Lee Harvey Oswald — The Patsy(adapted from this source: http://oswaldpatsy.tripod.com/)
"The thing I am concerned about, and so is [Deputy Attorney General Nicholas] Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin." --FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, speaking on the telephone to Johnson aide Walter Jenkins two hours after Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby, HSCA Report, vol. III, pp. 471-73. (The Warren Commission -- charged with determining the truth in the JFK assassination -- relied upon Hoover's FBI as its primary investigative arm.)
"At the first meeting of the newly constituted Warren Commission, [former CIA Director] Allen Dulles handed out copies of a book to help define the ideological parameters he proposed for the Commission's forthcoming work. American assassinations were different from European ones, he told the Commission. European assassinations were the work of conspiracies, whereas American assassins acted alone." --Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK
"We have not been told the truth about Oswald." --Senator Richard Russell, former Warren Commission member, conversation with researcher Harold Weisberg in 1970, Whitewash IV
"Lee Harvey Oswald is a question mark to history. The debate is often raised: 'Was Lee Harvey Oswald alone as the assassin, or was he part of a conspiracy?' The question is never raised: 'Is it possible he didn't do it at all?'" --Robert Groden, assassination researcher, interviewed in the documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy: Part 4
When Oswald was interviewed by the news media after his arrest, he declared, "I'm just a patsy."
The following transcribed text is from the documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy: Part 4.
NARRATOR: One person with no illusions about Oswald's role [as a patsy for JFK's real killers] launched his own investigation into the Kennedy assassination in 1967, the former District Attorney of New Orleans, Judge Jim Garrison.
GARRISON: [Oswald] was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency and was obviously drawn into a scapegoat situation and made to believe ultimately that he was penetrating the assassination. And then when the time came, they took the scapegoat -- the man who thought he was working for the United States government -- and killed him real quick. And then the machinery, disinformation machinery, started turning and they started making a villain out of a man who genuinely was probably a hero.
Oswald distributing pro-Castro literature in front of Clay Shaw's International Trade Mart at 124 Camp Street, a stone's throw away from Guy Banister's 544 Camp Street office, August 16, 1963.
Well I went down there to look at it, and I found myself not merely outside of Guy Banister's office, but across the street from Naval Intelligence, across the street from Secret Service, around the corner was the Crescent City Garage, the garage for the intelligence community and then, two doors away, the Reily Coffee Company. I used to be in the FBI. I knew people in Naval Intelligence and they were either across the street, around the corner -- the whole intelligence community was there, and right in the middle of it was Guy Banister having Oswald sheep-dipped as a Communist....
When the President ends up being assassinated and the scapegoat grabbed by the federal government, and killed before anything can be done to help him, turns out to be the man that Guy Banister had been the tutor of all the time, you have to conclude that Guy Banister was a key man in the assassination, and possibly the most important man that we encountered in our whole investigation. But he's been dead so many years it's a little hard to question him.
===Guy Banister was found dead one month before Dr. Mary Sherman was murdered. ===
Was Oswald a spy? After reviewing all available evidence, the answer to the question seems to be a resounding "yes." The following is a quick look at some of the evidence pointing to Oswald's involvement with spy work:
His childhood -- a bright loner who read a wide range of books and was drawn to unpopular ideas, attracted by spy stories (the TV show "I Led Three Lives" and Ian Fleming's James Bond novels were among his favorites) -- perfectly fits the profile of persons most desired for intelligence work.
Oswald's Marine career is checkered with inconsistencies and unexplained events that suggest secret intelligence training.
His assignment to Atsugi base in Japan, which housed a large CIA facility.
Oswald's incredible ability with the Russian language. Several Russians, including his wife, said he spoke like a native, yet this high-school dropout reportedly taught himself Russian from books.
The fact that several persons -- including a former CIA paymaster, Oswald's Marine roommate, and fellow Marine Gerry Patrick Hemming -- have suggested that Oswald worked for U.S. intelligence.
Oswald's nonbinding "defection" to Russia fits perfectly the profile of an Office of Naval Intelligence program to infiltrate American servicemen into the Soviet Union during the late 1950's.
One of Oswald's closest contacts, George DeMohrenschildt, was himself an intelligence operative, first for the Nazis and later for the CIA.
One of the strongest pieces of evidence for Oswald's involvement in spy work concerns a small Minox camera found among his effects by Dallas Police. Information developed by the Dallas Morning News in 1978 revealed the camera was not available to the public in 1963. It may have been spy equipment issued to Oswald. This evidence was so explosive that the FBI tried to get Dallas detectives to change their reports regarding the camera and also kept photos taken by Oswald hidden for nearly fifteen years.... Detective Rose told the Dallas Morning News: "[FBI agents] were calling it a light meter, I know that. But I know a camera when I see it.... The thing we got at Irving out of Oswald's seabag was a Minox camera. No question about it. They tried to get me to change the records because it wasn't a light meter. I don't know why they wanted it changed, but they must have had some motive for it."
"They are the most ruthless motherf---ers there are and if they want to get somebody, they will. They will do their own people up." --David Sanchez Morales, talking about the CIA, (Morales was the Chief of Operations at the CIA station in Miami -- JM/WAVE -- and a consultant to the Deputy Director of the Joint Chiefs), cited by Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation.
"We do know Oswald had intelligence connections. Everywhere you look with him, there're fingerprints of intelligence." --Republican Senator Richard Schweiker, member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Village Voice, 15 December 1975
"The question of whether Oswald had any relationship with the FBI or the CIA is not frivolous. The agencies, of course, are silent. Although the Warren Commission had full power to conduct its own independent investigation, it permitted the FBI and the CIA to investigate themselves -- and so cast a permanent shadow on the answers." --Walter Cronkite, CBS News anchor, 28 June 1967
"I think the [Warren] report, to those who have studied it closely, has collapsed like a house of cards ... the fatal mistake the Warren Commission made was to not use its own investigators, but instead to rely on the CIA and FBI personnel, which played directly into the hands of senior intelligence officials who directed the cover-up." --Republican Senator Richard Schweiker, member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, speaking on the CBS News program Face the Nation, 27 June 1976
"If he had it to do over again, he would begin his investigation of the Kennedy assassination by probing 'Oswald's ties to the Central Intelligence Agency.'" --Richard Sprague, first staff director and chief counsel to the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, statement to Sam Anson of New Times magazine, cited by Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation.
"[Lee Oswald's mother] Mrs. Marguerite Oswald frequently expressed the opinion that her son was recruited by an agency of the U.S. Government and sent to Russia in 1959, but she stated before the Commission that 'I cannot prove Lee is an agent.'" --Warren Commission Report, Appendix XII: Speculations and Rumors, Oswald and U.S. Government Agencies, p. 660
"It was common knowledge in the Tokyo CIA station that Oswald worked for the agency.... Right after the President was killed, people in the Tokyo station were talking openly about Oswald having gone to Russia for the CIA. Everyone was wondering how the agency was going to be able to keep the lid on Oswald. But I guess they did." --interview of Jim and Elsie Wilcott, former husband and wife employees of the Tokyo CIA Station, San Francisco Chronicle, "Couple Talks about Oswald and the CIA," 12 September 1978
"[Former CIA Director Richard] Helms told reporters during a break that no one would ever know who or what Lee Harvey Oswald ... represented. Asked whether the CIA knew of any ties Oswald had with either the KGB or the CIA, Helms paused and with a laugh said, 'I don't remember.'" --Richard Helms, chatting with the Washington Post's George Lardner and other reporters in 1978, during a recess of the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, cited by Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation
"After the assassination the public was burdened with no quandary. Wherever the guilt really lay, the man identified as killing President Kennedy was stamped as a disciple of the extreme left. Rightly or wrongly, the political left was implicitly convicted along with Oswald. Was that verdict just, or were Oswald and his apparent heroes victims of a vicious double-cross by forces of the extreme right?" --Anthony Summers, Not in Your Lifetime
"I no longer believe that we were able to conduct an appropriate investigation of the [Central Intelligence] Agency and its relationship to Oswald.... I do not believe any denial offered by the Agency on any point. The law has long followed the rule that if a person lies to you on one point, you may reject all of his testimony.... We now know that the Agency withheld from the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its investigation.... We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency. Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of story. I am now in that camp." --Robert Blakey, staff director and chief counsel for the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, statement from 2003.
"I have felt, I always felt, a sympathy for Oswald, and I just don't feel it's right that he would be, or his children should be, stuck with that stigma, that's all." --Chauncey Holt, CIA contract agent and Mafia associate (also identified as one of the "three tramps" photographed in Dealey Plaza), video interview, 20 June 1997
"Lee Oswald was totally, unequivocally, completely innocent of the assassination. And the fact that history -- or in the rewriting of history -- has made a villain of this young man, who wanted nothing more than to be a fine Marine, is in some ways the greatest injustice of all." --Jim Garrison, District Attorney of New Orleans, interviewed in the documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy: Part 4.
Guy Banister's 544 Camp Street address. The building also housed the Cuban Revolutionary Council -- a militant anti-Castro organization created by the CIA.
"The thing I am concerned about, and so is [Deputy Attorney General Nicholas] Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin." --FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, speaking on the telephone to Johnson aide Walter Jenkins two hours after Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby, HSCA Report, vol. III, pp. 471-73. (The Warren Commission -- charged with determining the truth in the JFK assassination -- relied upon Hoover's FBI as its primary investigative arm.)
"At the first meeting of the newly constituted Warren Commission, [former CIA Director] Allen Dulles handed out copies of a book to help define the ideological parameters he proposed for the Commission's forthcoming work. American assassinations were different from European ones, he told the Commission. European assassinations were the work of conspiracies, whereas American assassins acted alone." --Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK
"We have not been told the truth about Oswald." --Senator Richard Russell, former Warren Commission member, conversation with researcher Harold Weisberg in 1970, Whitewash IV
"Lee Harvey Oswald is a question mark to history. The debate is often raised: 'Was Lee Harvey Oswald alone as the assassin, or was he part of a conspiracy?' The question is never raised: 'Is it possible he didn't do it at all?'" --Robert Groden, assassination researcher, interviewed in the documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy: Part 4
When Oswald was interviewed by the news media after his arrest, he declared, "I'm just a patsy."
The following transcribed text is from the documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy: Part 4.
NARRATOR: One person with no illusions about Oswald's role [as a patsy for JFK's real killers] launched his own investigation into the Kennedy assassination in 1967, the former District Attorney of New Orleans, Judge Jim Garrison.
GARRISON: [Oswald] was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency and was obviously drawn into a scapegoat situation and made to believe ultimately that he was penetrating the assassination. And then when the time came, they took the scapegoat -- the man who thought he was working for the United States government -- and killed him real quick. And then the machinery, disinformation machinery, started turning and they started making a villain out of a man who genuinely was probably a hero.
===NOTE BY JVB: GARRISON, SMACK IN THE CENTER OF NEW ORLEANS, WAS CORRECT THAT LEE HAD PENETRATED THE ASSASSINATION RING. GARRISON WAS WELL AHEAD OF HIS TIME WHEN HE STATED THAT LEE OSWALD WAS 'PROBABLY' A HERO===
NARRATOR: Six months before the assassination,
NARRATOR: Six months before the assassination,
Oswald had taken a mundane job [in New Orleans] with the Reily Coffee Company. But it seems his real activities were centered a few blocks away. From a small office on the corner of Lafayette and Camp Street, Oswald managed a local chapter of the pro-Castro Fair Play For Cuba Committee. Operating from an adjoining office was a sinister figure named Guy Banister.
Guy Banister -- Former
Guy Banister -- Former
FBI Agent and Naval
Intelligence Operative. Also a Member of the Minutemen, the John Birch Society, the Louisiana Committee on Un-American Activities, and Publisher of the Racist Louisiana Intelligence Digest
GARRISON: Guy Banister -- it's difficult to say much about him, because he always stood in the shadows and pushed someone else to the front. He was a strongly disciplined man, perhaps the outgrowth of his many years as a special agent in charge of the Chicago office of the FBI. But he was a key man in the assassination, and that's clear from the fact that Oswald's "sheep-dipping" -- his being portrayed as a Communist -- was done out of Guy Banister's office. So he was sheep-dipped for months as a Communist by giving literature: "Lee, hand this out today. This is your assignment."
I came across the fact that Oswald, a private in the Marines, had taken a Russian examination. And I knew that privates did not take Russian examinations unless they were connected with intelligence. So that caused me to be curious about 544 Camp, which was the address stamped on one circular that he gave out one time before, obviously, Banister told him, "Lee, no more addresses." It turned out that was a side address of Guy Banister's private detective agency.
GARRISON: Guy Banister -- it's difficult to say much about him, because he always stood in the shadows and pushed someone else to the front. He was a strongly disciplined man, perhaps the outgrowth of his many years as a special agent in charge of the Chicago office of the FBI. But he was a key man in the assassination, and that's clear from the fact that Oswald's "sheep-dipping" -- his being portrayed as a Communist -- was done out of Guy Banister's office. So he was sheep-dipped for months as a Communist by giving literature: "Lee, hand this out today. This is your assignment."
I came across the fact that Oswald, a private in the Marines, had taken a Russian examination. And I knew that privates did not take Russian examinations unless they were connected with intelligence. So that caused me to be curious about 544 Camp, which was the address stamped on one circular that he gave out one time before, obviously, Banister told him, "Lee, no more addresses." It turned out that was a side address of Guy Banister's private detective agency.
===Note by JVB: Later, Lee had a room on the 2nd floor where he processed films and kept posters, etc. -- see Me & Lee: How I Came to Know,Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald -- for more details: Lee eventually put his post office box number on the handbills, as well as '4907'-- where Mr.Eric Rogers had moved in. Rogers was hired to 'take the heat' if any anti-Castro agitators dropped by. Rogers' utility bills and rent was paid for by Lee--Rogers had no employment until the end of September when Lee left town, as the FBI reported. The Warren Commission documented Lee as living at 4905, yet stated Lee failed to pay 'his' utility bill for mid-September through October at the Rogers' residence,making Lee look like a deadbeat. ===
Oswald distributing pro-Castro literature in front of Clay Shaw's International Trade Mart at 124 Camp Street, a stone's throw away from Guy Banister's 544 Camp Street office, August 16, 1963.
Well I went down there to look at it, and I found myself not merely outside of Guy Banister's office, but across the street from Naval Intelligence, across the street from Secret Service, around the corner was the Crescent City Garage, the garage for the intelligence community and then, two doors away, the Reily Coffee Company. I used to be in the FBI. I knew people in Naval Intelligence and they were either across the street, around the corner -- the whole intelligence community was there, and right in the middle of it was Guy Banister having Oswald sheep-dipped as a Communist....
When the President ends up being assassinated and the scapegoat grabbed by the federal government, and killed before anything can be done to help him, turns out to be the man that Guy Banister had been the tutor of all the time, you have to conclude that Guy Banister was a key man in the assassination, and possibly the most important man that we encountered in our whole investigation. But he's been dead so many years it's a little hard to question him.
===Guy Banister was found dead one month before Dr. Mary Sherman was murdered. ===
Was Oswald a spy? After reviewing all available evidence, the answer to the question seems to be a resounding "yes." The following is a quick look at some of the evidence pointing to Oswald's involvement with spy work:
His childhood -- a bright loner who read a wide range of books and was drawn to unpopular ideas, attracted by spy stories (the TV show "I Led Three Lives" and Ian Fleming's James Bond novels were among his favorites) -- perfectly fits the profile of persons most desired for intelligence work.
Oswald's Marine career is checkered with inconsistencies and unexplained events that suggest secret intelligence training.
His assignment to Atsugi base in Japan, which housed a large CIA facility.
Oswald's incredible ability with the Russian language. Several Russians, including his wife, said he spoke like a native, yet this high-school dropout reportedly taught himself Russian from books.
==note by JVB: Lee practiced his Russian frequently, as I know myself from personal experience with him. He had flash cards for Russian, Spanish and German, which can be found listed among his possessions.====
The fact that several persons -- including a former CIA paymaster, Oswald's Marine roommate, and fellow Marine Gerry Patrick Hemming -- have suggested that Oswald worked for U.S. intelligence.
==Note by JVB: Gerry Hemming recommended that Nigel Turner should meet me. ==
The manner in which Oswald traveled so easily in and out of Russia as well as the unaccounted-for funds he used suggests intelligence guidance.
The ability of this American "defector" to leave the Soviet Union with his Russian-born wife at a time when most Russians were being denied exit permits.
The ease with which this would-be defector obtained passports both in 1959 and 1963.
The fact that Oswald wrote a lengthy report on his activities in Russia and, later, made a detailed report to the FBI concerning his Fair Play For Cuba activities in New Orleans.
Oswald's notebook contained the word "microdots," a common spy technique of photographically reducing information to a small dot.
The ability of this American "defector" to leave the Soviet Union with his Russian-born wife at a time when most Russians were being denied exit permits.
The ease with which this would-be defector obtained passports both in 1959 and 1963.
The fact that Oswald wrote a lengthy report on his activities in Russia and, later, made a detailed report to the FBI concerning his Fair Play For Cuba activities in New Orleans.
Oswald's notebook contained the word "microdots," a common spy technique of photographically reducing information to a small dot.
Oswald's nonbinding "defection" to Russia fits perfectly the profile of an Office of Naval Intelligence program to infiltrate American servicemen into the Soviet Union during the late 1950's.
One of Oswald's closest contacts, George DeMohrenschildt, was himself an intelligence operative, first for the Nazis and later for the CIA.
One of the strongest pieces of evidence for Oswald's involvement in spy work concerns a small Minox camera found among his effects by Dallas Police. Information developed by the Dallas Morning News in 1978 revealed the camera was not available to the public in 1963. It may have been spy equipment issued to Oswald. This evidence was so explosive that the FBI tried to get Dallas detectives to change their reports regarding the camera and also kept photos taken by Oswald hidden for nearly fifteen years.... Detective Rose told the Dallas Morning News: "[FBI agents] were calling it a light meter, I know that. But I know a camera when I see it.... The thing we got at Irving out of Oswald's seabag was a Minox camera. No question about it. They tried to get me to change the records because it wasn't a light meter. I don't know why they wanted it changed, but they must have had some motive for it."
The motive may have been that the existence of the camera pointed to Oswald's intelligence connections.... The three-inch-long German-made camera was famous for being used by spies on both sides during World War II.
Note: The above text is excerpted from the book, Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs
"The Report of the Warren Commission infers that Oswald somehow must have learned Russian on his own, ostensibly in preparation for his forthcoming defection. Actually, Oswald was taught Russian by the United States government, as is indicated by Lieutenant Colonel Folsom's testimony during which he happened to refer to one of Oswald's grades in a U.S. Armed Forces Russian examination (Volume VIII, p. 307).
Note: The above text is excerpted from the book, Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs
"The Report of the Warren Commission infers that Oswald somehow must have learned Russian on his own, ostensibly in preparation for his forthcoming defection. Actually, Oswald was taught Russian by the United States government, as is indicated by Lieutenant Colonel Folsom's testimony during which he happened to refer to one of Oswald's grades in a U.S. Armed Forces Russian examination (Volume VIII, p. 307).
The formal designation for this Russian examination was "Department of the Army, Adjutant General's Office, PRT-157." Oswald took the Russian examination on February 25, 1959, while stationed at El Toro Marine Base in California." --Jim Garrison, District Attorney of New Orleans, Press Release, 21 February 1968
"On at least two separate occasions, Banister employees saw Oswald handing out pro-Castro literature and reported it to their boss. In one instance Banister simply laughed, and on the other, he told his secretary Delphine Roberts: 'Don't worry about him.... He's with us. He's associated with the office.' Roberts also said she saw Oswald at 544 Camp Street, and that he filled out one of Banister's 'agent' application forms. She later told author Anthony Summers: 'Oswald came back a number of times. He seemed to be on familiar terms with Banister and with the office.'" --Jim Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy.
"On at least two separate occasions, Banister employees saw Oswald handing out pro-Castro literature and reported it to their boss. In one instance Banister simply laughed, and on the other, he told his secretary Delphine Roberts: 'Don't worry about him.... He's with us. He's associated with the office.' Roberts also said she saw Oswald at 544 Camp Street, and that he filled out one of Banister's 'agent' application forms. She later told author Anthony Summers: 'Oswald came back a number of times. He seemed to be on familiar terms with Banister and with the office.'" --Jim Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy.
"They are the most ruthless motherf---ers there are and if they want to get somebody, they will. They will do their own people up." --David Sanchez Morales, talking about the CIA, (Morales was the Chief of Operations at the CIA station in Miami -- JM/WAVE -- and a consultant to the Deputy Director of the Joint Chiefs), cited by Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation.
"We do know Oswald had intelligence connections. Everywhere you look with him, there're fingerprints of intelligence." --Republican Senator Richard Schweiker, member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Village Voice, 15 December 1975
"The question of whether Oswald had any relationship with the FBI or the CIA is not frivolous. The agencies, of course, are silent. Although the Warren Commission had full power to conduct its own independent investigation, it permitted the FBI and the CIA to investigate themselves -- and so cast a permanent shadow on the answers." --Walter Cronkite, CBS News anchor, 28 June 1967
"I think the [Warren] report, to those who have studied it closely, has collapsed like a house of cards ... the fatal mistake the Warren Commission made was to not use its own investigators, but instead to rely on the CIA and FBI personnel, which played directly into the hands of senior intelligence officials who directed the cover-up." --Republican Senator Richard Schweiker, member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, speaking on the CBS News program Face the Nation, 27 June 1976
"If he had it to do over again, he would begin his investigation of the Kennedy assassination by probing 'Oswald's ties to the Central Intelligence Agency.'" --Richard Sprague, first staff director and chief counsel to the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, statement to Sam Anson of New Times magazine, cited by Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation.
"[Lee Oswald's mother] Mrs. Marguerite Oswald frequently expressed the opinion that her son was recruited by an agency of the U.S. Government and sent to Russia in 1959, but she stated before the Commission that 'I cannot prove Lee is an agent.'" --Warren Commission Report, Appendix XII: Speculations and Rumors, Oswald and U.S. Government Agencies, p. 660
"It was common knowledge in the Tokyo CIA station that Oswald worked for the agency.... Right after the President was killed, people in the Tokyo station were talking openly about Oswald having gone to Russia for the CIA. Everyone was wondering how the agency was going to be able to keep the lid on Oswald. But I guess they did." --interview of Jim and Elsie Wilcott, former husband and wife employees of the Tokyo CIA Station, San Francisco Chronicle, "Couple Talks about Oswald and the CIA," 12 September 1978
"[Former CIA Director Richard] Helms told reporters during a break that no one would ever know who or what Lee Harvey Oswald ... represented. Asked whether the CIA knew of any ties Oswald had with either the KGB or the CIA, Helms paused and with a laugh said, 'I don't remember.'" --Richard Helms, chatting with the Washington Post's George Lardner and other reporters in 1978, during a recess of the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, cited by Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation
"After the assassination the public was burdened with no quandary. Wherever the guilt really lay, the man identified as killing President Kennedy was stamped as a disciple of the extreme left. Rightly or wrongly, the political left was implicitly convicted along with Oswald. Was that verdict just, or were Oswald and his apparent heroes victims of a vicious double-cross by forces of the extreme right?" --Anthony Summers, Not in Your Lifetime
"I no longer believe that we were able to conduct an appropriate investigation of the [Central Intelligence] Agency and its relationship to Oswald.... I do not believe any denial offered by the Agency on any point. The law has long followed the rule that if a person lies to you on one point, you may reject all of his testimony.... We now know that the Agency withheld from the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its investigation.... We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency. Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of story. I am now in that camp." --Robert Blakey, staff director and chief counsel for the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, statement from 2003.
"I have felt, I always felt, a sympathy for Oswald, and I just don't feel it's right that he would be, or his children should be, stuck with that stigma, that's all." --Chauncey Holt, CIA contract agent and Mafia associate (also identified as one of the "three tramps" photographed in Dealey Plaza), video interview, 20 June 1997
"Lee Oswald was totally, unequivocally, completely innocent of the assassination. And the fact that history -- or in the rewriting of history -- has made a villain of this young man, who wanted nothing more than to be a fine Marine, is in some ways the greatest injustice of all." --Jim Garrison, District Attorney of New Orleans, interviewed in the documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy: Part 4.
Guy Banister's 544 Camp Street address. The building also housed the Cuban Revolutionary Council -- a militant anti-Castro organization created by the CIA.
