c-span.org, or on the go at c-span now, our new video app. that is james downie from "the washington post." the editors of "the wall street

journal" also giving their thoughts this morning on the news from yesterday, saying a quotes over -- saying "the silver lining for democrats is this gives them a chance to face political reality before they leap off a cliff. the democratic left must confront the limits of their power. elizabeth warren thought they could bully their agenda through the senate. their failure to narrow their ambition doomed the bill, yet they persuaded mr. biden he had to govern from the left and what determines to be a catastrophic misjudgment." that is the editorial from "the wall street journal." this is mike in wisconsin, democrats line. caller: good morning. i do not support senator manchin's decision, and the main reason is it is because it is paid for. for once, democrats were on the side of asking multimillionaires and billionaires in this country who have greatly, greatly benefited from covid to actually

pay their fair share. but the biggest thing is the trump tax cut, which for the next six years is going to add $1.2 trillion to our national debt, the mass part of it going to the wealthiest americans, all we are asking for is stop that and give that money to average americans and help them with childcare and senior care and especially bringing down the cost of insulin. host: well, mike, one of the concerns senator manchin had was some programs will be enacted on a temporary basis and would then become permanent. according to estimates, that would drive up the cost overall as far as the overall package is concerned. what do you think of that? caller: well, that is something that -- all we can ever talk about is what is in the current bill. i don't know how you can look at in the future we may do this. i just don't understand his

reasoning for that reason. host: mike is in wisconsin. we will hear from scott in new york, independent line. caller: good morning, pedro. you went to colorado a couple years ago. you do that informative show about the canvas. i love c-span. could we all get along for just a week? what joe manchin is doing -- i am a christian human. i truly believe in christ. they word is sitting on the fence. what joe manchin does is he sits on the fence because he does not want to make democrats too upset but he is in a republican state so he is playing the republicans to get the republican votes and gets the democrat votes just because he is on the democratic ticket.

they go in the booth and they hit democrat because there democrat, they don't hit it because of joe manchin. they hit it because they are democrats. the republicans know joe manchin is going to keep on riding the fence and do what he has to do to keep everybody happy. he is lukewarm. host: you are saying yesterday's decision is not final as far as senator manchin is concerned? he is sitting the fence? caller: i am saying everything he does, not just yesterday. i have been watching for years, especially during the trump years. he was riding the fence, too. you would say of-- he would say i'm not for what trump is pushing but i am, so he could keep his republican voters in west virginia. west virginia is a crutch, kill, destroy state, and have heroin, poverty, no plan to help any sick people.

we are not there to help people in west virginia. god bless people, merry christmas -- host: ok, let's hear from james in st. louis, missouri. caller: hi, it is me. i was thinking -- i didn't hear all that manchin said, but i heard "i'm thinking," that i heard bernie sanders and the other lady saying this and that. my point is i think they just have a vote and let the chips fall where they may. host: what do you think that proves? what do you think that offers to senator manchin? caller: i don't know. but it may be the best we can do. host: ok. bernard is next from elk grove, california, independent line. caller: yes, hi, pedro.

the thing is this is all about the lobbyists. joe manchin and sinema, they cannot make up their mind because they have to follow their orders from the lobbyists like alec and citizens united. host: why do you think they are giving the orders and senator manchin is receiving them? caller: because that is why he is going back and forth. he can never make up his mind because he is not sure what they want him to do yet. that is why he seems like a yo-yo. seator sinema, she is probably -- sinema, she is probably done because arizona is not going to vote for her again. that's the problem, is the money, the lobbyists. that is what he is always saying "i just can't see it." he is never going to see it. he told the truth when he said that democrats have to vote in

more democrats and that way you don't need me. because if you need me, you are going to lose every time. so you got it get me out of the equation. if you can't get me out of the equation, this is what you have to deal with. if he was president, he would not want nobody to do that to him, but he is doing it because he has to follow the money that's behind him. host: ok, that is bernard in california. in other news, c-span reports three democratic members of congress announced they had breakthrough coronavirus infections. senators elizabeth warren of massachusetts, cory booker of new jersey, as well as representative jason crow of colorado tested positive for covid-19. they all reported having received covid-19 booster shots and experiencing mild symptoms from that. that is by cnn. "the atlanta journal-constitution" highlights the passing of former

georgia representative johnny isakson. they write, "he spent his life cutting deals when the georgia republican party was mostly confined to a small knot in cobb county to congress. he learned early on what it took to get two sides to an agreement and continued to apply those skills even after republicans cemented their political dominance in the state, making him a uniquely beloved figure among republicans and democrats. his motto was simple -- there are two types of people in the world, friends and future friends." former republican senator from georgia, he died at the age of 76 on sunday. he retired before the end of his third term when he began to suffer from symptoms of parkinson's disease. here is a portion of those farewell remarks from the senate floor. this took place december 3, 2019. [video clip] >> friends and future friends, you find anybody in business or anything else -- life is a

win-win proposition. it's not win or lose proposition. you have to decide which side you are on. on a day when more nice things were said about me than i deserve, it is clear to me how much this place means. i am the happiest guy you have ever seen. more happy -- i think you know what i'm talking about. we can do it. we can do anything. we may be called liberal and may be called a rino and whatever it is. let's solve the problem and see what happens. most people who call people names and point fingers do not have a solution themselves. they just make damn sure you don't solve it. we have to start doing that and bipartisanship will become the

way you accomplish things, state of being. it will be the end of a time and beginning of a new one. god bless all of you and thank you for your support and friendship. it means more than i could ever tell you. i will always be there for you, whether it is buying dinner, going to church, just listening to one of your speeches. god bless all of you and thank you very much. [applause] host: that speech, by the way, if you go to our website, c-span.org, you can find that. the house is on a break at about 10:30 this morning. on c-span, a pro forma session of the house. she spent2 -- c-span2, a pro forma session of the senate.

that is at 5:00 p.m. the president's commission report on the supreme court will be at 1:00 this afternoon. you can follow along on c-span , c-span.org, and our c-span now app. 3:00 this afternoon at the national press club, dr. anthony fauci will give remarks on the virus and omicron and everything covid-related. 3:00 this afternoon, the network, and you can follow on our app. let's hear from david from ohio, democrats line. caller: hi. i would like to say first thanks for giving me time. but i would like to say, first of all, i am pretty upset with all the senators, representatives, or whatever that we have in d.c. right now because basically they do not care about saving our country and they are grasping for

straws. they will do anything to get attention and divide the country. basically, as far as joe biden is concerned, i am upset with him. i am upset with joe biden. i am very upset with the democratic party because when he took office, the first thing he should have done that he did not do was go after trump, who basically did his best to destroy our democracy. host: so, specifically when it comes to the build back better act and senator manchin's decision, what do you think of the decision and the future of anything passing from this act? caller: well, i am from west virginia. i am 83 years old now. i am in ohio, but i grew up in west virginia. as far as joe manchin is concerned, i would not vote for joe manchin. host: let's go to ron in massachusetts, independent line.

caller: hello, thank you for taking my call. i have noticed that baseball teams trade players back and forth. do you think there is any way we can trade joe manchin for liz cheney? host: let's go to vicki in austin, texas, democrats line. caller: i'm sorry, that last call makes me laugh. bear with me, i'm extremely angry with manchin. his statement shows to me he is a coward or a quitter. there is plenty of time that can be spent working on that bill. i don't understand why he is walking away, except he has been paid off. i do not know if you remember this old song for people who used to work in the mines, but i believe joe manchin owes his soul to the corporate coal. not the company store, but the corporate coal. he got $500 million from the

coal business, from his family business. i don't know exactly what he is against in that bill. he keeps it vague about the cost, but he never talks about the specifics. what is it exactly he wants to see changed? host: he said yesterday it was concerns about inflation. caller: yeah, that is a vague term. what does that have to do with the bill? what is the specific thing he wants to take out of the bill that addresses his concern about inflation? he does not talk specifics. it is all vagaries about costs, and that includes inflation. host: he was concerned about some of the climate provisions in the bill. caller: that doesn't have any logical relationship to inflation. he is just talking about he doesn't want to spend money about climate change. that's what he's saying, and the thing is the reason he is against those climate-change provisions is because he is in the pocket of the coal industry. i would like to see him get only

coal in his stocking. if people want to deliver that filthy coal to his luxury houseboat, i would love to see that happen -- host: ok, we will go to mike, republican line. caller: i have a couple points. thank god for manchin to stop this communist-socialist bill. wonder thing, -- one thing, not everybody in the country has children to get these tax credits. a lot of people that don't have children need help, too. one thing in this bill the democrats are pushing is that salt tax. they want to give millionaires and billionaires on the east coast, new york and new jersey and california on the west coast, big financial tax breaks. hopefully joe manchin, sinema, and there is a few other ones who do not want to be ridiculed by aoc and pelosi and warren

that agree with him are letting him be the lead in the fight. host: your support and admiration of joe manchin is only based on this decision, or what you say that is an overall perspective? caller: he is the old-school democrat, not the new socialist communist bernie sanders democrat. i hope that him and sinema stand up against these liberals wanting to do away with the filibuster, with the electoral college. everybody in between -- california does not believe in their values. host: ok, we will go to david in st. james, new york, republican line. caller: good morning. i am also for manchin and what he is doing to stop the bill because he does not have to vote along the party line. he can be independent thinker. he can see what is in the bill. i don't even think 50% of the congress has read the bill. i do not believe they have had

enough time to read the bill. it is a large bill. a lot of giveaways with the money. i think they should do clean bills. i don't think they can build enough windmills to power the entire country. i just don't believe this is about climate change. i think it is a giveaway to the democrats who just want to the money. if you don't vote with them, you are against them. and it is a shame, what they are doing to this man. host: several calls from west virginia, including james. independent line. caller: yes, this is the independent line? host: yes. caller: oh, ok. host: you would categorize yourself as an independent? caller: yes, i've been an independent since august. i grew up about two miles from where manchin did, and i support

him all the way. this budget just got too much fat in it. i am glad somebody is standing up. i would support him whether he was from california or texas. host: you are from west virginia? caller: yes, i am. host: which part? caller: i am about two miles north of farmington, where manchin grew up. host: as far as senator manchin overall, would you say you are a general supporter of his no matter what he votes on? caller: no, it depends on what he votes on. this budget, i am against it and he is the only one standing up for us. when i say us, i mean everybody in the country, not just west virginia. host: is your concern over the coal aspect or energy aspect or are there other things? caller: there is other things. they're always hidden agendas in a bill before they pass it. i guess they haven't had time to look at it or whatever. i agree with senator manchin.

i would vote for him whether he was a republican, democrat, or independent. bernie sanders i would not vote for. thank you very much. host: "usa today" reports an extension of the deadline to president biden's mandate for companies with over 100 staff, saying that deadline is moving now to february 9. a story this morning saying workers who are not fully vaccinated will not have to be regularly tested for coronavirus until that date, more than a month after the initial deadline. january 4 the labor department says it won't issue any penalties before january 10 and will take no action on the testing rules until february 9 as long as an employer is exercising reasonable efforts to come into compliance. when it comes to the legal aspects, "usa today" says the u.s. court of appeals reinstated president biden's requirement late friday.

a 2-1 majority of the court ruled that osha is probably within legal authority to implement the temporary standards requiring vaccines. let's go to kenneth, texas. democrats line. caller: yes, i live down here in texas. joe manchin came down here and sold his vote to the oil and gas companies about six months ago. there is no way he is going to pass this bill with a climate thing and it because coal companies do not want to see the climate part of this bill passed. host: how exactly did he sell the vote in texas? caller: he came down here. they threw him a benefit so he could build his war chest for running for senate again. it was just oil and gas people. ted cruz set it up. he sold out the country is what

he did. he sold out our grandkids. the world, the planet, is losing its battle with climate change. he does not care. he doesn't care that our children are going to live on a planet where it is intolerable. it is all about his power, holding onto his seat. it has nothing to do with what is good for the country and planet. it has to do with power. host: we will go to joe in alabama, republican line. caller: hi. i think the democrats ought to do what they told republicans to do when john mccain voted against trump. they said to respect the vote. new no, -- you know, it is his opinion. they should do the same thing. host: why does that apply in this case? caller: well, i mean, i'm just's

opinion and how he feels. if he voted against it, they should respect his vote and quit complaining. host: one more call. this is tom in pellet -- in philadelphia, democrats line. caller: hello. i think they should, instead of calling it the build back better, they should focus on fix what is broken. too many people on here don't understand inflation and if they aren't going to raise taxes to pay for this, then they will be printing money and you know what that means. it is going to increase inflation. that is the point i wanted to make. host: that is tom in philadelphia, finishing off this hour on your calls looking at senator manchin's decision.

two segments coming up on this program. up next we are joined by jfk assassination researcher jefferson morley. they will discuss the recent release of documents related to the former president's murder. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including comcast. >> do you think this is just a community center? it is way more than that.

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guest: my background is writing books about the cia and i have written three biographies of major officials in the cia in the 1960's. my book is a biography of him. james angleton was the chief of counterintelligence at the cia from 1954 to 1974. i have a forthcoming book, the story of richard nixon and richard helms, the eighth director of the cia. when they were all major cia

officials from the 1950's to the 1970's, they were all friends and instantly involved -- intimately involved in the events of 1963. i don't write about the kennedy assassination per say, i write about the assassination in the context of the cia. host: what is important for our viewers, to understand about your position? guest: i don't write about conspiracy theories. i write about the events and what they looked like to cia insiders. this is the story that we now know, not a story that could be known in 1963, at how did these men see what happened in dallas. what happened with the investigation and how did they respond and what we see in all three stories is the idea that one man alone came along and killed the president for no reason. none of these men acted like that was the case. rather they acted like harvey oswald was a sensitive matter, whose knowledge, actions, and

whose knowledge by the cia had to be held closely. what we saw this week is a process still unfolding, the cia is still holding closely certain information about kennedy's assassination. my books are designed to open up this and say, what did the assassination look like to the cia itself? host: when it comes to the information you talk about, there was a release of documents by the national archives recently. talk about that and put into perspective what has been held by the archives concerning the jfk assassination. guest: last week, 1491 documents that contained reactions, omitted material, were released in full for the first time. 14,000 documents related to kennedy's assassination remain or continue to have read actions. so, we got less than 10% of the

outstanding documents last week. also, it is important to understand when you think about that release, why are we releasing records? in 1992, congress passed the jfk records act. at that point, oliver stone had just made a movie and scored points in public opinion by pointing out the very true fact that 30 years after the assassination, almost all of the government's records on the subject were classified. stone put a trailer at the end of his movie and said, write your congressman if you disagree with this. capitol hill was inundated with mail, asking, why doesn't the government release the information? congress was shamed into doing the right thing. they passed a pretty good law, they passed the jfk act and the records act said we will release all of jfk's records, we will clear the record and make this transparent to everybody. we want all jfk records to be public. they created a process to do that.

they created something called the assassination records review board. this was an independent board made up of civilian experts. they went to each government agency and said, show us your jfk records, we will review them for classified information and then make them public. in the 1990's, that is what they did. they declassified more than 300,000 records related to kennedy's assassination, 5 million pages. this was a big step forward in terms of completing historical records of jfk's assassination. host: go ahead. guest: yeah. but, the law gave the agencies, primarily the cia and fbi, but government agencies the right to withhold certain information for a certain amount of time. what congress said was after 25 years, everything must be made public. the law passed in 1992, 25 years later, october of 2017, the question came to president trump.

the cia director, mike pompeo, and -- went to trump and said we cannot release this information, we have to keep it secret. host: if i may interrupt, some of those concerns, they were cited because of national security. what do you think about that as an argument? guest: if you look at the records and what was withheld on national security grounds, you will be last -- you will laugh. it will be things like, we had an intelligence relationship with the british government. that was one of the things released this week. a document, we had an intelligence relations with the british. now, is it a national security secret that the u.s. has intelligence relations with britain? that is preposterous, but that is the kind of thing that is going on, which is wild over classification. national security has given us the justification, but when you look at what is actually withheld, it is very rarely

something that rises to the level of national security. in these documents there are names of informants. that is the kind of material that was previously withheld, but we are talking about events that happened about 50 or 60 years ago. it was 58 years ago that president kennedy was assassinated. so, the national security value of the information withheld, in most cases it is minimal. or nonexistent. host: let me invite our callers into the conversation. if you want to ask questions, you can call us at 202-748-8000 for those in the eastern and central time zones. 202-748-8001 for those in the mountain and pacific time zones. text us at 202-748-8003. you go back to that deadline, october 26, 2017, when it goes to the trump administration, it gets extended, why? guest: he said it had to be

withheld for another four years. he gave the cia and fbi and other agencies another four years of secrecy. so, that kicked the question to president biden in october of 2021. and again, the cia and fbi failed to meet the deadline. president biden announced on october 22 that the agencies could continue to withhold material, but they had to deliver something by december 15. last week, we got 10% of the 15,000 documents that still have read actions -- redactions leaving 14,000, which are supposed to be released a year from now. frankly, i do not believe it. they have blown the deadline twice. and on the third time around, they give us 10% of what the law requires. so, clearly the cia does not want to obey the law. they keep evading the

requirements, they have done it three times. so i am not sure we will ever see these records. but according to the law, they are supposed to be released a year from now. that is the big picture. they have blown the deadline twice. and most of these records have been seen before. not a lot of surprises in here. probably, out of those 1491 documents, most of which are from the cia, 900 of them, we have seen these documents before for the most part. only a couple of them seem to be entirely new. a couple of fbi documents. but the important thing is to step back and look at the big picture, right? which is, what have we learned since the documents began to come into the record? now, some people say there is no smoking gun. and they tried to end the conversation there. that not looking at, it's avoiding what these records tell

us. what we have learned since the 1990's is the official story that one man came along and killed the president and another guy killed that man and it, no politics involved, that explanation was never credible, and has gotten less credible over time. a couple things we have learned since the mid-1990's from the new records really stand out. one, the story that this man, lee harvey oswald, came out of nowhere and we did not know anything about him, that is nonsense. the cia knew all about him, they had been following him for four years. they monitored all of his actions. every piece of paper in the federal government from the fbi, the state department, the office of naval intelligence, the marine corps, which oswald was in, all the information about oswald went to the counterintelligence staff, run

by james angleton. i talk about this in my book, "the ghost." the idea he came out of nowhere, shot the president, it is simply not true. let's say oswald shot the president. i am not sure he did, but say he did. the fact remains we now know top cia officials, very senior undercover operations officers, were fully informed about lee harvey oswald's movements, his personal life, his political beliefs and even his contacts with brillion ash with brazilian foreign intelligence agents. brazilian foreign agents were known to top cia officers at six weeks before kennedy was killed. and when kennedy was killed and oswald arrested, the cia pretended they did not know anything about him. that pretense, we did not know anything about that guy, we now know that that was a lie. it was a lie from the start -- it was a lie from the start. that line has continued to this

day. really, what we learned from the release last week, is they are still holding back the whole story. host: we have calls for you. let's start with ralph in new york. thank you for calling. go ahead. caller: good morning. i've got three questions for your guest. i'll be brief. the first one, we never got an answer for why oswald waited until kennedy got on elm street when he had a clear shot on houston street, for no other reason. the second question is, jacqueline kennedy, if you look her closely her head is right in , front of the president's head, so it seems like if he was shot from behind it she would've been assassinated. if you watch the film closely, his left shoulder bounces off the back of the seat cushion, so he is really floored. i thank you.

guest: the caller made some good questions. if oswald was in the sixth floor window, he had an easier shot as the motorcade approached as opposed to when it was going away. and what we see is in the eyewitness testimony of the people at the scene, we see that a lot of people thought there was gunfire from different directions. the caller is right, it is a mystery. if that is the explanation, that oswald was acting alone, why didn't he shoot earlier? jackie kennedy's position during the assassination, she is the closest eyewitness to what happened. now, jackie kennedy never believed the official story that one man alone killed the president. she believed the president was killed by his domestic enemies. she and bobby kennedy conveyed that message. this is one of the things we

have learned since the 1990's, jackie kennedy and bobby kennedy told a friend, who is going to -- who was going to the soviet union in 1963 after the president was killed, they said, here is a message to the leaders of the soviet union, there is talk oswald was a communist. we do not put stock in that. we believe the president was killed by domestic enemies. bobby kennedy said, if i regain the presidency i will continue my brother's policies. jackie and bobby sent a very friendly message to the soviet government, saying, we do not buy this business about oswald being a communist or the president was killed by a communist, we believe he was killed by domestic enemies. that was a strong belief. bobby kennedy held that belief for the rest of his life. host: in georgia, michael. caller: good morning. i was five years old when this happened and it was mine 9/11 up until my adulthood.

the day he was assassinated, -- the haste with which he was assassinated and then buried. that told me everything. my question is, if you think the privy -- think the cia was privy to what oswald was doing, do you think other upper echelon people in the government might've known also? thank you. guest: very good question. i was five years old also win at -- when that happened, so we come to this with the same experience. i remember sitting around a black-and-white tv, and i knew something big had happened. that was all. it is a very good question. what did people in the upper echelons of the cia know about oswald? there was a group of top officials, the chief of operations in the western hemisphere, the chief of operations in mexico city, the assistant to counterintelligence

chief james angleton, the assistant to deputy director richard helms. all these people were informed about oswald's movements six weeks before the assassination. what did they know? what did they make of oswald? this is part of why people still want the rest of the story, because we do not have a good explanation. the cia has never explained. i hope that people will go to the cia and ask, now that we have most of the records, 95% of them, does the cia have an explanation for why so many top officials knew about the man who supposedly killed the president and did not do anything. what is the explanation. we do not have a good explanation. that is why people are still interested. host: congress took this on under the warren commission. what do you think about those conclusions? guest: the warren commission was operating at the mercy of the cia, so i think the commission

did not have access to all of the information and i think they were misled by the cia. i do not think, i know. on the day of the assassination after oswald was arrested, people went to the cia and said do you have anything on this guy, this former marine who had lived in the soviet union? the cia said, we have a handful of documents, five records about him. a newspaper clipping and a few other things. that was the story on november 22 in 1963, the cia said we have five records. that was a lie. the warren commission found out that the cia had other records, so they went back to ask them for them. 10 weeks later, 10 weeks, the cia admitted, no, we did not have five documents, we had 42 documents on him, that were collected over the course of four years. the cia deputy director, richard

helms told the warren commission under oath that the information they had on oswald was "minimal." in fact they knew his politics, they knew his personal life, and they were reading his mail. that is how closely oswald was watched. everywhere he went, the cia was updated about his movements, where he was living, what he was doing. the cia was well-informed. they basically watched oswald come back from the soviet union, go to texas, go to new orleans. he went to mexico city. the cia knew about that. he came back, he was living in texas. the cia was informed that lee harvey oswald was in texas on november 15, 1963. that's how much they knew about him. after the president was killed, and oswald was arrested, then killed, the cia played dumb and said, we do not know anything about this guy. that was a live.

-- that was a lie. basically what we found out last week is they are still lying. one important thing did happen last week. i get calls on 1491 documents coming out, is there a smoking gun in there? you cannot do historical research on a newspaper deadline, on an internet deadline, it does not work. you have to spend time with it. but one thing jumps out at me. i haven't gone through all of them yet but i am getting there. one thing that is important to understand is i believe that now the pre-assassination, the cia's pre-assassination file on lee harvey oswald, all the information they collected on him from 1959 to november 21, 1963, those documents have been declassified in full, for the first time. think about that. it has been 58 years, and only last week did we have a completely unredacted copy of

all of those records. so, what does that mean? why did it take 58 years to declassified the file on lee harvey oswald? that is a good question and one that jfk researchers will begin to try to answer now. we do not have an explanation from the cia, they are still playing dumb. still withholding records. so we face this problem of a cia that does not want to obey the law, and has not provided all the records, but we are beginning to get to the complete historical record of kennedy's assassination, and that is an important step. host: can we take another call? moses in minnesota. go ahead. caller: yes, good morning. i really appreciate your journalistic work here. have you seen the oliver stone jfk revisited? great program. guest: i was interviewed in it. yes, i have seen it. caller: very good.

i must say that my take on this whole thing is when people start talking about no one is above the law, you better believe there is. eisenhower warned us of it and jfk got in the crosshairs of it, when he did not give air support in cuba in that stupid cia operation, they were not happy. he was going to cut their budget by about 30%, he wanted to shatter it into a thousand pieces because they were too powerful acting outside of the , law. and they are still doing that today. arlen specter was the one working on that commission for him. i cannot believe they put dulles on there. the guy who gets fired ends up being on the commission. that guy was one of the weirdest dudes i have ever seen. if you watch that movie, you will see how creepy he is at the bottom line is the cia took out , the president and nobody has been accountable for it.

that shot came from the front. people went running after that shot that came from the front. because they wanted to chase down this guy. host: we will let the guest answer. thank you. guest: yeah, a month after kennedy's assassination, former president harry truman, the 33rd president, wrote an editorial in which he called for the abolition of the cia. now, truman did not talk about jfk's assassination in the column, and he never publicly linked his opinion to kennedy's assassination, but there is no doubt that truman's call for the abolition of the cia was a direct response to the assassination of kennedy. harry truman knew more about the cia than anybody. he was the one that signed it into existence in 1947, let me say reluctantly. initially, harry truman was against the creation of a central intelligence agency, a

peacetime intelligence agency. he said, we do not want an american gestapo. because a peacetime secret intelligence agency he viewed as a threat to the democratic process. two years later, the cold war is heating up, truman wants a source of information and he relents and allows the creation of the cia, signs it into existence. when he is signing it into existence he is saying, we have to make sure we do not have an american gestapo. he still had that same concern about a secret police. 14 years later, kennedy was killed, truman had had enough, and he said let's abolish the cia. so the concern about the cia and kennedy's assassination started immediately, and at the top of the u.s. government, it started with harry truman. and then 58 years later, we see an agency that is refusing to comply with the law. a law passed unanimously by congress.

they have blown two deadlines, now three. people, they simply do not believe the cia on this question. this is why the cia needs to make these documents public. they have no credibility on jfk's assassination. host: we were talking about the statement from this white house concerning the release. they put out a statement on october 22 saying temporary continued postponement necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operation, law enforcement or the conduct of foreign relations with such gravity it outweighs the public interest. similar to what you heard from the last administration. guest: when you look at these documents and you look at what is redacted, you know, identifiable harm to the national defense, nothing, nothing that was released last week would've harmed the national defense if had been released four years ago. i guarantee you that.

nothing rose to that level of seriousness. there may still be things still being withheld. i believe there may be true national security information in these records, but it is a tiny percentage. it's not 14,000 documents, which continue to have redactions. host: our guest is jefferson morley, talking about the new jfk assassination documents released. mike in massachusetts, good morning. caller: good morning. this very important subject for me. i was alive during the day of kennedy. i have a question, and my question is when batista ran cuba before fidel castro came into power, the gambling was -- gambling industry was on the rol l of a lifetime. kennedy's failure to rid cuba of fidel castro cost the gambling industry a fortune, because they were literally run out of cuba.

my question is, going past the cia, i think -- i was wondering, is there the possibility that those in charge of the gambling industry, knowing that they were all too pleased when kennedy disappeared from the scene, did they have a role in putting kennedy away? i would like to know if you could comment on that. it is a tough question. host: ok, thank you. we will let him answer. guest: the caller's right, the gambling industry was very big in havana in the late 1950's. they were building hotels, they had extremely favorable income tax provisions, and they had a free hand, basically. they were making lots of money. when fidel castro took power, and had a left-wing government, they were driven out and they lost lots of money and they were very bitter about it.

and they wanted to regain their standing. i think in recent years, i have not seen evidence that suggests organized crime were the intellectual authors of the assassination. i do think the fact jack ruby killed lee harvey oswald and jack ruby was a man that aspired to be an organized crime figure, he had friends in organized crime, i think the assassination of lee harvey oswald is a sign of organized crime involvement in the events of 1963. i do not think that organized crime organized the assassination of the president. host: let's hear from mary lou in connecticut, you are next. caller: good morning. yes, that is true what you just said, fidel castro was behind the killing of bobby and jack kennedy, because jack and bobby kennedy were going to kill fidel castro. and he said, oh no, they are not

going to kill me, i'm going to kill them. and they were connected to the chicago mafia through their father in the prohibition era. and so, when they said that jack ruby was from fidel castro -- fidel castro arranged their hand with lee harvey oswald because neither one of them are smart enough to ever pull off something like that. this was -- fidel castro is absolutely responsible for the killings. guest: there is no evidence of that. there is no evidence that fidel castro was involved in kennedy's assassination. it's simply not true. but let's keep our eye on the

news and what is going on now. but no castro is not withholding 14,000 documents from the u.s. public, he is dead. fidel castro did not have anything to do with kennedy's assassination. fidel castro said on the day after the assassination, this is very bad news. kennedy was a man beginning to make moves towards peace with cuba. castro was very disappointed and upset about kennedy's killing because it made life more difficult for him. he had seen hope for reconciliation with the united states under kennedy, perhaps in his second term, and this is why kennedy's enemies hated him, because he did not invade cuba, not during the bay of pigs or the cuban missile crisis. so the idea that fidel castro was behind the assassination, that was a notion that the cia put out after the assassination, but there is no factual basis to it. host: why do you think that

after all these years, the assassination still holds fascination with people? guest: because the government has never provided a credible explanation. because the cia has been lying about it. like i said, on day one they told the first lie about the assassination, and lies have continued ever since. when people get a lot of lies, and they are asked to believe a story that is not credible, then they come up with -- then people are searching for an answer. the reason the kennedy assassination story endures is because we do not have a good explanation of what happened. and we have a secret intelligence agency that continues to withhold documents of the murder of a president, 58 years later, in defiance of the law. what else are people going to think but they must be hiding something serious, otherwise why would they come clean? think about it. if it is so cut and dry, this

guy up and shot the president, case closed. it was -- if it was very simple, why did it take 50 years to declassify the oswald file? that is something the cia cannot explain. the cia has this big jfk problem like they did not have a credible story to tell and they have a lot to hide. that is the reality we are facing right now. host: who is responsible at the national archives to watch over the material? guest: the national archives, they work with the agencies. the agencies are supposed to pass on any jfk records they have in their possession, the archives puts them out to the public. but the archives is a big government agency, with a budget of about $350 million a year. they are dealing with a cia, a $15 billion year agency. in that situation, the archives is not in a position to dictate anything to the cia. to the contrary, the cia

dictates to the national archives. if they do not want to release something, even though the law calls for it, the archives is not really in a position, they do not have the force to enforce the law. in the 1990's, when we had the jfk review board, you had an independent agency that could go to the cia or fbi and say, we want this document, we will make it public. and the agency had to comply. there is no independent authority now, which is why the cia feels they have this sense of impunity. congress passed a law for the jfk records, but at the cia they said, we do not feel like obeying that law, so we will not obey it. and trump went along with them, and biden went along with them. that is the power they have. congress passes a law, they do not want to obey it, they don't obey it. host: this is from edison, new jersey.

stephen is next. caller: good morning. i believe what this man is saying, he is absolutely right. i wonder if he has come across the james file confession and david atlee phillips, if he noticed those two names. guest: the caller referenced james files. a man in prison, i think he got out recently, who claimed he was the assassin, that he was the one who shot the president. files does not have any independent corroboration of his story, so it is hard to know what to make of it. he could have, based on what he said, i think he could've learned all the things he said from reading the literature of the assassination. i do not know. i do not disbelieve it. i don't believe it. i just think we don't know enough whether we should credit that story.

you referenced david atlee phillips. he was mentioned i james files. he was a senior operations -- he was mentioned by james files. he was a senior operations officer in the cia. he is one of the senior officers that i mentioned before, who knew all about oswald before the assassination. there is a big file on david atlee phillips that remains with many redactions and we did not see any of that last week. he is a person of interest to jfk researchers. he knew a lot about lee harvey oswald before the assassination, when he was called in the investigation he told a bunch of stories about oswald. some of them contradictory. he could not keep his stories straight. another reason why people are skeptical about the cia's role. i mean, if it is so simple that oswald shot the president, why would you tell so many different stories about him? that is a good question about david phillips, there is

a lot of information that has not been made public about him. host: have you or any other journalist that you know of tried to get information about the assassination through their freedom of information act? guest: we have. i spent 16 years in court with the cia pursuing records. i obtained a bunch of material. i was looking for information about cia propaganda operations involving oswald. this is another one of the revelations we have had since the 1990's. it turns out that the people who immediately sought to blame kennedy's assassination on cuba, on fidel castro, were repeated -- paid -- were paid cia agents working under a program called amspell, and we only learned in the last 15 or 20 years just how much amspell was controlled by the cia and run by the cia. so, the president is killed and cia assets are immediately

putting out the story, cuba is to blame. well, why did they do that? who was behind that? my lawsuit under the freedom of information act was designed to get at that question, who were the officers that knew about the operation. and we learned a fair amount about that, but the cia stonewalled, and they were backed up by the courts, so a lot of the story, we never got. why were cia genera -- why were cia assets generating propaganda about oswald, before and after the assassination? there is a document on the amspell program that is heavily redacted. it was not released. so, we have important information about cia operations around the accused assassin that are still secret. this is the problem we face. host: jim in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. hi. caller: i want to know if

anybody has asked robert f. kennedy junior about the cia? he spoke in milan, italy on november 16. guest: robert kennedy junior, the son of rfk, has said he believes his uncle, president kennedy, was killed by a conspiracy from within his own government. i do not know if he has talked about the cia specifically, but he believes his uncle was killed by enemies in the u.s. government, and he has said that repeatedly over the years. host: we'll hear next from david. david is from missouri. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to ask your opinion on a book i'm sure you have read. tom hartman from free-speech tv and a co-author of his,

partnering with a journalist, he had a book on this and it coincides with the organized crime and the cia being involved. thank you very much. guest: i have read tom hartman's book. i do not agree with all of it, but the picture he paints, the situation in 1963 that kennedy was in, the forces against him, i think his book is good on that particular -- on the setting of the assassination and what happened. who kennedy's enemies were at that time. host: we have a viewer who asked, you referenced him, but wanted to know more about jack ruby, what you think is important to know about him at this stage? guest: jack ruby is the man who killed lee harvey oswald, the supposed assassin of the president. why did he kill him? ruby was asked afterwards.

his lawyer told him, say you did it to spare jackie kennedy the pain of a trial. so that is what ruby mouthed. that became like, yes, he was trying to spare jackie kennedy. that is a preposterous claim. jack ruby ran a strip club, he was a pimp. he beat up people. his best friend was a dog. he had no feelings for jackie kennedy whatsoever. and he despised bobby kennedy, because of his efforts to prosecute organized crime figures. i interviewed a woman that knew ruby well. she contacted me through my website. she had been a dancer in his club, and they became friends. ruby was sweet on her. he asked her to marry him, she said it was ridiculous. i asked, why did he kill oswald? she said, i asked him, he did not really answer, but i will

tell you one thing, i do not think he had a choice. i said what do you mean? she said, everybody works for somebody. jack worked for people. and i think he had to kill him. i do not think he had a choice. i said, who was it? she said, i do not know. she was 20 at the time, but she was convinced ruby did not have a choice in killing oswald. that he had to do it. so, ruby was in jail, in dallas, and chief justice warren came to visit him. he said, if you take me back to washington i will tell you the whole story. this is to chief justice earl warren. earl warren did not do that, because he did not want to know. so they never brought ruby back to washington, to testify, to explain what he said was the whole story. so ruby stayed in jail and died of cancer three years after, four years after the

assassination. host: this is patty in connecticut. caller: relating to that, ruby was visited by dorothy, and she got all the information from him and she was bragging that she was going to release it all and that of course she died an untimely death. they said she was on drugs. allegedly, the rumors were that lyndon johnson was behind it because he was being brought before congress on corruption the same day as the assassination. can you talk about that? guest: it is true that lyndon johnson was under investigation, his sidekick, a man named bobby baker had been implicated in various corruption schemes, and johnson was under investigation for that. it's not clear whether kennedy

was going to keep johnson on the ticket in 1964 or not. there was some speculation he might replace him. i don't think kennedy had made up his mind. i do not see evidence that johnson was involved in the assassination, but i think he knew instantly what had happened. and that is why, after oswald was killed, johnson and j. edgar hoover got together on november 25, two days after the assassination, three days after, and they agreed they would investigate and find that oswald alone had killed the president. johnson and hoover were very specific. we need to cut off speculation about oswald's motives and his associations. very quickly, people at the top of the government realized the most convenient truth was this guy did it and nobody else is responsible, and we will not investigate anybody in the u.s. government involved in it. so, they decided what they wanted to find before the

investigation had even begun, before kennedy had been buried, johnson and hoover decided they had the solution. one guy did it alone for no reason. the warren commission ratified that finding but it was never particularly credible. it simply wasn't. people say conspiracy theories, it was very simple and this has been driven up by conspiracy theorists. but that is not true. pollsters went out a week after the assassination and did a statistically valid poll of 1000 people, what do you think happened, who was responsible? in the two polls, 60%-70% of the people in dallas and nationwide said more than one person was involved. at that time, there were no conspiracy theories. oliver stone was in boarding school in pennsylvania. it wasn't conspiracy theorists

who came up with more than one person being involved, it was the circumstances of the crime that created that belief. it was not conspiracy theorists. it was the simple facts of the matter. and the government's explanation, this guy did it alone, you know, people never believed it. they did not believe it right after the assassination, and hoover time -- and over time, that explanation has gotten less credible. with all the information we got in the 1990's, has become even less credible. so the official theory has failed. it does not explain what happened on november 22, 1963, so we still do not know. host: one more call from zanesville, ohio. caller: good morning, c-span. host: you are on. go ahead. caller: the question i have is, does he put credence in the theory that somehow the secret

service accidentally, from the limo behind the president's car, accidentally shot him? guest: it's nonsense. there's no evidence to support it. photographic, eyewitness, forensic evidence. it's one of those things that people make up. it is unfortunate that that story is still around. the guy who offered the theory retracted it under threat of legal action. no, it is nonsense. host: to finish up, if you had full access to the documents, where would you start? guest: i would start with those propaganda operations around oswald, before and after the assassination. that is the most suspicious thing we have. why was the cia trying to blame the crime on cuba right after kennedy was killed? we still do not have a good explanation of who was behind that and what they were trying to achieve by that?

that is where i would start. host: jefferson morley is the author of several books. his website is jfkfacts.org. thank you for your time. happy holidays to you. coming up, how other countries are responding to covid, particularly in light of omicron. our guest is medics global president and ceo sigal atzmon, and we will talk to her about what she has seen worldwide, when "washington journal" continues. ♪ announcer: c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including charter communications. >> broadband is a force for empowerment. that is why charter has invested in building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small.

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