New Evidence from Warren Commission Whistleblower

[Michael T. Griffith]

In his new book Fighting for Justice (Post Hill Press, 2022), attorney Mark Shaw reveals evidence provided by a Warren Commission whistleblower, Morris Wolff, a former White House aide and a former aide to WC member Senator John Sherman Cooper.

Wolff served as a White House aide to JFK and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Wolff said he relayed messages between the Kennedy brothers because they thought J. Edgar Hoover was tapping their phones. A short time later, Wolff became a legislative assistant to Senator John Sherman Cooper.

Wolff told Shaw that Senator Cooper told him "there's corruption at the Warren Commission” and that “they know all about Jack Ruby and his connection to organized crime, but they don't care."

Wolff reports that Senator Cooper also told him that he did not believe that Oswald acted alone and that Cooper offered his resignation:

President Johnson and Earl Warren are pushing the Oswald-alone theory, and that's not what I believe really happened here. . . . They say it's [the Oswald-alone conclusion] for God and country, but I don't believe that's true. I've offered a letter of my resignation.

So this makes three WC members who did not buy the Commission's key conclusions (Senator Cooper, Senator Richard Russell, and Congressman Hale Boggs). Regarding Senator Russell:

With these points before him, Richard Russell forced a final Executive Session of the Warren Commission. His main agenda was to present his prepared dissent and to refuse to sign the Commission Report unless his dissent was included. After presenting his concerns, Russell was joined in his dissent by Senator John Sherman Cooper and to a lesser extent Representative Boggs. In an oral history conducted late in his life, Senator Cooper recalled that Russell’s well-reasoned
opinions “had great influence” on Cooper’s own conclusions. Like Russell, Cooper was impressed by the strong and compelling testimony of Governor Connally and thus was willing to follow Russell’s lead in rejecting the “single bullet” theory. (Dani Biancolli, The First Dissenter: Richard B. Russell and the Warren Commission, Master of Arts thesis, 2002, William and Mary University,
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5464&context=etd)

And:

In his final television interview, Russell stated that he “never believed that Oswald planned that altogether by himself. There were too many things, the fact when he was at Minsk, and that was the principal center for educating Cuban students. There were 600 or 700 there. He was very close to some of them and the trip that he made to Mexico City and a number of discrepancies in the evidence as to, or conflicts in the evidence as to his means of transportation, the luggage he had, and whether or not anyone was with him, caused me to have doubts that he planned it all by himself. I think someone else worked with him.” (The First Dissenter,
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5464&context=etd)

[Charles Collins]

In his new book Fighting for Justice (Post Hill Press, 2022), attorney Mark Shaw reveals evidence provided by a Warren Commission whistleblower, Morris Wolff, a former White House aide and a former aide to WC member Senator John Sherman Cooper.

Wolff served as a White House aide to JFK and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Wolff said he relayed messages between the Kennedy brothers because they thought J. Edgar Hoover was tapping their phones. A short time later, Wolff became a legislative assistant to Senator John Sherman Cooper.

Wolff told Shaw that Senator Cooper told him "there's corruption at the Warren Commission” and that “they know all about Jack Ruby and his connection to organized crime, but they don't care."

Wolff reports that Senator Cooper also told him that he did not believe that Oswald acted alone and that Cooper offered his resignation:

So this makes two WC members who did not buy the Commission's key conclusions. The other was Senator Richard Russell:

And:

I read this but didn’t see any “new evidence” regarding the assassination. All I saw was opinions…,

[Michael T. Griffith]

I read this but didn’t see any “new evidence” regarding the assassination. All I saw was opinions…,

Try reading with your eyes open next time. The new evidence is that WC member Cooper told his aide (Wolff) that he did not buy the Oswald-alone theory, that there was corruption in the WC, that the WC knew all about Ruby and organized crime but didn't care, that Cooper offered to resign, and that the true believers on the Commission told him he should accept the lone-gunman theory for "God and country."

[Charles Collins]

Try reading with your eyes open next time. The new evidence is that WC member Cooper told his aide (Wolff) that he did not buy the Oswald-alone theory, that there was corruption in the WC, that the WC knew all about Ruby and organized crime but didn't care, that Cooper offered to resign, and that the true believers on the Commission told him he should accept the lone-gunman theory for "God and country."

But no actual evidence, just opinions that we were already aware of

[Steve M. Galbraith]

But no actual evidence, just opinions that we were already aware of

For some reason the conspiracists only consider the WC investigation and ignore all of the followup investigations - by the government, by the media, by others - into these questions. Multiple generations of Americans of all backgrounds over 60 years looked into the assassination. It's like everything stopped in 1964.

As you noted, Edward Epstein (among others) in his book "Inquest" (1966) discusses these internal disputes between/among commissioners and staffers. Cooper is quoted as disagreeing with the single bullet explanation. Russell disagreed too. This is not new. But it also belies the conspiracy claims that the WC was an orchestrated coverup, that everything was done to frame Oswald. In fact, the evidence is the staffers were often at odds with one another.

Sixty years of this nonsense.

[Michael T. Griffith]

But no actual evidence, just opinions that we were already aware of

LOL. Uh-huh. So, according to you, it is no "actual evidence" that a former aide to a WC member says that that WC member, Senator Cooper, told him that he did not buy the lone-gunman theory and the single-bullet theory, that the WC knew about Ruby's links to the Mafia but did not want to delve into them, that there was corruption on the WC, that certain other WC members told him the Oswald-alone theory was "for God and country," and that Cooper offered to resign.

Nah, nothing to see here!

You guys keep saying "someone would have talked." Well, here you go. Someone is talking. But, you are bending over backward to deny the importance of the information he is providing, just as you have done with previous insiders who came forward with damaging information.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Here is more information about what Wolff has told Shaw:

          Wolff then trusted me with a secret: that Senator Cooper, who called himself a “maverick” politician and was what Wolff called a “man of the truth,” became “very skeptical of the slipshod job being done by the commission staff and its rush to judgment” regarding the final report issued. Further, Wolff disclosed that Cooper, a staunch civil-rights activist despite being a Republican senator from the conservative state of Kentucky, uttered strong words during the times Wolff actually rode with him in the senator’s car to the hearings. Those words included “[the Commission] doesn’t get it, it’s more than Oswald, but Warren [Chief Justice Earl Warren] keeps pushing the Oswald-alone idea.” (pp. 350-351)

          Wolff recalled the senator telling him, “There’s something very wrong going on with the Commission.”

          Among the other recollections Wolff divulged to this author were that Cooper told him, “My own views are different than the Report conclusion.” The senator then added, “They say this [Oswald alone business] is good for God and the country, but there is internal corruption, and I don’t know why.” Cooper also told Wolff, “They [the Commission] knew about the Ruby connection to organized crime, but they don’t want to touch it but instead stick to the single bullet theory.” (Fighting for Justice, pp. 351-352).