Authors: John Newman
In early June, Oswald had written to the FPCC saying that he had, against Vincent Lee's advice, rented an office in New Orleans.69 The building numbered 544 Camp Street is also numbered 531 Lafayette around the corner.70 On the second floor were the offices of W. Guy Banister. Sam Newman, the owner of the "Newman Building" at the corner of Lafayette and Camp streets, remembers that a white male, aged thirty-seven to thirty-eight, 5 feet 11 inches tall, with a medium build, light olive complexion, dark eyes, and dark brown hair rented one of his offices at 544 Camp Street for thirty dollars. This man said he wanted to use the office as a night school classroom for students of Spanish. The description rules out Oswald, unless this person was working with Oswald. Newman recalls, however, that this happened in July or August, much too late to correspond to Oswald's June letter to Vincent Lee. If this event was connected to Oswald and an office at 544 Camp Street, Newman would have to be wrong about the time. Thus, the statements of the building owner, Sam Newman, do not resolve the issue one way or the other. What about others who worked in and around 544 Camp Street?
Witnesses interviewed by the HSCA, such as Banister's brother, Ross, said that Banister had become "aware" of Oswald before the assassination. The HSCA found no proof that Banister had an Oswald file and could not find "credible witnesses" who had seen Oswald and Banister together. The HSCA observed, however, "that Banister at least knew of Oswald's leafletting activities and probably maintained a file on him." A search of Banister's files after his death by the Louisiana State Police indicated "Oswald's name was included among the main subjects of the file on the Fair Play for Cuba Committee." A partial index of Banister's file compiled by New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison's investigators did not include Oswald or the FPCC."
The HSCA's comment that it could not find credible witnesses to a Banister-Oswald contact is troubling. Presumably, this comment refers to the committee's inability to verify Delphine Roberts's claims that Oswald had come into the building looking for a job and had, on one occasion, brought Marina with him. Roberts was Banister's longtime friend and secretary. She also told the HSCA that Banister "had become angry" with building owner Newman for Oswald's use of the 544 Camp Street stamp on his handbills. There were, however, other witnesses who were deemed credible. Ross Banister said he did not know of a direct association between his brother and Oswald, but "did confirm Guy's interest in the assassination and Oswald," and said his brother "had mentioned seeing Oswald hand out Fair Play for Cuba literature on one occasion."72
Moreover, there was William George Gaudet, a CIA asset in New Orleans of many years, who testified to the HSCA that he knew about Oswald's distribution of literature before the assassination and that "on one occasion, he observed Oswald on a street corner speaking with Guy Banister."" Gaudet's file with the Agency's Domestic Contacts Division (DCD) shows he was a "casual contact" for the New Orleans office from 1956 through 1961. At one point Gaudet claimed he "had once been employed by the CIA." Gaudet went to Mexico at the same time in the fall of 1963 that Oswald did, a subject to which we will return in Chapter Seventeen." This information appears in the HSCA's final report but, strangely, not in its 544 Camp Street analysis, which appears in Volume X of the committee's work. There, the Gaudet piece is missing.
There was also Ivan E. Nitschke, who had served in the FBI with Banister and had "for a short time worked for Banister in the office [of] the Newman Building." Nitschke told the HSCA that Oswald's distribution of handbills had led to Banister's interest in him during the summer of 1963. Nitschke's HSCA deposition claimed that "Banister had some of these handbills in his office or made reference to them. From the context of the conversation, however, he [Banister] was not pleased."'s
What might Banister have used Oswald for? Banister and the extreme right wing in New Orleans had targeted leftwing professors at Tulane like La Violette and Reissman and organizations like the New Orleans Council on Peaceful Alternatives (NOCPA), of which Professor Reissman was a member. Members of the NOCPA reportedly met at Tulane University.76 After the Kennedy assassination someone else "had a dim recollection that sometime in 1962, date not recalled, some Fair Play for Cuba literature had been found in the street in the 1200 or 1300 block of Pine Street in New Orleans."" The person with this "dim recollection" was J. D. Vinson, a private eye from the Isaac Detective Agency, hired by Jack N. Rogers, the legal counsel for the Joint Legislative Committee on Un-American Activities for the State of Louisiana. It is possible that Banister was using Oswald to smoke out pro-Castro Cuban students in local universities and to discredit local leftwing or communist academics.
The above evidence of an Oswald-Banister association is far from conclusive, but it is enough to take this possibility seriously. Another tantalizing piece of evidence comes from the newly released files. Not long after the assassination, New Orleans FBI special agent in charge Harry Maynor drafted a message that was changed before it was sent to the Bureau. Two pieces of information, apparently in Maynor's handwriting, for insertion into the text of the message were scratched out, but the handwriting is still visible. The first deletion concerned the fact that Bartes had been a reliable FBI informant "whose identity must be protected." The other deletion were these words: "Several Fair Play for Cuba pamphlets contained address 544 Camp Street" [emphasis added]."
"FPCC-A J Hide!! "
"About May" 1963, Hugh T. Murray, a graduate student at Tulane, noticed a pile of handbills lying in the foyer of the university library. Murray picked one up and saw that it was captioned "Hands off Cuba," and that the handbill was "under the sponsorship" of the FPCC. Murray recalled that the handbill had a name and post office box stamped on it, but he could remember neither the address nor the name.79 If these handbills were Oswald's, the earliest they could have been at Tulane would have been about June 10. Oswald had not picked up the handbills until June 4, and did not purchase the stamp kit until June 9.
We know what name was stamped on the handbill from another graduate student at Tulane University, Harold Gordon Alderman. Murray mentioned the handbill to Alderman, who wanted to see it. Murray, "shortly thereafter," gave it to him.SO Alderman had collected FPCC literature from the FPCC office in New York at the time of the Bay of Pigs and during the same period had participated in an FPCC picket of the CIA in Washington, D.C. Later, he joined another FPCC action directed at President Kennedy in Seattle, Washington. In October 1962 Alderman debated anti-Castro writer and adventurer Alexander Rorke at Tulane University.
Alderman recalled that Murray handed over the Tulane FPCC handbill "in the summer of 1963, possibly in July, 1963." Alderman tacked the handbill on a door in his apartment on Delord Street, and there it stayed until President Kennedy was assassinated in November. As Alderman read the local newspaper accounts of the assassination, he learned that the alleged murderer had used an alias-A. J. Hidell. Alderman knew this name because it was on the handbill in his apartment. He called the New Orleans office of the FBI and offered to turn over his "Tulane" handbill to them. Whoever he spoke with "advised that the FBI Office already had this handbill and did not want his copy."This was strange, especially in view of the fact that collecting these FPCC handbills was an important part of the FBI's investigation of Oswald's activities."
More than students at Tulane picked up these FPCC handbills. Four days after the assassination, U.S. Army Major Robert H. Erdrich of the 112th Intelligence Corps Group in New Orleans walked into the New Orleans office of the FBI. Major Erdrich said he had heard they "were interested in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in connection with the investigation of this [Kennedy assassination] case," and offered some interesting information. The resulting New Orleans FBI report contains this passage:
He [Major Erdrich] advised that one of the 112th Agents sometime during the last week in May or the first week in June, 1963, picked up a handbill of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee which was attached to a wall on the campus of Tulane University. This handbill was approximately 8" x 11" and was faded green in color.83
The stamp on the handbill read, ``FPCC - A.J. Hidell P.O. Box 30016 New Orleans, Louisiana." Erdrich delivered two copies of the handbill to the New Orleans FBI office later that same afternoon.
Erdrich also told the FBI that the Army had found copies of this handbill at other locations. One was "laying on the grounds of the Port of Embarkation, New Orleans." Major Erdrich returned later the same November afternoon with copies of the handbill. The stamp read, "FPCC-A J Hidell P.O. Box 30016."84 The subsequent FBI investigation gathered more information about what had happened at the port. On July 14, 1964, ONI received a request from a Mr. Morrissey of the FBI, asking if ONI records could substantiate a story about Oswald's activities during June 1963 in New Orleans: "Oswald distributed Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets to sailors on street; aircraft carrier was in port. Oswald apparently impressed with number of officers in Navy who appeared sympathetic to his leaflets. "as
We know where Morrissey got some of this story. On August 1, 1963, Oswald had written this to FPCC national director Vincent Lee: "We also managed to picket the fleet when it came in and I was surprised at the number of officers who were interested in our literature."86 Oswald's letter had not mentioned an aircraft carrier or "sailors on street," details which Morrissey had to have learned elsewhere in the summer of 1964. Indeed there had been an aircraft carrier, the USS Wasp, in port from June 13 to June 20, 1963, berthed at the Dumaine Street wharf. Moreover, Patrolman Girod Ray of the harbor police had written a memorandum on June 16, 1963, entitled "Distribution of Propaganda Literature" describing a man passing out pamphlets. According to his memo, Patrolman Ray had apprehended and ejected the man from the wharf on June 15 or 16, 1963.87 The man was Oswald.
In June 1963, the harbor police did not-as far as can be determined from the available records-notify the New Orleans Police or the FBI about this incident. The Army counterintelligence unit, which had scarfed up copies of the handbills from the ground, apparently did not notify the Navy, the New Orleans Police, or the FBI. We know from Major Erdrich's report, however, that the New Orleans 112th INCT did send a copy of the handbill to "headquarters at Washington D.C.," meaning the national headquarters of military intelligence for the U.S. Army. According to Major Erdrich, they sent the handbill to Washington on June 18, 1963.88
A copy of Patrolman Ray's June 16, 1963, report surfaced in the Church Committee files a decade later with two pieces of paper attached to it: a handbill and a flyer under the headline "The Truth About Cuba Is in Cuba!"89 The address stamped on this handbill is different from the one Army counterintelligence recovered from the wharf. The Church Committee handbill associated with Ray's report bears the stamp "A J Hidell P.O. Box 30016," while the FBI described the Army handbill as bearing the stamp "FPCC - A. J. Hidell P.O. Box 30016." The periods after the letters "A" and "J" may have been inattentiveness on the part of Major Erdrich or the FBI, but the addition of "FPCC" to the Army handbill appears to be a more substantive conflict.
Frustrating our efforts to reconcile this conflict is an act that the U.S. Army should publicly admit was a serious mistake: the "routine" destruction of Oswald's Army files. If it is true, as the Army claims, that they destroyed the files of the alleged assassin of President Kennedy, we will never be sure what stamp was on the Wasp handbill the 112th INCT sent to Washington on June 18, 1963. Most mysterious is the fact that by the time the Warren Commission published its version of the handbill from the Domaine Street wharf, the stamp had disappeared entirely! We need to retrace the path traveled by this magical handbill from the time it left Oswald's hands-if indeed it was Oswald-to its final official destination on page 807 of Warren Commission volume XXII. Something is fishy about the handbills from the wharf.
The Great Handbill Caper
On a Sunday afternoon, June 16, 1963, harbor police Patrolman Girod Ray was between the Toulouse and Domaine Street wharves when an "enlisted man" approached and said that "the Officer of the Deck of the 'USS Wasp' desired Patrolman Ray seek out an individual who was passing out leaflets regarding Cuba and to request this individual to stop passing out these leaflets."" Ray went immediately to the Domaine Street wharf, where he found a man handing out white and yellow-colored leaflets. (As previously discussed, Major Erdrich described a faded green handbill as well.) According to Ray, the man was a white male in his late twenties who was 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighed 150 pounds, and had a slender build. This description is consistent with the appearance of Oswald.
The man at the wharf was distributing leaflets to "Navy personnel" and also to "civilians" who were leaving the Wasp. Patrolman Ray asked the man if he had permission from the Dock Board to issue these leaflets, to which the man responded "that he thought as an American citizen he did not need anyone's permission."" Ray told the man that the wharfs and buildings along the Mississippi River encompassing the Port of New Orleans were operated by the Board of Commissioners and that if they gave their permission, he could hand out the leaflets. The man "kept insisting that he did not see why he would need anyone's permission," whereupon Ray told him that "if he did not leave the Domaine Street wharf, Patrolman Ray would arrest him." The man left. In a 1964 interview with the FBI, Patrolman Ray identified the man handing out the leaflets as Oswald."'
The same day that Patrolman Ray ejected the man from the wharf, he wrote a memo to harbor police chief L. Deutchman, and enclosed the "pamphlets" that had been distributed. Those copies remained unnoticed in the harbor police files for a year. They were not the only copies preserved from that day. As previously discussed, U.S. Army counterintelligence agents were at the wharf too, where they picked up copies "laying on the ground," sending one to Washington on June 17, 1963, and providing the New Orleans FBI office with two copies on November 26, 1963. Yet another agency of the U.S. government obtained a copy of the Wasp handbills that June summer-the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) security office in Houston.