JFK Assassination: Hiding in Plain Sight, Startling Revelations

What does it mean when two powerful men — Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover — privately agree that the public story of the Kennedy assassination is false?

President Lyndon B. Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover. Photo credit: National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund / Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED)

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As some of you may know, at our news site WhoWhatWhy, we have been running a series on the Kennedy assassination, and for my substack readers, I’ve been sharing parts of it.  Last week, I sent you JFK: Six Decades Later, A Cold Case Heats Up.

This week, in the story below, we reveal something we found — just a few words in a transcript — that stopped us dead in our tracks.  

We did a double take.  We listened to the recording itself. Yes, the newly sworn  president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, actually let slip a remark that proved he knew Kennedy had been shot at by more than one shooter.

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President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot on November 22, 1963, as his open-topped limousine glided through Dallas’s Dealey Plaza. Within hours, Dallas police arrested and charged a young New Orleans native, Lee Oswald, who worked in a building overlooking the plaza, situated just where Kennedy’s car had to slow down to negotiate a sharp turn. 

Eyewitness accounts differed about the origin and number of shots. But a substantial majority of onlookers, including both civilians and law enforcement, initially believed  the shots had come from in front of the vehicle, not the rear — the site of the Texas School Book Depository building where Oswald worked at the time Kennedy was struck. 

By the next day, authorities were actively dispelling speculation about multiple shooters, adamantly insisting that they had the lone-wolf culprit. Oswald emphatically denied having shot anyone — but before he could expound on his innocence, he was murdered on November 24, while in police custody, by nightclub owner Jack Ruby, who maintained long-standing friendships with both police and organized crime. Despite compelling reasons to dig further, the lone-wolf narrative almost immediately became the official story, reinforced by the September 1964 Warren Commission report and subsequently promulgated by the media. This simplistic account is still widely cited today.

This, despite a late 1970s investigation by a House panel that was longer, better resourced, and far more rigorous, and concluded essentially the opposite: that conspiracy was probably involved.

Had they known of the following conversation, they might not have used the word “probably.” 

Hiding in Plain Sight

Close examination of a phone call made on November 29, 1963, a week after the assassination, between the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, reveals something astounding. 

The two men, though speaking somewhat cryptically, unmistakably reveal that they knew someone aside from Oswald shot at the president that day. 

And, so far as we know, the meaning and implications of the comments we focus upon received no attention from either the Warren Commission or the later congressional investigation, and are not noted in other accounts of this call published over the years. 

In this remarkable conversation, Hoover made it quite clear to LBJ — without ever spelling it out — that the FBI’s investigation indicated at least one shot was fired at Kennedy… from the front. 

That is, frankly, earthshaking. Even more so when combined with the fact that LBJ and Hoover referred to Kennedy’s assassin not as “he” — meaning Lee Oswald, already charged with the crime a week earlier — but as “they.” 

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The world was already being told that all bullets came from one person firing from a fixed position at the rear — from an upper floor of the Texas School Book Depository building, where Oswald had worked since October, and which the limo had already passed when the shooting started. The Warren Commission would later follow suit, saying in its 1964 report that three shots were fired, all from the rear.

But when Johnson and Hoover spoke, the government had not promulgated a detailed reconstruction of the shots, besides making clear it believed they all came from Oswald in his workplace. The FBI was still gathering and analyzing evidence. 

Since both men knew that Johnson’s calls were routinely recorded by an official taping system, it is not surprising that they spoke obliquely, which is not uncommon for powerful people discussing sensitive matters and aware that others may at some point have access to the recording. 

The conversation occurred one week following the assassination, after Oswald had been killed, and after the bare bones of the ‘“lone-gunman” theory had been circulating. It began with Johnson telling Hoover that he would probably proceed to appoint an investigative commission (which would become the “Warren Commission,” chaired by US Chief Justice Earl Warren), and asking Hoover’s opinion on some possible commission members. The call continued with Johnson inquiring about details revealed by the investigation so far, including Oswald’s movements after the assassination and the background of Oswald’s killer, Jack Ruby. 

Hoover provides a progress report, and eventually, as seen on page 5 of the transcript, describes the FBI’s latest reconstruction of the shot sequence. Johnson asks about the shot that hit Texas Gov. John Connally. (Reminder: Notice the use of the word “they.”)

LBJ: Were they aiming at the president?

JEH: They were aiming directly at the president… [continues with description of the rifle found in the Book Depository]

LBJ: How did it happen they hit Connally? 

JEH: Connally turned to the president, when the first shot was fired, and I think in that turning, it was where he got hit.

LBJ: If he hadn’t turned, he probably wouldn’t have got hit?

JEH: I think that is very likely.

LBJ: Would the president’ve got hit [by] the second one?

JEH: No, the president wasn’t hit with the second one…

LBJ: I say, if Connally hadn’t been in the way?

JEH: Oh, yes…yes…the president would no doubt have been hit…

LBJ: He would have been hit three times…

JEH: [in agreement] He would have been hit three times…

Wait a minute. By this time, the whole world was aware that Connally had been seated directly in front of Kennedy. Johnson would have seen that for himself, being only a few cars back in the motorcade, and of course had a hand in the protocol arrangements.

There was no chance that Hoover and/or Johnson were confused about Connally’s position relative to Kennedy’s. They also knew that Oswald supposedly shot at the president from behind. 

So how could Connally have blocked a bullet intended for Kennedy — if it came from behind?

When Johnson asks if Connally got in the way of a shot meant for Kennedy and Hoover agrees — they are saying the shot that hit Connally came from the front. 

Yet throughout the call, the contradiction with the already circulating lone-gunman reconstruction of the shooting goes unremarked, and Hoover assures Johnson that the FBI has all it needs to present Oswald as the sole culprit. 

Lest one think the two men somehow misspoke or misunderstood each other, a minute or two later in the call Johnson returns to this point:

LBJ: Well your conclusion is that (a) he’s [Oswald’s] the one that did it… (b) the man he was after was the president; (c) he would have hit him three times except the governor turned.

JEH: I think that is correct.

“Correct.” Hoover agrees. Since they knew Connally was seated in front of JFK, their belief that he blocked a bullet headed for Kennedy could only mean one thing: They realized that at least one person was shooting at the motorcade from the front. 

These two powerful men could not have failed to understand what they were saying. Yet they let this astonishing conclusion go unremarked. 

What is going on here?   

Another Amazing Quote

As we begin our consideration, please bear in mind that, only one week after the crime, the evidence was still in flux and much was unconfirmed. Hoover, whose FBI directorship had already spanned four presidencies, was a master of bureaucratic and political wiles who would have wanted to impress his new president with the FBI’s acumen. In fact, he was a notorious braggart, both in public and in private, and given to hyperbole. So he may have presented things to Johnson as factual when they were still ambiguous — a sort of “hot take.” 

Nonetheless, Hoover understood the stakes. He was the head of the country’s leading law enforcement agency and had tremendous information-gathering resources. He was talking to the president of the United States, so he’d presumably prepared well for the call and was careful and precise in his statements, aware of what he was saying and the implications and consequences of each point. 

With that in mind, let’s now go beyond the tantalizing issue of a possible shooter at the front of the motorcade to scrutinize a second, equally intriguing aspect of that November 29 call. 

It involves what appears to be surprising corroboration of a recent claim by a former Secret Service agent, who was present during the Dallas motorcade, about his discovery of a bullet —  and the location of that bullet. 

What Was Found and Where

At one point in their conversation, Hoover explains to Johnson: 

The third shot is a complete bullet… and that rolled out of the President’s head. It tore a large part of the President’s head off. And in trying to massage his heart at the hospital — on the way to the hospital — they apparently loosened that and it fell onto the stretcher. And we recovered that; and we have that. 

On reflection, that seems a rather jarring statement — since it directly contradicts the Warren Commission’s eventual story. That panel’s report, issued roughly nine months later, would state that a bullet was recovered not as Hoover told Johnson on Kennedy’s stretcher, but on Connally’s. 

That makes a huge difference, because the place where the bullet was found would crucially affect our understanding of the shots — and perhaps the number of shooters.

The Commission report was built on a scenario in which the bullet allegedly found on Connally’s stretcher had traveled first through Kennedy and then through the governor.  This scenario followed the Commission’s stated objective of explaining how Oswald did it, rather than exploring who might have done it. In line with this objective, the Commission formulated a story about one very busy bullet. Had the panel not done so, given the intervals between the shots visible on a movie of the motorcade taken by a bystander, it would have been unconvincing to claim one shooter fired them all. (More on this below.)

But in briefing the new president on the investigation, Hoover doesn’t merely contradict what the Warren Commission would later promulgate as the definitive story of the assassination: As we shall see, he actually invalidates a core contention of the Commission. 

That contention is the basis for the government’s whole case that one man, acting alone, was guilty.

Does Hoover 1963 Corroborate Landis 2023? 

Today, Hoover’s long-ago, little-studied statement to Johnson takes on new significance  because it appears to lend credence to a recent declaration by Paul Landis, one of the Secret Service agents in the car behind the limousine that day. Landis, in a new book, says that on November 22, just after the limousine arrived at the hospital, he found an intact bullet atop its back seat, not far from where Kennedy’s head had been

According to Landis, he was worried that the projectile might become lost amid the chaos, so he grabbed it as crucial evidence and shortly thereafter placed that bullet on Kennedy’s stretcher in the emergency room, hoping it might help the doctors understand Kennedy’s wounds. 

Landis’s latest revelation is certainly important. But, as we previously reported, his claims have changed over the years. Landis admits not only that he failed to report finding the bullet at the time, but also that he provided accounts, in interviews since then, that differed in important ways from what he now affirms to be the truth. He cites as his reason for these discrepancies personal trauma and fear of the risks involved in coming forward. (This may well be true; unlike most of his colleagues, he left the Secret Service soon after the assassination.) 

Whatever one may think of his account, Hoover’s long-overlooked comment to Johnson can be seen as potentially corroborating Landis’s assertion. 

That means that, if indeed a bullet came out of Kennedy’s head and, through the actions of Landis, ended up on Kennedy’s stretcher — and never was on Connally’s stretcher — then the entire convoluted Warren Commission theory is wrong. 

Why Connally’s Stretcher?

The Warren Commission, it must be understood, was under intense pressure to deliver a persuasive and authoritative report convincing the public that the culprit had been apprehended and the matter settled. Before the Commission was convened, the FBI had leaked a hastily compiled report pinning the assassination on Oswald alone. But this leak wasn’t enough  to persuade the news media to declare the “crime of the century” so quickly solved. More was needed, so Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach drafted a memo on the importance of quashing speculation about the assassination, which then led to the creation of the Warren Commission. 

The problem it faced in constructing its preferred story of a solo assassin was that several lines of evidence pointed to the existence of too many shots, suggesting a conspiracy. 

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One of the main stumbling blocks was the now iconic home-movie footage taken at the scene by a local businessman, Abraham Zapruder. 

Although not publicly released at the time, enough people had seen this film and knew that it showed what appeared to be Kennedy and Connally each in turn reacting to separate shots fired at separate times. Furthermore, these two shots seemed to come too close together to have been fired by the gun attributed to Oswald. 

In fact, Connally himself would say he thought “two or three people [were] involved … or someone was shooting with an automatic rifle.” 

That is, not the slower, bolt-action weapon allegedly used by Oswald, and found hidden on the Book Depository’s sixth floor. But because the Zapruder film would be withheld from the general public until 1975, the Warren Commission could get away with advancing claims that the film actually disproved.

So the Commission created the so-called single-bullet theory, namely, that one bullet hit both Kennedy and Connally. In this scenario, the same bullet went into Kennedy’s back, then out of his throat into Connally’s back, then out of Connally’s chest into his wrist, then into his thigh, leaving behind a small fragment beneath the skin. Then, presumably, it fell out onto his stretcher. In this single-bullet theory, there were no longer two shots too close together to have come from Oswald’s slow, bolt-action rifle. And Connally’s separate reaction, presumably to a different shot, was dismissed as nothing more than a “delayed reaction” to that same bullet.

Background

John Edgar Hoover’s amazing run at the helm of the FBI began in1924 when he headed its predecessor agency, and ended with his death in 1972. A wily bureaucrat and master power broker whose directorship spanned six presidencies, Hoover stealthily expanded the FBI’s remit into political intelligence, surveillance of domestic dissidents, and accumulation of blackmail material. He was well attuned to presidents’ political needs and knew how to manage adverse information. His FBI quickly became the de facto lead agency for the assassination investigation, especially after the Dallas Police Department’s disgrace in allowing the prime suspect to be murdered in its custody.

Lyndon Johnson of Texas, the powerful and ambitious Senate majority leader in the 1950s, had hoped for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency in 1960 but found himself surpassed by the more charismatic and debonair junior Senator from Massachusetts, John Kennedy. He settled for the vice presidential nomination. Now, with Kennedy murdered mysteriously in Johnson’s own home state, he had to deal with the aftermath, including widespread suspicions about who had really done it. 

Where the blame for Kennedy’s killing landed — whether on a single individual or on a larger conspiracy — would define his options for the 12 months till the next presidential election. This was the context of his call to Hoover on November 29, 1963.

Deeper Background 

Given the discrepancies we report in this article, it seems clear that what the authorities believed early on — what they were telling each other on the inside — was very different from what Johnson’s hand-picked Commission would soon report to the American people. 

Students of history know that this happens with surprising frequency. Some palatable story is settled on because the real story is just too problematic or destabilizing. 

And Johnson had, right from the first moments after Kennedy’s death, begun selling his colleagues on the need to agree on a plausible story. His reason? A raft of dubious material was already being disseminated by intelligence-connected sources, tying Oswald to a larger foreign conspiracy, with the implication that the shooting had been sponsored by Moscow. 

Johnson, who himself doesn’t appear to have believed any of that, told his aides he was worried that if this rumor gained traction, it could trigger a military confrontation, even nuclear war. This became a kind of unspoken basis for agreement that it would not be good to peer too deeply into the whole matter, and to get it wrapped up fast. 

Based on their actions, it is clear that Johnson and Hoover never had any interest in a deeply probing public investigation. Thus they set in motion the Warren Commission inquiry, which came to the lesser-of-two-evils conclusion that Oswald alone had done it — for unstated reasons that the young man took to his early grave.

But the evidence presented here suggests another possibility: that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was planned and carried out not by some Moscow-directed cabal, nor by Oswald alone — if at all — but by a home-grown conspiracy with multiple parts and participants. 

In short, a highly compartmentalized domestic covert operation, planned and carried out by expert operatives who had done this sort of thing for years, all over the world, as part of their normal work. 

About the JFK Assassination Series

This series was inspired by an ongoing project of WhoWhatWhy Founder and Editor-in-Chief Russ Baker to produce a definitive, meticulous, book-length investigation of Kennedy’s death.  

If you want to follow the series, come to whowhatwhy.org and sign up for our newsletters. 

Robert Smith, coordinator of this JFK series, is part of the research team helping Russ Baker with his upcoming book. He is a retired United Nations development official living in Europe.

If you have information to bring to our attention about any aspect of the JFK assassination —  or are with the media and interested in covering or reproducing our work or inviting Mr. Baker to appear on a program — please click here. 

If you would like to be on a mailing list to receive news of the book, click here.  

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