Nicholas Katzenbach was
born in in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
on 17th January, 1922. After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy
he joined the United States Army Air Force
(USAAF). During the Second World War he was
captured by enemy troops and spent two years as a prisoner of war
in Italy.
After the war Katzenbach
attended Princeton University and Yale Law School. While at Yale he
was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal.
Katzenbach also received a Rhodes scholarship and studied at Oxford
University for two years. In 1950 he became a lawyer in New Jersey.
In 1952 Katzenbach became Associate Professor of Law at Yale University.
He was also Professor of Law at the University of Chicago (1956-1960).
He was also the co-author of The Political
Foundations of International Law (1961).
Katzenbach joined the justice
department's Office of Legal Counsel and in April 1962, was promoted
to deputy attorney general, the second highest position in the department.
Katzenbach worked closely with President John
F. Kennedy
and was given the task of
securing the release of prisoners captured during the Bay
of Pigs raid on Cuba.
A supporter of civil
rights Katzenbach oversaw departmental operations in desegregating
the University of Mississippi in September 1962 and the University
of Alabama in June 1963. He also worked with Congress to ensure the
passage of the 1964
Civil Rights Act.
On the advice of Robert
Kennedy President
Lyndon
B. Johnson
appointed Katzenbach as
Attorney General of the United States. In this post he helped draft
the Voting
Rights Act. Katzenbach
clashed with J.
Edgar Hoover over
his policy of ordering unauthorized wiretaps of people such as Martin
Luther King. Katzenbach resigned in 1966, stating "he could
no longer effectively serve as attorney general because of Mr. Hoover's
obvious resentment of me."
President Johnson then
appointed him Under Secretary of State on 21st September, 1966. Johnson
also appointed Katzenbach to a three-member commission charged with
reviewing Central Intelligence Agency activities.
After Johnson resigned Katzenbach returned to private law practice
in Princeton, New Jersey.
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
Nicholas Katzenbach, memorandum for Bill Moyers (25th November, 1963)
It is important that all
of the facts surrounding President Kennedy's Assassination be made
public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and
abroad that all the facts have been told and that a statement to this
effect be made now.
1. The public must be satisfied
that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who
are still at large; and that the evidence was such that he would have
been convicted at trial.
2. Speculation about Oswald's
motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis for
rebutting thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the
Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing conspiracy to blame it
on the Communists. Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too
pat - too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.). The Dallas
police have put out statements on the Communist conspiracy theory,
and it was they who were in charge when he was shot and thus silenced.
3. The matter has been
handled thus far with neither dignity nor conviction. Facts have been
mixed with rumour and speculation. We can scarcely let the world see
us totally in the image of the Dallas police when our President is
murdered.
I think this objective
may be satisfied by making public as soon as possible a complete and
thorough FBI report on Oswald and the assassination. This may run
into the difficulty of pointing to in- consistencies between this
report and statements by Dallas police officials. But the reputation
of the Bureau is such that it may do the whole job. The only other
step would be the appointment of a Presidential Commission of unimpeachable
personnel to review and examine the evidence and announce its conclusions.
This has both advantages and disadvantages. It think it can await
publication of the FBI report and public reaction to it here and abroad.
I think, however, that
a statement that all the facts will be made public property in an
orderly and responsible way should be made now. We need something
to head off public speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong
sort.
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