Hoover and Johnson did not want a Presidential Commission

 The document offers that initially J. Edgar hoover and Lyndon Johnson wanted a totally executive controlled investigation. The memo is written by Hoover to FBI officers.

"I called Deputy Attorney General Nicholas deB (sic) Katzenbach and advised him that I had just talked with the President who was very much disturbed; that he heard about whether that the Washington Post had been tipped off by somebody in the Department that a Presidential Commission would be appointed to look into the entire situation down in Dallas; that this is not correct; that he does not intend to have any Presidential Commission; that he wants to have two reports prepared by the Bureau...." i.

Hoover also states " the report on Oswald is almost complete..." on November 26, four days later. 


Memo from J. Edgar Hoover to FBI Officers, November 26, 1963, Weisberg Archive, Hood College, jfk.hood.edu

[url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Weisberg-Commission Documents/To Gallen After Lardner/Gallen AL 05.pdf]http://jfk.hood.edu/Weisberg-Commission%20Documents/To%20Gallen%20After%20Lardner/Gallen%20AL%2005.pdf[/url]

Another interesting conspiracy within the conspiracy within a conspiracy...
Who could have pressured LBJ and FBI to create a commission when neither wanted one?

Or was it merely some PR move that had "wrong" written all over it (in five different languages) from the start?

The public nature of the WC - at least as much of it that was - probably created a public nightmare for the Feds and left Hoover running around like a head with his chicken chopped off.

But who forced their hand? One of the "good guys" or an even worse "bad guy"? If it even matters...

terlin wrote:But who forced their hand? One of the "good guys" or an even worse "bad guy"? If it even matters...

Perhaps some very powerful, not-household-name CIA type(s) who, in order to keep certain highly sensitive "operational details" under wraps, floated doomsday scenarios to scare LBJ and Hoover into action to cover the termination up?

A must read is: 

Donald Gibson, “The Creation of the ‘Warren Commission’” in Probe, May-June 1996; repr. in DiEugenio & Pease, The Assassinations (2003).

It was Alsop, Rostow and (in the background) Allen Dulles.  I personally believe more than operational details were at stake.

The Gibson article is very detailed on this subject and a portion can be found at http://www.ctka.net/pr596-gibson.html.

The FBI was already busy constructing their concoction of the events. Surely the publishing of their report would have been sufficient. Why would anyone think of making the entire process public rather than a very official, very clean and tidy "official" story?

By establishing a commission and publicly expose the coverup for what it was... it seems counter-intuitive. If the people wanting this thing hushed up as quickly and quietly as possible pushed for the WC, it seems they were in for a rather rude awakening.

Had the entire thing been kept on the down-low like Hoover and LBJ wanted it, we would probably not be having this discussion today. It would have been buried as efficiently as the Lincoln assassination.

Someone seems to have leaked the story to the Washington Post for a reason quite different than the quiet coverup. That's the part that seems a little odd to me. If nothing was leaked to the Post, we would not have seen such a monumental public disgrace, would we?

Perhaps Robert Kennedy or a Kennedy supporter realized what would occur if the Bureau conducted the investigation, and thus, the leak became necessary. Whomever leaked the idea might have realized a large investigation would reveal many untenable official positions. If that truly was the motivation it worked far better than they could have imagined. Hoover's four day investigation reveals the incomplete nature of most related Bureau inquires.

Carmine Savastano wrote:Perhaps Robert Kennedy or a Kennedy supporter realized what would occur if the Bureau conducted the investigation, and thus, the leak became necessary. Whomever leaked the idea might have realized a large investigation would reveal many untenable official positions. If that truly was the motivation it worked far better than they could have imagined. Hoover's four day investigation reveals the incomplete nature of most related Bureau inquires.

Carmine,

That's an excellent observation.

Perhaps RFK was throwing a monkey wrench into the mix as a "parting gift"?

Albert Rossi wrote:A must read is: 

Donald Gibson, “The Creation of the ‘Warren Commission’” in Probe, May-June 1996; repr. in DiEugenio & Pease, The Assassinations (2003).

It was Alsop, Rostow and (in the background) Allen Dulles.  I personally believe more than operational details were at stake.

In his autobiography, Alsop also wanted to take credit for talking JFK into asking LBJ to be his VP, helped choose the top people for the administration  including Rusk, Dillon, Harriman and Kennan and; convinced Kennedy that there was indeed, a missile gap with the Soviets - a claim which was pure hogwash.

A couple of stray thoughts:

1.  The famous Katzenbach memo seems to suggest that convincing the public was imperative.  I'm not sure that a hush-hush investigation would have carried the day in that respect.  

2.  As much as Hoover had his own reasons for covering up, I'm not sure the Agency was entirely happy about the FBI having total control.

I think they realised that they had to have an investigation of some sort. I remember reading that there was talk of one being set up in Texas and another one somewhere else. If 'they' wanted to be in charge of the official story then they had to have their own investigation and be in control. 
I believe that having Dulles on the board and others, just like they had Joannides as liaison to the HSCA would help 'them' control it as much as possible. 
Conspiracy theories were being leaked to the public from day one. The very first being the DRE's financed by the CIA, blaming Castro for the murder. JBJ realised that there could be a war (or that was the excuse he used to get Earl Warren on board)...
I definitely don't think they wanted an official commission on the assassination but that their hand was forced by the prospect of others doing a thorough job of one.

Frankie Vegas wrote:I definitely don't think they wanted an official commission on the assassination but that their hand was forced by the prospect of others doing a thorough job of one.

Excellent point, Frankie.

Carmine Savastano wrote:Perhaps Robert Kennedy or a Kennedy supporter realized what would occur if the Bureau conducted the investigation, and thus, the leak became necessary. Whomever leaked the idea might have realized a large investigation would reveal many untenable official positions. If that truly was the motivation it worked far better than they could have imagined. Hoover's four day investigation reveals the incomplete nature of most related Bureau inquires.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, by simply stating that Bobby Kennedy knew about the CIA's connections with the mob, and he also knew (about) J Edgar Hoover. The fear attributed to LBJ is "world war three", which is to say that many people suspected the Soviets at the time. (And no one could yet know whether some oddball witness would turn up someplace - or whether the mob could get to all of them in time).

Albert,

           I agree. From my most recent dive into the Weisberg Archive I have found that Katzenbach comes up repeatedly as someone Hoover wants quieted. Hoover's determination to produce a report and quash a Commission becomes more apparent in my view as I read.