Richard Greener: The Lacey confession

“I appreciate that,” said Johnson in his stretched-out Texas drawl. “I do. I’m truly grateful to see you. I prize your good counsel and I have the greatest admiration for you. You know that, I’m sure.” He stood with both hands resting on his hips; his head bent slightly forward, his mouth in a tight frown. Surely he towered over the seated Chief Justice.

“This is a bad time, one neither of us could have imagined. Just look around.” He gestured with his hands extended, the long sweep of his arms emphasizing the expanse of the famed Oval Office. “This has become my office. I am the President. We all think of it, dream of it, some nights go to sleep tasting it. But not this way. Not this way. In ’48, when you ran with Tom Dewey, there must have been a time when you not only thought you’d win-hell, Harry looked like roadkill there for a while-but, more than that-there had to be a moment when you saw yourself right here, right where I am now. I know you never thought it’d happen like this. It’s hard to find the words. But we must go on. This country must go on. We face serious problems, Mr. Chief Justice.” Johnson walked over to the big, dark mahogany desk. Was it his desk or Jack Kennedy’s? Sitting on the edge, he looked down at Earl Warren. “We’re needed,” he said with an urgency common to Protestant preachers. “We’re called upon to serve.”

“Yes, we are,” Warren answered, still unsure why Johnson asked for this meeting, unclear what it was the President wanted from him, or from the Supreme Court. At first, when a White House aide called asking the Chief Justice to come to the White House on an “urgent matter,” Warren thought there might be some concern about the procedures used to swear in the new President. Or perhaps the shooting of Oswald was presenting technical questions or jurisdictional problems which Johnson didn’t understand and wanted cleared up right away. A strange reason indeed to call the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but in these times, the strange was normal. However, at that moment, with the President looking straight at him, Earl Warren had no idea what this meeting was about.

Moreover, he thought, until now he had never been alone with the President of the United States. He’d seen Roosevelt in person, twice, each time at a dinner with hundreds of people. He was introduced to Truman, but again that was in a receiving line at an official function and before the 1948 election. When Eisenhower called him in to interview for the appointment as Chief Justice there must have been a half dozen advisors in the room at the time. Once he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a Constitutional post that established him as the leader of a co-equal branch of the Federal Government, he never met alone with Ike or Jack Kennedy. If asked, he supposed he would probably have offered the opinion that such a meeting might be improper, regardless of who occupied either office. And yet, following the murder of President Kennedy, here he was, alone with Lyndon Johnson in the private office of the President. The Chief Justice felt uncomfortable. He recorded his discomfort in his journal.

“Mr. Chief Justice, I’m afraid the American people are worried and confused,” Johnson went on. “They’re worried that their government, their country, is in jeopardy, facing great danger. They speculate about an enemy. Who is their enemy? Where are they? What are they gonna do next? Who else is gonna get killed? And who’s doing this killing? You know what I mean?”

“Well, yes. I think I do, Mr. President.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear that. You and I need to keep our heads about us. We need to clear away the cobwebs of confusion and put to rest the nation’s worry. That’s my obligation now. That’s our obligation. The trust of the people is the foundation on which this government rests. It’s the bedrock of our republic. It’s my responsibility-my sworn duty-to keep that trust from being shaken.” Johnson was quiet a moment. He shook his head slightly from side to side, showing his disgust and frustration. “This Oswald problem is getting out of hand,” he said. “How the goddamn hell do they let somebody shoot him? Tell me that!” The Chief Justice knew better than to reply.

Johnson rose from his desk, raised his fist in anger and walked over to the window looking out on the White House lawn. Special lights, put in place that afternoon by the Secret Service, covered much of the wide-open grassy area in bright light. In the late autumn afternoon, the garden just outside the Oval Office was already dark with only a few ground lights to show the walkways among the flowers and plants, the ones Mrs. Kennedy had arranged so beautifully.

“Oswald’s dead. Shot and killed in front of our eyes for Christ’s sake! The man who killed the President is dead. And now we got speculation running rampant. Who’d he work for?” Johnson once more turned around, paced from one side of the office to the other and back, slapping his thighs as he walked, then sat down-at the President’s desk-in the President’s chair. He looked like he’d been there forever. “I’ve got reports people are asking questions about his communist ties. Talking about the Cubans-those damn Cubans,” Johnson mumbled, looking down at the floor as if there might be something important there. Then he looked straight at Warren and spoke again in a loud, strong voice. “The Russians too, even Chinese. You know Oswald was stationed in Japan?”

“No sir, I didn’t. I didn’t know that. Did Oswald have any contact with the Chinese?”

“He could have, could have. Who knows? Chinese, Japanese. He could have. That’s not the point. The point is-people are asking questions. You understand? People are asking questions. Even you. You just asked, didn’t you? Newspapers are gonna start writing things, all sorts of things. You know that. With Oswald dead we’re never gonna get the truth about why he shot the President. Instead we’ll get speculation. We’ll get dangerous, unhealthy speculation. Crazy stuff. The kind that plays right into the hands of our real enemies. And we,” he said peering straight into Warren’s eyes, “have to prevent this. We have to stop this needless, irresponsible distraction. We have to stem the tide of our national vulnerability. We need time to heal our hurt. We’re hurting. This kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen. People need to be reassured. We have to do what’s right. I must do it. And I need your help.”

“I’ll do whatever I can, Mr. President, whatever’s appropriate given my position and responsibilities. Legally, you know of course, this is a local problem. Murder, both of them, the murder of President Kennedy and the murder of Oswald, are violations that come under Texas law. There’s no federal crime here that I can see. Quite amazing, isn’t it? You kill the President of the United States, the highest-ranking federal officer in the land and you’re not subject to any federal jurisdiction as a result. You know, I hesitate to say it, actually I…”

“Don’t be shy, Mr. Chief Justice. Our job is to bring this whole sad business to its rightful conclusion.”

“I was going to say, I’m not sure it was such a good idea to remove the body from the local jurisdiction. I understand, under the circumstances…”

“Under the circumstances!” Johnson bellowed. “I had no information to tell me who else was in danger. Maybe they were after Mrs. Kennedy too. The Governor, my friend John Connally, was hit pretty bad. I didn’t know if I was a target. The thought more than crossed my mind, I can tell you that. You know, when Lincoln was killed they tried to get the Vice President at the same time. Another Johnson too. I had folks saying there was sharpshooters all over the place. Shots were coming from everywhere. Could have been a damn army of them. The Pentagon told me about threats from all over the world. You know, the Secretary of State was in the air over the Pacific Ocean while this was going on. Dallas was no place to be and I wasn’t gonna leave him back there. There’s her too,” he said, referring to the widowed First Lady. “She wouldn’t go without him. No sirree, she wouldn’t.”