Regarding FLYBOY's 'Food for Thought' posts. Should we consider Bobby?
This is from C. David Heymann's book. 'RFK'-A Candid Biography.
Jim Garrison, the flamboyant New Orleans district attorney who challenged the Warren Commission's conclusions, recalled a telephone conversation he had with RFK in 1964: "I told him some of my theories. He listened carefully, then said, 'Maybe so, maybe you're right. But what good will it do to know the truth? Will it bring back my brother?' I said, 'I find it hard to believe that as the top law man in the country you don't want to pursue the truth more ardently.' With this he hung up on me"
RFK not only didn't pursue the facts behind his brother's assassination, he went so far as to disband the Organised Crime Task Force, which he had earlier formed to probe Mafia and mob activities, including Teamster racketeering and overt police corruption.
It's also possible that the Kennedy's dealings with the Mafia would be revealed from a thorough probe, something RFK did not want. The attorney general's efforts to avoid certain disclosures about his brother-and to control those he couldn't avoid-began only hours after the shooting. Dr Pierre Finck, a surgeon involved in JFK's autopsy, remembers that one of the high-ranking military officers present instructed him not to dissect the track of the bullet wound in the president's back. The order Finck maintained, originated from "the Kennedy family." Most likely, Bobby and Jackie meddled with the autopsy to avoid exposure of the dead president's adrenal glands, atrophied from Addison's disease. Revealing the infirmity would lay bear the deception Jack and his family had perpetrated over the years by portraying his outward image as one of robust health.
RFK also organised the removal, following the autopsy, of X-rays, photographs, 119 microscopic tissue slides, 58 slides of blood smears taken during JFK's senatorial and presidential years, as well as the president's chemically preserved brain. Stored in the Executive Office Building, and although technically in the custody of the Secret Service, the materials, and the locked file cabinet into which they had been sequestered, where controlled by Dr. Burkley. The materials remained stored in that location for nearly a year and a half, with neither the Warren Commission nor the FBI examining them before the commission filed its report.
For two years this locked file played a game of 'musical chairs', always out of reach when requested for evidence. RFK made the task hard, being uncooperative, but eventually conceding to a Statute enforced by Lyndon Johnson's attorney general, Ramsey Clark, to hand the file over. But when officials at the National Archives were given the key to the file (now a footlocker!) a few days later, they discovered that although the majority of the photos and X-rays were present, pictures of the brain and of the interior cavity of the chest-that is showing the sites of the gunshot wounds-were gone. The tissue and blood slides had also disappeared, as had the stainless steel container holding the brain itself.
The House Select Committee on Assassinations, in the late 1970's concluded, that RFK either destroyed the materials or rendered them inaccessible for reasons of 'dignity'.
But was the defense of Jack's dignity in death the only reason? Or did Bobby fear that forensic evidence might point to more than one gunman, a conclusion that could lead to disclosure of the deepest secrets of the Kennedy administration? Was he looking to avert public knowledge of the president's Addison disease? Or of his amphetamine use?
The Kennedy myth had grown large since Jack's death. The truth could not be permitted to tarnish it.
Remember, it was Bobby who suggested that the President ride through the streets of Dallas in a car without using the specially outfitted bulletproof bubble top, despite the protests of Bryon Skelton, the Democratic National Committeeman from Texas. "It will give you more contact with the crowd," he had said.
