. In his life, he had no meaningful human relationships. The witnesses have recorded in the archives their biography of an assassin. They have recorded more than that. They have etched on the stones of history, unique and comprehensive picture of human nature in mid-passage of the 20th century. Hardly any of what the 552 witnesses had to say in 25,000 pages of testimony is totally insignificant. The quotations in this volume are a fraction of the whole record, and it has been one of the

writer's aims to convey the broad picture of the events surrounding a sorrowful day in our history. The conclusions of these final remarks are personal observations. To each his own may be a fine poetic concept, but we do not live alone, and neither Ali Oswald nor anyone else can succeed in so doing. I think this encapsulates exactly what Jerry Ford was trying to accomplish with this book, which is to insinuate that any person who dabbles in radical politics is a potential assassin, terrorist, whatever.

And this, in our master thesis of the Fourth Reich and of the consolidation of the Fourth Reich and the integrated spectacle, of course, 1963 are kind of the first shots. It's the opening bookend in a lot of ways in this process of consolidation that disembarks in the present where we kind of live in this permanent American years of lead where any sort of speech can be imbued with criminal suspicion given the proliferation of terrorism

And, you know, with all these manifestos floating around, the latest having been another school shooting just in the last week or so. Speaking now from post-production, that phenomenon has only gained in prominence since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which took place since we recorded the rest of this episode. episode. And now we see once again all of the repressive powers of the state being marshaled against the potential for dissenting or subversive speech. And I think we're going to keep on seeing that as things get worse and the clampdown titans. That's Fourth Reich archaeology for you, folks, in a nutshell, that we have our finger on the pulse of this fascist hellscape that we live in and we have our eyes firmly looking both backwards into the past and forwards into the future if your analytical lens is sharp

then things make a lot more sense even if they are no more palatable as a result of making of making sense but i i know that you also had some closing thoughts that passage really bridges both of my points which i wanted to get i wanted to just briefly talk about before we sign off we'll just talk about jerry's legacy with respect to the warren commission which we have he was obviously the most vocal supporter even to the day he died of course actually even after death he was carrying water for the commission George H.W. Bush famously gave Jerry a nod at his memorial saying

you know the conspiracy theorists will say what they will but the Warren commission will always be the final word because Jerry Ford put his name on it but the passage you read it really to me it's the other takeaway from all of this is what Jerry internalized. What his learnings were? What his takeaway? After spending a decade in Congress,

supporting the military industrial complex, supporting the intelligence community, generally just on that grind set, supporting the powers that be, see, for example, the relationships that he was building with the Dulles brothers, the relationship he was building with Hoover, the relationship he built with Johnson.

Jerry got a front row seat to how things got done on the Warren Commission he knew that the thing was a sham because he took part in it and I think it's like really the full circle moment for Jerry where he becomes the insider he becomes the mover the shaker

he's the guy that makes things happen and I think like obviously this makes Jerry feel good man you know he's like accomplished the thing that he very much wanted to be when he was a wee old lad in in grand rapids when he was just knee high to a grasshopper looking up at art van derogberg the u.s. senator who was his dad's friend who was really just the leader in the community or later in his life where he was rubbing up against professionals like Julius

Hambert, the lawyer that took him under his wing. Jerry was finally there. He was finally one of those men. And the experience for Jerry, and I'm speculating, ultimately, it was

as much a curse as it was a gift. Because he knew what this whole machine was capable of. And, sure, like, coming out of the Warren Commission, he may have felt like a made man, so to speak. But just like the mafia, he knew that there was no getting out, right? You don't just retire from it, right?

Yeah, a lesson Jack Ruby learned the hard way. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's where I want to leave off as we're getting back into Jerry World. it's like what was his legacy and what did he take away from it and that's all i got yeah yeah i mean i think we've alluded to it we're gonna jump ahead in time a little bit before we pick our jerry world narrative right back up in the 60s but i mean the guy had a lot of obstacles in his path he wanted to be the Speaker of the House, but he didn't have a Republican majority or a clear path to one. So, you know, in a certain sense, knowing how the sausage gets made could only get him so far.

Like you said, it's a blessing and it's a curse, or it's a double-edged sword that he knows how sharp it is. but it still is not his to wield at will. And that could be the epilogue to the Warren Commission Decided series, or it could be the prologue to she Harvey Oswald, our upcoming series, on the female assassins of the 1970s who set their sights on Jerry himself. Wow. I can't believe it's over, man.

I know. I can't either. And, you know, maybe someday we'll do a little addenda to this series. Maybe we'll bring back some of our guests. I know, for example, that Jeff Kay, that he's done even more research on the Warren Commission shrinks. So, you know, there's obviously a ton of meat on the bone, but this podcast is not a Warren Commission podcast.

And now eight months plus into this mini-series within a series, we have got to move on. Yeah. We're not a war and commission podcast. Don't come at us about how for most of our existence we've been doing war and commission stuff. But we do hope that you've enjoyed it. Dick, it has been my honor and my privilege to undertake this excavation at your side.

The privilege and honor is all mine. And I suppose with that, I'm Don. I'm Dick. Saying farewell. And keep digging. And keep on digging. And keep on digging. Well, this is a hail bog.

I'd like to also just remind you to keep on digging, but you're gonna have to get an earth mover to dig in that frozen tundering Alaska where my bones are buried.