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Someone Would Have Talked: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History by Larry Hancock
Chapter 16
It seems very likely that the FBI was bugging
and monitoring Baker's business partners not only because of their
connection to Baker and potentially to Johnson, since Hoover always
liked to keep his options open, but also because Baker's business partners
were linked to two of the biggest names in the syndicate world—Lansky
and Dalitz.
Baker may or may not have known the implications. Hoover certainly would have,
and certainly the associates of the gambling figures would have been aware
of the potential impact of any associations with Baker or LBJ. However, what
Black certainly did know and what he very likely told John Roselli was that
Black, Baker, and a senior executive from North American Aviation had visited
with the Vice-President in his office in the Executive Office Building. Not
a long visit, only 15 minutes or so, but long enough to leave an entry in the
official visitors log; long enough to produce concrete evidence that Johnson
and the Vice President's office were part of Baker's influence peddling. This
visit was recorded in the Vice President's daily log for August 21, 1963, while
Baker's firm was consolidating its control over the lucrative vending machine
business for North American and is provided in Appendix A.
There is no doubt that Johnson's association with Baker and his business partners
could have exposed LBJ to blackmail. The only questions are whether or not
this was communicated to Johnson himself, and whether the approach may have
been directly from Roselli. However, as with the Oswald damage control, actions
and timing can provide further insight. Johnson's reaction to the Baker scandal
becomes visible in the Vice-President's official diary for the months of October
and November of 1963. These diaries were maintained by Johnson's secretaries
and are immensely detailed, recording virtually all of the Vice-President's
activities, often including the time he went to bed and his recreational activities.
They are available through the Johnson Library.
The legal proceedings and Congressional investigations of Baker began in September
of 1963, and by October the pressure was such that Baker was forced to resign
his position with the Democratic National Committee.
