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Showing Original Post only (View all)JFK Files: J. Edgar Hoover said public must believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone [View all]
Source: NBC News
"There is nothing further on the Oswald case except that he is dead."
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover dictated that line in a memo he issued on Nov. 24, 1963, the day Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald as the gunman was being transported to the Dallas County Jail after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Hoover appeared to be particularly concerned that the public would have to be compelled to believe that Oswald was a lone actor not part of a larger conspiracy.
In the 1964 Warren Report on Kennedy's assassination, Hoover was firm in stating that he hadn't seen "any scintilla of evidence" suggesting a conspiracy a sentiment he expressed in other public forums, as well, but not in words as blunt as those he used the day Oswald was killed. Hoover dictated: "The thing I am concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin."
Hoover argued against appointing an independent commission to review the evidence, contending that the matter should be left to the Justice Department, the FBI's parent agency. Lyndon Johnson, the new president, announced the creation of the Warren Commission a few days later.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/jfk-assassination-files/jfk-files-j-edgar-hoover-said-public-must-believe-lee-n814881?cid=sm_npd_ms_fb_ai
"We'll speak again, Mr. Hoovah," Kennedy famously once told his renegade FBI director. They never did.