The obvious question then becomes: How did Oswald know the names of these men? Or if he did not, how did Shaw or Ferrie know them? One possibility is this: According to Cuban intelligence, Silva was active in the anti-Castro cause in the New Orleans area. Silva was Cuban-born and from an upper-class family. He was actually associated with Tulane Medical Center at the time.76 Tulane was located in New Orleans. Dr. Alton Ochsner, who was on the board of, and Chief of Surgery at, Tulane Medical School, was a friend of both Shaw and Banister.77 In fact, at the New Orleans Public Library, there is a photo of Shaw sitting at a small table with Ochsner.
Another way that Oswald could have known these names was through a mutual acquaintance of Shaw and Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith. Both Cuban intelligence and Garrison’s investigators discovered that there was a connection between the two Cuban refugees. Dr. Robert Heath, Chairman of Tulane University Medical School’s Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, became infamous for using LSD and electrode implantation in his research. Many of the people he worked on came from East Louisiana State Hospital, where an entire ward was dedicated to his work.78 East doctor Alfred Butterworth (whom this author interviewed shortly before his death) told the author that he had seen both Ochsner and Silva while he was there. Butterworth also revealed that Tulane University had a special psychiatric unit at the hospital, where they secretly administered LSD.79 This is important background to the following information. During his inquiry, Jim Garrison came across a witness who had attended a gathering at Dr. Heath’s home. There the following event occurred: Dr. Silva introduced the man to the former local representative of Howard Hunt’s CRC, Sergio Arcacha Smith.80 Pierson was a former narcotics offender who, according to HSCA subpoenaed records, listed Silva as a reference in his job application.81 It is hard to believe that, left to his own devices, Oswald would have known that either of these men worked at the hospital. If either of these more logical options is accurate, it gives the incident even more scope and depth.
But here lies an ironic miscalculation on the threesome’s part. For Palmer then asked Oswald his purpose in registering. Oswald replied that he wanted to get a job at the hospital. He had been told previously that he had a better chance to get such a position if he was registered. Palmer said this was not the case: “I know people out of Mississippi that are working at Jackson.” At which Oswald turned, walked out the office door, and returned to his car. After he closed up that day, Palmer went to buy something at the local drugstore. There he met with Gloria Wilson, who he thought had talked to Oswald earlier. She alerted him to the fact that Oswald had left in the black Cadillac with the two cohorts inside.82
For Jim Garrison, and the HSCA, Palmer would identify Shaw and Ferrie as the occupants of the car, and Oswald as the man he talked to about registering. Further, at the Clay Shaw trial, Palmer personally demolished the disinformation story constructed by Shaw’s defenders that it was Guy Banister, not Clay Shaw, who was the driver of the black Cadillac. To assistant DA Andrew Sciambra, Palmer stated he knew Banister from before 1963. When asked if Banister was in the car that day, he replied that he was sure he was not.83
Oswald and Shaw were also reportedly seen by two people at the Clinton Courthouse. And from there, these two witnesses said the duo went on to the East Louisiana State Hospital.84
This is undoubtedly what happened. Bobby Dedon, a receptionist at the hospital, directed a man she would later identify as Oswald to the personnel office.85 Maxine Kemp recalled the Oswald application form since she actually saw it.86 She also knew of another employee there, Dale Booty, who had seen the file.87 And Aline Woodside said the same thing.88
How to explain this strange, almost dreamlike trip? What was Oswald doing looking for a job in Clinton, away from New Orleans, when he did not drive? Why was Shaw there? What was the well-dressed, dignified, upstanding representative of upper-crust New Orleans doing in this sleepy hamlet with these two characters from the opposite end of the social spectrum?
Now that we know a bit more about Ferrie and Oswald, perhaps the Clinton trip of that motley trio is a bit more clear. It helps explain Oswald’s surprise on learning that the hospital was a mental institution. The trip was not his idea. He had not checked it out. He was likely given the names of Silva (or Pierson) through his two cohorts. Who, at least, had lived in New Orleans for years. Who would have thought that one day soon, one of the trio would be asking Dean Andrews to represent another of the threesome in the murder of President Kennedy. For, as we will see, Dean Andrews knew that Clay Bertrand was only an alias. The caller’s real name was Clay Shaw.
Nagell Tries to Stop the Assassination
In the summer of 1963 there was someone trying to connect all these signs before the assassination took place. Incredibly, working essentially by himself, Richard Case Nagell came very close to finding out what would happen. But according to his biographer, in the end, he couldn’t convince Oswald of what was happening to him. And then when he failed at that, he couldn’t bring himself to kill the man he now regarded as a friend.
Jim Garrison referred to Nagell in these terms: “Richard Case Nagell is the most important witness there is.”89 No serious and objective writer in the field can disagree with that to any great extent. If Nagell was not the most important of the cooperating witnesses, he was certainly in the top five. In 1981, the late Bud Fensterwald of the Assassination Archives and Research Center wrote that “Nagell is probably the only vital individual who knew the details of the assassination and is still alive.”90 Even though the Warren Commission had an FBI report on Nagell that said he had met Oswald only socially in Texas and Mexico City, there is no record of anyone on the Commission ever interviewing him. (As we will see, their meeting was anything but social.)91 Nagell did try. He wrote two letters to the Commission saying he had knowledge of both Oswald and the conspiracy—in advance of the assassination.92 Either someone intercepted the letters or the Commission was not interested. Since, as we shall see, Nagell was in prison at the time he wrote the letters, the former is a distinct possibility. As we will later see, the first law enforcement officer interested in what Nagell had to say was Jim Garrison. Almost four years after Nagell discovered what was going to happen to President Kennedy. This is shocking because, as Nagell’s biographer notes, at the time he was arrested in El Paso in September of 1963, Richard Case Nagell had in his personal effects a near duplicate of Oswald’s Uniformed Services Identification and Priveileges Card. To be clear, he himself had a card like that, but he also had a card with Oswald’s photo inset on it.93 It is understandable that this may have not set off any alarms two months before Kennedy was killed. But one would have thought that someone in the judicial system would have recalled this the day Kennedy was shot and realized its potentially immense significance. For one difference between the Oswald card Nagell maintained and the one Oswald had was that the photo was different. The photo from Oswald’s card appears borrowed from another card. And on the other card, Oswald’s alias of Alex J. Hidell is used. At the very least, this would indicate that Nagell had to have been quite close to Oswald prior to the time of his arrest. Nagell even had other things showing a mutual interest with Oswald: the same names in each man’s notebooks, Cuba-related leaflets (from the same pro-Cuba group Oswald commandeered), two tourist cards for Mexican entry (one in the name of Aleksei Hidel), and miniature spy cameras.94 One would have thought that, on the day of the assassination, the legal authorities would have wondered how Nagell came into their possession. Especially when, upon being apprehended, Nagell said, “I would rather be arrested than commit murder and treason.”95 Recall, this is two months before President Kennedy is murdered. How did Nagell know such a thing was going to happen? And how did Nagell know so much about Oswald? And, as we shall see, David Ferrie?
In 1953, at the tail end of the Korean War, Nagell attended the Monterey School of Languages, a Defense Department institution for the accelerated acquisition of foreign languages. (As we shall see, Lee Harvey O
swald very likely attended there also.) After this, Nagell worked for Army Intelligence, doing surveillance on suspected domestic communists.96 In the winter of 1955–56, Nagell was first recruited by the CIA. In late 1956, Nagell was transferred to a secret intelligence group called Field Operations Intelligence (FOI). This group was involved in what intelligence operators call “black ops”: assassinations, kidnappings, blackmail, etc.97 FOI operated in the Far East, so Nagell worked in Japan. It was there, in 1957–58, that Nagell first encountered Lee Harvey Oswald. Nagell wondered why Oswald was seen outside the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo. So he arranged to be introduced to him under an assumed name. Nagell and Oswald had girlfriends at the Queen Bee, a famous nightclub in Tokyo.
In late 1959, after leaving FOI and the Far East, Nagell returned stateside to a civilian job. But he still freelanced for the CIA. Specifically, Nagell worked for the Domestic Intelligence unit.98 This is significant because, as we shall see, this unit would later be formalized under Tracy Barnes as the Domestic Operations Division, with Howard Hunt allegedly a major player.99 After a shooting incident on his job, Nagell left and secured a Mexican tourist card in Los Angeles. He visited a friend of his at the Hotel Luma in Mexico City. In 1966, in a letter to his sister, Nagell hinted at how important this visit was to him: “If it does eventually become mandatory for me to touch upon the events leading to my sojourn in Mexico in 1962 … (where and when it began), I shall do so, but only subsequent to being granted immunity from prosecution.”100
Nagell later told his friend Art Greenstein that in 1962 he was now under control of the CIA. His mission was to serve as a double agent for the Agency in an operation against the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. The timing of this mission was near the outset of the Missile Crisis. And since these types of operations were the domain of David Phillips—who manned the Cuban desk in Mexico City—Nagell hinted to Greenstein that Phillips had been an accomplice on this project.101 This becomes interesting in regards to what happens next. For it was after the completion of this project, when the Missile Crisis was over, that Nagell learned about a plot to kill President Kennedy. And he learned of it in his double agent status through the KGB.102
In October of 1962, a Soviet contact of his told him that he had heard that a Cuban exile group named Alpha 66 had been talking about a plot to kill JFK, because the group had gotten wind of Kennedy’s pledge about not invading Cuba which resolved the crisis. As Gaeton Fonzi later revealed, the leader of Alpha 66 was Antonio Veciana. Veciana named his CIA handler as Maurice Bishop, who Fonzi demonstrated was Phillips. Nagell had just begun his preliminary inquiries when, in an unprecedented move, he was called to the Soviet Embassy. He was now told that the JFK plot was not just a rumor. And the Soviets were worried that part of the plot’s design would be to blame them for the murder.103 He was further briefed on the matter and given a sheath of pictures. One of the photos was of Oswald. The Russians were suspicious of him because of his defection to Moscow, though, at this time, not in relation to the plot to kill Kennedy. Nagell left Mexico on October 21, 1962. His friend Greenstein asked Nagell if he would be hearing from him in the future or reading about him in the papers. Nagell replied that he would. Greenstein followed up with, “Something big?” Nagell responded more prophetically than he could have possibly known with, “Yes … something big.”104
Nagell first went to Dallas to check up on the status of Oswald. He found the supposed communist in the midst of the counterrevolutionary White Russian community. From here, Nagell went to his first point of interest: a Cuban exile group that planned on blowing up the Orange Bowl where Kennedy was to speak to the prisoners released from Cuba in the Bay of Pigs exchange.105 In fact, the Miami Police Department had a report that said a local Cuban was overheard saying on the night JFK spoke that “Something is going to happen in the Orange Bowl.”
Nagell then did some important follow up work in Miami. He was checking on an alleged relationship between former Cuban congressman Eladio Del Valle and former Cuban diplomat, and present New Orleans Cuban Revolutionary Council representative, Sergio Arcacha Smith.106 He was also checking on an associate of Arcacha’s friend David Ferrie. This shows what a remarkable investigator Nagell was, as Oswald had not even moved back to New Orleans yet.
In April of 1963, Nagell moved to Los Angeles, since Alpha 66 had opened up a new chapter there. Here he picked up the scent of another attempt on Kennedy’s life, scheduled for June. The focus of the plot was a man named Vaughn Marlowe, who was an executive officer with the Los Angeles branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.107 This was the same organization that Oswald was now leafleting for on the streets of New Orleans. Marlowe wrote Jim Garrison in 1967 telling him that Nagell had been following him at that time for reasons foreign to him.108 Nagell later revealed why he had been tailing Marlowe, and again it proves his acumen as a detective. Marlowe was being considered as a fall guy by a member of Alpha 66. This Cuban would later visit Sylvia Odio in September of 1963.109 Nagell discovered that the scene of the crime was to be the Beverly Hilton hotel where Kennedy was to stay for the LA premiere of the film PT 109.
Two important things now happened to Nagell. He now learned that somehow the Cubans he was monitoring knew about both Kennedy’s attempt at rapprochement with Castro and his attempt at warmer relations with the Soviets. Nagell did some digging into this and found out how the back channels talks were escalating from the summer to the fall. And he thoroughly understood how his targets would feel about this, especially in light of what they considered Kennedy’s failure at the Bay of Pigs. He also knew that these now desperate men would feel they had no choice but to alter this new Kennedy/Castro agenda.110 With this new information, Nagell began to exclusively monitor the plot that would take Kennedy’s life. At this time, Nagell told a friend of his, John Margain, that Oswald was being set up by the CIA and the Cuban exiles.111 As Nagell told Greenstein, one of the personages integral to this setting up of Oswald was David Ferrie.112 Two others were the two men who were to visit Sylvia Odio. Two others were Arcacha and, in all likelihood, Carlos Quiroga. Quiroga was suspected by Garrison of supplying Oswald with pro-Cuba literature, and then lying about it by saying he was really infiltrating Oswald’s alleged group. When Garrison had him polygraphed, Quiroga was asked this direct question. When he replied he was trying to infiltrate Oswald’s group, the machine indicated deception. He also was being deceptive when he said that he only talked to Oswald once, and that Oswald did not know Sergio Arcacha Smith or Guy Banister.113
This information dovetails perfectly with a piece of evidence that Nagell had stored away in a secure place with a friend. This was a tape recording of four men, speaking primarily in Spanish, but some of the time in English. This discussion concerned a plot to assassinate Kennedy. Two of the men were Arcacha and a man who Nagell would only identify as “Q,” almost certainly Quiroga.114 Nagell was now told to concentrate on this New Orleans Cuban exile cabal.115 He would find out that Ferrie knew both the Cubans who showed up at Odio’s apartment door in Dallas.116 He also discovered that on the fringe of the plot was an Oswald double who went by the name of “Leon.” Leon Oswald worked only with the anti-Castro Cubans and, unlike Lee, made no attempt to appear pro-Castro.117
By late August and early September, Nagell understood he was in the midst of “something big.” Except he did not know where the actual denouement would take place. He went to Mexico to try and contact his CIA handler. He failed. But his KGB liaison told him to try and separate Oswald from the conspirators by telling him he was being duped. If this was not effective, and the plot seemed heading forward, he should terminate Oswald.118 As Nagell later said, if anyone wanted to stop the assassination, it was the KGB. But Nagell could not convince Oswald he was being victimized, and he could not bring himself to kill him. He therefore expected to be eliminated himself. He even began to suspect he was used by the CIA to confuse the KGB about the endgame of the plot.119
Nagell wrote a letter to the FBI warning
them of the plot. He then thought of leaving for Europe. Instead he drove to El Paso. He was supposed to meet a contact with someone across the border in Juarez. He did not. Instead he went into a bank in El Paso ostensibly to purchase some American Express checks, since he was being paid through them by the CIA.120 There, he decided to fire shots in the bank that deliberately did not hit anyone. Thinking he would only be tried on a misdemeanor, he thought he would be able to produce evidence in court showing the machinations of the plot. But he was not allowed to mention American Express in court; he was charged with a felony, and some of the evidence he had in his car disappeared. Therefore, the plot proceeded.
Did Gary Underhill Know Who Killed JFK?
The remarkable thing about the above events is that they all happened either in advance of the assassination—Rose Cheramie, Clinton-Jackson, Nagell; the day of the assassination—Banister beating Martin; or within just a day or two after the assassination—Bertrand’s call to Andrews, Ferrie searching for his library card. They all appeared to originate in and around New Orleans. But there was another episode that occurred in the northeast, which supplied a connection with these local events to Washington. Like the above, this remarkable incident was also suppressed.
Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, & the Garrison Case Page 15