Fourth Reich Archaeology - The Warren Commission Decided 3: Commissioners Assemble

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

Last week, we talked about how President Lyndon Johnson came to put together a top-flight blue ribbon commission to cover up the Kennedy assassination. For the next two episodes, we go around the table and introduce the listener to each of the seven members of that  commission. As we do, we also receive a masterclass on how to lie, manipulate, coerce, and outright strongarm to get your way. At the head of the class is LBJ. Along with its chairman, Earl Warren, the Warren Commission consisted of two members from each chamber of Congress: one Democrat and one Republican. The Commission also had “two members of the public.” This week we cover the Warren Commission’s chairman, its members who served in the House of Representatives, and its Democrat Senator. First, we introduce Chief Justice Earl Warren, who was the ringleader of the ragtag team of spooks, drunks, racists, and rats. Warren was the perfect man to lend his name to the cover-up. He had spent the last 10 years building the public’s trust by overseeing the most progressive shift in the history of Supreme Court jurisprudence, including classics like Brown v. Board of Education and Gideon v. Wainwright. For his Democratic Senator pick, LBJ chose Senator Richard “Dick” Russell of Georgia. Russell mentored LBJ in the Senate and was a logical pick to serve as LBJ’s “inside man.” There was just one problem. Russell was a Dixiecrat and staunch segregationist, which made him Earl Warren’s arch-nemesis. LBJ bullies him like a boy. We play the tapes. It’s incredible.For the Democratic Congressman, LBJ picked Hale Boggs of Louisiana. Where Russell was an offensive pick, Boggs was a defensive one. In the days leading up to the announcement of the Warren Commission, Boggs - who had been a great admirer of the slain JFK - was vocal about the need to initiate an independent, unbiased investigation. To nip that in the bud, LBJ neutralized Boggs by bringing him in the fold. And you know we had to save the best for last. Our day one homie, Jerry Ford. Jerry was the Republican Congressman pick, and LBJ chose him for all the reasons we’ve discussed in Jerryworld. At this point Jerry was a national brand, with a reputation for being a team player, a hard worker, and a straight shooter. In fact, in LBJ’s eyes, Jerry looked like the perfect mark to be his bagman–after all Jerry was still a young up and comer. Little did LBJ know that Jerry was playing him for a fool and serving as mole to none other than J Edgar Hoover.

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 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 conspiracy, foreign or domestic, the Warren Commission of science. I'll never apologize for the United States of America.

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. 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. He has a mom.

He knows so long that's a guy. I'm afraid of we'd never be secure. It usually takes a 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?

This is the United. I'm not going to be. This is Fourth Reich Archaeology. I'm Dick. And I'm Don. Welcome back to our third installment of our series within a series, The Warren Commission Decided. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for all of your support. We are absolutely floored this week as we reach a milestone, one that we're very grateful for and very proud of here at Fourth Reich Archaeology.

we've reached 50,000 listens, just blown away. Absolutely. Quick reminder that we are eager to hear back from you. You can email us at forthrightepod at gmail.com or hit us up on social media at forthrightepod on Twitter and Instagram. If you're feeling generous, feel free to give us a donation on Patreon. And with the holiday season coming around, it's a great opportunity to tell your friends, family, loved ones, hometown crowd during the Thanksgiving holiday, that you've discovered

a great new podcast that is revealing the sad but true fact that we are currently living unfortunately in the Fourth Reich. That's right. as you were saying Thanksgiving, because for me, holiday season in November, it means 1122, right? That's the holiday that we celebrate around here. Oh, yeah. The anniversary of the Great American coup in Dallas, 1122, 63, the anniversary of which is today, the day that this will, be released into the ether.

Should we have a moment of silence? There it goes. Very good. Well, look, we are back and we are here for part three before we jump into the substance of today's episode, as we are want to do. We're going to give a quick recap. because last time we covered a lot of ground,

we exposed a lot of aspects of JFK assassination lore that I think are less known to the folks out there. So we talked primarily about the CIA Sciop that was executed on the newly sworn in president Lyndon Baines-Johnson in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the subsequent assassination of his alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. And what the object of that sci-op was, the what, if you will, was to establish a presidential blue-ribbon commission to displace and supersede to an extent the investigative

work that was then underway by state and local officials in Texas and the FBI of J. Edgar Hoover. We talked about how both LBJ and Hoover had initially staunchly opposed the creation of such a commission, really unequivocally, and they were in total agreement on that, and LBJ even opined and conveyed to Hoover that his lawyers had told him that it might even be illegal for federal jurisdiction. and presidential executive jurisdiction to bear down on the investigation of a state crime. But just within about 30 hours, I think we said last time, LBJ flipped like a switch. Yeah, and we also talked about how by November 29th, the list was basically made. remember that there was this pincer maneuver on one side of the maneuver you had the academy Yale Law Dean Eugene Rostow who on behalf of a party remember he had a party here that party was his brother Walt at least at least that OSS vet and deputy to

McGeorge Bundy who was that famous hawk to the right of Kennedy And the other side of that Pinser movement was the media in the form of Joe Alsop, who had family ties to the Roosevelt family, James Monroe, and Frank Wisner. He also went to school with none other than Dickie Bissell. Groton Academy. So this is a man who had a social connection and literally sat at the head of the table. of the Georgetown set. That's right. And another important detail that we had left out of the previous episode is that

Alsup and sort of in conjunction with his boss, the Washington Post publisher Phil Graham, claimed responsibility for getting LBJ on the presidential ticket in the first place in 1960. Apparently, JFK was disinclined to name Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. He preferred Senator Stuart Symington. But Al-Sup lobbied him pretty vigorously that he wouldn't want. to leave a man as big as Lyndon out there in the Senate and that it would be wise for JFK to put Johnson on the ticket in the executive branch and at least according to ALSUP's logic under JFK's watchful eye and control. That obviously didn't work out that well.

Okay, so you have, so you can imagine this. You have LBJ and on his shoulders he's got Alsup representing the media and Eugene Rostow representing, at least facially, Yale Law. And the sort of eminence gris, right? This is the academic establishment. It's notable too. I mean, just since we're talking here, when Rostow calls Moyers, right? what does he say he basically prescribes the sort of solution to the problem right he says like when you have a situation like this with the bastard dead what you got to do is and then

proceeds to explain what he has to do right it's um it's exactly right it's like i said in the we said in the last episode sort of like a position of a like a cleric prescribing the solution it's it's the spooked out benny jeseret for all of the dune fans out there yeah totally um okay so but then you have these two figures perched on on each side of lbj and the glue binding those two pincers together was none other than the CIA and just to clarify we don't mean to say it would have been cool to leave it to hoover's FBI or the texas authorities or dallas p.d to investigate right because once Oswald is dead, Dallas PD's incentive is to just say the case is closed, right?

It's a cold case. What would be the alternative that they start figuring out and investigating a conspiracy that might involve not only the highest figures in the U.S., but also potentially foreign powers? So Dallas PD has no incentive at that point to investigate anything. Right. I mean, I think, you know, having looked at a lot of the facts of the case, I think that there are definitely elements of the Dallas PD that had involvement in one way or another with the whole affair. Not saying that they pulled the trigger on JFK, but I do think it's pretty convincing, let's say, that at least the Dallas PD let Jack Ruby into the building. right to get that shot off i was going to say that and you know there was certainly a reputation at the

time that the dallas p.d was mobbed up it was mobbed up it was in thrall to the texas oilman who really ran the economy and sat at the top of the social pyramid in dallas you know it it was a tool of capital pretty much like every police department before during and since the JFK assassination. Right. And putting sort of local state law enforcement stuff aside when it comes to the FBI and Hoover's FBI, I don't think we really need to belabor the point about how vested of an interest the FBI had at the time to not conduct a rigorous and thorough investigation

into the matter. Or even worse, to sort of jerry-rig the investigation to serve the interests of Hoover and the FBI, such as increased surveillance powers, increased policing powers, to crack down on communists, on activists from the civil rights movement, on all of the subversive enemies that Hoover had made for himself over the course of his entire career. Right. And actually, I'll say to the listener,

I just got this book out of print now by a guy called Walt Brown. It's called The Warren Omission. Clever title. And he makes this point that I thought was worth repeating here, which is if there was a serious presidential desire to actually solve the case, they wouldn't have picked the guys that they picked. They would have picked the best forensic analysts in the country, you know, the best

pathologists, technocrats, people with the know how to actually solve the case. And that's not what happened, as we'll get, as we'll get into today. Absolutely. The cats are Memo makes clear that this commission had a purpose. And that purpose was to convince the public that Oswald acted alone and to put that conclusion in the voice of a commission that would be viewed as above and beyond partisan politics. And Katzenbach talks about not wanting to kick off some kind of a war. He speculates that there may be good reason to believe that there was a communist plot or that there was a right-wing plot, and, you know, the interests of the nation, as he sees them, require suppression of those conspiracy theories. although to be fair the word had hardly entered the vocabulary by then exactly to speculate the point right what they wanted

what they wanted was to control the narrative and these guys are poets remember that phone call alsop said to lbj the FBI doesn't write very well what a snob right and a very right and a very elegant way to dovetel the cover up with the public interest but let's just take a step back and look at the macro view of the country the paranoia in the country is running high there is a real belief that nuclear war could pop off at any moment and that's thanks in large part to these exact same guys, guys like Rostow, who's banging the drums of war in the National Security Council, talking about Walt, guys like Alsup, who writes a very hawkish column in the Washington Post, and they're kind of downstream from the very fourth Reichsmen that we brought to the

surface in our exposition of Jerry World, right? Talking about Reinhard Gaelin, talking about John Foster Dulles, these guys that want to sell a picture that the Russians are 10 feet tall and they're right outside the door. So, you know, in that environment, enter this sort of to use just, we're just using this word for fun. We're not using it. in a kooky conspiratorial way, but a cabal of sorts. And it really is a cabal. I mean, Eugene Rostow describes it as a party, right? These are guys that are of a single mind,

and their single-minded objective is really as expressed in the Katzenbach memo to control the narrative and to jam down the nation's throat, the preordained conclusion about the assassination of the president. I love that cabal reference. I think it's so great. Look, last episode, I mentioned terrapin soup. They would get together and eat terrapin soup. I wasn't making that up. That was like on the menu at Alsop's place. It's a signature dish. That's a 100% something pervertsy.

I've never tried this stuff, actually. Me neither. I'm open to trying it, but it just seems pervy. And you should read, the listener can read it. There's a piece on it and how Alsup would describe it. He describes it as a pervert would describe a soup. And he was a pervert. I mean, this is a guy that was probably on both sides of sexual blackmail.

a direct line like Joe Alsup, Roy Cohn, Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Craig Spence, Sean Puffy Combs. Yeah. This is, as the Whitney Webb book calls it, One Nation under Blackmail. Right. And that's the story, right? Like, they had dirt. There was dirt on Hoover. Hoover had dirt on them. They wanted to control Hoover. They wanted to control the narrative. It's like this weird web of manipulation and disinformation and lying and cheating and also just like a kind of a comedy of errors when you think of it in the long term if we're thinking the whole point was to sort allay the fears of a conspiracy what's the statistic it's like the day after or the in the days

after it was like 51% of the populace that was surveyed said that they may have thought it it was a conspiracy. And then as the time goes on, like in the last decade, it's like that number is shot up to like 75, 80% of Americans believe there was a conspiracy. So like in terms of a long-term goal, they really failed epically, right? Yeah. Well, they had to form a conspiracy to tamp down the fears of a conspiracy to hide the real

conspiracy. It can twist your mind into knots. Oh yeah. It's twisted us and knots. But let's just to wrap it up about last week, we really confined ourselves to just the days right after the assassination. And this week we're going to cover the people that formed the commission. So please read them closely When you've let them be sure that you read them up there specially So yeah, and this episode will introduce you to the members of the commission As well as the chair of that commission And give a little context on who these people were, how they were selected

And most importantly, why they were selected. That's right. to keep the length of the episodes under control, we're going to split it up. So like you said, we'll cover the chief, and we'll cover what we kind of conceive of as the three Normie members, or the three kind of unwitting members, perhaps. And then next week, we'll get into the real Rijksman, the Alan Dulles' contingent of the Warren Commission. Fifteen was chosen because he was dumb. Seven because he was blind.

I got the job because I was so mean, while somehow appearing so kind. We talked about how Joe Alsop promised LBJ good press if he followed Alsup's lead and formed the commission, and he delivered on that promise. Right after those calls on the 25th, as Alsup had promised, there was a glowing review of LBJ in the post. There was advocacy for this commission.

The mighty Wurlitzer was crank in full steam. But not all of the voices were under control, right? There's some rumbling starting in the Congress. about congressional investigations into the assassination, and that would just not do, right? Right. And LBJ, and we'll get to this in this episode, wants to nip that in the bud. There's a gap in the phone call record that we have, so we're not sure what happens for a little bit of time, but then by November 29th, we know the list is finalized, and all LB. BJ has to do is just have a few more calls to firm everything up.

Yeah, these are hilarious, by the way, because the commission is this fait accompli, right? I mean, it's a done deal. Yeah. But he's doing the classic boss trick of pretending to solicit input from people. Yeah, absolutely. I didn't want to do anything before I talk to you, so I'm calling you up now to get your thoughts on it. And of course, any criticism or any alternative ideas that the people that he's talking with on the 29th, which largely consists of congressional leadership, he's just like, oh, okay, I'll take it under advisement. No, thank you, boy.

what senses they had and this is the sound that they heard let's just do a real quick rundown of what the makeup of the commission is and sort of a big picture or maybe headline of the cast of characters we're going to run by today. So the Warren Commission has seven members. The chairperson, Earl Warren, Chief Justice of United States. Then there are six members, commissioners.

Today we're going to cover Earl Warren, but we're also going to cover what I like to call his foil or like bizarreo Earl Warren. his villain, his adversary, and that would be Senator Richard Russell. Russell was a Democrat, a Dixiecrat, and boy, he was, let's just say, not fond of Earl Warren, and we'll get to that today. We'll then go over to the House to cover Hale Boggs, who was another Democrat, a congressman from Louisiana's second district. Boggs is an interesting fellow, who I like to think of

as sort of a bizarro version of the last person we're going to call in this episode, and that would be none other than Jerry Ford. I think Boggs is like the perfect sort of foil to Jerry because he is, you know, he's a southern guy, they're both in the same sort of age group. Boggs, I think at the time he's tapped for the Warren

commission he's the majority whip right he's kind of like a democrat version of jerry from the south exactly it's funny that a lot of people yeah bizarre oh jerry yeah exactly that's okay he is a friend jerry he's reliable he's considered he's like your exact opposite so he's bizarre o jerry there you have it but as you said don listener buckle up because for at least this episode we're going to see LBJ give an absolute masterclass on how to lie, manipulate, coerce, outright strong arm others to get your way. I don't think it's like a secret. I think most people know LBJ to have a reputation as like this master politician, right? In this episode, we're really going to see him do his thing.

that's right two things that people know about LVJ he's a master politician and he's got a monster hog and this episode we're going to see him swanging around both back

at headquarters surprise that you of the chief justice the United States would turn me down and start crying and he said well I won't cut you down I'll just do whatever you

that should give you explain my You're that damn show going to serve, I'll tell you that. Okay, so before we get to the members of the commission, let's talk about the chairman. And the person whose name is ultimately what's on this rubber stamp, Chief Justice Earl Warren. I think the best way to do this is just give a little bit of context about where we are historically with the Supreme Court in November, 1916. but to do that we got to wind back the clock by about 15 years to the presidential election of 1948 because you see Earl Warren was a politician he was the governor of California and in

1948 he was running for the Republican ticket living 1948 brought to you each week at this time by NBC and its affiliates in order to mirror more effectively the choice of leadership which faces us, Americans, in this election year, has made free time available for a limited series of programs to the declared candidates for the presidential nomination. Today, Governor Earl Warren of California, candidate for the Republican nomination. Fellow Americans, the national conventions approach, campaigns for the presidential nomination become more intense. Now, fans of Jerry World may remember that there was a paradigm shift happening in the Republican Party in 1948. I am sure the American people want to know whether the Republican Party has grown with the years.

There was a new wave of Republicans who were yearning for fresh blood in a more global point to you. Does it propose to turn the clock of government back to three-war times? Now let me welcome everybody to the wild, wild west, a state that's untouches, does the Republican, does the Republican party nourish any secret loan to return to isolationism? Of course, that's the wave that our man Jerry Ford ultimately, road when he landed his spot in the house. Party membership should represent the same fundamental beliefs that can be brought to bear upon any national problem, foreign, or dementia. But what do you know it, listener?

In 1948, Chief Justice Earl Warren wanted a piece of that action. The American people would like to know, I am sure. I am sure. They want to know whether we are alive to the dangers of a new boom and bust era. They want to know that the Republican Party is a forward-looking, progressive party. A party of the people has distinguished from a party of reaction, pressure groups, and special interest. Party of reaction, pressure groups.

And special interest, reaction. The party of reaction and special interests. And so this is how Chief Justice Earl Warren makes a name for himself on the national stage by running for president as the progressive new wave of Republicans, populist candidates. He was very popular in California, and he hoped to level. that popularity across the country. But Warren ultimately loses the Republican ticket to a fellow by the name of Thomas Dewey. And ultimately, Warren gets a nice little concession prize because he becomes the vice presidential nominee for the 48 ticket. And Dewey, of course, loses to Truman

in the general election. But that doesn't stop Warren from running again, this time in 1952. Of course, in 1952, however, Dwight D. Eisenhower was running for the Republican ticket as well. Yet again, Warren loses the bid for presidency, and yet again, he gets a tasty little concession prize out of the thing, because Eisenhower vows to put Earl Warren on the Supreme Court if he wins the presidency, as soon as a vacancy opened up. And of course, Eisenhower does win the presidency. And a vacancy did open up when Chief Justice Fred Vincent died. So began the war in court. And this decade from, I think it's like 1953, all the way up to the Nixon administration. Right, right. All the way up through and it actually picks up, you know, after his

work in the Warren Commission. But for our purposes, let's focus on everything leading up to November in 1963, what you see is this major progressive shift in jurisprudence and decisions coming out of the court because Warren viewed the enumerated rights in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, these personal rights, he viewed them as natural rights, these things that you really couldn't negotiate on. And he did it through a series of watershed decisions. The one that always gets mentioned first is Brown v. Board of Education. And for the listeners who aren't familiar,

you know, just really quickly, this is the case that essentially ended segregation in public schools in the United States. That's right. Separate but equal is unconstitutional. It overturned

the longstanding precedent from Plessy v. Ferguson, from the 1870s that had permitted American apartheid, right? A lot of people say Jim Crow, I think we should introduce into the vocabulary American apartheid because that's what the United States was for more than half a century. And that's not counting slavery.

Absolutely, absolutely. And so, but Brown v. Board of Education is famous. argued by Thurgood Marshall for the appellant. Future Supreme Court Justice himself, the first black member of the court. I do want to say one thing that is just a favorite Earl Warren fact of mine, that before Brown v. Board of Education, during the time that Earl Warren was governor of California in the late 1940s, he actually presided over a kind of predecessor decision to the Brown case, which was Mendez versus Westminster School Board, and that was desegregating what had been segregated Mexican schools

in California. And the Ninth Circuit, it never went to the Supreme Court, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that not on grounds of race, and this decision didn't directly overturn plus E.V. Ferguson, but it did rule that the system of segregation in California schools was unconstitutional, and that therefore it was incumbent upon Earl Warren to oversee the desegregation of California public schools. And so that experience did inform, I think, his worldview, and it informed his judicial philosophy in a way that motivated his attention to and care with the Brown v. Board decision.

The really fascinating thing about Brown v. Board of Education is that he was able to do what seemed impossible at the time, certainly on a macro scale when you look at the country, but he got a unanimous opinion from all the members of the court. And that was basically like the kickoff, right? What continues is a decade in the 50s of just these decisions after decisions that are enshrining these. fundamental rights fast forward to 1963 and at the time

of executive order 111-1-30 the Warren Court had just come off another one another bangor another landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Gideon v. Wainwright

in which the court rules that U.S. states are required to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who are unable to afford their own. Basically, by the time we're getting to November, 1963, and LBJ is, you know, the idea of a commission is coming to bear, he decides that he needs a jurist. and he wants the sort of most respected jurists. But what's not clear to us,

because we don't have actually any transcripts of the calls with Earl Warren because they met in person. But so what we're left with is LBJ's word to other people about how and why he was able to get, how he's able to get Earl Warren on the commission. The first point of the story that LBJ's, B.J tells, and he tells this story repeatedly in call after call on November 29th. The first part of the story is that LBJ sent Robert Kennedy, the attorney general and brother of

the slain president, to go and recruit Earl Warren. And this was after Nick Katzenbach had been unsuccessful in getting through to Warren and so according to LBJ at least Warren rejects RFK and declines to participate in the commission and LBJ makes some hay out of this which only raises the stakes for his own achievement in twisting Warren Aaron's arm, right? Well, you want me to tell you the truth? You know what happened? You know what happened?

Bobby named him one up to see him today, and he turned him down cold and said no. Yeah. Two hours later, I called him and ordered him down here, and he didn't want to come. I insisted to come. He came down here, and he told me no twice. Yeah, exactly. And so there's a call with Russell, where he's talking with Richard Russell, who is another who's a member on the commission we're going to get to in a minute but where he basically

LBJ is bragging about how he got chief justice Earl Warren to agree um and it it basically came down to the point where he basically says like look we're facing an existential threat of war with the USSR so put all the bullshit aside and serve your country uh because we're going to have you know, 40 million Americans dead if we don't bring this to heal, right? And I just pulled out what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City, and I said, now, I don't want Mr. Cruzchev to be told tomorrow and be testifying for a camera that he killed this fella, and that the Castro killed him, and all I want you to do is look at the facts and bring any other family in here and determine who killed the president.

And I think you put on your uniform, World War I, fat as you are, and do anything you could to save one American life. And I'm surprised that you of the Chief Justice of the United States would turn me down. And then he says that he got Earl Warren to cry in front of him. He started crying, he said, well, I won't turn you down. I'll just do whatever he's. But he's trying to turn. Yeah, what the hell? Basically say, like, I'll do whatever you want.

You know, we can speculate why and whether even if Warren didn't want to do it, right? I think the repeated theme that you're going to see from a lot of these guys is that none of them really wanted to do it, or maybe many of them didn't want to do it. I can think of two guys that did. I'll tell you later who I think they are. Yeah. Yeah, I was just going to say, there were a few that did want to do it, but many of them didn't want to do it. Yeah, and Warren went on record, you know, subsequent years saying, I don't know if he ever admitted that he cried to LBJ about it, but he did definitely corroborate the fact that he was resistant.

Oh, of course. And probably, like, you know, for the same reasons that Eugene Ross Stile didn't want a Supreme Court justice. And for the reason we mentioned earlier on this episode, right? There are probably, there are questions of jurisdiction, of impartiality, of all sorts of sort of sticky issues that Earl Warren didn't want to, put his name next to, which ultimately, you know, would mean implicate the highest court of the land. Right. And to the non-lawyer listeners, first of all, congratulations, you're not a lawyer. And secondly, the Supreme Court does not conduct factual investigation. That is not what goes on in the decision-making process in the highest court in the land. They apply the law to decisions in the lower courts, and they rule on whether those decisions should stand or should be reversed. But the Supreme Court is not taking testimony. They are not looking at evidence. they are looking at the record below to make a determination of law.

And so again, back to the Walt Brown point, you know, a Supreme Court justice as chairman, the expertise that he brings is not highly relevant to the task of figuring out who killed the president. and so the idea that he's only being asked on as a rubber stamp would have been obvious to him and it's obvious to really any observer that has an understanding of the function and the process by which the Supreme Court operates. Right. And, I mean, he was a rubber stamp, right? It's called the Warren Report.

It's called the Warren Commission because we were just talking about this before we got on, Don. But it's like the people who would be receptive to Earl Warren's report are the very people who are at this time, albeit maybe not the majority, but a very loud minority that's highly critical of the FBI, right? you've got the guy who is coming down with the banger 5th Amendment 6th Amendment criminal Supreme Court decisions he's like the desegregation is even more key and we'll get into that when we start talking about Dick Russell in a minute but Earl Warren and his sort of career long crusade against American segregation was not did not make him a popular guy in the American South. And I wouldn't be surprised if he even feared for his life in going down to Dallas where there's this real possibility that it was a right-wing conspiracy to kill Kennedy.

Right on. And I totally agree. I think that definitely, you know, ruling segregation is unconstitutional is probably one of the most important decisions in the 20th century. My point with all of the decisions that are granting criminal defendants all sorts of constitutional rights, those decisions, I'm going to go on a limb and say, weren't very popular with the law and order. silent majority. Okay, so let's step away from the chairman of this commission and turn to our very first member, and I couldn't think of a better following act to Earl Warren's progressive Republican views

than the views of a good old boy from the south in fact if you're thinking of Warren as your progressive forward thinking even keeled jurist

well we've got our next guy who is just the opposite from Washington a expression report to the people of Georgia by Senator Richard Russell. Here is Senator Russell. Matters of such vital importance to our people are transpiring on the floor of the Senate that I feel called upon to make a report to you and give you what is happening.

I have never had a system of press releases nor the public relations man and I have noticed from the coverage on the ticker from the press associations that their report of these events are far from complete. We are now confronted on the floor of the Senate with the vicious and nexus civil rights bill which has come over from the House of Representatives after passing by that body by a vote of more than two to one. Senator Richard Russell from the great state of Georgia.

And for him, you know, like Warren, right, the reason for picking him is pretty obvious. Warren is picked because he's the number one jurist in the land. Russell is picked because he is L.B.J.'s man on the commission. And L.B.J. says as much repeatedly. We don't have to speculate to make that assertion. and we'll play the clips, but he is LVJ's boy, in fact, on the commission. You're my man on that commission, and you're going to do it,

and don't tell me what you can do and what you can't. And it's funny because before the tables had turned and LBJ is in the position of dominance in the relationship, Dick Russell had been LBJ's mentor in the Senate and really guided LBJ's rise to prominence in the Senate. And in fact, in one of the calls, LBJ even says to him something like, Hey, Dick, you've taught me more about riding wrong than my own, than anybody excepting my own mama. Maybe you spend more hours of me tell me what is riding wrong and anybody's dead my mother.

And I think you said it at the outset, right? Russell is kind of the anti-Earl Warren. He's the mirror image of Earl Warren on the commission in many ways, right? Yeah, basically everything Earl Warren is for, Russell's going to be against. Especially when it comes to race and segregation. That's the number one. A little background on Russell. He was one of 15 children.

from a prominent political family in the great state of Georgia. His father was actually chief justice of the Georgia State Supreme Court. And so he grew up, you know, kind of in this patrician sheltered, white, southern life and grew into your classic racist Dixiecrat politician. I think he started in the Senate way back in 1936. But before that, he was the governor of apartheid, Georgia, for a term in the 1930s. And so he was very much not down with integration. He had a passion for racial segregation.

There's a piece, I love this. So there's a press piece that Russell did. did when there was a civil rights bill that was being introduced and he did a press piece for his constituents, it's a TV spot and he basically, I love when these assholes do this is where they like use wordplay, use wordplay about the thing that they're being accused of to sort of throw it back at their critics where he calls the civil rights bill. a legislative lynching. I have stated on the floor of the Senate this afternoon

that it seems that a legislative lynching of a minority is in prospect. Oh my God. Jesus Christ. Which is a funny little spin on what's actually going on. I mean, this guy's insane. He's calling it. He goes, we're confronted with an unholy alliance

of self-styled northern liberals. And, I mean, we'll play the clips like his voice is insane. That like southern whistle voice? We are confronted with an unholy

alliance of the self-style and professed northern liberals led by senators Douglas and Humphrey and a number of others and the

Republican leadership led by Senator Nolan of California. I greatly fear that the Vice President of the United States, who has recently been in conference with some of the leaders of supporting this legislation, will join with them to wipe out any semblance of regular parliamentary procedure in the effort to cram this bill down our throat. And his appearance, too. I mean, this guy, he looks like one of these goofy characters played by Tim Blake Nelson.

You know, the guy that plays Buster Scruggs is in, oh, brother, where art thou? Just like a goofy looking guy, too. Just out of central fucking casting. One of the things about Russell that caught my attention was that he co-authored the so-called Southern Manifesto. It was him and Strom Thurmond, who was, if you don't know, he was a senator from South Carolina and holds, you know, he's definitely in the running for most racist senator in the 20th century, which is certainly a fierce competition. But, yeah, the Southern Manifesto was literally a screed denouncing Brown versus Board of Education and rejecting in no uncertain terms the very idea of racial integration as an affront to the Southern way of life.

And so you could imagine that when he finds out that he might be on this commission with Earl Warren, he is none too pleased. What do you mean this guy's not going to, this Georgian's not going to get along with the Californian? I couldn't imagine that. Luckily for posterity, as you mentioned, LBJ puts on a. clinic in political arm twisting and in so many words forces Russell's hand and you know gives him absolutely no choice in the matter right he's going to be his man on the commission yes or yes full court press but it's also funny it's almost like a son like a demanding something of

his father. May you spend more hours of me, tell me what is right and wrong, and inside his government. Because there is this, like, it's so complex. There is this, like, sincerity. Right. Plus the fact that LBJ announces Russell as a member of the commission before he agrees to do it. One, two, three, four.

No, I don't mind. That's right. Please. No, that's all it's done. It's done. Yes, sir. I mean, I gave it. I gave you, I gave it announcement. It's already in the paper. You're on it. And you're going to be with my man on it. Which, honestly, it's pretty much the case with everybody, right? I mean, like we said earlier on, LBJ has the list. The list is final. He's floating it to people as though it's still up for discussion, but it's not. It's absolutely not. And the one name that is a constant from the very jump is Richard Russell. Why? Because LBJ needs his man on the commission.

But you've got, you're my man on that commission, and you're going to do it. And don't tell what you can do and what you can't. I can't arrest you. And I'm not going to put the up to the aisle on you, but you're got to be up and still going to serve. I'll tell you that. You can't forget that it's got to be top of mind for LBJ that cannot have any importance. that he was involved in the assassination. So he needs someone to sort of keep him abreast of how things are developing. And once again, he insinuates this point about staving off World War III. We've got to take this out of the arena where it's first time

He said to her in Chesteros and goodbed them and they're kicking us into war that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour. And he even mentions this idea that apparently he got from J. Edgar Hoover. And I think this is something that to talk about, about what he calls, quote, a little incident in Mexico City. And I just pulled out what Hoover told me. about a little incident in Mexico City, and I said, now, I don't want Mr. Cruz You have to be told tomorrow and be testifying for a camera that he killed his fella. Of course, that little incident is the flub with the, I guess, Oswald impersonator. Yeah, it's amazing just how many facts that would go on to be.

be hotly disputed by all the powers that be for decades upon decades pending declassification of these phone calls that not only are they saying that Oswald was that somebody impersonating Oswald was in Mexico City but that that impersonator received a payment from the Cuban embassy This angle in Mexico is giving us a great deal of trouble because the story there of this man, Oswald, getting $6,500 from the Cuban embassy, and then coming back to this country with it, they were not able to prove that fact. The information was that he was there on the 18th of September in Mexico City, and we are able to prove conclusively he was in New Orleans that day. Now then they moved, they changed the date The story came in changing the date to the 28th of September And he was in Mexico City on the 28th

You know, they just denied this stuff for so long And now it's out there for everybody to see Unreal Okay, so he's got Russell And like we say, Russell is basically a two-for, right? He gets, remember, the commission has to be Two Democrats, two Republicans from both chambers of Congress

So with Russell, he gets his Democrat, he gets his senator, and he even gets to pick one that was in his back pocket. Yeah. Should we talk about the other Democrat now? Yes, sir. All right. Yes, we're sticking with our Democratic Party and moving on to the House. There is a house in New Orleans. eyes and soul

And it's been the ruin of many of poor born And God I knew I'm won Let's talk about Thomas Halebog, Sr. Commonly just goes by Hale Who's a congressman

for Louisiana's second congressional district. That's New Orleans. A city that comes up during the Warren Commission's investigation. Oh, yeah. We said in the top of the episode, Hale Boggs is sort of a bizarro Jerry.

At 49 years old, he was the youngest member. member of the Warren Commission. You know, he had also been the youngest member ever elected to the House of Representatives when he first joined the house at age 27. So take that AOC. There are rumors that, like, Hale Boggs was a drunk. There's this phone call later in life between Jerry and Nixon, where they're talking about Hale Boggs' drinking problem.

But for our purposes, at least our speculation, is that Hale Boggs was called on to the Warren Commission because he couldn't keep his mouth shut. John F. Kennedy will go down in history as a martyr to the American ideal. I knew him inhumanly, and I loved him dearly. This fall, just a few months ago, I went to my hometown, New Orleans, in my beloved Southland, my home district. There I made a speech. I tried to calm the drums of hate against the President of the United States.

I warned that we were on a collision course, but the drums beat louder. the radicals and the haters in politics and elsewhere have had their way they are the ones who really pull the trigger that killed this great America it's a sad day for our country it's a sad day for free men everywhere Right. Whereas Russell was sort of an offensive pick, right? He was selected to be a tool for Johnson. Boggs was a defensive pick. He was selected to keep him from doing his own thing in the house or in the media and to keep. keep him sort of close to the vest and prevent this wild card from causing unexpected information to leak out to the public. It all starts before November 29th.

Hale Boggs in the House floor had spoken about convening a commission. for investigating the assassination. Either Hale Boggs or his ally Charles Goodell from New York is talking about introducing a resolution in the house to investigate the assassination. And he calls LBJ to let him know what he's thinking. Mr. President, yeah. When the house could be in today, Goodell, in New York,

6th floor, I started talking about a resolution He had for an investigation and complaining about that both parties investigating and the Senate Judiciary Committee, the House and American Activist Committee, and so forth. I was in the chair at the time, so I got George Mayon to take the gamble and I got the well of the floor. And he's kind of apologetic. He comes sort of hat in hand, very deferential to the president. Mr. President, he were magnificent last night.

Well, thank you, Mr. President. We sat there, and Lundy and I have killed a long plan to get to pride. God, what a job he's done. He was utterly magnificent. But at the same time, he does have some cards to play, right? There would be an investigation, that it would not be a congressional investigation that I thought I could say on the highest authority, that there would be a higher level, objective, fact-finding investigation.

But since that time, I've had a lot of people call me, and they're talking now about it. Well, we've got to cut these bases with everybody. I went down to St. James in Firmary. Saw my baby there. He has a hand to play with his sort of position of prominence and the fact that he's kind of let this cat out of the bag, right? Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. When I listen to the, you know, the tapes, the first call between Boggs and LVJ, I sort of see that as like, he's sort of going toe to toe to toe with LBJ. To the extent you can go to toe to toe with that man, he's basically saying like, look, you know, he's calling him, I think it's like 11 in the morning. And he says, look, when the house convenes later today, Goodell is going to introduce this resolution. And it's basically calling for this investigation.

He'll never find a sweet man like me. Bragging. So I have said absolutely nothing about who might be on special commission, but I said there is going to be a commission. Well, I hope it is. I guess I've got to tell her to do it without the legislation. I don't know. I don't understand it on the executive office.

Well, I've got my lawyer checking it now, and... I'm just passing this information along to you, man. You know, I can't do anything about it either way. So the boys will know that I die Stand it back So yeah he's putting his chips in the table Right And in some of the other calls that Johnson has

Later in the day He mentions Boggs as a pick for the commission But with some degree of reluctance, I think He doesn't sound too enthusiastic about it, it's more so that he wants to shore up all potential avenues of investigating the assassination under one roof. And that's why it's important to him that any would-be rogue that takes steps to investigate the assassination for himself is brought to heal. especially like a young up-and-comer guy right because remember boggs is ambitious

that's what i had intended to put in a resolution but i had no intention of doing it unless until i talk with you lose extra as a draft which i have not put in two from the house two from the senator two from the judiciary and two from the public i think at the time he was the party whip but eventually becomes the majority leader so you know lbj very much is the looking at Boggs as someone who trying to make a name for himself. That's right. And he wasn't afraid to call out governmental overreach or malfeasance. You know, even though Hale Boggs, like Russell, was very much a Dixiecrat, he was not

an co-author of the Southern Manifesto, but I believe he was. He was a signatory, but at the same time, he was also a real staunch new dealer. And the listener may be familiar with this strain of Louisiana or New Orleans populism, most famously embodied by the long time Louisiana governor Huey Long that was assassinated himself. But Hale Boggs was known for kind of crusading and calling out injustice. The party establishment, right? He was very much the challenger to the party establishment. Right.

And later on in his life, all of that comes to a head when he makes a real enemy out of J. Edgar Hoover. But that is a story for another. day because it precedes almost immediately the untimely and mysterious disappearance and presumed death of hail bogs in a plane crash over Alaska less than a decade after his participation in the Warren Commission and it was a disappearance right they never found the plane that's right and I guess spoiler alert, but Hale Boggs was one of the biggest critics of the Warren Commission after the fact. Yep.

Earliest and loudest. Yep. What do you say? Enough about Hale? Let's get back to our real home base here. Let's catch up with our boy. We're on the house floor, right? We're sticking in the house, but we're going to cross the aisle and we find ourselves.

at the desk of our main man, Jerry Ford. I just wanted to say, like, when we were planning this episode, remember we were, there was like maybe 10 seconds where, I know maybe we weren't both debating it, but I was like, is it going to be worthwhile to cover Jerry in this episode? But, you know, I want all the Jerry heads out there to just forgive my momentary lapse. Because I did come to my sentence. I think it was just a second.

Of course we're going to have to talk about Jerry. This is like the culmination of everything we've been working towards. We're Jerry guys. Of course we're going to talk about how Jerry Ford got selected for the Warren Commission. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't cover Jerry. In this episode. Yeah. So once again, it's a tale of opposites, right?

Or if not opposites, mirror images. Right. And so where you have Boggs is there because he can't shut up about the, you know, doing an independent investigation. Jerry's there. At least we suspect. At least we theorize. Jerry's there. Why?

because everybody knows he can keep his mouth shut. Oh, yeah. That's his bread and butter right there. I wonder, Don, how would everybody know that Jerry can keep his mouth shut? Well, I think before we get into that, it's worth pointing out that, and listening to the LBJ tapes, which is really the main source material for this episode. And once again, they're all online. a lot of them are collected on the Mary Farrell website,

which collects a lot of information and documentation from the JFK assassination. But when you listen to the tapes, the thing that most stood out to me, and it made me spit out my tea, was when I heard the nasal voice of, John Edgar Hoover tell President Lyndon Johnson

when confronted with Johnson's suggestion that Jerry Ford be picked for the house? I guess Boggs had started in the house. I thought maybe it might try to get Boggs Jerry Ford. I don't know. You know anything?

Any reason? Just talk with me and you're going to talk Black brothers. Yeah, no. Well, there is. Any reason any of the house? Do you know Ford from Michigan? Hoover had this to say. I know of him, but I don't know him. I saw him on TV the other night for the first time.

He handled himself well on that. Well, I know of him, but I don't know him, and I just saw him for the first time on television the other day, and he did a good job. What? Excuse me? But yeah, excuse me. What? What's going on there? unbeknownst to everyone else, Jerry Ford was on the payroll on the FBI.

Yeah, maybe we should do a little recap of some of the highlights of Jerry's career that we've covered in the Jerry World series that just indicate how much bullshit Hoover's pretend lack of knowledge. about Jerry was right yeah absolutely winding the clock all the way back to 1941 Jerry had just graduated from Yale law and the first job that he seeks is as a special agent of the FBI do you remember what the response was he doesn't just get a form response he gets a response from none other than Jay Edgar. And although it was what superficially may have looked like a form response, there is one line, one sentence in that letter that seems pretty on point today.

And that's the part where Jay Edgar Hoover says, essentially, thanks for the interest, we'll keep your record on file well in 1963 J. Edgar basically calls up Jerry and says

hey can you get to that I once had a life or rather life had me I was one of a minute or at least I seemed to be But I read an old quotation in a mooch just yesterday

Says you're going to reap with what you sold the debts you make you'll have to pay Can you get to pay? I want to know. I want to know if you can get to that. Can you get the money? Yeah, absolutely. And look, so Jerry applies for the special agent position. His application file itself emphasizes statements from his acquaintances saying that he knows how to keep his mouth shut.

And the special agent in charge of the Grand Rapids Field Office at the time described Jerry as, quote, one of the best applicants who has ever appeared at the Grand Rapids office. So when J. Edgar Hoover sends him that personally signed note of, don't worry, we'll keep you on file for the future, that is not just Whistling Dixie, as Dick Russell might say. And indeed, after Jerry was elected into the house, one of the first, pieces of legislation that he personally sponsored was a law to increase the salary of the FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Yep. And we've set up before. We'll say it again. They're both in the Scottish right. They're both Masons. They're both 33rd degree. Exactly. Of the highest degree. D.C. is a

small town. Yeah. It's a small town and it's even smaller if you're a 33rd degree Scottish Wright Freemason. That is a club in which the members are acquainted with one another. At this time, Jerry Ford's house is practically in the shadow of the George Washington Masonic Center in Alexandria, Virginia. And it's absolutely implausible that Hoover didn't know Jerry Ford. Betty Ford would talk about how her favorite thing to do was to take

Grand Rapidians who visited the Capitol on tours of the FBI until she did so many that she got sick of it. I mean, just go back. you know if you've listened to it already go back and listen again if you haven't yet please give us a shot and listen to jerry world because we laid the groundwork for you all it's like clear as day and in many senses it's all been leading up to this moment right here where where jerry's number is called at long last

And so, even if Hoover did not choose Jerry Ford for this commission, he most definitely wanted Jerry Ford on the commission. And we'll find out why in a future episode, but for now, suffice it to say that it is highly interesting that Hoover would give this pretense, would lie to the president. And I think that he's kind of covering up for the fact that he doesn't want to show his enthusiasm. Absolutely. He doesn't want to show his enthusiasm. He doesn't want to reveal any connection with the guy.

And he doesn't want to tarnish what can be a very valuable mole on the commission for him. Right. Like when LBJ is considering Jerry, what's he thinking? He's thinking, this guy who's on the defense committee, the CIA subcommittee, he is a trustworthy guy, he's going to do the right thing, he is a team player, he knows to keep his mouth shut, he will have, you know, the flag and country first, all that shit. And also, like, he's not very smart, right? Like, LBJ loves to rag on Jerry's dim wits. Yeah, LBJ famously invented the expression. You know, you hear it all the time, right?

Walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. Well, guess what? That wasn't the original expression. That's the censored, polite version. The original is that Jerry Ford's so dumb that he can't fart and chew bubble gum at the same time. Oh, you got to try that as LBJ. You got to do that. Run it again as LBJ. I know a thing or two about this

Jerry Ford and, well, I think the guy's so dumb he can't fucking chew bubble gum at the same time. Yes. I don't know. My LBJ is turning into my hail bogs a little bit. It's getting too much of that New Orleans drum. They all kind of sound like, I think the

rigid Russell LBJ calls are sort of like episode of King of the Hill. So they're going back and forth. But so back to Jerry, though, like LBJ is picking Jerry. What's he getting? He's getting a member of the house. So he's getting the member of the chamber of the house. And he's also getting a Republican.

He's getting an up-and-comer, right? Just like Hale Boggs. He's getting a person that is coming up who is making a name for himself, who the American people are getting a taste of, and they're starting to like. and he is absolutely totally in the dark on the fact that Jerry Ford is a mole I thought your speech was excellent thank you Jerry Jerry I've got something what you do for me

well do the best for cancer I've got to have a top blue ribbon presidential commission to investigate this assassination I'm going to ask Chief Justice to hit it and then I'm going to ask John McCloy and Alan Dulles. Right. And I wanted nonpartisan. I'm not going to point out I've got five Republicans, two Democrats, but I'm going to do that. And then you forget what party you belong to and just serve as an American.

If anything, I would think LBJ would have gotten Ford's name, not from the Hoover side, but from the CIA side, as we talked about. Absolutely. You know, Alan Dulles had a fondness for Jerry Ford. You know, they sat together in these super secret, no aides, no notes taken meetings of the House Appropriation Subcommittee on Intelligence. And so Jerry Ford was very much on Alan Dulles's radar. And by extension, he would have been very much on the radar of the Joe Alsups of the world that are barking at L.B.

to put this commission together in the first damn place. Well, and I want somebody on appropriation and O.C.I. over in your shop, from appropriation angle, because I'm covering the armed services angle with Russell. I want to ask Hale Boggs and you to serve in the house. Well, there's what it would be McLuhan and Dulles and Ford and Boggs and Cooper in Russell and Chief Justice Warren as chairman. So Jerry is, once again, the Fourth Reich Everyman. it never fails

everything's coming up Jerry he's the CIA's man he's the FBI's man he's the president's dummy he's everything he's everything you want him to be he's there at the right place at the right time it's honestly like poetry in motion look we've been getting

I'm going to be straight with you listener we've been getting some feedback that maybe we revered Jerry maybe we try and hold them up in a pedestal but really honestly what we're trying to do is give credit where credit is due to this man who is

you have probably the best political operator of the 20th century which is LBJ thinks he's playing this guy Jerry thinks he's got him around his finger thinks he's you know making quick work of Jerry all the while what's the truth of the matter right like seems like maybe jerry's pulling a fast one on

lbj well i would be honored to do it and i'll do the very best i can sir you do that and right i mean jerry is everything to everyone and that is a unique ability that he has and i think that if you would have told LBJ in 1963 that one day Jerry Ford would be president of the United States, I think that LBJ would have threatened to beat you with his dick. Yeah, yeah, he had no respect for the guy. And you could hear it in his voice the way he. would ask things of Jerry like he had um yeah the way that he says he's a good citizen he's a he's a good citizen yeah it's like he's a fucking idiot it's like translation i like the way he says

goodbye to him on one of the calls he's like thank you jerry just hangs up keep me keep me up to date and i'll be seen him all right thank you very much thank you delighted to help out thank you Thank you. So, I mean, I think that's kind of the end of the road for today's episode. Just to put a pin and where we're leaving things off, we've got essentially, at LBJ, he is executing orders to a certain extent that were delivered to him, by the power behind the throne, right? This Georgetown set this cabal of elites with deep, deep roots in the American Empire.

And he has come to the conclusion himself that he's driving the ship now and assembling this commission that will do its, duty of tamping out rumor and speculation and writing the official narrative of the Kennedy assassination. So as we wrap it up, we

remember the commission is made up of the chair, Earl Warren, two members of the House. We covered those guys. That's Hale Boggs, Jerry Ford. Two members of the Senate. We covered one of those guys, and it's Dick Russell. Next week,

we're going to cover the other. Sherman Cooper. And then we'll move on to our, I don't know, Don, what do you call them? Ordinary Citizens, Civilians? Yeah. Well, what's funny is LBJ refers to them as representatives of the public. Sometimes he refers to them as outstanding citizens. Outstanding over there doing some megalomaniac shit.

These are representative citizens Like America is a fucked up place Yeah But I like to call them The Horsemen of the Fourth Reich Are two representatives Of the civilians citizens Alan Dulles

And John J. McCloy That's right, listener We'll get back into that Nazi shit So you better stay tuned For now, I'm Dick and I'm Don saying farewell and keep digging

with so did after the war the Nazis vanished without a trace but battalions of fascists still dream of a master race the history books they tell of their defeat in 45 but they all came out of the woodward On the day the Nazi died

they say the prisoner As Fandau was a symbol of defeats Whilst Hes remained in prison Then the fascist they were would beat. So the promise of an Aryan world would never materialize. So why did they all come out of the woodward? On the day the Nazi died, the world is riddled with maggots.