“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 MacFarlane, 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–)
Note 3: For treatments of the Garrison investigation, see especially Patricia Lambert, False Witness, Landham, MD: Evans & Co., 2000, James Kirkwood, American Grotesque, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970. Also Edward Epstein, Counterplot, New York: Viking Press, 1968; Rosemary James and Jack Wardlaw, Plot or Politics!, New Orleans: Pelican, 1967; Paris Flammonde, The Kennedy Conspiracy: An Uncommissioned Report on the Jim Garrison Investigation, New York: Meredith, 1969; Joachim Joesten, The Garrison Enquiry, London: Peter Dawnay Ltd., 1967 & Jim DeEugenio, Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case, New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1992. See too articles in Ramparts, January 1968 by former FBI agent William Turner, and Playboy, October 1967 (interview with District Attorney Garrison). Garrison himself wrote two books, A Heritage of Stone (New York: Putnam, 1970), and On The Trail of the Assassins (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1988).
275 Banister’s widow: int. Mary Banister by Andrew Sciambra (New Orleans District Attorney’s Office), April 29 & 30, 1967.
Index cards and files: HSCA X.130–; and Garrison, Heritage of Stone, op. cit., p. 98–.
Banister hire young men: HSCA X.127.
Campbell brothers: ints. June 1979.
276 Note 4: Allen Campbell’s 1969 statements draw on a May 14, 1969, interview by the New Orleans District Attorney’s Office, reported in Garrison, op. cit., pp. 100, 208n59. In his 1979 conversation with the author, Allen Campbell claimed he had not actually been at 544 Camp Street in summer 1963. That time, however, is when his brother Daniel said Allen brought him into the Banister operation. Both brothers indicated they had more information to provide but were nervous about doing so.
Banister angry: HSCA X.128 (Nitschke and Roberts).
Delphine Roberts: ints. 1978, 1993; (background) New Orleans States-Item, December 16, 1961, November 3, 1961 & January 18, 1962; and Roberts’s election manifesto, January 27, 1962; HSCA X.128–; HSCA Report, pp. 145, 146n.
279 Note 5: Along with other criticism of this author’s work, the author Gerald Posner suggested in his 1993 book on the case (op. cit.) that Delphine Roberts had retracted her statements about Oswald, and implied that she had only given an interview to the author for money. Neither assertion is accurate. Roberts gave the author the information reported here spontaneously and without payment. She was subsequently paid a fee for a filmed interview in connection with a film documentary project on which the author was a consultant. It is common practice to pay such fees for television appearances, to compensate interviewees for their time and the resulting exposure, and the company concerned paid in that spirit. For her part, and after the Posner claims, Roberts confirmed in 1993 that she stood by her story as told to the author in 1978.
Delphine Roberts’s daughter: int. 1978.
Ross Banister & Nitschke: HSCA X.128.
Alba: HSCA Report, p. 146.
280 FBI interview of Banister: HSCA X.126.
CIA and Banister: HSCA X.126.
281 CRC local representative (Sergio Arcacha Smith): CIA document 1363-501, Security File on Arcacha, dated October 26, 1967; CD 75.683, reports of FBI Agent Wall, November 25, 1963; int. of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Rolfe, New Orleans District Attorney’s office, January 13, 1968; Arcacha’s own curriculum vitae; CD 87; New Orleans Police Arrest Report, August 30, 1961 (item No. H-13903-61); HSCA X.11, 61; report of Secret Service Agents Gerrets, Vial, and Counts, December 3, 1963; HSCA X.61.
Note 6: On March 9, 1962, 544 Camp Street’s owner, Sam Newman, wrote to the CRC regarding rent arrears. The letter was addressed personally to Antonio de Varona, the CRC leader who reportedly—at the initiative of Santo Trafficante played a part in the CIA-Mafia plots to murder Castro (copy of letter in files of William Scott Malone).
Caire: XXII.828; (& Oswald) XXII.831.
Bartes: HSCA Report, p. 144; & see John Newman, op. cit., multiple refs.
282 Ferrie background: HSCA IX.103; HSCA X.105; CIA document 1359-503, February 7, 1968; FBI reports from New Orleans, November 26, 1963; CD 75.287–; New Republic, “Is Garrison Faking?” by Fred Powledge, June 17, 1967; Ramparts, January 1968; Arcacha letter to Eastern Airlines official Captain E. Rickenbacker, July 18, 1961; (bombing) article in El Tiempo, New York, March 1967.
Note 7: For detail on Ferrie, the author has drawn largely on research by Stephen Roy (writing as David Blackburst), who has specialized in studying Ferrie. (e.g. www.jfk-online.com/dbjmaadf.html).
Ferrie letter to Air Force: “Garrison’s Case,” New York Review of Books, September 14, 1967.
283 Ferrie Cuba speech: James/Wardlaw, op. cit., p. 46.
“The President ought”: Secret Service report by agents Wall and Viater, November 27, 1963.
“An electorate”: in notes found in Ferrie’s effects after his death.
Banister “bullet”/“ballot”: anecdote told by Aaron Kohn, Metropolitan New Orleans Crime Commission.
Ferrie demonstration: James/Wardlaw, op. cit., p. 111.
284 Ferrie and Oswald:(CAP) HSCA IX.103; VIII.14; XXII.826; (Ferrie denied re CRC)
HSCA X.132n; (Banister employee on Ferrie and Oswald) HSCA 1X104, re Jack Martin.
285 Paradis: int. 1993.
Note 8: According to Ferrie researcher Stephen Roy, Oswald joined the CAP’s Moisant squadron, while Paradis was in the Lakefront squadron—which Oswald only visited. (www.jfk-online.com/dbdfcapfile.html)
Old photograph: Frontline, “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?” WGBH-TV/PBS Boston, November 1993.
Ferrie’s homosexuality: see Ferrie sources supra.
Note 9: In August 1961, when Ferrie was arrested in connection with an episode involving a runaway boy, Arcacha Smith—the prominent Cuban exile who that year began using an office at 544 Camp Street in New Orleans—intervened on his behalf. (www.jfk-online.com/dbarcback.html)
286 Oswald homosexual?: (party) report of November 30, 1963, by Agent Joseph Engelhardt, FBI file No. 89–69;(bars) Edward Epstein, op. cit., p. 620n3, and Gerald Posner, op. cit., p. 21; (Murray) VII.319; (Powers) interview by Robbyn Swan, 1994, and see VIII.269.
Note 10: Jack Martin, an associate of Ferrie and of Guy Banister, claimed Ferrie once told him about a youth who had witnessed a sex act in which Ferrie had taken part. The youth then joined the Marine Corps and left New Orleans. The FBI dismissed Martin’s various claims as those of a disreputable character with a grudge, but the House Assassinations Committee was less dismissive (HSCA IV.485; HSCA IX.104; HSCA Report, p.142).
A 1967 CIA headquarters message, reported in an Assassinations Committee staff summary, made the following bald assertion: “Lee Harvey Oswald was a homosexual.” A CIA internal critique of the Committee document, however, said this was a distortion. According to the critique, the original document said homosexuality was merely “a possibility” raised by the media covering New Orleans’ D.A. Jim Garrison’s assassination probe. (HSCA Mexic
o Report, p. 237, and HSCA Box 6, No. 7, re Sylvia Durán in CIA release, 1993)
“Recruiting officer”: CE 1454; FBI transcript of Les Crane TV program, New York, August 21, 1964.
Birth certificate: HSCA IX.99–; (Ferrie fakery) refer to HSCA Ferrie analysis, supra, and (another example) see John Davis, Mafia Kingfish, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989 p. 158–, re Ferrie’s role in forgery of a birth certificate for Carlos Marcello; (Martin)www.jfk-online.com/dbjmaadf.html.
287 Oswald, Marines, and Socialism: Report, p. 383–; (“baloney”) HSCA IX.107.
288 Andrews: XI.326–, 331; XXVI.704, 732.
Note 11: Other evidence that supposedly linked Oswald to Ferrie—made much of in New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s investigation and failed trial—involved the alleged sighting in Clinton, a small Louisiana town, of Oswald, Ferrie, a man who resembled Banister, and Clay Shaw. Shaw, a prominent New Orleans businessman and a former CIA contact, was to be charged by Garrison with conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. In early September 1963, according to witnesses Garrison produced, these men arrived in Clinton during a voter registration drive that the Congress of Racial Equality—CORE—had organized to get black citizens to vote. The witnesses included the town’s registrar, its marshal, a leading member of CORE, and others—who seemed persuasive. A drive for racial equality appeared to fit Oswald’s political profile, while his supposed companions—Ferrie, Banister, and Shaw—were of the opposite persuasion. The House Assassinations Committee found the sources of the Clinton story “credible and significant,” and the author included the Clinton episode in earlier editions of this book. In 1998, however, the author advised readers of new research—still being prepared—that would likely cast doubt on the entire matter. That research, published in a 2000 book by author Patricia Lambert, effectively demolishes the Clinton story. It is therefore not given space in the text of this edition. The author suggests that interested readers refer to Lambert’s book, False Witness (op. cit.). Other sources on Clinton have been (background: Robert F. Kennedy by Arthur Schlesinger, p. 303; transcripts of evidence in trial, State of Louisiana v. Clay Shaw, 2/6–769; ints. Edwin McGehee (barber), John Manchester (town marshal), William Dunn (CORE worker), Henry Palmer (registrar of voters), Reeves Morgan (state representative), Maxine Kemp (hospital secretary), & former police Intelligence officer Francis Frugé, 1978; HSCA Report, p. 142. See also Gerald Posner, op. cit., Mailer, Oswald’s Tale, op. cit., p. 621–, Probe (pub. by Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination, ed. by Jim DiEugenio), June and July 1994.