Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (50 page)

It was here that Banister became embroiled in right-wing causes. A
member of the John Birch Society, Banister also was a member of the
Minutemen, the Louisiana Committee on Un-American Activities, and the
publisher of a racist publication entitled Louisiana Intelligence Digest.
Reportedly an alcoholic, Banister was later described as "a tragic case"
by a member of the New Orleans Crime Commission.

With the advent of Fidel Castro, Banister threw himself into the antiCastro Cuban activity in New Orleans. He helped organize such antiCastro groups as the Cuban Revolutionary Democratic Front and Friends
of a Democratic Cuba.

According to an April 25, 1967 story in the New Orleans States Item,
Banister even served as a munitions supplier during the planning stages of
the Bay of Pigs Invasion. In fact, Banister employees have said that as late
as 1963, guns of every type littered Banister's office.

Banister also ran a network of young informants on the campuses of
Tulane and Louisiana State universities, collecting what he hailed as the
largest file of anticommunist intelligence in the South.

Jerry Milton Brooks, a former Minuteman who worked for Banister,
said he would regularly take Banister's updated files to the New Orleans
FBI office where they were integrated into the Bureau's files. Brooks also
said Maurice B. Gatlin, another Banister employee who regarded the
younger Brooks as a protege, once said: "Stick with me-I'll give you a
license to kill."

Although Banister's files were scattered after his sudden death in 1964-he
reportedly died of a heart attack before authorities could question him
about his contacts with Oswald and the assassination-some idea of their
scope can be found in indexed titles made public by Louisiana lawmen.
"Central Intelligence Agency," "Ammunition and Arms," "Civil Rights
Program of JFK," and significantly, "Fair Play for Cuba Committee" and
"International Trade Mart" are just a few of these titles.

Banister's operation was right in the thick of New Orleans intelligence
activities, located near government offices and just around the corner from
the Reilly Coffee Company, Oswald's employer and a supporter of antiCastro Cuban exiles.

On at least two separate occasions, Banister employees saw Oswald
handing out pro-Castro literature and reported it to their boss. In one
instance Banister simply laughed, and on the other, he told his secretary
Delphine Roberts: "Don't worry about him . . . He's with us. He's
associated with the office."

Roberts also said she saw Oswald at 544 Camp Street, and that he filled
out one of Banister's "agent" application forms. She later told author
Anthony Summers: "Oswald came back a number of times. He seemed to
be on familiar terms with Banister and with the office."

Roberts's daughter had a photography studio at 544 Camp Street and
she, too, recalled Oswald:

I knew he had his pamphlets and books and everything in a room
along from where we were with our photographic equipment. He was
quiet and mostly kept to himself, didn't associate with too many people.
He would just tell us "hello" or "good-bye" when we saw him. I
never saw him talking to Guy Banister, but I knew he worked in his
office. I knew they were associated. I saw some other men who looked
like Americans coming and going occasionally from the room Oswald
used . . . I got the impression Oswald was doing something to make
people believe he was something he wasn't. I am sure Guy Banister
knew what Oswald was doing .. .

One of the things that Oswald and Banister might have been doing
involves the small town of Clinton, Louisiana. Located about ninety miles
northwest of New Orleans, Clinton was a small community of about
fifteen hundred people in 1963. Like most small towns, it was difficult to
keep the townspeople from knowing just about everything that went on
there-especially if it involved strangers.

In 1963, the civil-rights program was gaining strength throughout the
South. That summer would become known as "civil-rights summer" and
tiny Clinton was one of the communities targeted for a black voter
registration drive by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Tension in
Clinton was high. Earlier in the summer, several blacks were arrested there
simply for writing appeals to the mayor and district attorney.

One morning, between August 22 and September 17-a time when
Oswald's whereabouts remain officially unaccounted for-a long line of
blacks waited to undergo the then-tedious process of registering to vote.
Local police stood nearby, watchful for any breach of the peace. The
incident that morning-pieced together from several witnesses-began
with the arrival of a large, black Cadillac carrying three men. After parking near the registrar's office, one of the men-a slightly built white
man-got out and joined the line of blacks. Later, witnesses were unanimous in identifying the man as Lee Harvey Oswald.

The registrar, Henry Palmer, had more to go on than just looks. He later
recounted: "I asked him for his identification and he pulled out a U.S.
Navy I.D. card . . . I looked at the name on it and it was Lee H. Oswald
with a New Orleans address." Palmer said Oswald told him he wanted to
get a job at a nearby East Louisiana State Hospital and thought he would
have a better chance if he was a registered voter. Oswald was told he had
not lived in the area long enough to qualify as a voter and, after thanking
Palmer, he returned to the Cadillac.

Meanwhile, Town Marshal John Manchester had approached the car,
but left after speaking to the driver, whom he later described as "a big
man, gray-haired, with ruddy complexion."

New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison later tried to prove that the
driver was Clay Shaw, the defendant in Garrison's JFK assassination plot
trial in 1967.

Today many researchers believe the driver might well have been Guy
Banister. But what would Banister [or Shaw], Ferrie, and Oswald be doing
in Clinton? One suggestion-that fits the facts-is that the trio were somehow involved in the FBI's Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO).
It is now well established that COINTELPRO was a ruthless long-term
Bureau program designed by Hoover to disrupt and discredit political
groups he opposed. The notorious wire-tapping of Dr. Martin Luther King
is just one example of this program.

It appears that by late summer 1963, Oswald was playing a dangerous
game-caught up in a mixture of CIAand FBI-related agents who were
operating largely on their own and in touch with both anti-Castro Cubans
and organized crime.

Despite the contacts between Oswald and both current and former FBI
agents-plus the evidence of advance warnings of the assassination to the
Bureau-the Dallas tragedy still occurred.

While no unquestioned case for FBI involvement in the assassination
can be made, there is now no doubt that the Bureau manipulated the
subsequent investigation. In fact, FBI activities after the assassination fall
into the realm of criminal behavior. Consider:

Suppression of Evidence: Examples include the loss of Beverly Oliver's
assassination film which she claimed was taken by FBI agents; the disappearance of an assassination bullet taken from under the noses of a police
guard by an FBI agent; the suppression of testimony, such as Ed Hoffman's, which failed to support the lone assassin theory; and the failure of
the Bureau to follow important leads, even when requested to do so by the
Warren Commission.

Destruction of Evidence: Examples include the destruction of an Oswald
note by FBI Agent Hosty; the destruction of a license-plate number on a
photograph of General Edwin Walker's home found intact among Oswald's
possessions; and the immediate cleaning of the presidential limousine,
which effectively destroyed vital ballistic evidence.

Intimidation of Witnesses: Examples include Richard Can, who saw two
men run from the Texas School Book Depository but later was told by FBI
agents, "If you didn't see Lee Harvey Oswald in the School Book
Depository with a rifle, you didn't witness it"; Ed Hoffman, who was told
by a Bureau agent, "You'd better keep quiet, you could get killed"; and
Jean Hill, who said she was hounded by Bureau agents until she stopped
giving media interviews.

In any normal criminal case, such behavior would constitute a jailable
offense, but this was not an ordinary case, and the culprits were not
ordinary citizens but FBI agents. If a local police agency proves to be
corrupt, the FBI can be brought in to investigate. But in the case of the
Bureau-who watches the watchers?

Also consider the documented matter of warnings that Oswald would be
shot while being transferred from Dallas Police Headquarters. An anonymous telephone call was received at the Dallas FBI office at 2:15 A.M.
Sunday, November 24, 1963. The caller warned that Oswald would be
killed during the transfer to the county jail later that morning. The police
were in charge of the transfer and apparently the Bureau decided not to
step in. There was no significant change of plans and by that afternoon,
Oswald was dead.

Since there can be no question that in 1963 the FBI was personified by
J. Edgar Hoover, the questions of means, motive, and opportunity must
fall on his shoulders. Did Hoover have the means of committing the
assassination'? Surrounded by countless informers, agents, and former
employees-many of whom were in contact with Lee Harvey OswaldHoover's means were limitless.

Hoover's motives are obvious. First, his hatred of the Kennedys was
notorious, and second, he was justly fearful that upon re-election John
Kennedy would not allow him to continue as FBI director. This fear was
well founded. Rumors in Washington were plentiful that Hoover would be
eased out as FBI director after Kennedy's re-election in 1964.

William Hundley, former head of the Justice Department's organizedcrime section, is quoted in The Director as saying the thing that finally
destroyed the fragile relationship between Hoover and Attorney General
Robert Kennedy was:

... that Bobby mentioned to too many people who complained to
him about Hoover that, "Look, just wait," and we all got the message
that they were going to retire him after Jack got re-elected and Hoover
hit seventy. And it got back to him.

Presidential aide David Powers stated he believes that the question of
Hoover's retirement was the subject of one of the very few private
meetings between Kennedy and the Bureau chief: "[Hoover] had a long
lunch with the President and Bobby [on October 31, 1963,1 and, as you
know, three weeks later we went to Dallas."

But did Hoover have the opportunity? Hoover built his immense power
base by currying favor with men more powerful than himself. It is
extremely unlikely that Hoover-the ultimate bureaucrat-would have
assumed the responsibility for initiating the assassination.

However it is certainly plausible that Hoover-once having discovered
the assassination plot through his network of agents and informers-caused
it to happen simply by not preventing it. Of course this is tantamount to
criminal complicity and would have required substantial manipulation of
testimony and evidence to prevent discovery of the Bureau's role.

Hoover would have needed help. And help he had-in the form of the
new president, his former neighbor and dinner friend Lyndon B. Johnsonanother man about to lose his job thanks to the Kennedys.

However the question of the protection of the President must be taken
into account. Could this protection be circumvented? Could a plot to
assassinate a U.S. president succeed without in some way neutralizing or
involving the Secret Service?

On the day of his inauguration, Thomas Jefferson walked from the
Washington boarding house where he was staying to the Capitol without
benefit of any protection.

It was symptomatic of the young Republic that presidents had not yet
acquired the mantle of royalty and thus did not require protection.

This naivete began to change after an assassination attempt on President
Andrew Jackson on January 10, 1835. An English-born housepainter
named Richard Lawrence aimed two pistols at Jackson as he walked out of
the Capitol. However, both weapons misfired. Lawrence was determined
to have been insane and was incarcerated for the remainder of his life.

In August 1842, a drunken painter threw some rocks at President John
Tyler, who was walking on the White House grounds. Congress soon
passed an act creating an auxiliary watch of the Washington Metropolitan
Police for the protection of public and private property consisting of a
captain and fifteen men. Although the act was primarily aimed at protecting property-particularly the White House-it was the crude beginning of
presidential protection.

Protection was more pronounced for Abraham Lincoln, who guided the
nation through the emotional years of the American Civil War. From the
moment of his election in 1860, Lincoln was the object of hate mail and threats. During his inauguration, unprecedented protective measures were
taken-especially in light of a threat to kill Lincoln as he passed through
the city of Baltimore. Union soldiers guarded strategic points all along his
way to Washington and the inauguration platform.