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THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION TAPES
By: 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 historyβthe 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 nationβs history. As Johnson himself said later, βI 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 throneβ¦.The whole thing was almost unbearable.β
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 Johnsonβs 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 conversationsβincluding those with leading journalistsβthat 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 menβamong them Senator Richard Russell (who detested Warren), Allen Dulles, John McCloy, and Gerald Fordβinto 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 informationβsome of it from J. Edgar Hooverβamid 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 Hollandβs commentaries, they make riveting, hugely revelatory reading.
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