Authors: John Newman
An employee of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation on special assignment at the NASA Houston Manned Spacecraft Center, Martin Samuel Abelow, was vacationing in New Orleans in the summer of 1963 and just happened to be walking along side the aircraft carrier Wasp on that particular Sunday. There Abelow saw "a young man" handing out FPCC leaflets.93 An FBI "confidential source"-apparently a coworker of Abelow's-told the FBI that Abelow had "several items" of FPCC literature he had obtained from his visit to the wharf. According to the FBI informant, Abelow had said "he should probably furnish these items to the Federal Bureau of Investigation."" Abelow decided, however, to turn them over to the security office of the Space Center, which he did on June 21, 1963. The stamp on the FPCC handbill was "FPCC-A J Hidell P.O. Box 30016," the same as the stamp on the handbill sent to Army intelligence in Washington, D.C., on June 18, 1963, and provided to the FBI on November 26, 1963.
On November 25, 1963, the day before Major Erdrich dropped off the Army copies of the Wasp handbills, a matching handbillstamped "FPCC-A J. Hidell P.O. Box 30016"-turned up in the New Orleans office of the FBI. There it was mixed up with handbills from Oswald's August 8 Canal Street activity (stamped "A J Hidell P.O. Box 30016"), and August 16 Trade Mart activity (stamped "L.H. Oswald 4907 Magazine St"), events we will discuss in the next chapter. Together these three handbills formed FBI Exhibit D-25, furnished to the Warren Commission. There is no indication where the "FPCC A J Hidell P.O. Box 30016" handbill came from, but if this three-handbill set was to give an example from each leafleting event, then this handbill would have been from the Wasp event. The next episode, which occurred on February 4, 1964, seems to corroborate this possibility. In response to a Warren Commission routine request for information from all government agencies, Lloyd W. Blankenbaker, director of security, NASA, sent the Commission a copy of the Abelow handbill from the Wasp incident. The stamp read, "FPCC-A J Hidell P.O. Box 30016."
The next episodes in the unfolding mystery of the Wasp handbills were the May 25, 1964, FBI interview with the NASA FBI informant and the May 28, 1964, FBI interview with Martin "Marty" Abelow, both discussed previously. Neither interview added any new information about the stamp on the handbills. Next was a July 14, 1964, request from the FBI agent Morrissey to the ONI about the Wasp leafleting, also discussed previously.95 The same day Wilbur Sartwell, ONI, Potomac River Naval Command, informed the FBI that his office had no record of the Wasp leafleting incident and added that "any such record would be at Headquarters, ONI." The next day, July 15, Don Gorham, acting chief of NCISC (Naval Counter Intelligence Support Center)-3, "made available to a representative of the FBI, the Headquarters, ONI files pertaining to the subject." No information has been found in these files either.96
On July 21, 1964, two leaflets "were obtained from Lieutenant Roy Alleman of the New Orleans Harbor Police." It is at this point that trouble begins in the official record. The Church Committee records contain a copy of the June 16, 1963, Patrolman Ray report with the attached handbill and "Truth about Cuba" flyer, presumably the ones enclosed by Ray. The handbill bears the stamp, `AJ Hidell P.O. Box 30016."97 The two documents turned over to the FBI by Alleman-presumably from the harbor police fileswere likewise a handbill and a "Truth about Cuba" flyer, the former designated FBI exhibit D-234, and the latter D-235. These exhibits are in the National Archives today. The handbill has no stamp on it at all. This seems odd: What would be the purpose of enticing people to join the FPCC with a handbill with no address? FBI exhibits D-234 and D-235 were tested for fingerprints on July 21, 1964. Two latent fingerprints were found, neither of which belonged to Oswald.
The Church Committee's copy of the Ray report has handwriting on it: "Sunday - 1 pm - 4 pm. 5'6" x 5'7"." This writing does not appear on the version printed in CE 1412 of Warren Commission volume XXII. This contradiction is only the tip of the iceberg. An August 4, 1964, Hoover memo to the commission, with attached FBI memos of July 16 and 22, 1964, and Patrolman Ray's June 16, 1963, report with the attached handbill and "Truth about Cuba" flyer, were combined as an eleven-page document, Commission Document 1370. At this stage, the stampless handbill has developed a faint diagonal line in the area where the address stamp would normally have appeared. This handbill was attached, using Scotch tape, to the contact sheet in preparation for the publication of the Warren Commission's twenty-six volumes. (The contact sheets were large blank sheets of paper upon which each prospective page was placed before final publication.)
At this point, while the contact sheet was still in the Government Printing Office and nearing publication, someone took a photograph of CE 2966A, a handbill that Oswald handed out on August 8, 1963, on Canal Street. This handbill had the stamp "L.H. Oswald 4907 Magazine St," next to which were the initials "JLF" (presumably Special Agent Joseph L. Flemming, New Orleans FBI office), another illegible notation, and a date, November 23, 1963. After the photograph of CE 2966A was developed, a white paste was applied to the stamp and the adjacent handwritten notations. The doctored picture of 2966A was then enlarged and printed as if it were the handbill in CD 1370!
If the "great handbill caper" tells us anything, it is that someone in the Government Printing Office was willing to take a considerable risk in connection with the Wasp handbills. This brings us back to the question asked at the beginning of this chapter, namely, what was Oswald up to during the period that the FBI claims to have lost track of him. Our suspicions are justifiably aroused by the skullduggery in the published Warren Commission materials connected to a crucial event during this period, which lasted from April 24 to June 26.
Two other events stand out toward the end of this "lost" period in New Orleans: On June 24 Oswald applied for a passport, and on July 1 Marina, reportedly at Oswald's request, wrote to the Soviet Embassy asking to return to the Soviet Union. Marina testified that Oswald "planned to go to Cuba,"98 but on his passport application form Oswald indicated his desire to travel to England, France, Ger many, Holland, U.S.S.R., Finland, Italy, and Poland." Cuba was missing. Moreover, on June 25, when he received his passport, it was stamped with a warning that a person traveling to Cuba would be liable for prosecution.10° Accompanying Marina's request to the Soviet Embassy was a letter by Oswald requesting that Marina's visa be approved on a rush basis. "As for my return entrance visa," he wrote, "please consider it separately""' [underline in original]. Thus, while engaging in an undercover game of Alex Hidell, FPCC New Orleans branch chief, Oswald was making plans to travel to the Soviet Union, Cuba, or both.
Although the FBI claims to have discovered Oswald's presence in New Orleans on June 26, the Bureau, as previously discussed, claims it still was not aware of Oswald's street address. On July 29, 1963, the Dallas FBI office had asked the New Orleans FBI office to "verify" both Lee and Marina's presence in New Orleans:
For the information of New Orleans, the case on both subjects is in a pending status. The Dallas Office is attempting to locate the subjects. Their last known place of residence was 214 Neely Street, Dallas, Texas, and they left giving no forwarding address. New Orleans is requested to verify the presence of the two subjects in New Orleans and advise the Dallas Office.'°2
Finally, on August 5, the FBI says it "verified" where Oswald was living in New Orleans. On that date Jessie James Garner, a neighbor of Oswald's, told the New Orleans FBI office that Oswald was living in an apartment at 4905 Magazine Street, New Orleans, and had been living there since `about" June.103
It was fitting that the FBI "found" Oswald on August 5. That same day Oswald broke cover and contacted some Cuban exiles, using his real name. In other words, the FBI's alleged blind period covers-to the day-the precise period of Oswald's undercover activity in New Orleans. Again, while the evidence is circumstantial and speculative, his activity may have served, whether he realized it or not, the local CRC recruiting program by flushing pro-Castro students out into the open, where Banister could identify them. Presumably, Banister's background checks were designed to insulate the local CRC from obvious infiltrators. Oswald, moreover, was preparing to launch an infiltration game of his own.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Oswald and AMSPELL
By the end of July 1963, there was no longer any ambiguity about Oswald's address: The FBI knew he was living at 4907 Magazine, New Orleans. He had been working at the Reily Coffee Company, also on Magazine, until he was fired on July 19.' The records indicate that at about this time, Oswald decided to stamp his real name and address, "L. H. Oswald 4907 Magazine St," on his FPCC handbills. At the earlier Tulane and Wasp leafleting events the stamp read: "A J Hidell P.O. Box 30016." As discussed in the previous chapter, during the first half of his sojourn in New Orleans Oswald apparently played an undercover pro-Castro role, possibly associated with a Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC) recruiting operation.
Beginning with his August 5 visit to Carlos Bringuier, Oswald's role changed to that of an apparent double agent. This period lasted for the rest of his stay in New Orleans and included Oswald's September 25 meeting with Silvia Odio. In contacting both Bringuier and Odio, Oswald feigned anti-Castro sympathies. In between these Odio-Bringuier bookends, Oswald played out his pro-Castro FPCC role overtly, using his real name on radio, television, and streets corners-and even from inside a jail cell. At all of the salient points of his pro-Castro performance, he became involved with the Cuban Student Directorate (DRE). Unlike the CRC which, as of April, had lost its CIA funding, the DRE was still partially funded by the CIA. AMBUD was the CIA cryptonym for the CRC, and AMSPELL was the cryptonym for the DRE. The CIA AMSPELL mission during the summer of 1963 was for propaganda, instead of military, operations. Oswald's activities in New Orleans proved to be a bonanza for AMSPELL's mission.
The Oswald we watch through the eyes of the FBI agents who tracked him down-and through the eyes of the CIA personnel who read the FBI reports-looks like a would-be double agent caught in a web of intrigue far stickier than he had anticipated. Again, whether Oswald's actions were his own or the result of direction or manipulation, by carrying out both pro-Castro and anti-Castro activities in New Orleans, Oswald was playing a dangerous game. During this spectacle Oswald actually insisted on seeing an FBI agent while in jail, to supply him, Oswald said, with information on his FPCC activities. It was a strange place to play the part of informant, an oddity underlined by a strange FBI act: They withheld the factfor quite some time-that Special Agent Quigley had interviewed Oswald in jail.
When the FBI reported Oswald's FPCC activities to the CIA in September, the Quigley interview was missing. At that point, incoming material on Oswald was no longer placed in Oswald's 201 file, but in a new, active file-a subject we will deal with in Chapter Nineteen. For now we will focus on Oswald's virtuoso August performance in New Orleans. This performance appeared designed to maximize media and FBI coverage. It culminated in his "exposure" as a Marxist defector to the Soviet Union, which, in the short run, left a stain on the FPCC. In the long run it was the kiss of death.
Bust at Lake Ponchartrain, Louisiana
"The Lake Ponchartrain activity," said a February 1, 1977, CIA Security Office (OS) memo, "was run by Gerald Patrick Hemming as part of his Intercontinental Penetration Force (Interpen)."Z A CIA training camp had been located near the Algiers Naval Station, but the OS memo explained that this camp "should not be confused with the infamous training activity" at Lake Ponchartrain. "Frank Sturgis (aka Frank Fiorini) of Watergate fame," said the memo, "was also connected with the activities of Interpen." In the present chapter we are concerned with the Ponchartrain camp, not the Algiers camp. The CIA knew about Hemming's activities at Ponchartrain from the moment he arrived in June 1962, because the person who helped Hemming was an informant for the CIA office in New Orleans. As discussed in Chapter Fourteen, that informant was Frank Banes. On June 20, 1963, the FBI sent a report concerning Bartes3- which has not been publicly released-and on July 31 the FBI raided a house where arms were kept for the group that was training at the Ponchartrain camp.
On July 30, the day before the raid, the FBI had received a tip from Elise Cerniglia, an informant in the Catholic Cuban Center in New Orleans.' Mrs. Cerniglia told the FBI that "approximately ten Cuban refugees arrived in New Orleans from Miami on the night of 7/24/63 for the purpose of attending a training camp some two hours from New Orleans after which they were to be transferred to a training camp in Guatemala." As the FBI later learned, nineteen Cubans had been sent to the Ponchartrain camp by Laureano Batista, a Cuban leader of the Movimento Democratica Cristiano (MDC) in Miami. This camp was not two hours from New Orleans, but was instead just ten to fifteen miles away. The FBI learned later that the house where these Cubans had been staying "was located in St. Tammany Parish in Lacombe, La. about a mile from Highway 190 West on a secondary road." Lacombe was the location for the Ponchartrain training camp.
The Cuban Student Directorate (DRE) was probably active at the Ponchartrain camp in July 1963. At least John Koch, a member of the DRE Military Section,' was among those arrested during the arms raid. Although the CIA denied any connection to this camp, the DRE was linked to the Agency, as was another person locked up during the July bust. His name was John Noon, and he had been a CIA asset in Project JMATE-an anti-Castro program-in 1960 to 1961. A CIA request for operational use of Noon specified that he was to be used for "across the board training" by PA/PROP (Paramilitary and Propaganda).6
A CIA report apparently written during the Garrison investigation (Jim Garrison was the district attorney for New Orleans Parish who tried-unsuccessfully-a local business leader and CIA informant, Clay Shaw, for conspiring to assassinate Kennedy) in 1967 contains this fragment about the Ponchartrain site from a July 1963 report: