The JFK Assassination: A Conversation with Warren Commission Lawyer and Author Burt W. Griffin on Investigating the Murder of a President
Murder Sheet
MurderSheet
3.8 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 22 November 2024
⏱️ 97 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode was originally published on The Murder Sheet's main feed on November 22, 2024.
Over six decades ago, Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. A week later, President Lyndon B. Johnson tasked the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy (commonly known as the Warren Commission, after named after chairman, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court Earl Warren) with investigating the assassination.
Well recently, we interviewed a lawyer who worked on that commission: Burt W. Griffin. Judge Griffin was assistant legal counsel to the Warren Commission. He recently authored a book on his experience investigating the murder: JFK, Oswald and Ruby: Politics, Prejudice and Truth. He spoke to us about his initial reaction to the assassination, why the lawyers on the commission wanted there to be a conspiracy afoot, and what he learned as he dug into the case.
Support your local book stores! Check out JFK, Oswald and Ruby: Politics, Prejudice and Truth here or wherever you buy your books: https://bookshop.org/p/books/jfk-oswald-and-ruby-politics-prejudice-and-truth-burt-w-griffin/19990053?ean=9781476687766
Check out other books from Griffin's publisher McFarland at McFarlandBooks.com.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Content warning, this episode contains discussion of murder, including graphic description of gunshot injuries. |
| 0:06.5 | When it comes to the assassination of John, President John F. Kennedy, the President's commission on the assassination of President Kennedy was tasked with investigating what happened. |
| 0:20.0 | And of course, that is known popularly as the Warren Commission. |
| 0:25.4 | And I think one thing is worth noting when you have a presidential commission or a formal |
| 0:31.2 | commission where they appoint distinguished men and women, certainly those distinguished men and women play a very important |
| 0:39.4 | part in the proceedings, but by and large, in many cases, it's actually the staff of that commission |
| 0:47.1 | that does all the day-to-day detail work of investigations or what have you. And so I was really thrilled and delighted that we got the chance |
| 0:58.4 | recently to have a couple of conversations with a former staff member of the Warren Commission. |
| 1:04.1 | Yes, this was former Warren Commission Assistant Counsel, Bert W. Griffin. Judge Griffin is an |
| 1:09.9 | attorney with a very distinguished career. He worked as the |
| 1:13.7 | executive director of the Cleveland Legal Aid Society, as well as the national director of the |
| 1:18.8 | Legal Services Program with the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity. And then for many, many years, |
| 1:24.5 | he served as a judge in Ohio. Most recently, he's added author to that resume. So he wrote an excellent book called J.F.K. Oswald and Ruby, politics, prejudice, and truth. And in this, he really got into his own experience serving on the Warren Commission and the investigation into the Kennedy |
| 1:45.8 | assassination. This is our first episode with him. We're going to be talking to him again later |
| 1:50.9 | on about kind of a specific topic that is really within his expertise because Judge Griffin |
| 1:56.5 | actually was one of the attorneys focusing specifically on the investigation into Jack Ruby, |
| 2:02.6 | who, of course, shot and killed presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. |
| 2:07.1 | So we have a whole episode coming up just where we talk to him about nothing but Jack Ruby. |
| 2:12.3 | But since this is approaching the anniversary of the assassination, we wanted in this episode to focus on the assassination of President Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald. |
| 2:24.3 | This is a case that I've been interested in for many, many years. |
| 2:29.7 | And so, again, I can't say enough. |
| 2:31.7 | It was a real thrill and very exciting to me to get to talk to someone who was there who played such a crucial role in the investigation of this crime. |
... |
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