to examine each of them more deeply. The first one involved examining incoming intelligence that indicated Oswald was closely aligned with not only the Soviet Union but also the pro-Castro Cubans. This was the line coming in from the CIA. The agency had even produced evidence of Oswald at the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico just the month before. Yet Hoover himself had just told the President that the FBI analysis confirmed that man was not Oswald; neither the photos nor the recordings matched the suspect sitting in the Dallas jail cell.
Given the poor relationship the Kennedys had with the military, the CIA and the FBI, the idea that the CIA intelligence was accurate was given about a fifty-fifty possibility. Just as likely, it had been cooked up by the agency to cover up something the CIA itself had done or been complicit in. The bottom line was that, true or not, following where the intel was leading would force an invasion of Cuba, followed by the real possibility of a full-on nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union.
The second option meant grappling with the strong possibility that the facts would lead to an inside job, conceived and created by members of the CIA and the U.S. military to remove the elected president through assassination in order to take a more hawkish position in the Cold War. The team considered this to be the cold, hard truth of the matter. After all, JFK was engaging in peace initiatives with both Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev and had been privately talking peace and withdrawal from Vietnam. He was therefore not likely to be on Soviet or Cuban hit lists, but conspirators would benefit if the populace believed otherwise. The people would demand some kind of revenge against the Communists who had attacked our President.
It was a hard thing to swallow, this second option. It meant that high-level members of the U.S. military and intelligence communities had somehow hatched a plot that called for killing the President of the United States in a broad-daylight ambush and then blaming it on the Soviet Union and Cuba. This would give the plotters what they needed, a call to war, and it would remove the one man standing in the way of authorizing that war, the commander-in-chief.
To take on this cruel, awful reality would be terrible. If the first option placed the nation at war with the Soviet Union, this one placed the nation at war with itself. To push this fight out into the light of the public might tear the country apart as deeply as had the Civil War. It could lead to a classic military coup with tanks surrounding the White House. The men who had approved this plot, tacitly or not, would not go down easily. The gloves would come off, and they would fight to the end.
The third and final option was to buy time for tempers to cool and facts to be solidified by siphoning off the passion somehow, keeping a lid on the situation at least through the election, so it could be addressed out of strength in the next term. This one involved stopping with the arrest of Oswald, investigating in a way that the public knew was proper and dignified, and confronting the treasonous cabal that had done this deed in the shadows rather than in the headlines.
At the end, President Kennedy spoke. “Well, gentlemen,” he said as if summarizing the options on a dull farm support bill, “we seem to have a choice between nuclear war, a military coup or an illegal cover-up.” No one voiced disagreement.
“We have Chairman Khrushchev behind door number one,” began Bobby Kennedy, ticking off the possibilities on his hand. “Then we have the CIA behind door number two, and we’re behind door number three.” Everyone knew what he meant. It was a reference to a new game show on NBC and its young, agreeable host, Monty Hall.
“Uh, Monty,” said Dave Powers taking on the voice of a nervous housewife, “I’d like to take door number four.”
Alas, for the Kennedy team, there were just the three. To a man,
Given the poor relationship the Kennedys had with the military, the CIA and the FBI, the idea that the CIA intelligence was accurate was given about a fifty-fifty possibility. Just as likely, it had been cooked up by the agency to cover up something the CIA itself had done or been complicit in. The bottom line was that, true or not, following where the intel was leading would force an invasion of Cuba, followed by the real possibility of a full-on nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union.
The second option meant grappling with the strong possibility that the facts would lead to an inside job, conceived and created by members of the CIA and the U.S. military to remove the elected president through assassination in order to take a more hawkish position in the Cold War. The team considered this to be the cold, hard truth of the matter. After all, JFK was engaging in peace initiatives with both Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev and had been privately talking peace and withdrawal from Vietnam. He was therefore not likely to be on Soviet or Cuban hit lists, but conspirators would benefit if the populace believed otherwise. The people would demand some kind of revenge against the Communists who had attacked our President.
It was a hard thing to swallow, this second option. It meant that high-level members of the U.S. military and intelligence communities had somehow hatched a plot that called for killing the President of the United States in a broad-daylight ambush and then blaming it on the Soviet Union and Cuba. This would give the plotters what they needed, a call to war, and it would remove the one man standing in the way of authorizing that war, the commander-in-chief.
To take on this cruel, awful reality would be terrible. If the first option placed the nation at war with the Soviet Union, this one placed the nation at war with itself. To push this fight out into the light of the public might tear the country apart as deeply as had the Civil War. It could lead to a classic military coup with tanks surrounding the White House. The men who had approved this plot, tacitly or not, would not go down easily. The gloves would come off, and they would fight to the end.
The third and final option was to buy time for tempers to cool and facts to be solidified by siphoning off the passion somehow, keeping a lid on the situation at least through the election, so it could be addressed out of strength in the next term. This one involved stopping with the arrest of Oswald, investigating in a way that the public knew was proper and dignified, and confronting the treasonous cabal that had done this deed in the shadows rather than in the headlines.
At the end, President Kennedy spoke. “Well, gentlemen,” he said as if summarizing the options on a dull farm support bill, “we seem to have a choice between nuclear war, a military coup or an illegal cover-up.” No one voiced disagreement.
“We have Chairman Khrushchev behind door number one,” began Bobby Kennedy, ticking off the possibilities on his hand. “Then we have the CIA behind door number two, and we’re behind door number three.” Everyone knew what he meant. It was a reference to a new game show on NBC and its young, agreeable host, Monty Hall.
“Uh, Monty,” said Dave Powers taking on the voice of a nervous housewife, “I’d like to take door number four.”
Alas, for the Kennedy team, there were just the three. To a man,
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