 Telephone conversation between President Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover on November 29, 1963, at 1.40 p.m. Yes? J. Edgar Hoover on 2192. Are you familiar with this proposed group that they're trying to put together on this study of your report and other things, two from the House, two from the Senate, somebody in the court, a couple outsiders? No, I haven't heard of that. I've seen the reports on the Senate investigating committee that they've been talking about. Yeah, well, we think if we don't have, I want to get by just with dear file in your report. I think it would be very, very bad to have a rash of investigations. Well, the only way we can stop them is probably to point a high level one to evaluate your report. Yeah. And put somebody that's pretty good on it, that I can select out of the government and tell the House and Senate not to go ahead with the investigation. Yes. Because they get a bunch of television going and I thought it'd be bad. It'd be a three ring circus. Yes. What do you think about Alan Dulles? I think he would be a good man. What do you think about John McCloy? I'm not as enthusiastic about McCloy. I knew him back in the Paterson when Paterson was down here, the secretary thing. He's a good man. But I'm not so certain as to the matter of the publicity that he might seek on it. What about General Nordstein? A good man. I guess Boggs has started in the House. I thought maybe it might try to get Boggs and Jerry forward in the House. Maybe try to get Dick Russell and maybe Cooper in the Senate. Yes, I think so. I don't know if you know anything of any reason. Just talking to me and you're going to talk to Black brothers. Yes. I don't know what there is, any reason. Any there. I thought Russell could kind of look after the general situation. See that the state's in their relationship. Russell would be an excellent man. And I thought Cooper might look after the liberal group. Was that? Cooper. Oh, yeah. So they wouldn't think that he's a pretty judicious fellow. But he's a pretty liberal fellow. Yes. I wouldn't want Chad. No, no. I thought he was a pretty good fellow. A savage place to the fumpage. Cooper's kind of border state. Yes. It's not the South. It's not the North. That's right. Do you know Ford from Michigan? I know of him but I don't know him. I saw him on TV the other night for the first time. He handled himself well on that. Do you know Boggs? Oh, yes, I know Boggs. He's kind of off in the resolution. That's what I know. Yes. Yes. I know him. Now, Walter tells me, Walter Jenkins, that you designate Dick to work with us like you did on the hill. I have. I tell you, I sure appreciate that. I didn't ask for it because I knew you had to run your business better than anybody else. And I just want to tell you, though, that we consider him as high class as you do. And it's a mighty gracious thing to do. And we'd be mighty happy. We salute you for knowing how to pick good men. Well, that's about a nice view of the presidency. We hope to have this thing wrapped up today. But we probably won't get it before the first of the week. This angle at Mexico is giving us a great deal of trouble. Because the stories there of this man, Oswald getting $6,500 from the Cuban Embassy. And then coming back to this country with it, we're not able to prove that fact. The information was that he was there on the 18th of September in Mexico City. And we are able to prove conclusively he was in New Orleans that day. Now, then they changed the date. The story came in changing the date to the 28th of September. And he was in Mexico City on the 28th. Now, the Mexican police have again arrested this woman, Durán, who's a member of the Cuban Embassy. And we'll hold her for two or three more days. And we've got to confront her with the original informant who stole the money past, so he says. And we're also going to put the lie detector test on him. Meantime, of course, Castro's hollering his head off. Can you pay attention to the lie detector test? I would not pay 100% attention to them. All that they are is a psychological asset in an investigation. I wouldn't want to be a part of sending a man to the chair on a lie detector. For instance, we have found many cases where we've used them in a bank where there's been embezzlement. And a person will confess before the lie detector test is finished. A more or less fearful of the fact that the lie detector test will show them guilty. Psychologically, there's that advantage because it's a misnomer to call it a lie detector because what it really is, it's the evaluation of the chart that is made by this machine. And that evaluation is made by a human being. And any human being can be apt to make the wrong interpretation. So I would not, to myself, go on that alone if, on the other hand, if this fellow Oswald had lived and had taken the lie detector test and it had shown definitely that he had done these various things together with the evidence that we very definitely have. It would have just added that much more strength to it. There's no question, but the T is the man. Now, the fingerprints are the things that we have. This fellow Rubinstein down there, he is offered to take the lie detector test but his lawyer got a big cost consultant first. And I doubt whether the lawyer will allow it. He's one of these criminal lawyers from the west coast and somewhat like an Everett Bennett Williams type and almost as much of a shyster. Have you got any relationship between the two here? Between Rubinstein? At the present time, we have not. There was a story down there. When he ran his bar and stuff like that. There was a story that this fellow had been in this nightclub, that he had this cheese joint that he had, but that has not been able to be confirmed. Now, this fellow Rubinstein is a very shady character, has a bad record, street brawler, fighter and that sort of thing. And in the place in Dallas, if a fellow came in there and couldn't pay his bill completely, Rubinstein would beat the very devil out of him and throw him out of the place. He was that kind of a fellow. He didn't drink, didn't smoke, boasted about that. He is what I would put in the category, one of his equal maniacs. He likes to be in the limelight. He knew all the police in that white light district where the joints are down there. And he also let them come in, see the show, get the food and get the liquor and so forth. That's how I think he got into police headquarters because they accepted him as kind of a police character hanging around police headquarters. And for that reason raised with no question. Of course, they never made any move as the pictures show, even when they saw him approaching this fellow and got up right to him and pressed his pistol against Oswald's stomach. Neither of the police officers on either side made any move to push him away or to grab him. It wasn't until after the gun was fired that they then moved. Now, of course, that is not the highest degree of efficiency, so to say. Secondly, the chief of police admits that he moved him in the morning as a convenience and at the request of the motion picture people who wanted to have daylight. He should have moved him at night, but he didn't. And, I mean, those derelictions in that phase but so far as Tyre, Rubenstein and Oswald together, we haven't yet done so that a number of stores come in. We've tried Oswald into the Civil Liberties Union in New York, membership into that, and of course into this thing, this Cuban Fair Play Committee, which was pro-Castro and dominated by communism and financed to some extent by the Castro government. How many shots were fired? Three. Any of them fired at me? All three at the present. All three at the present, and we have them. Two of the shots fired at the president were splendid, but they had characteristics on them so that our ballistic expert was able to prove that they were fired by this gun. The third shot, which hit the president, he was hit for the first and the third. The second shot hit the governor. The third shot is a complete bullet at Western Shattered and that rolled out of the president's head and tore a large part of the president's head off. And in trying to massage his heart at the hospital on the way to the hospital, they apparently loosened that and it fell on to the stretcher, and we recovered that. And we have that, and we have the gun here also. Were they aiming at the president? They were aiming directly at the president. There's no question about that. This telescopic lens, which I've looked through, it brings a person as close to you as if they were sitting right beside you. And we also have tested the fact that you could fire those three shots of a fire within three seconds. There's been some stories going around in the papers and so forth that must have been more than one man, but of course no one man could fire those shots in the time that they were fired. We've just proved that by the actual test that we've made. How did it happen that they hit Connelly? Connelly turned. Connelly turned to the president when the first shot was fired. And I think in that turning, it was where he got hit. He had to turn, he probably wouldn't have got hit. I think that's very likely. Did the president get hit the second one? No, the president wasn't hit with the second one. I'll say if Connelly hadn't been his way. Oh yes, yes. The president, no doubt, would have been hit. He'd been hit three times. He'd been hit three times. On the fifth floor of that building where we found the gun and the wrapping paper in which the gun was wrapped, had been wrapped, and upon which we found the full fingerprints of this man, Oswald. On that floor, we found the three empty shells that had been fired and one shell that had not been fired. In other words, there were four shells apparently. And he had fired three but didn't fire the fourth one. And through the gun aside, he came down and at the entrance of the building, he was stopped by a police officer and some, worked as some manager in the building, told the police officer, well, he's all right, he works for you. He needn't hold him, so they let him go. That's how he got out. And then he got on a bus. The bus driver has identified him and went out to his home and got a hold of a jacket that he bought it for some purpose and came back downtown, walking downtown. And the police officer who was killed stopped him, not knowing who he was and not knowing whether he was the man, but they were just on suspicion. And he fired, of course, and killed the police officer. Then he walked out and walked about. You can prove that. Oh yes, oh yes, we can prove that. Then he walked about another two blocks and went to the theater. And the woman at the theater window selling the ticket, was so suspicious of where he was acting. And she said he was carrying a gun. He had a revolver at that time with which he had killed the police officer. He went into the theater and she notified the police. And the police and our man, our man went in there and located this particular man. We had quite a struggle with him. He fought like a regular lion. And he had a piece of dude, of course, that was then brought out and cost taken to the police headquarters. But he apparently had come down the five flights of steps from the fifth floor. So far as we found out, the elevator was not used, although he could have used it. But nobody remembers whether it was or whether it wasn't. Well, your conclusion is that he's the one that did it. B, the man he's after, was the president. C, he would have hit him three times, except the governor turned. I think that's correct. Four, that there's no connection between he and Ruby that you can detect now. And five, whether he was connected with a Cuban operation with money you were trying to... That's what we're trying to nail down now. Because he was strongly pro-Castro. He was strongly anti-American. And he had been in correspondence, which we have, with the Soviet Embassy here in Washington and with the Americans of the Liberty Union and with this committee for the very play to Cuba, we have copies of the correspondence. So we've got him nailed down in his contact with them. None of those letters I have are dealt with any indication of violence or contemplated assassination. They were dealing with the matter of a visa for his wife to go back to Russia. Now, there's one angle of this thing that I'm hopeful to get some word on today. This woman, his wife, has been very hostile. She would not cooperate. She speaks Russian and Russian only. She did say to us yesterday down there that we could give her assurance that she would be allowed to remain in this country. She might cooperate. I told our agents down there to give her that assurance that she could stay in this country. And I sent a Russian-speaking agent in to Dallas last night to interview her so that we'll... We've got her now and whether she knows anything or talks anything, I don't know. I, of course, don't know. Where did he work in the building on this same floor? He had access on all floors. But where was his office? Well, he didn't have any particular office. Order came in for certain books, and some books would be on the first floor, second floor, third floor, and so forth. But he didn't have any particular place he stationed? No, he had no particular place that they were stationed at all. He was just a general packer of the requisition that came in for school books from the Dallas schools, I have. And therefore, he had access, perfectly proper access, to the fifth floor and to the sixth floor. Usually, most of the employees were down on lower floors. Did anybody hear anybody saying on the fifth floor? Yes, they were seen on the fifth floor by one of the workmen. They had before the assassination took place. He was seen there. Did you get a picture of him shooting? No, no. There was no picture taken of him shooting. What was his picture at that Dallas old $25. That was a picture taken of the parade and showing Mrs. Kennedy climbing out of the back seat. You see, there was no Secret Service man standing on the back of the car. Usually, the presidential car in the past has had steps on the back next to the bumpers, and they have usually been one on either side standing on those steps at the back bumper. Whether the president asked for that not be done, we don't know. And the bubble top was not up, but the bubble top wasn't worth a damn anyway because it made entirely a plastic. And much to my surprise, the Secret Service do not have any armored cars. Do you have a bulletproof car? Yes, I do. I think you most certainly should have one. Most certainly should. Because I won here. We have one in New York. We use it for different purposes. I use a tear for myself. And if we have any rage to make or have to surround a place where everybody's hitting in, we use the bulletproof car on that. Because you can bulletproof the entire car, including the glass. But it means that the top has to remain up. You could never let the top down. It looks exactly like any other car, but I do think you ought to have a bulletproof car. But I was surprised the other day when I made inquiry. All that I understand the Secret Service has had has had two cars with metal plates underneath the car to take care of a hand grenade or a bomb that might be thrown out and roll along the street. Well, of course, we don't do those things in this country. In Europe, that's the way they assassinate heads of state with bombs. They've been after General De Gaulle, you know, with that sort of thing. But in this country, all of our assassinations have been with guns. And for that reason, I think very definitely I was very much surprised when I learned that this bubble-top thing was not bulletproof in any respect and that the plastic top to it was down. The President had insisted upon that so that he could stand up and wave to the crowd. It seems to me that the President ought to always be in a bulletproof car. It certainly would prevent anything like this ever happening again. It doesn't mean you could have a thousand Secret Service men on guard and still a sniper can snipe you from up in the window if you were exposed like the President was. But he can't do it if you have a solid bulletproof top to it as it should be. You mean I ride around my ranch? How to be in a bulletproof car? Well, I would certainly think so. Mr. President, thinking that that car down at your ranch, the little car that we rode around in when I was down there, I think it ought to be bulletproof. I think it ought to be done very quietly. There's a concern that is out, I think, in Cincinnati where we have our cars bulletproof. I think we've got four. We've got one on the West Coast, one in New York and one here. And I think it can be done quietly without any publicity being given to it or any pictures being taken of it if it's handled properly. But I think you ought to have, because on that ranch, it's perfectly easy for somebody to get onto the ranch. I think those entrances all ought to be guarded, don't you? Well, I think follow me. I think follow me. I think you've got to recognize, you've got to really almost be in the capacity of a so-called prisoner. Because without that security, anything can be done. We've got a lot of letters and phone calls over the last three or four or five days. We've got one about this parade the other day that they were going to try to kill you there. And I talked with the attorney general about it. I was very much opposed to that marching from the White House. Well, each secretary should go not to which family that's what Bobby told me. Well, I heard of it. I talked with the secret service and they were very much opposed to it. I was very much opposed to it because it was even worse than down there at Dallas. You walked down the center of the street. And somebody on the sidewalk would dash out. I noticed even on Pennsylvania Avenue I viewed the procession coming back from the Capitol and while they had police sign along the curb stone looking at the crowd when the parade came along the police turned around and looked at the parade which was the worst thing to do. It also had a line of soldiers but they were looking at the parade. I'm going to take every precaution I can and I want to talk to you and I wish you'd put down your thoughts on that a little bit because you're more than the head of the federal bureau as far as I'm concerned. You're my brother and personal friend and you have been for 25, 30 years. I know you just want to have me at home. Absolutely not. So you just, I've got more confidence. Absolutely not. I've got more confidence in your judgment than anybody in town so you just put out some of the roadblocks and I will put out some of the things you think will happen and I won't involve you in court here get you in jurisdictional disputes or anything but I'd like to at least advocate them as my opinion. I'll be very glad to indeed. I certainly appreciate your confidence. Thank you. Bye.