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The Kennedy Assassination: New Details About the Transfer of Power
Steven M. Gillon
Huffington Post
Wednesday, Nov 4th, 2009
Exactly when did doctors give up their efforts to save Kennedy’s life? And when did Lyndon Johnson learn that JFK was dead? These are the central questions that need to be addressed in understanding the transfer of power on November 22, 1963. The questions may be obvious; the answers are not.
The Warren Commission concluded that Kennedy was shot at 12:30 pm. He was declared dead at 1:00 pm, and Johnson was informed at 1:20 pm. Most authors writing about the assassination, even those who question the conclusions of the Warren Commission, have accepted this timeline.
New documents recently opened to the public call into question key parts of this timeline. The first piece of evidence is a long memorandum prepared by Parkland hospital administrator Jack Price, who was standing outside Trauma Room #1 as President Kennedy was wheeled in on a stretcher. Price gave the memorandum, which outlined his actions over the next few hours, to author William Manchester. Last year, Manchester’s children granted me access to their father’s rich collection of materials housed at Wesleyan University for my new book, The Kennedy Assassination – 24 Hours After.
According to the document, Price wrote that Dr. Kemp Clark, one of a team of physicians working on Kennedy, came out of Trauma #1 “and told me that the president was dead and that he would sign the death certificate.” Clark did not record the precise time of his conversation with Dr. Clark, but he did note that just after they finished speaking he walked down the hall and saw a priest come in the door. Price asked his assistant to escort the priest to the Trauma room.
The priest was the 70-year-old Reverend Oscar Huber. His arrival at the hospital is crucial to fixing an approximate time for when doctors had given up working on Kennedy. The most reliable source for establishing the time of Huber’s arrival is Dave Powers. As a special assistant to the president, Powers played many roles – receptionist, gatekeeper, greeter, and repository of trivia. On trips like this one in Texas, he was responsible for keeping track of the schedule, making sure the presidential party did not fall too far behind.
As they were running into the hospital with the President’s body, Powers had instructed secret service agent Jack Reedy to find a priest. For the next few minutes he kept checking his watch, asking the secret service: “What’s the story on the priest?” Standing outside the emergency room with Mrs. Kennedy, he occupied himself by writing down everything he saw, including the names of the doctors as they responded to the call for help. “Now I was carrying the President’s schedule and I was writing this thing down in pencil or ink,” he told NBC newsman Sandor Vanocur in an oral history at the JFK Library.
In a handwritten note that he turned over to Manchester, Powers stated that he saw the priest coming down the hall at 12:50 pm. If true, it would mean that Dr. Clark had already determined that Kennedy was dead at least 10 minutes before the official time stated by the Warren Commission.
If the doctors were ready to declare Kennedy dead at 12:50 pm, why then was the official time listed as 1:00 pm?
The time of death was a fiction created to satisfy Mrs. Kennedy. According to Catholic doctrine, the last rites had to be delivered before the soul left the body. If her husband was already officially dead before Father Huber had a chance to administer the sacrament, it would not have been valid. “Father do you think the sacrament had effect,” she asked Huber in the emergency room. He tried to ally her fears. “I am convinced that his soul had not left his body,” he said. “This was a valid last sacrament.”
Whether doctors had stopped working on JFK around 12:50 pm or at 1:00 pm, may seem like a minor point. The issue is vitally important, however, to understanding the timing of the transfer of power.
For the first few minutes after they arrived at Parkland Hospital, those around the President may have been able to maintain false hope that doctors could save Kennedy. But by roughly 12:50 pm, when Dr Clark told Jack Price that he was ready to sign the death certificate, it was clear that doctors had stopped trying to save his life. The President was dead, and everyone knew it. Within a few minutes, the secret service notified its office in Washington. Shortly after 1:00 pm, Robert Kennedy would get a phone call at his home in Virginia informing him that the wounds his brother suffered proved fatal.
Yet, Lyndon Johnson, standing in a cubicle a few yards away, was still in the dark. The chaos and confusion of the moment, and the profound sense of grief and loss among Kennedy’s close aides, only partially explains the delay in telling LBJ that he was now President. Kennedy aides were in denial that their beloved JFK was dead, but also that LBJ, a man they despised, was now President.
When did they finally tell Johnson the news? LBJ told the Warren Commission that White House appointments secretary Kenneth O’Donnell notified him of Kennedy’s death at 1:20 pm.
Johnson’s statement, however, does not stand up to scrutiny. Just as Kennedy aides pushed back the official time of death to 1:00 pm, it appears that Johnson may have pushed back the clock as well.
LBJ Secret service agent Emory Roberts directly contradicted LBJ’s timeline. In a lengthy interview with Manchester, Roberts claimed that he was the one who broke the news. “At 1:13 pm I told Lyndon Johnson that President Kennedy was dead,” he told Manchester. “One of my agents had told me that the President was dead and I checked with the agent outside the door of trauma room 1. I went to Johnson. Cliff Carter, Rufus Youngblood, Mrs. Johnson, and the President were there. I said, ‘the President is dead, sir.’” According to Roberts, Johnson turned to Cliff Carter and told him to make a note of the time. “Someone mentioned that the time was 1:13 pm,” he noted.
Oddly enough, Cliff Carter, LBJ’s chief aide on the trip, contradicted his boss and supported Roberts’ account. On the ride back to Washington on Air Force One, Carter dictated notes about the events he witnessed at Parkland Hospital. He observed that Roberts was the first to deliver the news, and that two minutes later O’Donnell entered the room and made the announcement again.
Carter repeated the story to Manchester. “There have been many wrong accounts of this.” Roberts “did the notifying,” he recalled. “He just said, ‘Mr. Johnson, the President is dead.’”
How could Johnson have been mistaken about such important details? It’s possible given the extraordinary pressure he was under that he simply misremembered the sequences of events. More likely, Johnson was using O’Donnell as political cover to blunt any criticism that might emerge from Kennedy loyalists, especially RFK, that he had been overeager to assume the presidency. Despite receiving a steady stream of pessimistic reports about Kennedy’s condition, and being informed explicitly by the secret service that JFK was dead, Johnson refused to take charge until he received the word from O’Donnell.
Technically, the powers of the presidency transferred to Johnson at 12:30 pm when the fatal third bullet shattered Kennedy’s brain. For a variety of reasons -chaos and confusion at the hospital, the grief of Kennedy’s close advisors and friends, their distrust and disdain for the new President, and LBJ’s insecurity — the United States was without a functioning head of state for nearly 40 minutes.
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24 Responses to “The Kennedy Assassination: New Details About the Transfer of Power”
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November 4th, 2009 at 4:54 am
Nice little bit of history but totally irrevelant to the open question of who the perpetrators were.
MT Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 6:44 am
http://www.dockersunion.com/vb.....80#post680
Hit the link for the most comprehensive pictorial file on the John Kennedy assassination on the internet, see hard data re the location and identity of two Grassy Knoll shooters, and s-h-o-c-k identification of the “Umbrella Man,” and others in both snipers nests!
Quantummonkeybutt Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 9:02 am
‘Operation Northwoods’ Was The Last Real Opportunity For J.F.K. To Show That He Was A Good Monkey Boy And Was Going To ‘Play Along’ With The NWO Agenda…
When He Read The Plan, He Demanded The Resignation Of The Most Powerful Warmonger In America, The Chairman Of The Joint Cheif Of Staff, General Lemnitzer, On Grounds That It Was TREASONOUS (See Comparisons ‘Operation Northwoods’/PNAC/’911).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....conspiracy
(OPERATION NORTHWOODS)
http://www.newamericancentury......fenses.pdf
(REBUILDING AMERICA’S DEFENSES)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.....an_Century
(PROJECT FOR A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY)
http://video.google.com/videop.....SE+CHANGE#
For His Benefit (Although I Think He And Bobby Already Knew), It Should have Been Stamped, “SIGN THIS, OR ELSE!”
QMB
I’ll Take
Or Else
Hangtime55 Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 10:48 am
This is B.S.
Just as we are gaining on the NWO , this kind of news come out ? What , is the Dark Side attempting to DISTRACT us from our momentum of exposing the NWO ?
I was 7 years old when my King , JFK was murdered and I remember it although I was only 7 years old .
EXPOSE THE NWO AND YOU WILL EXPOSE THE ASSASINS .
November 4th, 2009 at 5:01 am
Good Grief!! Must be a slow news day. Hint: WE WILL NEVER KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS INCIDENT!!!! The CIA does a VERY good job covering it’s tracks. After almost 50 years, just about EVERY witness dead or murdered, I think it’s time to “stick a fork in it- it’s done”!
CTLovesNathanHale Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 7:27 am
It ain’t over until as much evidence and truth comes out, and it ain’t over while perpetrators may still be alive. Also, consider that anyone helping cover up the conspiracy is guilty of being an accessory after the fact, and needs to be brought to justice.
That being said, drivel like the information this fool Gillon is doling out is an intentional distraction from the real facts of the conspiracy and the reasons behind those facts. I find it interesting that the Huff-an-Puff Post is so keen to rake disinfo about the assassination by publishing disinfo operative distractions like Gillon and Oliver Stone. Bread and circuses for the sleepy folks out there…
By the way “patriotgal”, why are you so sure we will never know the truth? Your all caps statement reminds me of the block lettering on the anthrax letters…
Patriotgal Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Yeah, Nathan Hale fan, that was my work. Get real. I wish, as much as anyone, that the MURDERS would/could be brought to justice. I just think the actual killers, are LONG DEAD. The men that arranged it, are so powerful, that THEY will never be touched. Unless, their neighbors pull them out of their houses, and “string ‘em up”. As a by-product of the Revolution, of course.
Do you doubt my Patriotism, or sincerity? I can assure you, I LOVE AMERICA, the way it was when I was growing-up. When you could look-out your front window, in a suburb, and see a few guys walking down the street, with rifles or shotguns over their shoulders, ’cause they were going to go shoot at some birds, or targets. And NO ONE GOT UPSET. I miss the time, when a cop was actually polite to a citizen. I miss neighborhood bar-B-ques. F! TV, it has destroyed our society, as sure as the Banksters. And, yes, I know that was their primary weapon.
Join together, don’t argue amongst ourselves. You should have an idea of who the enemy is, if you are on this site. And it ain’t me.
MT Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Patriotgal Says: “We will never know the truth about this incident!”
That is a needlessly defeatist attitude.. Go to “Missing Links,” a 127 minute video detailing Jewish calumny in relation to the 911 attacks!
http://video.google.com/videop…..288566190#
All that needs to be done is for the dozens of J’s named as culpable in the above video to be questioned, sans torture and ill treatment in a capital court environment, where it will be deemed a capital offense to lie or attempt to mislead the court, and pretty soon the whole truth will emerge.
And where “taking the fifth,” ie refusing to answer prosecution questions on the grounds that it will incriminate, will be deemed an admission of guilt, whence those persons will be hanged forthwith.
November 4th, 2009 at 5:01 am
TO ALEX: PLEASE GET ROBERT GRODEN ON YOUR RADIO SHOW FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF JFK’S ASSASSINATION BY THE NEW WORLD ORDER.
November 4th, 2009 at 5:35 am
The loss of President Kennedy was a terrrible loss to the Republic. He was from the old school that valued liberty, justice, and hope. I believe that as a wounded veteran of World War II, who had witnessed the carnage of war and the loss of his brother and other men, he intended to do his best for the Republic and knew the risks that he was taking, and whom he was facing, but labored in the face of death. May God bless him abudantly for his service to our nation and for trying to defend us. “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” (Psalms 1:1) May each of us have a similar level of devotion to our God and our Republic. If we follow in his footsteps there is yet hope that the Republic can be saved.
Matt Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
He also was an adulterer. Lets not forget that shit.
November 4th, 2009 at 7:02 am
When technically, if ever, will the powers of the presidency be transferred to someone qualified now? Between flubbing the Oath and a continual failure of President Obama to prove his citizenship- it remains a disgrace. Likely, we will never know the truth behind the Kennedy assassination or Obama’s citizenship. Our musings at http://www.ahrcanum.com. Groden would be a great guest btw.
November 4th, 2009 at 7:29 am
a short film about tv and the predictive control of people, the matrix 911 -gi joe the stand and matrix , and the new V ,very interesting, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBBNXHEtalo
November 4th, 2009 at 7:57 am
In many ways the Kennedy assasination is like 9/11. We may never know the true story but can be certain of one thing: The official government story is a complete and total fraud.
MT Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Rico Says: “..like 9/11, we may never know the true story.”
That is defeatism at its worst, see the reply to Patriotgal above!!
November 4th, 2009 at 9:16 am
I can’t believe people are speculating on time of death. It was obviously nearly instant when they blew his head off that day. He wasn’t living whatsoever upon arrival of the hospital, not with a head would like that.
November 4th, 2009 at 9:21 am
The NWO assasinate JFK because he uncovered their agenda. Thankfully he left a message for all to listen to! Princess Diana was loved by the people and she left a message for us aswell!
November 4th, 2009 at 9:29 am
When was it that all the information relating to the JFK assassination was supposed to be released to the public that Johnson signed into sequester, is it 2025 ? or something like that ?
November 4th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Lincoln, JFK, MLK, & RFK with a few thousand little people sprinkled on top,
All that’s left are forked tongue talking head court jester’s of NWO usury debt slavery?
November 4th, 2009 at 11:08 am
I know exactly what happened and who did it too on 9-11 and the Kennedy Assassination both. Take the bananas out of your ears and stop watching tv and put your brain in gear. You dont need to be a genius Just dont be Stupid. Its actually very clear.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Final Judgement ” Michael Collins Piper ” Critics viciously attack the author ! ” The lilelihood of one individual being right increases in direct proportion to the intensity with which others are trying to prove him wrong”
November 4th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long long year
Stole many a man’s soul and faith.
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game.
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drudge gutfeld hannity huckabee imus ingraham
krauthammer kristol limbaugh malkin north
o’reilly rivera rove scarborough stossel susteren
November 4th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
There is no more that can be done in the states, its like the titanic hit the iceburg and is sinking fast and instead of getting in the lifeboats yall are bitchin at each other, the ship is not coming back up people. margarita island is full of opportunity cheapest cost of living in the world, 4 cent a gallon gas free health care no taxes, no hurricanes, all food is organic by law. for more info check out http://www.escapethestates.com I have plenty of references from people I have moved down here, jump on the underground railraod and find out what it is like to live in a country that has alot more freedom then the united states. Put your money in a different currency and get out with it and dont look back. soon the dollar will be worth nothing, then you are stuck like a turd in the toilet. thanks for listening, if you need help contact me, My wife and I have plenty of knowledge about living here on margarita island we moved here 3 years ago with 3 small children and 3 dogs. We had to get our kids away from the toxic foods and environment. We can help you escape the states no matter what situation you are in,
November 4th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Jack Rubenstein aka Jack Ruby, the Jewish man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald confesses it was Johnson. Just youtube it and the press conferences are there.
Here… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we2eucWXqjg
and here… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....A&NR=1
and here… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
and here… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....mp;index=1