Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK (52 page)

Oswald had been evasive about the FPCC with Martello, so asking to be interviewed by the FBI appears stranger still, unless, as in the Canal Street caper, Oswald wanted to attract attention to himself. As if on cue, Quigley quietly slipped into the First District jail to interview Oswald. The interview was "at his request," Quigley wrote in his recapitulation of the August 10 encounter.56 Quigley reported that Oswald did not answer all the questions put to him.S7 Moreover, Quigley's report was suppressed until after Oswald's trip to Mexico City in October.

When going over his background, Oswald told Quigley that "about four months ago he and his wife, Marina Oswald nee Prossa, whom he met and married in Fort Worth, moved to New Orleans." Oswald must have known the FBI was knowledgeable about his marriage to Marina, and so this fabrication seems pointless. Quigley's August memo on the interview recalls the following:

After coming to New Orleans he said he began reading various pieces of literature distributed by the "Fair Play for Cuba Committee", and it was his understanding from reading this material that the main goal and theme of the committee is to prevent the United States from invading or attacking Cuba or interfering in the political affairs of that country.... Oswald said that inquiry in New Orleans developed the fact that there apparently was a chapter of the "Fair Play for Cuba Committee" in New Orleans, but he did not know any of the members or where their offices were located.58 Oswald was lying when he suggested there was an existing New Orleans FPCC chapter. Oswald had, of course, been corresponding with the FPCC while in Dallas," and now was attempting to give Quigley the impression that it was his reading of FPCC materials in New Orleans that had stimulated his interest in joining the organization.

Oswald told Quigley he had sent a letter to the FPCC in New York City, asking if he could join the committee, and added that in "the latter part of May" 1963 he had received a membership card dated May 28, 1963, made out in the name of "Lee H. Oswald" and signed by "V. L. Lee." All of this was true, but the same cannot be said for what Oswald said next:

A short time thereafter he said he received in the mail a white card which showed that he was made a member of the New Orleans Chapter of Fair Play for Cuba Committee. This card was dated June 6, 1963. It was signed by A.J. Hidell, and it bore in the lower right hand corner the number 33 which he said indicated membership number. Oswald had in his possession both cards and exhibited both of them.

Marina later testified that she signed the name "A. J. Hidell" on this FPCC card.' Oswald's alias, of course, would assume a terrible significance after the assassination: The alleged murder weapon in the Kennedy assassination, a Manlicher-Carcano rifle, had been ordered in February from Klein's in Chicago under the name Hidell.

The Hidell story continued to grow, as can be seen from this passage in Quigley's jailhouse interview:

Since receiving his membership card in the New Orleans chapter of the committee he said that he had spoken with Hidell on the telephone on several occasions. On these occasions, Hidell would discuss general matters of mutual interest in connection with committee business, and on other occasions he would inform him of a scheduled meeting. He said he has never personally met Hidell, and Hidell did have a telephone, but it has now been discontinued. He claimed that he could not recall what the number was.61

Oswald said the committee held meetings in residences of "various members, and at each meeting there were "about five different individuals" who "were different" at each of these meetings. Not that any of this mattered, because Oswald said he had not been introduced to them by their last names and he could not recall any of their first names.

After more fairy tales, Oswald got around to the events on Canal Street:

Last Wednesday, August 7, 1963, Oswald said he received a note through the mail from Hidell. The note asked him if he had time would he mind distributing some Fair Play literature in the downtown area of New Orleans. He said Hidell knew that he was not working and probably had time. Hidell also knew that he had considerable literature on the committee which had been furnished to him by the national committee in New York. Since he did not have anything to do, Oswald said he decided he would go down to Canal Street and distribute some literature. He denied that he was being paid for his services, but that he was doing it as a patriotic duty.62

Oswald said that about one P.M. on August 9, 1963, he went to Canal Street by himself and began distributing literature, including FPCC handbills. Quigley saw a handbill with the stamp "A J Hidell, P.O. Box 30016." In addition, Oswald said he had FPCC membership applications and several copies of a thirty-nine-page pamphlet entitled "The Crime Against Cuba" by Corliss Lamont, "which he carried with him as it contained all of the information regarding the committee, and he would be in a position to refer to it for proper answers in the event someone questioned him regarding the aims and purposes of the committee." Oswald gave a handbill, an application form, and a pamphlet to Quigley.

At no point did Quigley indicate he knew the details of Oswald's Russian past, details that had been in Oswald's ONI records at nearby Algiers Naval Station and, thanks to Quigley's 1961 report, also in Oswald's FBI file in New Orleans. Whether or not Quigley remembered these details, his questioning during the interview did not show any awareness of where Oswald's story strayed from the facts.

Toward the end of the interview, Oswald said he understood that on August 12 he was to be taken into court and charged with dis turbing the peace. When he showed up, the Cuban exiles, and the television cameras, were waiting.

Bartes, Quiroga, and Oswald on Television

The courtroom fracas on August 12 was well attended by local television and newspaper reporters. Presiding at the hearing was second municipal court judge Edwin A. Babylon.63 Alongside Carlos Bringuier was Frank Bartes who, although not a member of Bringuier's DRE group, "respected" Bringuier and came to the hearing as a "show of support."' According to the clerk's office, Oswald entered a plea of guilty to the charge of disturbing the peace." Oswald was sentenced to pay a fine of ten dollars or serve ten days in jail. He elected to pay the fine.'

Bringuier and the Cubans pleaded innocent." The charges against them for disturbing the peace "were dropped by the court." 61 Bartes, however, was not yet finished. After the hearing, when the news media surrounded Oswald for a statement, Bartes said he "got into an argument with the media and Oswald because the Cubans were not being given an opportunity to present their views."'

Bartes also said that he spoke to an FBI agent that day, warning that Oswald was a dangerous man.70 Bartes made this statement to the HSCA, but he refused to reveal the agent's name. Bartes would say only that he had frequent contact with this agent. Corroborative evidence comes from the FBI's files. We know from an early draft of a New Orleans FBI document that Bartes was an informant for the FBI, and that his identity was considered sensitive." Bartes told the HSCA that after the court scene he had no further contact with Oswald.72

There is irony in how this court scene unleashed the sequence of events that followed. Bartes's argument with Oswald and warning to the FBI about him occurred at the very sentencing that led to the Times-Picayune article which, in turn, led the Bureau to direct an inquiry by the New Orleans FBI office during which Bartes denied knowing Oswald. Thus, during this sequence, which lasted less than a month, Bartes did a flipflop on Oswald: from warning the FBI about Oswald in August to telling the FBI in September "that Oswald was unknown to him."73

Oswald's arrest and sentencing caused a fresh review of events taking place in New Orleans that would be disseminated from that city's FBI office to the CIA. On August 21 Hoover sent a directive to New Orleans and Dallas, reminding Dallas that they had been on the hook since March to find out what Oswald's job was and to determine whether or not to interview Marina. Hoover pointed out to the New Orleans office that the man arrested there had an FBI identification record number-327-925-D-the record containing Oswald's fingerprints.

The Hoover directive repeated every detail of the arrest and sentencing from the Times-Picayune,74 and then told Dallas to "promptly" get its information in order. For New Orleans, Hoover had these instructions:

New Orleans ascertain facts concerning subject's distribution of above-mentioned pamphlet including nature of pamphlet following which contact should be made with established sources familiar with Cuban activities in the New Orleans area to determine whether subject involved in activities inimical to the internal security of the U.S. Submit results in letterhead memorandum form suitable for dissemination with appropriate recommendation as to further action.75

The resulting letterhead memorandum was dynamite when it landed in Oswald's CIA files in early October. Oswald's activities from the time of his arrest on August 9 until the release of the letterhead memorandum on September 24 would be encapsulated in this FBI report. The fate of this report at the CIA will be covered in Chapter Nineteen.

On August 16, 1963, at about 12:30 P.M., Oswald and a companion, a white male (about nineteen to twenty years old and approximately six feet tall, with a slender build, dark hair, and olive complexion) arrived at the International Trade Mart at Camp and Gravier streets (124 Camp).76 Oswald hired three or four additional men at two dollars apiece to help distribute his FPCC literature." The leaflets were stamped with Oswald's real name and his 4907 Magazine Street address. Oswald told one of the men helping him, Charles Steele, that Tulane University was sponsoring the leaflet distribution.78 A local television station, WDSU-TV, filmed the event.79

Bringuier went to the Trade Mart in an attempt to find Oswald but was not successful. Afterward, Quiroga showed Bringuier one of the leaflets. Bringuier recalls that these leaflets were different from those Oswald handed out on Canal Street. When asked by the Warren Commission to explain the difference, Bringuier gave this answer:

The leaflet he was handing out on Canal Street August 9 didn't have his name of Oswald, at least the ones that I saw. They have the name A.J. Hidell, and one post office box here in New Orleans and the address, and the leaflets that he was handing out on August 16 have the name L.H. Oswald, 4907 Magazine Street.... My friend asked to me if I think that it would be good that he will go to Oswald's house posing as a pro-Castro and try to get as much information as possible from Oswald. I told him yes; and that night he went to Oswald's house with the leaflets.... My friend went to Oswald's house and he was talking to Oswald for about 1 hour inside his house, in the porch of the house, and there was when we found that Oswald had some connection with Russia, or something like that, because the daughter came to the porch and Oswald spoke to her in Russian, and my friend heard that language and he asked Oswald if that was Russian, and Oswald told him yes, that he was attending Tulane University and that he was studying language, that that was the reason why he speak Russian. He give to my friend an application to become a member of the New Orleans Chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.'

Quite aside from the leafleting event at the Trade Mart, August 16 was a busy day for Oswald. Around two P.M., he went to both New Orleans newspapers in hope of getting pro-Castro material printed." He also claims to have applied for a job at the Times-Picayune and the States-Item, though both papers maintain he did not.S2 By late in the afternoon he was back home on 4907 Magazine, when a stranger knocked at the door.

"Well, there was that Cuban- or Spanish-looking guy one time rang my bell in the late afternoon," Mrs. Gamer, Oswald's landlady, told the Warren Commission, "kind of short, very dark black curly hair, and he had a stack of these same pamphlets in his hand he was spreading out on Canal Street there on the porch," she recalled, assuming that her visitor had been passing out FPCC leaflets. That assumption was wrong. Mrs. Garner was outspoken, as she explained to the commission:

... And he had a stack of them in his hand and he asked me about Oswald, and I said he was living around on that side where the screen porch is, and I saw those things in his hand and I said, "You are not going to spread those things on my porch," and that was all, and I closed the door and went on about my business. I don't know, but I guess he went over there.83

Commission lawyer Liebeler asked Garner, "How many pamphlets did this man have in his hand?" Mrs. Garner groped for words and said, "a stack about that high." "About five to six inches?" asked Liebeler. "About that high," Garner replied. "About the width of your hand?" Liebeler persisted. "Yes," Mrs. Garner agreed. And what did Mrs. Garner remember of the date for the stranger's visit with the fistful of handbills? "That I don't remember," she says, but adds, "I know it was around that time, just right after he was picked up on Canal Street for disturbing them. It was a few days after that."

On November 30, 1963, Quiroga told the Secret Service that after Oswald's arrest, Carlos Bringuier ordered him "to infiltrate Oswald's organization if he could."" It therefore seems certain that the individual Mrs. Garner saw was Quiroga.BS The December 3 Secret Service report preserves Quiroga's recollection of his encounter with Oswald:

He said he went to Oswald's home at 4907 Magazine St.... He said he spent about an hour talking to Oswald who told him he learned to speak Russian at Tulane University, New Orleans.... He said Oswald had not mentioned to him that he had defected to Russia. He said Oswald asked him to join the Fair Play for Cuba group and had given him an application form. Oswald told him he could join for $1. He said that during the conversation, Oswald stated that if the United States should invade Cuba, he, Oswald, would fight on the side of the Castro Government. He said Oswald never did mention any of the names of the mem bers of the Fair Play for Cuba group. He did say that meetings were held at various private homes in New Orleans.