General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy believed President Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy. [View all]nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)That's what tends to happen when your second-in-command is trying to fob the whole thing off on the FBI and a special commission three days after the crime.
The Justice Department's position, as stated in Katzenbach's memo, does not even call for the commission to investigate the crime. It merely suggests that the commission could "review and examine the evidence" and even that is conditioned on public reaction to a possible FBI report. Katzenbach was concerned that rumors and speculation were overrunning the actual case (he was and is right).
The national security concerns flowed from that. LBJ himself told Earl Warren that a nuclear war between the US and the USSR, with tens of millions of casualties, was possible. I tend to regard that as Johnsonian hyperbole, but there is logic to it. The fact of Oswald's residence in the Soviet Union alone raised questions of Soviet involvement. Oswald's apparent affection for Cuba raised similar questions.
That was the concern at the top of the food chain: that Oswald's actions would be connected to the Cuban or, worse, the Soviet government. If it had been found that either government had been involved, it would surely have led to war.
The fear of Soviet involvement vastly outweighed any concerns about militia operations coordinated by rogue members of the CIA or the mob, or whatever theory you're petting this week.
If the goal of the conspiracy was to create war with the USSR, or Cuba, it failed. If the goal of the conspiracy was to overthrow Castro, it failed. Thanks in some part to the Warren Commission.