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Murder Sheet
The JFK Assassination: A Conversation with Warren Commission Lawyer and Author Burt W. Griffin on Investigating the Murder of a President
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Anya Kane
Content Warning this episode contains discussion of murder, including graphic description of gunshot injuries when it comes to the assassination of John President John F. Kennedy, the President's Commission on the assassination of President Kennedy was tasked with investigating what happened.
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Kevin Greenlee
And of course, that is known popularly as the Warren Commission. And I think one thing is worth noting when you have a presidential commission or a formal commission where they appoint distinguished men and women, certainly those distinguished men and women play a very important part in the proceedings. But by and large, in many cases, it's actually the staff of that commission that does all the day to day detail work of investigations or what have you. And so I was really thrilled and delighted that we got the chance recently to have a couple of conversations with a former staff member of the Warren Commission.
- [03:22]
Anya Kane
Yes, this was former Warren Commission Assistant Counsel Bert W. Griffin. Judge Griffin is an attorney with a very distinguished career. He worked as the Executive Director of the Cleveland Legal Aid Society as well as the National Director of the Legal Services program with the U.S. office of Economic Opportunity. And then for many, many years he served as a judge in Ohio. Most recently, he's added author to that resume. So he wrote an excellent book called jfk, Oswald and Ruby Politics, Prejudice and Truth. And in this, he really got into his own experience serving on the Warren Commission and the investigation into the Kennedy assassination. This is our first episode with him. We're going to be talking to him again later on about kind of a specific topic that is really within his expertise because Judge Griffin actually was one of the attorneys focusing specifically on investigation into Jack Ruby, who of course shot and killed presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
- [04:25]
Kevin Greenlee
So we have a whole episode coming up just where we talk to him about nothing but Jack Ruby. But since this is approaching the anniversary of the assassination, we wanted in this episode to focus on the assassination of President Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald. This is a case that I've been interested in for many, many years. And so, again, I can't say enough. It was a real thrill and very exciting to me to get to talk to someone who was there, who played such a crucial role in the investigation of this crime.
- [05:03]
Anya Kane
And again, we cannot stress enough. You should check out his book, jfk, Oswald and Politics, Prejudice and Truth. We'll be including a link to that in our show notes and you should absolutely read it. It's fascinating. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.
- [05:17]
Kevin Greenlee
And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.
- [05:20]
Anya Kane
And this is the Murder Sheet.
- [05:22]
Kevin Greenlee
We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet.
- [05:30]
Anya Kane
And this is the JFK Assassination. A conversation with Warren Commission lawyer and author Burt W. Griffin on investigating the murder of A president.
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Bert W. Griffin
Okay. I'd like to start by asking the obvious question that I think a lot of people have been asked over the years, which is, where were you when you heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot?
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Judge Griffin
Well, let me share that this is age related because any of us who were alive at the time that we heard about the assassination can never forget where we were. And those of us of you who were not alive at the time but probably is like ancient history. In any event, I first heard about the assassination attempt on President Kennedy at about 1:30, perhaps close to 2:00 in the afternoon Eastern Standard Time. I was working in Cleveland, Ohio with a small law firm. And I was getting on the elevator to go to my office when someone in the elevator said, the President has been shot in Dallas. And my reaction was, those damn segregationists. Understand this is 1963. We didn't have cell phones, we didn't even have television sets in our offices. So I got off on what was about the 21st floor, went to my office and we did have radio. Our receptionist had a radio. So the rest of us went to work while she listened to the radio. And then shortly thereafter she said, the death of the President has been announced. At that point we stopped working. We all went home and we watched television for the next 72 hours. My first reaction was as I said, that these were right wing segregationists. We had had a series of assassinations and bombings earlier in 1963. In June of 1963, Medgar Evers had been murdered in Mississippi. He was a civil rights leader. In September of 1963, there was a bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Four teenage girls were killed and numerous people were injured. So the normal thing for an outsider was to think it was another segregationist attack. But as we watched television it seemed that that was not the case. For very quickly after the assassination attempt was announced, Lee Harvey Oswald was in custody. He was arrested because he had shot in one of the residential suburbs a Dallas police officer. And immediately became apparent that Oswald was a Marxist and that he had been a defector, if we can use that term, to the Soviet Union but had come back to the United States. My initial belief was that he was being afraid that this was the right wing of the FBI and the Dallas Police Department who were looking for a Marxist. They found him and that was who they were going to arrest. And let me say that we can talk a little bit about this. But I had while at the present, at the time that the assassination occurred, I was in the private practice of law. I had previously spent two years as an Assistant United States Attorney prosecuting criminal cases in Cleveland, Ohio. And I had a lot of contact with FBI agents and I knew very much, very much aware of how they were almost intimidated by the director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. So I was quite skeptical of the arrest of Oswald, of course, continued to watch television hour after hour and was actually watching television on Sunday at about, again about 12:30, Cleveland time when I saw Jack Ruby fascinates the Harvey Oswald.
- [11:13]
Bert W. Griffin
And of course, the fact that Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald meant that there wouldn't be a trial for Lee Harvey Oswald. And so people like yourself who had some understandable and reasonable skepticism I think for a lot of people that made them even more skeptical. And then it became an issue. How can this be investigated? How can people figure out what happened if there's not going to be a trial? And wasn't that part of the reason why the Warren Commission was created?
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Judge Griffin
That's right. That's exactly why the Warren Commission was created. Interestingly enough, the murder of the President was not a federal offense and the jurisdiction lay in the state in which the President was shot. Since he was shot in Texas, it was a Texas crime, not a federal crime. The state of Texas wanted to then undertake an investigation even though they didn't have the power to prosecute. At the same time, members of Congress wanted to conduct their own investigations. And so it very much appeared that there would be a circus of investigations unless the President appointed a presidential commission. And so for the political reasons the Warren Commission was appointed. Now, I'd like to point out also that the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover was prepared to issue a report within days of the death of the President and the death of Lee Harvey Oswald disclosing what the evidence was against Oswald and hoping that no further investigation investigation would be conducted and that a report, a reported the FBI would be accepted. Well, that's, that's where we were when President Johnson appointed the Warren Commission.
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Anya Kane
So how exactly did Judge Griffin end up on the Warren Commission? He says it was a complete coincidence. In 1963, he was already an accomplished young lawyer although he was only 31. He had attended Yale Law School and was an officer of the law review there. He clerked for a U.S. circuit Court of Appeals judge and then became an Assistant United States Attorney in Cleveland prosecuting all kinds of criminal cases. Then he went into private practice. That's where he was when the assassination happened. At that time, he also had a very young family he had two young sons with his wife. So late December 1963, he's really thinking more about Christmas and the holidays than anything else. Before New Year's Eve. He got a call from another Cleveland lawyer named David Philveroff, who was working at that time in the office of Attorney General Robert Kennedy, the assassinated President's brother, of course. And they knew each other from cocktail parties at the Ohio law firm Jones Day, which is now one of the biggest law firms out there. And that's also where one of Griffin's law school friends worked. They weren't super close. The Griffins actually dropped this guy from their Christmas card list because they fell out of touch after he went to work for Kennedy in Washington. But Phil Veroff wanted to know if Griffin wanted to work on the Warren Commission. Griffin, for his part, thought the guy had the wrong number. But no, he actually was asking around to see who he could recommend to Howard Williams, who was the Justice Department lawyer tasked with assessing different people who might join the Commission for the General counsel, J. Lee Rankin.
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Judge Griffin
And they wanted a diversified staff. Well, diversification in 1963 was not the same as diversification in 2024. There were no women recommended to the staff other than secretaries. There was only one African American. What they were looking for was geographic and political diversity. And I happened to be one of the people that my friend knew, and they were looking for people who had some criminal justice background. And I had been an assistant United States attorney in Cleveland. My friend who was working for Robert Kennedy was able to think of names of people who were from the Midwest. So I met one of the qualifications and he sent my name in, and I sent in a resume to Howard Williams, who was screening and selecting staff members. And I must say, it did not hurt that I had gone to the same law school that he went to. Although I had not known him, he graduated two years before I did. So that's how I got on the commission staff.
- [16:17]
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- [17:53]
Bert W. Griffin
Us obviously know what the Warren Commission's task was, you know, to investigate not only the assassination of President Kennedy, but also the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. But I'm curious, like, how did you spend your days, like what was a, a regular typical day like on the staff of the Warren Commission during its.
- [18:13]
Judge Griffin
Let me say that you asked the question, how do we spend our days? It was every day of the week we work, we work seven days a week. We get there about 8 or 8:30 in the morning and would, you know, arrange to usually have dinner downtown and worked until 10, 11 o'clock at night. So we were, we were working 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week. That is true of the younger members of our staff. It was not true of the so called senior members of the staff. But as far as the younger members were concerned, that was the way I worked and a number of my colleagues did. Now what did we do? I suppose that's part of your question. Well, the first thing we had to do was examine all of the documents and reports and affidavits, interview state statements and so forth that had been written. And this therefore meant all of the investigation that was done by the Dallas Police Department, by the Dallas County Sheriff's Office, by the FBI, by the Secret Service. And we just had, you know, thousands and thousands of pages of reports to read. And of course we hit, we had at that point the summary, the report that the FBI hoped that we would simply approve and publish on their behalf. That was how we started. But the Commission decided very early on that it was not going to simply accept what the FBI and the Dallas police had provided for them in writing. But we decided that with respect to any individual who had been questioned who had something significant to say, we would take their testimony. So we wound up taking the testimony of over 500 witnesses. In addition, there had been ballistics experts and other professional forensic experts who had been utilized by the FBI. We not only drew upon their reports and took testimony from them but in every case where the federal government had produced a forensic report we reached out to independent investigators for ballistic information.
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Anya Kane
You kind of have touched upon this. But did the Warren Commission receive full cooperation from governmental agencies as you were doing this investigation?
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Judge Griffin
Well, I would answer that, yes and no. We really did have a complete support of every agency that we asked to do anything and that is that when we asked the FBI to conduct an investigation, they conducted it for us. When we asked the Secret Service or the State Department to conduct an investigation, they conducted it for us. However, they withheld information from us so that we did not know that there was certain information that we could have obtained. And we're talking about two very specific instances one with the CIA and the other with the FBI. And perhaps you'd like to go into that.
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Anya Kane
Absolutely.
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Judge Griffin
Well, we were never told that the CIA was, at the time that the President was shot was involved itself in attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro. And there's no question that if we had known that, we would have reached out to every contact that the CIA had whom they had enlisted in these assassination attempts. Since we didn't know that the attempt was made and since they did not give us the names of it and we're talking about assassinating Castro, I'm not talking about assassinating President Kennedy. Since we never got those names, we never conduct or never even had information that they were trying to assassinate Fidel Castro. We never conducted that investigation. And that, I think, would have been quite important. Obviously, the second thing that happened was that the FBI specifically lied to us. Marina Oswald, who was Lee Oswald's wife and Ruth Payne, with whom Marina was living both testified that Lee Oswald had told Marina that he had sought out the FBI approximately 10 days before President Kennedy was assassinated and that he had gone to the FBI office in Dallas the office of the person who was assigned to kind of keep track of him. That was James Hostee. They had gone to host his office to complain to Hostee, and Hostee was not there. Oswald had gone on a lunch hour from where he was working and that he had left the note for Hosi Hossie. When we learned that Oswald had told Marina and Ruth Payne that he had gone to Hosie's office and had confronted Hosie. We asked Hosi if that was true and Hosie said no, that he had never come to the office. Well, in truth, he had gone to the office when Hosti was not there. He had left a note for Hosti. And when Oswald himself then was shot by Jack Ruby, Hostie's supervisor told him to destroy the note. So we were not only not told that Oswald had gone to his office, but of course we never saw the note. And whatever the note said is only what we have learned from two of the people who claim that they read the note. One was a receptionist at the FBI office who said that Oswald threatened to commit acts of violence against the FBI. And later on when it was discovered, and this was at a subsequent investigation about a decade later, Hosi admitted that the note that Oswald had left the note and Hosty said it was a much more benign note, simply that he complained that Hosie was trying to interview Marina Oswald. He wanted to interview anybody that he had a post. He should come directly to Lee Oswald and talk to him. Now, what's the significance to us in our investigation of Oswald's having gone to Husky's office and tried to confront him? That was 10 days approximately before the assassination of President Kennedy. The conclusion that I draw on this is that at least 10 days before the assassination Oswald was not thinking about assassinating President Kennedy. He would not have left a threatening no deal. If he was thinking of really wanting to assassinate the President. He wouldn't want to take the risk of himself being arrested believing a threatening notice or threatening in any way an FBI agent. I think it's very significant in terms of what Oswald was thinking about at least 10 days before the assassination.
- [26:39]
Anya Kane
I'm just curious with those pieces of information from the CIA and the FBI, had you had those at the time, would they have changed your conclusions or the Warren Commission's conclusions?
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Judge Griffin
Well, I think it would have enable this to say much more clearly, as I said just a few seconds ago, that on November 12, which is the date that Horthy ultimately said that Oswald came to see him, that on November 12th Oswald was not thinking about the assassination and therefore that if there was any kind of a conspiracy it would have had to have been something that was taking place between November 12 and November 22. But equally important, the likelihood was enhanced that this was simply a motive that Oswald came up on his own. The question of the CIA's trying to assassinate Castro is a much more Complex area of investigation. Oswald actually did know that Castro was claiming that he was the subject of a possible assassination attempt from the CIA or others associated with the CIA. So what we needed to know was whether that was true or not. And we also needed to know how Oswald got this information. We know that Castro was saying this, but we, we could not be certain that Oswald knew that Castro was saying this. I think it would have required a much more extensive set of questions to Marina, his wife, as to whether she thought her husband was aware that the CIA was trying to assassinate Castro. So it would have greatly affected our thinking as to what Oswald's state of mind was.
- [28:48]
Anya Kane
Right. And then I'm curious, in terms of the CIA and the FBI, do you have any sense of why they chose to hide those things from the Warren Commission?
- [28:57]
Judge Griffin
Well, absolutely. They were two. There were a different set of reasons. In Hosi's memoir, he made very clear he was ordered by his supervisor. The supervisor of his office in Dallas had told him to destroy the note. And Hosti says that his supervisor was greatly feared that Hoover, J. Edgar Hoover found out that Oswald had come and confronted Hosie and had left the bills that both Hosse and the supervisor would lose their jobs. So they were worried about being fired. The CIA issue is much more complicated. At the time that the President was assassinated, the anti Castro activities of the CIA were being overseen by a committee that Robert Kennedy headed. And only a handful of people knew that the CIA was attempting to assassinate Castro. It's my own personal belief that Robert Kennedy did not want it to be known that his brother was. He and his brother were attempting to assassinate Castro. Kennedy's death, as it was known to the public was made him a martyr. But if he and had actually himself in attempting to assassinate Castro it would have just been a matter of tit for tat. And so I think it's, I'm quite satisfied that Robert Kennedy did not want the CIA to disclose that Allen Dulles, who was a member of the Warren Commission, had and had been the head of the CIA, was aware of this, was a friend of Robert Kennedy. And I think that Kennedy and Dulles had an understanding that this would not be disclosed under any circumstances.
- [31:32]
Bert W. Griffin
I'm curious. We've made obviously many, many references to Lee Harvey Oswald for, you know, again for pretty clear reasons. I'm wondering what can you tell us about his background prior to the events of November 22, 1963?
- [31:48]
Judge Griffin
Well, please feel free to interrupt me because this is not a short story. I'll try. I'll I'll try to make it short, but I'm not too good at that. Oswald, from the time he was a teenager, had become a dedicated Marxist. He grew up in a household in which he was. His father had died before he was born. His mother had a series of unsuccessful marriages. He was really a lonely child. He had gone, believe it or not, he had gone to a dozen different schools before he stopped going to school at all. He did not graduate from high school, but as soon as he was able to, when he was 17, he joined the Marines. He did not join the Marines for the purpose of being an American patriot. He joined the Marines to get away from his mother, as his older brother had done. His two older brothers had done that also. But even at the point that he joined the Marines, he had read Marxist literature, and he was a dedicated Marxist. When he finished his tour of duty in the Marine Corps, after about. I think it was about two and a half years, maybe three, he came home to his mother, who was then living in Fort Worth, and within a couple of days shipped out on a freighter for Europe with the intention of becoming a citizen in the Soviet Union. After a freighter trip across the Atlantic and a flight to Helsinki, he took a train and then asked to become a citizen of the Soviet Union. This was losing track of dates here. I think we're talking about 1959. And at that point, Oswald was 20 years old. The Soviets turned him down, but did allow him to stay. They turned him down for the citizenship application. They did allow him to stay in the Soviet Union and sent him to Minsk where he had a factory job. He became very disillusioned with the Soviet Union himself, but very much attracted to Marina, who herself was somewhat of an orphan. After knowing her for only about a month, they were married. He quickly became pregnant. He immediately indicated, or shortly, quite immediately, but shortly after the marriage indicated that he wanted to leave the Soviet Union and come back to the United States. His goal in coming back to the United States was to be an active Marxist, not pro Soviet, really anti Soviet, because he had been so disillusioned with the Soviet Union. But he was looking for the perfect society. And ultimately he thought it was either in Cuba under Fidel Castro or possibly even in China under Mao Tse Tung. This is where things begin to change substantially. He really had no friends or associates in the United States. He came back with his wife and four month old child in June of 1962. Before it was 1962 was an important year in his life because two things were happening. One is that the presidential election was being planned in 1964 by the Kennedy administration. Those who opposed Kennedy were becoming very active to oppose Kennedy. And those were people who were either segregationists.
- [36:13]
Kevin Greenlee
Judge Griffin notes that we need to remember that there was a lot of political strife at that time. Even though it had taken place some years earlier, the court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education still was a source of much tension and stress for many. That, of course, is a Supreme Court decision around the issue of desegregation and civil rights. And Griffin noted to us that some of the happenings that occurred three months after Oswald returned to the states, including the integration of the University of Mississippi by civil rights activist James Meredith, were also events that added to the stress and tension of the time.
- [36:56]
Judge Griffin
And it was opposed very actively in vociferous by a Dallas resident who was anti Kennedy, who had with who had been a general in the United States army. And that was Edwin Walker. This may sound familiar in some respects, but Walker, when Meredith attempted to integrate Ole Miss, went to a rally in Oxford, Mississippi, where the University of Mississippi associated and urged a rally of well over a thousand people to block the entrance of Meredith to the University of Mississippi. The result of that was that three people were killed and over 100 National Guardsmen were injured. And General Walker, former General Walker, who had led this rally, was arrested the next day. He ultimately made bond. But the newspaper, one of the newspapers to which Oswald subscribed and received on a weekly basis, Communist Party newspaper in New York, the Worker, published an editorial saying that Walker was another Hitler. When In January of 1963, a Mississippi grand jury declined to indict water for what had happened at the University of Mississippi, Oswald bought his first weapon. And then he began to case Walker's house. And when he realized that he would not have to go to the doorway and shoot with a pistol, he purchased the rifle which he alone used to assassinate President Kennedy. In April of 19, when Walker was preparing his income tax returns, working in a well lit office on the first floor of the house, Oswald fired a shot with the rifle that he, Oliver used to kill Kennedy. And the shot was deflected by a pane of glass. Oswald was able to escape. He was never identified. And so the really the starting point of Oswald's attempt to engage in violence really began with the attempt to assassinate Edwin Walker. So let me stop at this point and if you'd like to ask some questions. Fine. If you want me to tie this in, I'll go ahead and do that.
- [40:05]
Anya Kane
Yeah. No, this Is. This is great. I wanted to ask you what the so called Maas Dam Manifesto was.
- [40:12]
Judge Griffin
Yes, a Mazdam manifesto. The Masdam was the name of the boat that Oswald and Marina and their young babies returned to the United States in a Dutch passenger liner that carried them from Europe back to the United States. Oswald spent his time writing out what he thought the ideal society would be. It's really a remark and that's what I'm referring to as the Masdem Manifesto. It's a manifesto of his views on what he would like to see happen in the world, not simply in the United States, but in the world, what kind of society he would like it to have, what kind of government it might have. And he spent his entire time on the Masdem writing this manifesto. It's really a remarkable piece of work because here's a guy that only went as far as I think graduated from a 10th grade. I don't think he finished the 11th grade, but he did get a GED when he was in the Marines. And he read graciously, the one who wasn't interested in being a college or high school student. He was nonetheless extremely well read, particularly in the area of political activity, political science and Marxism. So he, his manifesto was his statement of attempt to lay out what he thought would be the ideal society and how it would be governed. And seriously enough, there would be gun control in his society. And it also kind of lays out how he thought he could bring this about. And he did not plan in the manifesto to bring it about to some kind of violent revolution. He thought that it would be possible in a nonviolent way to the labor movements and things of that sort to be able to capture political leadership. And he saw. But nonetheless, by the time the fall of 1963 arrived, he had changed his mind. And of course Castro had come to power through a violent revolution. His goal was to join Castro in Cuba and to attempt to be assistant to Castro. Okay, so what happened to him then after he attempted to shoot it unsuccessfully In April of 1963, Edwin Walker, Marina Oswald, his wife, was very frightened. She was certain that he was going to try again to shoot Walker and she urged him to leave. Oswald then moved on his own without Marina to New Orleans, where he, where he grown up as a child. He was not a native Texan, but he was the family had originally lived in and he grew up in New Orleans. He went without Marina to New Orleans, arrived in early June of 1963, lived with his aunt and her family for a short while until he was able to find a job. And then Marina came in the latter part of June of 1963 and what he was doing, and Marina was convinced of that he was trying to earn and save enough money to be able to go to Cuba. And indeed In August of 1963, he suggested to Marina that they could hijack an airplane and go to Cuba. Well, at this point Marino was seven months pregnant and she didn't feel that she was any great shape to engage in a hijacking of an airplane. Ultimately, he gave up the idea of hijacking an airplane, but decided that he would kind of try to go on his own. Meanwhile, Marina's Dallas friend Ruth Payne, knowing that Marina was about to deliver a baby, persuaded her to come back and live with her. Portrayed Marina to live with Ruth Payne by an Irving, Texas, which is a suburb of Dallas. Meanwhile, in September, late September of 1960, Oswald went by bus to Mexico City and attempted to persuade the Cuban Embassy to give him admission to Cuba, just as he had been able to persuade the Soviet people in Moscow to become a resident of the Soviet Union. But when he said that he was going to do it with respect to the Cuban Embassy was not. He did not tell them that he was planning to live there on a permanent basis. He said that he really was just going to go back. He wanted to go by way of Cuba for just a 10 day stay, that he wanted to see what Cuba was like, what the Catholic regime was like, but that he was really planning to go on back to the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, he did not have a transit visa. He did not have a visa that gained him admission to the Soviet Union. So the Cubans turned him down and the Soviets would not issue him a visa. So he had to come back to Dallas. And on October 3rd of 1963, having been rejected by the Cubans and not having a visa to go back to the Soviet Union, he was in Dallas and had to get a job and support himself in some way. Meanwhile, Marina was not living with him. Marina was living with her friend Bruce Payne. In mid October, I think it was actually October 19th, Marina delivered her second child. Oswald was living by himself in a rooming house in Dallas. His mind was still primarily on politics rather than his child. And while Marina was in the hospital having given birth to the child three days after the baby was born, Oswald went to a rally that itself was being held by General Walker. He was really there to monitor what was happening. And the purpose of the rally, the Walker rally, was to organize a group of people to diso up a speech the next day by Adlai Stevenson in Dallas and that indeed happened. And the result of the disruption of the speech and the fact that someone struck Stevenson on the head with an anti Stevenson sign caused a great deal of fear among those who were playing Dallas, the Kennedy trip to Dallas, a great deal of fear that something similar would be brought about by the Walker people when Kennedy gave his speech In Dallas on November 22, 1963, only a month later. There's no question that Oswald never lost interest in trying to in some way undermine the right wing movement in the United States. And to give you a short answer from my standpoint as to why I think Oswald Olamoy decided to shoot Kennedy was that he believed and hoped that the Walker people would be the people who would be suspected and hopefully judged with the assassination of President Kennedy. And that even in any event that he was arrested, he would claim that the Walker people had done the shooting and that he had not done it. There are many, many more details we could go into here at this point, but I'll leave that for questions if you'd like me to do so.
- [49:53]
Anya Kane
I was wondering if you could speak to how Oswald came to be a suspect in the case so quickly.
- [50:01]
Judge Griffin
Yeah, okay. Well, it's really quite an impressive bit of police work. Well, let's put it this way. The President was shot from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository where Oswald had gained employment. And there were two witnesses to the shooting from the sixth floor. One was Howard Brennan, a 45 year old typesetter who was taking a lunch break. And the other one was Amos Ewins E U I N S who was a 14 year old high school student who was probably cutting class. Both Ewan and Brennan heard shots fired, looked up and saw the shooter in the sixth floor window fire a second shot. Oswald then left his rifle, dropped his rifle on the sixth floor, went to the second floor to a lunchroom, was confronted by a police officer who also thought that the shot came from the sixth floor. But when the manager of the Texas School Book Depository said that Oswald was an employee and in effect gave Oswald clearance, they went up to the sixth floor. Meanwhile, Oswald himself purchased a Coca Cola, walked through a secretary's office with a Coca Cola in his hand out the front door of the Texas School Book Depository and then walked seven blocks to hail a bus, a transit bus, municipal bus that was stuck in traffic. Well, meanwhile, both Nuens and Brennan gave descriptions of Oswald which were broadcast out over police radio very quickly and When Oswald got on the bus, it turned out that a woman was seated on the bus who had been his landlady and who recognized him. The bus again got stuck in traffic, maybe went two or three blocks. Oswald then asked for a transfer and in the midst of the stop traffic, got out of the bus and walked to a Greyhound bus station, where he then engaged a taxicab, had the taxicab driver driving past the roving house that he had been staying in, and the cab drove past the grooming house. There were no police cars or anything in the area. So a block or so later, Oswald got out of the cab, walked back to the rooming house. Meanwhile, he had left a jacket at the school book depository and left a rifle at the school book depository. He then secured a pistol which he had in his room in the rooming house, and another jacket. He then began walking in the residential neighborhood. But the car, driven by Police Officer J.D. tippett, saw Oswald walking in the neighborhood, probably thought that Oswald met the description that was broadcast over police radio, stopped the car, stopped, stopped the police car and hailed. Oswald got out of the car, walked to the front of the car, and when Tippett got to the front of the car, Oswald fired three shots in his body, dragging him to the ground, went over the body and fired another shot in his head. And then Oswald, of course, fled Illinois, got to a commercial street. And by this time there were police sirens that were heard because there were two witnesses to the shooting, Officer Tippett. And one of the witnesses was able to grab Tippett's police radio and tell the police that Tippett had been shot. So the police sirens were police cars that were going to the scene of that shooting. Meanwhile, when Oswald heard the sound of the sirens, he was in front of a shoe store which had a lobby and windows, of course, in the shoe store. So Oswald stood in the lobby, outside lobby of the shoe store with his back to the street. The manager of the shoe store saw Oswald thought this was quite strange. That man should be standing with his back to the street. Became quite suspicious. And when the siren stopped, indicating that the police cars had, were on their way to the Tippet shooting, Oswald turned around, went back on the street and walked another two or three storefronts to the Texas Theater, where the cashier, the outside cashier of the theater, had herself walked to the street. And so, and she was looking at where the sirens had come from. Oswald walked past her and went into the theater without pain. Meanwhile, the store manager from the shoe store was following Oswald. He told the cashier, who called the police. Police arrived very quickly. Oswald was. Lights were turned on in the theater. The shoe store manager pointed out the person who was Oswald. A police officer approached Oswald. When the officer got to Oswald, Oswald pulled the pistol that he had had, that he had shot Tippett with, tried to shoot that police officer. The police officer grabbed the gun, disabled, grabbed his hand that was holding the gun and stop the gun from firing. So Oswald was arrested less than an hour after President Kennedy had been shot.
- [57:03]
Bert W. Griffin
That really is, as you said, that's amazing police work. It's unfortunate that they did not do as good a job of actually protecting him because, of course, as we've mentioned, he ended up being killed a couple of days later by Jack Ruby, which, of course, brought about the need for the Warren Commission. I want to ask a question. I think I know what you're going to say, but I have to ask it. Did the Warren Commission take seriously the possibility of a conspiracy in this case?
- [57:39]
Judge Griffin
Not only did we take it seriously, Kevin, but that's what we wanted to. We. We wanted to either find a conspiracy or proof that a conspiracy did not exist. You know, we'd have national heroes if we could have filed a conspiracy. And one of my colleagues, Arlen Specter, ultimately hoped to be a candidate for president, became a senator and so forth. Look at. And so that any one of us, we were. We were all, you know, we were young, the younger lawyers on the staff. Look, there were two. The staff was divided into two groups of lawyers. A senior lawyer and a junior lawyer, each of whom constituted a team which would have responsibility for one particular segment of the investigation. The segment of the investigation that my teammate and I, Leon Hubert, had responsibility for was the Ruby investigation. And we absolutely are to find a conspiracy. I personally thought that the most likely conspiracy was a conspiracy that would involve the police department because, you know, Police Officer Tiffany had been shot there. There were a lot of angry police officers killing Officer Tippett. So I could envision Ruby himself being urged on by somebody, even if it wasn't a planning process. I mean, choosing to assassinate Lee Oswald with respect to President Kennedy. Yes, we wanted to determine whether or not Ruby or anybody else was involved in a conspiracy with Oswald to assassinate President Kennedy. You know, national security depends upon this. And as I said, we would have been heroes if we could have found that. And if we didn't find it, we would have been goats for life. So, yes, we very much wanted to find a conspiracy.
- [59:56]
Anya Kane
I wanted to ask you what is the significance of the so called magic bullet. And how do we know the single bullet theory is true?
- [60:05]
Judge Griffin
Well, let me say that the bullet would have been magic if those who think that there was not a single bullet that hit both Candy and Keller Connolly were true. Look, here's what we know. We know that there were no bullets found or even significant fragments, but no bullets found in the bodies of President Kennedy or Governor Connell. We know that there were three shots fired because they were found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository where the shots were fired from three empty cartridges. And we know that President Kennedy was first struck by a bullet which entered from the back of his neck and was shot from the sixth floor window. But there was no bullet found in his body. There was not an exit wound that was seen by the autopsy physicians. However, there was a wound that was in the front of the President's neck that had been seen by the doctors who treated President Kennedy at Parkland Hospital. And because there was a hole in the front of the President's neck, they used that hole to perform a tracheotomy in the hope of saving. Saving his life. They never turned the President over and did not know that there was a bullet hole, an entrance bullet hole in the back of his wound, in the back of his neck. So that from what the sets of physicians saw, they really saw two entrance wounds, one where the tracheotomy was performed and one in the back of his neck, but no bullets, no exit wounds and no bullets in the body. When the Parkland Hospital doctors and the autopsy doctors had a chance in the midst of the autopsy to telephone and talk with each other, they concluded that what the autopsy. Excuse me, what the Parkland doctors had seen when they performed the tracheotomy was not an entrance wound, but was an exit wound. And the reason that, and this was also confirmed by the fibers in the President's shirt and coat and tie. These, the fibers on the President's shirt, the front of his shirt and the tie were pressed outward, indicating that the bullet had exited from the front of his neck where the tracheotomy was performed and went and grazed his tie. Okay. And we know that the shots were firing in a downward fashion if there were no bullet holes or any bullets found in the limousine. But we do know that seated in front of President Kennedy was Governor Connally and he was struck in the back and he had a bullet hole that went through his back, exited his chest, struck his, I believe it was his left wrist. And Ulamily was found near his. Well, it was found near his stretcher in Parkland Hospital. It's actually, I think roll off of the stretcher when his body was moved. But in any event that the single bullet then through the President's back exited his neck where the tracheotomy was performed and went continued forward and struck Governor Connolly. I think part of the question was why is this significant? Yes. Yeah. Well, because if there were two different shots fired it was most unlikely that it could be fired by a single person firing Oswald's rifle but that the trigger action on the, on the Oswald rifle was not fast enough to enable two bullets to be fired in the period of time that the commission thought, the commission staff thought that the shots were fired. So that that would mean that there was a second. The bullet was never found because the bullet was found was able to detract the Oswald's rifle but there still would have meant that there was a possibility of a second shooter. And for what? To tell you there were no witnesses to a second person with Oswald left her.
- [65:39]
Bert W. Griffin
Another matter that I think some people have raised questions about is the story told by, and I hope I'm pronouncing her last name correctly, but the story told by Sylvia Odio. Can you tell us what her story was and whether or not you find it credible?
- [65:57]
Judge Griffin
Well, let me, let me say that some people think her story is credible. I don't think her story is credible, but I don't think she's a liar. And here's her story. She says that in late September two Cuban refugees and an American came to Sylvia Odio's house, her apartment in the early evening asking her to help them raise money for anti Castro activities in the United States and elsewhere. When Oswald was shot, she was only questioned by the FBI and believed that the two Cubans and the unidentified American. The unidentified American was Leia. She believed this is that he's been introduced to her as I think Leon Oswald. Now, what makes this difficult to believe are a number of things that we know from other things. That it would have been necessary for Oswald to have gone from New Orleans to Dallas, which is where Sylvia Odio lives, on the same day and he ultimately was on a bus from Houston was wound up taking him through a series of connections to Mexico City. And although it was theoretically possible for the trip to have been made in that short period of time, it would have been a very close situation. But it's a significant story because what it means is that he had. That Oswald had. If it's true that Oswald had some colleagues in the Cuban community that we did not know about and who might have had, who might have been co conspirators in an effort to assassinate Kennedy. So it's very important to find out whether she actually had meeting or had a group of people who came to her, one of whom included Oswald. The reason I think that this is unlikely that the description that she gave of Oswald was not characteristic of Oswald because he was described as a somewhat disheveled person. And the interesting thing is that Oswald basically was a very neat person who was not a disheveled looking person. Second of all, she did not, that is Sylvia Odio, the witness did not take this story on her own to the police or to the Secret Service. She had been telling her friends in Dallas that she thought that Oswald had come and visited her. And it was a wealthy friend of hers who went to the FBI, told the FBI that Sylvia Odio had said that Oswald had visited her and the FBI. Then some days after the shooting of President Kennedy came and interviewed Sylvia Odio. And Sylvia Olio then told her story, I think. And Sylvia incidentally was seen for counseling, was seen a psychiatrist on a regular basis. Basis both before and after the shooting. I had the opportunity to interview the psychiatrist and he told me I'm really surprised he talked to me. I presume he had permission from Sylvia Odio to talk to me. But he said that she was capable of fantasizing that he thought that she in her own mind believed that these things were true, that it was Oswald, but that she might very well have fantasized about it. We asked the FBI to track these people down, that is tracked down the two Cubans that Sylvia Odio claimed had approached her with Oswald. They were not able to get any confirmation of such events. And the further thing I would say is that originally when she told her story the date that she gave the Ozzy Infinite would not have been consistent with when we, when we knew he was in New Orleans, when we knew he was in Houston. So my own feeling is that it's an important story because if he had any kind of associate we would want to know about it. We want to track these people down and see if they were involved in some kind of conspiracy. My, my own conclusion, as I said, is that she believes the story that she is telling but she's not a reliable, that is a credible witness. That not because she's deliberately falsified, but she just was taken.
- [71:40]
Anya Kane
What was the reaction once the findings of the Warren Commission were published?
- [71:46]
Judge Griffin
The public reaction? Yeah, yeah. Well, the public reaction was. It was accepted. That was kind of the widespread initial. Well, let's put it this way. The political reaction was that the Warren Commission was accepted by the Congress. So that to the extent that the President had appointed a commission that would make it unnecessary to have a further investigation, he. He had temporarily succeeded. I think that there have always been a substantial number of people who, regardless of what evidence the Warren Commission had, would not believe that. They wouldn't believe that Oswald was the shooter at all. Or if they believed that he was the shooter, they wouldn't believe that he was not involved in a conspiracy. We spent a little bit of time here talking about who Oswald was and a little bit of time what was happening in his life. But I think if you really get into the details which I tried to put forward in my book, jfk, Oswald and Ruby, Politics, Prejudice and Truth, if you really study carefully who Oswald was and what he was doing from the time that he got back to the United States from the Soviet Union and ultimately shot Kennedy and during the period of his arrest, also you come to the conclusion. I come to the conclusion that he was not capable, didn't want, and was not capable of having any kind of associates, that he was acting on his own, that his personal life had fallen apart, Marina had rejected him. He did not have a financial future. His job at detention school Book depository was a seizure job. He was to come to an end. He did not have any political associates in the Marxist movement. It's hard to find Marxists in Dallas in 1963 or today. And so he was a loner. And I think it's important in understanding what's going on in today's world to realize how learners can come to perform dramatic assassinations so that what we see having happened either with attempts to shoot at President Simpson, attempt to shoot Donald Trump, the attempt to actually kill Nancy Pelosi when her house was invaded. You have to look at who this individual actor is and understand that there are people in this country who have a need to do something dramatic and even sometimes have a need to get attention. And they're dangerous people and they get excited by the political activities that they are reading about and observing on television or communicating through the Internet on. And that. And that's why we always have to be fairness to whether there were other people involved. The greater likelihood is that these are very disturbed individuals whose lives are falling apart and find some need to perform a therapist and violent act.
- [75:37]
Bert W. Griffin
I wanted to highlight the fact that, as we all know, there have Been hundreds, if not thousands of books written about this case, but only a handful of those are actually worth reading. And I just want to stress that your book is on that short list and I cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone listening who wants to get more information and work more of the details about this very complicated event. So I want to highlight that. It's a wonderful book. I really.
- [76:15]
Kevin Greenlee
It was really insightful.
- [76:17]
Bert W. Griffin
And then.
- [76:17]
Judge Griffin
Kevin, I really appreciate your saying this. May I ask a question of you?
- [76:23]
Bert W. Griffin
Please do.
- [76:24]
Anya Kane
Tables are terms.
- [76:26]
Judge Griffin
How did you find out about the book?
- [76:29]
Bert W. Griffin
I'm very interested in this assassination and I have a Google alert on my phone and I got a news alert that you were speaking in Dallas, I think, at some point, and about. About your book. And I. I think the book actually came out maybe a year or so ago and I hadn't heard about it, so that's how I heard about it. And I, I thought, not only do I want this book, I. I want to talk to this guy because this guy was there. And history is so much more interesting when you get to talk with the people who actually live through it as you did.
- [77:10]
Judge Griffin
Well, I really appreciate you're getting the book and reading and I appreciate very much the opportunity to be on this podcast. Can I tell our listeners the name of the book again? Yes, it is jfk, Oswald and Ruby. Politics, Prejudice and Truth, and the reason for the prejudice in here. And I think you and Anya and I are going to talk about this on another podcast. There's a strong element of antisemitism, fear of antisemitism in Ruby's having shot Oswald. And the other thing, of course, that is a part of the shooting of Kennedy by Oswald is that, as I said at the very beginning of our discussion, that this occurred at a time when there was a high level of racial violence occurring in 1963. So that it was easy, I think, for people like me at the outset to think that when Kennedy was shot, he was shot by a segregationist. And I think that that must have been very much on Oswald's mind, that other people, such as the Walker people, could easily be blamed. And let me just add one other thing about Walker. Walker himself was fearful that there would be some kind of violent activity that would occur when Kennedy came to Dallas. So he made a point of being in Louisiana. Somehow or other, he heard that Kennedy had been shot when he was on an airplane going from Shreveport to someplace or other. When he heard that Kennedy had been shot, he himself got up and went to the hostesses on the airline, the Sordices, and identified himself to point out that he was on this plane, that he wasn't in doubt, a part of some shooting episode, and got their names and addresses so that he could protect himself, so that Walker himself feared that he would be blamed for any harm that came to Kenzie.
- [79:29]
Bert W. Griffin
I just have a couple of things I wanted to quickly say and then maybe I'll ask a question. I think Anya has a couple of things she wanted to ask before we let you go. First of all, you alluded to this. I just want to say this. I imagine there are a lot of people out there who are feeling frustrated because you worked on the Ruby side of this and we haven't even asked you about Ruby. And the reason for that is that you were gracious enough to agree to come back and we will have a talk just about Jack Ruby. So we haven't forgotten Jack Ruby. We're definitely going to cover that. And then I wanted to mention that your book, as I say, is terrific. I think another one of the really good books on this case was written by one of your colleagues on the Warren Commission, David Bellon. And I was just curious if you could take a moment to tell us what he was like.
- [80:25]
Judge Griffin
David was a wonderful guy. You know, let me say something about the mixture of the people here that were on the Commission staff, particularly the younger people. It was a mixture of Republican, Democrats and Libertarians. They're doing this libertarian back in 1963. David. David was. David Bellum was a Republican, I was a Democrat. He and I became very good friends because David was determined to find out what the truth was. And he was prepared to challenge everything. And that was great. And that's exactly what we were supposed to do. And when the movie that became very important in assembling evidence, the so called Zapruder film, when we saw the Zapruder film, David was believed that there was a very likelihood that Oswald did have a conspiracy. So he became a conspiracy advocate. He also, I think, was right on target when he attempted to determine where Oswald was headed when he was encountered by Officer Tippett and shot Officer Tippett. And David became satisfied that Oswald, because he had a bus transfer in his pocket which could be used, that he was headed toward a bus stop which would. Which he could take a municipal bus which would take him to another bus stop, which would enable him to get a ticket, a trip to Mexico City. And David worked very hard to try to put that together. And I think if you, if you read David Belmont's Book. And, Kevin, I wish I could tell you the name of the Cellular listeners, the name of the book.
- [82:28]
Bert W. Griffin
I have it on my bookshelf right in front of me. Actually, he wrote two. And I think the first book, which in my opinion is probably, frankly, the superior one, is called November 22, 1963. And he followed it up with a second book called Final Disclosure, which is also a good book. But if you only read one, Just read the first one.
- [82:49]
Judge Griffin
Yeah. Let me say, also about David's book and David's writing. I think it's the book that he would have written as his portion of the Warren Commission Report if he would have been allowed to do it. The people who were who were really overseeing the albit writing were very much captured by the ballistics evidence, the scientific evidence and so forth. So they were. The Warren Commission Report doesn't contain the drama that David Bellum's book contains because it's so focused on things like the single bullet theory and various kinds of ballistic and forensic evidence. But David does a wonderful job of kind of putting you on the jury and helping you to see the more practical things that were taking place when Oswald shot Kennedy.
- [83:52]
Anya Kane
Absolutely. And then I wanted to ask you, before we sort of conclude, I have another question after this one, but this one's kind of been weighing on me as we've been discussing. And, you know, they're really. I'm looking at Kevin's entire JFK assassination book case because he literally has that many books on this. But, I mean, you know, it really strikes me that there is a cottage industry that has cropped up essentially, that exists to profit off of telling the American public that an American president was assassinated by some form of conspiracy and that they got away with it. And that's been evident through films like Oliver Stone's jfk, which takes a fictionalized version of a conspiracy and whatnot. But. But this has kind of been something that I personally feel has, like, undermined the truth and undermined the reality of this situation. But as someone who labored on this Warren Commission yourself, I mean, how do you feel about the proliferation of these conspiracy theories around the JFK assassination?
- [84:59]
Judge Griffin
I'm very much concerned at how much potential profit seems to have appealed to book publishers and movie makers. It's much more interesting to tell a book about a conspiracy or sell a movie about a conspiracy than it is to say that, hey, the evidence is there and Oswald shot the President because his wife was all screwed up and a lot of other things were going on politically, but there was no Great conspiracy, no conspiracy at all. And I found myself that I thought it would be very easy for me to get a publisher. And what I found was that publishers weren't interested in my book, even though I had been a staff member for the Warren Commission. And there's an example today, there's a book out. Someone can't remember the name of the book. I'm not sure I ever did know the name of the book by a man that I know, Paul Landis, who was a Secret Service agent. He's written a book which was published last November, I believe, which he claims that he found a foundation, his job. He was a Secret Service agent who was the protector or guardian for Jacqueline Kennedy. And so he was in the motorcade at the time that the President was shot. And he claims that he found in the limousine which contained The President and Mrs. Kennedy a bullet, the bullet that was actually found by others at Parkland Hospital. And he. He claims that he picked up the bullet and then he put it on Kennedy's stretcher in Parkland Hospital. Now, he, he didn't tell this story until he published the book 60 years after. And he was, he was. He's interviewed on numerous occasions. He never told this story before, never claimed to have found a book. The most, Most he claimed was that he saw fragments of a bullet somewhere. And truth of the matter is the bullet was not found near Kennedy's stretcher. It was found near Connolly's stretcher. So, and if he, and if he had actually picked up a bullet and that, and he never told any of the investigative authorities, whether it's fellow Secret Service agents or FBI agents, if he picked up a bullet and moved it to Parkland Hospital, he would have been committing a crime. But of course, he has now telling this story when the, you know, when 60 years after the assassination and the statute of limitations has run. But when I was looking for publishers, I approached his publisher. His publisher was recommended to me. But they were more interested in a story that had to do with picking up a bullet that might show that there was a second shooter than they were interested in my experiences with the war information.
- [88:07]
Anya Kane
Yes. And it's very evident to me that throughout much of publishing in media, there often is a bias toward what is more salacious, what is more gripping rather than what is true. I mean, this undermines accuracy. That's supposed to be at the forefront of publishers, but they would rather have someone come out with a frankly incredible story. And by incredible, I mean, like, not believable. I don't mean good yeah. Then. Then to have someone who actually has some expertise and has something to say. And that's unfortunately something that I think just undermines the public's understanding of the truth.
- [88:45]
Judge Griffin
And by the public not understanding the truth, it interferes even with the detective agencies and the investigative agencies in preventing such violence from occurring. Let me say this, and I'm using this term of preventing other violence. I think it's extremely difficult to do anything except put a wall of security around people who are potential victims of political assassinations, whether it's Donald Trump or as I mentioned, Nancy Pelosi and so forth. I think it's extremely difficult to protect them against everybody. But it's important that we understand how very unstable people like Oswald and Ruby's another one, can be excited by the media and how the politicians themselves can stimulate the media. What I'm trying to get at is to say that aside from effective means of gun control, which is a whole other issue, it's important that people who are running for political office minimize the emotional distress that they may be causing to people like Oswald and Ruby.
- [90:15]
Anya Kane
Yeah. And I think also publishers could be more responsible, whether that's a media outlet or whatnot, with what they're running with on something like this. Because I mean, unfortunately conspiracy theories have just only increased in power and prevalence with the rise of the Internet. I wanted to ask you, so to kind of wrap things up. 1963 was a long time ago. Why does it matter now about what people believe about this long ago assassination?
- [90:43]
Judge Griffin
In the subtitles of my book, I deliberately use the terms politics, prejudice and truth. I think that if people wrongly believe that an historical event occurred, they will, as the Spain has been, there's a danger that they will relive that false belief. That is that if we don't, if we don't find the truth, we run the risk of repeating the same problem. And so that we have to, we have to know. And what I would hope that future historians would be focusing on is we have to know who these people, these guys were, who, who, who really was Oswald and who were Ruby and the Ruby one, which we're going to talk about later on another podcast, is more clear cut. I mean, when you see the impact that fear of anti Semitism had on Ruby, you, you know absolutely that, that we, we cannot engage in and anti Semitic talk. And when you, but when you look at Oswald and you see how Oswald's life was falling apart and how he was influenced by the media himself, we may be able to prevent certain things happening in the future with respect to other people who are like Oswald and Ruby, hopefully we can do that. You're looking. You guys are historians and journalists. Why do. Why do you think it's important? I. Yeah, go ahead.
- [92:20]
Anya Kane
No, I love that question. I personally think that. How do I say this without sounding like a conspiracy theorist myself? I think that there's an effort to undermine public confidence in the Warren investigation that's been extant for decades in order to essentially make people feel like their vote doesn't count and make people feel that no matter what they do, shadowy forces will be able to undermine progress or democratic will. And it's basically to kind of undermine faith in the system. And don't get me wrong, I'm somebody who believes that our governmental systems and whatnot have a lot of flaws that need to be talked about. But essentially telling people that, hey, the CIA will take out your favorite president if he gets out of line is a way of just basically kind of encouraging people to give up and not participate in politics, in my view. That's why I think it matters to me that this truth matters. And I think you're spot on being aware that people who are essentially troubled nobodies can have a big impact on history, and that's a problem. And it matters the way the media covers it. And the media needs to have accountability on how they cover things because there can be real world consequences as far as violence. All of that is also very at the top of mind for me. How about you, Kevin?
- [93:37]
Bert W. Griffin
Well, I would echo what Anya said and I would. I would just add the truth matters. It just simply matters. And how can we understand where we are today if we don't understand how we got there? And I think it's also important, again, to look at things like this and try to figure out what did the media and others get right, what did they get wrong? So maybe we can all learn from it and maybe not repeat those mistakes when tragic events occur in the future.
- [94:14]
Judge Griffin
Let me close my end of things, if I may, Anya and Kevin, by saying the name of the book is jfk, Oswald and Ruby. Politics, Prejudice and Truth. You don't have to buy the book. You can get it out of your library or if you like, get it in E form. It's a lot cheaper that way. But I think, as one of my reviewers said, they like the book. They said it was a page turner. So I think you'll find it fun to read.
- [94:56]
Bert W. Griffin
It's a great book and people should buy it.
- [94:58]
Anya Kane
Yeah, people should buy the most expensive version in my view. But I, but I think. But if they want to do the library thing, I guess that's okay.
- [95:06]
Judge Griffin
Thank you. Thank you.
- [95:09]
Bert W. Griffin
Yeah, no, well, it's really appreciate you for giving us so much of your time and we will talk again soon about Jack Ruby.
- [95:15]
Anya Kane
Yeah, it's been an honor, sir. Thank you so much for coming on our program. We want to thank Judge Griffin for speaking with us. It was really an honor to talk to him and we had a lot of fun getting all of his insights on this fascinating case. I know Kevin, for you as somebody who's studied the JFK assassination for many years, this was a real treat.
- [95:33]
Kevin Greenlee
Yeah, he was there. He knew all of the figures that I've been reading about for years and years and it was really amazing to get his first hand memories and insights. And again, a reminder, we have ready to go. We have another interview with him completely.
- [95:50]
Bert W. Griffin
Focused on the topic of Jack Ruby.
- [95:53]
Kevin Greenlee
Which I know is a subject many people find very interesting indeed.
- [95:57]
Anya Kane
Absolutely. And again, please check out his book, jfk, Oswald and Politics, Prejudice and Truth. We're going to be including a link in the show notes and we think it's a great read that we highly recommend.
- [96:08]
Kevin Greenlee
Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us@murdersheetmail.com if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.
- [96:28]
Anya Kane
If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com murdersheet if you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www. Buymeacoffee.com murdersheet we very much appreciate any support.
- [96:52]
Kevin Greenlee
Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web@kevintg.com if you're looking to talk with.
- [97:03]
Anya Kane
Other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening. Thanks so much for sticking around to the end of this Murder Sheet episode. Just as a quick post roll ad, we wanted to tell you again about our friend Jason Blair's wonderful Silver Linings Handbook. This show is phenomenal. Whether you are interested in true crime, the criminal justice system, law, mental health, stories of marginalized people overcoming tragedy. Well, being like, he does it all, this is a show for you. He has so many different conversations with interesting people, people whose loved ones have gone missing, other podcasters in the true crime space. Just interesting people with interesting life experiences. And Jason's gift, I think, is just being an incredibly empathetic and compassionate interviewer where he's really letting his guests tell their stories and asking really interesting questions along the way, guiding those conversations forward. I would liken it to, like, you're kind of almost sitting down with friends and sort of just hearing these fascinating tales that you wouldn't get otherwise, because he just has that ability as an interviewer to tease it out and really make it interesting for his audience.
- [98:34]
Bert W. Griffin
On a personal level, Jason is, frankly a great guy.
- [98:37]
Anya Kane
Yes.
- [98:38]
Bert W. Griffin
He's been a really good friend to us. And so it's fun to be able to hit a button on my phone and get a little dose of Jason talking to people whenever I want. It's a really terrific show. We really recommend it highly.
- [98:52]
Anya Kane
Yeah, I think, I think our audience will like it. And you've already met Jason, if you listen consistently to our show. He's been on our show a couple times. We've been on his show. He's a terrific guest. I, I say this in one of our ads about him, but I literally always, I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember when Jason said this. That really resonated. Like, I do quote him in, in conversations sometimes because he really has a good grasp of different complications.
- [99:13]
Bert W. Griffin
Quotes him to me all the time.
- [99:14]
Anya Kane
I do. I'm like, remember when Jason said this? That was so right. So, I mean, I think if we're doing that, I think, and you like us, you, you, I think you should give it a shot, give it a try. I think you'll really enjoy it. And again, he does a range of different topics, but they all kind of have the similar theme of compassion, of overcoming suffering, of dealing with suffering, of mental health, wellness, things like that. There's kind of a common through line of compassion and empathy there that I think we find very nice. And we work on a lot of stories that can be very tough, and we try to bring compassion and empathy to it. But this is something that almost can be like, if you're kind of feeling a little burned out by true crime. I think this is kind of the life affirming stuff that can, can be nice to listen to in a podcast.
- [99:56]
Bert W. Griffin
It's, it's compassionate, it's affirming. But I, I also want to emphasize it's smart people. Jason is, is a very intelligent, articulate person. This is a. A smart show, but it's an accessible show. I think you all really enjoy it.
- [100:13]
Judge Griffin
Yeah.
- [100:13]
Anya Kane
And he's got a great community that, that he's building, so we're really excited to be a part of that. We're really, we're fans of the show. We love it, and we would strongly encourage you all just check it out, download some episodes. Listen. I think you'll, you'll understand what we're talking about once you do. But anyways, you can listen to the Silver Linings Handbook wherever you listen to podcasts.
- [100:31]
Bert W. Griffin
Wherever you listen to podcasts. Very easy to find.
- [100:33]
Anya Kane
Absolutely.