Shadows of Dealey Plaza
By Gary Lawrence
Gary Lawrence’s book, Shadows of Dealey Plaza, is designed as a kind of primer on the JFK assassination and the theories surrounding it. Concerning the latter, it deals with the CIA, Organized Crime, Lyndon Johnson and the KGB. The book then segues into chapters on how the Secret Service failed President Kennedy in Dallas, problems with the media and the JFK assassination, the battle over file releases, why the case still matters and what America would have been like if President Kennedy had lived.
The relatively brief book begins with a description of the actual shooting of President Kennedy in the motorcade in Dealey Plaza. (p. 8) Lawrence then describes the case against Oswald, e.g., witness Howard Brennan, the backyard photographs, Oswald’s fingerprints on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. He revisits the suspect’s capture at the Texas Theater, his brief time in detention, his famous declaration: “I’m just a patsy!” (p. 12) The author then describes the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby on national television. And he states the overall reaction to that startling event:
What began as an effort to understand Kennedy’s death now included the mystery of whether Oswald had been silenced. Ruby insisted he acted out of rage and grief. Many doubted him” (p. 16).
He clearly states that Ruby’s murder of Oswald on live TV created a general feeling of public distrust of the official story-- even before the Warren Commission held its first meeting. Or, as he writes:
The investigation had barely begun, but the seeds of doubt had been planted. The public sensed that something deeper, perhaps darker, might be at work behind the scenes. (p. 17)
The public wanted there to be clear answers to the murders of what was now three men—Kennedy, Oswald and patrolman J. D. Tippit. But he describes the inquiry that followed as “shaped by political pressures, intelligence agency secrecy….” As a result of this, the mystery surrounding these cases would only be deepened. (ibid)
From here, the book goes into the arguments for the official story first. Lawrence notes appropriately that the Warren Commission had a hard time trying to figure out just what Oswald’s motivation would have been to kill Kennedy. (p. 20) Again, this is an understatement. In this reviewer’s opinion, this is one of the most nebulous and weakly argued parts of the Warren Report.
Lawrence then lists the evidence used against Oswald by the Commission. This includes the rifle, what he calls a sniper’s nest, the magic bullet--that is CE 399--and Oswald leaving the Depository after the shooting. He then, quite properly, lists discoveries that weaken this evidence, e.g the problems with CE 399. But this reviewer would go further than that. Because, for example, Alan Eaglesham, in an important essay entitled “The Sniper’s Nest: Incarnations and Implications,” has presented evidence that strongly indicates the sixth-floor window arrangement was created after the fact by the DPD. As for the rifle, John Armstrong made some original discoveries questioning whether or not Oswald ever ordered it in the first place. (Harvey and Lee, pp. 444-81)
From here, the author goes into the CIA theory behind the JFK assassination. He introduces it as such:
Few theories in the vast landscape of JFK assassination speculation have generated as much controversy, intensity, and enduring fascination as the idea that the Central Intelligence Agency… played a role in the events of November 22, 1963. (p. 27)
I would go even farther and say that no other theory has done those things to that extent. Lawrence begins by noting the conflicts between the Agency and Kennedy stemming from the Bay of Pigs disaster. That, in turn, caused the new president to dismiss the top level of the CIA: Director Allen Dulles, Deputy Director Charles Cabell, and covert operations chief Dick Bissell. Lawrence also mentions Kennedy’s reluctance to order direct military involvement into Vietnam as another point of friction between Kennedy and the CIA, and also the Pentagon. He concludes that some hawkish figures in Washington now concluded that the new president was soft on communism. (p. 28)
Furthering the case against the Agency, Lawrence mentions their experience in government overthrows and assassinations of foreign leaders, as exposed by the Church Committee. Finally, he addresses the problems with the CIA story about Oswald in Mexico City. (pp. 29-30) To name just two: there is no picture of Oswald at either the Cuban or the Russian embassy. There should be at least ten, both entering and exiting. Secondly, there is no match for Oswald on the voice tapes that the Agency said were of him.
The author then names four possible suspects in the case from the Agency: David Phillips, James Angleton, Howard Hunt and George Joannides. He also adds that the reluctance of the CIA to turn over documents even after the expiration of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) as promoting suspicion. I would have added: the ARRB mandated October of 2017 as the terminal date for final release. We are now nine years behind that. And I would also add that President Trump also signed an executive order to this effect. Therefore, the Agency is in defiance of both the legislative and executive branches.
Lawrence further refines the CIA theory by adding that one offshoot is the rogue Agency concept; and another is the use of Cuban exiles as part of the plot. (pp. 32-33).
Next up is the Organized Crime theory. This might be the worst part of the book. In describing it, Lawrence actually writes that Joseph Kennedy had dealings with mobsters over bootlegging. (p. 37) I don’t know if he really believes this or is just reciting it as part of the adduced theory. But whichever, this has been totally discredited by Daniel Okrent in his book Last Call, and David Nasaw in his biography The Patriarch. The former is considered one of the best books on Prohibition. Okrent reviewed about 900 pages of documents investigating Joe Kennedy. During a period of over 20 years, there was no witness who mentioned such an association.
Nasaw’s book had extraordinary access to Joe Kennedy’s business records. Joe Kennedy made his fortune through stocks, real estate and an enormous amount through the motion picture business. With millions from the last, he purchased the Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago. That building sprawls over two full city blocks, covering 4.2 million square feet, at a height of 25 stories. It once had its own zip code. It was sold by the Kennedy family in 1998 at a price that would be well over a billion in today’s dollars. To say that Joe Kennedy wanted to do something illegal, when he was making this kind of money legally, is just nonsense.
He then adds in the equally nonsensical fable from the novel Double Cross, namely that the Mob felt betrayed when Bobby Kennedy continued to go after them after the 1960 election, when, as part of an arrangement, they had helped JFK get elected. This is more nonsense. As Professor John Binder has shown, the wards Sam Giancana controlled in Chicago demonstrated no evidence of increased turnout for Kennedy and the Democrats in comparison to previous years. And Dan Fleming, in his book Kennedy vs Humphrey, West Virginia 1960, details that three successive inquiries—both on state and federal levels-- showed no such influence occurred there either.
The one real motive for murder the Mob had was, of course, that Attorney General Robert Kennedy despised them and wanted to place them all behind bars. Lawrence mentions three of the Dons, Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante Jr. and Giancana. (pp. 38-39) From here, Lawrence goes to the Mob ties of Jack Ruby to make a connection. Although he does mention the CIA/Mafia plots to kill Fidel Castro, he does not mention John Roselli or Ruby’s alleged meeting with Trafficante in Cuba.
These are quite important since Roselli was part of the CIA/Mafia plots to kill Castro. He later became quite friendly with CIA officer William Harvey, as both were trying to murder Fidel. There is a credible witness, reporter John Wilson, who states that Ruby met with Trafficante while the Don was being detained in Cuba. (Seth Kantor, The Ruby Cover-Up, pp. 256-59) This would seem to indicate that such a meeting would have been set up by Ruby’s idol, Lewis McWillie, who worked for Trafficante. (ibid., pp. 250-55)
The third theory Lawrence deals with is that the KGB killed Kennedy. In support of this, the book deals with Oswald’s journey to Moscow in 1959 at the age of 20. (p. 46). He also mentions that his Russian wife, Marina Prusakova, had an uncle who was an intelligence official in the equivalent of the Soviet FBI. Oddly, the Russians let Oswald and his wife leave the USSR at the same time, which was most unusual. Then, the State Department facilitated their return to America, and there is no evidence of Oswald being debriefed by the CIA upon his return.
Then, of course, there is the alleged visitation of Oswald in Mexico City with Valery Kostikov, seven weeks before the assassination. (p. 48). Kostikov was reportedly a member of the KGB’s Department 13, which was responsible for dirty work, including assassinations, in the Western Hemisphere. (Michael Benson, Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination, p. 241) Therefore, when the news broke of Kennedy’s assassination, plus Oswald’s visit to Mexico City and his alleged meeting with Kostikov, some persons--like Cold Warrior James Angleton--pushed for the idea that Moscow had killed the president. (ibid., p. 16) And later some writers, like Edward Epstein—a fan of Angleton—also pushed for it in his book Legend.
In reality, of course--as depicted in the film JFK Revisited--the Soviets were very much chagrined about Kennedy’s death. And they were worried that, in the midst of the Cold War, they were being set up to take the blame for it--due to the circumstances mentioned above. As Lawrence writes, “If the Soviets had planned the assassination, their internal panic seems inconsistent with involvement.”(p. 49)
The fourth and final theorem that Lawrence describes is the Lyndon Johnson concept: the Vice President was behind the assassination. As many do, he begins by saying that Johnson was used to exercising great powers in the Senate, but he was now sidelined in his new office and was at loggerheads with Robert Kennedy. In addition to that, there were brewing scandals with his friends and colleagues, Billy Sol Estes and Bobby Baker. (p. 56) The possibility existed that Johnson would be removed from the ticket in 1964 and would have to face these issues as a private citizen.
He then gets into the possible role of Mac Wallace, the Johnson hitman in this theory. He writes that Wallace was convicted for killing the lover of Josefa Hermine Johnson’s lover, i.e., LBJ’s sister. (p. 58) According to the late Joan Mellen, this is not accurate. In her book Faustian Bargains, she describes in detail the killing by Wallace of his former wife’s boyfriend, John Douglas Kinser (pp. 85-87). The whole thing about Josefa—and many others—was proposed by Estes years later. There were a total of eight killings that Estes said that Wallace and Johnson took part in (Lawrence, p. 58; Mellen, pp. 238-39). At times, as Mellen noted, the number of killings went up to 17. And allegedly, Estes was going to provide tapes as evidence.
To make a long story short, no such evidence—or tapes—was ever provided. As Mellen describes it, Estes took flight before an arranged meeting with the FBI. Further, the so- called fingerprint evidence on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, which the late Jay Harrison said was Wallace’s, was proven not to be. (Mellen, pp. 272-83) Further, Wallace was not in Texas on the day of the assassination. He was at work in Anaheim, California. (Ibid., p. 235) So when Lawrence writes that the fingerprint evidence is intensely disputed, that really is not the case. It is discredited--at length.
Lawrence also mentions Madeleine Duncan Brown as part of the case against Johnson. (p. 59). Brown once stated that she was the mother of an illegitimate child through Johnson. And that Johnson had attended a party in Dallas with some very powerful people the night before the assassination. She said that LBJ told her, “After tomorrow, those Kennedy boys will never embarrass me again.” (ibid) The problem with this is that the evidence states that Johnson was not at this gathering; he was in Houston with JFK the night before. Then he and JFK arrived, rather late, at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, where they slept. (See story at NBC Channel Five, 11/22/23) Further, when the Brown paternity action against Johnson failed in court, there was another such case filed against attorney Jerome Ragsdale. That case also failed. (Brown vs Crockett case, Austin civil appeals court, 6/4/80)
Did Madeleine Brown not know who her son’s real father was? Or was she just a fatuous gold digger?
It is true, as Lawrence notes, that Johnson was close with J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI. But when the two men talked in the immediate wake of the assassination, they both expressed doubts about the official story. And when Hoover spoke privately about the case, he said, “If I told you what I really know, it would be very dangerous to this country. Our whole political system could be disrupted.” (James DiEugenio, The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, p. 246) If Hoover believed his own report, he would not say this. That report was pabulum for the public. He was maintaining the status quo against dangers of disorder.
Lawrence then adds, in a rather cursory manner, that Johnson’s escalation policy in Vietnam contradicted Kennedy’s reduction in force policy enacted before he was killed. And this aligned him “with Pentagon and defense industry interests” (p. 61). Well, I guess that is one way of putting it. I rather preferred the way that Oliver Stone portrayed it in his film JFK. There, based on Stanley Karnow’s book Vietnam: A History, he has Johnson addressing the Joint Chiefs at a Christmas party in 1963 and saying: Just get me elected and I will give you your war. (JFK: The Book of the Film, by Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, p. 533) And did he ever. By the end of 1965, there were about 175,000 combat troops in the country. On the day Kennedy was killed, there were none. This is one of the most tantalizing aspects, not just of the Johnson theory, but in the entire JFK case.
The book then goes into a short summary of how the Secret Service failed the president in Dallas. Again, if anything, this understates how bad their performance was. For instance, Lawrence mentions the bizarre dogleg route in Dealey Plaza. But he does not say that the House Select Committee on Assassinations, through attorney Belford Lawson III, determined that this was not necessary. There were other ways to get to the Trade Mart which bypassed that route. Incredibly, in a couple of instances, Lawrence falls for the Secret Service excuse that somehow their failures were actually due to JFK. This concerns the lack of agents on the rear bumper and the bubble top issue. (pp. 68-69) Yet, as Vince Palamara has stated, and as anyone can see through films on YouTube, it was Emory Roberts who called agent Donald Lawton off the back of the limo as it exited Love Field. (Palamara, Survivor’s Guilt, p. 291) And it was Agent Sam Kinney who decided not to use the bubble top that day. It was there and ready to be applied to the car. Though it was not bulletproof, it could have deflected trajectories. (ibid., pp. 85-95)
The book closes with discussions of the media performance, why the case still matters, and the battle over declassification. As per the first case, Lawrence poses the question of why the MSM accepted the Warren Report. (p. 80) He uses some rather simple explanations like pressure for unity, deference to authority, and a desire for access.
I would have added that a lot of this was simply due to laziness and sloth. Which reporters or TV hosts actually read the 888-page report upon its issuance in late September of 1964? Yet, both CBS and NBC went on the air with programs endorsing the report within 48 hours of it being released. I should also add that the 26 volumes of evidence were not published until almost two months afterward. Yet the report has thousands of footnotes literally to it, and many, if not most of these, are annotated to the volumes. So how could they have been checked out in advance?
As Lawrence notes, this failing gave rise to some investigative journalism. These writers did check out those footnotes, e.g., Mark Lane and his book Rush to Judgment, which became a best-seller. It also led to the shocking broadcast of the Zapruder film by Geraldo Rivera on ABC in 1975. (p. 81)
Lawrence then notes how the arrival of the Church Committee and its discoveries of the crimes of the FBI and CIA made the public more willing to disbelieve executive intelligence agencies. (p. 89) Oddly, Lawrence writes that “The Commission’s flaws did not necessarily indicate a conspiracy…” (ibid.). I disagree with that statement. The combination of its reliance on CE 399, the Commission’s viewing of the Zapruder film, and its lack of rigor with the medical evidence would have been enough to strongly indicate a conspiracy. And this is what writers like Lane and Sylvia Meagher concluded.
When Oliver Stone’s film was released in late 1991, this created a movement for declassification of documents. As Lawrence notes, it is maddening that the JFK Records Collection Act is still not being fulfilled, even though the Board disbanded in 1998. It would seem to suggest that something, or someone, is being protected.
According to the author, the case still matters for more than one reason. Among them: America lost its innocence in Dallas, a distrust of government began, the presence of a shadow government was exposed, a whole new world of espionage and secrecy now surfaced, and the Zapruder film created a visual collective implant in the Jungian consciousness.
He sees the JFK murder as a crossroads in American history. One which, because the case was not solved, led to the Vietnam War and Watergate. The JFK murder showed “…how the life of one man, in one moment, can alter the destiny of a nation and the world.” The lack of transparency and the still-classified files on the case have fed into the belief that something has been hidden about the past.
This is a brief tome, less than 200 pages. It has a limited goal and design. If it had fulfilled that design, I think it would have been a good contribution to the canon. For reasons stated above, I do not think it achieved that aim.
