by Jon E. Lewis
Following the initial memorandum, the Secret Service instructed its informant to continue his association with Echevarria and notified the Chicago FBI field office. It learned that Echevarria might have been a member of the 30th of November anti-Castro organization, that he was associated with Juan Francisco Bianco-Fernandez, military director of the DRE, and that the arms deal was being financed through one Paulino Sierra Martinez by hoodlum elements in Chicago and elsewhere.
Although the Secret Service recommended further investigation, the FBI initially took the position that the Echevarria case “was primarily a protection matter and that the continued investigation would be left to the US Secret Service,” and that the Cuban group in question was probably not involved in illegal activities. The Secret Service initially was reluctant to accept this position, since it had developed evidence that illegal acts were, in fact, involved. Then, on 29 November 1963, President Johnson created the Warren Commission and gave the FBI primary investigative responsibility in the assassination. Based on its initial understanding that the President’s order meant primary, not exclusive, investigative responsibility, the Secret Service continued its efforts; but when the FBI made clear that it wanted the Secret Service to terminate its investigation, it did so, turning over its files to the FBI. The FBI, in turn, did not pursue the Echevarria case.
While it was unable to substantiate the content of the informant’s alleged conversations with Echevarria or any connection to the events in Dallas, the committee did establish that the original judgment of the Secret Service was correct, that the Echevarria case did warrant a thorough investigation. It found, for example, that the 30th of November group was backed financially by the Junta del Gobierno de Cuba en el Exilio (JGCE), a Chicago-based organization run by Paulino Sierra Martinez. JGCE was a coalition of many of the more active anti-Castro groups that had been founded in April 1963; it was dissolved soon after the assassination. Its purpose was to back the activities of the more militant groups, including Alpha 66 and the Student Directorate, or DRE, both of which had reportedly been in contact with Lee Harvey Oswald. Much of JGCE’s financial support, moreover, allegedly came from individuals connected to organized crime.
As it surveyed the various anti-Castro organizations, the committee focused its interest on reported contacts with Oswald. Unless an association with the President’s assassin could be established, it is doubtful that it could be shown that the anti-Castro groups were involved in the assassination. The Warren Commission, discounting the recommendations of Slawson and Coleman, had either regarded these contacts as insignificant or as probably not having been made or else was not aware of them. The committee could not so easily dismiss them.
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(c) Oswald and anti-Castro Cubans
The committee recognized that an association by Oswald with anti-Castro Cubans would pose problems for its evaluation of the assassin and what might have motivated him. In reviewing Oswald’s life, the committee found his actions and values to have been those of a self-proclaimed Marxist who would be bound to favor the Castro regime in Cuba, or at least not advocate its overthrow. For this reason, it did not seem likely to the committee that Oswald would have allied himself with an anti-Castro group or individual activist for the sole purpose of furthering the anti-Castro cause. The committee recognized the possibility that Oswald might have established contacts with such groups or persons to implicate the anti-Castro movement in the assassination. Such an implication might have protected the Castro regime and other left-wing suspects.
(1) Oswald in New Orleans.–Another contact by Lee Harvey Oswald with anti-Castro Cuban activists that was not only documented, but also publicized at the time in the news media, occurred when he was living in New Orleans in the summer of 1963, an especially puzzling period in Oswald’s life. His actions were blatantly pro-Castro, as he carried a one-man Fair Play for Cuba Committee crusade into the streets of a city whose Cuban population was predominantly anti-Castro. Yet Oswald’s known and alleged associations even at this time included Cubans who were of an anti-Castro persuasion and their anti-Communist American supporters.
New Orleans was Oswald’s home town; he was born there on 18 October 1939. In April 1963, shortly after the Walker shooting, he moved back, having lived in Fort Worth and Dallas since his return from the Soviet Union the previous June. He spent the first 2 weeks job hunting, staying with the Murrets, Lillian and Charles, or “Dutz,” as he was called, the sister and brother-in-law of Oswald’s mother, Marguerite. After being hired by the Reily Coffee Co. as a maintenance man, he sent for his wife Marina and their baby daughter, who were still in Dallas, and they moved into an apartment on Magazine Street.
In May, Oswald wrote to Vincent T. Lee, national director of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, expressing a desire to open an FPCC chapter in New Orleans and requesting literature to distribute. He also had handouts printed, some of which were stamped “L.H. Oswald, 4907 Magazine Street,” others with the alias, “A.J. Hidell, P.O. Box 30016,” still others listing the FPCC address as 544 Camp Street.
In letters written earlier that summer and spring to the FPCC headquarters in New York, Oswald had indicated that he intended to rent an office. In one letter he mentioned that he had acquired a space but had been told to vacate 3 days later because the building was to be remodeled. The Warren Commission failed to discover any record of Oswald’s having rented an office at 544 Camp and concluded he had fabricated the story.
In investigating Oswald after the assassination, the Secret Service learned that the New Orleans chapter of the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC), an anti-Castro organization, had occupied an office at 544 Camp Street for about 6 months during 1961–2. At that time, Sergio Arcacha Smith was the official CRC delegate for the New Orleans area. Since the CRC had vacated the building 15 months before Oswald arrived in New Orleans, the Warren Commission concluded that there was no connection with Oswald. Nevertheless, the riddle of 544 Camp Street persisted over the years.
Oswald lost his job at the Reily Coffee Co. in July, and his efforts to find another were futile. Through the rest of the summer, he filed claims at the unemployment office.
On 5 August, Oswald initiated contact with Carlos Bringuier, a delegate of the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE). According to his testimony before the Warren Commission, Bringuier was the only registered member of the group in New Orleans. Bringuier also said he had two friends at the time, Celso Hernandez and Miguel Cruz, who were also active in the anti-Castro cause. Oswald reportedly told Bringuier that he wished to join the DRE, offering money and assistance to train guerrillas. Bringuier, fearful of an infiltration attempt by Castro sympathizers or the FBI, told Oswald to deal directly with DRE headquarters in Miami. The next day, Oswald returned to Bringuier’s store and left a copy of a Marine training manual with Rolando Pelaez, Bringuier’s brother-in-law.
On 9 August, Bringuier learned that a man was carrying a pro-Castro sign and handing out literature on Canal Street. Carrying his own anti-Castro sign, Bringuier, along with Hernandez and Cruz, set out to demonstrate against the pro-Castro sympathizer. Bringuier recognized Oswald and began shouting that he was a traitor and a Communist. A scuffle ensued, and police arrested all participants. Oswald spent the night in jail. On 12 August, he pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace and was fined $10. The anti-Castro Cubans were not charged.
During the incident with Bringuier, Oswald also encountered Frank Bartes, the New Orleans delegate of the CRC from 1962–4. After Bringuier and Oswald were arrested in the street scuffle, Bartes appeared in court with Bringuier. According to Bartes, the news media surrounded Oswald for a statement after the hearing. Bartes then engaged in an argument with the media and Oswald because the Cubans were not being given an opportunity to present their anti-Castro views.
On 16 August, Oswald was again seen distributing pro-Castro literature. A friend of Bringuier, Carlos Quiroga, brought one of Oswald’s leaflets to Bringuier and volunteered to
visit Oswald and feign interest in the FPCC in order to determine Oswald’s motives. Quiroga met with Oswald for about an hour. He learned that Oswald had a Russian wife and spoke Russian himself. Oswald gave Quiroga an application for membership in the FPCC chapter, but Quiroga noted he did not seem intent on actually enlisting members.
Oswald’s campaign received newspaper, television, and radio coverage. William Stuckey, a reporter for radio station WDSU which had been following the FPCC, interviewed Oswald on 17 August and proposed a television debate between Oswald and Bringuier, to be held on 21 August. Bringuier issued a press release immediately after the debate, urging the citizens of New Orleans to write their Congressmen demanding a congressional investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Oswald largely passed out of sight from 21 August until 17 September, the day he applied for a tourist card to Mexico. He is known to have written letters to left-wing political organizations, and he and Marina visited the Murrets on Labor Day. Marina said her husband spent his free time reading books and practicing with his rifle.
(2) Oswald in Clinton, La.–While reports of some Oswald contacts with anti-Castro Cubans were known at the time of the 1964 investigation, allegations of additional Cuba-related associations surfaced in subsequent years. As an example, Oswald reportedly appeared in August–September 1963 in Clinton, La., where a voting rights demonstration was in progress. The reports of Oswald in Clinton were not, as far as the committee could determine, available to the Warren Commission, although one witness said he notified the FBI when he recognized Oswald from news photographs right after the assassination. In fact, the Clinton sightings did not publicly surface until 1967, when they were introduced as evidence in the assassination investigation being conducted by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. In that investigation, one suspect, David W. Ferrie, a staunch anti-Castro partisan, died within days of having been named by Garrison; the other, Clay L. Shaw, was acquitted in 1969. Aware that Garrison had been fairly criticized for questionable tactics, the committee proceeded cautiously, making sure to determine on its own the credibility of information coming from his probe. The committee found that the Clinton witnesses were credible and significant. [. . .]
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(3) David Ferrie.–The Clinton witnesses were not the only ones who linked Oswald to Ferrie. On 23 November, the day after the assassination, Jack S. Martin, a part-time private detective and police informant, told the office of the New Orleans District Attorney that a former Eastern Airlines pilot named David Ferrie might have aided Oswald in the assassination. Martin had known Ferrie for over 2 years, beginning when he and Ferrie had performed some investigative work on a case involving an illegitimate religious order in Louisville, Ky. Martin advised Assistant New Orleans District Attorney Herman Kohlman that he suspected Ferrie might have known Oswald for some time and that Ferrie might have once been Oswald’s superior officer in a New Orleans unit of the Civil Air Patrol. Martin made further allegations to the FBI on November 25. He indicated he thought he once saw a photograph of Oswald and other CAP members when he visited Ferrie’s home and that Ferrie might have assisted Oswald in purchasing a foreign firearm. Martin also informed the FBI that Ferrie had a history of arrests and that Ferrie was an amateur hypnotist, possibly capable of hypnotizing Oswald.
The committee reviewed Ferrie’s background. He had been fired by Eastern Airlines, and in litigation over the dismissal, which continued through August 1963, he was counseled by a New Orleans attorney named G. Wray Gill. Ferrie later stated that in March 1960, he and Gill made an agreement whereby Gill would represent Ferrie in his dismissal dispute in return for Ferrie’s work as an investigator on other cases. One of these cases involved deportation proceedings against Carlos Marcello, the head of the organized crime network in Louisiana and a client of Gill. Ferrie also said he had entered into a similar agreement with Guy Banister, a former FBI agent (Special Agent-in-Charge in Chicago) who had opened a private detective agency in New Orleans.
(4) 544 Camp Street.–Banister’s firm occupied an office in 1963 in the Newman Building at 531 Lafayette Street. Another entrance to the building was at 544 Camp Street, the address Oswald had stamped on his Fair Play for Cuba Committee handouts. During the summer of 1963, Ferrie frequented 544 Camp Street regularly as a result of his working relationship with Banister.
Another occupant of the Newman Building was the Cuban Revolutionary Council, whose chief New Orleans delegate until 1962 was Sergio Arcacha Smith. He was replaced by Luis Rabel who, in turn, was succeeded by Frank Bartes. The committee interviewed or deposed all three CRC New Orleans delegates. Arcacha said he never encountered Oswald and that he left New Orleans when he was relieved of his CRC position in early 1962. Rabel said he held the post from January to October 1962, but that he likewise never knew or saw Oswald and that the only time he went to the Newman Building was to remove some office materials that Arcacha had left there. Bartes said the only time he was in contact with Oswald was in their courtroom confrontation, that he ran the CRC chapter from an office in his home and that he never visited an office at either 544 Camp Street or 531 Lafayette Street.
The committee, on the other hand, developed information that, in 1961, Banister, Ferrie, and Arcacha were working together in the anti-Castro cause. Banister, a fervent anti-Communist, was helping to establish Friends of Democratic Cuba as an adjunct to the New Orleans CRC chapter run by Arcacha in an office in the Newman Building. Banister was also conducting background investigations of CRC members for Arcacha. Ferrie, also strongly anti-Communist and anti-Castro, was associated with Arcacha (and probably Banister) in anti-Castro activism.
On 22 November 1963 Ferrie had been in a Federal courtroom in New Orleans in connection with legal proceedings against Carlos Marcello. That night he drove, with two young friends, to Houston, Tex. then to Galveston on Saturday 23 November and back to New Orleans on Sunday. Before reaching New Orleans, he learned from a telephone conversation with G. Wray Gill that Martin had implicated him in the assassination. Gill also told Ferrie about the rumors that he and Oswald had served together in the CAP and that Oswald supposedly had Ferrie’s library card in his possession when he was arrested in Dallas. When he got to his residence, Ferrie did not go in, but sent in his place one of his companions on the trip, Alvin Beauboeuf. Beauboeuf and Ferrie’s roommate, Layton Martens, were detained by officers from the district attorney’s office. Ferrie drove to Hammond, La., and spent the night with a friend.
On Monday 25 November Ferrie turned himself in to the district attorney’s office where he was arrested on suspicion of being involved in the assassination. In subsequent interviews with New Orleans authorities, the FBI and the Secret Service, Ferrie denied ever having known Oswald or having ever been involved in the assassination. He stated that in the days preceding 22 November he had been working intensively for Gill on the Marcello case. Ferrie said he was in New Orleans on the morning of 22 November, at which time Marcello was acquitted in Federal court of citizenship falsification. He stated that he took the weekend trip to Texas for relaxation. Ferrie acknowledged knowing Jack Martin, stating that Martin resented him for forcibly removing him from Gill’s office earlier that year.
The FBI and Secret Service investigation into the possibility that Ferrie and Oswald had been associated ended a few days later. A Secret Service report concluded that the information provided by Jack Martin that Ferrie had been associated with Oswald and had trained him to fire a rifle was “without foundation.” The Secret Service report went on to state that on 26 November 1963 the FBI had informed the Secret Service that Martin had admitted that his information was a “figment of his imagination.” The investigation of Ferrie was subsequently closed for lack of evidence against him.
(5) A committee analysis of Oswald in New Orleans.–The Warren Commission had attempted to reconstruct a daily chronology of Oswald’s activities in New Orleans during the summer of 1963, and the committee used it, as well as information arising from cr
itics and the Garrison investigation, to select events and contacts that merited closer analysis. Among these were Oswald’s confrontation with Carlos Bringuier and with Frank Bartes, his reported activities in Clinton, La., and his ties, if any, to Guy Banister, David Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith and others who frequented the office building at 544 Camp Street. The committee deposed Carlos Bringuier and interviewed or deposed several of his associates. It concluded that there had been no relationship between Oswald and Bringuier and the DRE with the exception of the confrontation over Oswald’s distribution of pro-Castro literature. The committee was not able to determine why Oswald approached the anti-Castro Cubans, but it tended to concur with Bringuier and others in their belief that Oswald was seeking to infiltrate their ranks and obtain information about their activities.
As noted, the committee believed the Clinton witnesses to be telling the truth as they knew it. It was, therefore, inclined to believe that Oswald was in Clinton, La., in late August, early September 1963, and that he was in the company of David Ferrie, if not Clay Shaw. The committee was puzzled by Oswald’s apparent association with Ferrie, a person whose anti-Castro sentiments were so distant from those of Oswald, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee campaigner. But the relationship with Ferrie may have been significant for more than its anti-Castro aspect, in light of Ferrie’s connection with G. Wray Gill and Carlos Marcello.