Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK (53 page)

Carlos said he had been willing to join the Fair Play for Cuba group provided it was done with the backing of the FBI or the local police force. He said he had made this known to Lt. Martello, NOPD, who apparently forgot about it. He said he did not contact the FBI for the reason on a previous occasion he had notified their office that Oswald was handing out what he assumed to be procommunist literature in front of the International Trade Mart, New Orleans, and the FBI had given him the cold shoulder.'

According to the December 3 Secret Service report, Quiroga had been associated with Arcacha Smith, former head of the CRC in New Orleans. Another CRC member, a Mr. Rodriguez, Sr., told the Secret Service agents that Quiroga "knew Arcacha well and was with him frequently (very close connection) at 544 Camp Street."

Although Quiroga has been viewed as a CRC member or an "associate" of DRE delegate Bringuier, the newly released files show that he was an intriguing fellow in his own right. He had come to the attention of the CIA for his previous pro-Castro leanings (he was now anti-Castro), which resulted in his consideration for operational use in a dangerous role. According to a 1967 CIA memorandum, Quiroga had been designated for recruitment into an important project while he had been attending classes at Louisiana State University. Quiroga, stated the report, was "a candidate for the CIA Student Recruitment Program, designed to recruit Cuban students to return to Cuba as agents in place."" Quiroga had the perfect pedigree: Until mid-1961 he had been pegged as "an ardent Castro supporter" who made anti-U.S. statements.

Quiroga had been attractive to the CIA as someone who might be enticed to take advantage of his pro-Castro pedigree to spy in Cuba. None of this meant, as the Counterintelligence/Research and Analysis report was quick to point out, that Quiroga had been "employed" by the Agency. Quiroga, however, had vices: "He reportedly had homosexual tendencies," the report added, "and low morals." These tendencies may have made him more vulnerable as a target for recruitment.

Quiroga's visit was not the end of Oswald's contacts with individuals who were associated with the AMSPELL propaganda being wrapped around Oswald. Oswald was about to meet Ed Butler.

Butler, Oswald, and the WDSU Radio Debate

"Dear General," an old friend of U.S. Air Force Major General Edward Lansdale wrote on August 1, 1963, "here is the letter I mentioned to you concerning the anti-communist student operation in the Dominican Republic, where Father Barrenechea operates, though his mail address is Miami." Lansdale had served as the operations officer for Kennedy's anti-Cuban operations in 1962, and Lansdale's friend happened to be a respected editor for the Reader's Digest, Gene Methvin. Methvin told Lansdale this about the letter:

This is the first "nuts-and-bolts how to do it" approach I've seen to organizational warfare. The author, Ed Butler, has an organization going in New Orleans called "The Information Council of the Americas" (INCA), which is sending "Truth Tapes," dramatic interviews with Cuban refugees and other anti-Communist programs, to more than 100 radio stations in 16 Latin countries.88

Lansdale read Methvin's letter and knew just what to do. He wrote a note on August 2 to his assistant, Colonel Jackson: "Discuss this with Frank Hand. Is this something for us to help, to stay away from, what? The Methvin article attracts me. The letter to the padre says whoa, caution. There is tricky background, which is where Frank Hand comes in." Tricky background about Ed Butler's letter? What did Lansdale mean by this? Frank Hand was detailed to Lansdale's office from the CIA. Lansdale must have been referring to Butler's connections to the Agency when he said "where Frank Hand comes in." On August 6, Colonel Jackson wrote back to Lansdale, "Based on comments by Frank Hand recommend the Orlando Group be left alone."

That was probably just as well for Lansdale, given the level of post-assassination interest that developed in Oswald's activities over the summer and fall of 1963. Lansdale already knew some of the background story on Butler, and deftly dodged entanglement with his operations. In all the interviews with Lansdale during the seventies and eighties, no one asked him for his views on Butler's debate with Oswald, an event that took place within days of Lansdale's decision to steer clear of Butler. This point may seem obscure, but its value may become apparent as we learn more about Lansdale. The general impression gleaned-after two separate investigations by two different research teams-from the voluminous Lansdale papers at the Hoover Institution is that Lansdale would ordinarily have been interested in the sort of propaganda opportunities Butler was working to open up for the Agency. Lansdale was one of the creators of modem psychological warfare, and he patronized the efforts of many people like Butler. Who was Ed Butler? The answer to that question became apparent during the last week of August 1963, when he and a radio host in New Orleans managed to get Oswald into a live radio debate.

At ten A.M. on August 21, 1963, the phone rang in the New Orleans office of the FBI, and SAC Harry Maynor took the call.89 The caller said he was with the"Ross Agency," an advertising business, but added he also had a Latin American program on WDSU radio, a local station in New Orleans. His name was "Bill" Stuckey. He had a thirty-two-minute tape of an interview with Oswald made the previous evening in Oswald's home. Stuckey said he had spoken with Oswald because of Oswald's claim to be an officer of the local Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and had been arrested by the NOPD.

Was the FPCC cited as a "subversive" organization? Stuckey asked. Maynor replied he was not authorized to comment, and advised Stuckey to call the U.S. Department of Justice. Before hanging up, Stuckey mentioned that at 6:05 P.M. that evening Oswald and Edward Butler would debate for thirty minutes on his radio program, Carte Blanche. Stuckey suggested to Maynor, "that I might like to hear this program." Stuckey also offered him the thirty-two-minute tape. Maynor passed all of this on to SA Milton Kaack, to whom the Oswald case had been assigned. The New Orleans office did get a copy of the taped interview, but not from Stuckey. Kaack got it from Butler on August 26, and returned it to Butler-presumably after making a duplicate--on August 30.90

When Oswald showed up for the debate, Stuckey and his co-host, Slatter, as well as Butler and Bringuier, were already there. The program began, and after some sparring back and forth, Stuckey dropped this bomb on Oswald:

STUCKEY: Mr. Oswald, if I may break in now a moment, I believe it was mentioned that you at one time asked to renounce your American citizenship and become a Soviet citizen, is that correct?

OSWALD: Well, I don't think that has particular import to this discussion. We are discussing Cuban-American relations.

STUCKEY: Well, I think it has a bearing to this extent. Mr. Oswald, you say apparently that Cuba is not dominated by Russia and yet you apparently, by your own past actions, have shown that you have an affinity for Russia and perhaps communism, although I don't know that you admit that you either are a Communist or have been, could you straighten out that part? Are you or have you been a Communist?

OSWALD: Well, I answered that prior to this program, on another radio program.

STUCKEY: Are you a Marxist?

oswALD: Yes, I am a Marxist.

Oswald was suddenly on the defensive, and his hesitation suggests that he wanted to hide his connections to the Soviet Union.

If Oswald had set up Bringuier for the Canal Street caper, Oswald was the target on this evening. Back on the air from a commercial break, host Slatter said, "Mr. Oswald, as you might have imagined, is on the hot seat tonight." With that, Slatter gave the floor to Stuckey, who continued skewering Oswald. The transcript has this passage:

STUCKEY: Mr. Oswald ... so you are the face of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans. Therefore anybody who might be interested in this organization ought to know more about you. For this reason I'm curious to know just how you supported yourself during the three years that you lived in the Soviet Union. Did you have a government subsidsy [subsidy]?

OSWALD: Well, as I er, well-I will answer that question directly then as you will not rest until you get your answer. I worked in Russia. I was not under the protection of the-that is to say, I was not under protection of the American government, but as I was at all times considered an American citizen I did not lose my American citizenship.

SLATTER: Did you say that you wanted to at one time though? What happened?

oswALD: Well, it's a long-drawn-out situation in which permission to live in the Soviet Union being granted to a foreign resident is rarely given. This calls for a certain amount of technicality, technical papers and so forth. At no time, as I say, did I renounce my citizenship or attempt to renounce my citizenship, and no time was I out of contact with the American Embassy.

Here Oswald, caught off guard by his opponents' knowledge of his Soviet background, lost control of the debate. To his credit, he maintained his composure, but this attack by Stuckey and Butler clearly directed the discussion.

Butler pressed his advantage, further drawing out Oswald on the sticky subject of whether he had renounced his U.S. citizenship. The argument was not a useful subject from Oswald's point of view:

OSWALD: As I have already stated, of course, this whole conversation, and we don't have too much time left, is getting away from the Cuban-American problem. However, I am quite willing to discuss myself for the remainder of this program. As I stated, it is very difficult for a resident alien, for a foreigner, to get permission to reside in the Soviet Union. During those two weeks and during the dates you mentioned I was of course with the knowledge of the American Embassy, getting this permission.

BUTLER: Were you ever at a building at II Kuznyetskoya St. in Moscow?

oswALD: Kuznyetskoya? Kuznyetskoya is-well, that would probably be in the Foreign Ministry, I assume. No, I was never in that place, although I know Moscow, having lived there.

SLATTER: Excuse me. Let me interrupt here. I think Mr. Oswald is right to this extent. We shouldn't get to lose sight of the organization of which he is the head in New Orleans, the Fair Play for Cuba.

The damage was done, however, and Oswald appeared compromised as a closet Communist and suspect tool of Moscow. His usefulness for any purpose in New Orleans, including pro-Castro leafleting, was finished.

"Our opponents could use my background of residence in the U.S.S.R. against any case which I join," Oswald lamented in a letter to the American Communist Party a week later.91 Oswald said that "by association, they could say the organization of which I am a member, is Russian controled, ect [sic]. I am sure you see my point."

The WDSU radio debate brought to an end Oswald's odyssey into the world of AMSPELL in New Orleans. Did AMSPELL report these contacts with Oswald to the CIA at the time? The answer is yes, according to this passage from the HSCA:

Isidor "Chilo" Borja, another leader of the DRE, was interviewed by the committee on February 21, 1978. Borja said he knew Clare Booth Luce was supportive of the DRE, but said he did not know the extent of her financial involvement. He also recalled Bringuier's contact with Oswald and the fact that the DRE relayed that information to the CIA at the time92 [emphasis added].

Who in the CIA learned of these events in August 1963? That answer remains elusive. Most likely the information was passed from Bringuier to the AMSPELL control in the CIA's JMWAVE station in Miami, which managed much of the Agency's anti-Cuban operations. We can be less certain, however, if this information was passed to headquarters. The FBI did pass the story to the Agency in September, a subject to which we will return in the remaining chapters. Now we address another vital episode in Oswald's saga: his preparations to travel to Mexico City.

The Man in the Mexican Tourist Line

On September 17, Oswald went to the New Orleans Mexican Consulate93 where he obtained a fifteen-day tourist permit, number 24085.94 The three-dollar permit was valid for ninety days but only for fifteen days inside Mexico.95 After the assassination, the FBI laboratory typed an erroneous number-24084-for Oswald's tourist card, and then scratched it out and replaced it with the right number, 24085.96 In October 1976 the CIA released a document which was an English translation of a Mexican government study of Oswald's tourist permit.97 The numbers 24082, 24083, 24085, 24086, and 24087 were accounted for, but, strangely, there was no mention of 24084. Why all the mystery about permit 24084?

That number belonged to the man in front of Oswald in line at the Mexican Consulate.98 Not surprisingly, that person was someone with lengthy connections to the CIA. It happened to be William Gaudet, who, as discussed in Chapter Sixteen, testified that he had seen Oswald speaking with Banister on a street corner. Again, Gaudet's CIA files indicated he had been a "contact" for the New Orleans office, while Gaudet himself preferred to boast that he had "once been employed by the CIA.""

According to the HSCA, "Gaudet said he could not recall whether his trip to Mexico and other Latin American countries in 1963 involved any intelligence-related activity."10° Gaudet testified that he had never met Oswald and had not seen him on the trip to Mexico. Gaudet did, however, testify that he knew about Oswald in the summer of 1963 because of his leafleting activity near Gaudet's office in the Trade Mart. Gaudet also testified that he had seen Oswald speaking with Banister on a street corner.

A study of the United Fruit Company, headquartered in New Orleans, contained this passage about Gaudet:

The company founded newspapers for employees in Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica and Honduras. A weekly "Latin American Report" for journalists and businessmen was spun off, written by William Gaudet, who was one of several actors in the unfolding Guatemalan drama said to have had simultaneous connections with both United Fruit and the Central Intelligence Agency.101

"Mr. William G. Gaudet publishes the `Latin American Reports,' " said an internal CIA request to fund his activities. "His reports have been made available to 00 [Domestic Contacts Division]," said the description of the project, "and he has supplied other information of value. 00 believes that specific requirements of ORE (Office of Research) can be met by requesting Mr. Gaudet to get special reports from his correspondents" [emphasis added].