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The Kennedy Assassination Tapes
Max Holland
Knopf
September 2004
On Sale: September 8, 2004
453 pages
ISBN: 1400042380
EAN: 9781400042388
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
A major work of documentary history–the brilliantly edited
and annotated transcripts, most of them never before
published, of the presidential conversations of Lyndon B.
Johnson regarding the Kennedy assassination and its
aftermath.
The transition from John F. Kennedy to
Johnson was arguably the most wrenching and, ultimately, one
of the most bitter in the nation’s history. As Johnson
himself said later, “I took the oath, I became president.
But for millions of Americans I was still illegitimate, a
naked man with no presidential covering, a pretender to the
throne….The whole thing was almost unbearable.”
In
this book, Max Holland, a leading authority on the
assassination and longtime Washington journalist, presents
the momentous telephone calls President Johnson made and
received as he sought to stabilize the country and keep the
government functioning in the wake of November 22, 1963. The
transcripts begin on the day of the assassination, and
reveal the often chaotic activity behind the scenes as a
nation in shock struggled to come to terms with the
momentous events. The transcripts illuminate Johnson’s
relationship with Robert F. Kennedy, which flared instantly
into animosity; the genuine warmth of his dealings with
Jacqueline Kennedy; his contact with the FBI and CIA
directors; and the advice he sought from friends and mentors
as he wrestled with the painful transition.
We
eavesdrop on all the conversations–including those with
leading journalists–that persuaded Johnson to abandon his
initial plan to let Texas authorities investigate the
assassination. Instead, we observe how he abruptly
established a federal commission headed by a very reluctant
chief justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren. We also
learn how Johnson cajoled and drafted other prominent
men–among them Senator Richard Russell (who detested
Warren), Allen Dulles, John McCloy, and Gerald Ford–into
serving.
We see a sudden president under
unimaginable pressure, contending with media frenzy and
speculation on a worldwide scale. We witness the flow of
inaccurate information–some of it from J. Edgar Hoover–amid
rumors and theories about foreign involvement. And we
glimpse Johnson addressing the mounting criticism of the
Warren Commission after it released its still-controversial
report in September 1964.
The conversations rendered
here are nearly verbatim, and have never been explained so
thoroughly. No passages have been deleted except when they
veered from the subject. Brought together with Holland’s
commentaries, they make riveting, hugely revelatory reading.
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