Walter Jenkins Vs Hoover - Who wrote the "real assassin" statement?

[Gerry Down]

Its often stated that two days after the JFK assassination, FBI director Hoover wrote:

"The thing I am concerned about is having something issued so we can convince the world that Oswald is the real assassin."

Nicholas Katzenbach wrote a similarly worded statement which stated:

"The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin."

So similar were these statements that it has been speculated that Hoover and Katzenbach must have been talking between themselves before each then made their own statement.

However i've seen recently that Fred Litwin says that Walter Jenkins, not Hoover, actually wrote this statement. Walter Jenkins was an aide to LBJ. He says it at 6 minutes in on this video:

If it was Walter Jenkins that wrote this statement and not Hoover, then this must be one of the most often repeated myths in the JFK research community.

The book "J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets" appears to clarify this issue:



In other words, Hoover phoned Walter Jenkins and made the statement to him. Jenkins then put this in writing (hence the document) and therefore the document was written by Jenkins and not Hoover.

How this is often misstated can be seen in "Reclaiming Parkland". Jim DiEugenio says that Hoover told Johnson. But actually Hoover told Jenkins, and then Jenkins put it in writing for LBJ:



So the correct sequence of the statements by Katzenbach and Hoover is that Katzenbach put his statement in writing and sent it to Bill Moyers, who then passed this to LBJ. With regard to Hoover, Hoover phoned Jenkins, who then put the statement in writing to LBJ.

Its a technical point but its nice to get these things right.

[Richard Smith]

I never really understood this ersatz controversy.  It seems clear that there was a legitimate reason to want the public to be convinced that Oswald was the assassin.  Because he was.  The evidence is clear.  LBJ and others had an understandable concern that CTer loons might deflect blame onto Russia or Cuba and start WWIII on a false premise that they were behind the assassination.   Maybe a poor word choice as it could be interpreted erroneously that they were reaching a preconceived outcome but it is making a mountain out of a mole hill.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

I never really understood this ersatz controversy.  It seems clear that there was a legitimate reason to want the public to be convinced that Oswald was the assassin.  Because he was.  The evidence is clear.  LBJ and others had an understandable concern that CTer loons might deflect blame onto Russia or Cuba and start WWIII on a false premise that they were behind the assassination.   Maybe a poor word choice as it could be interpreted erroneously that they were reaching a preconceived outcome but it is making a mountain out of a mole hill.

I think the legitimate criticism is that they were too quick to conclude - in some cases such as Hoover's - that Oswald was a lone assassin and that there was no conspiracy. Epstein argues (see "Legend"), correctly I think, that Hoover was quick to accept Nosenko's claims that the KGB had no relationship with Oswald because he was worried that the failure to monitor Oswald, with LHO part of a larger conspiracy, would hurt him and the agency. So the "lone nut who couldn't be stopped" explanation was embraced.

In any case, I think it's silly beyond belief to think that Katzenbach or Hoover could order a coverup and then all of the people under them - in Justice, in the FBI, lots of pro-Kennedy people throughout these agencies - just saluted and went along with it. That's simply not how bureaucracies work and these were bureaucracies. Not how real human beings work either. In conspiracy world people are just "things" or "cogs" and follow orders and keep quiet. Even Kennedy people. This was the murder of the president not covering up a bank robbery.

But that's exactly what they believe, isn't it? This whole thing was planned, carried out, and then covered up. Because everyone, Earl Warren, Gerald Ford, Norman Redlich, dozens if not hundreds of underlings in various agencies, just - for who knows what reason? what's Warren's benefit? Redlich's? the HSCA's? - decided to do this.

[Gerry Down]

I never really understood this ersatz controversy.

I've never heard it called that before. Ersatz. Is that your own name for it or is that a name people use to describe it? What does ersatz mean? A cross between hoover and katzenbach?

[Richard Smith]

I think the legitimate criticism is that they were too quick to conclude - in some cases such as Hoover's - that Oswald was a lone assassin and that there was no conspiracy. Epstein argues (see "Legend"), correctly I think, that Hoover was quick to accept Nosenko's claims that the KGB had no relationship with Oswald because he was worried that the failure to monitor Oswald would hurt him and the agency.

In any case, I think it's silly beyond belief to think that Katzenbach or Hoover could order a coverup and then all of the people under them - in Justice, in the FBI, lots of pro-Kennedy people throughout these agencies - just saluted and went along with it. That's simply not how bureaucracies work and these were bureaucracies. Not how real human beings work either. In conspiracy world people are just "things" or "cogs" and follow orders and keep quiet. Even Kennedy people. This was the murder of the president not covering up a bank robbery.

But that's exactly what they believe, isn't it? This whole thing was planned, carried out, and then covered up. Because everyone, Earl Warren, Gerald Ford, Norman Redlich, dozens if not hundreds of underlings in various agencies, just - for who knows what reason - decided to do this.

There was a very real concern given Oswald's nutty background that the public would blame Russia or Cuba for the assassination or suspect a plot and the politicians would find themselves drawn into WWIII.  It was pretty clear from the beginning that Oswald was the assassin.  He worked in the TSBD.  His gun was found there.  He had no alibi and lied about his ownership of the rifle.  Fled the scene and was involved in the murder of a police officer.  All that was known very quickly.  Even his presence in the TSBD could not have been part of a plan since he started working there long before the JFK motorcade was ever scheduled to go by that building.