Latest / The Lone Gunman Podcast : JFK Assassination / Ep. 247 ~ Crimes Against Cuba

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Ep. 247 ~ Crimes Against Cuba · The Lone Gunman Podcast : JFK Assassination

0:04
Remember like Bob Clark and Dumb Campbell, they actually devoted their show what was
0:10
it called the lines of the lines of Futcher Party? What right show?
0:15
Yeah? What an embarrassment. I mean, everything is going to hell down
0:24
here, Inductor, don't we take that back? Don't see don't come side?
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Well yeah, run it right here? What's up? Everybody? Welcome
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to the show The Visual Boy, Big Bad Vibe. This is the Lone
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Gumming Podcast. This is episode number two hundred and forty seven. That's right,
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two four seven. We're open twenty four to seven. Baby gotta somewhat
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of a cool show. I guess more of a mia Kalpa. But it's
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always better that the truth be known rather than lies. That's right. So
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Thank me later, pace and we're back. So let's get right into it,
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and not to the major mia colpa needs to be taking place here,
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but more of a clarification if you will. Now, some months ago I
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had my friend Fred Litwyn on the show and he made the assrotation that there
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never was and Oswald handbill, let's it hands off Cuba with the forty four
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Camp Street address on it, that there is just not one available either in
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evidence or online that predates the Oliver Stone movie, and feels that this is
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merely a movie prop that got somehow introduced into the lore of Oswald and the
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handbills and four Camp Street, and which is of course a very big thread
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in the movie. While it is true that we do not have a handbill
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hands off Cuba pamphlet that Oswald was handing out with that address on it,
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at least to my knowledge, I could be wrong, but there was something
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contemporary to Oswald handing out information and pamphlets along with leaflets that did in fact
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bear the address of five forty four Camp Street and the rubber stamps and FPCC,
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which would be fair play for Cuba Committee five forty four Camp Street,
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New Orleans, Louisiana. Now, when Oswald was arrested after the Canal Street
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Francis with Carlos Brynier, either he asked for the FBI or they came willing
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to interview Oswald. Either way, at the end of his interview with the
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agent, quickly Oswald turned the reverse some examples of his FPCC literature that he
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had been distributing and describing this literature. In his report, agent quickly noted
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that one was a pamphlet called The Crime against Cuba by Corless Lamont, and
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the FBI agent noted various details of the literature given into it given to him
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by Oswald, including the number of pages in the Lamont pamphlet. What quickly
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failed to note in an electrifying bit of evidence that appears on page thirty nine,
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which quickly must have looked at in order to write his report, that
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there were thirty nine pages in the pamphlet, and at the bottom of that
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page and black letters of an inch rub stamp is the following inscription FPCC four
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Camp Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. So they're prominently stamped on the material
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that Oswald purposely turned over to the FBI on August tenth, nineteen sixty three.
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Is astounding evidence that places the origin of the pro Castro literature in the
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very building that housed Guide Banister and his rapid band of anti Castroites, and
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at the very address that had been used by the Cuban Revolutionary Council headed by
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Sergio Ocasia Smith. There can only be speculation about whether Oswald meant to provide
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such a powerfully suggestive lead to the FBI. What is certain, though,
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is that the FBI, either through calculated omission or pure ineptitude, later passed
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some of the information onto the Warren Commission without explaining or even noting the bewildering
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tradiction raised by the presence of the stamped address four Camp Street. An understanding
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of this apparent contradiction could help unravel the persistent mystery of oswald strange activities in
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New Orleans. The foundation for such an understanding lies and grasping Oswald's association with
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Guide Banister and David Ferry. Soon after Oswald's arrest in August, the shadow
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of forty four Camp Street was cast over Clinton, Louisiana. That is a
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little town one hundred and thirty miles northwest of New Orleans, where numerous credible
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witnesses saw Oswald with David Ferry and a man who may have been Guy Banister.
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Now, of course, in the movie and throughout time, people have
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speculated that it's individual Juel. This older, gray haired gentleman with Faery and
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Oswald was Clay Shaw. But it makes a lot more sense if it was
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God Banister. And so piecing together the accounts of the various Clinton witnesses,
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it appears that Oswald was going through the motions of seeking employment in the area,
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or at least trying to register to vote. There is no conceivable reason
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why he would want to work in an unfamiliar town some one hundred and thirty
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miles from New Orleans. However, the time of this sighting by the Clinton
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witnesses does coincide with the time period of August twenty second to September seventeenth,
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for which Oswald's general whereabouts have never been established, despite intense efforts to do
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so by researchers as well as federal investigators. So what could have been the
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purpose of the visit to Clinton by Oswald, Ferry, and possibly Banner Banister.
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The most coherent analysis of the matter is found in critic Hal Hawks newsletter
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Echoes of Conspiracy. Hawk points out that during the summer of nineteen sixty three,
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an intense voter registration campaign was underway at the small Louisiana town. It
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was under the sponsorship of the Congress of Racial Equality otherwise known as CORE.
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During the early sixties, CORPS was one of the most potent and active of
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the civil rights groups, and there were numerous confrontations between blacks and whites in
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the South as a result of core efforts. One of the most common charges
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made by segregation this against CORPS, as well as against other civil rights groups,
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was the claim that it was a Communist front group. It was not
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unusual for an entire organization like CORPS to be characterized and smeared because of the
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alleged pro Communist associations of just one of its supporters. Given the well established
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racy's attitudes of Banister and Faery, it is not unreasonable hawks suggest to consider
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the possibility that an effort was underway to use Oswald to link for to the
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pro Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and if that were the case,
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anyone who participated in such a scheme would have a good reason for wanting to
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conceal the story and their own participation. Such participants would predictably run for cover
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following the assassination, no matter how unrelated the two events might have been.
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However, proof of Oswald's manipulation in this fashion would open new doors in all
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directions, particularly in terms of Oswald's associates. In the book Conspiracy, with
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any Summer's reasons that such an effort could have been connected to the FBI's so
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intel pro exercises a massive domestic spying operation going on during the sixties that only
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began to be exposed in nineteen seventy two. If true, that would involve
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the FBI with its ex agent Banister at the Helm in an effort to smear
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CORP with a purported pro commonness like Oswald. There's nothing necessarily far fetched about
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this scenario. Indeed, it represents a thoroughly rational, if speculative, explanation
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for the presence of Oswald, Banister, and Ferry in Clinton. If this
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is so, then where does it leave Oswald in terms of his true allegiance
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and this murkiness? One can consider Oswald was either an active and cognizant agent
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of Banister and Faery, or as a person who was not aware of what
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purpose he was serving. In light of other known factors, it seems more
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reasonable that Oswald really was not certain what he was what he was doing.
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Conversely, it is just as likely the Banister and Fairy, as well as
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the elements for whom they were acting, knew precisely what they were doing and
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the truth about that remains locked in the mysteries of five four Camp Street.
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We are we are reading here from the great Bulk Reasonable Doubt by Henry Herd.
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So let's let's take a left turn for a second into the world of
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psychedelics, shall we? Nothing better than that? So in November nineteen sixty
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three, after seeing pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald and hearing his recorded voice,
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Edward Gillen, then an assistant DA in New Orleans, contacted federal authorities with
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an extraordinary report. He told the FBI that during the preceding summer, a
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young man he believed to be Lee Oswald, had come to his office to
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ask him about an exotic mind altering drug. Oswald wanted to know if Gillan
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was aware of the drug and whether it's use was legal. Gillan, thoroughly
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plex by this strange visit, finally advised the young man to take his questions
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to the city of New Orleans chemist, who Gillan advised might be able to
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help him. The assistant DA thought no more about the incident until a few
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months later, on the weekend of November twenty second, when he believed he
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recognized Oswald and today now a respected judge in New Orleans. Gillan recalls that
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the FBI was distinctly uninterested in his information. There are, indeed, FBI
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reports of Gillan's efforts to inform the authorities. The entire matter was lost to
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sight until nineteen eighty three and three Respectable as Fascination critics presented the whole accounts
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in Rolling Stone Magazine. The authors analyzed the Gillan report in terms of what
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is known today about the history of experimentation by US intelligence with mind altering drugs
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such as LSD. One of the aspects of Gillan's report in sixty three was
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that Oswald kept referring to a book by Aldus Huxley called Brave New World,
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which discusses a mind altering drug. The FBI reported the matter reflects this that
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the agents refer to the author as Huxley and Brave New World as this Great
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World. While it seems highly unlikely if Oswald worried drug user, it would
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have escaped the notice of the numerous people he was in contact with, it
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is not at all preposterous that he should make the visit described by Judge Gillen.
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Indeed, part of The story is supported by records in the New Orleans
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Public Library, which showed that in September of nineteen sixty three, Lee Oswald
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checked out two books by Otta Huxley. But even if Judge Gillan's report is
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correct, the significance of the visit is as obscure as so many other aspects
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of Oswald's life. It is only in recent years that much has been known
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about the CIA's aggressive experimentation with mind altering drugs under various code names such as
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MK Ultra, the CIA and the fifties and sixties were involved in experimentation with
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a vast array of such drugs. The ultimate goals were to offset similar enemy
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efforts and to develop ways to control the minds of people. There is a
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massive amount of documentations showing hideously inhuman experiments conducted on people, often without their
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knowledge, much less their permission. Of the many different drugs tested and used,
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none is known to have held more initial promise than LSD. In recent
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years, evidence has surfaced showing that the Atsugi Naval Air Station in Japan,
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the base where Oswald was assigned and from which the U two surveillance planes made
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their flights over the Soviet Union might have been a center for testing LSD in
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the fifties and early sixties. The Rolling Stone article cites a report from a
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man in Oswald's unit who said that he was used in one of the LSD
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experiments. From that point, the authors proceeded with heavy speculation about how Oswald
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might have been involved with CIA sponsored LSD experiments in Japan. For many reasons,
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this possibility seems unlikely. On the other hand, Jus Gillen's report of
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Oswald's visit makes good sense. It represents Oswald waltzing into the seat of New
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Orleans authority and in an ostentious manner, and keeping with his frequent posturing,
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staging a shyly memorable visit. It seemed like a ploy, as when he
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summoned the FBI to inform agents about his fair play for Cuba Committee activities.
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The books checked out of the local library tend to support this whole story.
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What becomes clear is the Judge Gillan's report holds solid evidence. If we had
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another example of Oswald's flagrant posturing, he had managed to link himself firmly with
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the pro Castro pro communist clause. He was also associated with right right wing
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fanatics like Banister and Fairy. In the case of the Gillan visit, he
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was painting himself as a man possibly hooked on some heavy mind altering drugs.
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In fact, the only rational way the incident makes any sense is as another
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example of his posturing for the sake of creating an image for what purpose remains
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as mysterious as ever repeatedly, the pieces of evidence, in this case taking
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a Blooms seem very solid. However, when an effort is made to fit
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them into a pattern, they spell contradiction and confusion. What does one make,
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for example, of the tantalizing fact that, in nineteen sixty, more
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than three years before the assassination, a memo from FBI Director Hoover himself informed
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the State Department that an impostor might be posing as Lee Harvey Oswald, who
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was then the defector to the Soviet Union. There's no question about the validity
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of the Hoover memo on Oswald, leading one to grasp feudally for reasons why
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the FBI would show such an interest in Oswald in nineteen sixty one. Thing
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it clearly provides as a springboard for speculation. The same as true as to
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the weird circumstances of Oswald's post office box in New Orleans. Two weeks after
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he filed a change of address card, he closed his box and left the
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city. In September of sixty three, someone filled out the exact same form
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again and mailed it in from New Orleans. Who could have done this?
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Why was it done? The questions are merely typical of those that weave the
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fabric of the entire mystery. Enormous attention has been given to the possibility that,
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while in New Orleans, Lee Oswald had some sort of informant relationship with
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a federal agency, either a known agency such as the FBI, or some
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secret US intelligence organization that to this day has not been revealed. Strident denials
20:45
by officials must must be considered in light of the obvious fact that if an
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intelligence entity is unknown to the public, then its principles cannot be examined for
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the record. If Oswald had been working in the same branch of US intelligence
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unknown to the public, officials could have testified just as they did and told
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the truth. Thus, there would be no revelation that Oswald was working for
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some branch of US intelligence. There have, been, of course, absolute
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denials by the FBI and the CIA that Oswald had any relationship with those agencies.
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However, there have not been, and cannot be, denials from elements
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that have never been asked about Oswald because investigators and researchers never knew such organizations
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existed. As convoluted as this reason he is, it is nourished by the
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frustrations felt by researchers who are certain, given the whole sweep of Oswald's activities,
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that he must have been worked for someone, even if it is a
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state or local agency. In New Orleans, Frenzied attention has been given to
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a possible relationship between Oswald and the FBI. That speculation has been fueled by
21:59
a various factors, such as the nineteen sixty Hoover Memo, that are largely
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responsible for the persistence of the allegations. Finally, while loose ends proliferating into
22:10
contradictions, there is no solid evidence that Oswald had a direct relationship of any
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sort with the FBI and New Orleans. But by the same token, there
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is little or no evidence to diminish the possibility that Oswald might have served as
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a cutout as a functionary operating in some capacity once removed from an official connection.
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Such a fact function might attach to the Guy Banister operation, or to
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any work Oswald might have been doing for the Dodd Committee. Still, there
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is a wide belief among critics that Oswald did have a relationship, even an
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indirect one, with the FBI and New Orleans. Most of the allegations of
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a direct Oswald FBI link in New Orleans relate to agent Warren Debris, who
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today is the managing director of the Metropolitan Crime Commission of New Orleans. Or
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Rest pain a prominent exile associated with the CIA sponsored Cuban Revolutionary Council, also
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had a relationship with Debris and on occasion provided Debris in the FBI with information
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about Cuban exile activities. Painia and Debris or an agreement on these basic points,
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but the agreement stops there. As the owner and operator of the Albanda
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bar, which Lee Oswald is widely believed to have visited with a mysterious Latin
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fella, Painia makes the sensational claim that on a number of occasions he observed
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Debrize talking to Oswald. Paine also charges that Debris threatened him with physical harm
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if he revealed this to the Warren Commission. Debris flatly denies both of Painia's
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allegations, claiming that he never met Oswald or knowingly spoke to him over the
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telephone. The HSCA looked into these allegations, and, in light of Painia's
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evasiveness on other matters, declined to embrace him as a credible witness. The
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committee also found that official FBI record had served to corroborate relevant aspects of debris
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testimony. Another bothersome allegation that Oswald was an informant surfaced in nineteen seventy five
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when William miss Walter, which we've talked about here recently on the show Folks
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worked as a security clerk for the FBI's New Orleans office in nineteen sixty three,
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stepped forward to claiming that he personally had seen an informant file on Oswald.
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He said that when he was on duty. He said he was on
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duty the day that Asian Quigley was sent to interrogate Oswald in the New Orleans
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jail, and that after his arrest for the street disturbance, Walter claimed that
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in connection was seeking information and local records on Oswald. He happened to see
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the informant file. The HSCA considered the whole matter and then rejected it.
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Even though there is not an including of solid events that Oswald worked directly as
25:03
an operative for the FBI, the observations reported by Adrian Alba is suggestive of
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some sort of connection. It too, was rejected by the HCA, which
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found the report to be of quote doubtful reliability unquote. However, it's hard
25:21
to dismiss the credibility of Adrian Album, who still runs the set Crescent City
25:25
garage. He has never sought publicity, and he has no conceivable gain in
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promulgating the story about seeing Oswald receiving an envelope from a man to whom Alba
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had checked out a car from the Federal Government's motor pool and disputaby. Alba
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was acquainted with Oswald, and he knew the cars that he garaged and serviced
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for the Federal government. It seems unlikely that the Album a man of good
25:51
reputation. It's simply amusing himself by offering a gratuitous verication words. Even if
26:03
one supposes far that Alba saw by extraordinary coincidence not the one, and he
26:10
had checked out to the FBI agent but won't exactly like it. Then,
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who was the man handing ozwalden veloute for his identification? Shed some light on
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the operations still not understood. It's fairly clear that whatever was going on was
26:23
a contraction of elements, none of which can be understood alone or without the
26:29
benefit of new witnesses and evidence. There is no area that it's thicker with
26:34
coincidence or richer with undeveloped leads than the shifting shadows of New Orleans. It
26:41
is not likely at this late date League will ever be resurrected and pursued to
26:45
fruition. The only certainty really is the strong feeling that raucous, indomitable New
26:53
Orleans very likely of the graveyard, but the most significant clues to the mystery
27:00
of the JFK A sass Now, from that right turn, let's take a
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left turn and talk about the French notion. Now, in early nineteen seventy
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seven, Mary Farrell, the renowned Dallas archivists of assassination material, was making
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her way through a new carton of documents sportsmen the CIA by a suit brought
27:29
under the Freedom of Information Act, thousands of paige has faced her, many
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of them so apparently illegible that it's a casual observer would consider them hopeless to
27:41
decipher. In addition to the acutely poor copies, many of the documents were
27:48
so heavily obliterated with deletions that the few remaining words made little sense. And
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her twenty years of work on the JFK case, missus Farrell has never distarted
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as single document. On this occasion, she was using bright lights and a
28:04
huge magnifying glass as she poured over the papers. With these tools, she
28:10
could illuminate the passages. With a tiny ruler, she measured the spaces and
28:14
blacked out areas, counting spaces, working towards filling in deleted words. One
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of the hundreds of pages she studied that afternoon was a CIA document six three
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two seven nine six. It looked like a zeros of a zeros of a
28:30
zerocks of a faint carbon coppying. Missus Farrell declares it was possibly the worst
28:36
document I've ever seen in terms of legibility. As she began to make out
28:41
the words, missus Farrell since nothing extraordinary about the document, it appeared to
28:45
be a simple request from the French government to the US government and firing about
28:51
the whereabouts of an individual. Missus Farrell picked up as she coaxed the words
28:56
from the page perked up. She perked up. The document Day to Day
29:02
April first, nineteen sixty four, reported that the French Intelligence Service wanted help
29:08
in locating one Jean Sutra, a French oas terrorists considered a threat to the
29:15
safety of French President Charles de Gaul. In fact, Sutra had been convicted
29:23
in one instance for participation in an assassination attempt. The document noted that Degaul
29:30
planned to visit Mexico. The French had approached the FBI's legal attache in Paris
29:37
to ascertain from US authorities the last known whereabouts of Sutra in order to ensure
29:44
the safety of de Gaul. Subsequent release documents would show that Sutra had allegedly
29:49
been a suspect in an earlier assassination attempt on Degaul. But why should the
29:56
French believe that US intelligence would know the whereabouts of Sutra? The answer to
30:00
that question is absolutely astounding. The document asserted that Jean Sutra was in Fort
30:08
Worth, Texas, on the morning of November the twenty second, nineteen sixty
30:14
three. That morning, President Kennedy was also in Fort Worth, where he
30:19
made his first speech of the day in a parking lot outside his hotel.
30:25
A few hours later, JFK was in Dallas, where at twelve thirty pm
30:30
he was assassinated. Also in Dallas that afternoon was Jean Renee Sutra. Within
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forty eight hours of Kennedy's death, according to the query from the French,
30:44
Jean Sutra was picked up by US authorities in Texas. He was immediately expelled
30:49
from the United States. French intelligence wanted to ascertain whether he was expelled to
30:56
Canada or Mexico. The French also wanted to know why the US authorities had
31:00
expelled Suit. The simple purpose was to ensure the safety of de Gaull on
31:06
his pending trip to Mexico. One would expect that the US officials who reportedly
31:11
picked up Sutra in Dallas following the assassination might have an interest in a man
31:18
of his reputation. A court document later described Sutra as a quote trained and
31:23
experienced terrorist and perfectly capable of murder. Evidently, there was considerable interest by
31:30
certain officials, but it was carefully concealed from the Warrant Commission and of course
31:36
the public. There's no reason to believe the matter would have ever come to
31:41
light were it not for the routine query from French intelligence. It seems highly
31:48
unlikely that the CIA officer charged with deciding the release of secret papers in seventy
31:53
six had even an inkling of the relevant of revelations contained in this particular document.
32:00
The contents possibly would have never known would never been known if the document
32:07
had not fallen under the sharp eyes of Mary Serrell. The CIA document asserts
32:20
that the FBI told the CIA that it had nothing in its files on the
32:23
subject. The accuracy of that assertation or assertion seems questionable. Some of the
32:31
facts have been pieced together by Bernard Finsterball Jr. And Jay Gary Shaw,
32:37
who had been in hot pursuit of the French connection since learning of the document.
32:42
Among their findings is that Sutra had developed contacts with radical right wing fanatics
32:47
in Dallas and New Orleans, and that he was in touch with the anti
32:52
captured Cubans in this country. The original document asserted that Jean Sutra also the
33:00
names Michael Rowe and Michael Mertz. These were not ordinary alias as four.
33:05
As it soon became clear, Row and Mertz were themselves individuals quite separate from
33:12
Sudrum, and every bit is intriguing in their own connections. As researchers puzzled
33:19
over which of the three might be the real man who was in Dallas on
33:22
November twenty second, another wild card was shuffled into the game. It turned
33:28
out that the real Michael Rowe had been in Fort Worth visiting social acquaintances on
33:32
November's twenty second, nineteen sixty three. The subsequent release of the documents had
33:38
shown that the FBI did know Rowe was visiting Fort Worth, looked into it,
33:44
and dismissed its significance. Records showed that Rowe entered the United States in
33:50
New York on November ninete, nineteen sixty three, and left this country on
33:54
December sixth, at Laredo, Texas, on the San border. Since Road
34:01
clearly was not expelled, this seemed to rule him out, at least in
34:06
terms of being the sutra mentioned in the CIA document. Nothing official is known
34:13
about why US authorities were prompted to pick up sutra following the assassination. It
34:19
is known, however, that the least two that at least two inspectors for
34:22
Ions were given urgent orders to pick up specific foreign nationals in Dallas and the
34:29
immediate aftermath of the assassination, Ions Inspector Virgil Bailey, responding to a request
34:37
of top priority, picked up a Frenchman in Dallas whose name he does not
34:40
remember. Another Ions respector, Inspector Howe nor Would, received two urgent phone
34:49
calls from Washington ordering him to pick up another foreigner before Nora Wood could order,
34:54
I'm sorry. Before Nora Wood could respond, he learned that the foreigner
34:58
in question had already been picked up. Norwood does not remember the man's name.
35:04
No files on this matter have ever reached the public or the Warrant Commission.
35:08
It has been played pieced together by private researchers. In a brief file
35:15
in connection with the FOIA request for documents on this matter. Fenster walden Shaw
35:21
point to the reasons why French oas terrorists would be logical suspects in the assassination
35:28
of President Kennedy. And they go on this little tad tirade about Algerian War
35:37
and something about when he was still a senator, John F. Kennedy was
35:43
publicly and passionately in favor of Algerian independence. YadA, YadA, YadA.
35:49
Next to Degul, the oas had hated Kennedy the most. The point is
35:55
that Jean Sutra, or someone using his name was in Fort Worth and Dallas
36:00
times when Kennedy was in those cities. On the day of the assassination.
36:05
Michael Rowe, another French army deserter like Sutra, was paying a social visit
36:09
on the fateful day, twenty eight miles from Dallas and Fort Worth. Indications
36:15
are that the United States picked up the man believed to be Sutra in Dallas
36:19
that day and kicked him out of the country. No government agency has admitted
36:23
to having dealt with Sutra on the given day. The FBI, however,
36:29
does say that it interviewed Rose Rouse host soon after that and became confident of
36:35
rose innocence. There was one additional clue in the original CIA document, a
36:40
reference to possible contact between Sutra and a dentist named Alderson in Houston, Texas.
36:50
When researchers Shaw tracked down Alderson, the story he heard was quite different
36:53
from the official version that the FBI knew nothing of the Sutra matter until the
37:00
French query sided in the CIA documents of April the first, nineteen sixty four.
37:06
This doctor Alderson, a respected dentist and longtime resident of Houston, insists
37:12
that the FBI began tailing him immediately after the assassination and followed him incessantly for
37:17
weeks. Finally the agents approached him for an interview and the subject was his
37:23
relationship with John Sutra. Doctor Aldison is certain that this took place no later
37:30
than the end of December nineteen sixty three, and then he cooperated fully.
37:37
There is no known evidence the FBI contacted Alderson until after the receipt of the
37:42
query from the French. Given doctor Aldison's good reputation and the fact that he
37:47
has no known motive for dissembling, his position cannot be automatically discounted. John
37:54
Sutras today as the public relations director of an elegant gambling casino in France reportedly
38:00
operated by the mafia and sixty three. Sutra denied to a reporter that he
38:06
was in Dallas in sixty three or that he had any special knowledge of JFK's
38:10
death. He also denied that he knew doctor Aldison, though doctor Aldison has
38:16
not retained his correspondence with Sutra. He did produce a snapshot they took a
38:22
Sutra when they were together in France. Oh, that's kind of damning there.
38:30
Sutra, however, had one tip for the reporter. He suggested that
38:35
a man he had not seen in many years, Michael Mertz, may have
38:38
been using his name as an alias, that they were old enemies. Sutra
38:45
claimed to have been informed that Mertz on occasion did use Sutra's name. This,
38:51
of course turned things quite upside down, that it'd be that really Michael
38:54
Mertz was the man expelled from Dallas, and that he was using SU's name.
39:00
In such a quagmire, it would not be surprising for French intelligence to
39:05
have confused just who was using whose name that day. Michael Mertz was different
39:12
from the other two. Mertz had long time connections as French intelligence, working
39:17
once as an infiltrator into the OAS. This connection sealed his enemy with the
39:24
likes of Suit Drum. Mertz is even credited with once saving the life of
39:30
the goal in an OAS terrorist attack. Meanwhile, he had already become involved
39:36
in international narcotics dealing. In fact, Mertz has repeated to be a legend
39:42
of sorts in the black world of espionage and narcotic smuggling. There is interesting
39:46
speculation that Mertz could have had a connection with the CIA and some of its
39:52
more nefarious activities. Which or how many of these three frenchmen were in the
39:57
Dallas area on November twenty second is not nearly as important as the fact that
40:01
the US authorities knew at least one was there and concealed the information from the
40:06
Warrant Commission. One of the few certainties supported by documents is that both the
40:10
CIA and the FBI were aware of the French presence long before the Commission wrapped
40:16
up its work. Even more startling to contemplate is that someone representing some authority
40:22
in Washington apparently authorized to pick up and deportation of a known French terrorist on
40:29
the day of the assassination. Those agencies that could have been involved include the
40:34
CIA, the FBI, the State Department, the i NS. Given all
40:39
that is known, doctor Audison's version of events seems credible, suggesting a frantic
40:45
investigation immediately after the assassination. Whatever documentation might prove that this whatever documentation might
40:57
prove that this has never surface all these years later. With a few slender
41:05
exceptions, it is highly likely that the information remains entombed in the volts of
41:13
us and diligence. So from that crazy right turn and that crazy left turn,
41:22
let's go ahead and just make a big old U turn, head on
41:25
back to New Orleans. We're back. Two Oswald and several examples of his
41:38
pro castro propaganda. Who were the yellow leaflets he had been handing out on
41:45
the street. The third was a forty page pamphlet entitled to Crime against Cuba.
41:51
The first sight, it seemed an unremarkable tract, two years out of
41:54
date. They stilted tirade against American policy towards Yet the Crime against Cuba was
42:02
an evidential time bomb because stepped away inside the back cover, at the very
42:08
end of the text was a rubber stamped address that read FPCC four Camp Street,
42:17
New Orleans, Louisiana. Now so the I forty four Camp Street was
42:23
nondescript. It was a shabby, three storied relic of the nineteenth century healing
42:30
facade, looking across a dusty square dominated by a statue of Benjamin Franklin and
42:37
frequented but frequented by dozing and drunk. Yet the building did not fit and
42:45
fit in at all with either fair play for Cuba or its ledged New Orleans
42:50
representatively Oswald. Until the summer of sixty three, as recent tenants had been
42:55
the Cuban Revolutionary Council, the Umbrella organization of the anti Castro Exiles, and
43:01
Guide Banister Associates, a detective agency which was in fact a known meetium place
43:08
for Cuban exiles and their links to American intelligence. The building was well known
43:15
as a haven for right wing extremists, and the local FBI knew its habit
43:20
ques very well. Indeed, when Agent Quigley noticed that address on Oswald's pamphlet,
43:28
it must have struck him as a total contradiction. Yet he and his
43:31
FBI colleagues proved to be very incurious. It was not that the improbable address
43:39
escaped your attention. A few days after Oswald gave the first pamphlet that Quigley,
43:45
a second copy arrived in the mail. This one had been sent in
43:50
by a regular FBI informant who had watched Oswald's demonstration and pocketed a handful of
43:57
his pro Castro literature. FBI records show that quickly lost little time in asking
44:04
New York for information on the author of this pamphlet or less Lamont. Other
44:09
details, like a post office box number Oswald had given, were promptly checked.
44:15
Nobody apparently beamed it necessary or even interesting to investigate what should have been
44:22
utterly thought perplexing the address which did not fit. At some point, perhaps
44:29
following the assassination, somebody did draw attention to it. The pamphlet sent in
44:34
by the informant, released to the public only in nineteen seventy eight, bears
44:39
a scrawled sentence note inside back cover. There the address is circled, and
44:47
the same hand has added what appears to be quote check out une, presumably
44:57
check out A glance answer the Warner reports suggested related industry by the FBI came
45:04
to nothing carried deep in a chronology of Oswald's life, as this sentence.
45:09
While the legend KECC four Camp Street, New Orleans, Louisiana was stamped on
45:16
some literature that Oswald had in his possession at the time of his arrest in
45:22
New Orleans, extensive investigation was not able to connect Oswald with that address.
45:29
Investigation by the Assassinations Committee conducted years later on a cold trail concluded that the
45:36
FBI's effort was not through. The committee developed evidence pointing to a different result.
45:44
It buttresses suspicion that the alleged assassin was involved in some covert operation.
45:51
The address at five forty four Camp Street may also, as long as surmised,
45:55
to provide the most solid clues to a conspiracy and the assassination of President
46:01
Kennedy. Three days after the President's death, FBI agents followed up on the
46:08
Camp Street league with superficial inquiries. They interviewed the owner of the building,
46:15
Sam Newman, whose city had hurt never rented office space to for anything called
46:20
fair play for Cuba, and advised it, to the best of his knowledge,
46:24
he had no recollections of seeing Oswald in or around the building. When
46:30
the basis of a few interviews like this, the FBI failed or filed their
46:34
reports on which the official inquiry were delied. Their conclusion was and no FPCs
46:40
T office and no Oswald at Camp Street face closed. Nobody drew attention to
46:49
a singular fact. In addition to the pamphlets discovered in New Orleans, a
46:53
further twenty were found among Oswald's possessions in Dallas end. Then we're stamped with
47:00
the five forty four campspeed a dress. And on top of that, the
47:05
official inquiry dismissed clues and Oswald's own letters of summer sixty three. These indicated
47:13
that he had used an office in New Orleans. In May of sixty three,
47:20
less than a month after his arrival in the city, Oswald wrote to
47:23
the head of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New York. Quote,
47:29
now that I live in New Orleans, I've been thinking about renting a small
47:31
office at my own expense, for the purpose of forming an FPCC branch here
47:37
and quote. Although even a humble office would cost about thirty dollars a month,
47:44
said Oswald, he was intent on finding one. When headquarters warned against
47:50
rushing into anything, Oswald promptly replied, quote, against your advice, I've
47:54
decided to take an office from the very beginning unquote. This sounded very much
48:00
as though Oswald had already found FPCC premises or was on the brink of doing
48:07
so. Two months later, he was still writing about it, this time
48:12
to report its closure. On August first, Having received no reply to his
48:16
last letter, Oswald wrote quote in regard to my efforts to start a branch
48:22
office. I rented an office as I planned, and was promptly closed three
48:28
days later for some obscure reason by the renters. They said something about remodeling,
48:32
etc. I'm sure you understand. Oswald, of course occasionally adjusted facts
48:40
to fit his plans. He used untruce for a purpose, and there was
48:45
clearly a design behind the FPCC paper in New Orleans. The knowledge we now
48:51
have that American intelligence was splotting against the FPCC at that very period in nineteen
48:58
sixty three makes it impossible to ignore the pamphlet's stamp with five forty four Camp
49:02
Street, or the repeated references to an office. Take another look at the
49:08
dates concerned and the oddly vague replies the FBI and Secret Service agents received from
49:14
the building as landlords. Sam Newman Oswald's August the first letter saying he had
49:20
briefly used an office but that had been closed down, came just before the
49:23
clash in the street with the anti Castro exiles. If there are some basis
49:30
of fact to his story about having had an office, it is a fair
49:35
guest that he used it sometime during the latter part of July, Newman,
49:39
the landlord, was to mention several aboartive attempts to rent base at four in
49:45
the summer of sixty three. These included a very brief rental by a man
49:51
who quote told him that he worked as an electrician by day and desired to
49:55
teach Spanish by night. The man an initial rental payment, only to return
50:01
a week later, seeing he had been unable to get enough students to enroll.
50:07
Unquote, money apparently was no problem. The man told Newman to keep
50:14
the deposit, and as Newman told it to the Secret Service, this occurred
50:17
at exactly at the same time Oswald indicated that he had used an office.
50:23
The man described as being in his thirties and olive skinned, was clearly not
50:29
Oswald, but the record provides another clue which may explain that after the assassination,
50:36
the authorities received a tip that Ernesto Rodriguez, an anti Castro militant who
50:42
quote operated a Spanish school that tape recordings of Spanish conversations with Oswald. Rodriguez
50:51
to the day runs a language school, and his father was in the electrical
50:57
business. Under curse questioning in sixty three, Rodriguez denied having any such tape,
51:04
but admitted that Oswald had contacted him concerning a Spanish language course. The
51:09
data turns out fits sometime soon after July twenty fourth. Interviewed again in nineteen
51:15
seventy nine, Rodriguez admitted that he indeed met with Oswald, but the story
51:21
about Spanish classes seemed to have slipped his memory. Now, like Carlos Brigner,
51:27
he claimed Oswald had visited him to offer his services in training anti Castro
51:32
Cuban exiles and guerrilla techniques. Indeed, Rodriguez now says it was he who
51:38
sent Oswald to see Bringer. Further checks revealed and in nineteen sixty three,
51:44
Ernesto Rodriguez was a leading activist in the New Orleans campaign against Castro. He
51:52
was one of those who controlled the funds of the Crusade to Cuba Committee,
51:57
the fundraising group for the CIA backed in Revolutionary Council. In that capacity he
52:05
was almost certain certainly in touch with William Riley, Oswald's employer in New Orleans
52:10
and a backer of the Crusade. Rodriguez also helped manage the Council's affairs in
52:16
New Orleans, its second most important base in the United States. Although the
52:22
CRFC had theoretically ceased to use the fivety four Camp Street office by the time
52:29
Oswald got busy in New Orleans, the reality was rather different. The CRC
52:35
enjoyed a delightfully easy going business relationship with the landlord, Sam Newman. He
52:42
had no initial charge to the office base on the basis that the CRC would
52:47
pay him if it raised enough money from flund raising. The fact is that
52:53
anti Castro militants were still using five forty four Camp Street after Oswald's only New
53:00
Orleans, and they came and went at will throughout the summer of sixty three.
53:06
These exiles found a warm welcome in the offices of Guy Banister, and
53:09
he very definitely did maintain offices on the ground floor at five forty four Camp
53:15
Street. From banister staff have come the strongest leads to firm that Oswald's use
53:22
of that address and perhaps to explain the most devious purpose behind the supposed New
53:28
Orleans campaign on behalf of Castro. The new information now available to suggest Banister
53:35
drew Oswald into an American intelligence scheme, perhaps aimed at compromising the fair Play
53:40
for Cuba Committee organization. Guy Banister was an old fashioned American hero who had
53:49
refused to go gracefully. He had been a star agent for the FBI,
53:52
a tough guy whose long career covered some of the bureau's most notorious cases,
54:00
including the capture and killing a public enemy number one murderer, murderer and bank
54:06
Robert John Dillinger. He was commended by the FBI Director Hoover and rose to
54:10
become a special Agent in charge in a key city, Chicago, in World
54:17
War Two. According to his family, he distinguished himself with naval intelligence,
54:22
a connection he reportedly maintained all his life. Banister came to New Orleans in
54:28
the fifties at the request of the mayor to become deputy Chief of Police.
54:32
This was the high point of a flawed career. In nineteen fifty seven,
54:37
at the age of fifty eight, Banister was pushed into retirement after an incident
54:43
in New Orleans Old Absent House when he allegedly threatened a waiter with a pistol.
54:49
By all accounts, Banister was a hilaric man and a heavy drinker.
54:54
He did not take kindly to humiliation. Stayed on in New Orleans. Guy
55:00
Banister associates nominally a detective agency. In fact, Banister's intelligence background, coupled
55:12
with a vision of himself as a SuperPatriot, led him into a personal crusade
55:16
against communism. He was a member of the fervently right wing John Birch Society
55:22
of Louisiana's Committee on un American Activities of the Paramilitary Minutemen, and he published
55:29
a racial publication called the Louisiana Intelligence Digest. He abhorred the United Nations and
55:39
believed plans for racial integration with part of a communist plot against the United States.
55:46
New Orleans Crime Commissioner Aaron cohne knew Banister well and calls him a quote
55:52
tragic case, who says Banister retired from the FBI suffering from a serious brain
55:58
disorder which led him increasingly into irrational, erratic conduct. Saying or not Banister's
56:07
public persona by sixty three can only be described is that every right wing nut.
56:12
Sadly, there were many Banisters in the explosive political atmosphere of the early
56:16
sixties, especially in the American South after Castro's Revolution in Cuba. Banister's concept
56:23
of the Red menace was one cared by many, and it was dangerously closed
56:29
to official unit policy. He threw himself feverishly into the CIA back to exile
56:35
campaigns in top of Castro, helping to organize the Cuban Revolutionary Democratic Front and
56:42
Friends of a Democratic Cuba in nineteen sixty one before the Bay of Pigs invasion.
56:47
Banister served as a munition supplier as late as nineteen sixty three, says
56:57
former members of banisters staff, The offices of the active agency were littered with
57:00
guns of every distinction. It was no coincidence that the exile's government in exile,
57:07
the Cuban Revolutionary Council, made its New Orleans base and the same building
57:12
as they Banister. For Banister and his Cuban proteges, the building was well
57:17
located close to the local offices of both the CIA and the FBI. American
57:24
intelligence may have found Banister, with his intelligence background and independent status, a
57:30
convenient buffer, and the agencies could not openly associate with certain operations. Banister
57:37
was available as a circuit breaker, even if his political passions and alcoholism made
57:44
a dangerously inflammable mixed. Banister had his uses. His office had another distinction.
57:51
It was just around the corner from William Riley coffee company, where Oswald
57:54
worked in the summer sixty three. Banisters four or FBI colleagues did not seriously
58:01
investigate him or his office after the Kennedy assassination. They died of a reported
58:09
heart attack a few months later and never was questioned by the Warrant Commission investigators.
58:15
It is doubtful whether they would have had any reason to do so.
58:20
The New Orleans FBI had obscured managed the address by referring to it as five
58:24
thirty one Lafayette Street that was in fact the side door to five forty four
58:30
Camp Street, an address which just might have sparked interest in Washington. A
58:37
partial investigation of Banister came three years later when New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison
58:43
began his his inquiry into local aspects of the Kennedy assassination. As the world
58:51
learned from a stream of Garrish headlines, that inquiry founder in a storm of
58:58
allegations about mount actors by Garrison himself, did, however, bring the lights
59:04
some vital nuggets of good evidence, as the Congress's Assassinations Committee confirmed in nineteen
59:09
seventy nine. The first important development came when Assistant da Andrew Mumu Shiambra interviewed
59:20
Guy Manister's widow. She revealed that after her husband's death, he had found
59:27
among his effects a number of fair Play for Cuba levelands. It was an
59:30
odd propaganda to turn up in the possession of a man who had headed the
59:35
Anti Communist League of the Caribbean. Banister had kept extensive files at his office,
59:43
and these were scattered after his death. Some allegedly were removed by government
59:46
agents. Later, however, Louisiana Police Intelligence retrieved a half filled filing cabinet
59:55
containing records on quote communist groups and subversive of his Not even all that materials
1:00:02
survived sub subsequent winnowing of the files, but investigators knew something about the contents
1:00:09
from an index list and from police interviews banisters. File titles included Central Intelligence
1:00:17
Agency, Ammunition and Arms, Anti Soviet Underground, civil rights of jfk B
1:00:30
seventy manned bomber Force, sandwiched between dismantling of US defenses and US basis Italy
1:00:37
was now was a now familiar name. The file called fair Play for Cuba
1:00:45
Committee. It was followed by the classification number twenty three D seven. According
1:00:51
to a State Police officer who saw this file it contained basic information on Oswald's
1:00:57
activities in New Orleans as Assassination Committee staffed quietly noted this file has unfortunately been
1:01:05
destroyed. It is possible, of course, the guide Banister merely monitored the
1:01:10
activities of an organization and a man he regarded as being in the heart of
1:01:16
the exomunist camp. Yet the evidence suggest a more sinister connection. Redolent of
1:01:23
plans conceived in the dirty tricks departments of U S Intelligence and his continual hunt
1:01:31
for reds under the bed, Banister used to hire young men as inquiry and
1:01:37
influctration agents to help his Cuban exile contacts. For example, Banister would send
1:01:45
young men to mingle with students at New Orleans colleges, trying to report when
1:01:51
budding pro Castro sympathizers. Two such recruits were Alan and Daniel Campbell, both
1:01:58
former Marines. After talking to the Brothers in nineteen seventy nine, Daniel Campbell
1:02:06
said he was brought into Banish his office initially because they quote needed people with
1:02:09
small arms training. They're sticky situations. When the day Oswald took part in
1:02:17
the street scene with Bringier, Campbell was doing humdrum discord. The incident heard
1:02:24
not far from Banishter's office, and Campbell heard about it soon afterwards from a
1:02:30
friend who had seen it firsthand. But he sat with a friend in Mancuso's
1:02:36
restaurant, also on the ground floor of five forty four Camp Street. She
1:02:40
pointed out two men at a near guy nearby table as being among those who
1:02:46
had taken part in the street rump us. Later, when Campbell returned to
1:02:52
his office, a young man with a marine haircut came in and used his
1:02:57
desk phone for a few minutes, and the time Campbell saw his visitor,
1:03:00
he says, was on television after the assassination it was. Campbell is certain
1:03:07
Lee Oswald. His brother, Alan also has relevant information. He told the
1:03:15
New Orleans authorities in a nineteen sixty nine interview that he was at Camp Street
1:03:22
on one of the two occasions that Oswald passed out fair place for quba.
1:03:25
Leeve lives near the International Trademark, and someone in the office mentioned the pro
1:03:31
caster of demonstration. Banister might have been expected to react with characteristics plain.
1:03:38
According to the nineteen sixty nine interview, Alan Campbell said Banister merely laughed.
1:03:45
Other former employees recall, though, something that did make Manister angry, and
1:03:51
that's the use of the five forty four Camp Street a dress on some of
1:03:53
Oswald's handbills. The personal secretary Banister used at that time was Delphine Roberts.
1:04:04
If he has provided information which goes far forward explaining banisters behavior. Roberts described
1:04:13
by a former FBI agent and Banisters associated the number one source on events at
1:04:18
Camp Street as search that her boss knew Oswald personally. He said Banister encouraged
1:04:30
him to mount his FPCC operation from a room five forty four. At nineteen
1:04:44
sixty three, Delphine Roberts had made her own mark on extremists politics in New
1:04:47
Orleans, one which shows that she and Banister were birds of a feather.
1:04:54
Well born and well educated, she was proud to call herself a daughter of
1:04:58
the American Revolution. Her unashamed allegiance was through the extreme right, and in
1:05:03
nineteen sixty sixty two she earned brief press interest as a vociferous candidate for a
1:05:11
place on the New Orleans Council, with Roberts declared herself opposed to quote anything
1:05:18
of a communist chinge, which in her terms meant almost anything most people regard
1:05:26
as progress. He railed, for example, against racial integration of any kind,
1:05:31
shape or form, because when it was an integral part of the international
1:05:36
communist criminal conspiracy. She fulmented. She fulminated against what he regarded as federal
1:05:45
interference and state affairs, and demanded America withdraw from the United Nathans. The
1:05:51
Banister did not fail to notice, and Missus Roberts still remembers finally how he
1:05:56
met and wooed her. Para became lovers, and Banister brought Missus robertson to
1:06:01
his office as personal secretary and researcher. She was with him throughout the summer
1:06:08
of sixty three and at the time of the Kennedy assassination. After the assassination,
1:06:14
she says, Banister ordered her not to discuss anything with the FBI and
1:06:17
kept her out of the office until the immediate uproar had blown over. After
1:06:23
Banister's death, she distanced herself and the people she had known at five forty
1:06:29
four Camp Street and persistently avoided interviews installed questions from the New Orleans DA's office
1:06:38
in sixty seven, and tried to elude the assassination's Committee in nineteen seventy eight.
1:06:48
When I made contact with her, she had first denied repeatedly ever hearing
1:06:55
the name Lee Oswald until after the assassination. Then, after an upsetting and
1:07:00
confrontation with her own lawyer, Missus Roberts quietly began talking. One overt surviving
1:07:10
sign of extreme political views was her opinion that the American intelligence agencies are today
1:07:16
quote being destroyed by so much exposure quote so much has been revealed. However,
1:07:25
that she saw a little point continuing to be secretive herself. If this
1:07:30
witness is telling the truth, all the suspicions about Lee Oswald's true role have
1:07:34
been justified. She actually remembers him very well. Indeed, according to Delphine
1:07:45
Roberts, Lee Oswald walked into her office sometime in nineteen sixty three and asked
1:07:50
to fill in the form for accreditation as one of Banister's agents. Robert says,
1:07:56
Oswald introduced himself by name and said he was seeking in the application for
1:08:00
him. I did not think that was really why he was there. During
1:08:04
the course of the conversation, I gained the impression that he and Guy Banister
1:08:09
already knew each other. After Oswald filled out the application for him. Guy
1:08:13
Banister called him into the office. The door was closed and a lengthy conversation
1:08:18
took place. Then the young man left. I resumed then, and now
1:08:24
I'm certain that the reason for Oswald being there was that he was required to
1:08:28
act undercover. The precise purpose of Oswald's undercover role remained obscure to missus.
1:08:34
Roberts was soon learned that it involved Cuba and some sort of sharade that required
1:08:41
deception. She says. Oswald came back a number of times. He seemed
1:08:46
to be on familiar terms with Banister and with the others in the office.
1:08:51
Because I understood it, he had the use of an office on the second
1:08:55
floor above the main office where we worked. I was not greatly surprised when
1:09:00
I learned he was going up and down, back and forth. Then several
1:09:04
times mister Banister brought me upstairs, and in the office above I saw various
1:09:11
writings stuck up on the wall, pretending to Cuba. They were pro castro
1:09:15
leaflets. Banisters just didn't say anything about him one way or the other.
1:09:20
But on several occasions when some people who had been upstairs would bring some of
1:09:25
their material down banister was very incensed about it. He did not want that
1:09:30
material in his office. One day, says missus Roberts, she observed the
1:09:35
end product of Oswall's preparations upstairs. As she returned to the office in the
1:09:42
afternoon, she saw quote that young man passing out his pro cast leaflets in
1:09:47
the street and quote and what appears to be confirmation of the incident Alan Campbell
1:09:54
recalled, She says. She mentioned what she had seen the Banister and his
1:09:59
reaction was as don't worry about him. He's a nervous fellow. He's confused,
1:10:04
he's with us, he's associated with the office. Nothing Banster said indicated
1:10:12
the slightest surprise or anger that somebody from his anti Castro stable was out in
1:10:17
the streets openly demonstrating in favor of Fidel Castro. Today, Delphine Roberts shrugs
1:10:24
off the contradiction. I knew that such things did take place, and when
1:10:29
they did, he just didn't question them. I knew there were such things
1:10:35
as counterspies, spies and counterspies, and the importance of such things, so
1:10:41
I just didn't question. Now, it's by no means certain that Delphine Roberts
1:10:45
has told the whole truth or revealed all she knows. What she has said,
1:10:50
she divulged with reluctance, and she has refused to talk at all in
1:10:55
the past. Other snippets of information they'll tend to support her account and Daniel
1:11:00
Campbell's claimed that Oswald visited forty four Camp Street. Her own daughter, also
1:11:06
called Delphine, that's Delphine Junior, used another room upstairs at Camp Street for
1:11:13
photographic work. The daughter says today that she and a photographer friend also saw
1:11:19
Oswald occasionally. I knew he had his pamphlets and books and everything in a
1:11:25
room along from where we were with our photographic equipment. He was shut and
1:11:31
quiet and mostly kept to himself, didn't associate with too many people. He
1:11:36
would just tell us hello or goodbye when we saw him. I never saw
1:11:42
him talking to Guy A. Banister, but I knew he worked in the
1:11:45
office. I knew they were associated. I saw some other men who looked
1:11:49
like Americans coming and going occasionally from the room Oswald used, and from his
1:11:56
attitude, and from my mother and from what I knew of Banister's work,
1:12:00
I got the impression that Oswald was doing something to make people believe he was
1:12:05
something that he wasn't. I'm sure Guy Banister knew what Oswald was doing that
1:12:12
much. Indeed, seems certain the anti Castro exiles involved with Banister making an
1:12:23
intriguing list. There was Sergio Costas Smith, an extreme right winger who had
1:12:30
served under Castro's predecessor, the Dictator of Batista. In nineteen sixty one,
1:12:35
he became New Orleans representative of the CRC, and ad Banister's instigation set up
1:12:43
the CRC office at five forty four Kemp Street. CIA records revealed that our
1:12:48
Kasha maintain extensive relations with the FBI. Two of his regular FBI contacts were
1:12:56
named deleted and Guy Banister significantly. Banisters, supposedly long retired, is referred
1:13:02
to flatly as an active FBI contact. Arkasha, who said he privately was
1:13:11
controlled by the CIA, turned forty four Camp Street, in the words of
1:13:15
one of his acquaintances, into a sort of Cuban Grand central station for the
1:13:20
exiles. When Arkasha cast around for funds, he was offered a substantial donation
1:13:28
by none other than Carlos Marcello, the New Orleans mafia boss. By nineteen
1:13:34
sixty three, though Arkasha had moved to Texas, removed from his New Orleans
1:13:40
CRC job after accusations of misappropriation funds. Arkasha denies all knowledge of Oswald prior
1:13:47
to the assassination. One of his successors didn't encounter the alleged assassin. This
1:13:55
was CRC delegate Frank Bartez, who turned up with Carlos Bringier for the court
1:14:01
case following the street fracas. On that occasion he indulged in a noisy argument
1:14:06
with Oswald. Martz said he never visited forty four Camp Street and never had
1:14:13
anything else to do with Oswald. Arkasha and the CRC had been firmly linked
1:14:17
to at least two other people apart from Banster, who did cross pass with
1:14:21
the alleged assassin. One was a fellow by the name Macarlos Quiroga, the
1:14:28
anti capture of Cuban, who admitted visiting Oswald at his homes a few days
1:14:32
prior to the street confrontation with Cuban exiles. Kiuga provided some of the information
1:14:40
which helped expose Oswald as a Communist on the forthcoming radio debate. The CRC
1:14:46
had a friend in New Orleans advertising man named Ronnie care Care was a fervent
1:14:54
supporter of the exile laws and had been a leading light with Kasha and yet
1:15:00
another anti Castro organization called the Crusade to Free Cuba. The arm of coincidence
1:15:06
was long. Indeed, it seems in the New Orleans of nineteen sixty three,
1:15:12
after the assassination, Ronnie Kerr would say very carefully that he seemed to
1:15:17
recall a visit from Oswald, and he said Oswald had been applying for a
1:15:23
job unquote. Perhaps Care's memory was better than he thought. And Oswald's address
1:15:29
book on the same page as Carlos Bringer's address was a following list of addresses
1:15:34
one seven Camp one of seven Decadur and ten thirty two. Canal has written
1:15:44
the entries made their sense. The first was the address of a formal dress
1:15:47
rental shop. The second did not exist, allowing for either mistake or deliberate
1:15:54
secretiveness on Oswald's part. But researchers have juggled the numbers, and one of
1:16:00
seven Camp Street turns out was Ronnie Kerr's business address. One seventeen Decatur was
1:16:10
or as Penia. As they addressed, he had another Cuban ex island close
1:16:14
touch with the others we have mentioned. Paenia had two other distinctions. He
1:16:18
had worked closely with Sergio or Kasha Smith, and he was also a regular
1:16:23
informant for the FBI and New Orleans. Unfailingly, in any study of Oswald
1:16:30
in New Orleans, the connections of Oswald to the FBI become more and more
1:16:41
undeniable. And we can't talk about Oswald in New Orleans and not get into
1:16:47
David Ferry. Guy Banister. Secretary Delphine Roberts remembers Ferry as quote one of
1:16:55
the agents. Many times when he came into the office, he used the
1:17:00
off an office behind Banisters, and I was told he was doing private work.
1:17:04
I believed his work was somehow connected with the CIA rather than the FBI.
1:17:14
The reporter's mind recoils at the notion that any intelligence service would be misguided
1:17:18
enough to hire someone like David Ferry, but one qualified source says there was
1:17:25
a CIA connection. The former executive assistant to the Deputy Director of the CIA,
1:17:30
Victor Marchetti, told me that he observed consternation on the part of then
1:17:35
CIA Director Richard Elms and other senior officials when Ferry's name was first publicly linked
1:17:43
with the assassination in nineteen sixty seven. Marchetti says he had asked a colleague
1:17:48
about this and was told to quote, Ferry had been a contract agent to
1:17:53
the agency in the early sixties and had been involved in some of the accusing
1:17:57
that Cuban activities as deputy director for plans in sixty three, Cuban operations had
1:18:04
been at the top of Helm's own priority list. Today, Marchetti says that
1:18:09
he is quote absolutely convinced that Ferry was a CIA contract officer and involved in
1:18:15
some rather in the ferious activities end quote. In nineteen seventy nine and Assassinations
1:18:21
Committee source who had investigated Ferry's background told me we did not find Ferry named
1:18:30
in the CIA files as an agent, but in intelligence work that is not
1:18:33
unusual. Clearly the people he was dealing with had intelligence connections, and quote
1:18:45
Certainly, David Ferry was closely associated with Guy Banister and the Cuban exiles.
1:18:49
In nineteen sixty three, and on the very day that Oswald handed out anti
1:18:56
cast of leaflets in New Orleans, Ferry was leading an anti cast demonstration took
1:19:00
a few blocks away. As with Guy Banister, there have been repeated allegations
1:19:06
that he too was involved with Oswald. After the assassination, there was a
1:19:12
functory inquiry into Oswald's membership to the youth of nearly sixteen into the Civil Air
1:19:18
Patrol. Oswald was then living with his mother in New Orleans and joining the
1:19:24
patrol was a cadet in nineteen fifty five. David Ferry and airmen of skill
1:19:29
and renown, was at that time a leading light of the local Civil Air
1:19:34
Patrol unit. After the assassination, one of Banister's employees said he thought he
1:19:41
recalled seeing a photograph of Oswald along with other one time cIAP members in Ferries
1:19:49
home. Ferry was asked about this on a couple of accasions and claimed he
1:19:55
could remember nothing about Oswald. He denied every having any sort of relationship with
1:20:00
Oswald, and since he also denied knowing that the CRC and his representative Rakasha
1:20:08
ever operated from Camp Street, a fact he certainly had to know about,
1:20:14
Ferris denials should have raised the suspicions. The FBI, however, conducted a
1:20:18
mockery of an inquiry in the Oswald's membership into the Civil Air Patrol and the
1:20:24
matter was dropped. There was no further action. When one of Oswald's former
1:20:30
schoolmates, Ed Vobel, stated that he and Oswald had been in the patrol
1:20:34
with Captain David Ferry, and then quite suddenly he quote could not recall the
1:20:41
matter quote. The FBI was unmoved by the fact that Vogel had been scared
1:20:46
by a crank type telephone call and a visit to his home by a strange
1:20:53
man. Nor was the Bureau strung into action with another former cadets had Ferry
1:20:59
hads Curry around to see him after the assassination, asking whether any old group
1:21:03
photographs a Ferry's squadron had Oswald in it. Most of the squadron records that
1:21:12
turned out have been stolen in late nineteen sixty and even in nineteen seventy eight,
1:21:16
Congress's Assassinations Committee did better. Investigators established at Ferry's service with the Air
1:21:25
Patrol fitted in with that of Oswald. They also identified no fewer than six
1:21:30
witnesses whose statement tended to confirm that Oswald had been president at patrol meetings attended
1:21:35
by David Ferry. One said flatly, Oswald and Ferry were in the unit
1:21:41
together. I'm not saying that they may have been there together. I'm saying
1:21:45
it's a certainty. So yeah, it's a certainty. Let's see me back
1:22:00
to Clinton. It now seems highly unlikely. Lee highly likely. I'm sorry
1:22:09
that Lee Oswald was in the Clinton area and spent time preparing the ground for
1:22:14
his bid to register as a voter. Several credible witnesses helped trace his actions,
1:22:18
two of them in the nearby township of Jackson. The town barber,
1:22:24
who says it was extremely rare to see any but his local customers, remember
1:22:30
at Oswald asking for advice on getting a job as an electrician at the local
1:22:35
hospital. He sent him to the state representative, Reeves Morgan, who confirms
1:22:42
that a Lee Oswald did come to see him. Two secretaries at the hospital
1:22:46
recall Oswald coming to apply for work, and the vote registration incident seems to
1:22:53
have followed shortly afterwards. There's no reason to doubt these witnesses, yet it
1:22:57
seems highly unlikely that Oswald wanted to either live or work in Clinton. The
1:23:03
possible presence of Banister and Ferry only adds to the mystery. A plausible explanation
1:23:10
is that the incident was connected with some agency operation like the FBI's now infamous
1:23:15
counter intelligence program, better known as co Intel Pro. In line with other
1:23:20
US intelligence schemes against such alleged communist organization as fair Play for Cuba, co
1:23:28
Intel Pro was a ruthless, long term operation to disrupt and destroy certain political
1:23:32
groups. FBI Director Hoover, inflackably hostile to the civil rights movement, went
1:23:40
to extraordinarily extraordinary links to discredit its leaders and undermine its effectiveness. By nineteen
1:23:49
sixty three, co Intel Pro had been firmly established, and, as Arthur
1:23:55
Schlessinger has written, quote, its weapons were rumor, forgery, denunciation,
1:24:01
and provocation quote. When core leaders in Clinton spotted the black Cadillac, their
1:24:09
immediate suspicion was that the FBI was up to his customary capers. The car
1:24:15
stayed in the same spot nearly all day, its passengers impassively watching the comings
1:24:20
and goings at the registrar's office. Black campaign workers interpreted it as a crude
1:24:28
attempt to scare away local blacks with a threatening FBI presence. If god Manister
1:24:35
was indeed demand behind the wheel, they may have been right. Lee Oswald's
1:24:41
role in the episode remains unexplained. M None of this should detract from suspicion
1:24:54
that Lee Oswald was while in New Orleans a tool of an anti Castro intelligence
1:24:59
operation. The true nature of the Camp Street connection, the genesis of the
1:25:03
Hydel pseudonyms demand further inquiry. The family member closest to him, his wife,
1:25:12
Marina, may have much to tell while she was. While she once
1:25:17
or has since admitted to signing the name Ajhidel on Oswald's fair Play for Cuba
1:25:24
card, her statements have been inconsistent. Less than a month after the assassination,
1:25:29
she said she had no knowledge of her husband having used the name.
1:25:33
A few weeks later, she changed her story and said she had heard Oswald
1:25:36
use the name Hidel on the radio discussion with anti Castro exiles following the street
1:25:43
fracas over Oswald's pro Castro demonstration. They're all there are full transcripts of that
1:25:49
broadcast, and the name Hidel was never mentioned once. Delphine Roberts g Advanister
1:25:58
secretary has said she leaves Marina Oswald once accompanied her husband on a visit to
1:26:03
the office. Asked about this by the Assassinations Committee, Marina says she had
1:26:10
quote no recollection of going there. She had the same reply to a question
1:26:15
about knowing David Ferry. As for Charles Marett, the Oswald relative with mafia
1:26:21
connections, whom she met regularly in New Orleans, Marina says she had forgotten
1:26:28
his name. In nineteen seventy nine, the Assassinations Committee report went further than
1:26:33
any previous official body to cast doubt on the veracity of Marina Oswald, the
1:26:42
witness who provided so much of the evidence that damned her husband. The Committee
1:26:46
spoke of her central but troubling role and observed tartly and its investigation of conspiracy.
1:26:55
The Committee's undertaking was not furthered by Marina's testimony, since she fastinated little
1:27:00
of Oswald's associates in New Orleans or Dallas. Oh Yeah. When he saw
1:27:15
the research information on New Orleans assembled for this book and the material in five
1:27:19
forty four Camp Street in particular, Senator Richard Schweiker described it as a major
1:27:25
breakthrough. Schwiker, whose Intelligence Committee investigation did much of the groundwork for the
1:27:30
subsequent inquiry by Congress, says that it quote means a lot that for the
1:27:36
first time and the whole Kennedy assassination investigation, we have evidence which places at
1:27:44
four Camp Street, intelligence agents, Lee Oswald, the Mob, and anti
1:27:49
Castro of Cuban exiles. It puts all these elements together in a way that
1:27:55
has never been done before. And by the time New Orleans moved into the
1:28:00
human autumn of nineteen sixty three, that the spare threads of Kennedy conspiracy did,
1:28:04
indeed seemed to come together. As the days slipped by toward tragedy in
1:28:10
Dallas, the President had given his enemies even greater cause. Strike for the
1:28:17
anti Castro exiles and their hardline supporters, his latest actions to reduce tension over
1:28:24
Cuba irritated a chronic grievance as never before. And this, folks, leads
1:28:33
in to Dallas in October and November nineteen sixty three apparently, and that the
1:28:45
rest folks, they say, it's history standard time. Thank you for following
1:28:51
along with the show. Make sure you share, share and share. Head
1:28:57
over to YouTube. That's right, search for the Lone Guming Podcast and make
1:29:02
sure you are subscribed and have notifications turned on baby. Follow along on Twitter
1:29:13
and TikTok and Instagram at the Loneguming seven. Other than that, until next
1:29:20
time, folks, Peace Wow three The water, dark ground. She's the
1:30:03
man on. Don't believe one that to tell you he be the be the
1:30:27
light to tell you the big that you champcin Yeah, they the way the
1:30:40
boy waiting on was over some trouble rup and be gone the top of the
1:31:02
thing that you was long if they got simple song, tell me, let
1:31:13
me tell you be lie, tell you the begin't been that you champion the
1:31:42
long way? Ah wait Ti wait situat to nobody raining from me. They
1:31:58
bought you gonna have that way cart him head and he fell pat down in
1:32:01
back, made on his card. One was on him heavy ever had any
1:32:05
card on on down the bab wasn't ye be I to be you the biggest
1:32:34
being that chichamk Yeah, they were alway, oh where away The sugar is
1:33:01
of the residence of the p