A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination by Philip Shenon

hour,” he said, suggesting that the chief justice was now responsible for the fate of those people. “You could be speaking for 39 million people. Now I just think you don’t wanna do that.”
    He called on Warren’s patriotism. “You were a soldier in World War I, but there was nothing you could do in that uniform comparable to what you can do for your country in this hour of trouble,” Johnson said. “The President of the United States says that you are the only man who can handle the matter. You won’t say, ‘no,’ will you?”
    Johnson remembered that Warren “swallowed hard and said, ‘No, sir.’”
    With a little cruel pride, Johnson later recalled that he made Warren cry: “Tears just came into his eyes.… They just came up. You never saw anything like it.”
    *
    There is no known recording of the Oval Office meeting with Warren, but if the accounts offered by Johnson and the chief justice are accurate, the president lied outright in claiming that the other commissioners had agreed to serve only if Warren was in charge. The truth was that, with the exception of Russell, Johnson had not even talked to the others.
    Johnson talked to Russell by phone at about four p.m., shortly before the Warren meeting, and tried to persuade him to serve on the commission. Russell rejected the idea outright. He was too busy with his Senate duties, he said. And his health was not good; Russell had been plagued for years by emphysema.
    In that first call, Johnson asked Russell for suggestions of other candidates. The president said he might try to recruit a member of the Supreme Court to join the commission, although he suggested that it would probably prove fruitless. Warren’s name was never mentioned in the call. “I don’t think I can get any member of the court, but I’m going to try to,” he said to Russell, neglecting to mention that the chief justice—at that very minute—was being summoned to the White House to be convinced to take the job.
    Hours later, at about nine p.m., Johnson made his second call to Russell. He would be delivering two pieces of unwelcome news. First, that Russell would serve on the commission despite his protests. Second, that the commission would be led by—of all people—Earl Warren, a man Russell had long portrayed to his fellow Georgians as a villain.
    Taking no chances, Johnson decided to force Russell’s hand. Before making the call, he ordered the White House press office to issue a public statement announcing the creation of the commission and listing its members, including Russell.
    Johnson reached Russell at his home in Winder, Georgia, where the senator was spending a few days after Thanksgiving.
    “Dick?” Johnson began in a gentle, apologetic tone of voice.
    “Yes?”
    “I hate to bother you again, but I just wanted you to know that I’d made that announcement.”
    Russell: “Announcement of what?”
    Johnson: “Of this special commission.”
    The president began reading from the press release and soon came to the names of the commission’s members. Russell heard Warren’s name as chairman and then heard his own.
    He sounded flabbergasted by Johnson’s duplicity. “Well now, Mr. President, I know I don’t have to tell you of my devotion to you, but I just can’t serve on that commission.… I couldn’t serve there with Chief Justice Warren.” This was personal, he said. “I don’t like that man. I don’t have any confidence in him.”
    Johnson cut him off. “Dick, it’s already been announced, and you can serve with anybody for the good of America. This is a question that has a good many more ramifications than’s on the surface.” As he had with Warren, Johnson noted McNamara’s estimate of the nearly forty million Americans who might be killed in a nuclear exchange, if the assassination led to war.
    “Now the reason I asked Warren is because he’s the chief justice of this country, and we’ve got to have the highest judicial people we can