CHAPTER 5

April 1964: Mexico and the Cuban Connection

IF THERE WAS INDEED A CONSPIRACY BEHIND JOHN F. KENNEDY’S ASSASSINAtion, we suspected from the outset that Oswald’s eight-day trip to Mexico from September 26 to October 3, 1963, only seven weeks before the assassination, would likely be the place we could unearth it. The CIA clearly thought so too, which is why CIA director John McCone focused on Mexico in briefing President Johnson on the morning of November 23, 1963. That same day, Helms informed his deputy, Thomas Karamessines, and James J. Angleton, chief of counterintelligence, that a desk officer in the western hemisphere division would be in charge of the CIA investigation. Helms said that this officer had professional expertise in conducting counterintelligence investigations for the agency. On November 24, the CIA Mexico station provided the names of all known contacts of certain Soviet personnel in Mexico City. McCone met again with the president that day and briefed him regarding CIA operational plans against Cuba.¹

On November 26, President Johnson told McCone that the FBI had responsibility for investigating the assassination and directed him to assist the bureau with all available CIA resources. According to a report probably originating from Rocca, who was the key CIA official working with Coleman and Slawson, the CIA believed that the FBI may have been derelict in its handling of Oswald before the assassination. That was one reason the CIA wanted to keep its investigative effort as independent as possible from the FBI’s work. Over the next few weeks, the CIA received information from its Mexico station about its own investigation, actions taken by the Mexican government, and suggestions from Ambassador Thomas Mann of additional investigative initiatives.²

In late December, the CIA desk officer in charge of the investigation completed a memo summarizing the agency’s investigation, which went to President Johnson. The officer did not have the benefit of the FBI report regarding the assassination, so he did not know that in April 1963, Oswald had shot at General Walker. At a meeting late in December, Angleton, a good friend of the CIA’s station chief in Mexico, suggested that his own counterintelligence division take over the investigation, and Helms agreed. One of Angleton’s analysts was designated to be the “point of record” for all matters relating to the assassination and the Warren Commission in January 1964, when the CIA began to respond to requests for information from the commission.³

 Oswald’s Trip to Mexico

When Helms suggested that it might be useful for us to go to Mexico City to deal directly with American representatives there and Mexican law enforcement officials, Rankin quickly agreed. Helms cautioned that the Mexican government was likely to be defensive about any potential connection with the assassination. With Rankin’s approval, I joined Coleman and Slawson on this trip. We thought that having a lawyer from Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department on the team would bolster our credentials with Mexican law enforcement officers, and probably wouldn’t hurt in getting cooperation from the FBI in Mexico City as well.

On April 7, the day before we were scheduled to leave Washington, Coleman, Slawson, and I met with Thomas Mann, who was then the assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs. Mann had been ambassador to Mexico at the time of the assassination and had personally directed the US investigatory effort and relations with the Mexican law enforcement authorities. In his file on the assassination, Mann had written that Oswald was “probably involved in a sinister fashion, especially by way of taking a bribe, with the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City or with some other Castro agency.” When we asked him about this at our meeting, Mann acknowledged that he had no particular evidence to support these suspicions. He said, rather, that he had “the general feeling ‘in his guts’ that Castro was the kind of dictator who might have carried out this kind of ruthless action, either through some hope of gaining from it or simply as revenge.” Mann knew about the rumors and speculations implicating Cuba, but he told us his suspicions of Castro’s involvement rested only on Oswald’s visits to the Cuban and Soviet embassies during his Mexico trip and Mann’s own assessment of Castro’s character. The CIA had been concerned about Mann spreading his unsubstantiated suspicion in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, worried that it could lead to a “flap” with the Cubans. At the time the CIA concern seemed appropriate in the absence of any hard evidence to support Mann’s suspicions, but in retrospect the CIA was probably more concerned about any inquiries that would expose its recent covert efforts to get rid of Castro, including plotting his assassination—information withheld from the Warren Commission and the American public until 1976.⁴

At the very end of our meeting, Mann asked Slawson whether, “with the benefit of hindsight,” we believed that his insistence on certain investigative efforts shortly after the assassination had been appropriate or whether we thought they were unduly rash. With the polish of an experienced diplomat, Slawson assured Mann that, although our investigation had shown that the allegations were in all probability fabricated, Mann’s actions were fully justified based on the information known at the time.⁵ As the meeting ended, Mann offered one piece of unsolicited advice—that we should conduct our business in Mexico as quietly as possible, without any newspaper publicity.⁶

This advice came up later that day when we met with Jack Whitten of the CIA. Whitten offered to make arrangements to get us into Mexico “completely unnoticed if we desired to do so,” but I thought this just wouldn’t work. We could not be seen to be sneaking around, particularly with the assistance of the CIA, while conducting a formal investigation that necessarily involved meetings with high-level Mexican officials. We intended to present ourselves as representatives of the commission and hoped only, if possible, to avoid any newspaper publicity or public announcements. Whitten advised that we should deal in Mexico City with Winston Scott, the CIA station chief, who he assured us was one of the agency’s top foreign operatives.⁷

Any effort to disguise our identity as commission representatives would have collapsed immediately upon our arrival in Mexico City on the evening of April 8. When Bill Coleman had a minor issue with Mexican officials over his recent vaccination history, an Eastern Airlines representative resolved the problem by announcing with pride that Coleman was a representative of the Warren Commission. Within minutes, I was approached by an unidentified man and asked whether it was true we were coming to investigate the assassination. I declined to confirm the report. Regardless, two Mexico City newspapers announced our arrival the following morning, identifying us by name and reporting that we had come to Mexico on Warren Commission business. If it had not been for Coleman’s delinquent vaccinations, we might well have blended into the busy crowd at the airport without any notice.⁸

We met the next day, April 9, with Ambassador Fulton Freeman, who had been on duty for only two days, along with Winston Scott from the CIA and Clark Anderson, chief of the FBI field office in Mexico City. Coleman explained our purposes in coming to Mexico and our desire to avoid doing anything that might disturb the good relations between Mexico and the United States. We wanted to find out what investigations were under way so we could determine how best to fill the gaps about Oswald’s activities in Mexico during his visit. Coleman said we also hoped to visit some of the Mexican officials who had conducted their investigation after the assassination. In particular, we wished to find out as much as possible about Silvia Duran, the clerk at the Cuban embassy who had dealt on several occasions with Oswald. Last, he raised the question of authenticating the evidence obtained in Mexico that would be relied upon by the commission and to do so, if possible, by the taking of depositions or inviting witnesses to testify before the commission.⁹

Freeman said we could probably interview Mexican citizens, but this would require approval by Mexican officials and assurances that all interviews would be wholly voluntary and done at the US embassy. He thought that our interest in meeting with Duran created a highly sensitive matter because of her (and her husband’s) communist views and the need to avoid any appearance of US interference with a Mexican law enforcement investigation. He said that his staff would identify the Mexican officials likely to be most helpful and to assist in making appointments. Freeman also pointed out that the taking of formal depositions in a foreign country would be a very difficult matter and suggested that we discuss this matter with the consulate section at the embassy.¹⁰

Later in a meeting with the FBI, we reviewed the bureau’s investigation about Oswald’s activities in Mexico. We knew about his visits to the Cuban and Soviet Union embassies and wanted to learn as much as possible about those visits. But more immediate was our need to discuss allegations suggesting that Oswald was implicated in some kind of a conspiracy related to the assassination and decide what additional investigation in Mexico was necessary.

We focused first on a charge made by a young Nicaraguan named Gilberte Alvarado Ugarte, who was known to the CIA as a former informant of a Central American security service used to penetrate communist guerrilla groups. Alvarado told US authorities after the assassination that in mid-September 1963 he saw Oswald receive $6,500 to kill Kennedy at a meeting of three persons outside the Cuban consulate in Mexico City. He described one as “a tall, thin Negro with reddish hair, obviously dyed, who spoke rapidly in both Spanish and English” and identified another person as being Lee Harvey Oswald. He stated:

A tall Cuban joined the group momentarily and passed some currency to the Negro. The Negro then allegedly said to Oswald in English, “I want to kill the man.” Oswald replied, “You’re not man enough. I can do it.” The Negro then said in Spanish, “I can’t go with you, I have a lot to do.” Oswald replied, “The people are waiting for me back there.” The Negro then gave Oswald $6,500 in large-denomination American bills, saying, “This isn’t much.”

Four days after this allegation was first reported, Mexican authorities notified their American counterparts that Alvarado had admitted to fabricating the entire story, hoping it would help gain him entry into the United States. Subsequently Alvarado claimed that Mexican authorities had pressured him into retracting his original claim. But American authorities discovered serious deficiencies in Alvarado’s story and, after a polygraph examination indicated that he was probably lying, Alvarado conceded that he “must be mistaken.”¹¹

The FBI gave us a detailed summary of their findings on Oswald’s northbound travel by bus. The agents also reported that their examination of the Hotel del Comercio, where Oswald stayed in Mexico, did not reveal evidence that the hotel was a known gathering place for Cuban travelers. But the FBI did pick up some useful information from the maid at the hotel and the proprietress of the little restaurant next door where Oswald frequently ate. Both told the FBI that Oswald was always alone; that his Spanish was very poor; and that on one occasion another hotel guest sat at a table with Oswald because no other table was available.

We asked what they had learned about Pedro Gutierrez Valencia, a credit investigator for a Mexico City department store. Gutierrez had reported that he was at the Cuban embassy on September 30 or October 1, 1963, and saw a Cuban leave the embassy with an American engaged in a heated discussion in English involving “Castro, Cuba, and Kennedy.” He told the bureau that the Cuban was counting American dollars and that both men departed the area in an automobile. After the assassination, Gutierrez contended that the American was Oswald. The FBI agents credited Gutierrez with being sincere and eager to cooperate with the investigation, but believed that his identification of the man as Oswald was very weak. However, they continued to try to locate the automobile that he had described.

The FBI also briefed us on Silvia Tirado de Duran, the clerk at the Cuban embassy whom we hoped to interview. The FBI had obtained a copy of her signed statement from the Mexican police. Duran was a Mexican national in the visa section of the Cuban embassy, and she remembered dealing with Oswald on his request for a visa to go to Cuba in transit to the Soviet Union. She was twenty-six, well educated, married to a forty-year-old industrial designer named Horacio Duran Navarro, and had a young child.

In support of his application for a visa, Duran recalled that Oswald showed her several documents to demonstrate his previous residence in the Soviet Union, his marriage to a Russian woman, and his commitment to Castro and the Cuban revolution. She was apparently interested enough in his situation to call the Soviet embassy to inquire what she could do to facilitate the issuance of a visa to Oswald. The Soviet authorities told her that it would take about four months to issue a visa allowing Oswald to enter the Soviet Union. When Duran relayed this information to Oswald and told him that she could not give him a Cuban visa without his first obtaining a Soviet Union visa, he got “very excited or angry,” which prompted Duran to enlist the assistance of the consul, Eusebio Azque. When Oswald persisted in demanding that he should be given a visa “as a sympathizer in Cuban objectives,” Azque ended the sharp argument in English by telling Oswald that “if it were up to him, he would not give him the visa.”¹²

Anderson thought that our effort to interview Duran might pose problems for the Mexican authorities, but agreed that we could try. He identified the acting minister of the interior, Luis Echevarria, as the official we should see about this and other investigative matters. Anderson said that he and Scott got along well with Echevarria.¹³

Near the end of our meeting we reviewed the various allegations suggesting some form of conspiracy involving Oswald. The agents identified six relating to Mexico and Cuba, all of which had previously been considered by commission lawyers. The FBI had investigated each of the allegations and advised us that three involved misidentification, lack of corroboration, or retraction by the witness. Slawson had originally thought three might be serious, including the Gutierrez allegation, and said it now appeared that only the Gutierrez matter was important enough to warrant continued investigation. The FBI agents agreed. Anderson added that he was confident that there was no foreign conspiracy arising out of or connected with Mexico. If such a conspiracy had existed, he said, the FBI would have had some firm indication of it by now.¹⁴

We were pleased with how the meeting with the FBI had gone. They had answered all our questions with no hint of evasion and even volunteered helpful information we hadn’t asked for. In the absence of any further leads suggesting a conspiracy, or requiring more investigation, I was inclined to accept Anderson’s judgment regarding the lack of any conspiracy.

We had a similar meeting later in the day with the CIA team consisting of Winston Scott and his deputy, Alan White. Scott gave us a detailed summary of the CIA’s activities in connection with Oswald beginning in September 1963, when the agency first learned that he had appeared at the Soviet and Cuban embassies. After the assassination, the CIA had ordered all its Mexican agents to concentrate on Kennedy. They had produced dossiers on Oswald and anyone in Mexico with whom he had some contact. This, of course, included Silvia Duran, her supervisor at the Cuban Embassy, and a KGB representative at the Soviet Embassy. The CIA had previously been interested in all three of them. They also put anyone who had contact with Oswald under surveillance. The CIA subsequently learned that Minister Echevarria and President Lopez Mateo immediately after the assassination had ordered the Mexican border closed for travel both ways, without having been requested to do so by the United States. Scott described the border closure as so thorough that busloads of schoolchildren were trapped on both sides.¹⁵

Based on Scott’s account and documents he gave us, Slawson and Coleman recognized that the information we had received in Washington on Oswald’s trips to the two embassies in Mexico City had important gaps. On the spot, we started to reconstruct our chronology. What the CIA had given us in Mexico City by itself justified the trip. It also served to validate the aphorism attributed to Helms to the effect that “there is no substitute for the ‘case officer’ being ‘on the spot.’”¹⁶

The CIA representatives did not have anything new on the Gutierrez inquiry, which, they pointed out, rested with the FBI. They told us they hadn’t seen any increases or unusual variations in cable traffic from the Soviet and Cuban embassies during Oswald’s time in Mexico City. We were disturbed to learn at this meeting that the CIA in Washington had not forwarded certain material developed elsewhere to Scott, even though these materials might have reasonably related to the Mexican investigation. For example, the contents of the letter that Oswald wrote to the Soviet embassy in Washington after he returned to the United States, describing certain aspects of his Mexican trip, had never been disclosed to Scott or his staff. We showed them this letter at our meeting. The lack of coordination between CIA headquarters and the Mexico City station made it even more difficult for the officers in the field where the actual investigation was under way.¹⁷

We asked Scott and his deputy for their opinion regarding the possibility of a foreign conspiracy arising from Mexico. Both gave the same response as Anderson had—that if there had been a conspiracy involving people in Mexico, evidence would have surfaced by then. We asked Scott to arrange a meeting for us with Echevarria as soon as possible and asked that he and Anderson come along. Their personal relationships with the minister could be useful. Plus, their fluency in Spanish might come in handy as interpreters. The meeting was set for 11:30 the next day.¹⁸

Before our meeting with Echevarria on April 10, we gathered at the FBI office to review our strategy and, if possible, to see the locations known to have been visited by Oswald. I was called out of this FBI meeting by Clarence Boonstra, head of the consulate section at the US embassy. With a great sense of urgency, he told me senior officials in Washington were demanding an explanation of the publicity that had appeared in the local press about our visit. Apparently, any inquiry from Washington demanded immediate attention, so Boonstra and I collaborated in an effort to soothe his department superiors. We sent a telegram assuring State officials in Washington that their embassy officials and commission representatives were working together and had the matter well in hand.

After the FBI meeting, Rolfe Larson, an FBI agent temporarily assigned for duty in Mexico City, took Coleman, Slawson, and me on an automobile tour of the various sites that Oswald visited—the bus stations, travel agency, hotel, restaurant, and Cuban and Soviet embassies. We saw for ourselves that the two embassies were close enough together so that Oswald almost certainly walked back and forth between them when necessary. In addition, they were not easily reached by bus. The Hotel del Comercio was a reasonably neat and clean hotel conveniently located near the bus station where Oswald’s journey to Mexico City ended. Upon his arrival, Oswald had probably asked where he might find a suitable hotel and been directed to this nearby neighborhood where there were a number of inexpensive hotels. We saw that both the Soviet and Cuban embassies were surrounded by high adobe walls blocking the view of their interiors. The Cuban consulate, where Oswald went to get his transit visa, was a small separate building in the Cuban complex with a front door that opened onto the street. Unlike the embassy buildings, this permitted easy observation of people entering and leaving the consulate by the CIA or other interested observers.¹⁹

Following this brief tour, we picked up Anderson and Scott at the embassy for the meeting with Echevarria. It lasted for about thirty minutes. By prearrangement, Coleman opened with statesmanlike remarks, including Chief Justice Warren’s personal thanks. We asked for a complete report from the Mexican government on its investigation into the assassination and its other actions, such as the closing of the border. Echevarria readily agreed, indicating that an overall report had already been prepared and would be delivered on forty-eight hours’ notice after receiving a formal request. To allay Echevarria’s concerns, Coleman assured him that the commission would not publish anything based on the report without clearance from the Mexican government. Echevarria volunteered his opinion that no foreign conspiracy connected with Mexico was involved in the assassination of our president.²⁰

When we raised the subject of interviews of Mexican citizens, Echevarria was hesitant. He told us that he did not believe that any such interviews should be at the US embassy because it would appear that the United States was conducting an official investigation on Mexican soil. This, he suggested, would be very sensitive politically for the Mexican government, with an upcoming presidential election in a few months. During the Cold War, Mexico was insistent on resisting any ideological affiliation with either the Soviet Union or the United States. Once it had satisfied itself that no persons in Mexico were involved in the assassination, the Mexican government did not wish to appear subservient to the United States.

Echevarria also suggested that the interviews be informal, perhaps at lunch or over coffee, but we needed to think that over. Given his concern, we decided to raise the issue of an interview with Silvia Duran from a different perspective. We emphasized the importance of Duran’s testimony and Echevarria agreed, stating that he had relied most heavily on it in concluding that Oswald’s activities at the two embassies were limited to his efforts to obtain a visa and had nothing to do with President Kennedy. However, prior to any more conversation on this subject, he excused himself to meet Queen Juliana of the Netherlands for lunch.²¹

After Echevarria left, we continued talking to his aide, Santiago Ibanez. Anderson told him that unrecorded interviews over lunch in a public place with witnesses were not what we needed. Ibanez proposed conducting the interviews at his own Interior Ministry. Although this alternative also had its problems, we left the meeting with the possibility still open (a bit at least) that we might get an opportunity to interview Duran.²²

After we returned to the embassy, the three of us, along with Scott and Anderson, met with Boonstra and discussed at length our interest in getting access to Duran. Based on her interview with Mexican officials and corroborating information available to the CIA through wiretaps (termed “confidential sources” in the reports) we thought that her statements regarding the purpose of Oswald’s visit to the Cuban embassy could be relied upon by the commission. Oswald’s discussions at the Cuban embassy were completely consistent with his stated reason for the trip—to obtain a transit visa through Cuba in order to go to the Soviet Union—and did not provide any basis for concluding it was in furtherance of a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. However, she had not been interviewed by either the FBI or the CIA. Perhaps, if willing to be interviewed, she could provide details regarding Oswald’s appearance and behavior as well as any remarks he might have made in the process of seeking a visa. We considered how an “informal” session with her might be arranged and discussed briefly the possibility of trying to persuade her to visit the United States and testify before the commission.²³

Boonstra thought it unlikely we would be given the opportunity to meet with Duran at all. He reminded us that the Mexicans were too politically sensitive to risk having her picked up a third time under arrest. Additionally, given the fact that she and her husband were both communists and he reportedly a rather bitter person in general, it was unlikely that she would agree to a voluntary appearance. Nevertheless, he said he would not object to our further attempt to arrange a meeting with her. Anderson would contact Ibanez to try to work out some arrangement regarding Duran while we were in Mexico City. We would defer any consideration of other approaches, such as requesting her to come to the United States, until Anderson had his conversation with Ibanez. Later in the day, Anderson reported that Ibanez was agreeable to our making arrangements to see Duran, subject to Echevarria’s approval.²⁴

We subsequently had a longer meeting with the CIA station chief and his deputy at the CIA office. This gave us an opportunity to review with them our reconstructed chronology of Oswald’s activities in Mexico City based on the source materials they had given us. Scott and White thought we had it right. We then discussed in some detail how we could use the information available to the agency through confidential sources in the commission’s report. This presented legitimate problems because of our different missions. The CIA needed to protect the identity of its confidential sources or risk losing those sources; we needed to identify the source of every fact we used in reaching our conclusions. We eventually decided on an approach that accommodated the CIA’s concerns; the agency would prepare a report containing the information needed by the commission, but omitting any reference to the means by which the information was obtained.²⁵

On Saturday morning we spent about three hours at the FBI office with Anderson and Larson. In the course of reviewing again the Gutierrez investigation, we asked the FBI to pursue several specific lines of inquiry. We wanted to know the exact time of arrival of Oswald’s bus in Mexico City on September 27; we needed the hours that the Cuban and Soviet consulates were open to the public and if there was any common practice to stay open beyond these stated hours. We wanted them to generate for us an itemized list of the goods and services that Oswald probably purchased while in Mexico and during his travels. We asked them to determine the procedures customarily used by the Cuban embassy, especially as they relate to the granting of visas and the various travel permits which would be available to someone in Oswald’s circumstances. Probing of this kind was essential to the overall objective of not overlooking anything that might suggest a conspiracy in operation.

Anderson again assured us that he had told us everything he knew, but that assurance had some limitations for us. As the FBI’s highest-ranking official in Mexico, he proceeded under the “impression” conveyed to him by FBI headquarters that Oswald was the lone assassin. As we learned later, his investigation in Mexico was directed toward establishing Oswald’s activities while in Mexico rather than looking for possible connections to a conspiracy.²⁶

On the same day as our meeting with the FBI, we followed up with a brief visit to the CIA office. Scott and White gave us a report regarding the time periods covering Gutierrez’s visits to the Cuban Embassy and indicated that no individuals or automobiles matched the descriptions provided by Gutierrez. The agency was continuing its surveillance of the Cuban embassy in an effort to find the car. Subsequently, Gutierrez failed to identify Oswald when shown his photograph. Like Anderson with the FBI, Scott assured us that his office had now told us everything developed in its Oswald investigation.

On Monday morning, Slawson again met with both agencies. In his meeting with Larson and another FBI agent, Slawson displayed copies of the physical evidence that he had brought to Mexico City to see if they might suggest further useful investigation by the FBI. Except for page forty-seven of Oswald’s address book, none of the items seemed to offer any promising lines of further inquiry. Page forty-seven listed a number for the Cuban Airlines office in Mexico City, but further investigation uncovered no evidence that Oswald visited that office while in the city.²⁷

When Slawson and I met with Anderson later in the morning, I told him that we were favorably impressed with the high quality of the FBI agents we had met in Mexico City and with their efforts on the assassination. I thought the high-quality work dated from late February and asked why agents familiar with Mexico had not been assigned earlier to the job. Anderson replied that embassy officials initially thought that the FBI would get the best results by working primarily with the Mexican authorities, who were highly motivated to discover any conspiracy that might have involved their country, and that an initial deployment of FBI specialists might have had adverse political effects. But when the subsequent results of the Mexican investigation were simply not good enough, the FBI’s own agents were assigned to the job.²⁸

Confusion as to which US agency was responsible for the investigation in Mexico also limited the FBI’s effectiveness. The FBI believed that the CIA and the Department of State were the only agencies with jurisdiction. Mann thought there was a Cuban conspiracy, but later it appeared that both the FBI and the CIA considered his views overblown and rejected suggestions that they seek information from their Cuban sources in the United States. They feared that such an approach would promote rumors and perhaps have serious repercussions with Cuba. In addition, although the FBI sent a supervisor from Washington to look into the allegation involving Oswald’s receipt of $6,500 from a Cuban consulate employee, this specialist did not know of any “investigation in Mexico to determine if there was Cuban involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy.” As soon as the source of this allegation admitted fabricating the story, this supervisor went back to Washington without any further effort to deal with a possible Cuban conspiracy.²⁹

In our last meeting at the embassy, Slawson, Anderson, and I revisited the Duran problem with Boonstra. Boonstra told us that Minister Echevarria had “reacted coolly” to our suggestion about arranging an informal meeting with Duran. We discussed the possibility of a letter from the commission that would be sent to her by registered mail from the embassy in Mexico City. But after talking it through, we agreed that we couldn’t be sure what Duran would do with the letter. It might be used for propaganda purposes by the communists or pro-Castro Cuban groups in Mexico if, for example, Duran claimed harassment based on her political views or the Cuban groups alleged that the United States was trying to implicate Castro’s government in the assassination. With such possible risks, we agreed to let high-level officials at the State Department evaluate the possibilities.³⁰

We also considered an official request by the US government through Swiss channels that the Cuban government forward its complete file on Oswald to the commission. The Cuban government had in fact acted on his application for a visa and authorized its issuance conditioned on his first obtaining a Russian visa. Both Boonstra and Anderson thought that this was a good idea, might actually be welcomed by the Cuban government, and appeared not to have any material adverse political consequences. But Boonstra thought that this idea, too, ought to be resolved in Washington.³¹

After we returned from Mexico, Slawson and I were briefing Rankin about the trip when the chief justice abruptly joined our discussion. We emphasized the positive results of the trip. First, we now had a more accurate picture of what Oswald had done in Mexico City. Second, the Mexican government was ready to provide us with a report of its investigation of any Mexican involvement in the assassination. Third, based on our conversations with the FBI and CIA agents in the field, we were better able to advise the commission about the allegations involving Oswald that had been pursued by the two agencies at our request.³²

After listening to our report, Warren told us not to pursue any effort to bring Duran to Washington. He objected because she and her husband were communists, and the husband was already incensed over his wife’s treatment by the Mexican officials. In Warren’s opinion (not an unusual one in those Cold War days), Duran’s communism meant she could not be a credible witness. In light of his position, we postponed further discussion of possible access to Duran.

A month or so after our Mexican trip, Slawson and I learned from the CIA’s Rocca that Duran and her husband had changed their minds and were willing to come to Washington. After getting Rankin’s approval to pursue the matter, we asked Chief Justice Warren whether he wanted to reconsider his earlier decision. He declined. Although Duran’s appearance before the commission might have been useful, Slawson and I recognized that bringing Duran and her husband to Washington involved certain risks—including antagonizing Mexican law enforcement authorities—and we understood Warren’s position. We already had a clear and documented report of her encounters with Oswald, based on the Mexican authorities’ interview of Duran, corroborated by the wiretaps, and the additional information she might have provided about Oswald was unlikely to be important enough to justify assuming these risks.³³

Even though our attempts to interview Duran ultimately failed, our pursuit had raised the possibility of obtaining from the Cuban government the documents reflecting its action on Oswald’s request for a visa. Slawson and I visited the State Department to discuss a possible request to Cuba through neutral channels regarding Oswald’s Mexican trip. Based on this conversation, Slawson prepared a draft letter from Warren to Rusk requesting the State Department’s assistance in obtaining information and documents from the Cuban government “through appropriate channels” regarding Oswald’s visit to the Cuban embassy in Mexico City. State planned to discuss with the Swiss ambassador in Havana the desirability of approaching the Cuban government to obtain this information. After approval by Rankin in late April, Slawson delivered the letter informally to the State Department. I learned later that Warren did not support this strategy, which was implemented without his approval.³⁴

 The Cuba Connection

The commission’s investigation of Oswald’s possible entanglement in a conspiracy involving Cuba was not limited to whatever he had done in Mexico. We had good documentation of his activities in support of the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee in the United States and we explored these political activities to determine whether they may have involved more serious and threatening objectives beyond the distribution of handbills on the streets of New Orleans or elsewhere. Of course, we were well aware that the United States and Cuba were engaged in a political confrontation that had already led to one military encounter at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 and a near catastrophe during the thirteen-day Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, after the Soviet Union began building a missile base on the island. The willingness of Castro’s Cuba to be a proxy for the Soviets in this hemisphere increased US resolution and candor about a regime change in Cuba.

At the commission, in addition to focusing on pro-Cuba groups in the United States, we also resolved to learn more about anti-Castro Cuban groups because of the widespread sentiment among these groups that President Kennedy had failed to honor his commitment to support them. We knew that Oswald had been involved in a conflict with anti-Castro Cuban refugees.³⁵ In early August 1963, while living in New Orleans, Oswald volunteered his services to Carlos Bringuier, a lawyer from Cuba then active in anti-Castro projects. Oswald claimed that he had received guerrilla-type training in the Marine Corps and offered to use his expertise in training Bringuier’s group. Bringuier was intrigued by Oswald’s offer and was initially friendly to the young man. However, very soon after, a member of Bringuier’s group observed Oswald distributing Fair Play for Cuba Committee literature. Bringuier promptly challenged Oswald on the streets of New Orleans. The altercation led to the arrest of both men. Oswald was convicted of creating a public disturbance and fined ten dollars.

Soon thereafter, in the middle of August, Bringuier sent one of his followers to Oswald’s home posing as a pro-Castro Cuban interested in working for Oswald. Oswald received Bringuier’s plant courteously and the two discussed Cuban politics into the evening on Oswald’s porch. Marina Oswald testified that Oswald told her after the conversation that he strongly suspected his visitor was an anti-Castro agent pretending to be pro-Castro. The end result: both Bringuier and Oswald failed in their attempts to infiltrate the other’s organization.³⁶

Aware of their ideological differences, a local radio broadcaster arranged for a debate between Oswald and Bringuier on a daily public affairs program on August 21, 1963. According to the broadcaster, Oswald defended the Castro regime and discussed Marxism, handled himself very well, and appeared to be “a very logical, intelligent fellow.” However, his advocacy was seriously weakened when his defection to the Soviet Union was revealed at the beginning of the debate, forcing him to assert that the Fair Play for Cuba Committee was “not at all Communist controlled regardless of the fact that I had the experience of living in Russia.” As a result of this publicity and disclosure of his defection, Oswald believed that he was “open to almost unanswerable attack by those who opposed his views.”³⁷

Jim Liebeler and David Slawson pursued these leads to explore Oswald’s activities in New Orleans. Liebeler worked (along with Bert Jenner) on exploring every aspect of Oswald’s life in the US to determine if he was involved in a domestic conspiracy. Cuba was the intersection between these assignments. Slawson thought that the anti-Castro groups deserved particular attention. They were his “prized suspects” because they hated Castro and were very angry at Kennedy over the Bay of Pigs failure. The assassination of the president by a known communist connected in some way with Cuba would serve their purposes of getting revenge on Kennedy and possibly triggering an invasion of Cuba by the United States. In Slawson’s view, “this was the only conspiracy theory that I ever heard that made sense.” I agreed that we should pursue this particular conspiracy theory—no matter how implausible or complicated it might appear—because of the zealousness of the anti-Castro exiles in the United States.³⁸

Because of his strong anti-Castro views and contacts with Oswald, Carlos Bringuier was an important witness. Liebeler took his deposition in New Orleans on April 8, 1964. Afterward, he prepared a four-page investigative request for the FBI, citing various leads provided by Bringuier, such as the reported appearance of Oswald at the Habana Bar in the summer of 1963 in the company of a person believed to be either Mexican or Cuban, and his apparent knowledge of the existence of an anti-Castro military training camp in New Orleans. Liebeler was also concerned about earlier FBI reports of interviews of Dean Andrews, the lawyer who represented Oswald in connection with the street disturbance involving Bringuier. In these reports Andrews stated that Oswald came to his office on several occasions accompanied by several different people, including a person of Mexican extraction, but was hesitant about identifying the Mexican. Liebeler wanted the FBI to interview Andrews again to see if his memory could be refreshed as to the identity of this man and, if possible, determine whether that man was the same person believed to have accompanied Oswald to the Habana Bar.³⁹

 Making Our Work Accessible to the Public

By mid-April, the staff had been working for about three months and Rankin sensed that the commission, the White House, and the media would soon be pressing for a projected completion date. Rankin decided to assess the remaining investigative work so that he would be better informed in any discussion of a proposed target date with the commission members.

On April 16, he asked the lawyers to focus on what remained to be done before they could start writing a draft report. Specifically, Rankin asked that each team: (1) explain the remaining areas of investigation that needed to be explored and why they were important, (2) indicate whether these areas of investigation would require further testimony or whether they could be handled through the investigative agencies, and (3) report the date on which he could reasonably expect that each team would begin writing the report in its area.⁴⁰ This memo certainly got everyone’s attention, forcing the lawyers to stop what they were doing and address Rankin’s specific questions.

Arlen Specter responded on that same day. He recommended that President Johnson, his wife, Lady Bird, and Jacqueline Kennedy be asked to testify before the commission. He recommended that Texas senator Ralph Yarborough, a passenger in the vice-presidential limousine in Dallas, also be asked to appear. Kenneth O’Donnell, one of the White House staffers involved in the planning of the trip, needed to be interviewed. Among the tasks remaining, Specter listed the need to “plot the position of the President’s automobile at the times of the three shots to calculate, as precisely as possible, distances and angles.” He also wanted Rankin to revisit the issue of commission access to the autopsy photos and X-rays, recommending that these be examined and additional depositions be taken as necessary on the medical issues.⁴¹

Hubert and Griffin reported that their investigation of Ruby had a long way to go. Ruby’s diverse activities with colorful characters over the decades—involving one (or more) trips to Cuba, relationships with known criminals, management of a small nightclub, and friendships within the Dallas Police Department—required an expansive inquiry by the commission. Hubert and Griffin told Rankin that they were still waiting for the FBI to respond to a large number of investigative requests sent in late March. Depending on the results, they suggested that additional depositions might be required. In addition, they pointed out the need to decide whether to seek testimony from Ruby, whose murder conviction was now on appeal, and a possible deposition of his brother Earl Ruby. They needed to complete the depositions of George Senator, Ruby’s roommate in Dallas, and Captain John Fritz of the Dallas Police Department. They still wanted a full investigation of names and telephone numbers found on Ruby, in his home, or in his car and to track rumors of associations between Ruby and Oswald and others. But they noted that their continuing investigative work wouldn’t delay their work on the draft report.⁴²

As the progress reports were submitted to Rankin, I began to have a deeper sense of the difficulty we faced in explaining to the public exactly what happened. We had pretty good evidence that there had been three shots at the motorcade, but we did not know with certainty which shots hit Kennedy and Connally. We did not even know why Oswald wanted to kill the president. By now, most of us suspected that both Oswald and Ruby acted alone, but knew that our final judgment on this issue depended on the results of our further investigation. At the end of the day, however, we would likely confront the truly daunting task of proving two negatives—no foreign conspiracy and no domestic conspiracy. That essentially meant we had to account for every contact Oswald and Ruby had in the months leading up to the shootings and decide whether any of those contacts suggested a conspiracy that needed to be fully explored. And we were being stonewalled by Treasury in our inquiry into the Secret Service’s failure to protect the president.

We had established procedures for correcting errors in our transcripts and preparing them for publication. The commission had not yet decided to publish the deposition transcripts, although I strongly supported doing so. I told Rankin we should proceed to process the depositions without any decision as to their publication. I thought the question whether these materials should be published could be considered more carefully if the editing was completed than if it appeared that this process would delay the commission’s report. I also thought publication of these materials would be well received by the news media and the public generally, and would help address any concern that the commission was concealing aspects of its work. When I visited briefly with Katzenbach on April 22, he told me that he was “being kept informed by Mr. McCloy as to what was going on in the Commission, and that he believed that the Commission should publish as much as possible.” When I heard later from Rankin that the commission was tending in this direction, I told him that this was “progress of an important sort and that we could afford to deal with any minor problems at this point if we could proceed along these lines in publishing all this material.”⁴³

Another staff meeting about the report took place two days later. In retrospect, these discussions about the publication of the report as well as the accompanying supporting materials might seem thoroughly predictable. That was not the case. We lawyers were personally committed to producing a final product that could withstand the kind of critical examination that we knew it would provoke. We hoped that the commission fully shared this objective, but did not know if that was the case. Commission members would discuss such issues only at their official transcribed meetings where Rankin was the only nonmember attending. Several of the staff, both lawyers and historians, had occasional discussions with commission members about particular subjects on which they shared a special interest. Dulles, for example, often sought out Slawson to see what he was doing and thinking. I had some occasional conversations with McCloy. But I do not believe that the staff as a group had any informed understanding of what the members were contemplating by way of their report. It seemed to me that it was our job—Rankin and the entire staff—to consider these issues and present our best thinking to the commission by proposing a course of action for its consideration.

We felt strongly that it was our mission to produce a well-documented report that reflected the extent and substance of our investigation. To do this, we needed to support our factual statements with footnotes to the relevant transcripts or exhibits. But proceeding in this manner meant that we needed to commit to full publication of the supporting materials. And that in turn meant much more detailed work by everyone concerned, with an increased risk that our documentation would in some instances be less than perfect.

At a staff meeting on April 24, we debated the extent of the transcripts, documents, and exhibits that could be published with our report. I worried that any effort to publish all of the data simultaneously would only delay the report’s publication. Apparently reflecting the commission’s views, Rankin argued that we should not cite materials in the report that are not simultaneously published. I took issue with this, arguing that “the public did not expect this, and would be overwhelmingly satisfied by publication of the transcripts and exhibits, so long as the Commission indicated that additional material would be published” within a reasonably short period after the report was released. In an effort to eliminate (or minimize) this problem, we instructed the staff to identify any materials on which they intended to rely that were not currently in the transcripts or exhibits so that they could be published as part of the commission’s records.⁴⁴

At the commission meeting on April 30, Rankin summarized the staff’s work on the report and plans to publish the materials on which it would be based. To his surprise and disappointment, the members present disagreed with this course of action because publication of the supporting materials would be too expensive. I learned of this decision when I joined a meeting late in the day with Rankin in the conference room and was told by Belin and Liebeler that there was “shocking news” awaiting me. As I recalled later:

Mr. Rankin, in a very tired and chastened mood looked at me in such a way that I knew the Commission had reached another of their impossible decisions. Such was in fact the case. Mr. Rankin informed me that the Commission had decided not to publish the transcript simultaneously with the Final Report. Apparently the chief consideration was one of expense and there was not extensive consideration of the policy issues between members of the Commission who discussed the matter.⁴⁵

I was of course disappointed by this seeming lack of foresight by the members.

We had worked very long hours on the transcripts so that all of our depositions would be made public at the same time as the report. Indeed, the report would recite the page numbers of various depositions where witnesses discussed the facts we were reporting. To make a decision not to publish all this work seemed perverse. In response to the news:

I asked [Rankin] immediately how many of the Commission were present and voted on the issue. He replied that only three were present—The Chief Justice, Mr. Dulles and Mr. McCloy. I indicated to him quite briefly that this was a decision which could not be permitted to stand, and I could see that he felt very much the same way. The Commission members had indicated to Mr. Rankin that they would reverse themselves if the Congressional members of the Commission voted otherwise. Mr. Rankin planned therefore to contact Senator Russell and the other Congressional members as soon as possible on Friday morning. It was no good however to engage in any harangue on the subject although Messrs. Belin and Liebeler were certainly inclined to do so.⁴⁶

I thought it was quite unusual to have a commission meeting that not a single elected member attended. However, the commission was doing its job during one of the most productive legislative sessions in the history of the United States—with enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a major tax cut, and antipoverty legislation. In fact, during April and May 1964, President Johnson was fully engaged in urging the Senate to approve the civil rights legislation that the House of Representatives had passed earlier in the year. Under these circumstances it is not too surprising that the congressional members were unable to attend our meeting.⁴⁷

I saw a bit of daylight in Warren’s willingness to defer to the members of Congress on the commission. If they thought the expense would not become a political issue, the other members could rely on that judgment. As I recorded: “By this time in the work of the Commission, Mr. Rankin and I enjoy some sort of brotherhood in adversity and have managed to overcome other adverse decisions of the Commission. It was hoped that we could do likewise here.”⁴⁸

Just as I had hoped, the four Congressional members of the commission reversed the tentative decision. After meeting with Senator Russell Friday morning, Rankin told me:

Senator Russell had indicated very clearly that the entire transcript should be published as soon as possible without regard to expense. Mr. Rankin subsequently contacted all the other Congressional members who agreed with Senator Russell. When he conveyed this information to the Chief Justice, Mr. Dulles and Mr. McCloy they all agreed that the position of the Congressional members should be adopted.⁴⁹

It seems apparent that the three non-elected commission members were overly sensitive to the financial costs involved in publication of the supporting materials and underestimated the willingness of the elected members to do what best served the overriding public interest in the commission’s report. I got the sense at the time that Warren, Dulles, and McCloy were much relieved by this outcome. I know that was true of Rankin. This was the first and only time during my assignment with the commission where the costs of our investigation became an issue. Failure to publish these critical materials would have only given our future critics more ammunition to challenge the validity of our findings.

The Government Printing Office now started printing the transcripts. One might imagine that correcting the report closer to publication would be a simple matter, but in the early 1960s, the GPO was still using “hot-metal” typesetting machines, which had been invented in the 1880s. Sitting at a keyboard in front of a giant hot-metal processing machine, the operator would type in the text, the machine would cast the letters into metal, and a few seconds later the thin hot-metal slug bearing one line of type would slide down onto a metal tray. These trays were called galleys. When a section or page of text was completed, the printer would “lock up” the galley with a mechanism that held the slugs tightly in place. If corrections were needed, the printer would unlock the galley, lift out the slug that needed to be revised, go back to the keyboard and type out the corrected line, retrieve the new slug, and put it back into the galley. If the mistake required changes in more than one line, the printer would replace all the slugs until he got to a place where the type and spacing were correct. The printers at GPO who operated the Linotype machines were skilled craftsmen who could type faster than the best executive secretary. But the process was time-consuming and laborious. We accepted all of this, just as we accepted the law of gravity. Looking back, compared with today’s high-tech printers, it seems like these machines preceded the steam engine.

 Starting to Fill Gaps in the Commission’s Record

Under constant pressure from Warren, the staff scrambled and improvised to produce more witnesses on an expedited schedule. The members were still determined to visit Dallas to inspect the assassination site personally, but no firm date had been arranged. This uncertainty meant that our proposed schedule of witnesses might have to be altered on short notice.

By mid-April, the only public figures scheduled to testify were Connally and his wife. They testified on April 21—a date fixed so that the chief justice could be present.⁵⁰ President Johnson had not informed the commission whether he and Lady Bird would appear before the commission. No approach had yet been made, officially, regarding Jacqueline Kennedy’s testimony.

Responsibility for interviewing these high-profile individuals and others who were in the motorcade rested with Adams, our senior lawyer from New York, and Specter. Adams knew Senator Ralph W. Yarborough, who had been riding in the vice-presidential limousine two cars back from the presidential vehicle, and undertook to approach him for an affidavit about his recollections. Yarborough had told the Washington Post that he had smelled the gunpowder and Rankin wanted his sworn testimony. After Adams had to cancel his appointment, Specter was given the task of interviewing Yarborough, known to almost everyone as “Smiling Ralph,” in his Senate office. Specter later said he had

listened attentively to the senator but didn’t take notes. When we finished, I returned to the commission headquarters, where I prepared an affidavit. The next day I returned to Yarborough’s office to secure his signature to the affidavit. The senator read the document and erupted. I had come into his office with a tape recorder without telling him, he raged. I said, “No, Senator, I didn’t, but thank you very much for the compliment.”⁵¹

When considering the proposed testimony of three Secret Service officials, I reminded Rankin that the necessary work in the presidential protection area had not been done because of the still unresolved policy issues with Treasury, including the commission’s access to the Rowley report. The commission also needed to decide whether the principal Texas law enforcement officials—Chief Curry, Sheriff Decker, and District Attorney Wade—should testify before the commission.

Meanwhile, the Hubert/Griffin team doggedly followed up investigative leads regarding Ruby, and the Jenner/Liebeler team continued to log every detail of Oswald’s US-based activities. When I heard that Rankin was joining Liebeler in New York to take depositions of officers and members of the Communist party, Socialist Workers’ party, and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, I thought that this provided an unusual (and desirable) opportunity for two very different colleagues to become better acquainted. Rankin lived in New York, so participation in these depositions was convenient for him and also gave him an opportunity to contribute personally to our fact-finding mission. A very modest and soft-spoken man, Rankin was by now very familiar with Liebeler’s aggressive style at our staff meetings, and I thought (with a smile) that working together on a few depositions would enable each to get to know the other a little better. Despite their differences in personal style, the two shared an ironclad determination to get this job done well.

As a general matter, the lawyers taking the depositions were getting what they wanted from the witnesses—a greater degree of certainty about tentative conclusions, elaboration in areas that had not been fully developed by the agencies, and leads that prompted further depositions and new investigative requests. A memo from Hubert evaluating the results of the depositions that he and Griffin had taken in Dallas provided a good example. They wanted evidence regarding Dallas Police Department planning for Oswald’s security and the transfer from the jail, and possible complicity of any department official in his death. He and Griffin also searched for evidence about Ruby’s entry into the basement on that Sunday morning. This evidence might show that Ruby had lied on this subject and had conceived a plan to kill Oswald, which in turn would trigger further investigation as to who might have known of, or participated in, his plan.⁵²

Based on the interviews of thirty-seven police officers, Hubert reported that the department’s security precautions when Oswald was in custody were seriously deficient. There were no plans for his transfer until the morning of November 24; and the plans announced on that date were not coordinated and were changed at least once. However, based on the evidence, Hubert believed that it was improbable that any individual or group within the Dallas Police Department engaged in a plot with Ruby to kill Oswald. Further, he and Griffin found no evidence of a conspiracy to cover up the deficient security arrangements and to blame this failure upon any one individual within the department.⁵³

As to Ruby’s entrance into the basement, Hubert’s view at this point was more cautious. He thought that the alternative best supported by the evidence was that Ruby entered by the Main Street ramp as he claimed, although two other entrances were available to him. However, three newsmen believed they saw Ruby around the jail earlier on the morning of November 24, and Hubert and Griffin planned to take their depositions.⁵⁴

At the same time, the Hubert/Griffin team pursued Ruby’s possible Cuban associations. They had found evidence that Ruby had a connection with Robert Ray McKeown of Houston, who had been convicted of selling arms to Fidel Castro. They learned of a visit by Ruby to Havana with Lewis J. McWillie for about ten days in September 1959. They found some conflict in the reports as to whether Ruby made two trips, or only one, to Cuba in 1959. The team also decided to investigate seven or eight different rumors linking Ruby to Cuba to determine if Ruby had associated with underworld figures interested in overthrowing Castro and if those associations were connected to his murder of Oswald.⁵⁵

They followed up with investigative requests to the FBI two days later, including a request to the FBI to investigate thirty-eight people identified as associates of Earl Ruby, Jack’s brother, based on an Internal Revenue Service analysis of his telephone calls during the course of an IRS tax investigation. In early April, Hubert and Griffin planned to take an additional thirty-two depositions, most of them in Dallas, including people believed to have information regarding Ruby’s presence at the Dallas police headquarters on November 24 and others with knowledge of his personal history and relationships.⁵⁶

Meanwhile, the Ball/Belin team planned to take the depositions of an additional twenty Dallas policemen and another eight people who might have facts bearing on Oswald’s culpability as the assassin of Kennedy and the murderer of Tippit. The Jenner/Liebeler team had plans to depose seventeen people in New York with knowledge of Oswald’s background. The IRS team weighed in with a status report on the chronology they were preparing and advised Rankin it would be done by May 15.⁵⁷

By this time, the commission had decided that President and Lady Bird Johnson did not have to testify, but could submit written statements to the commission if they were willing to do so. Most of us disagreed with this decision. Redlich argued that everyone who was actually in the presidential or vice-presidential cars should testify before the commission because they might have valuable information to provide. Rankin shared this view to some extent. He told me that he intended to call Abe Fortas on this subject and tell him about the commission’s decision, but at the same time express his and the staff’s view that Johnson should either appear before the commission or give a detailed statement.

In the midst of this, we again had to deal with the very vocal Mark Lane. In his testimony before the commission in March, Lane said he had had a conversation with Helen Markham, a witness to the killing of Patrolman Tippit. Markham denied having any such conversation with Lane. Redlich had sent the transcripts of their testimony to Belin in Dallas and suggested that he reinterview Markham. If she persisted in her testimony, then Redlich thought that the commission should consider recalling Lane or asking him to provide further confirmation of his testimony. We also had to decide what to do about Lane’s failure to produce the name of an informant who he testified had information about an alleged meeting among Jack Ruby, Officer Tippit, and Bernard Weissman, the publisher of the critical “Welcome Mr. Kennedy” advertisement in the November 22 Dallas Morning News. In response to a follow-up letter from the commission, Lane advised that he would identify the informant later. After nearly a month, he had failed to do so. Given the worldwide publicity of Lane’s wholesale attack on the commission, we wanted to make clear that we had given him every opportunity to document his contentions and that, when given the opportunity under oath, he hadn’t done so.⁵⁸

Warren wanted a clear and unequivocal record that the key government agencies had provided all relevant information in their possession to the commission. I was not convinced then of the necessity for such written assurances, because the heads of these agencies were likely commission witnesses. Although it may have seemed excessively bureaucratic at the time, I recognize now that it reflected Warren’s executive experience over the years. He wanted to have a written record that these agencies had assisted the commission to the fullest extent of their capabilities in the same way that a governor, before initiating a new program, might insist that the concerned agencies in his administration be on board.

Rankin and I moved quickly to draft and send identical letters seeking these statements. They went to Hoover at the FBI, Rowley at the Secret Service, Helms at the CIA, legal adviser Abram Chayes at the State Department, Commissioner Raymond F. Farrell at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and Kennedy at the Justice Department. The letters were all dated April 22. After thanking each agency for its assistance to the commission, Rankin asked whether the agency had any information not previously disclosed to the commission regarding Oswald’s association with any subversive or criminal organization or individuals in the United States or abroad. The commission’s letter requested each agency’s assurance that the commission “possesses the full extent” of the agency’s ‘knowledge and information’ concerning such associations by Oswald.”⁵⁹

The most junior members of the staff continued to make major contributions to our work. John Ely was now at work with the Jenner/Liebeler team, assisting in the taking of depositions and producing extensively documented memos on Oswald’s life. In April, he investigated Oswald’s military record and suggested deposing a few soldiers who knew Oswald while he was a Marine. Richard Mosk worked on proposed federal legislation making the assault or murder of the president and other federal officials a crime. He also devoted long hours to summarizing the depositions that Jenner had taken of members of the Russian-speaking community in Texas who knew Oswald. Although Jenner’s meticulous and tedious questioning of these witnesses puzzled (and amused) some of our younger lawyers, his efforts produced a wealth of material that was extensively used by later authors exploring Oswald’s life and motive. By this time I also had the services of Stuart Pollak, who worked in the criminal division as a special assistant to Jack Miller. I had hired Pollak, a Harvard Law graduate, for the division after his clerkship at the Supreme Court during 1962–63.⁶⁰

 FBI Intelligence Capabilities and Witnesses

Sam Stern was examining the operations of the Protective Research Section of the Secret Service, which had the responsibility of collecting and reviewing information to identify possible threats to the president. Stern was exploring whether the commission might recommend improvements in this vital preventive intelligence function. We already had documented serious deficiencies in the Secret Service’s performance in Dallas: it had not searched any buildings along the president’s route in Dallas; it had little coordination with local law enforcement officers who believed they had been relegated to crowd control; it lacked established procedures on how to prepare for a presidential motorcade; and its agents actually had no training in how to look out for assassins. We expected there might be similar problems with the intelligence operations of the agency.

I had informal conversations with James Malley, our liaison from the FBI, on this subject and the CIA had briefed us on their techniques in handling intelligence data. Stern wanted to be fully informed on data-handling practices in order to determine whether more advanced systems were available, which might be recommended to the Secret Service. On Monday, April 27, Sam Stern and I had an extended briefing by the FBI about its own filing system, procedures for conducting name checks, and the extent to which information in its files could be made available to other agencies such as the Secret Service.⁶¹

The FBI officials were quite confident in describing the capabilities of the bureau’s routing, classifying, and filing procedures. We learned, for example, that it conducted about ten thousand name checks every day and that the filing system is basically a name index rather than a subject index. They emphasized that the FBI had not mechanized their system because there were not yet available IBM machines that could do the job. They told us that no machine could handle the information contained in the five million index cards currently in the bureau’s system that had to be queried many thousands of times a day and that, in any event, a machine would not eliminate the need for the exercise of human judgment in many cases.⁶²

The last meeting with the FBI in April took place a few days later and was prompted by the scheduling of FBI agents John Fain, John Quigley, and James Hosty to testify before the commission in early May. These were the agents who had responsibility for Oswald after his return from the Soviet Union. On April 30, Rankin, Stern, and I met with Malley and Assistant Director Belmont to discuss some issues that would arise during the testimony of these witnesses. Belmont told us that Hoover had directed that the bureau was to cooperate with the commission in any way possible and that the publication of these interview reports was a decision for the commission to make. Regarding the FBI’s preassassination file on Oswald, we explained that the commission had to be aware of everything that was in the bureau’s files and that there was nothing in those files that contradicted the FBI’s stated position about its relationship with Oswald. Belmont stated that the file was available for inspection by commission members and its staff. He did indicate that there was some information in the file that the FBI did not want to have published, such as the identity of confidential informants and some coded material, but agreed to appear as a witness before the commission in early May and to bring the entire FBI file for the members to examine during the hearing.⁶³

At the commission meeting on April 30, both Dulles and McCloy said they wanted to hear more about the adequacy of the Secret Service’s policies and procedures. They agreed that some members should go to Dallas before the end of their investigation. They also wanted to address the conspiracy rumors so prevalent in the European press. They were concerned that the summaries of about 300 depositions, now being prepared for them by the staff, might delay the production of their report. Warren expressed his desire to interview Ruby—whether or not he was pronounced sane at an upcoming competency hearing—if Ruby was willing to do so.⁶⁴ Warren also seemed receptive to Rankin’s proposal that a doctor and a commission member examine the autopsy photographs and X-rays so as to ensure the accuracy of the testimony of the autopsy doctors who did not have those materials available when they testified, but that the materials would not be included in the public record of the commission’s proceedings.⁶⁵

I was looking forward to the testimony in early May of FBI agents Fain, Quigley, and Hosty. The testimony of Hosty was already freighted with significance because of his investigation of the Oswalds shortly before the assassination. But it promised to become even more controversial after a story broke in the Dallas Morning News during the last week of April that an FBI agent told Lieutenant Jack Revill of the Dallas Police Department “only moments after Oswald was brought” to the department on November 22 that: “We knew he was capable of assassinating the President but we didn’t believe he would do it.” According to the news story, Revill testified to this effect before the commission. Revill told the Associated Press a day later that James Hosty was the agent who made the comment and that another Dallas policeman was with Revill when the statement was made. Hoover promptly told the Dallas Times Herald: “That is absolutely false. The agent made no such statement and the FBI did not have such knowledge.” Hosty denied ever making such a statement.⁶⁶

These stories resulted directly from the testimony of Dallas chief of police Jesse Curry before the commission on April 22. On the morning of his appearance, Chief Curry gave Rankin a written report from Revill of a conversation that Revill had with Hosty on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, when they both arrived at police headquarters shortly after Oswald had been apprehended. Curry also provided an affidavit from Revill that he had sworn to early in April 1964, confirming the accuracy of his November 22 report. The report stated that Hosty had told Revill that the FBI “had information that this Subject [Oswald] was capable of committing the assassination of President Kennedy.” Chief Curry offered no explanation as to why he hadn’t provided this report to the commission earlier along with other reports relevant to his department’s investigation into this matter, although he acknowledged that maintaining good relations with the FBI was very important to him. He disclosed the information contained in the report to Wade and a very few other Dallas officials, and did state at a press conference that the FBI knew that Oswald was in Dallas and had not informed the department. When Hoover demanded a retraction of this statement, Curry attempted to glide over the problem by telling the press that he did not intend to suggest that the FBI had interviewed Oswald in Dallas before the assassination.⁶⁷

Rankin was shocked by this obvious leak of critical information from Curry’s testimony, which he had handled personally. I recall someone—either Norman Redlich or Sam Stern—charging into my office on the morning of April 24, with a copy of the New York Times article in hand. The extent of the disclosure, and its release within a day of Curry’s appearance, certainly suggested that it came from someone close to our operations or someone in Dallas who knew about Curry’s testimony. Hoover wrote the commission a few days later denying the Revill report of his conversation with Hosty.

All of this created an additional challenge for Sam Stern, who had been working with Hosty and the two other agents scheduled to testify on May 5. Stern now had to figure out a way to get a fuller and more accurate picture of the Revill report than was contained in the press stories or the Hoover denial. May promised to be a very productive month for the commission.