On the Right

SOME critics of Tony Blair have pounded on the point that one of the four bombers had been identified by the security people as mischievously connected with aggressive elements of the Muslim community.

So why had they not brought him in? The innocence of the question recalls the questioning of J. Edgar Hoover by the Warren Commission in 1964, inquiring into the assassination of President Kennedy. Was it not known to the FBI that Lee Harvey Oswald had been active in a pro-Castro political organization in New Orleans?-Yes, we knew that. Didn’t we know that he had left the U.S. Marines and declared himself a Communist, marrying a Russian girl and setting out to live in the Soviet Union before returning home?-Yes, we knew that. Wasn’t it known that he had traveled to Mexico City, where he might have conspired with Fidelistas to break U.S. laws?-Yes, we knew he had been there. Well, how come on November 22, 1963, he was squatting there in the Texas School Book Depository, a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle in his hands, at liberty to assassinate the president of the United States?

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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SOME critics of Tony Blair have pounded on the point that one of the four bombers had been identified by the security people as mischievously connected with aggressive elements of the Muslim community.

So why had they not brought him in? The innocence of the question recalls the questioning of J. Edgar Hoover by the Warren Commission in 1964, inquiring into the assassination of President Kennedy. Was it not known to the FBI that Lee Harvey Oswald had been active in a pro-Castro political organization in New Orleans?-Yes, we knew that. Didn’t we know that he had left the U.S. Marines and declared himself a Communist, marrying a Russian girl and setting out to live in the Soviet Union before returning home?-Yes, we knew that. Wasn’t it known that he had traveled to Mexico City, where he might have conspired with Fidelistas to break U.S. laws?-Yes, we knew he had been there. Well, how come on November 22, 1963, he was squatting there in the Texas School Book Depository, a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle in his hands, at liberty to assassinate the president of the United States?