Warren Commission (10 of 26): Hearings Vol. X (of 15)United States. Warren Commission
History
Warren Commission (10 of 26): Hearings Vol. X (of 15)
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
Mr. RANKIN. Did you have any contact with Columbia Broadcasting System
in regard to news matters relating to Lee Harvey Oswald?
Mr. JOHNSON. That's what I was referring to before, that as soon
as--yes, on the--I was trying to say the date, on the 23d, the day
after the assassination, I called and issued a statement to all the
news media in which I made it clear that Lee Harvey Oswald was not
associated with us in any way and so forth, and they carried this on
the radio or on television, I think one of them did. But it was also
carried on the front page of the New York Times and through other
papers. That was called in to all the stations, not just to Columbia.
There was a seven-sentence statement.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you ever say that Lee Harvey Oswald was not given
citizenship in the Soviet Union because they considered him a Fascist,
or words to that effect?
Mr. JOHNSON. I don't recall that. I don't recall that.
Mr. RANKIN. Was that your belief?
Mr. JOHNSON. I never got involved in the reason, as I recall, as to why
he was not given citizenship there. I assumed they had good reasons.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you ever see any writings or communications or anything
to indicate that he had a Fascist philosophy?
Mr. JOHNSON. The only feature within that would be, within one of these
letters, when he refers to the fact that he attended the Walker meeting
down there in Dallas; another reported story of his volunteering to be
on both sides as far as Cuba was concerned, and then the further point,
and this is a matter of political orientation maybe as to why he was in
contact with Senator Tower instead of Senator Yarborough; that is just
pure speculation, it doesn't mean very much.
Mr. RANKIN. Most of his expressions in his correspondence that you
produced indicated an interest and sympathy with the Communist Party
rather than any Fascist group, didn't they?
Mr. JOHNSON. But the main point would be that this act is so
contradictory to anything in the Communist viewpoint, and that would be
the essential test, that any person who has that kind of a mentality
could just as well be covering up in communications, and that would
be one of the difficulties of it; but the act itself, you see, would
be an act, that kind of act of terrorism based upon the climate and
everything there which would have been an act from a Fascist-minded
person instead of from a Communist-minded person.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you have any evidence or know of any evidence to
indicate that this assassination was a rightist or extreme right plot
of any kind, conspiracy?
Mr. JOHNSON. Not of evidence in that sense, no. If you draw conclusions
from the materials that were being circulated in Dallas, that ad in the
newspaper that morning, and the various communications of people, of
the added hate atmosphere, the warnings that were made of that hatred,
that was all of a rightist character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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