Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (49 page)

Hoover also explained that it was not unusual for agents to leave their
name, address, and telephone number for persons they were attempting to
contact. He said Oswald's wife Marina probably jotted down Hosty's
license number for her husband. Hosty, however, claimed he had parked
his car some distance from the house where Marina was staying to avoid
drawing attention to his visit.

On January 22, 1964, Texas attorney general Waggoner Carr called
Warren Commission general counsel J. Lee Rankin to report that he had
information that Oswald had been recruited as an informant for the FBI in
September 1962. He further stated that Oswald was being paid two hundred dollars a month and assigned Informant Number S-179. Can cited
Dallas district attorney Henry Wade, a former FBI man, as the source of
this information.

Carr's call prompted a special executive session of the Warren Commission that same day. The minutes of that meeting were classified "Top
Secret" until March 1975. At this meeting Commissioners were tense.
What could they do with this report that Oswald, already designated as
JFK's assassin, was working for the FBI?

Commission general counsel J. Lee Rankin said:

.. . When the Chief Justice and I were just briefly reflecting on [the
Oswald-FBI informant rumor], we said if that was true and it ever came
out, could be established, then you would have people think that there
was a conspiracy to accomplish this assassination that nothing the
Commission did or anybody could dissipate.

Representative Hale Boggs mused: "Its implications are . . . are
fantastic .. . "

Referring to the fact that the Commission had no independent investigators and was forced to rely on the FBI for its information, Rankin said:
"[the FBI] would like us to fold up and quit.... They found the man. There is nothing more to do. The Commission supports their conclusions,
and we can go on home and that is the end of it."

Boggs remarked: "... I don't even like to see this being taken down."

Former CIA director and Commission member Allen Dulles agreed:
"Yes, I think this record ought to be destroyed. Do you think we need a
record of this?"

On January 27, the commissioners met again to consider this information. It is obvious from the transcripts that they feared approaching Hoover
with the matter. Turning to the former CIA Director Allen Dulles, Boggs
asked how the FBI could disprove that Oswald was an informant. Dulles
replied:

That is a hard thing to disprove, you know ... I never knew how to
disprove it . . . The record may not be on paper. But on paper you
would have hieroglyphics that only two people know what they meant,
and nobody outside of the agency would know; and you could say this
meant the agent and somebody else could say it meant another agent.

". . . The man who recruited [the agent] would know, wouldn't he?"
asked Boggs. "Yes, but he wouldn't tell," replied Dulles. "Wouldn't tell
under oath?" asked an incredulous Earl Warren. Dulles replied:

I wouldn't think he would tell under oath, no . . . He ought not tell it
under oath . . . What I was getting at, I think, under any circumstances.
I think Mr. Hoover would say certainly he didn't have anything to do
with this fellow.

Exasperated, Boggs said: ". . . What you do is ... make our problem
utterly impossible because you say this rumor can't be dissipated under
any circumstances. "

During this same meeting Rankin revealed that he had received the same
Oswald-informant information from yet another source-the Secret Service. He said the Secret Service named a Dallas deputy sheriff, Allan
Sweatt, as its source.

It was here that the commissioners decided to just drop the entire matter.
The FBI was informing them that Oswald was never an informant, and
they could never prove or disprove it.

Furthermore, although it would be several weeks before the Commission
began hearing witnesses and taking testimony, it now appears the verdict
already was in. In the same Commission minutes, Senator Richard Russell
commented: "They [the FBI] have tried the case and reached a verdict
on every aspect."

If Oswald was working for the FBI, it could explain many things. It
could explain his mysterious movements and associations in New Orleans,
where he tried to join both pro- and anti-Castro groups. It could explain why he asked for Agent Quigley after his arrest. It could explain his light
sentence after being found guilty of disturbing the peace. It could explain
the remarks-later denied-by Agent Hosty in Dallas that the FBI knew
about Oswald. It also could explain why the FBI did not pass along its
security file on Oswald to the Dallas police and it could explain why
Dallas FBI chief Shanklin demanded that Hosty be allowed to question
Oswald while in police custody.

It also might explain a well-documented instance of the FBI destroying
evidence after the assassination. In August 1975, the Dallas Times Herald
reported it had recently learned that two weeks before the JFK assassination, Oswald had delivered a note to the Dallas FBI office and that the note
had been destroyed after the assassination. This story prompted an investigation by the Justice Department and eventually became the center of
hearings before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.

It is now certain that two to three weeks prior to the assassination,
Oswald came to the Dallas FBI office and asked a receptionist to see
Agent Hosty. When told Hosty was not in, Oswald left a note. The
receptionist, Nancy Fenner, noted that Oswald asked for "S.A. [Special
Agent] Hosty . . . [in] exactly those words." It's surprising that Oswald
would be so familiar with Bureau jargon. Years later Fenner recalled the
note said something like: "Let this be a warning. I will blow up the FBI
and the Dallas Police Department if you don't stop bothering my wifeLee Harvey Oswald."

Hosty, who said he was told not to mention the note at the time of the
assassination, said the note was not violent in tone and that it said
something more like:

If you have anything you want to learn about me, come talk to me
directly. If you don't cease bothering my wife, I will take appropriate
action and report this to the proper authorities.

Hosty also said the note was folded and expressed doubts that Fenner
had read it properly.

He said that within hours of the assassination, he was called into the
office of the special-agent-in-charge, J. Gordon Shanklin. Hosty said
Shanklin was visibly "agitated and upset" and wanted to know about the
Oswald note.

After Oswald had been killed, Shanklin again called in Hosty. Hosty
said Shanklin produced the Oswald note from his desk drawer and said,
"Oswald's dead now. There can be no trial. Here, get rid of this." As
Hosty tore up the note, Shanklin cried: "No! Get it out of here. I don't
even want it in this office. Get rid of it!" Hosty said he took the pieces of
note to a nearby restroom and "flushed it down the drain."

Before the House subcommittee, Shanklin denied any knowledge of the
Oswald note. But assistant FBI director William Sullivan said Shanklin had discussed an "internal problem" concerning a message from Oswald
with him and that the presence of the note was common knowledge at FBI
headquarters.

Another Dallas agent, Kenneth Howe, also testified he showed Shanklin
the Oswald note the weekend of the assassination. Existence of the note
also was talked about among some members of the Dallas Police Department.

Mrs. Ruth Paine even mentioned that Oswald had dropped off a note to
the FBI in her testimony to the Warren Commission in 1964. She told the
Commission: "[Oswald] told me he had stopped at the downtown office of
the FBI and tried to see the agents and left a note . .."

Why then did the Bureau only acknowledge the existence of the note
after media reports in 1975? The House Select Committee on Assassinations said the incident concerning the note was a "serious impeachment of
Shanklin's and Hosty's credibility," and that with the note's destruction,
it was not possible to establish with confidence what its contents were."

It seems unbelievable, however, that the FBI would knowingly destroy
evidence, especially if it would have proven Oswald prone to violence.
Some researchers say a more plausible explanation is that Oswald, as an
FBI informant, tried to warn the Bureau about the coming assassination.
This could explain the receptionist's insistence that the note contained
threatening words. It also could explain why the FBI was so concerned and
fearful of the note that it was ordered destroyed.

Hosty, incidentally, was one of seventeen FBI agents reprimanded for
the way they handled the assassination case. He was suspended for thirty
days without pay and transferred to Kansas City. However, after the
Oswald-note matter was investigated by the House Select Committee on
Assassinations and despite the contradictions between Hosty's testimony
and that of his superior, Shanklin, Hosty was given more than a thousand
dollars in repayment for the Hoover-imposed suspension.

"Rather than come out and admit [that I was wronged in 1963] . . . [the
FBI] just gave me my money back," commented Hosty.

In light of the FBI's meticulously-worded denials that Oswald had never
been paid as an FBI informant, it should be noted that all informants don't
work for money. It is common practice for the FBI to gain information
from people who have something to fear from the Bureau, perhaps the
possibility of being charged with a past crime or even possible deportation.

Oswald's wife, Marina, had never become a U.S. citizen and therefore
was subject to deportation at the government's pleasure. She even mentioned this to the Warren Commission, saying:

Sometimes the FBI agents asked me questions which had no bearing
or relationship [to the assassination], and if I didn't want to answer,
they told me that if I wanted to live in this country, I would have to help
in this matter .. .

According to Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz, Oswald became angry
when FBI agent Hosty confronted him. According to Fritz, Oswald "beat
on the desk and went into a kind of tantrum," telling Hosty: "I know you.
You accosted my wife on two occasions." Asked by Fritz what he meant
by "accosted," Oswald replied: "Well, he threatened her . . . he practically told her she would have to go back to Russia." Perhaps Oswald was
not recruited by the promise of money, but by the threat of Marina's
deportation.

Finally, while it cannot be established with any certainty that Oswald
was working for the FBI, it is now known that his killer definitely was. In
early 1959, at a time when Jack Ruby may have been involved in smuggling activities with Cubans, he contacted the FBI and said he wanted to
provide the Bureau with information. Accordingly, Agent Charles W.
Flynn opened a Potential Criminal Informant (PCI) file on Ruby.

The relationship between Ruby and the Bureau was mentioned in a letter
from Hoover to the Warren Commission dated June 9, 1964. However,
this information was kept classified until 1975.

In the 1964 letter, Hoover stated that Ruby "furnished no information
whatsoever and further contacts with him were discontinued." This disclaimer is difficult to swallow, since records show that agents met with
Ruby on at least eight occasions between April and October 1959.

Since Ruby was an FBI informant, and considering the massive circumstantial evidence now available concerning Oswald's relationship to the
Bureau, the possibility of Lee Harvey Oswald having worked for the
Bureau cannot be ruled out.

And if by the spring of 1963, when Oswald arrived in New Orleans, he
was indeed working with the FBI, it could explain his contacts with the
characters at 544 Camp Street.

By the spring of 1963 the faded, three-story Newman Building at the
corner of Camp and Lafayette streets in New Orleans had become known
as the "Cuban Grand Central Station."

Housed in this building was the CIA-backed Cuban Revolutionary Council, as well as Sergio Archaca Smith's Crusade to Free Cuba, both
virulently anti-Castro groups.

Also in the same building was the private detective firm of Guy Banister. In the summer of 1963, Banister's employees included Jack Martin
and David Ferrie, Oswald's former Civil Air Patrol leader, and reportedly
Oswald himself.

During the 1940s Banister was the special-agent-in-charge of the FBI
office in Chicago, Jack Ruby's hometown. One of his FBI associates at that time was Robert Maheu, who left the Bureau in the 1950s and later
became the chief go-between in the CIA-Mafia assassination plots against
Castro.

According to Banister's family, he was also involved with Naval intelligence during the war and maintained contacts with that intelligence group
throughout his life.

Banister left the Bureau and came to New Orleans in the 1950s at the
request of the mayor to become chief of police. However, in 1957, he was
forced to retire after an incident in the Old Absinthe House, where
Banister allegedly threatened a waiter with a gun. He then formed Guy
Banister Associates, which occupied a ground-floor office in the Newman
Building with the address of 531 Lafayette Street, the side entrance to 544
Camp Street. This office was within walking distance of the New Orleans
FBI office, Naval intelligence offices, and other government agencies.