Fourth Reich Archaeology - The Warren Commission Decided 14: Deep Cover(up)

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

The time has come to say farewell to our ragtag team of commissioners and to close out our ongoing miniseries, The Warren Commission Decided. We wrap things up much as we started them, with Commissioner Gerald R. Ford as our guide. In this episode, with Jerry in the driver's seat, we navigate 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.We use the executive sessions as our final dig site because these sessions really showcase what the Warren Commission was all about – covering up any whiff of conspiracy. The executive sessions also show how little these guys cared about getting to the truth. Goal one was to package up a narrative they could sell to the public. As for our boy Jerry, this episode goes even deeper on his almost supernatural ability to rise to the occasion and serve the powers that be.  It’s also another great lesson of how all is not what it seems when it comes to Gerald Ford.This one is going to be another two-parter, with Side A available now for free and the full package dropping exclusively on our P@treon imminently. And with that, let's get digging. . . 

On the evening of Wednesday, January 22nd, 1964, a cold gray night in Washington, D.C., the Warren Commission was called for an emergency session. Congressman Boggs and Ford, Senators Russell and Cooper, were tending to duties in Congress, while John J. McCloy and Alan Dulles were going about their lives as private citizens. Jay Lee Rankin, newly appointed Chief Counsel to the Commission just weeks before, called the meeting to share some startling and top-secret breaking news that Lee Harvey Oswald had been an undercover agent for the FBI. We'll read from the transcript of that meeting,

and first we'll let our cast of character. introduce themselves for the record. I'm Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and Chair of the Warren Commission. A representative of Hale Boggs of Louisiana, Commissioner. This is Jay Lee Rankin, Chief Counsel to the Warren Commission. Gerald R. Ford, Representative of Michigan's Fifth District, Commissioner. John Sherman Cooper, Senator from Kentucky and Commissioner. And Alan Welsh Dulles, the former Director of Central Intelligence Commissioner and all-around

Maven on all things intelligence. Gentlemen, I called this meeting of the commission because of something that developed today that I thought every member of the commission should have knowledge of, something that you shouldn't hear from the public before you had an opportunity to think about it. I will just have Mr. Rankin tell you the story from the beginning. Mr. Wagner Carr, the Attorney General of Texas, called me at 1110 this morning and said that the word had come out. He wanted to get it to me at first moment that Oswald was acting as an FBI undercover agent and that they had the information of his badge, which was given as number 179, and that he was being paid 200 a month from September 1962 up through the time of the assassination. Now, I asked what the source of this was, and he said that he understood the information had been made available so that defense counsel for Ruby had the information.

He said that he knew that the press had the information, and he didn't know exactly where Wade had gotten that information, but he was a former FBI agent. That they, that is Wade before, had said that he had sufficient information so that he was willing to make the statement. Wade is... The district attorney. Carr is the Attorney General. Right of Texas. Now I brought that to the attention of the Chief Justice immediately. And he said that I should try to get in touch with Carr and ask him to bring Wade up here

and that he would be willing to meet with him any time today or tonight to find out what was the basis of this story. I tried to get Carr, but he was. out campaigning in Texarkana and so forth so it took us quite a while to get back to him and talk to him. Carr said that he could bring Wade in sometime of the first of the week. Now he said that Wade told him that the FBI never keeps any records and names. Wade is the district attorney for Dallas County. That is right. And the other man, Carr, is the attorney general. That is right.

who have knowledge of this story? Now he indicated that the press down there had knowledge of the story and that the information came from some informant who was a press representative and he, that is Wade, could guess who it was but his assistant knew

and he never asked him. They were trying to get more explicit information. Who were you talking with when you got this information? Wade himself? I was talking with Carr. There's a denial of this in one of these,

FBI records, as you know. Yes. And this fire we had yesterday, one of the lawyers for this fella, he claims to represent Thorne Hill, I think. Oswald, or one of them, Ruby, told about this. Do you recall it? He said it was being rumored around. Yes, it was being rumored that he was an undercover agent.

Now, it is something that would be very difficult to prove out. There are events in connection with this that are curious and in that way they might make it possible to check some of it out in time. I assume that the FBI records would never show it. And if it even is true, and of course we don't know, but we thought that you should have the information. Lee, would you tell the gentleman the circumstances under which this story was told? Yes, when it was first brought to my attention this morning.

What time was this, Mr. Rankin? 11, 10. Oh, that is, after the Ruby episode of yesterday? That is right. This is a serious thing. I thought first you should know by it. Secondly, there is this factor too that a consideration that is somewhat an issue in this case, and I suppose you are all aware of it.

That is that the FBI is very explicit that Oswald is the assassin or was the assassin, and they are very explicit that there was. no conspiracy and they are also saying in the same place that they are continuing their investigation. What is that? They haven't run out all the leads on the information and they could probably say that it isn't our business. Yes.

But they are concluding that there can't be a conspiracy without those being run out. Now it is not from my experience with the FBI. It is not. You are quite right. I have seen a great many reports. Now why are they so eager to make both of those conclusions, both in the original report and their experimental report, which is such a departure. Now, that is just circumstantial evidence, and it don't prove anything about this, but it raises

questions. Who would know if anybody would, in the Bureau, have such an arrangement? I think that there are several. Probably Mr. Belmont would know every undercover agent. Belmont? Yes. An informer, also, would you say? Yes, I would think so. He is the special security of the division. Yes, I know. And he is an able man, but when the Chief Justice and I were just briefly reflecting on this, we said if that was true and it ever came out and could be established, then you will have people thinking that there was a conspiracy to accomplish this assassination that nothing the commission did or anybody could dissipate. You are so right.

Oh, terrible. Its implications of this are fantastic, don't you think so? Terrific. To have anybody admit to it? it. Even if it was the fact, I am sure that there wouldn't at this point be anything to prove it. Lee, if this were true, why would it be particularly in their interest? I could see it would be in their interest to get rid of this man, but why would it be in their interest to say he's clearly the only guilty one? I mean, I don't see that argument that you raise particularly

shows an interest. Well, I can immediately. They would like to have a question. They would like to have us fold up and quit. This closes the case, you see. Don't you see? Yes, I see that. They found the man. There's nothing more to do. The commission supports their conclusions, and we can go on home, and that is the end of it.

But that puts the men right on them. If he was not the killer and they employed him, they are already it, you see. So your argument is correct if they are sure that this is going to close the case. But if it don't close the case, they are worse off than ever by doing this. Yes, I would think so, and of course we are all even gaining in the realm of speculation. I don't even like to see this being taken down. Oh, yes, I think this record ought to be destroyed. Do you think we need a record of this?

I don't, except that we said we'd have records of our meetings and so we called the reporter in the formal way. If you think what we have said here should not be upon the record, but we can have it done that way. Of course, it might. I'm just thinking of sending around copies and so forth. The only copies of this record should be kept right here. I would hope that none of these records are circulated to anybody.

I would hope so, too. 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. It's one huge complex or combine. Either 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 was science. I'll never apologize for the United States of America. Ever. I don't care what the facts are. In 1945, we began to require information, which showed that there were two wars going to. His job, he said, was to protect the Western way of life. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders the more.

the more easy victims of a big lie than a small. For example, we're the CIA. It usually takes the national crisis. Freedom can never be secure. Pearl Harbor. A lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. Why you think our country's so innocent? Not a model with the CIA.

This is fourth Reich is coming. This is Fourth Reich Archaeology. This is Fourth Reich Archaeology. I'm Dick. And I'm Don. Hello! Thank you for tuning in. We are so glad to have you here with us today.

Today is a very special day because it marks the return and the close-out of our mini-series, our long-running mini-series. Not so many. Our super mini-series, the Warren Commission decided. That's right, ladies and germs, gather round because it is time to pack things up, load up this jalop. and get back on to the Jerry World Super Highway. We are so excited to show you what we've got lined up next. This is actually done our first recording since your big interview on Truenon. So I just want to take a moment and say, do check it out, listener.

Don was on True and on two weeks ago now, which I'm sure many of you have checked it out, but if you haven't, do give it a listen. I think it's a great distillation, really, of what it is we're doing here. Well, thank you, Dick. It was a fun time, and we are very thrilled that it has driven some new ears over to our project, both in the free feed and to the Patreon. So we are grateful and excited to keep on ramping things up. And that brings us to our first point, as always.

Thank you to our returning listeners. Thank you to all of you who have spread the word about this project. Welcome to our first timers. We're so pleased to have you here with us. We hope you do enjoy our show. And to everyone, everyone out there, we want to just say, please, please, please, spread the word about the podcast. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies.

Tell the world about this Fourth Reich archaeology train because I'm telling you, folks, I've been telling you, I will keep telling you. We are bound for glory. and the last thing we would ever want is for people to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to get in on the ground floor. We do love hearing from you, so please continue to write us, if you so feel inclined. We are at forthrightepod at gmail.com, and we're on social media. We're on Twitter, and we're on Instagram. at Fourth Reich Pod. I want to once again thank our patrons. We are so indebted by your generosity.

You all inspire us. You inspire us to go harder, to go faster, to go stronger. If you are so able, please do consider throwing us some cash. We really want this project to grow into something that is add free something pure something unadultered something that is nothing but straight

noided content straight to the veins through the ears that's right like we always say we are in search of truth and justice and we want to do everything

in our power to make this project that is something funded I'm going to just say funded by the people for the people That's right. And if you are tuning in for the first time and you've not yet consumed the entirety of the Warren Commission decided series within a series, you know, you can keep listening, but something we used to say in the old EPS is that it is richer and it will hit all that much, harder if you do go and start from the beginning and let it build up to this, I would say

climactic point, but really it's a transitional point because as you intimated, this is the episode where we tie the Warren Commission series back into the main vein of Jerry World. And before we do that, I think it makes sense to just recap kind of what we have covered on this series and give a brief overview of where we've been on this long, long journey. You know, we started this thing out way back around the time of the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. I think it was last November that we started doing these, this series, and we didn't intend for it to last this long, but I think we're all happy that it has because it has been educational for us and enjoyable and hopefully the same for you. And in that respect, you know, we started off talking. talking about the really operation on Lyndon Johnson that was first run in the aftermath of Oswald's murder by Jack Ruby to get a presidential commission assembled to investigate the assassination of both JFK and of his presumed killer Lee Harvey Oswald.

Long story short, it was a cover-up from the jump. You know, this was not meant to be something that was driving at the truth of the matter. The CIA promoters, you know, largely from this Georgetown set who planted the seed in the mind of LBJ, had in their mind the objective to... pacify the public and to put something a little bit stronger than a mere FBI report before the consuming American and world news reading population. So we talked about the Assembly of the Commission. We did deep dives on every single one of the,

of the commissioners, and we took a few detours into some of the real highlights that we felt best illustrated the ways in which the commission operated, the ways in which it avoided landmines that could potentially expose the deeper operators involved in the assassination, such as, you know, Burt Jenner's expert management of his multiple interviews with the Dormoran Shields, and, of course, our latest foray into Jack Ruby, who himself is a cipher for all kinds of un-execisive, explored and untied loose ends within the bigger picture of the assassination that the commission

managed to neatly tie up with a bow and eschew all of Jack's mob ties, all of Jack's involvement in deep state operations involving Cuba and the potential that pulling too hard on the ruby thread could just unravel a whole can of worms that was in nobody's interest to unravel nobody except perhaps the democratic subjects of the United States of America who purportedly have an interest in knowing the truth about their country, who runs it and what it does with their money and in their names. And with this episode, we are going back to our roots, going back to the beginning of how we started this thing with Jerry.

and really this last episode in this series is, I think, a good bookend to the first episode, which was a very high-level view of Jerry's assent in Congress and high-level overview of the commission, the report, its conclusions. And so I think with this episode, to end it with Jerry, I think is quite fitting. and with Jerry as our guide, we will navigate through these executive sessions that the commissioners had throughout 1964 leading up to the day they present the report to LBJ. And in doing so, what we're going to try and do is paint a picture, a portrait of a commissioner, if you will.

And so that's what we'll do. We'll start in December in 1963. It'll be very chronological. We'll take some detours when we do our little deep dives into all the interesting artifacts we find along the way. But we'll start with the first executive session and we'll work our way through the final days of the commission and ultimately the presentation of the report to the president of the United States of America.

Lyndon Baines. Johnson, this is that, I always view it as like the moment, the, you know, the Oz moment. Everybody is, the carpools to the White House. And like up until this point, they've all sort of had their individual one-off interactions with LVJ, have him do the treatment on them of some sort. But now they outnumber him and present their report to the big guy. The report, of course, he famously didn't buy himself. But so focusing on the executive sessions will allow us to do a few things. First, it sort of drives the point home, this overarching point of how fucking stressed all of these guys were about any conspiracy, whether it was the Soviet plot or whether

it was a right-wing plot or a deep state plot or whatever. keeping conspiracy out of the conversation was goal number one we don't really need to talk about the irony of the lengths of conspiracy they went through to keep conspiracy out of everybody's mouth that's perhaps for another day but second the second point is I think you know exploring these sessions the way that we will shows how desperate everyone was to not come out of it looking like an asshole, looking like, you know, some jackass or worse, looking like someone that was somehow involved in the plot, whether it's, you know, Hoover's worried about the FBI or the CIA or even, you know, LBJ worrying about being implicated. But more broadly, these sessions

serve as these factual vignettes, these data points that show this overarching thesis, I think, that we have done, which is that everyone involved, every commissioner, except for, I don't know, I thought Earl Warren and Hale Boggs, I guess maybe McCloy would be in this camp too, but everyone had an ulterior motive of some kind, I think. Yeah, reading through the transcripts of the executive sessions, it seems to evolve over time a little bit. Like, I would say Earl Warren definitely did have a ulterior motive, albeit from an institutional standpoint. As we covered very early on, he really did not want this job in the first place. And Johnson twisted his arm all the way out of its socket to force him to accept the role.

Made him cry. Yeah, exactly. And so once he's in, then I think Warren proves that he's just as invested in in erasing any potential leads that would point to a conspiracy as any of the other commissioners I agree with you about Boggs being kind of the most earnest sounding, although I guess Russell and Cooper are earnest enough in their own right, if somewhat less involved. And all three of those guys, it bears mentioning, not every commissioner is present at every executive session and even when they are present, not all of them are as vocal in chiming in

with ideas, information, analysis, whatever. And so they kind of leave it up to a few. And I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves here, but. suffice it to say that Dulles does come across as a bit of a manipulator and McCloy interestingly is

again the guy who wants all the ducks lined up in a row and is geared in his comments towards making sure that whatever they produce it withstands basic scrutiny so everybody brings their own baggage to the table but it's not the same baggage from all of the different commissioners I think what they can agree on is that the

stakes are high and that whatever they find there are certain things to be avoided at all costs. Well said, and just the second part of this is our overarching thesis that all of them had very little regard for what the American people thought. They didn't trust the public with information. They didn't much care about what the public was thinking. And they basically took the view that what they would what they would present what they would say would be the word right and again you know what brought us here in the first place was the man of whom it was said that his word was always good talking of course about gerald rudolph ford junior as to jerry you know this episode will explore and will drive home, put a final exclamation mark on our original

thesis here, which is that one, Jerry enters the Warren Commission as a savvier operator than he is usually given credit for, two, that he knew that the commission was doing a wash job and from these two points you know we see illustrated in vivid color jerry's almost supernatural ability to rise to whatever occasion presents itself to him to serve the powers the B. So this is a lens through which we can see like x-ray vision on Gerald Ford that behind the facade of the bumbling goofy Jerry of whom Lyndon Johnson famously said that he doesn't know how to fart and chew bubble gum at the same time, we know that to be a convenient mythology concealing a real sort of wolf in sheep's clothing able to weaponize his reputation as a

straight shooter and to serve his purpose on the way up the ladder all the way to the tippy top of that pyramid. The one that you see on the back of the dollar, Bill, the all-seeing eye, the Masonic Symbology. That's the real Gerald Ford. Let's get digging. Dims and flames tap through my ears, flowing high and mighty trap. Long before he arrived in Washington, Gerald Ford's word was good. During the three decades of public service that Carlton's arrival in our nation's capital, Time and again, he would step forward and keep his promise.

I was so much older than I'm younger than that now. Even the dark clouds of political crisis gathered over America. After a deluded gunman After a deluded gunman assassinated President Kennedy, our nation turned to Gerald Ford and a select handful of others. Romantic flanks of musketeers It makes sense of that madness.

And a conspiracy theorist can say what they will, but the Warren Commission report will always have the final definitive set. Here the soldiers stand side at the mongrel dogs you teach. Now why? Fearing not I'd become my enemy. Because Jerry Ford put his name on it, and Jerry Ford's word was always good. The very sight of Chief Justice Berger, administering the oath of office to our 38th president,

instantly restored the honor of the Oval Office and helped America begin to turn the page on one of our saddest factors. Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassins and the commission found no evidence of a conspiracy foreign or domestic. We were not categorical, but we said that we felt that it was more likely that one bullet hit both President Kennedy and Governor Collins. In effect, we said that it was persuasive, as I recall, that the one bullet theory was the right. My guard stood hard when abstract threats,

too noble, to neglect, deceive me in your use of these words, in the report use of these words, they're a thumbed out. Good and bad, I define these terms, quite clear, no doubt, somehow. Well, there's no criminal case. where everything is either black or white. All right, let's start at the beginning. And I think the best way to do that is to pick up chronologically where we left off around our first Warren Commission decided episode. I think it was our first or second one where we were still taking that high level view of the commission.

up and what they were tasked to do and what their conclusions were. So the commission was, as we've mentioned before, operating very much like a mini law firm or sort of government agency of its own, where it had, of course, the commissioners, you could think of them as the partners or the head honchos, and then a, team of staff that worked underneath the chief council, which was J. Lee Rankin. Rankin we've referred to before as the eighth commissioner, because he's always in the room. And so their task was to investigate and come up with this report about the Kennedy assassination. The commission met as a commission in these formal executive sessions where they were on the record.

I guess what would you, the closest thing you could put them to, it's sort of like committee meetings, right? Where they're on the record where they make major decisions and they sort of debate big picture issues, debate their findings, conclusions, things like that. For example, the executive sessions are where they chopped up the ideas of the powers of the commission, you know, the idea of issuing subpoenas, things like that, and how they were going to present their report. In the final commission meeting, Senator Russell proposes a dissent to the single bullet theory.

Yeah. And it's real skeletal. I mean, that's what's interesting about it is they do cover some of these factual issues, but without drilling down too deeply. Like, they'll spend a few pages talking about, like you said, the single bullet theory, and then they'll just move on to something else. Yeah. So it's telling as much in what it omits as in what they actually discuss. Yeah. totally and as you said some people didn't even show up to some meetings and certain other people

sort of hijacked meetings and that gets to my one of my first points I want to make about this whole thing is the Warren commission really gives off like group project vibes in high school or maybe even middle school where you had a bunch of people get together and really these meetings, they would sort of sometimes seemingly not serve any purpose, right? You could think about it, for those of you in the corporate world in the workforce, all of those unnecessary meetings you will have where nothing gets done. But it sort of gives off that vibe. Yeah, you'll have like one guy do the equivalent of the end of the Zoom call. Nothing for me, thanks. Right, exactly. A lot of that. And then of course, there's like the guy who does all the work and, you know, the guy who

is showbody but doesn't really do the work but makes it seem like he's doing work it's got all of that so that's like what i want you to take into this is this vibe of like these underclassmen who are as we've said none of them really want to do it are tasked with doing this group project and submitting a report to their teacher so they started they started meeting in december 1963 and these meetings went all the way through the spring of 1964 and the very first executive session started it was December 5th 1963 some of these guys knew each other but not everyone knew everyone and so the first session has this first day of class 5 where they're introducing themselves and sort of feeling each other out and I got to say that

the tension in the room, right? Because remember, for example, Dick Russell couldn't stand Earl Warren. Famously, he would say, I don't like that man. I don't have any confidence in him at all. And so, like, you know, you're forced to play together and the tension on that first day, I can't, I can't imagine. Yeah, and I imagine that Dulles was just like a wolf licking his chops of how is he going to manipulate each and every one of these people sitting around the table with him. He already had Jerry's number, of course, since they had worked closely together on the Proto House Committee on

Intelligence when Jerry was on that intelligence subcommittee of appropriations. That's like if you take nothing else away from this whole series, put in your pocket, that Gerald Ford was already on the Dulles radar well before the Warren Commission. That's like, I would say, top five takeaways from the whole thing that he was into the world of intelligence well before his official foray into this cover-up. Definitely. Definitely. Jerry had a, there was a bizarre love triangle between him and the Dulles brothers.

What was Alan Dulles' role on the commission? Well, Alan Dulles had a identical relationship and role on the commission with the rest of us. He was unique, however, in that he had a identical relationship and role on the commission with the rest of us. in that he had served for a considerable period of time as the director of the CIA so that as a member of the commission, he could draw on that experience and expertise in any matters that involved foreign intelligence problems.

It's my best judgment, Mr. Congressman, that we were fortunate to have had a person like Alan Dulles on the commission because of this background. Well, do you know, Mr. President, what his informal relation was with the CIA at that time since he was the retired director? Did he have an opportunity to obtain more information for the commission because of that unique position? To my best knowledge, he had...

no unusual relationship with the central intelligence agency other than the fact that he had been a former director. Perhaps naively, but I thought the appointment of Alan Dulles to the commission would ensure that the commission had access to anything that the CIA had. I am astounded to this day that Mr. Dulles did not at least make the information available to the other commissioners. We have found out that there were CIA files and information, of course, that were not given to the Warren Commission. Did you at the time feel information was being withheld? I had the feeling then, as a member of the commission, that we were getting all of the information from anyone or all of the federal agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency. obviously there was some information as to assassination plots that to my best recollection was not given to us

and we get into that in our series Jerry world but anywho back to the executive sessions largely the first handful were these business meetings where they yeah they talked about broad stroke stuff. They tried to sort out the administrative issues. Of course, one of their first orders of business was staffing the chief counsel position. And Earl Warren wanted Warren only. We've talked about this before. And that proposal was met with much resistance by the commissioners with I think Jerry's sort of taking the lead on the resistance because Jerry was worried that it would

be basically the Earl Warren show, given the relationship he had with Warren only. I was disturbed that the chairman in selecting a general counsel for the staff appeared to be moving in the direction of a one-man commission. My views were shared by several other members of the commission. Or at least that was the stated. Purpose. Of course, no one else really liked him either yeah and you know spoiler alert but jerry was also in addition to having sidled up to the dullest brothers he was a proxy in these conversations in large part for j edgar hoover and the FBI. And so Hoover was also pretty opposed to the idea of Olney, who had been kind of a right hand to Earl Warren for most of his career and had also been a former FBI man earlier in his

career and not necessarily the most pro ex-FBI agent. And so when Gerald Ford was vociferous in opposing the appointment of Warren Olney, it was in large part because Edgar Hoover was opposed to Warren only. Hey, wait a minute. We're getting ahead of ourselves. So aside from that, a lot of nothing happened in the early executive sessions. But then five sessions in, something amazing happens, Don. Yeah. So contextual point first, remember when Johnson was setting the commission up and was pitching it to the commissioners or the would-be commissioners, He largely framed the whole idea as, don't worry, this isn't going to be a ton of work, because the FBI is already investigating.

And so the Warren Commission could be a rubber stamp in large part that would take the FBI's reports and put a cleaner gloss over them without really engaging in any independent. investigation as a commission at all. I want to get by just with your file in your report. I think it would be very, very bad to have a rash of investigation. Well, the only way we can stop on it is probably to appoint a high level and to evaluate your report and put somebody that's pretty good on it that I can select out of the government and tell the House and Senate not to go ahead with the investigation.

Yes. because we'd get there and get a bunch of television going, and I thought it'd be bad. It'd be a three ring sucker. And that all changes. You know, it starts to deteriorate in the first couple of sessions. Yeah. There's questions about the FBI's competence. Right.

To say the least, right? We've covered it in McLeod. Go ahead. I don't want to interrupt you, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. Spit it. Spit it. No, you're absolutely right.

Yeah, we covered it in McLeod. But this was the December 16th executive session after the commission receives the FBI report and sees, for example, that there's nothing in it at all about Governor Connolly, who was also hit in the shooting and would presumably be pretty relevant to determining where the shots are coming from, et cetera, and the FBI just left that out. Well, we need that guy. We need that guy because that's where the bullet is.

It's in his gurney. Yeah. Gerny. Yeah. So they're already kind of starting to ask questions about the degree to which they can really, with a straight face, rely on the FBI's work. There's a particular exchange

between Hale Boggs, Dick Russell, John McCloy, and Jerry Ford, that is quite illuminating on their reactions to the FBI report that I thought would be fun to read into the record here. So Boggs says, There are all kinds of questions in my mind. It was such an expert marksman, for instance. where did he do his practice, and where did he get his automobile? To which Russell replies,

He did not drive. And this business about where the bullets penetrated the president's body, the speculation about the wound in the throat, the hole in the windshield. To which McCloy comments, That is very unsatisfactory. Jerry chimes in. I thought it was a narrative that was interesting to read, but it did not have the depth that it ought to have. And Boggs raises the question.

There's nothing about Connolly in there, and not a word. McCloy. They must know about the medical report. And the questions keep accumulating from there. And on January 22nd, 1964, as we hinted in the cold open to this episode, any hope that the commission will be able to straight sit back and reproduce FBI work product, is pretty definitively dashed at 5.30 p.m. after everybody is done with their workdays and, you know, thinking about making their way back to the suburbs or whatever, they get called in for emergency

session by Lee Rankin, who alerts everyone that on a tip from Wagoner car, the Attorney General of Texas, there's indications that Lee Harvey Oswald was an undercover agent for the FBI, and he was even given a badge number. They said it was 179, and he was even given a salary, which was reported to be $200 per month, all the way from I believe August of 1962 right through the time of the assassination in November of 1963. And Gerald Ford, interestingly, opens his book,

Portrait of the Assassin, which he published. a year after the commission report had been published, made himself a little extra cash off of its sales. And the way that he hooks the reader in is by starting with this episode as an intriguing, mysterious incident in the life of the commission. And he, just to chime in real quick, so he also, and everyone sort of ultimately, spoiler alert, ultimately diminishes this fact and buries it, but it has since been, I think, pretty much confirmed, right, that Oswald was on the FBI's payroll in some form. I think what's interesting about this session, and in his book, too, is what they were immediately able to confirm and, like, verbalize what that meant for the public and how important it was that the message was crafted in a certain way before any of this got out to the public. Yeah.

Yeah. And I don't know that it's that well documented that Oswald did have a paid relationship with the FBI in the way that this tip had described it. And in fact, what was most interesting to me in digging into this allegation was that this was only one of a number of allegations. allegations that Wagoner Carr conveyed to Lee Rankin on January 22nd. And Rankin and Earl Warren met subsequently with Carr and with other fellas, good old boys from down Texas, who came up to Washington to elaborate upon the information that they had received. and among the other allegations was that Oswald was working for the CIA. And so to my eye, at least, the FBI allegation, the specificity of the FBI allegation, and the fact that ultimately it was traced back to a reporter for the Houston Post,

who refused in his own turn to reveal the identity of the source that gave him this information and they never followed up on that and that is interesting in its own right and I'll talk about that in a second but the whole FBI picture that becomes this lightning rod for the executive session, both on January 22nd and then a follow-up executive session on January 27th, where they all discuss this even more, the CIA allegation just disappears off the radar. It's not even brought up by Lee Rankin. He doesn't even mention it other than a few totally oblique references. to the FBI or any other agency. Like, reading the transcripts, you would have no idea that, in fact, it was just as much of an

indication that Oswald was working for the CIA as for the FBI. And putting on a little speculation here, you've got to wonder. if the whole FBI angle wasn't just a misdirection to draw attention away from the CIA angle, which we know for a fact. That, I would say, is much better documented in retrospect that Oswald had a lot of connections to the CIA, including the, the recent revelations from some of these new JFK files, and you can go check out Jefferson Morley's analysis at JFK Facts

for the real deep discussion of all that. We're not going to get into the weeds on it here, but suffice it to say that Oswald was definitely doing some work for and was on the radar of the CIA that Dick Helms, who was the CIA's liaison to the Warren Commission, then Deputy Director of Plans would later become ahead of the CIA under Lyndon Johnson,

was certainly lying his ass off to the Warren Commission, concealing files, working hand in hand with Jim Engleton, who was probably, running Oswald or the operations that involved Oswald. And all of these guys had both the knowledge and ability and motive to create Oswald as FBI agent legend that really would not lead anywhere. I mean, because there's a perfectly anodyne explanation if you look at what the commissioners are saying, right? None of them are

really scandalized by the idea of Oswald working for the FBI because they say it in as many words, well, yeah, you know, the fair play for Cuba committee was this communist front group operating in the U.S. and, of course, Hoover would want to infiltrate it. And if Oswald was a guy at his disposal to do that, then that would be a normal thing for the FBI to want to do. So all that to say, it really has a different means. meaning to me today than it did when I first picked up Gerald Ford's book and read about it now over a year ago or whenever that was. For sure. My point more than anything is that by now this idea of Oswald being an FBI agent or informant or whatever, it has some legs. the same with the CIA stuff

and I think your point about how the signal boosting of the FBI stuff being a cover for the CIA stuff I think that is a very interesting very interesting point

because it's like very much part of the playbook it checks all the boxes of what these people at the agency would do at that time yeah in fact you had found a great little quote from phil aegee right you want to spit on that yeah the other side of the coin which doesn't get as you pointed out doesn't get much play is that oswald had ties to the fbi but he also has ties to the CIA, Phil Agee, who was a CIA agent turned big-time critic of the CIA, confirmed that he had

heard rumors at the agency that Oswald was our agent, and he noted, of course, that if he was, if Oswald was an agent, his name wouldn't appear in the files, right? Because you are always, as he says, quote, you were always referring to them by krypton them, adding that they would have taken that file and put it somewhere where nobody could find it. So that sort of ends the search of like Oswald being connected to the CIA in my book, right? Like, if he is or isn't, we'll never know. That's just how they operate. And the way you put it with the FBI stuff, I think that's a very, very good point where the FBI stuff is just so available that it has taken on the lore for the story of Lee Harvey Oswald. The allegation that the CIA considered the possibility of using Oswald as a source of information, I'm not able to recollect one, whether we,

were familiar with that possibility. But in my opinion, if we had known about it, I do not believe it would have significantly changed the course of or the conclusions of the Warren Commission. My point about the executive session and the sort of news breaking about Oswald being tied to the FBI, As depicted by Jerry Ford in his book, Portrait of the Assassin, when Jerry was getting this news, and he explains it, I think in his book, he talks about how this news, no doubt, taints the well. Right? It's like, it's not the best look.

And it's sort of ugly to think, and he, I think, sort of pontificates, like, what would the American people think of this news, this ugly news that maybe Oswald. has ties to the FBI. Yeah. What's crazy about all of that, to me, is at that time, at the time Ford was getting this information and even talking about it later in his book,

there's a fact he knew that no one else, I think, at that point knew. And that is that he was a mole for the FBI. He sure was. And I don't know. I can't get over that. That, to me, is like, it's crazy for him. It's sort of that thing where, like, the most vocal critics are the perpetrator of the crime. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, as you were saying the testimony of Phil Aegee with respect to the CIA, in fact, the executive session, they come to largely the same conclusion about the FBI In that very first January 22nd session, Lee Rankin says at one point, I am confident that the FBI would never admit it. And I presume that their records will never show it. And there's even a whole colloquy with Alan Dulles where I can't remember who it was. One of the other commissioners is asking Dulles, I think it was Hale Boggs, saying like,

but now if this was your agent would you be able to deny and not have any records of his work for you and Dulles is like oh yeah of course we you know we take care to make sure that there's no paper trail and that's part of this whole everybody being in on it aspect to the discussion that everybody is kind of aware like it's it's not so much a question of finding out whether oswald was in fact working for the fbi their question that they wanted to solve was instead what can we report to the public that will neutralize the fact that this information is out there in the media, that it's out there in the news, and that any old person from Dallas to Chicago can pick up a newspaper and see the allegation that Lee Oswald was getting $200 a month from the FBI.

And so much of their discussion is, okay, well, will it be sufficient to get a statement from Hoover that he was never an agent? Well, maybe, but then don't we also need to figure out what this newsman from Houston had based his reporting on? And it's very funny that all of these ideas they're tossing around, at the end of the day they just stick with what in the executive session they agreed was insufficient and that is

to accept an affidavit from Hoover that Oswald was not an agent not just one affidavit J. Edgar goes one affidavit Shorty I gave you 10 affidavits

I give you 10 affidavits I give you I give you 11 affidavits. Got affidavits for days. For days, yeah. Oh, man. Meanwhile, the Houston Post reporter ends up declining to reveal his source, and despite the fact that there's a whole colloquy in the January 27th executive session

that this reporter has no legal privilege to hide his source. and we can use our subpoena power to force him or his publisher to reveal the source to us in the interests of the country. This is John J. McCloy saying this, that, you know, we can twist their arm if we've got to do it. And that just falls off the radar. And, you know, as we said in the McCloy mini series that we did a long time ago, McCloy is one of these guys, maybe the most markedly, who evolves in his thinking from being probing and incisive to marching in lockstep with the commission's conclusions.

Well, let's get back to Jerry and back to his work with the FBI. do you want to do a little recap? So Jerry's sitting in this session. He is getting the news. I think maybe even at this point Jerry knew himself this news about Oswald's ties that he had gotten through the back door somehow, either shortly before this meeting or shortly after he had another discussion. Yeah. And it had been kind of reported but not so. explicitly like there was news reporting i think it was way back on january first that first said that you know according to sources unnamed sources that oswald was a government agent and then it started to snowball and that's really where it came out and in fact interestingly what brought this tidbit to the attention of Carr in the first place was the fact that it came up in

chambers that's off the record meeting in the chambers of judge Joe Brown in the Jack Ruby trial that the prosecution was disclosing this fact to Ruby's defense team and we talked in our Ruby series about how the idea of a conspiracy was assiduously avoided by both sides. And this is a perfect example of that, that this fact, you know, the prosecution presumably shares it because it could be of some exculpatory value to Jack Ruby's defense. In other words, you know, it could potentially help Jack Ruby in some. way, not clear how, but they felt it was their obligation to disclose it anyways. And that's how the sort of telephone game goes from this reporter to the DA, Henry Wade, to Wagoner Carr, to Lee

Rankin. And Cherry Ford, you're right, was sitting in the room, and he was already up to let's say his waist, if not up to his eyeballs in complicity with the FBI regarding his participation on the Warren Commission. You want to unpack his dealings with Edgar and Carthett DeLoch? Yeah. The point I was remembering was it was in December. of 1963 that Ford met with Cartha and he mentioned a recent visit from CIA director John McCone who had appeared in his office in Capitol Hill and had some startling information about Oswald and that is of course that an FBI tipster. So this goes into your thing, I think.

But an FBI tipser in Mexico City had witnessed the exchange of money, an amount later pegged as $6,500, between Oswald and, quote, an unknown Cuban Negro. So that's Ford talking to Deloche about something that John McCone had said about Oswald, sort of being tied with this Cuban movement in Mexico City. So yes, Jerry Ford was very much up to his teeth in the FBI. He was in it to win it. And just a brief recap, recall that after his time at Yale Law School,

Gerald Rudolph Ford newly admitted member of the bar applied to be an agent of the FBI Yep He bonus points Anyone out there

Where else did he apply Anyone Office of Naval Intelligence Bingo that prize goes to dawn So he was very much keen on being in the intelligence community one way or another so much so that months later he had not heard back from the FBI he followed up with a letter under the letterhead of his former firm with his buddy Phil Buchan who eventually becomes his counsel when he's president but he writes the FBI and he says

hey look I just I haven't heard anything can you just tell me what's going on and just weeks later, he gets a response signed by none other than Jay Edgar Hoover who writes that they aren't looking for what he's got at the moment, but and now I'm talking as Jay Edgar to Jerry. You are advised that your application is being retained on file for consideration in the event it is possible

to utilize your services at some future date. Now, as we've discussed before, that could be just boilerplate, right? Mm-hmm. But it could be much more. I think without knowing everything else we know, we would dismiss it, but I'm not willing to dismiss it. Now, when he was rejected from the FBI, he wasn't given a reason. I think at some point there's this line where they say it was his knees, but there's also the whole America first thing in Jerry's Yale years and his isolationist tendencies that made it

into the report, his application. And so maybe, you know, maybe that had something to do with his denial. Right. Yeah, this was, you know, you mentioned the date. We're talking mere months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. is at war and the fact of Jerry's involvement with a group that its whole purpose of existing was to oppose U.S. entry into the war, not the best look for a federal government that is, you know, a wartime. government yeah and it was the america first stuff was so new and so unpredictable yeah but dick did he harbor a grudge against hoover over that rejection oh no not at all i was just going to

talk about that so jerry was rejected by hoover he was turned away i bet he kept that letter that he got from him but what do we know about jerry when he sets his sight on a lover he is a aggressive aggressive man he is on the pursuit recall what he did to get betty right oh yeah just as he waited this as he waited in betty's living room uh sweating out the other suitors also in the living room so too did he wait and so too that he pursued and so too that he Sue J. Edgar. When he makes it into Congress, what's the very first thing that Jerry does? We ought to pay J. Edgar Hoover some more money.

He deserves it. I'm waiting for my man. $26 in my hand. During my service in the Congress from January 3, 1914. until appointed to the Warren Commission. I had had an excellent relationship with the FBI. I barely knew Jay Edgar Hoover, but like most Americans, had great respect for him and the Bureau.

He does this even though, like, I think Jerry had a track record of not raising, like, Congress salary. Right. Yeah, he was a fiscal conservative at the end of the day. Right, exactly. For military spending and Jay, Hoover's salary. Those are the two things that the government should spend more on if you're Jerry Ford. Exactly. And, you know, that, I mean, if I'm Hoover, I fucking love that.

What do you want? What better way to get into someone's good graces than to increase their pay? Yeah. And Hoover loved the money, too. He was a cash hound. Like he had a very luxurious nightlife, you know, going out on the town with Clyde Tolson, his friend. Very eccentric, yes. He took free vacations sponsored by Texas Oilman. Yes. Who was it? Murchison and Richardson that owned the Del Charo Resort in San Diego, California, and Hoover and Tolson.

would go stay for free for two weeks every single year in a little cabana of their own at that resort and they would spend their days at the racetrack and gamble. So... Yeah, fabulous. Just a fabulous life. Yes. And I mean fabulous.

Yeah, he was not a spendthrift. And so the idea that something, like Jerry's legislative efforts to increase his pay would go unnoticed by Hoover, that certainly does not pass the smell test. And it makes, remember, another just throwback to a previous episode here, but remember that when LBJ is listing off his prospective commissioners to Hoover before announcing the lineup of the Warren Commission, Hoover pretends in some of the worst acting ever recorded on a telephone call that he knows of Gerald Ford but doesn't know him and makes it out that he doesn't really share much with him. But meanwhile, Jerry's in Hoover's inner circle

at this point like at this point Hoover is sending him holiday cards he's sending him congratulations every time he wins a re-election I should say Hoover and Tolson

right they sign their cards together yeah they were very much in the inner circle for Hoover they were very much loyal to the FBI Jerry had a close relationship with the FBI's

liaison to Congress. And ultimately, it was his relationship with Cartha Deloche that led to this main line into the Warren Commission, right? Like, Jerry very much was like, look, I'm going to do some information exchange for you all. Right. Yeah. And something we've said in our general conversations about the FBI throughout the podcast. But remember, a lot of the upper echelons of the FBI's staff of agents were drawn from people with a similar view on race as J. Edgar Hoover. In other words, a Klansman mentality about the relative merits of the white race and everyone else. And Cartha Deke Deloche, was like many of Hoover's upper circle from rural Georgia and was of what you might call

a clan-friendly mentality as well. That does it for side A if you'd like to hear the entirety of this finale of the Warren Commission decided, head on over to patreon.com slash forthright archaeology for the full kit and caboodle. Otherwise, you're just going to have to keep waiting for your man's Dick and Don. On behalf of Dick, I am Don. saying farewell and keep digging and again I'm quoting Mr. Deloche here Ford indicated he would keep me thoroughly advised as to the activities of the Commission he

stated this 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. The committee will permit I will read a prepared statement because I wish to be very accurate in this regard. You know,