Not in Your Lifetime: The Defining Book on the J.F.K. Assassination (55 page)

Road map: Robert Blakey, in introduction to
The Final Assassinations Report
(see
Report of the Select Committee
in Bibliography).

16. Viva Fidel?

246
     Liebeler: Hearings, XI.414.

Delgado: VIII.241.

Oswald spring letter: XX.511, Oswald undated letter date is best fixed between March 23 and April 2, see Albert Newman,
op. cit.
, p. 328; also XXII.796; reports of policemen Harkness and Finigan, who observed “unidentified white male” with pro-Castro placard.

247
     FBI reading FPCC mail: XVII.773, report by FBI agent Hosty, referring to information supplied by informant on April 21, 1963.

1962 envelope: FBI exhibit 413 in National Archives, envelope from FPCC to Oswald, postmarked “1962,” found among Oswald’s effects after the assassination. The address on the envelope narrows the date down to the period August 4 and October 8, 1962.

Late May letter to FPCC: XX.512.

FPCC reply: XX.514—letter is dated May 29.

248
     Printing: (Jones) Report, pp. 407, 728; XX.771; XXII.797; XXV.587, 773; (Mailer’s) XXII.800; XXV.770–.

Note 1
: When interviewed by the FBI after the assassination, however, neither Jones employee questioned thought that the man who ordered the leaflets—using the name “
Osborne”—looked like the FBI photograph of Oswald. An employee at a company that printed other material, however—and who said his customer used the name “Osborne”—did identify Oswald from a photo. (Kaiser,
op. cit.
, p. 212, citing FBI documents).

“Hidell”: Report, pp. 578, 615; (Marina signs) Report, p. 578; (handwriting experts) HSCA VIII.238; see also Chapter 5,
supra
.

Note 2
: Only one person has acknowledged familiarity with Oswald’s use of the name Hidell in advance of the assassination. That is Oswald’s wife, Marina, who eventually said Oswald persuaded her to sign the name in the space for “President” on his New Orleans Fair Play for Cuba Committee card. Handwriting analysis indicated she did indeed do this.

Worker
letter: XX.257.

Port demonstration: XXII.806 (report of Patrolman Girod Ray).

249
     Library visits: New Orleans FBI report dated November 27, 1963, FBI 105-82555, Section 12, www.maryferrell.org.

Seminary visit: XXV.926–; (with Murret) HSCA IX.95.

Corr. Soviet Embassy: I.35; XVI.10–20; XVIII.506.

250
     Bringuier visit: XIX.240; XXV.773; (next day) X.37; XXVI.768.

Oswald-Bringuier incident: XI.358; XXV.90, 773; XXVI.348, 578, 768; CD 6.223. int. Bringuier, 1978; Bringuier,
op. cit.
, p. 25–.

251
     Martello/Austin: James/Wardlaw,
op. cit.
, p. 12.

Oswald/editor: XXI.626.

Long John Nebel call: “If Ruby had Missed, They Would have Listened,” Bob Consadine column,
New York Journal American
,
February 28, 1964[?]
in FBI 105-82555-A.

August 16 incident: X.41, 61, 68; XVI.342; XXV.771; CD 206.216–; CD 114.629; CD 75.69–.

Radio interview: X.49; XI.160–.

252
     Debate: X.42; XI.171; XVII.763.

Warren Commission rationale: Report, p. 412.

253
     August 1 letter:
Oswald to Lee, August 1, 1963, FBI 105-38431, www.maryferrell.org.

254
     Bringuier call to supporters: XIX.175.

255
     CIA , FBI & Army Intelligence clandestine ops.: Sen. Int. Cttee.,
Performance of Intelligence Agencies
, p. 66; HSCA Report p. 224; int. John Marks, author of
CIA and the Cult of Intelligence
(see Bibliography), quoted in Anson,
op. cit.
, p. 284.

“We did everything”: int. Joseph Burkholder Smith, 1994.

“We have in the past”: article in Dallas newspaper (uncited), filed by FBI, August 5, 1963, obtained from researcher Paul Hoch.

257
     John Glenn: Hearings, House Committee on Un-American Activities, November 18, 1963.

258
     “the undersigned”: NARA 104-10308-10163, dated July 10, 1963.

259
     DRE and Bringuier: HSCA X.81n; (CIA memo) CI/R&A (Counter Intelligence Research and Analysis), “Garrison and the Kennedy Assassination,” June 1, 1967, and Enc. 6 to CIA CI/R&A memo for the record, April 3, 1967; and see John Newman,
op. cit.
, Bringuier refs.; (Borja) HSCA X.85; CIA memo addressed to Deputy Director for Support, May 1, 1967; and CIA document C5A, February 11, 1963.

Hunt on Phillips: HSCA testimony of E. Howard Hunt, Pt. II, November 3, 1978, p. 29, released under JFK Records Act.

260
Note 3
: Though this author as yet sees no cause to doubt Stuckey did get the Oswald briefing from the FBI, the historian David Kaiser did express doubt in his 2012 book
The Road to Dallas
. (McMillan,
op. cit.
, p. 352—citing letters from Stuckey, especially that of January 4, 1976, obtained by author from a confidential source; Hearings XI.162, Kaiser,
op. cit.
, p. 225.)

Quiroga: CIA memorandum, c. May 1967,
re

“CIA involvement with Cubans and Cuban Groups Now or Potentially Involved in the Garrison Investigation”; see also Newman,
op. cit.
, p. 600, source 87, and Quiroga index refs.

Butler/INCA: XXII.826; John Newman,
op. cit.
, p. 342–; (and CIA memos) May 3 & July 20, 1965, August 1, 1966 & July 28, 1970, file A-135263, released to National Archives, 1995; (production manager) Weisberg,
op. cit.
, p. 51.

261
Warren Report on exposé: Report, p. 729.

FBI record re. Stuckey: John Newman,
op. cit.
, p. 343.

Oswald initiative: Quigley report of August 27, 1963, FBI 62-109060, JFK HQ file, Section 173.

Quigley meeting: XXVI.95–; X.53; XVII.758.

Quigley 1961: IV.432–, testimony of Quigley.

262
     FBI & Oswald security case: Sen. Int. Cttee.
, op cit.

Performance of
Intelligence Agencies
, p. 89–.

Note 4
: The case was only reopened several months later, when FBI agent James Hosty—in Dallas—drew attention to a fresh Oswald contact with
The
Worker
.

Garner: int., 1978.

263
Note 5
: Asked by the Assassinations Committee why they had not submitted affidavits for the Warren Commission, both agents said they had not been told to do so. The other agent was Warren De Brueys.(XVII.816; affidavits entered into record at XVII.74; not asked: HSCA Report, p. 191n, 193n; and see
VF
, December 1994.)

Commission and “informant” allegation: HSCA XI.41; and see discussion in this author’s book
Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover
,
op. cit.
, p. 320–.

Pena: XI.343, 356; XXV.671; XXVI.358; Weisberg
, op cit.

Pena allegation about FBI:
The American Assassins
, Pt. II, CBS News, November 26, 1975.

De Brueys denied: HSCA Report, p. 193, and author’s conversation with De Brueys, 1978.

Note 6
: Pena was eventually beaten up by somebody—it has been suggested it was because of his allegations.Pena also alleged after the assassination that Oswald had been in his bar one night just before the fracas in the street with Bringuier and the anti-Castro Cubans. Pena, reportedly backed up by two associates, said Oswald visited the bar accompanied by a Mexican. In front of the
Warren Commission, however, he vacillated and seemed to withdraw his acount. He later revived the allegation, however. His claim that Oswald had been in his bar accompanied by a man who seemed to be Mexican, may not be implausible, as the unfolding story will show (beaten: Weisberg,
Oswald in New Orleans
, p. 303; allegation: see Pena sources above).

Pena secured release: XI.358.

Note 7
: Another New Orleans witness, a garage manager named Adrian Alba, alleged covert official contact with Oswald. What Alba saw, he said, occurred while Oswald worked at the William Reily Coffee company, the job he held from shortly after his arrival in New Orleans to his arrival in mid-July—just before he launched into the public phase of his pro-Castro activity. Oswald, Alba said, made frequent visits next door to chat with him—a statement substantiated by the fact that an Oswald fingerprint was found on a gun magazine Alba had kept in his office.

In a deposition to the Assassinations Committee and in an interview with the author, Alba claimed that he had seen an FBI agent pass Oswald an envelope. There are, however, serious problems with this allegation. Alba had said nothing of this in testimony to the Warren Commission years earlier. The best he could offer to explain his later supposed recall, moreover, was to say that the memory of having seen the envelope handover was triggered by seeing a TV commercial. Alba told the author he had been fearful of telling the whole story in the months after the assassination. The Committee, however, judged his information “of doubtful reliability.” (int. 1978, & reported by private researcher Ian Ma
cF
arlane, December 23, 1975;
Dallas Morning News
, August 7, 1978; (fingerprint) CD 75.455–; (HSCA comments) HSCA Report, pp. 146, 193–,.)

264
     Burton: interviews with Joseph Burton, 1994;
Orlando Sentinel Star
, July 4, 1976;
Tampa Tribune
, June 24, 1976;
New York Times
,
February 16 & 24, 1975; interviews with Dick Burdette, Rory O’Connor, and (re V. T. Lee) Rob Lorie, Julie Browning, 1994.

COINTELPRO, etc.: Schlesinger,
Robert F. Kennedy and His Times
, p. 641–.

265
     Kaiser wrote: Kaiser,
op. cit.
, pp. 207–, 230-.

Note 8
:
While the FBI and the CIA stuck firmly with their denials, anomalies continued to surface. The Assassinations Committee was troubled to discover that the FBI had failed after the assassination to use the resources of its Cuban Section, the department most obviously equipped to analyze Oswald’s connections in New Orleans. Was that omission, like the FBI’s almost nonexistent efforts in the Mafia area, attributable to institutionalized inertia? (HSCA Report, p. 128).

17. Blind Man’s Bluff in New Orleans

267
     Oswald gives Quigley documents: XVII.758–762; IV.437; HSCA X.123. 544 Camp Street address on pamphlet: XXVI.783.

268
     CRC at Camp Street: Report, p. 408 & this chapter.

269
     Second copy of pamphlet: FBI document 97-74-67; CD 75.690–; CD 984b.

FBI investigation of “544” pamphlet: XVII.811; FBI serial 97-74-1A4 and 1A5. The most thorough study of FBI treatment of this area has been done by independent researcher Paul Hoch. And
cf
. John Newman
, op cit.

Report suggests: Report, p. 408.

HSCA criticism of FBI: HSCA X.126, 124.

Newman inquiry: CD 75.680–; CD 1.64.

270
     Further twenty: XXIV.332, 337; letter of February 7, 1968, from NARA to Paul Hoch, states that of twenty copies seized in Dallas, nine bear no address, ten bear the Camp Street address, and one bears an illegible address.

Oswald to FPCC: XX.512 (May 26, 1963); XX.514 (FPCC reply); XX.518 (Oswald reply); XX.524 (Oswald on closure).

271
     Newman: FBI serial no. 89-69; CD 75.680–; CD 1.64; Secret Service reports December 3 and 9, 1963.

Rodriguez: XXIV.659; CD 4.819; Secret Service report December 1, 1963 (Rodriguez Sr.); int. of Rodriguez Jr., March 7, 1979, by Earl Golz of
Dallas Morning News
.

272
Note 1
: As reported in
Note 7
, Chapter 16, Oswald worked for some time at the William Reily Coffee Company. The Crusade to Free Cuba Committee, was formed to raise cash and support for the CIA-backed Cuban government-in-exile, the Cuban Revolutionary Council. (Milton Brener,
The
Garrison
Case
:
A Study in the Abuse of Power
, New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1969, p. 47.)

272
     Banister: sources on Banister include HSCA X.123, Weisberg,
Oswald in New Orleans
, pp. 51, 327–, 337–, 364, 380, 391, 410; author’s ints. with Banister’s secretaries Delphine Roberts (1978 and 1979) and Mary Brengel (1979); Banister’s brother Ross Banister (questioned by William Scott Malone, 1978); author’s int. Jack Martin, former Banister investigator, 1978; int. Joe Newbrough, Banister investigator, by William Scott Malone, 1978; author’s int. attorney John Lanne, 1978; author’s int. Aaron Kohn, New Orleans Crime Commission, 1978; int. Sam Newman by Scott Malone, 1978.

273
     Banister and Friends of Democratic Cuba: from New Orleans Court records, FODC Articles of Incorporation, May 17, 1967.

274
     FBI & Banister’s address: CD 75.683, report of FBI Agent Wall, November 25, 1963.

Note 2
: The author Gus Russo has suggested that the physical layout of the building precluded access between the side on which the Banister office was situated and the offices on the Camp Street side. As explained to this author, however, Mancuso’s restaurant on the first floor afforded access to both parts of the building. As the building has long since been demolished, there can be no certainty. Direct access or no, the two sides of the corner building were only yards apart. (Russo,
Live by the Sword
, p. 196–)