George Smathers Quotes
The pilot came back and said he had just heard that Kennedy was shot.
Smathers, George A. George A. Smathers: United States Senator from Florida. Interview by Donald A. Ritchie, Senate Historical Office, 1989.
The CIA had attempted to employ the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro, the strongman of Cuba, and Castro found out about it. He then warned that U. S. leaders could be assassinated in retaliation. Although LBJ appointed the Warren Commission to investigate the JFK assassination and the commission concluded that Castro and Cuba had nothing to do with it—Oswald was a gunman acting alone. Johnson privately never believed that but only confided his believes to his closest confidants lest there would be public pressure to retaliate against Cuba and Johnson had no hard proof—just a suspicion.
Most Americans do not believe the official explanation of the Warren Commission that Oswald acted alone. However, Kerry was the first of very few high government officials who would express this opinion in public. The fact that Oswald himself was then assassinated in the Dallas Police Station denied any information from him. Then were many foul ups of the investigations that most analysts of the assassination believe were foul ups or cover-ups of other wrong doing. Examples were: Parts of Kennedy’s brain was missing and the autopsy notes were burned by the naval physician who did the autopsy before anyone could see them; the FBI and CIA both lied to the Warren Commission, President Johnson, and Attorney General Robert Kennedy; Both the FBI and the CIA had files on Oswald; the CIA had tried to assassinate Fidel Castro before including paying the Mafia to do it (The efforts were bungled and Castro found out about most; Oswald had w few weeks earlier tried to assassinate the right wing John Birch Society fanatic, General Edwin Walker and the CIA and FBI missed that.); Shortly before the assassination Walker and his fanatics printed and distributed a “Wanted for Treason” poster accusing President Kennedy of selling out America. (See {635732}.)
This was the reason that the FBI withheld information from the Warren Commission investigating JFK’s assassination. J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI Director was concerned that some people might conclude that the FBI bore some of the responsibility for the assassination for losing track of him. The CIA also withheld information to the commission to cover some of their misdeeds.
There was no way of reopening the investigation into the assassination without the public finding out that the CIA and FBI both had deliberately misled the Warren Commission and the House Investigating Committee in the original investigation. Nixon and other politicians who likely knew of the scandal did not want the confidence of the public eroded in this important agencies, and that was probably his motivation for the turn down rather than trying to cover up facets about the assassination itself.
Oswald was the assassin of President John F. Kennedy.
See {642341} for the CIA role in obstructing the Warren Commission investigation. The FBI also withheld evidence about their contacts with Oswald. The investigators for the Commission only came from the two agencies that had much to hide and who lied to the commission.
George Armistead Smathers was an American lawyer and politician who represented the state of Florida in the United States Senate from 1951 until 1969 and in the United States House from 1947 to 1951, as a member of the Democratic Party.
