JFK & the Unspeakable: Why He Died & Why It Matters (21 page)

[
129
]. Ibid., p. 58.

[
130
]. Daniel Ellsberg, “Call to Mutiny,” in
Protest and Survive
, edited by E. P. Thompson and Dan Smith (New York: Monthly Review, 1981), pp. i-ii; citing January 1980
Time
article.

[
131
]. Michael J. Hogan,
A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945-1954
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 65.

[
132
]. Ibid., p. 56.

[
133
]. Peter Grose,
Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), p. 293.

[
134
]. Ibid.

[
135
]. Ibid., citing NSC 10/2.

[
136
].
Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report; November 20, 1975
(Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), pp. 74-77.

[
137
]. Ibid., pp. 79-82.

[
138
]. Richard M. Bissell, interview by Lucien S. Vandenbroucke, Farmington, Connecticut, May 18, 1984; cited in Vandenbroucke “‘Confessions’ of Allen Dulles,” p. 374.

[
139
].
Alleged Assassination Plots
, p. 151.

[
140
]. Ibid., p. 150.

[
141
]. Ibid., p. 151.

[
142
]. Ibid., p. 135.

[
143
]. Tad Szulc, “Cuba on Our Mind,”
Esquire
(February 1974), p. 90. David Talbot has pointed out that, although “Kennedy critics charge that JFK staged this dialogue with Szulc to give himself cover in case the murder plots [against Castro] were later revealed,” others find this far-fetched. Kennedy adviser Richard Goodwin found it hard to imagine that, if JFK were in fact plotting to kill Castro, he would then bring up the subject to a
New York Times
reporter, “who the day after Castro was killed would be sitting on the biggest story in the world!” Richard Goodwin interview by David Talbot in David Talbot,
Brothers
(New York: Free Press, 2007), p. 94. Fidel Castro has assured both Tad Szulc and Ethel Kennedy that he knows John and Robert Kennedy “had nothing to do with the CIA attempts on his life.” Ibid., p. 94.

[
144
]. Thomas Powers,
The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979).

[
145
]. Schlesinger,
Thousand Days
, p. 900.

[
146
]. Sorensen,
Kennedy
, p. 731.

[
147
].
Public Papers of the Presidents: John F. Kennedy, 1963
, p. 460. All subsequent citations of the American University address are from pp. 460-64.

[
148
]. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Farewell Address,” January 17, 1961, in
The President Speaks: From William McKinley to Lyndon B. Johnson
, edited by Louis Filler (New York: Capricorn Books, 1965), pp. 367-68.

[
149
].
The Warren Commission Report
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992, from U.S. Government printing in 1964), p. 747.

[
150
]. Ibid., p. 748.

[
151
]. Ibid., p. 393.

[
152
]. Interviews with Marines who served with Oswald at Atsugi Air Force Base, including James R. Persons, Joseph Macedo, Miguel Rodriguez, George Wilkins, Jerry E. Pitts, Pete F. Connor, Richard Cyr, Peter Cassisi, and John E. Donovan. Cited by Edward Jay Epstein,
The Assassination Chronicles
(New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992), pp. 343-46, 355, 617-19. See also Philip H. Melanson,
Spy Saga: Lee Harvey Oswald and U.S.
Intelligence
(New York: Praeger, 1990), pp. 7-9, 16-18. McKnight,
Breach of Trust,
p. 300.

[
153
].
Warren Commission Hearings
(hereafter cited as
WCH
), vol. 8, p. 298.

[
154
]. John Donovan, interview with John Newman, July 19, 1994; cited by John Newman,
Oswald and the CIA
(New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995), p. 45.

[
155
]. Francis Gary Powers with Curt Gentry,
Operation Overflight
(New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970), pp. 357-59.

[
156
].
Warren Report
, p. 712. U.S. Consul Richard E. Snyder at the Moscow Embassy stated in a State Department telegram: “I was sole officer handling Oswald case” (Commission Exhibit 909,
WCH
, vol. 18, p. 100). According to CIA documents, Richard E. Snyder had joined the CIA on March 27, 1950, only to “resign” six months later to begin a career of overseas U.S. embassy assignments for the State Department (CIA letter to Richard E. Snyder, March 27, 1950. JFK Record Number 104-10276-10270; also Secret Memorandum to Chief Personnel Security Branch, CIA, September 26, 1950; records of House Select Committee on Assassinations: Segregated CIA Collection). Snyder’s official change of jobs corresponded to the standard CIA practice of its employees using a State Department cover while stationed at U.S. embassies. Through Richard Snyder’s handling, Lee Harvey Oswald was under the effective control of the CIA in all his Moscow Embassy contacts.

Snyder apparently treated Oswald as a privileged visitor to the Moscow Embassy. Joan Hallett, a receptionist at the embassy who was married to the assistant naval attaché, recalled in a 1994 interview that, in contrast to the official story, Oswald had come “several times” to the embassy in 1959. Hallett said Snyder and the security officer “took him upstairs to the working floors, a secure area where the Ambassador and the political, economic, and military officers were. A visitor would never get up there unless he was on official business.
I
was never up there.” Anthony and Robbyn Summers, “The Ghosts of November,”
Vanity Fair
(December 1994).

[
157
]. Ibid., p. 658.

[
158
]. Melanson,
Spy Saga
, p. 21, citing
WCH
,
vol. 22, p. 12, and vol. 24, p. 509.

[
159
]. Sylvia Meagher,
Accessories after the Fact
(New York: Vintage Books, 1992), pp. 328-29.

[
160
]. McKnight,
Breach of Trust
, p. 300. McKnight’s research into Oswald’s security clearances determined the fact that “when he served overseas at Cubi Point, the Philippines, and Atsugi, Japan, Oswald had ‘Crypto’ clearance, probably one of a dozen or more special clearances at that time higher than ‘Top Secret’ . . . The Warren Commission knew about Oswald’s ‘Crypto’ clearance but suppressed it from being included in the record.”

[
161
].
Warren Report
, p. 423.

[
162
]. Ibid.

[
163
]. Ibid.

[
164
]. Anthony Summers,
Conspiracy
(New York: Paragon House, 1989), pp. 144-45.

[
165
]. James Botelho, interview by Mark Lane, cited by Jim Marrs,
Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy
(New York: Carroll & Graff, 1990), p. 110. When I spoke with James Botelho by phone in June 2007 and read to him his earlier statements on Oswald now cited in this text, he confirmed their accuracy. He added, “I still feel that way [that Oswald was on an assignment in Russia for American intelligence].” Botelho said he liked Oswald: “He was the best roommate I ever had. He pretty much let me alone. He was quiet. We both liked classical music.” So far as Oswald’s being violent, Botelho said, “He didn’t like violence. The thought of it repulsed him. He wasn’t afraid of it. He just thought of it as being primitive. He wouldn’t do to others what he didn’t like done to him.” Author’s interview of James Anthony Botelho, June 16, 2007.

[
166
]. Ibid., pp. 110-11.

[
167
]. Merton,
Cold War Letters
, pp. 47-48.

[
168
]. Pope John XIII,
Pacem in Terris
(New York: America Press, 1963), p. 50.

[
169
]. Ibid., pp. 50-51.

[
170
]. Norman Cousins,
The Improbable Triumvirate: John F. Kennedy, Pope John, Nikita Khrushchev
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1972), pp. 80, 91.

[
171
]. Ibid., p. 108.

[
172
].
Public Papers of the Presidents: John F. Kennedy, 1963
, pp. 468-69.