Archives and research center. He discusses the Committee Findings related to political assassinations. The Church Committee investigated abuses by u. S. Intelligence agencies from the 1950s through wear the gate. This was recorded in 2013 at due cane university at an International Symposium to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of john f. Kennedy. The discussion ran 50 minutes. Hello. My talk is going to be a little bit different. I want to start with kind of a History Lesson that took hopefully will show some of the context of what were talking about. I not directly about the kennedy assassination, although ill be moving into that as well. I apologize if some of this is familiar ground. Okay. I would like to start by painting a picture of a time. Imagine this, if you will. Wiretapping and spying on americans, and even targeting a foreign adversary for assassination. Wait, im describing 2013. P not just liberal institutions and democratic leaders, but also on the other side. For example, in 1971 nixon discovered maybe yomen and Charles Bradford had been stealing documents from henry kissinger. Secretary of state. Anyway, nixons resignation in 1974 was followed by a heavily democratic socalled reform congress. Some of the names that we recognize. Henry waxman, tom hartman, and Patrick Leahy were elected in that congress. They immediately voted funding restrictions on the vietnam war which nixon had been succeeded by former Warren Commissioner gerald ford who along with his chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld feld and his aide dick cheney wasnt on quite the same page as the congress. Ford was not in a position of strength at this time, though. The freedom of information act which had been passed in 1966, but couldnt overcome agencies stonewalling was strengthened in 1974. It was over ridden by a twothirds vote of congress. This is the context in which revelations of not only the white house, but also intelligence agencies. Fbi, cia, and others began to leak out of washington into the nations newspapers. Revelations that the u. S. Army had been spying upon antiwar demonstrators was followed by the article m New York Times in december of 1947 by Seymour Hersh in which he revealed cia spying operations on americans and breakins and other activities on u. S. Soil in violation of their charter. The Ford White House at this point immediately wanted to know what other skeletons were many the cia closet, and so within days cia director colby had delivered a family jewels document to the Ford White House. Something you may know that in 2007 this document was finally released to the government. There were redactions, and the blackouts begin on the significant taur page. In any case, it included revelations of other abuses, including wiretapping reporters, opening of mail, and assassination plots. There have been rumors circulating from time to time. He was asking for their forebear answer in all these revel aings because, it would blacken the reputation of every president since truman. When quizzed about what he was talking about, he said, like assassinations, and the New York Times editor didnt publish this comment, bout butt it got leaked to daniel shore who soon did. Both houses of congress could be followed for their own investigations. Now, the Rockefeller Commission did receive evidence of the cia assassination plots, but didnt take that on as an issue. In general they conducted a pretty circumscribed probe. Former Warren CommissionDavid Bellman was the executive director. They did publish a report about cia domestic spying and mail opening, and they actually took on two questions of the kennedy assassination. One was whether or not the watergate burglar hunt and sturgis were two of the three deeley camps in disguise. Some of you may know that dr. Cyril wecht testified in that regard. The limited focused Rockefeller Commission was quickly superseeded by a lengthy name which came to be known as the Church Committee after its chairman idaho senator frank church, and they really opened it up. They took on a full review of u. S. Intelligence agencies, history and rationale as well as the excesses of abuses. The Senate Committee was much more aggressive than the Rockefeller Commission had been, although their style contrasted with the much more confrontational house of representatives. Oh, here we go. I can only imagine what dick cheney thought of morning congresswoman bella abazar taking on the new york security agency. In the end the housing report was actually suppressed by the house, and only printed in the Village Voice when daniel shore leaked in. The Church Committee went on to do a year and a half long investigation published 14 beg volumes of reports, some of them quite thick, and the bland titles here dont begin to cover the range in topics that they really took on. This includes things like the fbis Counter Intelligence program, domestic disruption, their harassment of dr. Martin luther king jr. , joint fbi and cia mail opening programs, warrantless electronic surveillance, and black bag jobs by the fbi. Cia Domestic Spying Program called chaos. Covert operations abroad and other topics. Theres a lot to get into, and im going to cover two of the reports and the investigations behind them here. The first is theyre uncovering and documenting of foreign sass nations by the cia and the second is a limited review they conducted of some aspects of the kennedy assassination. I first want to say i think its valuable work for castro and others because no doubt that the Church Committee did the whole idea of the cia would be one of these conspiracy theories we hear about all the reminiscent of some other matter thats before us. Its also striking how much i think things have changed in america since 1975. Nowadays the u. S. Openly conducts drone strikes against foreign adversaries. Senior officialed call bad guys. Along with the classral damage farjs member, associates may or may not call themselves bad guys in the occasional wedding party. In 1975 by contrast it was a National Scandal of the very idea that the executive branch of the u. S. Government would contemplate targeted killings abroad. Over 100 intuz were pieced together to tell the story of executive action, and they focused on these five foreign leaders. This is fidel castro of cuba, lamumba of the congo, and dominican republic, south vietnam, and Renee Schneider of chilli. They had received evidence about a couple of other plots. Indonesia and haiti, but they didnt take those on. To its credit, unlike many other congressional investigations, they were dogged in pursuit of the fact of these five cases. We learned a great deal about the genesis of the plots, who was involved with them, and the command and patrol or lack thereof many some cases. The Church Committee reached in some areas and solid conclusions in other areas the full truth was quite elusive, and they were willing to admit that in their report. They fought deadly poisons and four or five people on this list are dead. Only castro survived. The committee itself ab solved the cia and u. S. Authorities of direct responsibility in all four of those deaths. The cia did dispatch poifbs to congo, and he was killed instead by congolese rivals. The dominican enemies were supplied with pistols and car bombs by diplomatic, but the Committee Said theres conflicting evidence concerning whether the weapons were knowingly supplied for the assassination or whether they were seen. General rin yea snyder wasnt the leader of chili, but he was a general refusing to block the election of the leader. He was killed in a kidnapping attempt by enemies of his. But the Committee Said it doesnt appear that any of the equipment supplied by the cia, the plotters in chili was used in the kidnapping. Theres no evidence of a plan to kill schneider or u. S. Officials specifically anticipated schneider would be stopped during the abduction. Okay. So on the one handy thi its important that the Committee Try to get into the details and try to get the details right and not just say u. S. Tried to kill these people. Theyre dead. End of story. The leaders did have multiple enemies, although as well see, tlaz bit more to the story in a few cases. Try using that defense in a court of law. Im not a lawyer. In fact, some of you may be, but accessory to murder is what comes to mind, i think. The committee did something also, so try to answer the question of who authorized them. That was not an easy one, and also the command and control down to lower levels is how they were executed. Here they ran mac against what we call plausible denial. The committee wrote they find that the system of executive command and control was so ambiguous it was difficult to be certain at what levels assassination activity was known and authorized. So maybe plots were taken without them really being explicitly authorized and maybe theres plausible denial and the Committee Just wasnt able to pen thait trait that. They basically in the end this was in large part their answer to that question. The paper trail was somewhat thin, which may be one of the difficulties. One of the they rely mostly upon interviews with various people. One of the few contemporaneous documents is this one from william havsh where i who ran some of the assassination plots at cia under the code name zrrifle executive action program. This document is fascinating to read. It includes some choice quotes such as never mention word assassination in a document he left behind. Should have phony tool one file to backstop this. All documents therein forged and backdated. Should look like a counter espionage file. So there are some files that are now public, but back when this was written, the idea that anything seized would even become known to Congress Never mind the public was a little far fetched. Its fascinating within the cias own filing system the idea of backdating in order to cover tracks was part of the initial planning of the operation. This is one of the things people trying on to use cia records in order to get to the bottom of things have makes it tough. So importantly, the Committee Also had access to one very key document, which is a 1967 Inspector General report that the cia itself had undertaken when pressure to do so by Lyndon Johnson about the plots to kel castro. Much of tl one of their problems was many of the important people who were dead, john and Robert Kennedy were dead. As well as Desmond Fitzgerald and edmond dulles from cia. During the investigation itself, more people showed up dead. Sam giancono who was part of the castro plots was shot in the mouth five times before being interviewed by the Church Committee. And Johnny Roselli also major part of the plots did testify before the committee a few times, but then disappeared and his body was found in a 55gallon oil drum floating off the coast of florida. So the basic question of whether u. S. President s, specifically eisenhower and kennedy for the most part, was the focus authorize these plots, the committee ran headlong into an inpet traitable fog. One National Security staffer named robert swron son did say that he was at an nsc meeting when eisenhower ordered the assassination, and he was shocked at the time that this had occurred, but he couldnt remember for the committee the exact words used. The committee pinpointed the particular meeting in which this had to be, august 18th, 1960 meeting, and its within a month of that meeting, a man named sidly gottley, the Technical Services had been to fort detrick, and was off to the congo. But the minutes of the meeting, of course, dont reflect any of this, and even participants, of course, said the minutes wouldnt. And his account was also disputed by others or for the most part people said had he just couldnt recall such a thing. He wasnt disputed quite so directly. Participants in the plot like Deputy Director of plans Richard Bissell swore that they had authorization from the top, but, of course, they no proof to offer the committee of that. So in the end the Church Committee said theres basically a few possibilities here. Eisenhower ordered the assassination, but its not in the written record. Maybe he used a euphemism like getting ready of lamumba with a wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Maybe he said Something Like that, but i didnt really mean assassination. Oops, he was misinterpreted. In other words, they failed to resolve the issue completely. Bissell and edwards who contacted the cia agent robert mahew who got in touch well ronny moselli. And the rest of the cia mafia plots that became history from there. The Church Committee also wrote about some of the sfwlanyer plots that i mentioned, exploding sea shells and so forth. Theres a famous incident that was ostensibly in summer of 1963 about trying to get supposed military soviet military personnel out of cuba, but which many people think was a cover from an assassination team. The Church Committee took their word on that, and they had not gotten the full story on what was going on there. The castro plot discussed in the report, the operation, is intriguing, and is perhaps the poster child for the dilemma that the committee faced on the issue of authorization. I want to give a little background first. In 1963, of course, its the aftermath of the cuban missile crisis, and kennedys no invasion pledge, and cuba policy changed again. 1962s operation mongoose of overthrow from within was disbanded. William harvey, who was, i believe, involved in that, and ran a followup in the missile crisis for dispatching sabotage agents into cuba during the crisis itself. Its interesting the Church Committee didnt get the full story in the second half of 1963. Fair amount more, but some of it remains mysterious. Ill discuss a little of that later. For assassinating the head of batistas security fortsdz in cuba, and by the early 1960s was an official in cubas government. Importantly some Double Agents reported back to castro, just being offered for that purpose. But strangely since september of 1963 after a year of no contact, a cia officer met with him in brazil, and there were discussions about overthrowing castro, which turned into assassination discussions. Cube elia attempted an inside job, and fidel castro showed up with the Brazilian Embassy in cuba, and it gives an interview with an a. P. Reporter and says, u. S. Leaders think they are aiding terrorist plots to they themselves will not be safe. Coded message perhaps . In any case, what happens next is extraordinary. Special Affairs StaffDesmond Fitzgerald in october met personally with cube elia and represented himself as a personal emissary of Robert Kennedy. Cubella told fitzgerald he wanted a highpowered rifle, but instead he got a poisoned pen that was delivered to him on october 1963. According to the Inspector General report, they had a meeting, and hoelz decided it wasnt necessary to talk to r. F. K. Or seek his approval, and when questioned by the committee, hem said he didnt recall the discussion, but he believed he had preexisting authority for all this sort of thing. He wouldnt need to. The kennedys and cia might have talked about this off the record, et cetera, et cetera, but its also true that cubella reactivation occurred right at the time when john kennedy had begun opening back channels to castro, and this is not what emissaries could seek of some kind. Its interesting that fitzgerald would use r. F. K. s name in and the possibility of this getting back to castro, which was quite real and indeed may have. The story of cuba policy is fairly complex. It wasnt really fully known to the Church Committee. There is the mchlt trunk project, which was a kennedy initiated project, which the people in cia hated because the the left wing side of the anticastro forces. Theres also a project am world which included the off shoring to nicaragua for an eventual overthrow of castro from outside, and the Church Committee seems basically unaware of all of that. Its interesting. We know a lot more today. In the interest of time, im going to have to skip a little bit. Theres a bit more on the whole issue of authorization. Theres a famous media wrote about where mcnamara himself brought up. The concept, and had gotten written down in memos and people through fits over that. But im going to move on. Does this green button work . Okay. The Church Committee reports were published 38 years ago. What have we learned since then . Regarding the lamumba assassination, there had been new developments, even though some remain. In 2001 a Belgium Committee the congo had previously been a beenup economy, had been aware of the extreme danger to lamumbas life, and issued an apology and moral responsibility, but the author dewitt has written compellingly that their involvement went much further, and the allegations of further cia involvement in that operation have been made beyond the failed poison pill plan that cia station chief there helped direct the search for lamumba when he escaped from his captors, and they were in direct touch with the killers that very night. Even the cia agent carried the body around in his trunk for a while. These allegations have not been made as the subject of a government review that im aware of. In a very strange twist, just this past april, the british a british house of lords member named david lee wrote a letter to the london review of books saying that in 2009 he had a cup of tea with daphne park, who had been british consulate secretary to congo in 1961, and when mr. Lee brought up the controversy about lamumbas death and whether mi6 might have been involved, he replied i did. I organized it. There it sits today, i think. Theres been no no quite so explosive news about some of the other murders. The Schneider Family sued henry kisseninger in 2001, and that was eventually dismissed. On the castro plots, we have a kennedy was far more determined to bring about a Peaceful World more than his government was. Whether it was being shaken by the cuban missile crisis or as someone once told me, it was that the cuban missile crisis gave kennedy there capital to do what he wanted to do anyway. It was a state secret for 35 years but now public and in the spring of 53, plans for withdrawal from vietnam were drawn out on black and white on paper. Theyre Available Online like many of this. From that to kennedys peace speech at the American University in june announcing a whole neworianation that was followed up by a Nuclear Test Ban treaty to these peace towards castro. At the same time, kennedy was a pretty pragmatic and tough leader that didnt want cuba to be an issue. And the vietnam plans were delayed until after the 1964 election as well for political purposes. So, i think hes willing to proceed in multiple tracks and whether those included being aware of and condoning assa assassination plots continues until this day and theres a memo that im going to skip over for time in which rfk is quoted about opportunities offered around cast re. The dilemma the church faced, hasnt been much, but theres more for people to dig into. But im going to try to move on towards the subject of our weekend here. Okay. The second subject i want to talk about is another aspect of the communitys work undertaken by a subcommittee. The full name is the investigation of the assa assassination of president john f kennedy, performance of the intelligence agencies. By 1975, 12 years after the assassination, 11 years after the warren report. A number of reports and aspects that have been critical. And the momentum hadnt built for that. But in july of 1975, a story emerged that lee oswald had dropped off a note in dallas which had been destroyed after oswald was killed. And testimony was taken in the house of representatives surrounding this. And one question remained, which was whether the contents of the note was an innocuous complaint or a threat to blow up the fbi building in the words of the secretary that received the note. But in any case, this was one more chapter in an ongoing story of serious question about the warren report and a particular weather the Warren Commission had been served well by the fbi and cia that they used as their prime investigative arms and this is what the subcommittee took up. For obvious reasons, one of their focuses was why didnt anybody tell them about the plot to kill castro . Maybe that was relevant. And in fact, the Warren Commissions executive director said yes, that would have been very relevant. But they dug in. It was a partial probe, as well see that didnt really get into the assassination controversy. The details per se. But covered important ground, particularly around what we might call the cover up. Weve learned a lot about the federal response over the years, particularly with the release of linden johnsons phone calls in the 1990s. They published a portion of this now famous memo from the assistant attorney general, which he began drafting within hours of oswald being killed and the day of the funeral. And it says in part the public must be satisfied that oswald was the assassin, that he did not have confederates still at large and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial. It opens by saying that its important all the facts be made public. And he fumbled a bit and said i dont think its too artistically worded but artistic phrasing or not, it doesnt change one basic fact, which is that on the mondays after the assassination, theres not a Single Person in the world that can say oswald was the assassin. With rubys shooting of oswald the day before, the smart money is on the opposite conclusion. This is not a statement of any facts. This is a policy statement. And even the memo admits this. He says unfortunately, the facts seem too obvious. Russian marxist, etc. So, the Church Committee also revealed that in the aftermath of the assassination, director hoover disciplined, secretly 17 fbi personnel for their failures in regard to it. And they dug in deeper in other areas, including the oswald trip to mexico city and what weve learned much more since. In general though, i think that the stories told by the committee arent as visually important as the overall picture they were able to paint through them. They were careful to say that they didnt dispute the Warren Commissions conclusions per se but they were pretty stark about what they thought was going on. The committee has developed evidence which impeaches the process by which the intelligence agencies arrive thaat their own conclusion. They warrant that the investigation into the assassinations was deficient and under nation tv program, senator schweiker, he says the warren report has collapsed like a house of cards Senior Intelligence officials who directed the cover up. And the cia and fbi played directly into the hands of officials that directed the cover up. Its been a while since a u. S. Senator spoke about the kennedy assassination cover up. But it did happen. And on a subject of whats missing from the records we now have, a subject near and dear to my heart. Its clear that the 50,000 pages of Church Committee records is pretty willfully incomplete. Whats public now is only the stuff directly related to the kennedy assassination, not the whole universe of Church Committee files on all their other investigations that remain seal until this day. I took the exercise of going through those two reports and looking at all the footnotes and counting up the wuones that the transcripts were not public and there were 40 of them. And many of them completely directly related to the kennedy assassination and things that should be made public. Melon said that if you look at the drafts, there are other interviews not even discussed. Or mentionmentioned. Theres a whole universe of materials, including Customs Officials who might shed light on oswalds connection to u. S. Intelligence agencies. So, theres more there. The Church Committee spent some time chasing down the rabbit hole of cuban involvement in the assassination. Every investigation that kennedys murder has come up against this. New and old allegations that fidel castro is somehow behind kennedys murder. Some of those stories are listed here. They include gilberto. The nicaraguan undercover agent who said he saw oswald take money at the embassy to kill kennedy. And they include our credit examiner who saw oswald to take money to kill kennedy. And somebody who dealt with oswald where they were seen together and more stories. Some more laughable than others. Including the Pedro Charles letter that was spoeupposedly written to friend lee but it was post marked five days after the assassination. So, the committee writes about some of these stories. And there are many more that were unknown to the committee that have been the the House Committee dealt with a few years later. Itser pretty hard to believe that oswald was taken money inside and outside the embassy to kill kennedy . So, are they simply taking advantage of j. Fk. s death to finger point. An interesting quote about a belief that David Phillips had a connection to every single one of the allegations that were coming forth and maybe someone will ask him boit that today. Im going to skip over that. And talk just very briefly about this issue of the socalled mexico city tapes. Its a long convoluted story. To sums are, in october of 1963, the cia station reported the headquarters to visit an american to the soviet embassy based on top telephone conversations of a man calling himself lee harvey aoswald and the transcripts would cause great kaunsernation in the halls of washington. Because in one, he made reference to a prior meeting about valerie kostakoff. And sabotage and assassinations. And also captured on tape was this cryptic comment that led some leader to believe that the they were housing him. And this is of which 40 million americans would die in a Nuclear Exchange with the soviets. So, transcripts of oswalds call. Well, the received story is that the tapes were erased, routinely recycled. But the recycling story itself only develops after hoover told the white house that these tapes are still in existence. Fbi special agents listened to them. They had oswald in the jail cell and determined it wasnt his voice on the tapes. So, oswald, the loser who nobodys ever heard of is connected to a manner which connects him to soviet and cubans. Interesting. Anyway, it turns out that back in 1976 this is one of the memos that went to the secret service about this. Turns out that the church mi committee in 1976, like the cia was saying at the time, the tapes had been routinely recycled. Nobody ever listened to them. And staff wrote that the staff admits that the matter is not as simple as the bureau asserts. Much later two Warren Commission staffers would say that they listened to these tapes in april of 1964 when they went down to the mexico city as part of the Warren Commissions investigation. Although, the ied of whose voice was not a question on their minds. The Church Committee also didnt have access to the recordings of linden johnson, declassified only in the 1990s after the passage of the j. Fk. Records act. The very first call president johnson had with hoover at 10 00, johnson asked about mexico city and he got this answer. No, thats one angle thats very confusing for this reason. We have the tape and the photograph of the man that soviet embassy using oswald pfsz name and the picture and tape dont correspond to his voice or appearance. It appears there was a second person that soviet embassy down there. And it turns out theres a problem with this tape too. We have the transcript but the president ial phone call has itself been erased, as i discovered when i made a pest of myself at the l. B. J. Library. Volume maybe . Theres not much to hear anyway. Maybe the erasers been erased. Anyway, what there is, is 14 minutes of pure hits. I got a couple of years of a phoney story from people at lbj library about the president ial taping equipment being inadequate and thats why the audio sounds like that. However, i pointed out to them that the phone calls on the same day all sound fine and they repeated their story. Finally, a couple years later, i wrote an essay on the history of matters website and i guess they got a few letters and phone calls and emails. Because, finally they sent me this memo. And i actually dont have the date of the analysis. Its interesting that the date of the Audio Engineering analysis was from a year before i first contacted them. And basically, its a very short inja ne engineering report. The gist is quote most likely it was erased by rubbing against the magnet included in most models of the machine but a small portion was missed. You can hear a small clicking of voices periodically in the tape. I find this interesting. The tape gap consumed america for a year 1 2 and i did my best to get the story of this thing out. And to me, the idea that an erased president ial phone call from less than 24 hours after kennedys murder is sort of emblematic of why were here today. And i think the Church Committee investigation was a rare and worthy endeavor. Happened at a unique time which enabled it to happen. There are many people in the past and today who willingly see great powers to agencies in the name of foilighting bad guy. And i would urj people to read the report of the Church Committee to see what happened last time around. Thank you. Any questions . Sure. Questions. Leonard, im a licensed private detective here in pennsylvania. Has anyone considered John Kennedys executive orders may have been the nail in the coughon for the Decision Makers to finally decide to take him out . Are you referring to a particular executive order . Well, i understand there was one that may have begun the dismantling of the federal reserve. I mean, i guess ill say two things. One is that working strictly for motive for murder, when you have somebody like any president is problematic because you can find it anywhere. We have mafia, joint chief of staffs, you name it. But i agree in general that its been striking to me how i follow a lot of the story of the declassified records and the amount of stuff related to kennedy Foreign Policy decisions you know, someof it known at the time and the picture, if you read books now on vietnam history from that era, theyve all been suddenly changing over time. It was like kennedy and johnson were cut in the same cloth and there was a gap in the pentagon papers during the transition. And the story has emerged that regardless of the unnoble question of what might have happened if kennedy lived . Its absolutely clear now that there were black and white withdrawal plans on the books. They actually began them in october of 1963 and i talked about april of 1963 plans for withdrawal of vietnam. In november 20th, there was the last meeting while kennedy was alive on his trip and there were no change in his plans at that time. Im not trying to say vietnam is the answer. Thats one of many areas where the landscape was changing and people who look for motive for murder, its a rich field. Yes. I was curious whether you thought that all the impersonations of oswald what was going on with the Church Committee finding out, do you think this possibly led to operation north woods really becoming the assassination of president kennedy . Its all speculation. I try not to speculate too much. But ill pose a question. Suppose on the 22nd in the afternoon, oswald doesnt show up but hes dead on the streets of dallas and maybe theres a visa in his pockets or who knows what. And there are now tapes of a man using his name in mexico city and nobodys going to do voice comparison on these tapes. The whole landscape might be a different scarier thing than actually happened. Well take this. If we have time, well come back to you. I wondered, rex, if youve heard about the charley batalia who was in charge of the subcommittee on intelligence at the time of the review board investigation. The name ring as bell, but no. And the fact that the review board suffered extreme road blocking for access to a lot of these documents and in the end, they came up with a very temporary, it was a very poor compromise. Because they were allowed just three days with interns to do the research to look at the extra material. And in the end, i dont think they got anywhere near. We talked about the eight binders, the indexing, to the Church Committee, which in my opinion should be released and i know joan asked judge about when was the church why wasnt the balance of the Church Committee found when they were released. There are five or six million pages in the socalled jfk collection. So, a huge universe of documents to release but depending where you draw your umbrella and even a conservative drawing, theres many areas in which stuff still isnt there. Missing documents from the church files and in the end, they acknowledged there were 53 pieces of missing testimony. Uhhuh. Two things you mentioned. One, the november 22nd meeting in i think you said it was brazil, dezmyn fitzgerald. That was in paris. But anthing cting on behalf r. Fk. , he claims. And the message from katsenback which show as desire for a cover up or smooth this over. Is there anything in the documentary trail that shows what rfk is doing saying, thinking during those few days immediately after the assassination. I mean, hes still the attorney general. You should probably talk to the guy next to you. But in general, in terms of officials actions hes hands off, grieving. But, behind the scenes, the afternoon of the assassination itself, hes at hickory hill. John mccomb comes up and they talk for a few hours. He make as phone call to johnson and harry Reed Williams and says to them, one of your guys did this. And the precise meeting of that is can still be debated. The whole question of Robert Kennedys reaction and his general silence on it i think is a fascinating topic whichi ium not sure anybodys really gotten to the bottom of it. I dont know. Theres also a story thats in davids book and alsin a book previo previously that robert and jacky sent William Walton as a personal emsary to moscow a week after the assassination to deliver the news that we know this wasnt you guys. This was a big domestic plot and bobbys going to try to become president later and carry on johns work, which is an amazing story. We are out of time. So, thank you very much, rex. Sure. [ applause ] tonight, weve been watching some of our American History tv programming in prime time. Youll find us here every weekend on cspan 3. Well take you thrive conferences, symposiums and historic icaical sites. Go behind the scenes and travl with us to the nations classrooms, where youll hear from college and University Professors on lectures and history. As the 2016 campaign continues, watch past president ial campaigns and join us on real america which show cases documentaries and other arkievl films. Watch for our airings from the portions of the 1975 Church Committee hearings. Investigating the intelligence activities of the cia, fbi, irs and nsa. Look for all of our programming every weekend on cspan 3. We wrap up the night with 1969 campaign ads from richard nixon, and to be the problems internally. Kate, scott, thank you very much. Thank you