Anthony
Summers is the
author of The Kennedy Conspiracy.
He believes that John
F. Kennedy
was killed by a group of
anti-Castro activists, funded by Mafia mobsters who had been ousted
from Cuba. Summers believes that some members
of the Central
Intelligence Agency
took part in this conspiracy.
Summers speculated that the following people were involved in this
conspiracy: Johnny Roselli, Carlos
Marcello,
Santos
Trafficante,
Sam Giancana, David
Ferrie, Gerry Patrick Hemming, Guy
Bannister and E.Howard Hunt.
Sylvia
Meagher in her book, Accessories After
the Fact, also supported the theory that John
F. Kennedy
had been killed by Anti-Castro
exiles.
Jim
Garrison,
the district attorney of New Orleans, believed that a
group of right-wing activists involved in the anti-Castro movement,
including Guy Bannister, David
Ferrie, Carlos Bringuier and Clay
Shaw were involved in a conspiracy with the Central
Intelligence Agency to kill Kennedy.
The House
Select Committee on Assassinations discovered
evidence to suggest that anti-Castro Cubans were involved in the assassination.
For example, an undercover agent heard Nestor Castellanos tell a meeting
of anti-Castro Cubans, "We're waiting for Kennedy on the 22nd.
We're going to see him in one way or another." The committee
also obtained evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald
met David
Ferrie in
New Orleans in the summer of 1963.
It concluded that "individuals active in anti-Castro activities
had the motive, means, and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy".
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(K1)
Robert
J. Groden,
The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald (1995)
On Monday, August 12, 1963, Lee and Carlos Bringuier appeared
in Second Municipal Court at 1:00 p.m. The charges were dismissed
against Bringuier, and Lee was fined $10.00. Marina Oswald confirmed
that Lee actually wanted to be arrested. He wanted the exposure. He
wanted to get the publicity as a pro-Castroite. She referred to this
as "self-advertising." Marina was right, but the question
still remains: Why?
Lee was back handing out
his Fair Play for Cuba Committee flyers on the streets of New Orleans
on August 16. He had hired three men to help with distribution: odd,
since he was nearly without funds for himself and his family. They
stood in front of the International Trade Mart, whose director, Clay
Shaw, would be charged with conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy
four years later by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. Somebody
(probably Lee himself or, possibly, Carlos Bringuier) called WDSU-TV
and other members of the New Orleans news media to announce that he
was distributing the pro-Castro literature. More self-advertising.
That evening's television news broadcast his activity, and the resulting
bad publicity made it nearly impossible for him to obtain employment.
Why did
Robert J. Groden think it strange that Lee Harvey Oswald should hire
three men to give out Fair Play for Cuba Committee flyers on the streets
of New Orleans?
(K2)
Lee
Harvey Oswald,
Carlos
Bringuier
and Ed Butler, Vice-President
of the Information Council of the Americas, took part in a debate
on Bill Slatter's radio show Conversation Carte Blanche in
1963.
Lee Harvey Oswald: The
principals of thought of the Fair Play for Cuba consist of restoration
of diplomatic trade and tourist relations with Cuba. That is one of
our main points. We are for that. I disagree that this situation regarding
American-Cuban relations is very unpopular. We are in the minority
surely. We are not particularly interested in what Cuban exiles or
rightists members of rightist organizations have to say. We are primarily
interested in the attitude of the US government toward Cuba. And in
that way we are striving to get the United States to adopt measures
which would be more friendly toward the Cuban people and the new Cuban
regime in that country. We are not all communist controlled regardless
of the fact that I have the experience of living in Russia, regardless
of the fact that we have been investigated, regardless of those facts,
the Fair Play for Cuba Committee is an independent organization not
affiliated with any other organization. Our aims and our ideals are
very clear and in the best keeping with American traditions of democracy.
Carlos Bringuier: Do you
agree with Fidel Castro when in his last speech of July 26th of this
year he qualified President John F. Kennedy of the United States as
a ruffian and a thief? Do you agree with Mr. Castro?
Lee Harvey Oswald:
I would not agree with that particular wording. However, I and the
Fair Play for Cuba Committee do think that the United States Government
through certain agencies, mainly the State Department and the C.I.A.,
has made monumental mistakes in its relations with Cuba. Mistakes
which are pushing Cuba into the sphere of activity of let's say a
very dogmatic communist country such as China.
Bill Slatter: Mr. Oswald
would you agree that when Castro first took power - would you agree
that the United States was very friendly with Castro, that the people
of this country had nothing but admiration for him, that they were
very glad to see Batista thrown out?
Lee Harvey Oswald: I would
say that the activities of the United States government in regards
to Batista were a manifestation of not so much support for Fidel Castro
but rather a withdrawal of support from Batista. In other words we
stopped armaments to Batista. What we should have been done was to
take those armaments and drop them into the Sierra Maestra where Fidel
Castro could have used them. As for public sentiment at that time,
I think even before the revolution, there were rumblings of official
comment and so forth from government officials er, against Fidel Castro.
Ed Butler: You've never
been to Cuba, of course, but why are the people of Cuba starving today?
Lee Harvey Oswald: Well
any country emerging from a semi-colonial state and embarking upon
reforms which require a diversification of agriculture you are going
to have shortages. After all 80% of imports into the United States
from Cuba were two products, tobacco and sugar. Nowadays, while Cuba
is reducing its production as far as sugar cane goes it is striving
to grow unlimited, and unheard of for Cuba, quantities of certain
vegetables such as sweet potatoes, lima beans, cotton, and so forth,
so that they can become agriculturally independent ...
Ed Butler: Gentlemen I'm
going to have to interrupt you. Our time is almost up. We've had three
guests tonight on Conversation Carte Blanche, Bill Stuckey and I have
been talking to Lee Harvey Oswald, Secretary of the New Orleans Chapter
of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, Ed Butler, Executive Vice-president
of the Information Council of the Americas (INCA) and Carlos Bringuier,
Cuban refugee. Thank you very much.
Was Lee
Harvey Oswald a supporter or opponent of Fidel Castro?
(K3)
The
Warren Commission Report (September, 1964)
On August 5, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald visited a store managed by Carlos
Bringuier, a Cuban refugee and avid opponent of Castro, and the New
Orleans delegate of the Cuban student directorate. Oswald indicated
an interest in joining the struggle against Castro. He told Bringuier
that he had been a marine and was trained in guerrilla warfare, and
that he was willing not only to train Cubans to fight Castro but also
to join the fight himself. The next day Oswald returned to the store
and left his Guidebook for Marines for Bringuier.
A few days later, a friend
of Bringuier's saw Oswald passing out Fair Play for Cuba Committee
leaflets on Canal Street, not far from the store Bringuier managed.
He, Bringuier and another exile proceeded to the site of Oswald's
mini-demonstration, and Bringuier was enraged when he recognized the
pro-Castro demonstrator as the anti-Castro activist wannabe of a few
days before. Though no physical violence resulted, some heated words
were uttered, a crowd gathered, and Oswald was arrested along with
the three Cubans for disturbing the peace.
Why was
the Warren Commission interested in the relationship between Lee Harvey
Oswald and Carlos Bringuier?
(K4)
G.
Robert Blakey was
interviewed by Frontline
in 1993.
Q: Going back to the point
about his (Lee Harvey Oswald) apparent pro-Castro activity. Is this
an organization with any substance?
A: Every effort was made,
both by the FBI in 1963, and by the committee, to establish that the
pro-Castro activity in New Orleans had a larger group behind it. Apparently
he had a unit of the 'Fair Play for Cuba'. Apparently it had no membership
other than Lee Harvey Oswald himself. Indeed, when he distributed
the literature, one of the two people was hired. The other person
we've never been able to identify. There's just no evidence that Lee
Harvey Oswald had other associates in the pro-Castro activity.
Q: Doesn't that argue
for the whole thing just being a shell game? I mean a pretense?
A: Oh it surely argues
for it being a shell game. Is it a shell game by Lee Harvey Oswald,
or a shell game by Lee Harvey Oswald on behalf of someone else? You
answer that, I think, not by what happens in New Orleans, but by the
consistent train of his character. From Japan to the Soviet Union,
to New Orleans to Mexico City, of acting, at least for his own perspective,
out of a Marxist or a pro-Castro perspective.
Q: Now, how do you reconcile
the fact that there are two contradictory activities going on?
A: I'm not terribly sure
that you can reconcile them. The most consistent thing through Lee
Harvey Oswald's life is his Marxist position. The effort to talk to
the anti-Castro Cubans is an effort either by Lee Harvey Oswald, in
his crazed mind, to be engaging in subterfuge activity, or it is,
in fact, Lee Harvey Oswald acting on behalf of someone else, infiltrating
anti-Castro activities.
The true Lee Harvey Oswald
is the Marxist. Oswald engages in a number of activities in New Orleans.
He distributes 'Fair Play for Cuba' literature. He apparently is the
head of a unit of 'Fair Play for Cuba'. He goes on a radio station
and debates on behalf of Castro. All of this indicates his Marxist
pro-Castro leanings.
At the same time, Lee Harvey
Oswald makes a contact with Carlos Bringuier who is an anti-Castro
Cuban leader in New Orleans and this is documented and unquestioned.
Which is Lee Harvey Oswald? Is he pro-Castro? Is he anti-Castro? This
man is all things to all people.
Why is
G. Robert Blakey confused by the behaviour of Lee Harvey Oswald in
New Orleans in the summer of 1963. Does the information in this source
contradict the information given in K2?
(K5)
Jim
Garrison, On
the Trail of the Assassins (1988)
Martin was seated across
my desk, his anxious gaze fixed on my every move. An on-again, off-again
alcoholic, he was a thin man with deeply circled, worried eyes. Although
he had been written off as a nonentity by many, I had long regarded
him as a quick-witted and highly observant, if slightly disorganized,
private detective. I had known him casually as far back as my days
as an assistant D.A. and always had gotten along well with him.
"Jack,"
I said, "why don't you relax a little? You should know
by now that you're among friends here."
He
nodded nervously. He was seated in the roomy, upholstered chair
across from my desk, but he looked most uncomfortable. I offered
him some coffee. "You're not under cross-examination. Jack,"
I said "I just want a little help. Understand?"
"The
police report says the reason Banister beat you was you had
an argument over telephone bills." I pulled a copy of the
police report from my desk drawer and shoved it across to him.
"Here, take a look at it." He bent his head over and
examined it as if he had never seen it before. I was sure that
he had seen it many times, probably even had a copy at home.
After
a moment he looked up without saying a word. His eyes told me
he was deeply concerned about something.
"Now,
does a simple argument over phone bills sound like a believable
explanation to you?" I asked.
I waited.
Then, dreamily, he shook his head slowly. "No," he
admitted. "It involved more than that."
"How
much more?"
Again
I waited. He breathed deeply, sucking in the air.
"It
started like it was going to be nothing at all," he began.
"We'd both been drinking at Katzenjammer's - maybe more
than usual, because
of the assassination and all. Banister especially."
Pausing
to chug down another cup of coffee, he made a real effort to
collect his thoughts.
"Well,
when we came back to the office. Banister started hitching about
one thing and then another. He was in a mean mood. Then all
of a sudden, he accused me of going through his private files.
Now I never went through his private stuff ever - absolutely
never. And that really ticked me off."
He
hesitated for a long moment.
"Go
on. Jack," I said gently.
"I
guess I blew up," he continued, his face flushed with memories
of injustice. "That's when I told him he'd better not talk
to me like that. I told him I remembered the people I had seen
around the office that summer. And that's when he hit me. Fast
as a flash - pulled out that big Magnum and slammed me on the
side of the head with it."
"Just
because you remembered the people you'd seen at his office the
past summer?" I asked.
"Yeah,
that's all it took. He went bananas on that one."
"And
just who were the people you'd seen in the office that summer?"
I prodded softly.
"There
was a bunch of them. It was like a circus. There were all those
Cubans - coming in and going out, coming in and going out. They
all looked alike to me."
Someone
once commenced that whenever you really want to do something
unseen, whenever you go to great pains to make sure that you
are unobserved, there always turns out to be someone who was
sitting under the oak tree. At the strange place that was Banister's
office. Jack Martin, unnoticed in the middle of it all, was
the one sitting under the oak tree.
He
drew a long breath and then went on. "Then there were all
these other characters. There was Dave Ferrie - you know about
him by now."
"Was
he there very often?" I asked.
"Often?
He practically lived there."
Then
Martin fell silent. I saw by the look in his eyes that he had
come to a full stop.
I was
not about to let my weekend visit to 544 Camp Street go down
the drain that
easily, so I gave him a hand. 'And Lee Harvey Oswald'"
I added.
Jack
swallowed, then nodded. It was almost as if he felt relief in
finally having
a burden lifted from him. "Yeah, he was there too. Sometimes
he'd be meeting with Guy Banister with the door shut. Other
times he'd be shooting the bull with Dave Ferrie. But he was
there all right."
"What
was Guy Banister doing while all this was going on?"
"Hell,
he was the one running the circus."
"What
about his private detective work?"
"Not
much of that came in, but when it did, I handled it. That's
why I was there."
"So,
Jack," I said. "Just what was going on at Banister's
office?"
He
held up his hand. "I can't answer that," he said firmly.
"I can't go into that stuff at all." Unexpectedly,
he stood up. "I think I'd better go," he said.
"Hold
on. Jack. What's the problem with our going into what was happening
at Banister's office?"
"What's
the problem?" he said. "What's the problem?"
he repeated, as if in disbelief. "The problem is that we're
going to bring the goddamned federal government down on our
backs. Do I need to spell it out? I could get killed - and so
could you."
He
turned around. "I'd better go," he mumbled. He wobbled
as he headed for the door.
Jim
Garrison believed Guy Banister and Dave Ferrie were involved
with a group of anti-Castro Cubans in the assassination of John
F. Kennedy. How does this source support this theory?
(K6)
Anthony Summers, The
Kennedy Conspiracy (1980)
According
to Delphine Roberts, Lee Oswald walked into her office sometime
in 1963 and asked to fill in the forms for accreditation as
one of Banister's "agents." Mrs. Roberts told me,
"Oswald introduced himself by name and said he was seeking
an application form. I did not think that was really why he
was there. During the course of the conversation I gained the
impression that he and Guy Banister already knew each other.
After Oswald filled out the application form Guy Banister called
him into the office. The door was closed, and a lengthy conversation
took place. Then the young man left. I presumed then, and now
am certain, that the reason for Oswald being there was that
he was required to act undercover."
Mrs. Roberts
said she was sure that whatever the nature of Banister's "interest"
in Oswald, it concerned anti-Castro schemes, plans which she feels
certain had the support and encouragement of government intelligence
agencies. As she put it, "Mr. Banister had been a special agent
for the FBI and was still working for them. There were quite a number
of connections which he kept with the FBI and the CIA, too. I know
he and the FBI traded information due to his former association...."
Guy
Banister always denied knowing Lee Harvey Oswald. How does Delphine
Roberts undermine this claim? According to Roberts, what was the connection
between Oswald, FBI, CIA and the Anti-Castro Cubans?
(K7)
Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen, 70
Greatest Conspiracies of All Time
(2001)
David Philips suspected
by the House Select Committee on Assassinations of doubling as the
shadowy "Maurice Bishop" CIA overseer of the Cuban Alpha
66 anti-Castro brigade. The same David Philips in charge of spinning
the Oswald-Mexico City incident in the CIA's favor may have engineered
the "Mexico City scenario" in the first place. Lane, who
has made a legal and literary career out of blaming the CIA for JFK's
death, says he did.
Alpha 66's Cuban leader
Antonio Veciana claimed that at one of his hundred or so meetings
with Bishop, Oswald was there not saying anything, just acting odd.
"I always thought
Bishop was working with Oswald during the assassination," Veciana
told Russell.
Veciana's cousin worked
for Castro's intelligence service and after the assassination Bishop
wanted Veciana to bribe his cousin into saying that he met with Oswald,
in order to fabricate an Oswald-Castro connection.
Investigators never established
for sure that Bishop and Philips were one and the same, but descriptions
of Bishop's appearance and mannerisms mirrored Philips'. Veciana drew
a sketch of his old controller and Senator Richard Schweiker, a member
of the assassination committee, recognized it as Philips. When the
select committee's star investigator Gaeton Fonzi finally brought
Veciana and Philips together, the two started acting weird around
each other. After a short conversation in Spanish, Philips bolted.
Witnesses to the encounter swear that a look of recognition swept
Veciana's visage, but Veciana denied that Philips was his case officer
of more than a decade earlier.
Antonio
Veciana was the leader of the Alpha 66 anti-Castro group. He also
claimed his group was financed by a CIA agent named Maurice Bishop.
How does Veciana implicate the CIA and the anti-Castro activists in
the assassination of President John F. Kennedy?
(K8)
Michael Dorman, Newsday
(1995)
A long-secret government
document released this week lends credence to a favorite theory of
conspiracy advocates on President John F. Kennedy's assassination:
the contention that Lee Harvey Oswald was seen in Dallas with a U.S.
intelligence agent about two months before the murder.
That issue has long been
connected with unproved reports that a violent Cuban exile group -
perhaps with the help of an American intelligence agency - was involved
in the assassination. The House Select Committee on Assassinations
investigated the reports but said in 1978 it was unable to substantiate
them.
However, the document obtained
yesterday by Newsday provides a previously lacking measure of credibility
to the reports. Those reports center on a shadowy figure called Maurice
Bishop - likely a pseudonym - said to have been an intelligence agent
during the early 1960s.
Antonio Veciana, founder
of the Alpha 66 Cuban exile group that launched repeated guerrilla
raids against Fidel Castro's regime, testified before the House committee
that he considered Bishop his US intelligence contact; that he met
with Bishop more than 100 times over a 13-year period; that Bishop
had directed him to organize Alpha 66 and had paid him $253,00. Moreover,
he said, he had met briefly in Dallas with Bishop and Oswald sometime
around September, 1963, two months before Kennedy's Nov. 22 assassination.
G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel to the House committee, said: "After
careful analysis, we decided not to credit Veciana's claim" because,
among other things, there was no proof that Maurice Bishop existed.
But the document, released
by the US Assassination Records Review Board, supports the contention
that Bishop existed and otherwise backs Veciana's story. Government
sources said the document - a US Army intelligence report dated Oct.
17, 1962 - describes a man who fits the profile of Maurice Bishop.
"He used a different name, but we believe this man fits Bishop's
profile very closely," one official said.
The document is a report
from an Army intelligence officer, Col. Jeff W. Boucher, to Brig.
Gen. Edward Lansdale, assistant to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
and a controversial figure in the Vietnam War. It said the intelligence
operative described as fitting Bishop's profile "has contact
with the Alpha 66 group" and that Alpha 66 "was going to
conduct raids against Cuba."
Alpha 66 leaders, the document
said, had told the operative they "desired support of the US
Army in the action phase," including funds, equipment and arms.
"In return the group would provide intelligence information,
would furnish captured equipment, and could land agents in Cuba. The
group estimated it would require $100,000 to complete the balance
of its program, consisting of four more raids on Cuba."
The document said a unit
of Army intelligence had approved debriefing Alpha 66 frogmen who
had conducted underwater operations against Castro; exploring the
possibility of buying captured Soviet equipment from Alpha 66 and
briefing Lansdale on the Alpha 66 proposal to furnish intelligence
information and material for financial support.
How does
the document referred in this source connect the CIA and the anti-Castro
activists in New Orleans?
(K9)
Lisa Pease, Probe Magazine (March-April, 1996)
During the
Church committee hearings, Senator Richard Schweiker's independent
investigator Gaeton Fonzi stumbled onto a vital lead in the Kennedy
assassination. An anti-Castro Cuban exile leader named Antonio Veciana
was bitter about what he felt had been a government setup leading
to his recent imprisonment, and he wanted to talk. Fonzi asked him
about his activities, and without any prompting from Fonzi, Veciana
volunteered the fact that his CIA handler, known to him only as "Maurice
Bishop," had been with Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas not long before
the assassination of Kennedy. Veciana gave a description of Bishop
to a police artist, who drew a sketch. One notable characteristic
Veciana mentioned were the dark patches on the skin under the eyes.
When Senator Schweiker first saw the picture, he thought it strongly
resembled the CIA's former Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division-one
of the highest positions in the Agency - and the head of the Association
of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO): David Atlee Phillips.
What
was the connection between Antonio Veciana and David Atlee Phillips?
(K10)
Judyth
Baker, posting on Manatee
High School website (2003)
Between 1961 and 1963, I was trained to do special cancer research.
I became involved in an anti-castro project in New Orleans. I can't
even discuss the impact of this project, but suffice that by spring
of 1963, I was working for Reily coffee company as a front (my boss
was former FBI agent William Monaghan) while actually engaged in clandestine
cancer research with 'Dr.' David W. Ferrie (supposedly committed suicide
but was probably murdered during the Garrison investigation) and renowned
medical specialist Dr. Mary Sherman (brutally murdered July 21, 1964
for her part in the scenario I am about to describe). You may recall
that I took Russian (all fees paid) at Manatee (then Jr.) Community
College. I spoke crude conversational Russian by 1963, when I was
introduced in New Orleans to Lee Harvey Oswald. When I wore my hair
and makeup the same as his wife, Marina, - for I was same height,
weight, and spoke Russian, Lee Oswald and I could worked together.
Lee was involved in an anti-Castro project whose sponsor, Dr. Ochsner,
was possibly related to the CIA in fact, one of Ochsner's best friends
was 'Wild Bill' Donovan, who founded the CIA and who was, like Ochsner,
a President of the American Cancer Society. The project included delivery
of live biological weapons into Cuba, aimed to kill Castro. Not only
was Oswald an innocent man, he was framed in Dallas. He was a patriot
who, had he defended himself, would have led to our deaths.
Judyth
Baker claims she was the girlfriend of Lee Harvey Oswald during her
stay in New Orleans. According to Baker, what was David Ferrie, Mary
Sherman and Oswald doing in New Orleans during the summer of 1963.
(K11)
Gus Russo, Live by the Sword (1998)
David Ferrie
has long been portrayed on paper and in film as an American grotesque:
a raving hater of President Kennedy, who threatened to kill the President.
He was said to be angry at JFK for failing to help the Cuban exiles
restore liberty to their land. It seems certain he made a celebrated
statement after the Bay of Pigs fiasco on which much of the portrait
has been based. That incident occurred in July 1961, when Ferrie was
addressing the New Orleans chapter of the Order of World Wars. Ferrie
became so critical of Kennedy's handling of the Bay of Pigs invasion
that he was asked to discontinue his remarks. But that was almost
certainly taken out of context and misinterpreted.
A devout Catholic
(who was, for a time, a seminarian), Ferrie voted for Kennedy in 1960
and was "elated" when he defeated Richard Nixon for the
presidency that year. "Things are going to turn for the better
now that a Catholic has been elected," a good friend would remember
Ferrie saying. Another friend elaborated, "After all, he was
an Irish Catholic too. He was an enthusiastic supporter (of Kennedy).
Dave was a spokesman for the Kennedys . To him, the idea of a Catholic
president was mind-boggling, He thought Kennedy was fabulous."
Does
Gus Russo believe that David Ferrie was involved in the assassination
of John F. Kennedy?
(K12)
Anthony Summers, The Kennedy
Conspiracy (1980)
David Ferrie, aide in Carlos
Marcello's apparatus, and anti-Castro activist, attracted brief official
attention less than forty-eight hours after the assassination. Just
hours before Ruby killed Oswald, and while Ferrie was still away on
his peculiar marathon around Texas, a disaffected member of Banister's
staff called New Orleans authorities to say he suspected Ferrie of
involvement in the President's murder. This was Jack Martin, a Banister
investigator, and he voiced suspicion that Ferrie had been in contact
with Oswald. Within hours of the assassination, Martin had been involved
in a dispute with Banister - a confrontation that may have occurred
when Banister caught Martin trying to examine confidential files.
For whatever reason, Banister injured Martin by hitting him on the
head with a revolver butt. It was the day after this, following a
visit to the hospital, that Martin raised the alarm over Ferrie. A
hue and cry began, but Ferrie - as we have seen - was away in Texas.
His associates, questioned in his absence, proved uninformative. One
did, however, relate a strange incident.
He said that a lawyer
had already been to Ferrie's home, promising to act on Ferrie's behalf
as soon as he returned. The lawyer, said Ferrie's friend, had remarked
that "when Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested by the Dallas police,
Oswald was carrying a library card with Ferrie's name on it."
The lawyer, G. Wray Gill, was one of Carlos Marcello's attorneys.
Ferrie spoke with Gill by telephone, on the evening of the day Ruby
killed Oswald, but did not immediately report to the authorities.
When he finally did so next day, Ferrie turned up accompanied by the
Marcello lawyer. He denied knowing anything about Oswald or the assassination.
Martin, the informant who had started the chase after Ferrie, was
dismissed as a crank with a grudge. He was indeed an odd character
- a fact for which Ferrie may have been most grateful. As this story
has shown, there was good reason to suspect him. A case in point is
the reported concern by Marcello's lawyer about a library card.
Nothing in the record
reflects the finding in Oswald's possession of any document relating
to Ferrie. Yet the Secret Service did ask Ferrie whether he had loaned
Oswald his library card. Ferrie denied it, but the statements of two
witnesses suggest he was panic-stricken over just that. One of Oswald's
former neighbors in New Orleans would later tell investigators that
Ferrie visited her soon after his Texas trip - asking about Oswald's
library card. Oswald's own landlady said the same - and added a disturbing
factor. She recalled Ferrie turning up to ask about the card within
hours of the assassination - before he set off on his trip. This bizarre
episode, which may be of key significance, remains unexplained.
What was
the connection between David Ferrie, Lee Harvey Oswald and Carlos
Marcello?
(K13)
G.
Robert Blakey was
interviewed by Frontline
in 1993.
Q: Who is David Ferrie?
A: If Oswald is an enigmatic
character, and he is, David Ferrie is his soulmate. David Ferrie is
a man, not well educated, but described as brilliant. Apparently a
homosexual. An airline pilot for Eastern Airlines and a good pilot.
A man who is very active in the anti-Castro Cuban movement. A man
who is close to Carlos Marcello. He is also, significantly, a man
who, in the 1950s, headed up a civil air patrol unit in which Lee
Harvey Oswald apparently was a member.
Q: It appears that when
Oswald went to Dallas, suddenly he's not with anybody. Maybe he did
it alone?
A: Anybody who looks at
this has to be candid enough to say that the evidence cuts in two
directions. When he is in Dallas, he apparently is alone, or largely
a loner.
He gets the job at the
depository by happenstance. The Kennedy motorcade in front of the
depository is by happenstance. It has none of the earmarks of a carefully
planned assassination. His flight from the depository is by happenstance.
His killing of Tippit is by happenstance. …
But then, you find David
Ferrie, who is an investigator for Carlos Marcello, being a boyhood
friend to Lee Harvey Oswald and with him that summer, and with Carlos
Marcello at that very point in time. You have an immediate connection
between a man who had the motive, opportunity and means to kill Kennedy
and the man who killed Kennedy.
Why does
G. Robert Blakey believe that David Ferrie was involved in the assassination
of John F. Kennedy?
(K14)
Article
in New York Daily News about Marita
Lorenz
(3rd November, 1977)
Marita Lorenz told the
New York Daily News that her companions on the car trip from
Miami to Dallas were Oswald, CIA contact agent Frank Sturgis, Cuban
exile leaders Orlando Bosch and Pedro Diaz Lanz, and
two Cuban brothers whose names she did not know.
She said that they were
members of Operation 40, a secret guerilla group originally formed
by the CIA in 1960 in preparation for the Bay of Pigs invasion...
Ms. Lorenz described Operation
40 as an "assassination squad" consisting of about 30 anti-Castro
Cubans and their American advisors. She claimed the group conspired
to kill Cuban Premier Fidel Castro and President Kennedy, whom it
blamed for the Bay of Pigs fiasco...
She said Oswald... visited
an Operation 40 training camp in the Florida Everglades. The next
time she saw him, Ms. Lorenz said, was... in the Miami home of Orlando
Bosch, who is now in a Venezuelan prison on murder charges in connection
with the explosion and crash of a Cuban jetliner that killed 73 persons
last year.
Ms. Lorenz claimed that
this meeting was attended by Sturgis, Oswald, Bosch and Diaz Lanz,
former Chief of the Cuban Air Force. She said the men spread Dallas
street maps on a table and studied them...
She said they left for
Dallas in two cars soon after the meeting. They took turns driving,
she said, and the 1,300-mile trip took about two days. She added that
they carried weapons - "rifles and scopes" - in the cars...
Sturgis reportedly recruited
Ms. Lorenz for the CIA in 1959 while she was living with Castro in
Havana. She later fled Cuba but returned on two secret missions. The
first was to steal papers from Castro's suite in the Havana Hilton;
the second mission was to kill him with a poison capsule, but it dissolved
while concealed in ajar of cold cream.
Informed of her story,
Sturgis told the News yesterday: "To the best of my knowledge,
I never met Oswald."
According
to Marita Lorenz, what was Operation 40?
(K15)
Michael
Kurtz,
Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination From a Historians
Perspective (1982)
Several documents
from the FBI and CIA assassination files hint that foreknowledge of
the president's murder was fairly widespread. On 21 November, a Cuban
told Gregory Basila, a San Antonio pharmacist, that "Kennedy
will be killed in Dallas tomorrow." An informant told the FBI's
Miami office that $25,000 to $50,000 was being offered to assassinate
the president. Early in the morning of 22 November, a CIA source in
Madrid heard a former Cuban journalist say that "Kennedy would
be killed that day."
Even more suggestive were
two incidents that occurred before the assassination. In late September
1963, Sylvia and Anne Odio were visited in their Dallas apartment
by two Cubans and an American. A couple of days later one of the Cubans,
Leopoldo, telephoned Sylvia and told her that the American was so
"loco" that he might even shoot the president of the United
States. On the day of the assassination, Sylvia Odio fainted when
she saw Lee Harvey Oswald's picture on television and immediately
recognized him as the American companion of her two Cuban visitors.
Late in the night of 22
November 1963, Clare Boothe Luce, one of America's most distinguished
women, received a telephone call from a Cuban exile friend. He told
her that he and several friends had met Oswald when he tried to infiltrate
their anti-Castro free Cuba organization in New Orleans in the summer
of 1963. He also told her that Oswald had made several trips to Mexico
City and had returned with a large sum of money. Mrs. Luce recalled
her friend's remarking about Oswald's boast that he was a "crack
marksman and could shoot anybody," even the president. The last
thing the friend told Mrs. Luce was that there "is a Cuban Communist
assassination team at large, and Oswald was their hired gun."
According
to Michael Kurtz, what evidence is there that the anti-Castro Cubans
were involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
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