What Was The Role of David Herold

[JMadonna]

(02-02-2013 03:34 AM)John Fazio Wrote:  Jerry:
Your reasoning re the passes is sound and I am going to take account of it in my writing. Nevertheless, I am troubled by the fact that neither Cobb nor Fletcher says or even hints at anything about passes in their statements and testimony at the trial. It seems to me that if Booth and Herold had passes, Cobb would simply have said so, thereby getting himself off the hook. The notion that he was covering for Johnson under Stanton's coaching is, in my opinion, most unlikely. I do not believe either man would have risked the slightest imputation of wrongdoing in the circumstances.

John,
Thanks for the compliment, but the fact is that Cobb was coached as exhibited by the excerpt in the archives. He didn't lie on the stand but he was masterful in avoiding any mention of the criteria he used to pass Booth & Herold. He was still in the army and more on the hook to his superiors than he was in the court of public opinion.

(02-02-2013 03:34 AM)John Fazio Wrote:  If Johnson gave the fugitives passes, he would have been much better served by simply acknowledging the fact and asserting that he did so in perfectly good faith, than to cover it up, risk exposure and the consequent wrath of the country and removal from office.

John, your opinion on this point is legally sound but not the way things are done in Washington. Acknowledging such an event would have killed Johnson's presidency immediately and probably continued the war. As it was, he got away with covering it up.

(02-02-2013 03:34 AM)John Fazio Wrote:  As to the future, I am in the final stages of a book on the assassination, tentatively titled Lincoln's Assassination: Toward a Consensus. The material that just appeared in the Courier is from the book.

Can't wait to get a copy.
Jerry