Not in Your Lifetime: The Defining Book on the J.F.K. Assassination (59 page)

Goodpasture: Morley,
op. cit.
, p. 183.

Note 20
: Author Vincent Bugliosi has suggested that Goodpasture’s statements were unreliable. Only pages later, however, he relies on other Goodpasture comments to imply that her former boss Winston Scott’s memory may have been “faulty” when he wrote his unpublished manuscript—or that his motive was sell books. (Bugliosi,
op. cit.
, Endnotes pp. 596, 603–).

335
     Hoover memo: HSCA Report, p. 249–; Sen. Int. Cttee.
Performance of
Intelligence Agencies
, p. 32; CD 87—Secret Service control no. 104 (cite uncertainly identified on document); CIA document 14, Mexico City to HQ, November 22, 1963; HSCA Report, p. 258.

“Neither the tape”: Belmont to Tolson, November 23, 1963. Misc. Church Cttee. Records, NARA 157-10014-10169.

Johnson/Hoover: transcript of conversation, November 23, 1963, LBJ Tapes, LBJ Library, 1993–1994 releases.

336
Note 21
: The
available record indicates that the tape to which Hoover was referring in the exchange with President Johnson was of the Saturday, September 28 “Oswald” call from the Cuban Consulate to the Soviet Embassy—a call that, as noted earlier, seems unlikely to have been made by the authentic Oswald—if, as Sylvia Durán insisted, she had not been at the Consulate on the twenty-eighth. The HSCA’s Mexico City report saw reason to believe her, and thought the intercepted call “another possible indication that an impostor may also have visited the Consulate.” (Lopez & Hardway, Mexico City Report,
supra
., esp. p. 409–
, & see Newman,
op. cit.
, p. 367–)

Note 22
: At 7:23 p.m. CST on November 23, Dallas Agent in Charge Shanklin had sent a new report to FBI headquarters—revising his earlier communication to Belmont and stating that only a report of the “Oswald” Mexico conversation was available—not a recording. Nevertheless, a further FBI message, sent two days later to its Mexico office—on November 25—contains a request to “include tapes previous reviewed Dallas if they were returned to you.” On November 26, the Dallas office said there had apparently been “some confusion in that no tapes were taken to Dallas.” Four Dallas agents who had conversed with the authentic Oswald, meanwhile, were to tell the Assassinations Committee that they had not listened to a recording of Oswald’s voice after the assassination. Unaccounted for, however, is the recall of three other agents who had also conversed with Oswald—the Committee failed to contact them.

On November 26, in a conversation with CIA Director John McCone, Hoover would again allude to the matter of the photograph but not to a recording. (Shanklin November 23/Dallas office November 26: HSCA Report, p. 250; “tapes previously reviewed”: Washington to Legat Mexico, November 25, 1963, FBI 105-3702-16, www.history-matters.com; McCone: Max Holland,
The Kennedy Assassination Tapes
, New York: Knopf, 2004, p. 106.)

Tapes flown?: Staff to
Schweiker & Hart, March 5, 1976, NARA 157-10014-10168, p. 3, Belmont to Tolson, November 23, 1963,
supra
., SA Heitman to SAC Dallas, November 22, 1963, FBI 124-10027-10345; Mexico City to Director, CIA, January 23, 1963, NARA 104-10015-10123 & see Morley,
op. cit.
, pp. 206, 330 & Rex Bradford paper cited earlier
supra
.

Note 23
: The FBI agent who flew up from Mexico, future congressman Eldon Rudd, was very evidently reluctant to talk when contacted by the author in the 1970s. Questioned in the 1990s by a reporter, he said, “There were no tapes to my knowledge.” (“Call on JFK Wasn’t Oswald,”
AP
, November 21, 1999)

Hoover-Johnson recording/“erased”: transcript of conversation, November 23, 1963, LBJ Tapes, LBJ Library, 1993–1994 releases; Notes Relating to Audio Recording contract, January 21, 1999, www.history-matters.com; & see Bradford, “Not a Speck,”
supra
., p. 6 & see Holland,
op. cit.
, p. 69n15.

337
     “false”/ “double-dealing”: Brennan to Sullivan, January 15, 1964, linked to “Conspiracy—Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City,” www.pbs.org.

Three witnesses: interviews—William Coleman, 1993–1994; David Slawson, 1993; former senior CIA officer, 1993–1994, on condition of anonymity, author’s memo to PBS’s
Frontline
producer, 1993.

Belin: transcript,
Nightline
, ABC News, November 11, 1983 int. by Ted Koppel, cited in
Third
Decade
, Vol. 4, Issue 2.

338
Note 24
: The author obtained the interviews with Coleman, Slawson, and the CIA officer in 1993 for PBS’s
Frontline
program. As the author gave his word that he would not publicly reveal the officer’s name, and though the latter is apparently now dead, he does not reveal it now. He did at the time share the information with the relevant
Frontline
producer.

In correspondence with people other than the author, Coleman and Slawson also referred unequivocally to having listened to
Oswald tapes. Slawson, moreover, reportedly said in another interview that he listened to an Oswald tape. Jeremy Gunn, who was executive director of the Assassination Records Review Board, said in 1995 that both Coleman and Slawson told him they “heard the tape.”

Much earlier in 1978, however, and in contrast to his clear recollection cited in the text, Coleman had told an Assassinations Committee interviewer that he did not have “the faintest idea” whether the CIA had explained “why it did not have an actual recording of Oswald’s voice.” Coleman gave a vague, hesitant answer when asked about the matter in a recorded Assassinations Committee interview. Slawson, for his part, responded to a question by a member of the Assassination Records Review Board as to whether he had heard the tapes by saying—and repeating: “I am not at liberty to discuss that.” It had been very evident, even when the author interviewed the two former Warren attorneys, that they were concerned about perhaps breaching their national security undertakings.

Anne Goodpasture, the former aide to CIA Station Chief Scott cited alsewhere in this chapter, told the Review Board she thought Scott “squirreled away” a copy of the tape. For sources on the above, other information, and a back and forth on the issue between researchers, interested readers may study the End Notes for the book
Reclaiming History
by Vincent Bugliosi, who attempted—unsuccessfully in the author’s view—to show that no tapes survived. For a rebuttal, see the unpublished paper supplied to the author by researcher Rex Bradford, entitled “Not a Speck of a Scintilla of Evidence for Conspiracy: Vincent Bugliosi on the Mexico City Impostor.” Fresh information appeared in Jefferson Morley’s 2008 book
Our Man in Mexico
. (Gunn/“heard the tape”: Gunn question in AARB testimony of Anne Goodpasture, December 15, 1995, p. 27; Coleman HSCA testimony/vague: audiotape of August 2, 1978 testimony at www.history-matters.com; Slawson/Goodpasture: “not at liberty,” Bradford, “Not a Speck,”
supra
., p. 7–, 9; Bugliosi: , p. 1049– & especially End Notes, p. 592–; fresh: Morley, op. cit, pp. 7, 290).

Note 25
: The
most thorough document research on Mexico of recent years has been done by Jefferson Morley and John Newman. Morley is a former
Washington Post
journalist whose work has also appeared in the
New York Review of Books
,
Reader’s Digest
,
Slate
, and
Salon
. He is founder of the website JFKfacts.org, which aims to improve media coverage of the assassination and press for the release of still-secret government records. Morley’s biography of Station Chief Scott, with a Foreword by Scott’s son Michael, was published in 2008.

John Newman was for twenty years a U.S. Army intelligence analyst and specialized in examining cable traffic. He authored
Oswald and the CIA
, published in 1995. The author, who has had extensive contact with both Morley and Newman, recommends their books as vital reading on the Mexico episode. (Jefferson Morley,
Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA
, Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2008; John Newman,
Oswald and the CIA
, New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995).

“Latest HDQS”: Director CIA to Mexico City, November 10, 1963, CIA file no. 201-289248, www.jfk.hood.edu & see Newman,
op. cit.
, p. 512.

Agency knew/FBI copied: Morley,
op. cit.
, p. 195, Newman,
op. cit.
, pp. 348–, 392–.

339
     hardly inadvertent: Morley,
op. cit.
, p. 192–.

Roman: Morley,
op. cit.
, p. 194–.

340
     Phillips: Phillips,
op. cit.
, p. 142.

Phillips & FPCC/ mirror image: Newman,
op. cit.
, p. 240–, referring in greater detail to newly released CIA documents author also perused—especially memorandum from [name censored] in WH/4 Registry to Mr. Belt, and memo, Papich to Hoover, October 7, 1961, CIA box 41, folder 33, no. 3.; int. Joseph Burkholder Smith, 1994; int. & corr. Hal Verb, 1994.

Hunt on Phillips: E. Howard Hunt, HSCA testimony, Pt. II, November 3, 1978, p. 29.

Headed unit: Morley,
op. cit.
, p. 177.

“Spent several”: Phillips,
op. cit.
, p. 142.

341
     Committee not believe: HSCA Report, p. 125n, Lopez &
Hardway, Mexico City Report,
supra
., pp. 51, 55–, 58, 168.

“routinely”:
Washington Post
, November 26, 1976.

“no question”: Bugliosi,
op. cit.
, p. 1050, reporting conversations with Phillips in connection with a television mock Oswald “trial.” But see, Fonzi,
op. cit.
, p. 285–.

“blip”: Phillips,
op. cit.
, p. 139.

“special watch”: Winston Scott,
op. cit.
, p. 269.

sworn testimony: Kaiser,
op. cit.
, pp. 288, 300.

Chilean general: memo for record, September 16, 1970, CIA cable, October 18, 1970, Report on CIA Chilean Task Force, November 18, 1970, all linked to National Security Archive Briefing Book 8, www.gwu.edu, “The Holy Grail of the JFK Story,”
Salon
, November 22, 2011.

Angleton/undercover unit: Morley,
op. cit.
, pp. 113–, 162.

342
Note 26
: Scott’s widow Janet, family members have said, loathed and feared Angleton and told him to take what he wanted. According to Horton, Mrs. Scott herself asked that the material be removed. (Morley,
op. cit.
, pp. 293, 6)

Angleton/Horton turned up/flown to D.C.: Morley, pp. 2, 3, 7–, 254, 286.

Hartmann: HSCA Int. of Melbourne Hartman, October 10, 1978, p. 29–, but see Bugliosi,
op. cit.
, End Notes, p. 597.

Michael Scott/destruction: Morley,
op. cit.
, pp. 291–, 294n, 345n.

20. Facts and Appearances

345
     Oswald’s return to USA: XXIV.594, 569, 571.

YMCA: X.281–; XI.478; XXII.159, 207.

visits wife: XXIII.509; XXIV.702.

Book Depository job: CD 5.325; CD 3.34, 121; III.121, 212.

Note 1
: The President’s
November 22 motorcade route, including the virtual certainty that it would pass in front of the Depository, would not start emerging in the local press until November 16. See
Dallas
Morning
News
,
November 16, 19, 20 & 22, 1963,
Dallas
Times
Herald
, November 19, 1963, in CE 1022.

Renting rooms: XXIII.390; XXVI.538; VI.400–.

346
     Beckley: VI.436; X.292–.

Birthday: I:53; III.40; XVII.189; McMillan,
op. cit.
, p. 379.

Supervisor: III.216.

Another job: I.68; McMillan,
op. cit.
, p. 379.

Note 2
: The Warren Report did not mention the letter indicating that Oswald expected to cease working, and the IRS document did not become public until three years later. The alleged assassin’s income-tax returns for 1962 long remained closed to researchers. No real clarification has yet been produced for official reticence about Oswald’s income.

IRS letter: FBI Exhibit 274, reported in
Dallas Morning News
, May 1, 1977; sections 6103 and 7213 of Internal Revenue Code and 18 U.S.C. 1905, cited by Archivist of U.S.A.

Hosty: Report pp. 327, 419, 435, 437, 660, 739; analysis of Hosty involvement–Sen. Int. Cttee.,
Performance of Intelligence Agencies
, Appendix A; (November 1) IV.449; I.48; III.92/96–; (November 5) I.56; II.15; Hearings on FBI Oversight before House Subcttee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, Serial 2, pt. 3, pp. 143 and 145; HSCA Report, p. 194–.

347
     Women know phone number: III.43; XI.53.

Hosty and Oswald note: II.18 (Mrs. Paine); HSCA Report, p. 195–; Sen. Int. Cttee.,
Performance of Intelligence Agencies
, Appendix B; (testimony of Hosty, Fenner, Shanklin, Howe, etc.) Hearings on FBI Oversight before House Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, Serial 2, pt. 3, October 21 & December 11, 1975.

349
Note 3
: Some have speculated that obfuscation over the note was merely part of an effort to minimize even an innocent Bureau connection with Oswald—that
Shanklin, faced with Director Hoover’s fury over the failure to spot Oswald as a potential threat, tried to erase evidence of opportunities missed. Or perhaps, as suggested in earlier pages, someone at the FBI feared that full exposure of U.S. intelligence interest in Oswald would reveal elements of the case that remained hidden.