Mr. DODD - You say then, I should quote--in fact, Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that this memorandum, if it is not already admitted into evidence, be admitted now...
I think all of it should be there. You say in the first paragraph: It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy's Assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad all that the facts have been told and a statement to this effect be made now. I think that is fine, but still I am perplexed, absolutely perplexed, on why it was in the public interest to prove that Oswald was the one, and that as reflected in the next sentence, did not have confederates who were still at large. Why was it so important to prove that 3 days after the assassination?
Mr. KATZENBACH - Because for the very simple reason, if that was not a fact, and all the facts were not on the table, then it seemed to me that nobody was going to be satisfied, and I thought that the public was entitled--
if there was a conspiracy, then we ought to say there was a conspiracy. If there were confederates at large, it ought to be said there were confederates at large. I knew then already that Oswald had been in Russia, Oswald had been in Mexico. Now, if you are going to conclude, as the Bureau was concluding that this was not part of a conspiracy, that there were no confederates, then you had to make that case, with all of the facts, absolutely persuasive. If you didn't reveal these facts, somebody else was going to reveal them.
Now, if there was a conspiracy, there was a conspiracy, and you put those facts out. But if you were persuaded Oswald was a lone killer, you had better put all of the facts out and you better not cover up anything, and you better say now all of the facts are going to be made public. That was the advice I was giving Moyers and that was the advice I was giving the President and that was the motivation for the Warren Commission. I don't think this is artistically phrased. Perhaps you have never written anything that you would like to write better afterwards, Congressman, but I have.
Mr. DODD - You won't get me to say that.
Mr. KATZENBACH - But I think if you take that, take the other paragraphs of it, take other things I was quoted as saying, other things I said, that there is a consistent view on my part.
Mr. DODD - I didn't want to pull this out of context. I want to make sure it is all in there. In fairness to you, it should all be in there.
Mr. KATZENBACH - I was very conscious of those facts which were going to be seized upon. Is this a Russian conspiracy? And I was very conscious, perhaps as a little bit of a history buff, that nobody ever put to bed satisfactorily the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Mr. DODD - You seemed in the next paragraph--I quote you again here--you say: Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too pat--too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, et cetera). The Dallas police have put out statements on the Communist conspiracy theory and it was they who were in charge when he was shot and thus silenced. Am I off base there in detecting a feeling that you had on November 25, 1963, that there was something more to this, that you felt, in fact, whether intuitively or based on other information, that this guy had been set up, Oswald was not alone? I sense that in that paragraph, reading it word for word, and carefully, that you had some thoughts running through your mind, and you were expressing them to Bill Moyers in those words.
Mr. KATZENBACH - I don't think I had a view one way or the other, other than what I was being told the FBI investigation had, but I was saying you have got a lot of facts here, if you say Oswald was the lone killer, he wasn't in conspiracy with anyone, had nothing to do with any foreign government, you have got a lot of awkward facts that you are going to have to explain, and you had better explain them satisfactorily You had better put it all out on the table.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/m_j_russ/hscakatz.htm
