A major focus of the Assassination RecordsReview Board’s work has been to attempt toanswer questions and locate additional infor-mation not previously explored related to theassassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The Review Board’s “Requests for A d d i t i o n a lInformation and Records” to governmentagencies served two purposes. First, the addi-tional requests allowed Review Board staffmembers to locate new categories of assassi-nation re c o rds in federal government files. Insome files, the Review Board located newassassination re c o rds. In other files, it discov-e red that the file contained no re l e v a n tre c o rds. In both cases, the Review Board staffmemorialized their findings in written mem-oranda, with the hope that the public wouldbe able to easily determine what files the staffreviewed. Second, the additional re q u e s t sallowed Review Board staff to request back-g round information that could assist in thereview of re c o rds that it had identified as re l-evant to the assassination. For example,Review Board staff members might encounterparticular cryptonyms, abbreviations, infor-mant symbol numbers, file numbers, or off i c edesignations in assassination re c o rds, butcould only determine the meaning of thosea b b reviations, numbers, and codewords byrequesting and reviewing additional files.

While the Review Board made most of itsadditional requests to the FBI and the CIA, italso made requests to other agencies, such asthe Secret Service, the Department of State,and the National Security Agency (NSA). Thegovernment offices answered each of theReview Board’s requests for additional infor-mation and re c o rds, as the P resident John F.Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of1 9 9 2 (JFK Act) re q u i re d .1 This chapter servesas an overview of the Review Board’s re q u e s t srather than as a complete detailed explanationof each request. The only way for the public to

fully evaluate the success of the ReviewB o a rd’s approach is to examine the ReviewB o a rd’s re c o rds as well as the assassinationre c o rds that are now at the National A rc h i v e sand Records Administration (NARA) as ad i rect result of the Review Board’s re q u e s t s .

M o re o v e r, because the Review Board’s re q u e s t sw e re not always consistent in theme, the chap-ter is necessarily miscellaneous in nature .

Scope of Chapter

Section 3(2) of the JFK Act defined the term“assassination record” to include all recordsthat were “created or made available for useby, obtained by, or otherwise came into thepossession of” any official entity that investi-gated the assassination.

This chapter does not discuss those recordsthat government offices identified for inclu-sion in the JFK Collection.

Section 7(j)(1)(C)(ii) of the JFK Act empow-e red the Board to direct government off i c e sto make available “addi-tional information andre c o rds” that the ReviewB o a rd believed it neededto fulfill its re s p o n s i b i l i-ties under the Act. A sthe JFK Act specificallyi n s t ructed the ReviewB o a rd to go beyond the scope of pre v i o u sinquiries, the ReviewB o a rd tailored its addi-tional requests to encom-pass those materials thatno previous investiga-tive body had identifiedas assassination-related. This chapter cov-ers o n l y those re c o rds that the ReviewB o a rd sought, pursuant to its authority, torequest additional information andre c o rd s .

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CHAPTER 6PA RT I: T H E QU E S T F O R AD D I T I O N A L IN F O R M AT I O N

A N D RE C O R D S I N FE D E R A L G O V E R N M E N T OF F I C E S

We cannot prevent the specula-tion that someone did cover up,but the arguments that a cover-up continues and will continue,can somewhat at least, be less-ened.What has been lost cannotbe replaced. But what we dohave can be made public. Weshould have access and our stu-dents should have access towhat still exists .—Bruce Hitchcock, May 1997

It is widely known that the Wa r ren Com-mission and the House Select Committeeon Assassinations conducted extensiveinvestigations of Jack Ruby, and, as a re s u l tgovernment offices processed voluminousRuby re c o rds. The Review Board madeonly two additional requests for informa-tion and re c o rds concerning Ruby. There-f o re, this chapter does not have a separatesection on Ruby. Similarly, the JFK Collec-tion contains a considerable number ofre c o rds concerning Lee Harvey Oswald’sactivities in New Orleans, but the ReviewB o a rd made only a few requests for addi-tional information and re c o rds re g a rd i n gOswald in New Orleans.

A. RECORDS RELATED TO LEE HARVEY

OSWALD

The Review Board’s additional re q u e s t sfocused upon locating all records concerningLee Harvey Oswald held by the U.S. govern-ment. The Review Board requested each

agency to check theirarchives, files, and data-bases for informationdirectly related to eitherLee Harvey Oswald orhis wife Marina Oswald.Given that many con-spiracy theories allegeU.S. government involve-

ment with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to theassassination, the Review Board was particu-larly interested in locating re c o rds that agen-

cies had created or main-tained prior to theassassination. In somecases, the Review Boardsimply released moreinformation from filesthat the public has longknown about, such asthe CIA 201 file on LeeHarvey and MarinaOswald or the FBI files

on Lee Harvey Oswald. In other cases, theReview Board’s additional requests led tothe release of new re c o rds, such as the CIA’ ssecurity file on Lee Harvey Oswald, orresulted in the release of previously deniedre c o rds, such as the original files on theOswalds from the Immigration and Natural-ization Service (INS).

1. Pre-Assassination Records

The question of what U.S. governmentrecords existed on Lee Harvey Oswald onNovember 22, 1963, has never been answeredto the satisfaction of the public. Thus, a pri-mary goal of the Review Board was to clarifythe pre-assassination re c o rds held by theagencies which were most involved in thepost-assassination investigation.

a. CIA.

At the time of the assassination, the CIA heldfour types of records which contained infor-mation on Lee Harvey Oswald: a 201 or per-sonality file which was released to the publicin 1992; an Office of Security file whichnearly duplicated the pre-assassination 201file; HTLINGUAL re c o rds; and re c o rd swithin a general file on U.S. citizens who haddefected to another country.

i. Security file. CIA’s search of its Officeof Personnel Security database produced theoriginal Office of Security’s subject file onLee Harvey Oswald (#0351164) establishedcirca 1960. The first volume of the Securityfile contains 19 documents, similar but notabsolutely identical to the pre-assassinationvolume of Oswald’s 201 file. The ReviewB o a rd identified an additional six docu-ments, which appear to pre-date the assassi-nation, in later volumes of the Security file.Although the HSCA reviewed the Office ofSecurity file in 1978, Congress did notinclude this file with the other materialviewed by the HSCA that it sequestered.Consequently, this file did not end up in theCIAsequestered collection.2 As a result of theReview Board’s request, CIA transmitted itsOffice of Security file to the John F. KennedyAssassination Records Collection (JFK Col-lection) at NARA.

ii. Records in the defector file. CIA estab-lished its 12-volume Office of Security Defec-tor file (#0341008) circa 1950 for the purposeof re c o rding information on U.S. citizenswho defected to other countries and informa-tion on foreign citizens who were consider-ing defecting to the United States. TheReview Board staff reviewed the entire defec-tor file for records related to Lee HarveyOswald. The staff located records on LeeHarvey Oswald, including research notes,

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One if the problems of secrets isthat Americans are incapable ofkeeping secrets very long. Any-thing like this would haveleaked out by now.—Richard Helms,February 7, 1996

We did not understand howintelligence agencies worked.The CIA “gave [us] nothingmore than what was asked for.Every time we asked for a file,we had to write a letter. Therewere no fishing expeditions.—Ed Lopez and Dan Hardway

press clippings, and duplicates of recordsfound in the Security file, and identified therecords as appropriate for inclusion in theJFK Collection.

iii. HTLINGUAL re c o r d s . H T L I N G U A L i sthe crypt for CIA’s mail opening and mailcover program for 1952 to 1973. The CIAreported to the Review Board that itd e s t royed most of its formal HTLINGUALre c o rds in 1990 at the direction of CIA’s Off i c eof General Counsel. The CIA s e q u e s t e red col-lection, however, does contain several “soft”or working files on Lee Harvey Oswald andthe HTLINGUAL p roject, including the “soft”file held by the Special Investigations Gro u pof the Counterintelligence Staff (CI/SIG). Inresponse to the Review Board’s request foradditional information, the CIA located addi-tional re f e rences to HTLINGUAL re c o rds ina rchival files of the CIA’s Deputy Director ofPlans (now the Deputy Director of Opera-tions). CIA p rocessed the relevant re c o rds forrelease to NARA.

b. FBI.

The FBI opened its file on Lee HarveyOswald in 1959 when press reports fromMoscow announced that Oswald, a twentyyear old former Marine had renounced hisU.S. citizenship and had applied for Sovietcitizenship. Between 1959 and November 22,1963, the FBI filed approximately 50 recordsf rom several government agencies in itsHeadquarters file on Oswald (105–82555).Although the FBI processed all of the pre-assassination documents in Oswald’s fileunder the JFK Act, the Review Board madeseveral additional requests to the FBI todetermine whether it had other pre -assassination records on Lee Harvey Oswaldin its files.

For example, the Review Board staff founddocuments cross-referenced from files cap-tioned “Funds Transmitted to Residents ofRussia” and “Russian Funds.” The ReviewBoard requested access to files with thesecase captions from FBI Headquarters and theDallas and New York Field offices for theyears 1959 through 1964. The Review Boardstaff located assassination records concern-ing attempts by Marguerite Oswald, LeeHarvey Oswald’s mother, to send money toher son while he was in the Soviet Union,

and recommended to the FBI that theserecords be included in the JFK Collection.

The Review Board also sought to determinewhether the FBI maintained a file in MexicoCity on a “Harvey Lee Oswald” under thefile number 105–2137. The Mexico City LegalAttache (Legat) opened a file on Lee HarveyOswald (105–3702) in October 1963 followingOswald’s visit to Mexico City. Some of thedocuments in the Legat’s file contain nota-tions for routing records to a file numbered105–2137, and were captioned “Harvey LeeOswald.” One researcher conjectured thatthis file would predate the Lee HarveyOswald file, 105–3702, and might lead theReview Board to other FBI documents on LeeHarvey Oswald. In response to the ReviewBoard’s request, the FBI searched its Legat’sfiles for a file numbered 105–2137 and cap-tioned “Harvey Lee Oswald,” but it did notfind such a file.

c. Secret Service.

The Review Board reviewed the Secret Ser-vice’s Protective Research Files and deter-mined that the Secret Service did not open ap rotective re s e a rch file (CO–2) file on LeeHarvey Oswald prior to the assassination.S e c ret Service re c o rds extant indicate thatthe Secret Service also did not have anyinformation on Lee Harvey Oswald fro mother government agencies prior to thea s s a s s i n a t i o n .

d. IRS/Social Security Administration.

To shed light on questions regarding LeeHarvey Oswald’s employment history andsources of income, the Review Board soughtto inspect and publicly release Internal Rev-enue Service (IRS) and Social SecurityAdministration (SSA) re c o rds on Oswald.Although the Review Board staff did reviewIRS and SSA records, Section 6103 of theInternal Revenue Code prohibits the disclo-sure of tax return information, and section11(a) of the JFK Act explicitly preserves theconfidentiality of tax return information.Thus, the Review Board unfortunately couldnot open Lee Harvey Oswald’s tax returns.The next chapter of this report explains, inthe IRS compliance section, the mechanics ofthe Review Board’s and the IRS’s efforts torelease this information.

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e. INS records on Lee and Marina Oswald.

Many researchers have asked how Lee Har-vey Oswald, a defector to the Soviet Union,could have been allowed to re-enter theUnited States in 1962 with his wife, a Sovietnational, and how Marina Oswald wouldhave been permitted to leave the SovietUnion when emigration was, at best,extremely difficult. In an attempt to shedlight on these questions, the Review Boardrequested and released original files on Leeand Marina Oswald from the U.S. Immigra-tion and Naturalization Service (INS). Subse-quently, in late 1997, INS discovered in itsinvestigative section, that it had an extensiveworking file on Marina Oswald that con-tained 1963–64 records directly relating to theassassination.

f. House Un-American Activities Committee.

As of this writing the Review Board hadobtained authorization of the House Judi-ciary Committee to release its HUAC files onLee Harvey Oswald. The records predomi-nantly postdated the assassination. However,HUAC held a few pre-assassination recordson Oswald, including articles on his defec-tion to the U.S.S.R. and his return to the U.S.

2. Military records

The question of whether the Marine Corpsconducted a post-assassination investigationand produced a written report on formerMarine Private Lee Harvey Oswald, circa late1963 and early 1964, has never been re s o l v e d

to the satisfaction of thepublic. Similarly, manyhave wondered whetherthe Office of Naval Intelli-gence (ONI) conducted apost-defection “net dam-age assessment” investi-gation of Lee HarveyOswald circa 1959 or 1960.Various former Oswaldassociates and militaryinvestigators have re c a l l e dseparate investigations.3

R e s e a rchers have alsoquestioned whetherOswald was an “authen-tic” defector, a “falsedefector” in a pro g r a m

run by an agency of the U.S. government, or afalse defector sent on a mission to the U.S.S.R.for a particular purpose and then used for dif-f e rent purposes by some members of the intel-ligence community following his return to theUnited States.

a. U.S. Marine Corps records.

The Review Board asked the Marine Corps tosearch for any records relating to post-assas-sination investigations that the U.S. MarineCorps might have completed, as someresearchers believe. The U.S. Marine Corpssearched files at both U.S. Marine Corps HQin Quantico, and at the Federal Records Cen-ter in Suitland, Maryland, but the MarineCorps did not locate evidence of any internalinvestigations of Lee Harvey Oswald, otherthan correspondence already published inthe Warren Report.

i. U.S. Marine Headquarters copy ofenlisted personnel file and medical file. In 1997,the Review Board transferred to the JFK Col-lection at NARA the original (paper) copiesof Lee Harvey Oswald’s U.S. Marine CorpsEnlisted Personnel File, and Medical Treat-ment File. Previously, these files had beenmaintained at U.S. Marine Corps Headquar-ters in Quantico, Virginia and had only beenavailable in microfiche format in response toFreedom of Information Act (FOIA) requeststhat people made to the Marine Corps.

ii. Additional relevant U.S. Marine Corpsunit diaries. The Review Board obtained fromU.S. Marine Corps Headquarters at Quan-tico, Virginia, additional official U.S. MarineCorps unit diaries from the units in whichOswald served. These additional diariescomplement the partial collection of unitdiaries gathered by the HSCA. Together, theReview Board and HSCA unit diary recordsappear to constitute a complete unit diaryrecord for Oswald. Researchers can comparethe in and out transfer dates in Oswald’s per-sonnel file with the original entries in the per-tinent diaries to which they correspond.

b. Military identification card .

To resolve questions about whether Oswald’sD D – 1173 Military Identification card pro-vided some indication that Oswald had aconnection to CIA, the Review Board

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[T]he enduring controversy ofwho Oswald really wa s, w h a the wa s, is an inherent part of thehistorical truth of this case. . .O s wa l d , as you know, is themost complex alleged or realpolitical assassin in Americanh i s t o ry. . . the idea that, for thefirst time, citizens will be thejudge of the balance betweengovernment secrecy and whatwe know, rather than the agen-cies themselves or the courts, Ithink is extraordinary. . .—Philip Melanson,March 24, 1995

requested and received additional informa-tion from the Federal Records Center in St.Louis, Missouri, from the personnel files ofother Marines who had served with Oswald(for comparison purposes), and from the U.S.Marine Corps and the U.S. Army’s MilitaryHistory Institute.

c. Possible ONI post-defection investigation.

The Review Board became aware of an indi-vidual named Fred Reeves of California, whowas reputed to have been in charge of a post-defection “net damage assessment” of Oswaldby the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)shortly after Oswald’s defection to the U.S.S.R.The Review Board contacted Reeves, inter-viewed him twice by telephone, then flew himto Washington, D.C., where the Review Boards t a ff interviewed him in person.4

In 1959, Reeves was a civilian Naval Intelli-gence Operations Specialist.5 Reeves told theReview Board that a week or so after Oswalddefected to the U.S.S.R., two officers fromONI in Washington, D.C.,6 called him andasked him to conduct a background investi-gation at the Marine Corps Air Station in ElToro, California—Oswald’s last duty stationbefore his discharge from the Marine Corps.Reeves said that he went to El Toro, copiedOswald’s enlisted personnel file, obtainedthe names of many of his associates, andmailed this information to ONI in Washing-ton, D.C. He said that ONI in Washington ranthe post-defection investigation of Oswald,and that the Washington officers thendirected various agents in the field. AlthoughReeves did not interview anyone himself, hesaid that later (circa late 1959 or early 1960),approximately 12 to 15 “119” reports con-cerning Oswald (OPNAV Forms 5520–119 areONI’s equivalent of an FBI FD–302 investiga-tive report), crossed his desk. Reeves said hewas aware of “119” reports from Japan andTexas, and that the primary concern of thereports he read on Oswald was to ascertainwhat damage had been done to nationalsecurity by Oswald’s defection. Reevesreported that he also saw eight to ten “119”reports on Oswald after the assassination,and that he was confident he was not confus-ing the two events in his mind.

In the spring of 1998, Review Board staffmembers met with two Naval Criminal

Investigative Service (NCIS) records manage-ment officials, one of whom personally veri-fied that he had searched for District Intelli-gence Office records (with negative results)from the San Diego, Dallas, and New OrleansDistrict Intelligence Offices in 1996 with neg-ative results. This search included “11 9 ”reports from the time period 1959–1964, dur-ing an extensive search of NCIS record group181. The search included any records thatwould have been related to Oswald’s defec-tion. Thus, the Review Board ultimatelylocated no documentary evidence to substan-tiate Reeves’ claims.

3. In the U.S.S.R.

Various authors interested in Lee HarveyOswald have suggested that Oswald was aC I A s o u rce, asset, or operative at the time ofhis defection to the U.S.S.R. in October 1959.R e s e a rchers further suggest that Oswald eitherperformed some sort of mission for the CIA,met with CIA personnel in the Soviet Union, orwas debriefed by CIA personnel upon hisreturn. The Review Board staff re q u e s t e dinformation and re c o rds from CIA and otheragencies in an effort to pursue re c o rds thatmight shed light on such allegations.

a. CIA operations in Moscow.

The Review Board staff examined extensiveCIA records concerning the history and oper-ations of the CIA in or against the SovietUnion in the late 1950s and early to mid1960s. The Review Board found no recordsthat suggested that Oswald had ever workedfor the CIA in any capacity, nor did anyrecords suggest that Oswald’s trip and defec-tion to the Soviet Union served any intelli-gence purpose. The Review Board staff alsointerviewed the senior CIAofficer in Moscowat the time of Oswald’s arrival and the CIAChief of Station present when Oswalddeparted the Soviet Union. Both individualsstated that they had no knowledge of Oswaldprior to the assassination, and they did notbelieve that Oswald’s trip and defection tothe Soviet Union was orchestrated for anyintelligence purpose.

b. American Embassy personnel.

R e v i e w B o a rd staff interviewed, or informallyspoke with, numerous individuals assigned

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to the American Embassy in Moscow duringthe time period 1959–1963. The clarity of indi-vidual memories of Oswald and/or theMoscow Embassy varied widely and few sto-ries were consistent. One of the most intere s t-ing was the interview of Joan Hallett, thereceptionist at the American Embassy and thefirst embassy person to meet Oswald. Hallettwas the wife of Assistant Naval Attache Com-mander Oliver Hallett and a temporaryreceptionist during the summer A m e r i c a nExhibition at Sokolniki Park in Moscow. Hal-lett’s recollections of Oswald’s visit place himat the embassy before the end of the Exhibi-tion on September 5, 1959. Available re c o rd sshow Oswald in the USSR no earlier thanOctober 15, 1959. While Hallett’s Departmentof State employment re c o rds document herrecollection that she was not employed as areceptionist as late as October 31, 1959, theReview Board found no documentary evi-dence to explain the variation in dates.

c. Search for American Embassy records.

In an effort to account for the widely varyingstories from the interviews of personnelassigned to the American Embassy inMoscow, the Review Board staff reviewedthe Department of State post files forMoscow for the period 1959–1963, which areavailable to the public at NARA. The Depart-ment of State was not able to locate the visi-tors book for Moscow circa 1959 nor any listof visitors and tourists for late 1959.

d. DCD/OO alleged debriefing of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Part of the mystery surrounding Oswald’sdefection and return to the U.S. is the ques-tion of whether the CIA’s Office of Opera-tions (later the Domestic Contacts Division)interviewed Oswald upon his return from

the Soviet Union. Theavailable evidence is con-t r a d i c t o r y. The ReviewB o a rd requested addi-tional information andrecords in an attempt tocoroborate a November25, 1963, memorandumwhich discusses the rec-ollections of a CIA staffo fficer that the A g e n c yc o n s i d e red interviewing

Oswald. The CIA, however, did not locateany corroborating information or records inits files.

In an effort to better understand this mys-t e r y, the Review Board searched for re c o rd swhich might confirm or deny whether therewas any contact between Oswald and theC I A b e f o re or after his time in the SovietUnion. The Office of Operations (OO), whichin 1963 was a part of the Directorate of Intel-ligence, interviewed American citizens whomight have come into contact with informa-tion or individuals of intelligence intere s twhile overseas.7 The Review Board staffexamined OO re c o rds and operational histo-ries to gain an understanding of OO prac-tices in the early 1960s. The Review Boards t a ff found no evidence of contact betweenOswald and OO either before or after histime in the Soviet Union. While the re c o rd sshowed that OO was interested in interview-ing tourists to the Soviet Union for generalinformation in the 1950s, by 1962 only trav-elers with special access, knowledge, orskills were of intelligence interest. OO hadno specific policy covering contacts withreturning defectors; however, a local fieldo ffice could initiate a contact if justified by aparticular situation. CIA could not locateany re c o rds or reporting showing any OOcontact with Oswald.

While a DCD “A” file does exist in the CIA’ss e q u e s t e red collection, most of the docu-ments in the file are from the mid-1970s; nonepredate the assassination. Furthermore, thefile appears to have been created as DCD per-sonnel attempted to locate any evidence ofcontacts with Oswald in response to variousc o n g ressional investigative bodies. CIAprocessed this file for release to NARA.

4. In Mexico City

Lee Harvey Oswald’s visit to Mexico City inS e p t e m b e r-October 1963, remains one of them o re vexing subplots to the assassinations t o r y. Oswald’s fascination with the SovietUnion and Cuba is well-known, yet thereexists no consensus of opinion as to why hespent time at both the Soviet and CubanEmbassies during his brief stay in MexicoCity in late September and early October1963. Why did Lee Harvey Oswald makethis mysterious trip to Mexico just six weeks

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[T]he CIA, with thorough photo-graphic surveillance of both theCuban and Soviet Embassies,had at least ten opportunities tophotograph Oswa l d , yet CIArecords at the time of the assassi-nation allegedly did not containa single photograph match i n gthe man arrested in Dallas.—Peter Dale Scott

prior to the assassination? Was the purposeof this trip merely to apply for a transit visaat the Cuban Embassy in a desperateattempt to return to Moscow after the Sovi-ets had re b u ffed his direct approach? Sincethe Mexico City chapter is so puzzling, andp rovides fertile ground for speculation, theReview Board sought to ensure that all gov-ernment re c o rds on this subject werereleased and took action to pursue addi-tional re c o rds. The Review Board facilitatedthe release of thousands of previously sani-tized and closed documents on the subject ofOswald’s trip to Mexico, including but notlimited to re c o rds from CIA, FBI, Depart-ment of State, the Wa r ren Commission andthe HSCA. The Review Board also pursuedleads suggested by re s e a rchers and submit-ted requests to agencies for additionalre c o rds and/or evidence.

a. Technical surveillance.

At the time of Oswald’s trip to Mexico, withthe Cold War well underway and theKennedy Administration preoccupied withCuba, the CIA’s Mexico City Station housedone of the Agency’s major foreign clandes-tine operations in the Western Hemisphere.The station maintained a multifaceted sur-veillance coverage of the Soviet and Cubandiplomatic installations. CIA electronic sur-veillance confirmed that Lee Harvey Oswaldvisited and communicated with both theCuban Consulate and the Soviet Embassybetween September 27 and October 1 or 2,1963. Despite requests from several congres-sional investigative bodies and the ReviewBoard, the CIA never located photographicevidence of Oswald’s visit to either embassy.Although CIA has transcripts of the callsbelieved to have been made by Oswald, theCIA has consistently maintained that it didnot retain tapes from the period of Oswald’svisit as the Station continually recycled thetapes after it transcribed any useful informa-tion. According to the transcripts, only one ofthe calls, made to the Soviet Consulate, actu-ally identifies a Lee Oswald as the caller.Since CIA had already erased the tapes, inaccordance with the Station’s standard pro-cedures, it could not perform post-assassina-tion voice comparisons.

Given the importance of the Mexico City Sta-tion, the Review Board worked to ensure that

the re c o rds on the Station and Oswald’s Mex-ico City visit in the JFK Collection at NARAre p resent the full universe of re c o rds. Recog-nizing the existence of gaps in the JFK Collec-tion, the Review Board staff worked to verifywhether any additional extant re c o rds couldp rovide further information on or more tangi-ble evidence of Oswald’s trip to Mexico Cityand alleged contacts with the Soviet andCuban Embassies. The Review Board staffexamined the CIA s e q u e s t e red collection, theOswald 201 file, and the then unpro c e s s e dfiles maintained by longtime CIA o fficer RussHolmes in an effort to locate any leads towardunique information on Oswald’s visit and theC I A Station in Mexico City.

i. Audio and photographic. C I A h a sacknowledged that in 1963, at the time ofOswald’s visit, the Mexico City Station hadin place two telephone intercept opera-tions—covering both the Soviet and CubanEmbassies; three photographic surveillanceoperations targeting the Soviet compound;and one photographic surveillance opera-tion, which employed at least two cameras,targeting the Cuban compound. Painstakingnegotiations between the Review Board andCIA on the protection or release of technicaland operational details resulted in CIA’s dis-closure of a great deal of previously withheldinformation concerning audio and photo-graphic surveillance. This process thenpaved the way for the Review Board to askfor specific types of records pertaining toCIA’s surveillance activities.

The Review Board submitted formal andinformal requests to CIA relating to elec-tronic surveillance operations. Several mem-bers of the Review Board staff reviewed thesequestered collection microfilm, which con-tained a broad universe of records on CIAtechnical operations and covered a periodthat extended beyond the assassination.Because the release of the Warren Commis-sion Report in 1964 had a bearing on certainsurveillance operations in Mexico City, theReview Board sought to ensure that itmarked for inclusion in the JFK Collection allrecords reflecting any changes in or suspen-sion of surveillance activity around the timethat the Wa r ren Commission released itsreport. In addition, the Review Boardexplored any newly identified operations orsurveillance activity.

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During its review of all project files andoperational reports, the Review Board founddirect references to electronic bugs and hid-den microphones at the Cuban Embassy andrequested CIA to provide additional infor-mation. The Review Board attempted todetermine whether CIA had any other elec-tronic intelligence that may have recordedOswald’s visits inside the Cuban consulate ordiscussions about his visits. In response tothis request, CIA provided evidence from aMexico City history stating that its buggingoperation was not in place at the time ofOswald’s visit. CIA p rovided no furtherinformation on hidden microphones.

Although CIAhad photographic surveillancetargeting the front gates of both the Sovietand Cuban Consulates, CIA reports that itdid not locate photographic evidence ofOswald’s visits. In an effort to obtain addi-tional records on this subject, the ReviewB o a rd submitted additional requests forinformation pertaining to technical surveil-lance. The Review Board staff also reviewedproject files concerning all known telephonicand photographic operations. The ReviewBoard designated as assassination records alltechnical operational reports pertaining tothe 1963–64 time frame that CIA had notalready placed in the JFK Collection. Thesenew re c o rds included periodic pro g re s sreports, contact sheets, project re n e w a lreports and related documentation on tele-phone and photographic surveillance, logsthat corresponded to photographic surveil-lance, contact sheets from photographic sur-veillance, and transcripts of telephonic sur-veillance.

ii. Tapes, transcripts, and photographs ine x i s t e n c e . C I A reported that it ro u t i n e l yerased tapes from telephone operations aftertwo weeks, unless CIA identified a conversa-tion on a tape that was of particular intelli-gence value. CIA stated that it destroyedtape[s] containing Oswald’s voice and otherrelated calls as a matter of routine procedure,even though the Mexico City Station’s inter-est in the Oswald conversations at the timethat CIA intercepted them was such that theStation transcribed them and reported themto CIA Headquarters in an October 8, 1963,cable. CIA reported that its interest at thetime was in an American talking to the Sovietand Cuban Embassies, not in Oswald in par-

ticular, and thus, the tape recordings them-selves were not of intelligence value.

On the day of the assassination when Oswaldwas named as the alleged assassin, CIAHeadquarters instructed its Mexico City Sta-tion not to erase any tapes until it providedfurther notification. Although CIA did notlocate tapes from the September- O c t o b e rtime frame, the Review Board’s additionalrequests resulted in CIA’s identifyingapproximately 185 additional tapes from theStation’s telephone operation from the daysimmediately following the assassination andthe next few weeks. The Review Board desig-nated all of the tapes as assassination recordsand the CIA is currently processing the tapesfor release to NARA.

The Review Board’s efforts to locate newphotographic evidence of Oswald in MexicoCity were unsuccessful. The Review Boardexplored the possibility that CIA had addi-tional re c o rds pertaining to CIA p h o t o-graphic surveillance of the Soviet Embassy.Although the Mexico City Station ran threeoperations during the relevant time period,the HSCA investigators found photographicevidence and log sheets from only one ofthese CIA operations.8 The HSCA material—including the photographs of the man whowas initially misidentified as Oswald—isavailable to the public at NARA.

Beyond the photographic evidence from thetime period of Oswald’s visit, the CIAs e q u e s t e red collection microfilm containedadditional log sheets and copies of film fro mthe Cuban and Soviet surveillance opera-tions. The Review Board believed thesere c o rds may be useful to re s e a rchers for thepurpose of establishing a frame of re f e re n c eor modus operandi, and for understandingthe scope of CIA coverage in 1963. In light ofthe historical value of this material, theReview Board declared all photographiccoverage for 1963 that it found in the CIAs e q u e s t e red collection microfilm as assassi-nation re c o rd s .

b. Cable traffic.

The Review Board determined that, whilemuch of the Mexico City Station cable trafficexisted in the JFK Collection, the traffic con-tained numerous gaps, particularly in com-

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munications between Mexico City and theCIAStation in Miami, JMWAVE.9 The ReviewBoard deemed these gaps to be significantbecause both CIA stations played roles inU.S. operations against Cuba. The cable traf-fic that the Review Board reviewed in theCIA’s sequestered collection commences onOctober 1, 1963, and contains the earliestknown communication—an October 8, 1963,cable—between the Mexico City Station andCIA Headquarters concerning Lee HarveyOswald.

In 1995, the Review Board submitted a for-mal request for additional informationregarding the above-referenced gaps in CIAcable traffic. CIA did not locate additionaltraffic for the specified periods. CIA com-pleted its response to this request in February1998 explaining that:

In general, cable traffic and dispatchesare not available as a chronological col-lection and thus, for the period 26through 30 September 1963 it is not pos-sible to provide cables and dispatches ina chronological/package form. During

the periods in question, the Office ofCommunications (OC) only held cableslong enough to ensure that they weresuccessfully transmitted to the namedrecipient. On occasion. . . cables weresometimes held for longer periods butnot with the intention of creating a long-term reference collection.

In addition, CIA informed the Review Boardthat it did not have a repository for cablesand dispatches from stations in the 1960s.10

Although originating offices maintainedtemporary chronological files, the off i c e sgenerally destroyed the temporary records inless than ninety days. After the assassination,the Office of the Deputy Director of Plansordered relevant CIA offices to retain cablesthat they would have otherwise destroyed.The HSCAused the remaining cable traffic tocompile its Mexico City chronology. Had CIAoffices strictly applied the ninety-day rule,there might have been copies of cable trafficcommencing as early as August 22, 1963,rather than October 1, 1963, available to CIAon November 22, 1963. (See illustration.)

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c. Win Scott files.

Winston M. (Win) Scott was the CIA Chief ofStation in Mexico City at the time ofOswald’s visit. While the CIA had processedsome of Scott’s files as part of its sequesteredcollection, the Review Board followed up onseveral leads suggesting that CIAmight haveadditional Scott files from his Mexico Citydays. Scott apparently had an interest in theassassination, and was a prodigious recordkeeper. The Review Board asked the CIA tosearch for any additional extant records thatScott had maintained. According to AnneGoodpasture, who had worked with Scott inMexico City, Scott kept a collection of classi-fied documents from his tenure as Chief ofStation which he stored in a safe in his homefollowing his retirement. While the details ofthe story are unclear, the Review Boardunderstands that shortly after Scott’s deathin 1973, CIACounterintelligence Chief JamesJ. Angleton, one of Scott’s longtime friends,traveled to Mexico City to make arrange-

ments with Scott’s wifefor CIA personnel toreview Scott’s classifiedmaterial. CIA producedwhat it says are its com-plete files on Scott,including inventory lists,some documents whicha p p e a red to be fro mScott’s personnel file,and Scott’s semi-autobio-graphical novel. TheReview Board examinedthese documents forinformation relevant to

the assassination. The Review Board deter-mined a small number of the records to beassassination records.

d. Sylvia Duran.

Silvia Tirado de Duran, a Mexican nationalwho worked as a receptionist at the CubanConsulate in Mexico City at the time ofOswald’s visit, assisted Oswald in his questto apply for a visa to ultimately return to theU.S.S.R., and thus became a key figure in theMexico City chapter of the assassinations t o r y. In the immediate aftermath of theassassination, the Mexican federal securityservice, Direccion Federal de Seguridad(DFS), arrested and interrogated Silvia

Tirado de Duran.

CIAhad transcribed intercepts of phone callsmade between Silvia Duran and the SovietConsulate in Mexico City that related to herdealings with Oswald. Duran’s statement tothe DFS after the assassination corroboratedthe information in CIA’s intercepts—that LeeHarvey Oswald went to the Cuban Con-sulate to request a transit visa. The DFS pro-vided Duran’s interrogation reports to U.S.authorities in Mexico City and the reportswere widely disseminated to U.S. federalagencies in the immediate aftermath of Pres-ident Kennedy’s death.

Given that the initial ten-page “confession”or interrogation appeared to be a summaryreport of Duran’s account and the statementsof several other individuals who also werea r rested and questioned with Duran, theReview Board wondered whether the CIAhad an “original” transcript from Duran’sarrest. The Review Board requested that CIAsearch for such a transcript, but CIA searchesall returned to the ten-page summary andCIA did not locate additional records.

e. Legat administrative files.

The FBI keeps administrative files on each ofits field offices and its Legal Attache, orLegat, offices. The Legat administrative filescontain communications between the Legatand FBI Headquarters concerning personnel,real estate, supplies, construction, and to alesser extent, relations between the FBI Legatand re p resentatives of other governmentagencies abroad. The Review Boardrequested and received from the FBI access toits Mexico City Legat administrative file withthe hope that the file might contain recordsconcerning the assassination itself or recordsconcerning Oswald’s pre-assassination trav-els to Mexico. The Review Board also askedthe FBI for access to its Legat administrativefiles for London, England; Bern, Switzerland;and Paris, France during the periods of1960–1965 and 1977–1979 (the period of theHSCA investigation.) The Review Board didnot locate assassination re c o rds in the Legatfiles for London, Bern, or Paris files, or in the1977–1979 Mexico City Legat file. The ReviewB o a rd did designate approximately thirty doc-uments from the Mexico City Legat file for1960-1965 that discussed FBI staffing of the

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The Committee has found. . . theFBI investigation, as well as theCIA inquiry [into the Kennedyassassination], was deficient onthe specific question of the sig-nificance of Oswald’s contactswith pro-Castro and anti-Cas-tro groups for the many monthsbefore the assassination.—Senate Report on JFK Act,July 22, 1992

Mexico City Legat both before and after thea s s a s s i n a t i o n .

f. Anne Goodpasture deposition.

Anne Goodpasture worked for Mexico CityChief of Station Win Scott for many years andpossessed a thorough understanding of theoperations of the Mexico City Station. TheReview Board deposed Goodpasture atlength and she provided information con-cerning the daily routine of the Mexico CityStation, the types of operations performed bythe station, the management of operationsperformed by the station, and the workingstyle of Win Scott. The Review Board believesthat researchers will be particularly inter-ested in information she provided on thehandling of audio surveillance tapes in thestation which may have recorded Lee HarveyOswald’s voice.

B. R ECORDS ON CUBA

In the mid-1970s, the Church Committee pub-licly revealed what journalists had been alleg-ing since 1967—that the U.S. government hads p o n s o red assassination attempts at varioustimes against Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Cas-t ro presumably knew about these attemptslong before the U.S. public, and some histori-ans and re s e a rchers have questioned whetherhe retaliated by assassinating Pre s i d e n tK e n n e d y. The Review Board sought to findre c o rds that would illuminate a slightly dif-f e rent but related area of interest: the degre eto which the U.S. government sponsore dpotential uprisings and military coups withinCuba, and the extent of possible U.S. plans toinvade Cuba by overt military force. TheB o a rd believed that such re c o rds would be ofi n t e rest not only to mainstream historians,but also to many who believe there was aconspiracy to kill President Kennedy. Forexample, evidence of serious, or imminent,contingency plans to invade Cuba with U.S.military forces during the Kennedy A d m i n i s-tration, if found, could provide either amotive for retaliation by Castro or a motivefor domestic malcontents who might havebeen displeased that such plans were notimmediately implemented by the administra-tion. The Review Board believed that therewould be strong public interest in any re c o rd swhich would illuminate U.S. governmentpolicy deliberations on Cuba.

F u r t h e r, Lee HarveyOswald’s connection withthe Fair Play for CubaCommittee made theReview Board’s search forany re c o rds on U.S.-Cubapolicy all the more re l e-vant. The degree to whichU.S. policy toward Cuba following Pre s i d e n tKennedy’s assassination did or did not changep rovides a final reason to search for re c o rds toenhance the historical understanding, or con-text, of the assassination.

1. CIA Records

Most of the relevant CIA records on Cubathat the Review Board staff identified asa s s a s s i n a t i o n - related existed in the CIAs e q u e s t e red collection before the ReviewBoard began making requests for additionalrecords and information. The Review Boardidentified additional records pertaining tothe period 1960–1964 from some contempo-rary working files of a CIA office concernedwith Latin American issues. Most of theserecords concerned the existence or activitiesof the JMWAVE Station in Miami. Smallnumbers of records pertaining to Cuba orU.S.-anti-Cuban activities were identified inthe records of the Directorate of Plans (nowthe Directorate of Operations) and in the filesof several senior officers of the CIA duringthe 1960–65 period. CIA processed for inclu-sion in the JFK Collection those records thatthe Review Board marked as assassinationrecords.

2. Military Records

The Review Board staff located militaryrecords on Cuba in four different collectionsof records.

a. Joint Staff Secre t a r i a t .

The staff of the Joint Staff Secretariat searc h e dfor re c o rds related to both Cuba and Vi e t n a mpolicy and flagged selected re c o rds fro m1961–1964 from the files of Joint Chiefs ofS t a ff Chairmen Lyman Lemnitzer, MaxwellTa y l o r, and Earle Wheeler, and selectedre c o rds from 1961–1964 from the Central Filesof the Joint Staff for examination and consid-eration by the Review Board staff. TheReview Board staff flagged all but one of the

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The Oswald visit was not, cer-tainly to my knowledge,ever anoperation, so it was just a flashin the pan, a product of some-thing that happened. . .—Anne Goodpasture, 1995

147 re c o rds selected as appropriate for inclu-sion in the JFK Collection. A p p ro x i m a t e l yt w o - t h i rds of the 147 re c o rds related to Cubapolicy from 1961–196411—the re m a i n d e rrelated to Vietnam policy.

b. Army.

In 1963, Joseph Califano served as both Gen-eral Counsel to Secretary of the Army Cyru sVance and as Special Assistant to the A r m yS e c re t a r y. NARA identified six FederalR e c o rds Center boxes containing the Cubapolicy papers of Joseph Califano from 1963.The Review Board designated the six boxes of“Califano Papers,” in their entire t y, as appro-priate for inclusion in the JFK Collection.

During 1963, Secretary Vance was the “DODExecutive Agent” for all meetings of the gov-ernmental task force, the “InterdepartmentalCoordinating Committee on Cuban Affairs,”(ICCCA). As Vance’s special assistant, Cali-fano often represented him at meetings of theICCCA, and was part of all ICCCA policydeliberations. The collection of CalifanoPapers represents a unique find and reflectsmuch of the interagency planning activitiesrelated to Cuba during 1963.

c. Office of the Secretary of Defense.

A small number ofre c o rds (appro x i m a t e l yforty) from the papers ofS e c retary of Defense RobertMcNamara at NARA con-tain some material onCuba policy. The ReviewB o a rd processed theserecords for inclusion inthe JFK Collection.

d. Joint Chiefs of Staffhistory.

The Review Board staffreviewed and identifiedas assassination recordstwo volumes of The His -tory of the Joint Chiefs ofStaff, written by Walter S.Poole (Volume VIII:1961–1964, Part II— T h eSuccession of Crises; andVolume VIII: 1961–1964,

Part III—The Global Challenge). Poole ispresently updating and rewriting the twovolumes to improve their scholarship. Whenhe has finished, Poole will submit the vol-umes for a security review and the Joint StaffS e c retariat will forward the volumes toNARA.

3. Presidential Library Collections

In response to public interest in, and specula-tion about, the possible connection betweenCuba or U.S. policy toward Cuba and theassassination of President Kennedy, theReview Board requested the John F. Kennedyand Lyndon Baines Johnson Pre s i d e n t i a lLibraries to search their holdings of Cubarecords for assassination-related information.The Presidential Libraries identified addi-tional assassination re c o rds in the CubaCountry files, the National Security files, var-ious office files, personal papers of WhiteHouse officials, and certain unpro c e s s e dcollections of presidential aides and policyadvisors.

a. John F. Kennedy Presidential Libraryrecords.

Augmenting the JFK Library’s initial searchand identification of assassination records, ajoint team of Review Board staff and repre-sentatives from other agencies, visited theJFK Library in June 1996 to conduct a com-prehensive review of JFK Library closed col-lections. The Review Board staff reviewed allof the Library’s National Security Files con-taining records on Cuba from the KennedyAdministration. As a result of this effort, theJFK Library released thirty boxes of Cubafiles to the JFK Collection. The Library alsoopened its Presidential recordings on theCuban Missile Crisis and sent copies of theseto the JFK Collection.

Subsequent to this visit, the Library identifiedadditional assassination re c o rds on Cuba. Ofparticular value were those re c o rds whichdiscussed the Kennedy Administration’s pol-icy toward Cuba, proposed anti-Castro activ-ities, and Operation Mongoose planning.Most of these re c o rds were generated by theStanding Group Committee of the NationalSecurity Council with additional CIA a n dOSD memoranda discussing sensitive Cubanoperations. The Review Board staff also iden-

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The Kennedy Library verym u ch appreciates that it hasbeen able to open in excess of30,000 pages of previously clas-sified material, primarily onCuba, through the efforts of theAssassination Records ReviewBoard.—Stephanie Fawcett,September 1998

The Joint Chiefs of Staff believethat the Cuban problem must besolved in the near future.—Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense,Robert McNamara from theChairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, L.L. Lemnitzer,April 10, 1962.

tified Cuban re c o rds in the JFK Library’sclosed papers of Attorney General Robert F.K e n n e d y, Richard Goodwin, and Ralph Dun-gan and in the Department of Justice Crimi-nal Division microfilm collection.

The Review Board discovered a wealth ofCuba material within the Robert F. Kennedy(RFK) papers, though it did not declare allof the re c o rds as assassination re c o rds. Toe n s u re that the JFK Library opened the RFKpapers, however, the Review Board desig-nated those re c o rds which it believed to berelevant. This group of re c o rds was subjectto a Deposit A g reement requiring thee x p ress permission of the RFK donor com-mittee, then headed by Michael Kennedy, toauthorize their re l e a s e .1 2 The Review Boardhas not yet secured the final release of all ofthe RFK papers, but the JFK Library fore i g npolicy staff is working with the ReviewB o a rd to attempt to obtain the release of theRFK papers.1 3 Upon approval by the com-mittee, the JFK Library will send theseimportant re c o rds to the JFK Collection atN A R A .

b. Lyndon Baines Johnson PresidentialLibrary records.

To ensure a more complete review of the LBJLibrary’s holdings for assassination records,two members of the Review Board staff and aNARA representative visited the Library inMarch 1997. The Review Board conducted acomprehensive review of the closed NationalSecurity files, including a targeted review ofCuban records. As expected, the LBJ Librarywas not as rich as the JFK Library in materialpertaining to Cuba. In addition to identifyingrecords that had direct reference to the assas-sination, the Review Board was also inter-ested in those records that could reveal conti-nuity or shifts in policy between the Kennedyand Johnson Administrations. The ReviewB o a rd designated additional assassinationrecords pertaining to Cuba found in John-son’s Vice Presidential Security files, CubaCountry Files, and various Office Files ofWhite House aides.

4. Church Committee Records

The JFK Collection contains extensiverecords relating to the Church Committee’sinvestigation of alleged assassination plots

against Fidel Castro, and includes materialsrelating to the Church Committee’s examina-tion of Operation Mongoose and AMLASH.In addition, the JFK Collection includes testi-mony from key government officials knowl-edgeable on U.S. policy toward Cuba in the1960s, such as Robert McNamara, McGeorgeBundy, Roswell Gilpatric, Richard Helms,and John McCone.

C. RECORDS ON VIETNAM

The debate among historians continues overwhether President Kennedy would have esca-lated U.S. involvement in the Vietnam Wa rhad he lived, or whether he would have less-ened involvement and even withdrawn fro mVietnam. The Review Board, there f o re ,sought to locate any re c o rds that would illu-minate this debate or illuminate any diff e r-ences between the Kennedy A d m i n i s t r a t i o n ’ smid- and-late 1963 Vietnam policy and theJohnson Administration’s 1964 Vietnam pol-i c y. Much of the Review Board’s interest inVietnam re c o rds, as in the case of the ReviewB o a rd’s search for Cuba re c o rds, is in enhanc-ing the historical understanding or context ofthe assassination.

1. CIA Records

The Review Board’s additional re q u e s t sadded few CIA re c o rds on Vietnam to theJFK Collection. The Review Board identifieda small number of re c o rds pertaining to Vi e t-nam in the files of the Directorate of Plans(now the Directorate of Operations) and inthe files of several senior CIA o fficials fro m1963–65. Some re c o rds designated as assassi-nation re c o rds concern CIA reporting on theassassination of South Vietnamese Pre s i d e n tNgo Dinh Diem and his brother in Novem-ber 1963. Many of the Vietnam re c o rd sexamined by the Review Board staff dealtwholly with CIA and military liaison andoperations after 1965. CIA p rocessed for theJFK Collection the few Vietnam re c o rd sReview Board staff members identified asassassination re c o rd s .

2. Military Records

The Review Board staff located militaryrecords on Vietnam in three different collec-tions of records.

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a. Joint Staff Secretariat.

The staff of the Joint Staff Secre t a r i a tsearched for records related to Vietnam pol-icy and flagged selected re c o rds fro m1961–1964 from the files of Joint Chiefs ofStaff Chairmen Lyman Lemnitzer, MaxwellTa y l o r, and Earle Wheeler, and selectedre c o rds from 1961–1964 from the CentralFiles of the Joint Staff, for examination andconsideration by the Review Board staff. TheReview Board selected approximately fiftyrecords for inclusion in the JFK Collection.

b. Office of the Secretary of Defense.

The Review Board identified for inclusion inthe JFK Collection a small number of records( a p p roximately forty) from the personalpapers of Secretary of Defense Robert McNa-mara at NARA that contain some materialson Vietnam policy.

c. Joint Chiefs of Staff history.

The Review Board iden-tified a three-part JointChiefs of Staff off i c i a lhistory titled The JointChiefs of Staff and the Warin Vietnam, 1960-1968, asappropriate for inclusionin the JFK Collection.

3. Presidential LibraryC o l l e c t i o n s

During most of PresidentKennedy’s time in office,the Vietnam War was not

the pressing issue for the White House that itbecame, a problem which had begun to heatup shortly before Kennedy’s death. Vietnam,as a foreign policy priority, then went on toconsume the Johnson presidency. The per-ceived change in Vietnam policy betweenthese two presidential administrations hasprovided another source of fodder for con-spiracies. In response to concerns expressedby the assassination research community thatthe Vietnam question had not been ade-quately addressed by past investigations, theReview Board extended its search of both theKennedy and Johnson Presidential Librarymaterials to include records on Vietnam. TheReview Board was primarily interested in

obtaining records that could indicate anychanges in President Kennedy’s plansregarding military involvement in Vietnamand any shift or continuity of policy at thebeginning of President Johnson’s administra-tion.

a. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.

The JFK Library identified a small number ofVietnam-related documents in its NationalSecurity files. Most of the Vietnam recordsdate from August 1963 through the assassi-nation, as the Kennedy A d m i n i s t r a t i o nbegan to pay attention to events in Vietnam.The Library also released copies of Presiden-tial recordings to the JFK Collection for thesame period, which contained additionalinformation pertaining to Vietnam.

b. Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library.

In response to the public’s desire to knowmore about any shift in policy between theKennedy and Johnson Administrations, theReview Board extended its search at the LBJLibrary to include Vietnam materials fromthe transitional period. Two members of theReview Board staff visited the LBJ Library in1997 and reviewed a vast collection ofNational Security Files and White HouseOffice Files. Not surprisingly, the search forrelevant Vietnam-related material at the LBJLibrary proved to yield more records thanthe search for Cuba-related records. Most ofthe additional assassination records identi-fied at the LBJ Library from this transitionalperiod concerned Vietnam. Some of theserecords indicate that Vietnam, rather thanCuba, was quickly becoming a priority forPresident Johnson’s White House.

4. Church Committee Testimony

Among the major issues involving Vietnamwas the assassination of President Diem andhis brother in November 1963 shortly beforeP resident Kennedy’s assassination. TheReview Board released classified Churc hCommittee testimony on this issue by CIAofficers William Colby and Lucien Conein.The Church Committee’s report on the Diemassassination relied heavily on their testi-m o n y, which had remained classified forover twenty years.

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Several colleagues have calledmy attention to the role of theAssassination Records ReviewBoard in potentially effectingthe public release of documentsrelated to Vietnam policy andperhaps other issues of foreignpolicy in late 1963. . . I writenow to add my voice directly tothose calling for the completerelease of such materials .—Professor James K. Galbraith

D. R ECORDS OF SENIOR AGENCY OFFICIALS

To the extent that agencies such as the CIA,FBI, or Secret Service maintained the work-ing files of those individuals who served assenior agency officials during the time of theKennedy assassination, the Review Boardrequested agencies to search those files forassassination records.

1. CIA

The CIA maintains few working files ofsenior CIA officers from the 1950s and 1960s.To the extent that CIA p reserves suchrecords, the records exist in the general filingsystem under the office that the individualheld at the time, e.g. the Director of CentralIntelligence (DCI) or their Deputy Directors(DDCI). Based on the Review Board ’ sobservations, the contents of the DCI andDDCI working files primarily tend to be cor-respondence files, briefing papers, and work-ing files on general subjects rather than in-depth collections of detailed material.

The Review Board staff requested andreviewed files of DCIs Allen Dulles and JohnMcCone, DDCIs Charles Cabell and MarshallCarter, and the office files of the DeputyDirector of Plans (DDP) (now the Directorateof Operations) for the time period 1958–1968.Because records such as the briefing papersthat CIA officers prepared for the DCI aresensitive and worldwide in nature, theReview Board designated only the relevantportions of the re c o rds as assassinationrecords.

a. Allen Dulles.

CIA reviewed most of the files of DCI AllenDulles under its Executive Order 12958declassification program. The Review Boardstaff reviewed some of Dulles’ papers and hisoffice calendars for the relevant time period.The Review Board marked some pages of thecalendars, which re c o rded Dulles’ off i c i a land social activities, as assassination records.

b. John McCone.

The Review Board staff examined CIA’s indexto DCI John McCone’s files, reviewed files ofpossible relevance, and marked relevant doc-uments as assassination re c o rds. A c c o rding to

the box and folder indexlistings of McCone’s files,McCone did not maintainfiles on the assassinationof President Kennedy, theassassination investiga-tion, Lee Harvey Oswald,or the Wa r ren Commis-sion. McCone re c o rds doinclude memoranda, brief-ing reports, and transcriptswhich discuss Oswald, the assassination, andthe assassination investigation.

Within the McCone papers, the Review Boardnoticed several file folders with notations orsheets indicating documents on a wide vari-ety of subjects which are either missing orw e re destroyed. Of the missing or destro y e ddocuments, two refer to the Kennedy assassi-nation. One document from a 1963 listing isdescribed as “Date of Meeting—26 Nov; Par-ticipants—DCI & Bundy; Subjects Covere d —Msg concerning Pres. Kennedy’s assassina-tion.” The second document is described as“Date of Meeting—19 May ‘64; Participants—DCI, J.J. McCloy; Dinner at Residence—Re:Oswald.” This document is annotated“ D e s t royed 1–28–72.” CIA historians notedthat both documents were missing when theyreviewed the files in 1986. The Review Boarddesignated as assassination re c o rds all re l e-vant documents from the McCone filesincluding the notations on the destroyed andmissing re c o rd s .

c. Charles Cabell and Marshall Carter.

Review Board staff located only a small num-ber of assassination records in the records ofDDCIs Charles Cabell for 1959–1962 andMarshall Carter for 1962–1965. The DDCIs’records consist primarily of personal corre-spondence, official correspondence, andbriefing papers.

d. Richard Bissell, William Colby, andRichard Helms.

C I A p rovided the Review Board with a mas-sive index to the files of the Office of theDeputy Director of Plans (later the DeputyD i rector of Operations) covering the periodf rom the late 1940s to the present. ReviewB o a rd staff carefully reviewed the index andidentified potentially relevant material.

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The Board has an obligation toexamine the records of formerpublic officials who partici-pated in any aspect or phase ofinvestigation concerning theassassination, or of former pub-lic officials closely allied withKennedy.—Anna Kasten Nelson

A c c o rding to CIA, it incorporated into theseo ffice files all of the still existing re c o rds ofR i c h a rd Bissell, William Colby, and RichardHelms as DDPs. Again, due to the sensitiveand worldwide nature of many of theDDP/DDO files, the Review Board designatedonly certain portions of the re c o rds for re l e a s eto the JFK Collection.

e. James J. Angleton.

Knowledge of the re c o rds that James J. A n g l e-ton, Chief of Counterintelligence for thirtyyears, allegedly created, and the pro b a b l e

d e s t ruction of thoserecords after his retire-ment, has generatedextensive public intere s t .In an attempt to satisfy thepublic’s curiosity aboutAngleton’s files, theReview Board asked theC I A (1) to search for anyextant re c o rds that A n g l e-ton maintained, and (2) toaccount for the destru c-

tion of his files or the incorporation of his filesinto other filing systems. In response, the Dire c-torate of Operations provided three memo-randa that document CIA’s multi-year re v i e wof Angleton’s counterintelligence files.1 4 T h e s ememoranda state that CIA reviewed A n g l e-ton’s re c o rds and incorporated a small perc e n t-age into the files of the Directorate of Opera-tions. CIA d e s t royed other re c o rds, eitherbecause the re c o rds were duplicates or becauseC I Adecided not to retain them. The Dire c t o r a t eof Operations did not provide destru c t i o nre c o rds to account for the Angleton files.

f. Lawrence Houston.

L a w rence Houston was the CIA G e n e r a lCounsel for much of the agency’s early years.Few of his working papers, however, stillexist today. The Review Board staff revieweda small number of papers identified asbelonging either to the files of LawrenceHouston or the Office of the General Counselfor the time period 1959–1964. The staff didnot detect any additional assassinationre c o rds in this collection of Houston’spapers. However, the Office of the GeneralCounsel had retained a file on CIA recordsthat were held by the Warren Commission.The Review Board determined that this file

was an assassination record and marked itfor inclusion in the JFK Collection at NARA.

g. William Harvey.

William Harvey was intricately involved in theplanning for the Bay of Pigs invasion and thevarious assassination plots against Fidel Cas-t ro. The Review Board received a query from are s e a rcher concerning the possible existence of“operational diaries” that Harvey may havec reated. CIA s e a rched its Directorate of Opera-tions re c o rds and did not locate any re c o rd sbelonging to Harvey. The introduction to the1967 CIA Inspector General’s (IG) report onplots to assassinate Castro notes that RichardHelms directed that, once the IG’s office pro-duced the report, CIA should destroy all notesand source material that it used to draft thereport. CIA may have destroyed Harvey’salleged diaries in response to Helms’ dire c t i v e .F i n a l l y, Review Board staff also asked variousC I A reviewers who worked on re c o rds re l a t i n gto the Bay of Pigs whether they had locatedany operational diaries belonging to Harvey.Despite its efforts, the Review Board did notlocate any diaries.

2. FBI

The Review Board attempted to determinewhether the FBI retained any sets of workingfiles of its top officials during the years sur-rounding the assassination. Public specula-tion regarding the alleged secret files of FBIDirector J. Edgar Hoover is widespread. Ofcourse, following Hoover’s death, hispersonal secretary, Helen Gandy, destroyedmany of his “Personal and Confidential”files, so that the full extent of Hoover’s Per-sonal files will never be known. Although theFBI has processed over 15,000 pages ofHoover’s “Official and Confidential” filesunder the FOIA, the public speculates thatsome of Hoover’s secret files are still extant.

In an effort to locate any working or secret filesof FBI officials, the Review Board re q u e s t e dand received from the FBI access to re c o rd sthat might shed light on the question of what,if any, files are still in the FBI’s custody.

a. Hoover and Tolson records, including“Official and Confidential” files, chronolog -ical files, and phone logs.

The Review Board requested that the FBI

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Because the files that were onceknown as Angleton’s have beendispersed within the DO records,they are no longer identifiable asa collection.—From CIA Response toReview Board informal requestCIA-IR-4 for information onJames Angleton files ,August 24, 1998

s e a rch for Hoover and Tolson “working”re c o rds relevant to President Kennedy’sassassination. The FBI made Dire c t o rH o o v e r’s “Official and Confidential” (O&C)files available to the Review Board and theReview Board designated as assassinationre c o rds the two O&C files on John Kennedy,the O&C file relating to Secret Service-FBIa g reements on Presidential protection, amemorandum re g a rding Hoover’s conversa-tion with Lyndon Johnson about the assassi-nation (from the Johnson O&C file), and sev-eral other documents from the O&C files. TheReview Board also reviewed Dire c t o rH o o v e r’s telephone logs. Recognizing thatthe FBI has already made the logs public in itsF O I A reading room, the Review Boardrelieved the FBI from the burden of furtherp rocessing the logs under the JFK Act. Finally,Hoover maintained various subject files(apart from the O&C files), including materi-als on the assassination. The Review Boardasked the FBI to locate these materials, but theFBI has not been able to locate the materials.

The Review Board also requested andreceived from the FBI access to the files ofClyde Tolson, which consisted solely of orig-inal memoranda from Director Hoover.Unfortunately, the chronological file startedwith January 1965, and the FBI could notaccount for any 1963–64 files that Tolson mayhave maintained. The Review Board identi-fied several documents as assassinationrecords.

b. Miscellaneous administrative files from the Director’s Office.

The Review Board requested access to a vari-ety of FBI Director’s Office administrativefiles. The Review Board examined files forthe relevant time period with the followingcase captions: Assistant Dire c t o r’s Off i c eAdministrative File, the Attorney General,Attorney General’s Briefing, Criminal Divi-sion of the Department of Justice, Director’sOffice Administrative File, Executive Confer-ence, National Security Council, Office Mem-oranda, Protection of the Attorney General,Threats Against the Attorney General, andWhite House. The Review Board staff desig-nated a small number of documents fromthese files—primarily on organized crime—as assassination records.

c. John P. Mohr records.

When Director Hoover died in 1972, ClydeTolson inherited the bulk of Hoover’s estate.When Tolson died, John P. Mohr, formerAssistant Director for Administration of theFBI, served as the executor of Tolson’s estate.Some authors allege that Mohr purged J.Edgar Hoover’s personal files after Hoover’sdeath in 1972. When Mohr died in February1997, the Review Board issued a subpoena tohis estate to determine whether Mohrretained any re c o rds related to Pre s i d e n tKennedy’s assassination or to the FBI’s inves-tigation of the assassination. Mohr’s estatep roduced, and the Review Board staffinspected, Mohr’s records. Mohr’s recordsincluded three files of Mohr’s personal corre-spondence, a set of Warren Commission vol-umes, and the FBI’s initial reports on Presi-dent Kennedy’s assassination. The ReviewB o a rd staff found no new assassinationrecords, and, as such, released Mohr’s estatefrom any obligation to turn records over tothe JFK Collection.

3. Secret Service

In response to the Review Board’s request forfiles of Secret Service officials, Secret Servicereported that it did not maintain office filesfor senior officials such as Chief James J.Rowley, Chief of the Protective Research Sec-tion Robert Bouck, or Chief InspectorThomas Kelly.

The Secret Service located various Rowleycorrespondence and memoranda, but did notprovide any information as to the dispositionof any working files maintained by ChiefRowley. The Review Board also sought infor-mation as to the identity and disposition ofany working files maintained by Bouckbecause Bouck was responsible for the collec-tion of information relating to potentialthreats to the President and Vice-President.Mr. Bouck testified before the Warren Com-mission re g a rding protective intelligenceinformation gathered in connection withPresident Kennedy’s trip to Dallas. As withChief Rowley, the Secret Service identifiedvarious Bouck documents, but did not (orcould not) account for whether there wereany personal working files maintained byMr. Bouck.15

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4. Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD)

In 1997, the Review Board staff met with offi-cials from OSD and emphasized the impor-tance of identifying and reviewing recordsfor Secretary of Defense McNamara, whohad executed an affidavit for the WarrenCommission stating that Oswald was not aninformant or intelligence agent for the U.S.military. McNamara was also an importantfigure because of his direct and daily involve-ment in creating U.S. policy on Cuba andVietnam.

The Review Board also asked OSD to locateand review files of the OSD General Counselwho had “serve[d] as the liaison with the[Warren] Commission for the Department ofDefense.”

The OSD advised the Review Board that“[a]ll official files of Secretary McNamara[had] been searched” and that “[n]o itemsrelating to the Wa r ren Commission werefound.” Inventories of Secretary McNa-mara’s re c o rds were forwarded to theReview Board. In addition, a detailed inven-tory of additional records of Secretary McNa-mara at NARAwas also provided. Within theMcNamara records at NARA, the Review

Board identified a file relating to OperationMongoose, which was subsequently opened.The Review Board identified as assassinationre c o rds approximately forty re c o rds fro mMcNamara’s files that are relevant to U.S.policy in Cuba or Vietnam. A d d i t i o n a lrecords relating to the Warren Commissionwere located among the General Counsel’sfiles and additional records relating to theH S C A w e re located among Secretary ofDefense Harold Brown’s files.

5. Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)

The Review Board requested that the Navyand ONI search for the re c o rds of Director ofNaval Intelligence Rear Admiral Rufus Ta y l o r.The Review Board acquired a copy of anunsigned September 21, 1964, affidavit re g a rd-ing Oswald that Taylor appears to have exe-cuted and forwarded to Secretary of DefenseMcNamara. The affidavit states that that ONInever utilized Lee Harvey Oswald as an agentor an informant. (See illustration.) ONI did notlocate any files belonging to Ta y l o r.

6. Army

The Review Board staff requested that theArmy identify for review under the JFK Act

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certain additional, discrete record groups.S p e c i f i c a l l y, the staff asked the Army tolocate the 1963–64 files for top Army officials,including the Secretary of the A r m y, theChief of Staff for the Army, the AssistantChief of Staff for Intelligence, the AssistantChief of Staff for Operations and Plans, andtop officials of the U.S. Army Intelligence andSecurity Command. The Army located noassassination re c o rds in response to theReview Board’s requests.

7. National Security Agency

The Review Board requested that NSA locatethe original files of top NSA officials duringthe period of the Warren Commission (NSADirector Lt. Gen. Gordon Blake and NSADeputy Director Dr. Louis Tordella). NSAlocated materials on the Warren Commissionfrom files of Deputy Director Tordella.

8. Department of State

The Review Board ensured that the Depart-ment of State inventoried all files of its topo fficials who would have had some off i c i a linvolvement with the investigation of theassassination, including Secretary of StateDean Rusk, Undersecretary George Ball,Deputy Undersecretary Alexis Johnson,Ambassador Thompson, Ambassador ThomasMann, and other State Department off i c i a l s .The Department of State was very cooperativein making available to the Review Board man-ifests for these archive re c o rds.

9. Department of Justice

a. Office of Information and Privacy (OIP)

The Review Board raised with the Depart-ment of Justice’s OIP the issue of whetherthere were any separately maintained filesfor Attorneys General Robert F. Kennedy,Nicholas Katzenbach, and Ramsey Clark inview of their positions and re s p e c t i v einvolvement with investigations of the assas-sination. OIP reported that records of theAttorney General and Deputy Attorney Gen-eral were not maintained as a separate filesystem until 1975 under Attorney GeneralEdward Levi.16 Two archivists for the Depart-ment of Justice also confirmed that distinctfiles for the Office of Attorney General werenot archived prior to 1975 and that there

w e re no separately maintained files forMessrs. Kennedy, Katzenbach, and Clark.The archivists believed that such files mostlikely would have been stored at a presiden-tial library.

With respect to Attorney General files post-dating 1975, the Review Board sought toinspect the files of Attorney Generals EdwardLevi and Griffin Bell for any materials relat-ing to the Kennedy assassination investiga-tions of the Church Committee and theHSCA. The Office of Information and Pri-vacy made available for inspection certainoriginal files for Attorneys General Levi andBell, which yielded additional assassinationrecords. The Review Board designated asassassination re c o rds files that primarilyrelated to DOJ’s work with the HSCAand theChurch Committee.

b. Criminal Division

The Review Board requested that the Crimi-nal Division make available all files sepa-rately maintained by Herbert J. Miller, Jr.,Assistant Attorney General for the CriminalDivision at the time of the assassination. Mr.Miller had been designated as DOJ’s “liai-son” to the Warren Commission. The ReviewBoard also sought the files of J. Walter Yea-gley, Assistant Attorney General for the Inter-nal Security Division, to determine whetherhe (or his office) had any pre-assassinationrecords relating to Oswald. The CriminalDivision reported that it maintained no dis-crete files for Miller17 and Yeagley.18

10. Department of the Treasury

The Review Board requested that Main Trea-sury review its holdings to identify records ofC. Douglas Dillon, Secretary of the Treasuryat the time of the assassination and WarrenCommission investigation. Review Boardstaff independently reviewed archive trans-mittal forms for Treasury records and identi-fied certain Treasury re c o rds for re v i e w,which Treasury provided to Board staff. As aresult of its review, the Review Board staffidentified files of J. Robert McBrien relatingto his work as Treasury’s liaison to the HSCAand Church Committee.19

The Review Board also requested a completeaccounting for the files of high-level Treasury

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officials who would have had involvement inthe assassination investigation, especiallyimportant because Secret Service was part ofthe Department of the Treasury and ulti-mately reported to Secretary Dillon. Accord-i n g l y, the Review Board asked for anaccounting of the files of Secretary Dillon,Special Assistant to the Secretary Robert Car-swell, Treasury Secretary John Connally, andGeneral Counsel at the time of the WarrenCommission investigation G. D’AndelotBelin. Treasury officials reviewed its invento-ries and reported that its “review disclosedno additional JFK-related records.”20 Treasuryalso reported that it did “not have custody ofany Dillon files,”21 which presumably residewith a presidential library.

11. IRS

Although the IRS reported that it searchedfor records of top IRS officials who assisted inthe Wa r ren Commission investigation, itstated that it did not locate any such records.

E. PRO- AND ANTI-CASTRO CUBAN MATTERS

Both the Warren Commission and the HSCAconsidered the possibility that pro-Castro oranti-Castro activists had some involvementin the assassination of President Kennedy, asboth pro- and anti-Castro groups in the U.S.had contact with Lee Harvey Oswald. TheWarren Commission investigated Oswald’sCommunist and pro - C a s t ro sympathies,including his involvement with the Fair Playfor Cuba Committee, and his September 1963trip to Mexico City. In addition, the ChurchCommittee, an internal CIA Task Force, andthe HSCA all re-examined the extent towhich the Cuban government or pro-Castroactivists in the U.S. might have beeninvolved in the assassination.

Given the amount of time that prior inves-tigative bodies spent considering the possi-bility that either pro- or anti-Castro Cubanforces may have played a role in PresidentKennedy’s assassination, the Review Boardsought to collect and process all relevant fed-eral records relating to such groups. To theextent that both pro- and anti-Castro Cubangroups coordinated their activities within theUnited States, the FBI would be the agencymost likely to have investigative records ontheir activities. Thus, the Review Board ’ s

e fforts to uncover re c o rds beyond thoseexamined by prior investigative bodiesfocused primarily on FBI records.

1. Fair Play for Cuba Committee

The Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC)was a pro-Castro organization with head-quarters in New York. The FPCC had chap-ters in many cities, but Lee Harvey Oswaldwas its founding and, it seems, only memberin New Orleans. In the summer of 1963,Oswald distributed handbills that he hadprinted that advocated “Hands Off Cuba!”and invited members of the public to join theNew Orleans chapter of the FPCC. The War-ren Commission and the congressional com-mittees that investigated the assassinationdiscuss Oswald’s connection to the FPCC intheir respective reports. As such, the ReviewBoard’s routine processing of federal agencyrecords from Warren Commission files andfiles concerning other congressional commit-tees encompassed records on the FPCC. Notall FPCC records, however, found their wayinto the existing collections. Where ReviewBoard staff noticed gaps in the documenta-tion regarding the FPCC, it requested thatfederal agencies provide access to additionalrecords and information.

a. FBI field office files.

When the FBI processed its “core andrelated” files and “HSCA Subject” files, itprocessed the FBI Headquarters file on theFPCC, but it did not process any recordsfrom the FBI’s New York and Dallas fieldoffice files on the FPCC. Thus, the ReviewBoard staff requested access to these twofield office files.

The only records that the Review Board stafflocated in the Dallas field office file wereduplicates of Headquarters records that theFBI had already processed as part of its “coreand related” files or HSCA files. The FBIa g reed to include the Dallas field off i c ecopies in the JFK Collection.

The New York field office file proved to bemuch more voluminous than the Dallas fileand yielded more assassination records. Anumber of the records that the Review Boards t a ff designated as assassination re c o rd sfrom the New York file involved June Cobb,

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a woman who was an intelligence asset dur-ing the 1960–64 period, primarily for the CIAbut also for the FBI, regarding Castro, Cuba,and the FPCC. In addition, Cobb was theasset who first informed the CIA of ElenaG a r ro De Paz’s allegation that Oswaldattended a “twist” party in Mexico City withSylvia Duran. For the above reasons, theReview Board staff recommended to the FBIthat it process as assassination records anyFPCC documents that referenced June Cobb.The Review Board also found assassination-related records in the New York field officefile concerning the FBI’s efforts to infiltrateand disrupt the FPCC.

The bulk of the remaining records that theReview Board staff designated as assassina-tion records from the New York FPCC fileinvolve the FBI’s investigation of the FPCC.Many researchers view Oswald’s role in theFPCC as an indication that he may have beenan asset of one or more U.S. intelligenceagencies. That is, they theorize that he was a“plant,” an intelligence asset sent on a coun-terintelligence mission against the FPCC.Thus, Review Board staff designated asassassination records those documents whichaddress the urgency with which the Bureauviewed the FPCC, the priority the Bureauplaced on infiltrating the group, and Bureauintentions/plans to initiate counterintelli-gence activities against the group. TheReview Board staff employed similar reason-ing in designating records as assassination-related in the FBI’s Cuban Counterintelli-gence Program (COINTELPRO) filereferenced below.

b. CIA records on Richard Gibson .

In 1960–63, Richard Thomas Gibson was theDirector of the New York chapter of theFPCC. CIA opened a 201, or personality, fileon Gibson because of his support of bothFidel Castro and Patrice Lumumba. The1960–1964 records include the Warren Com-mission’s investigation of Gibson, and CIAincluded those records in the JFK Collection.

c. Department of Justice Criminal Divisionfiles on FPCC.

The Review Board staff requested that theDepartment of Justice Criminal Divisionsearch for records relating to the FPCC. The

Review Board located some assassinationrecords regarding the FPCC and Vincent T.Lee within the Criminal Division’s files.

2. Cuban COINTELPRO

Early in its tenure, the Review Board exam-ined the FBI’s FOIA “reading room” recordson the FBI’s COINTELPRO against pro-Cas-tro Cubans—primarily the FPCC and theJuly 26th Movement—during the early 1960s.The Review Board’s examination of the read-ing room materials led the Review Board tomake a request to the FBI for a Headquartersfile entitled, “Cuban Matters—Counterintel-ligence Program—Internal Security—Cuba”and for any other Headquarters files docu-menting efforts by the FBI or other agenciesof the U.S. government to disrupt, discredit,or bring into disrepute the FPCC or its mem-bers or activities. The FBI made its recordsavailable to the Review Board and, but forsome very recent, unrelated documents, theReview Board designated all records in theCuban COINTELPRO file as assassinationrecords.

Records that the Review Board designated asassassination records from the COINTEL-PRO file include FPCC and July 26th Move-ment membership and mailing lists. The filefurther details the FBI’s basis for initiating itscounterintelligence program against the twop ro - C a s t ro organizations. Finally, the fileprovides details concerning the methods thatthe Bureau used to disrupt the activities ofthe FPCC and the July 26th Movement.

3. Anti-Castro Activities; IS (Internal Security)-Cuba

In the spring of 1996, the Review Boardreceived a letter from a member of there s e a rch community noting that one of the“Hands Off Cuba” pamphlets that appeare din the New Orleans FPCC file contained ac ro s s - re f e rence to a file entitled “Anti-CastroActivities; IS–Cuba” and numbered NO (NewOrleans) 105–1095. The Review Board staffestablished that the FBI had not processed thisparticular file under the JFK Act, and thenrequested that the FBI provide access to allfiles bearing the above-re f e renced captionf rom Headquarters and from the NewOrleans, Miami, Tampa, New York, and Dallasfield offices during the relevant time period.

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After reviewing New Orleans file 105–1095,the Review Board staff designated two vol-umes of the file as assassination records.

4. Cuban Intelligence Activities in theU.S.; Cuban Situation

During its review of the FBI’s assassinationrecords, the Review Board staff saw file refer-ences to cases captioned “Cuban IntelligenceActivities in the U.S.” and “Cuban Situa-tion.” The Review Board requested access toHeadquarters files and files from the Miami,Tampa, New York, Washington, D.C., andDallas field offices with the above-referencedcaptions, and designated forty records fromthose files as assassination records. Most ofthe relevant records concern activity in theanti-Castro community following the Bay ofPigs invasion and following Pre s i d e n tKennedy’s assassination.

5. Anti-Castro Cuban Groups, IncludingDRE, Alpha 66, SFNE, JURE, FRD,CRC, and Commandos-L

In an effort to gather andreview re c o rds re l a t i n gto the activities of promi-nent anti-Castro Cubangroups who might havehad some involvement inthe assassination of Pres-ident Kennedy, the ReviewBoard requested the FBIto provide access to fileson the above-referenceda n t i - C a s t ro Cuban gro u p sfor Headquarters and theNew Orleans, Miami,Tampa, New York, andDallas field offices. The

FBI kept voluminous files on each anti-Cas-tro Cuban group. Review Board staff mem-bers reviewed hundreds of volumes ofre c o rds in search of assassination-re l a t e dmaterial. The files did yield approximatelyseventy assassination records.

The Review Board also requested the CIA toprovide files on the above-referenced groups,to the extent that the CIA had not alreadyprocessed such records under the JFK Act.The Review Board identified additionalre c o rds from 1960–1964 in contemporaryworking files of a CIA office concerned with

Latin American issues. Most of the relevantC I A re c o rds concerned the existence andactivities of the CIA’s JMWAVE station inMiami. The Review Board also identified asmall number of records pertaining to U.S.anti-Cuban activities in the Directorate ofPlans files and in the files of DCI JohnMcCone. The Review Board marked relevantrecords and requested that CIA process therecords for inclusion in the JFK Collection atNARA.

6. Threats Against the Life of Fidel Castro

As widely reported, the U.S. governmentattempted, at various times, to assassinateCuban leader Fidel Castro. Due to the highlevel of public interest in this topic, theReview Board requested that agencies locateany relevant records and provide them to theReview Board staff.

a. CIA DS&T records.

At the request of the Review Board, the CIAs e a rched its Directorate of Science and Te c h-nology (DS&T) databases and re c o rds for fileson possible assassination attempts againstFidel Castro .2 2 C I A’s search produced onlyone re c o rd—a handwriting analysis. TheReview Board staff reviewed the re c o rd anddetermined that it was not relevant to theassassination of President John F. Kennedy.

b. FBI file captioned “Threats Against the Life of Fidel Castro.”

An HSCA Outside Contact Report datedF e b ruary 18, 1978, indicates that the HSCArequested access to an FBI file captioned“ T h reats Against the Life of Fidel Castro” orsome similar caption. The HSCA never madea formal request for such a file, and the FBIdid not provide to the HSCA a file with sucha caption. The Review Board re q u e s t e daccess to any FBI Headquarters files withthis or a similar caption. The FBI located andp rovided two re c o rds that re f e re n c e d“ T h reats Against the Life of Fidel Castro , ”which summarized Walter Winchell’s radiob roadcasts, and compared the bro a d c a s t swith information that the FBI had concern-ing threats against Castro. The Review Boarddesignated both of these re c o rds for inclu-sion in the JFK Collection.

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I was completely convincedduring this entire period, thatthis operation had the fullauthority of every pertinentechelon of CIA and had fullauthority of the White House,either from the President orfrom someone authorized andknown to be authorized to speakfor the President.—William Harvey’s testimonybefore the Church CommitteeJune 25, 1975

7. American Gambling Interests in Cuba

As part of its efforts to gather records relatingto a Cuban connection to the assassination,the Review Board staff requested that the FBIprovide access to all Headquarters, Miami,Tampa, and Havana files captioned, “Ameri-can Gambling Interests in Cuba.”

The FBI’s Miami field office (into which all ofthe Havana Legal Attaché’s, or Legat’s, fileswere forwarded when the Legat closed) andTampa field office reported to FBI Headquar-ters that they did not have any files with theabove-referenced caption. The Review Boardstaff did not locate any material in the FBIHeadquarters files related to the assassina-tion of President Kennedy. Most of the filesthat the FBI located consisted of pre-1959records monitoring the activities of Floridaracketeers who were trying to establish gam-bling and hotel facilities in Cuba.

8. Sergio Arcacha-Smith, AntonioVeciana, and Bernardo de Torres

S e rgio A rcacha-Smith, Antonio Veciana, andB e r n a rdo de To r res were anti-Castro Cubanactivists in the early 1960s. A rc a c h a - S m i t hwas the New Orleans re p resentative to theCuban Revolutionary Council until 1962, andin that capacity, he used an office in the build-ing at 544 Camp Street. The 544 Camp Stre e ta d d ress was printed on FPCC literature thatLee Harvey Oswald distributed in NewOrleans in August of 1963. Veciana ledAlpha–66, a violent anti-Castro org a n i z a t i o nthat engaged in paramilitary operationsagainst Castro’s Cuba as well as assassinationattempts against Castro. Veciana testified tothe HSCA that he acted as an agent of the U.S.government, and that he met Lee HarveyOswald in Dallas in 1963 in the presence ofhis American “handler.” To r res was a Cubanexile living in Miami who later worked withNew Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrisonin his investigation of Clay Shaw.

The HSCA reviewed FBI Headquarters fileson Arcacha-Smith, Veciana, and de Torres, sothe FBI processed some records on thesethree men with its “HSCA Subject” files. TheReview Board requested that the FBI conductan additional search at Headquarters, and inthe New Orleans, Houston, and Dallas fieldoffices to determine whether the FBI had

other assassination-related information onthese three individuals.The Review Board desig-nated thirty-three docu-ments for processing asassassination re c o rd sfrom the many files theFBI produced inresponse to the ReviewB o a rd’s request. The relevant documentsconcern the Cuban exile community’s reac-tion to President Kennedy’s assassination.

F. RECORDS ON ORGANIZED CRIME

The question as towhether organized crimeplayed a role in a possi-ble conspiracy to assassi-nate President Kennedyis one that nearly everygovernment investiga-tion into the assassina-tion has addressed. Thus,the Review Board processed a large numberof files on organized crime figures and orga-nized crime activities simply because federalagencies made their organized crime filesavailable to previous government investiga-tions. For example, the FBI’s “HSCA subjectfiles” contain large portions of the FBI’s fileson organized crime figures such as SantosTrafficante, Carlos Marcello, Angelo Bruno,Frank Ragano, the Lansky brothers, JohnnyRoselli, Nick Civella, and Joe Campisi. Themajority of records that Review Board ana-lysts processed in these files were not directlya s s a s s i n a t i o n - related, but because priorinvestigative bodies considered these men tobe relevant, the records have been includedin the JFK Collection. In several instances,however, the Review Board pursued addi-tional records that had not been reviewed byprior investigative bodies.

1. Sam Giancana

From the time he was a young man, SamGiancana rose within the Chicago organizedcrime syndicate until he became syndicateleader in 1957. After an eight-year stint inMexico, Giancana was deported back toChicago where he was murdered in 1975,shortly before he was scheduled to testifybefore the Church Committee. The Review

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We had begun to see a generaloutline of the truth in 1979, asthe House Select Committee onAssassinations finished itsinvestigation: leaders of orga-nized crime were behind thePresident’s murder.—Robert Blakey, Fatal Hour

The most durable conspiracytheory is that the Mafia killedthe president.—Anthony and Robbyn Summers, in “The Ghosts ofNovember,”Vanity Fair,December 1994

Board considered Giancana to be of historicalinterest with respect to the Kennedy assassi-nation for a number of reasons: (1) Giancanawas involved in the CIA plots to assassinateFidel Castro; (2) Giancana expressed hostilityt o w a rd the Kennedys because of theKennedys’ war against organized crime; (3)Giancana had associates in common withPresident Kennedy (namely, Frank Sinatraand Judith Campbell Exner); (4) Giancanaallegedly contributed to Kennedy’s 1960presidential campaign; and (5) Giancana wasallegedly linked to Joseph P. Kennedythrough the illicit liquor trade.

The FBI Headquarters file on Sam Giancanaconsists of 37 volumes of records dating from1954 to 1975. When the Review Board staffbegan to review the FBI’s “main” file on SamGiancana in early 1995, it realized that theFBI had not designated for processing anyre c o rds that predated January 1, 1963.2 3

Apparently, the HSCA had requested accessto the entire FBI file on Giancana, but the FBIp rovided only portions of its file to theHSCA. The Review Board staff requestedand received access to sections spanning theyears 1958–1962. After reviewing the addi-tional volumes, the Review Board designatedthe earlier-dated material as assassinationrecords in the summer of 1995, and the FBIprocessed the records under the JFK Act.

2. FBI Electronic Surveillance of CarlosMarcello: BriLab

Many of the books on theassassination of Pre s i-dent Kennedy discussthe possibility that Car-los Marcello, allegedo rganized crime boss ofNew Orleans, wasinvolved in the assassi-

nation. In the late 1970s, the FBI investigatedM a rcello on an unrelated matter—thebribery of organized labor. As part of the“BriLab” investigation, the FBI conducteda p p roximately eight months of electro n i csurveillance on Marcello’s home and on hiso ffice at the Town and Country Motel.A c c o rding to several sources, the “BriLab”tapes contained conversations in which Car-los Marcello or his brother Joseph admittedthat they were involved in the Kennedya s s a s s i n a t i o n .2 4

The FBI maintains its tapes and transcriptsfrom the “BriLab” surveillance, but becausethe FBI’s source of authority for the surveil-lance was 18 U.S.C. § 2501 et seq. (Title III), the“take” from the surveillance remained undercourt seal.25 Thus, the assassination researchcommunity was not able to confirm or rejectallegations that the tapes or transcripts con-tain information relevant to the assassina-tion. Once the Review Board obtained a courtorder allowing it access to the materials, thestaff reviewed all of the transcripts from theFBI’s surveillance on Marcello in NewOrleans. Although the staff did not locate thespecific conversations that the researchersmentioned, it did locate thirteen conversa-tions that it believed to be assassinationrecords. Most of the conversations took placein the summer of 1979 during the period thatthe HSCA released its report. The conversa-tions primarily focused on Marcello’s reac-tion to the HSCA’s allegations that he mayhave been involved in the assassination. Withthe help of the U. S. Attorney’s Office in theEastern District of New Orleans, the ReviewBoard obtained a court order to release tran-scripts of the 13 conversations to the public.

3. Department of Justice CriminalDivision Records

The Review Board sought to inspect theCriminal Division’s extensive org a n i z e dcrime files on individuals who were allegedto have had involvement in the assassination,who were associated in some manner withJack Ruby, or who had made claims of orga-nized crime involvement in the assassina-tion. The Review Board staff reviewed thesefiles and designated specific materials asassassination records. As noted by the Crim-inal Division, the Division had, “[i]n anunprecedented approach,. . . ully opened itsfiles and indices to the Review Board . ”“Hundreds of organized crime case files andother files of a general nature were madeavailable for Review Board staff scrutiny. . . ”

G. WARREN COMMISSION STAFF AND CRITICS

Given that the Warren Commission consti-tuted the first official investigation into theevents surrounding the assassination of Pres-ident Kennedy, the Review Board clearly hadan interest in ensuring that all federal agency

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The most telling evidence in ourinvestigation of organized crimewas electronic surveillance ofmajor underworld figures bythe FBI.—Robert Blakey, in Fatal Hour

records on the Warren Commission and itsactivities became part of the JFK Collection.Although the agencies processed a larg enumber of Warren Commission era docu-ments as part of their core files, the ReviewBoard staff questioned whether federal agen-cies such as the FBI and the CIA opened andmaintained files on the Warren Commissionstaff members because they were working forthe Wa r ren Commission. Likewise, theReview Board staff questioned whether fed-eral agencies such as the FBI and CIAopenedand maintained files on critics of the WarrenCommission because they were criticizingthe Warren Commission’s conclusions.

1. FBI Files on Warren Commission Staf f

In an effort to determine whether the FBIopened or maintained files on Warren Com-mission staff, the Review Board requestedFBI Headquarters file references on WarrenCommission Assistant Counsel NormanRedlich. While reviewing the files providedin response to the Review Board’s request forNorman Redlich’s files, the Review Boardstaff observed a reference to General CounselJ. Lee Rankin’s request that the FBI conduct ab a c k g round investigation on Redlich andalso on Assistant Counsel Joseph A. Ball. Thestaff then asked for FBI Headquarters file ref-erences on Rankin and Ball, as it seemed thatthe FBI may have maintained a file on Ball’sinvestigation. Redlich’s file also showed thatthe Civil Service Commission (CSC) had con-ducted a background investigation onRedlich before Rankin asked the FBI to do aninvestigation. Consequently, the ReviewBoard questioned whether the CSC had car-ried out background checks on other WarrenCommission staff members. In an effort todetermine whether similar files existed at theFBI for other Warren Commission staffers,the Review Board ultimately extended therequest to include Assistant Counsel Leon D.Hubert, Jr. (whose file the Review Boardthought may also contain re f e rences toHubert’s career in New Orleans politics). Inaddition, the Review Board asked the FBI toprovide a statement on whether it openedany files, individually or collectively, onother individuals who worked as WarrenCommission Assistant Counsels or staffmembers, because of their employment withthe Warren Commission.

In response to the ReviewB o a rd’s request, the FBIp rovided all of its head-quarters file re f e rences onall of the Wa r ren Com-mission staff members.F rom the Redlich re q u e s t ,the Review Board desig-nated as assassination-related a group of re c o rd son Redlich within theFBI’s file on the Emer-gency Civil LibertiesCommittee. Otherwise,although Review Board staff did locate somea s s a s s i n a t i o n - related re c o rds, the FBI hada l ready processed most of the re c o rds as partof its core files. The Review Board did n o tlocate any information to indicate that the FBIsystematically kept re c o rds on Wa r ren Com-mission staff members simply because theyw e re employed by the Wa r ren Commission.

2. CIA and FBI Files on WarrenCommission Critics

In an effort to determine whether the FBIopened or maintained files on Warren Com-mission critics because they criticized theWarren Commission’s work and findings,the Review Board requested access to allrecords on prominent Warren Commissioncritic Mark Lane and to all pre-1973 Head-quarters file references to the other WarrenCommission critics listed below.

a. Mark Lane.

When the Review Board began to examine theFBI’s “core and related” files, it noticed that anumber of re c o rds that mentioned the nameMark Lane cro s s - re f e renced the FBI’s main fileon Lane. Because the FBI had not slated theLane main file for JFK Act processing, theReview Board requested access to all file re f e r-ences to Mark Lane or to Lane’s Citizens’Committee of Inquiry in the files of FBI Head-quarters and the New York field office. TheReview Board staff’s examination of the Lanemain file revealed that approximately eightvolumes of the file contained a significant per-centage of documents relating to the Kennedyassassination. The Review Board re c o m-mended that those eight volumes be includedin the JFK Collection. In addition to the Lanemain file, the Review Board designated as

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In the case of the Kennedya s s a s s i n a t i o n , u n p r e c e d e n t e dbelief in all kinds of nonsense,coupled with extraordinarydisrespect for the Wa r r e nC o m m i s s i o n , has waxed ingood times and bad times andflourishes among remarkablenumbers of otherwise sober-minded people.—Max Holland,November 1995

a s s a s s i n a t i o n - related the entire file on the Cit-izens’ Committee of Inquiry, as well as re c o rd sin the FBI’s Communist Party COINTELPROfile, and a select few re c o rds about Lane thata p p e a red in the files of other individuals. TheReview Board’s inquiry revealed that the FBImaintained substantial files on Lane’sp rofessional and personal activities, and keptdetailed files on Lane’s political activism.

The CIA did not open a 201 file on Lane. TheAgency’s records on Lane consist of: a dis-patch dated January 23, 1970, an Office ofGeneral Counsel letter dated March 29, 1977,six FOIA requests, and one public affairsrequest. Review Board staff reviewed theserecords but did not designate them as assas-sination records. Review Board staff foundone additional reference to Lane in a foreigngovernment document and designated theinformation as assassination related.

b. Harold Weisberg.

FBI records on Warren Commission criticHarold Weisberg related to Weisberg’s previ-ous employment with the Department ofState, We i s b e rg’s public participation inpolitical issues, and We i s b e rg’s publishedwork as a journalist. The only assassination-related file on Weisberg the FBI produced inresponse to the Review Board’s request wasits file concerning a FOIA lawsuit that Weis-berg brought against the Department of Jus-tice. The Review Board recommended thatthe FBI process the FOIA litigation file as anassassination record under the JFK Act.

The Review Board determined that the CIAp rocessed most of its files on We i s b e rg as partof the CIA s e q u e s t e red collection. The ReviewB o a rd examined a CIA O ffice of Security fileon We i s b e rg and identified a small number ofdocuments as assassination re c o rds.

c. Josiah Thompson.

In FBI files containing the name of JosiahThompson, the Review Board staff locatedone assassination-related document that theFBI had processed as part of its “core” fileson the JFK Assassination. The document wasabout Thompson’s book Six Seconds in Dallas.The Review Board instructed the FBI toprocess the document as a duplicate of therecord that appeared in the “core” files.

The CIA has a small 201 file on Thompsonwhich indicates that he was considered to beof possible operational interest to the Agencyin the early 1960s while he was living over-seas. CIA lost interest however, and the CIArecords that the Review Board examined donot appear to reflect that Thompson workedfor the CIA in any capacity. The ReviewBoard staff did not locate any assassinationrecords in the 201 file.

d. Edward J. Epstein .

FBI records containing the name Edward JayEpstein concern Epstein’s general journalisticactivities. The few assassination-re l a t e drecords in Epstein’s file were processed bythe FBI as part of their “core” files. Thus, theReview Board staff did not designate anyadditional records as assassination records.

CIA located an Office of Security file and aPublications Review Board file on Epstein aswell as three CIA records documenting theCIA’s destruction of records under a stan-d a rd re c o rds destruction schedule. Thed e s t royed re c o rds related to three FOIArequests. None of the FOIA requests askedfor information on Epstein. The ReviewBoard staff did not designate any additionalrecords as assassination records.

e. Paul Hoch.

Aside from the few assassination-re l a t e drecords in FBI files containing the name PaulHoch that were processed by the FBI as partof their “core” files, the Review Board did notlocate any additional assassination records.

f. David S. Lifton .

The name David S. Lifton appeared only in theFBI’s “core” files. The FBI did not produce anyadditional files that contained Lifton’s name.

g. Sylvia Meagher.

FBI files relating to Sylvia Meagher con-tained five documents that the ReviewB o a rd believed to be assassination-re l a t e d .The FBI processed these five documents aspart of the “core” files. The Review Boardi n s t ructed the FBI to process these five docu-ments as duplicates of re c o rds that appeare din the “core” files.

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The CIA reported that it no longer had anyre c o rds on Meagher. At one time, the Office ofSecurity had a file on Meagher and a 1968Ramparts magazine article. The Review Boardalso located a re f e rence to a Privacy A c trequest made by Meagher. CIA d e s t royed thePrivacy Act request and the Office of Securityfolder under normal re c o rd control schedules.

H. NAME SEARCHES

The Review Board requested searches of fed-eral records for new or additional informa-tion and records on individuals who provedto be of interest to investigative bodies suchas the Warren Commission and the HSCA.

In addition, the Review Board received hun-d reds of letters, telephone calls, and tele-faxes from members of the public re q u e s t i n gthe Board to locate government re c o rds onindividuals who the public believed werelinked in some way to the assassination.O b v i o u s l y, the Review Board staff could notrequest and review re c o rds on every namethat came to its attention. The Review Boardrequested additional information andre c o rds on some individuals, and this sec-tion attempts to summarize the bulk of theReview Board’s requests for information onnames that are not mentioned in other placeswithin this Report.

1. John Abt

Following his arrest on November 22, 1963,Lee Harvey Oswald stated to representativesof the media that he wanted to be repre-sented by John Abt. Abt was an attorney whohad re p resented the Communist Party,USA.26 Abt’s primary residence was in NewYork City, but he was spending the weekendof November 22, 1963 at his cabin in Con-necticut. Thus, the Review Board requestedaccess to the FBI’s files on John Abt from FBIHeadquarters and from the New York andNew Haven field offices. Although the NewHaven office reported that it had no file ref-e rences to Abt, the FBI made availablere c o rds from Headquarters and from theNew York field office. The Review Board des-ignated 24 records (all dated after November22, 1963) for processing under the JFK Act.Some of the designated re c o rds relate towhether Abt and Oswald knew each otherprior to President Kennedy’s assassination.

The remainder of the records involve Com-munist Party meetings at which attendeesdiscussed the Kennedy assassination.

2. Edward Becker

E d w a rd Becker claims that, in September 1962,he met with Carlos Marcello and three othermen, and heard Marcello threaten to haveP resident Kennedy killed. The HSCAreviewed the FBI’s headquarters file onE d w a rd Becker and, as such, the FBI pro c e s s e dit under the JFK Act. The Review Boardrequested access to the Los Angeles field off i c efile on Edward Becker, as well as access to thec o n t rol file on the Los Angeles informant whod i s c redited Becker’s allegation. The ReviewB o a rd designated two documents from the LosAngeles field office file on Becker and one doc-ument from the Los Angeles informant’s con-t rol file. All three of the designated re c o rd sconcerned Becker’s allegation that Marc e l l ot h reatened President Kennedy.

3. Carlos Bringuier

Carlos Bringuier was an anti-Castro Cubanactivist in New Orleans who had re p e a t e dcontact with Lee Harvey Oswald in thesummer of 1963. Bringuier managed a cloth-ing store in New Orleans, and he was alsothe New Orleans re p resentative of the anti-C a s t ro organization Directorio Revolu-c i o n a ro Estudiantil (the DRE). Oswald vis-ited Bringuier’s store in early August 1963w h e re the two engaged in a discussion onthe Cuban political situation. A c c o rding toB r i n g u i e r, Oswald portrayed himself asbeing anti-Castro and anti-communist. Sev-eral days later, someone told Bringuier thatan American was passing out pro - C a s t roleaflets in New Orleans. Bringuier and twoothers went to counter-demonstrate, andBringuier was surprised to see that Oswaldwas the pro - C a s t ro leafleter. Bringuier andOswald argued and both were arrested fordisturbing the peace. The publicity from thea l t e rcation and trial (Oswald pleaded guiltyand was fined $10 and Bringuier and hisfriends pleaded not guilty and the charg e sw e re dismissed) resulted in a debate onWDSU radio between Bringuier andOswald on August 21, 1963. The ReviewB o a rd designated six serials from the NewOrleans file on Bringuier.

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4. George Bush

A November 29, 1963, memorandum fromFBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to the Directorof the Bureau of Intelligence and Research atthe Department of State refers to the fact thatinformation on the assassination of PresidentKennedy was “orally furnished to Mr.G e o rge Bush of the Central IntelligenceAgency.” At the request of the Review Board,the CIA made a thorough search of itsrecords in an attempt to determine if the“George Bush” referred to in the memoran-dum might be identical to President and for-mer Director of Central Intelligence GeorgeHerbert Walker Bush. That search deter-mined that the CIA had no association withGeorge Herbert Walker Bush during the timeframe referenced in the document.

The records that the Review Board examinedshowed that the only other “George Bush”serving in the CIA in 1963 was a junior ana-lyst who has repeatedly denied being the“George Bush” referenced in the memoran-dum. The Review Board staff found one ref-erence to an Army Major General GeorgeBush in the calendars of Director of CentralIntelligence Allen Dulles. There was no indi-cation if this General Bush could be the refer-enced George Bush. The Review Boardmarked the calendar page as an assassinationrecord.

5. Ed Butler and Information Council ofthe Americas (INCA)

E d w a rd Scannell Butler debated Lee HarveyOswald in New Orleans in the summer of 1963on the radio station WDSU. The radio debateo c c u r red shortly after Oswald was arrested fordisturbing the peace in August 1963. Follow-ing the assassination, but before Pre s i d e n tJohnson formed the Wa r ren Commission, But-ler testified before a Senate Internal SecuritySubcommittee re g a rding his contact withOswald. Butler had long been associated withthe Information Council of the A m e r i c a s(INCA), a New Orleans-based clearinghousefor anti-Communist information, and particu-larly for anti-Castro Cuban information.

The Review Board requested access to all FBIheadquarters and New Orleans field officefiles on Edward Scannell Butler and theInformation Council of the Americas. The

Review Board designated five records to beprocessed under the JFK Act. All of the des-ignated records concern Butler’s contact withOswald in August 1963.

Chapter 7 of this Report discusses theReview Board’s attempts to obtain recordsdirectly from Mr. Butler and INCA.

CIA processed all of its records on Butler aspart of its sequestered collection.

6. Claude Barnes Capehart

One re s e a rcher inquired whether a ClaudeBarnes Capehart was ever an employee,d i rectly or indire c t l y, under any name,whether on salary or contract, of the CIA, or ac o m p a n y, business, agency, or other entityoperated by the CIA. The HSCA was inter-ested in Capehart, who claimed to have beenin Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, as aC I A employee. The CIAgranted Review Boards t a ff full access to its re c o rds on Capehart.

C I A re c o rds state that Capehart worked fortwo diff e rent private business contractors onU.S. government classified projects, but there c o rds the Review Board examined do notshow that CIA ever employed him as an off i-c e r, staff e r, asset, or source. The re c o rds indi-cate that at least one of the private contractorsfor whom Capehart worked, Global Marine,Inc., did have CIA contracts. The re c o rds fur-ther indicate that a background investigationwas run on Capehart in August and Septem-ber 1973, so that he could work on those con-tracts as a crane operator/driller from October30, 1973 to July 9, 1975. As part of his workwith Global Marine Inc., Capehart signeds e c recy agreements with CIA in October 1973and January 1975.

The CIA holds two files on Capehart—anOffice of Security File and a medical file. TheCIA processed its Office of Security file aspart of the segregated collection. The medicalfile, not part of CIA’s segregated collection,concerns an accident which occurred on oneof the construction sites, and the ReviewBoard did not believe it was relevant. Themedical file does not contain any informationon or evidence of any possible psychologicalproblems. The CIA reported that it has neverhad an Office of Personnel file or a 201 file onCapehart.

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T h e re is no evidence in either the Office ofSecurity file or the medical file to suggest thatCapehart worked for the CIA on any addi-tional contracts nor in any capacity, direct ori n d i rect, other than as the employee of a pri-vate contractor, Global Marine, Inc., workingon CIA contracts. There is no evidence in thefiles that the Review Board saw to suggestthat CIA ever assigned him a pseudonym orthat he used another name. Finally, there is noinformation in the re c o rds to support Cape-hart’s allegations concerning the Kennedyassassination nor to confirm his where a b o u t sduring the relevant time period.

7. Lawrence Cusack

The late Lawrence Cusack was a prominentNew York attorney in the 1950s and 1960swho represented, among other clients, theArchdiocese of New York. The Review Boardreceived information that Cusack performedsome legal work for Joseph P. Kennedy andthat Cusack’s son was engaged in an attemptto sell a group of allegedly salacious docu-ments regarding Cusack’s professional (butsecret) relationship with President Kennedy.The documents at issue allegedly containedinformation regarding President Kennedy’srelationship with Marilyn Monroe and withvarious mafia figures. Questions were raisedconcerning the authenticity of the docu-ments, and Cusak’s son subsequently wasindicted on fraud charges.

In an effort to determine whether the FBI hadany information on Lawrence Cusack’s rela-tionship with the Kennedy family, theReview Board requested access to all FBIHeadquarters and New York field office fileson Lawrence X. Cusack. The Review Boarddid not find any assassination records in thematerials provided by the FBI.

8. Adele Edisen, Winston de Monsabert ,Jose Rivera

Dr. Adele Edisen has written several letters tothe Review Board and has also providedpublic testimony to the Review Board. In herletters and testimony, Dr. Edisen stated that,in New Orleans on November 24, 1963, sherecounted to an FBI agent and a Secret Ser-vice agent her knowledge of apparent deal-ings between Dr. Jose Rivera, Mr. Winston deMonsabert, and Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963.

The Review Board requested FBI records onthese individuals from FBI Headquarters andfield offices in Baltimore, Dallas, Denver,New Orleans and Washington, D.C. The FBIretrieved only a few records relating to theindividuals referenced above, all of whichthe Review Board designated as assassina-tion records.

9. Billie Sol Estes

In the 1980s, Billy Sol Estes alleged that Lyn-don Johnson was involved in the assassina-tion of President Kennedy. Estes was report-edly a con artist who claims to have had afinancial relationship with Lyndon Johnson.The Review Board requested access to all FBIHeadquarters files on Billie Sol Estes. TheReview Board designated eight serials forprocessing as assassination records under theJFK Act. All of the designated records con-cern Estes’ alleged knowledge of personsconnected to the assassination of PresidentKennedy.

10. Judith Campbell Exner

Judith Campbell Exner claims to have been alink between President Kennedy and Mafiamembers Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli.Introduced to John Kennedy by Frank Sina-tra during Kennedy’s 1960 presidential pri-mary campaign, she claimed to have had arelationship with John Kennedy that lastedfrom the winter of 1960 until March of 1962.In 1975, Ms. Exner gained national mediaattention when she testified before theChurch Committee in its investigation of theC I A plots to assassinate Fidel Castro .Between 1976 and 1997, Ms. Exner filednumerous lawsuits against the FBI seekingaccess to all information the FBI held on her.The Review Board requested access to all FBIHeadquarters and field office main files onJudith Campbell Exner. The FBI producedseveral small field office files containingp ress clippings the FBI collected on Ms.Exner, as well as several files which reflectMs. Exner’s efforts to gain access to her infor-mation in the FBI’s files. The FBI also pro-duced several files with references to womenwith names similar to Judith CampbellE x n e r. The Review Board designated asassassination records all main files on Ms.Exner, as well as all records that made refer-ence to Ms. Exner. The Review Board also

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designated the entire FBI file on the murderof Johnny Roselli which the FBI produced inresponse to this request.

11. H.L. Hunt and Family and ClintMurchison and Family

Some researchers allege that the assassina-tion of President Kennedy was master-minded by wealthy Dallas oilmen H.L. Huntand Clint Murchison. The Review Boardrequested access to all FBI headquarters andDallas field office files on the following indi-viduals during the period 1960 through 1969:H.L. Hunt, Nelson Bunker Hunt, LamarHunt, Clint Murchison, Sr., Clint Murchison,Jr., and Paul M. Rothermel. FBI files con-tained many references to the Hunts, theMurchisons, and Rothermel, but the docu-ments were primarily concerned with theirbusiness dealings or their political activities.The Review Board designated for the JFKCollection ten documents from the files theFBI produced in response to the ReviewBoard’s request.

12. Joseph P. Kennedy

In light of allegations that Joseph P.Kennedy’s organized crime connectionshelped to fund John Kennedy’s 1960 cam-paign for the Democratic nomination, theReview Board requested FBI files on JosephP. Kennedy. Given that Joseph P. Kennedywas a prominent American who served inmany high-level government positions, theReview Board limited its request for FBI fileson Joseph P. Kennedy to: (1) a list of file num-bers and case captions of files where Mr.Kennedy was the main subject of the file; and(2) field office files for the 1956 FBI investiga-tions of Kennedy in connection with hisappointment to the Presidential Board ofConsultants on Foreign Intelligence Activi-ties of the U.S. government. The ReviewB o a rd singled out Kennedy’s 1956 back-ground investigation because of its proximityto the 1960 presidential election, and the alle-gations of organized crime influence duringthat election. The Review Board alsorequested that the FBI provide a list of filenumbers and case captions that containeddocuments mentioning Joseph P. Kennedy.The vast majority of records that the FBI pro-duced concerning Joseph P. Kennedy werenot related to the assassination of President

K e n n e d y. The Review Board found onlythree records that it believed to be assassina-tion-related, all relating to threats that weremade by private citizens to Joseph P.Kennedy and his sons.

13. Oswald LeWinter

In 1997, the Review Board received a queryf rom a re s e a rcher as to whether a mannamed Oswald LeWinter had any ties, cur-rent or past, with the CIA. A c c o rding to there s e a rc h e r, LeWinter claimed to be the cur-rent Deputy Director of Countere s p i o n a g efor the CIA with information on the assas-sination of President Kennedy. The ReviewB o a rd staff examined CIA and FBI re c o rd son LeWi n t e r. FBI and CIA files indicate thatL e Winter is a well-known fabricator withan interest in intelligence and law enforc e-ment activities who frequently makesclaims related to sensational or unusualnews events. The re c o rds that the ReviewB o a rd examined did not show that OswaldL e Winter was ever employed by or workedfor the CIA in any capacity. Further, CIAreported that it has never employed any-one with a title or position equivalent to“Assistant or Deputy Director of Coun-t e re s p i o n a g e . ”

14. Marita Lorenz

Marita Lorenz allegedly was involved in theearly plots to assassinate Fidel Castro; asso-ciated with some of the more colorful gun-running characters in the assassinationstory; and has worked as an informant forgovernment agencies, including the Dru gE n f o rcement A g e n c y. A c c o rding to formerH S C A s t a ffers, Lorenz claimed to have wit-nessed a meeting between Frank Sturg i s ,a.k.a. Frank Fiorini, and E. Howard Hunt,both of whom had denied knowing eachother in testimonies to the Rockefeller Com-mission. Although there are extensive FBIfiles on Lorenz, the Review Board located noadditional files in the CIA collections underher name. Upon the suggestion of formerH S C A s t a ffers to look further into MaritaL o renz, the Review Board requested DEAand INS to search their respective agencyfiles for re c o rds on Lorenz. While INS had nore c o rds, DEA p roduced two files, none ofwhich contained information of relevance tothe assassination.

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15. John Thomas Masen

John Thomas Masen was a Dallas area gundealer who was arrested on gun smugglingc h a rges two days before the assassination ofP resident Kennedy. During the fall of 1963,Masen supplied arms to the Directorio Rev-olucianario Estudiantial (DRE), an anti-Castrog roup based in Miami. The FBI interviewedMasen during the assassination investigationre g a rding allegations that he may have sold6.5 mm Mannlicher- C a rcano ammunition toLee Harvey Oswald. Some re s e a rchers havealleged that Masen had connections toOswald. The Review Board requested accessto FBI files on John Thomas Masen from thefollowing locations: Headquarters, San A n t o-nio, Dallas, and Miami. The FBI reported thatthe Miami field office file had been destro y e d ,but the Review Board designated as assassina-tion re c o rds the Headquarters, San A n t o n i o ,and Dallas field office files in their entire t y.These files describe the FBI’s investigation ofMasen in 1963 and 1964, and his associationwith the DRE.

16. John Anthony McVickar

John Anthony McVickar was a consular offi-cer in Moscow from 1959 to 1961 where hedealt with Lee Harvey Oswald and MarinaOswald. McVickar shared an office with con-sular officer Richard Snyder in 1959 and sowas present to hear Snyder’s October 31interview with Oswald. McVickar was inter-viewed by members of the Review Boardstaff and provided affidavits to the ReviewBoard. McVickar said he had no connectionsto the CIA. The “John A. McVickar” file thatexists in the CIAsequestered collection is thatof an individual with a diff e rent middlename and no connection to the assassination.

17. Elizabeth Catlett Mora

Elizabeth Catlett Mora was a pro m i n e n tAmerican communist who lived in MexicoCity in the early 1960s. Mora was an associateof Vincent T. Lee, head of the FPCC, and trav-eled to Cuba with him in December 1962. TheReview Board requested access to FBI Head-quarters and Mexico City file references toMora to determine if the Communist com-munity in Mexico City had any contact withOswald during his trip to Mexico City in thefall of 1963. The Review Board designated 12

serials from the Headquarters file on Morawhich concerned the Oswald investigation inMexico City.

18. Gordon Duane Novel

Gordon Novel came tothe attention of NewOrleans District AttorneyJim Garrison after mak-ing claims that he was anemployee of the CIA inNew Orleans in 1963 andknew both Lee HarveyOswald and Jack Ruby.The CIA has a 201 and anOffice of Security file onGordon Novel. The 201file includes a DomesticContacts Division “A” file which CIA incor-porated into the 201 file. The Review Boardreviewed both files and designated as assas-sination records the entire Office of Securityfile, and relevant documents from the 201 filewhich did not duplicate re c o rds alre a d yfound within the CIA sequestered collection.

19. Orest Pena

Orest Pena was a New Orleans bar ownerand an anti-Castro activist. Pena and Oswaldobtained passports on the same day in thesummer of 1963. Pena testified before inves-tigative committees, and claimed he was anFBI informant. In an effort to verify his claimsthat he was an informant, the Review Boardrequested access to any Headquarters or fieldoffice files under the “134” or “137” classifi-cation (the FBI file classification for its infor-mant source files). The FBI found no filesresponsive to this request.

20. Carlos Quiroga

Carlos Quiroga was an anti-Castro Cubanactivist in New Orleans who had contactwith Lee Harvey Oswald in the summer of1963. Quiroga received Oswald’s flyer on theFPCC, contacted Oswald, and feigned inter-est in the FPCC. In addition, Quiroga spenttime with Oswald in an effort to determinewhether the FPCC was a serious pro-Castrogroup in New Orleans. The Review Boardrequested access to all Headquarters andNew Orleans field office files regarding Car-los Quiroga. The Review Board designated

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At the time it seemed to me thatLHO was reciting propagandaf o r m u l a s, as well as phrasesused in connection with hisdemand for citizenship renunci-ation, that he perhaps did notfully understand himself, andthat he may have been coachedby persons unknown.—From Affidavit of John A.McVickar, June 23, 1997

six serials from the New Orleans file as assas-sination records.

21. Charles Small

Charles Small was a prominent AmericanCommunist who lived in Mexico City in theearly 1960s. The Review Board requestedaccess to FBI Headquarters and Mexico Cityfile references to Small to determine if theCommunist community in Mexico City hadany contact with Oswald during his trip toMexico City in the fall of 1963. The ReviewBoard designated as assassination records 18serials from the files produced in response tothis request. These documents primarilyrelate to the Mexico City Communist com-munity’s reaction to the assassination and tothe fact that Oswald had visited Mexico Cityshortly before the assassination.

22. Clarence Daniel Smelley

C l a rence Daniel Smelley was a member of theInternational Bro t h e rhood of Teamsters inBirmingham, Alabama, who alleged in 1964that he had information in his possession thatTeamster President Jimmy Hoffa had con-s p i red to and carried out the assassination ofP resident Kennedy. The Review Boardrequested access to the FBI Headquarters filetitled “James Riddle Hoffa; Clarence DanielSmelley; Unknown Subjects,” as well as thec o r responding Memphis and Birminghamfield office files. The Review Board desig-nated the entire Headquarters file for pro c e s s-ing under the JFK Act. This file documentedthe Bureau’s investigation of Smelley and hisallegations. The FBI reports that it destro y e dc o r responding Memphis and Birminghamfield office files in the 1970s.

23. Richard Snyder

R i c h a rd Snyder was the Department of Stateconsular officer on duty at the A m e r i c a nEmbassy in Moscow when Lee HarveyOswald appeared at the embassy to announcehis defection on October 31, 1959. ThoughSnyder had briefly worked for the CIA in 1949and 1950, the Review Board staff could locateno evidence in CIA files that he still had anyconnection to the CIA at the time of Oswald’sdefection. CIA p rocessed its 201 re c o rd onSnyder as part of the sequestered collection.The Review Board staff examined Snyder’ s

O ffice of Personnel file, but did not designateany re c o rds as assassination re c o rd s .

24. Marty Underwood

Marty Underwood was an advance man whoworked for both President Kennedy and Pre s-ident Johnson. He was part of the team thataccompanied President Kennedy to Texas inNovember 1963. Certain re s e a rchers contendthat when Judith Campbell Exner in April 1960allegedly delivered a satchel of cash to Mafiaboss Sam Giancana as a favor to then pre s i-dential candidate Senator John F. Kennedy,Underwood was on the same train from Wa s h-ington, D.C. to Chicago, with instructions to“keep an eye” on her. The Review Board wasalso interested in learning more about Under-wood’s relationship with Winston Scott, theC I A Chief of Station in Mexico City, whom hemet during the Johnson administration. TheReview Board requested access to all file re f e r-ences on Marty Underwood. The FBI pro-duced two documents responsive to thisrequest, and neither re c o rd contained anya s s a s s i n a t i o n - related information. A l t h o u g hUnderwood’s oral history is at the LBJ Library,he has refused to sign a deed to open the his-t o r y. While the Review Board considered theoral history to be an assassination re c o rd ,Underwood gave permission to open onlythose sections which pertain directly to theassassination. The LBJ Library will send thosesections to the JFK Collection.

25. General Edwin Walker and theMinutemen

General Edwin Walker, a retired Army MajorGeneral, was an extreme right-wing politicalactivist living in Dallas in 1963. He wasforced into retirement from the U.S. Army in1961 for distributing right-wing literature tosoldiers under his command. General Walkerwas involved in organizing the protests ofJames Meredith’s matriculation to the Uni-versity of Mississippi in the fall of 1962, aswell as protests of Adlai Stevenson’s visit toDallas in October 1963. After the events ofNovember 22–24, 1963, Marina Oswald con-fided to authorities that she believed it wasLee Harvey Oswald who shot at GeneralWalker’s home in April 1963.

The Review Board was interested in whetherthe FBI had any information which indicated

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that Walker or his followers: (1) hadexpressed any desire to assassinate PresidentKennedy; (2) had any contact with Lee Har-vey Oswald; or (3) had any informationregarding the Walker shooting. The ReviewBoard requested access to Headquarters andDallas field office files on General Walker, theMinutemen, the Headquarters file number100–439412, and the Dallas field office filenumber 105–1475. The FBI produced numer-ous files in response to this request, and theReview Board recommended 191 documentsfrom the various files be processed as assas-sination re c o rds. These documents con-cerned threats against President Kennedyand members of the Kennedy Administra-tion and reactions within the right-wingpolitical community to the assassination ofPresident Kennedy.

The Review Board also requested the Crimi-nal Division of the Department of Justice tosearch for files on Walker. The Review Boardstaff located a small number of assassinationrecords in the Criminal Division’s files.

I. MISCELLANEOUS

This section, organized by agency, sets forthsome of the searches for additional informa-tion and records which did not easily fitwithin other sections or chapters.

1. CIA

At the request of the Review Board, the CIAundertook a search for and located the originalearly re c o rds re g a rding the development of theU–2 plane. The CIA also located one of the fewextant, unredacted, and still closely held copiesof the so called “Family Jewels” document.

a. The U–2 connection and the “fake” manuals.

Many researchers have wondered whetherLee Harvey Oswald learned enough aboutthe U–2 airplane during his U.S. MarineCorps service in Japan to provide usefulinformation to the Soviets as to its airspeedand altitude or whether he might haveplayed a diff e rent role re g a rding Sovietknowledge of the airplane. In his 1994 per-sonal memoir, Ben Rich, the former directorof Lockheed’s research and design “SkunkWorks,” states that Lockheed flight engineersproduced four false test flight manuals at

Richard Bissell’s request. The false test flightmanuals contained incorrect information onthe plane’s weight, speed, altitude, and loadfactor limits. Rich claims that Lockheed pro-duced the four manuals but only Bissellknew how or if the CIA got them to the Sovi-ets. Did Oswald, or others like him, carrythese fake manuals into Soviet hands?

In an effort to locate re c o rds to confirmRich’s story, the Review Board staff con-tacted several individuals who wereinvolved with the U–2 program at CIA. Inaddition, the Review Board staff examinedn u m e rous files from the earliest days of theU–2 including some of the original test flightmanuals. The Directorate of Science andTechnology found no mention of any fakeU–2 manuals in its archives or database. Inaddition, Lockheed, when queried, re p o r t e dthat re c o rds of that age, if they still existed,w e re neither indexed nor archived. In short,the Review Board staff was unable to findany individual who had ever heard of anyfake U–2 manuals or any re c o rd which evenhinted at the existence of any manuals. Wi t hRich and Bissell both deceased, the existenceor plans for four fake U–2 manuals re m a i n sa mystery.2 7

b. The “Family Jewels.”

The 693-paged “Family Jewels” is not a sin-gle written document or report, but rather acollection of separate memoranda or lettersf rom individuals, branches, divisions, ando ffices within the CIA. It grew out of arequest by James Schlesinger, then Dire c t o rof Central Intelligence, instructing individ-ual Agency components to detail acts orp rograms being conducted by the A g e n c ywhich might possibly violate the charter ofthe CIA. Although Schlesinger did not placea time limit on responses, the majority of thematerial detailed in the “Family Jewels” isf rom the late 1960s and early 1970s. The“Family Jewels” contains multiple copies ofmemoranda as diff e rent authors attachedp revious branch, office, or division materi-als to individual treatises, retorts, elabora-tions, or addenda. The collection does nothave a table of contents, sequence, or org a-nizational rationale. CIA stamped the pagesc o n s e c u t i v e l y, and they appear roughly tobe numbered in the order in which theyw e re collected.

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In response to the Review Board’s informalrequest CIA–IR–08, the CIA agreed to meetwith a member of the Review Board staff toreview the “Jewels” and identify assassina-tion-related material. Portions of 27 pageswere marked as assassination records to beprocessed for inclusion in the JFK Collectionat the National Archives.

2. FBI

a. “Research Matters” file on John F. Kennedy.

The Review Board requested access to filenumber 94–37374 in the summer of 1995.The file was one of the 164 files that com-prised J. Edgar Hoover’s “Official and Con-fidential (O&C)” files, which were re m o v e df rom Hoover’s office after his death and arec u r rently maintained by the FBI as a gro u pto maintain their integrity. The file consistsof five volumes, and three “EBFs,” or enclo-s u res behind file. The FBI processed thee n t i re file under the JFK Act. The file consistsof a mix of material relating to JohnK e n n e d y. Volumes 1, 2, 3, and the first half ofVolume 4 all predate the assassination. Thesecond half of Volume 4 and all of Volume 5contain documents that are dated after theassassination and consist of condolence let-ters and other material relating to Pre s i d e n tK e n n e d y. The earliest documents in the filedate back to the late 1940s, when JohnKennedy ran for and was elected to Con-g ress. The pre-assassination file containssocial and professional corre s p o n d e n c ebetween Kennedy and Director Hoover. Italso contains a significant number of news-paper articles and information aboutKennedy’s election races. Once Kennedybecame President, the file captured informa-tion about Presidential protection and liai-son with the Secret Service. The file also con-tains letters and call reports from membersof the public to the FBI generally and toD i rector Hoover specifically relating to Pre s-ident Kennedy.

b. Liaison with other federal agencies.

In his Warren Commission testimony, SecretService agent Rowley commented that, hadfederal agencies shared their informationrelating to Lee Harvey Oswald, the govern-ment could have compiled a list of at least 18items that would have alerted the Secret Ser-

vice that Oswald was a threat to the Presi-dent. In light of allegations that federal agen-cies neglected to adequately share lawenforcement information, the Review Boardstaff believed that information of the 1960sera, which related to liaison between federalgovernment agencies on law enforc e m e n tmatters generally and matters affecting Pres-idential protection specifically, would be rel-evant for purposes of the JFK Collection.

i. Secret Service/Protection of the President.The Review Board requested access to theFBI’s files captioned “Liaison with the SecretService” and “Presidential Protection.” Bothof these files had previously been available inthe FBI’s FOIA reading room in a heavilyredacted form. The FBI’s file on PresidentialProtection does not begin until 1964, and theReview Board designated all documentsfrom 1964, and 27 documents from post-1964,as assassination records. The Review Boardalso designated the FBI’s entire file on theDillon Commission as assassination-related.

ii. CIA. Although the HSCA re v i e w e dportions of the FBI’s liaison file with theCIA, the Review Board requested access toadditional sections of the FBI/CIA l i a i s o nfile covering the period 1957 through 1969 inan effort to locate new assassination re c o rd s .The Review Board designated all documentsf rom the CIA liaison file for the years 1963and 1964 as well as 67 documents from theperiod before and after 1963 and 1964 forp rocessing as assassination re c o rds. Thesedocuments cover a wide variety of topicsrelated to the assassination including infor-mation about how the FBI and the CIAs h a red information when their intere s t soverlapped.

iii. NSA. The Review Board staff’ sreview of the FBI liaison file with NSAfor theyears 1959–1964 produced no additionalassassination records.

iv. Customs. The Review Board staff’sreview of the FBI’s liaison file with the Cus-toms Service produced no additional assassi-nation records.

v. ATF. The Review Board staff’s reviewof the FBI’s liaison file with the Bureau ofAlcohol Tobacco and Firearms produced noadditional assassination records.

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3. Secret Service

a. Protective survey reports.

Whenever the President traveled outside ofWashington, D.C., the Secret Service wouldgenerate a Protective Survey Report, or a“trip report.” Trip reports, composed byS e c ret Service agents who conductedadvance work for the President’s trips, con-tained information ranging from logisticaldetails about seating arrangements to detailsabout individuals in the area known to havemade threats against the President’s life.Some of the survey reports document infor-mation Secret Service received from otheragencies such as the FBI or the CIA.

The survey reports detail Pre s i d e n tKennedy’s travel, whereabouts, associations,and activities for his entire administration.They also provide a complete picture of theS e c ret Service’s protection of Pre s i d e n tKennedy.

b. Shift reports.

The White House Detail consisted of SecretService agents whose duties were to person-ally protect the life of the President, the VicePresident, and their respective families. TheWhite House Detail kept “shift reports,” usu-ally authored by the Special Agent in chargeof the shift, that detailed the activity of eachsection during their assigned working hours.

c. Eileen Dinneen memoranda.

Eileen Dinneen, a staff researcher for theHSCA, obtained access to protective intelli-gence files and Protective Survey Reports.Dinneen documented her review of thesefiles in memoranda and reports. The ReviewBoard staff found useful Dinneen’s docu-mentation of information contained in theSecret Service protective intelligence files ofindividuals whom the Secret Service consid-ered to be dangerous to the lives of the Pres-ident, the Vice President, and their familiesfrom March to December 1963. For each pro-tective intelligence file she reviewed, Din-neen created a one-page report documentingthe name of the individual and various bio-graphical and background information theSecret Service maintained on the individual.The Board’s vote to release in full these

“threat sheets” was the subject of the SecretService’s May 1998 appeal to the President.

4. Department of State

Robert Edward Webster was a technicianworking on the American Exhibition inMoscow in the summer of 1959 when hedecided to renounce his citizenship and defectto the Soviet Union. Webster appeared at theU.S. Embassy to announce his defection twoweeks prior to Oswald’s visit. Researc h e r shave suggested that accounts of Oswald’sappearance at the embassy differ becauseembassy personnel have confused the arrivalsof Webster and Oswald. In an effort to exploreany physical similarities between the twomen, the Review Board asked the Departmentof State to locate a circa 1959 passport photo-graph of We b s t e r. The Department of Statep roduced its passport file on We b s t e r, andt r a n s f e r red the file to the JFK Collection. Thepassport file includes new, detailed informa-tion on We b s t e r’s defection.

5. Army

The Review Board’s two primary concernswith Army records were: first, to open thecounterintelligence files located at the Inves-tigative Records Repository (IRR) at FortMeade; and second, to determine whetherArmy intelligence units had any re g u l a rresponsibilities for protection of the Presi-dent as part of their normal duties circa 1963.

a. U.S. Army’s Investigative Records Repository.

This facility at Fort Meade in Maryland, apart of the Army’s Intelligence and SecurityCommand (INSCOM), contains investigativefiles on individuals of counterintelligenceinterest to the Army. The HSCA studied 34IRR “case files,” and thus, the A r m yprocessed those records for inclusion in theJFK Collection. The Review Board requestedthree additional files and designated themassassination records. The three additionalcase files declared as assassination records bythe Review Board pertain to Alfredo MirabalDiaz, Jordan James Pfuntner, and ClemardJoseph Charles. The Review Board staff alsodesignated one additional file consisting ofan assortment of extracts from various ArmyIntelligence Regulations.

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b. Army Security Agency records and files.

The Review Board did not locate any addi-tional assassination records from the ArmySecurity Agency’s files. Review Board staffsearched for information and records con-cerning ASA electronic surveillance from the1960s, but was unsuccessful in its efforts tolocate any such material. Army personnelprovided to the Review Board staff a unit his-tory which gave a generic description of ASAsurveillance activities in Mexico City in 1963.The one paragraph that addressed this activ-ity was short, not very detailed, anddescribed the ASA surveillance effort of theCuban and Soviet Embassies as larg e l yunsuccessful, due to technical diff i c u l t i e s .This paragraph did not provide any rawintelligence or surveillance data.

c. Army Inspector General 1973 report ondomestic surveillance abuses in the U.S.

In 1997, the Review Board requested that theArmy’s Inspector General’s Office locate andprovide a copy of its own 1973 report ondomestic surveillance abuses in the UnitedStates, in the hope that this document mightmention domestic surveillance activity in theearly 1960s and provide leads to the ReviewBoard. (The Church Committee cited thisreport in detail.) The Army IG off i c eresponded to the Review Board staff that itcould not locate its own report.

6. White House Communications Agency

WHCAwas, and is, responsible for maintain-ing both secure (encrypted) and unsecured(open) telephone, radio, and telex communi-cation between the President and the govern-ment of the United States. Most of the per-sonnel that constitute this elite agency areU.S. military communications specialists;many, in 1963, were from the Army SignalCorps. On November 22, 1963, WHCA wasresponsible for communications betweenand among Air Force One and Two, theWhite House Situation Room, the mobileWhite House, and with the Secret Service inthe motorcade.

The Review Board sought to locate any audiorecordings of voice communications to orfrom Air Force One on the day of the assassi-nation, including communications between

Air Force One and Andrews Air Force Baseduring the return flight from Dallas to Wash-ington, D.C. As many people are now aware,in the 1970s, the LBJ Presidential Libraryreleased edited audio cassettes of unsecured,or open voice conversations with Air ForceOne, Andrews Air Force Base, the WhiteHouse Situation Room, and the Cabinet Air-craft carrying the Secretary of State and othero fficials on November 22, 1963. The LBJLibrary version of these tapes consists ofabout 110 minutes of voice transmissions, butthe tapes are edited and condensed, so theReview Board staff sought access tounedited, uncondensed versions. Since theedited version of the tapes contains consider-able talk about both the forthcoming autopsyon the President, as well as the reaction of agovernment in crisis, the tapes are of consid-erable interest to assassination researchersand historians.

Given that the LBJ Library released the tapesin the 1970s, the paper trail is now sketchy andquite cold. The LBJ Library staff is fairly confi-dent that the tapes originated with the WhiteHouse Communications Agency (WHCA).The LBJ Library staff told the Review Boards t a ff that it received the tapes from the WhiteHouse as part of the original shipment of Pre s-ident Johnson’s papers in 1968 or 1969.A c c o rding to the LBJ Library’s documenta-tion, the accession card reads: “WHCA?” andis dated 1975. The Review Board staff couldnot locate any re c o rds indicating who per-formed the editing, or when, or where .

The Review Board’s repeated written and oralinquiries of the White House Communica-tions Agency did not bear fruit. The WHCAcould not produce any re c o rds that illumi-nated the provenance of the edited tapes.

7. Presidential Library Materials

The JFK Act obliged both the John F. Kennedyand Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Librariesto grant the Review Board access to donor-restricted material and to re c o rds stored undera deposit agreement to determine whether thematerial contains assassination information.I n i t i a l l y, both presidential libraries were re l u c-tant to release their most closely guard e dre c o rds involving Jacqueline Kennedy, RobertK e n n e d y, and William Manchester. In the caseof both libraries, privacy concerns, as well as

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political motivations, delayed the decision-making process. The Review Board was able tos e c u re the LBJ Library’s agreement to re l e a s ethe Jacqueline B. Kennedy tapes and tran-s c r i p t s ;2 8 obtain William Manchester’s permis-sion to allow a member of the Review Boards t a ff to review his papers on The Death of aP re s i d e n t; and secure the cooperation of the JFKLibrary in approaching the Kennedy familyre g a rding the release of the sealed tapes andtranscripts of Manchester’s interviews withJacqueline B. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy.

a. William Manchester interviews.

Most of William Manchester’s work papersrelating to his work on The Death of a Pre s i d e n ta re stored at the JFK Library under a 1967Deposit A g reement. Of particular historicalvalue are the extensive personal interviews heconducted in the early aftermath of the Pre s i-dent’s death. In contrast to other re c o rds in theCollection that shed light on the assassinationinvestigations, the Manchester interviewsc h ronicle the human side of the story. Man-chester envisioned that The Death of a Pre s i d e n tw o u l d p rovide “one complete, accurateaccount about the assassination,. . . that wouldbe based on material gathered while the mem-ories were still fre s h . ”2 9 The interviews cap-t u red and re c o rded the early recollections andreactions of people closest to Pre s i d e n tKennedy and provide a lens through whichthe tragedy of the event can be seen andunderstood in the context of the times.

Beginning in early 1995, the Review Boardmade repeated attempts to gain access toM a n c h e s t e r’s papers at the JFK Library. InJune 1998, Manchester agreed to allow aReview Board staff member to review hismaterial at the Library. This review re v e a l e dthat, while much of the information Man-chester obtained from the interviews isincorporated into his book, his raw noteswould be of great value and interest tore s e a rchers.

Although Manchester recorded some of hisinterviews on tape, the recordings were notavailable at the Library. Only the writtennotes and/or transcripts of his interviews arein this collection. Furthermore, not all of theinterviews that Manchester referenced in TheDeath of a President are accounted for in thenotebooks and transcripts he deposited in

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the JFK Library. Becauseof their unique historicalvalue, the Review Boardregards these interviewsas highly relevant to theassassination. This out-standing collection ofmaterials should bemade available to thepublic as soon as possi-ble. At this point, how-e v e r, Manchester hasrefused to cooperate andit is unfortunately impos-sible to open the recordswithout his consent.

The tapes and transcripts of William Man-c h e s t e r’s interviews of Robert F. Kennedy andJacqueline B. Kennedy are subject to a 1967legal agreement which states that they werenot to be made public for 100 years “except. . .on the express written consent of plaintiff[Jacqueline B. Kennedy].” With Mrs. Onas-sis’s death, her daughter Caroline Kennedybecame her re p resentative and is the onlyperson with authority to give consent to openthis material.

The Review Board recog-nizes that the interviewshave extraordinary his-torical value and so itpursued this matter withthe JFK Library and withWilliam Manchester. A f t e revaluating whether thethe court order could belifted, the Review Boarddecided to approach Car-oline Kennedy to discussthe possibility of havingthe tapes and transcriptsopened at the KennedyL i b r a r y. Caroline Kennedy wrote to theReview Board in late August 1998, informingthe Board of her decision n o t to release thematerial at this time, nor would she agree toallow one of the Review Board members toreview the material to determine whetherthe tapes contained assassination-re l a t e dm a t e r i a l .

The Review Board was very disappointedthat Caroline Kennedy declined to even allowthe Review Board access to the material. The

The public was curious, a n dthat curiosity could not be sat-isfied without revealing whatwe had decided to omit. At thesame time, some political fig-ures described in the manu-script demanded that they bepresented in glowing terms. Ibalked and refused to makechanges that would falsify his-t o r y .—William Manchester, inDeath of a President

In my view, the Manch e s t e rinterviews have an extraordi-narily unique historical valueand are the most importantrecords not yet released. . . I amhopeful that you might agree torelease the material before theReview Board completes itswork in September so we canhelp manage the release in anappropriate manner.—Hon. John R. Tunheim’s letterto Caroline B. Kennedy

B o a rd hopes that she will agree to publicrelease at a later time.

b. Jacqueline B. Kennedy tapes at the LBJ Library.

T h e re are six re c o rded telephone conversa-tions between Jacqueline B. Kennedy andP resident Johnson within the collection ofp residential re c o rdings at the LBJ Library.The Review Board has worked consistentlywith the LBJ Library to secure their re l e a s e .The LBJ Library was concerned about donorrestrictions associated with the release ofthese tapes. Finally , in March 1998 the LBJLibrary decided to release the six conversa-tions provided that they be opened alongwith the next scheduled release of Pre s i d e n tJohnson’s re c o rdings. The Review Boardunderstands that these tapes will bereleased on September 18, 1998, along withthe release of the August to November 1963re c o rd i n g s .

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J. CONCLUSION

The Review Board examined a large number ofrecords in its efforts to identify additional fed-eral records and information related to theassassination, many of which are not detailedin this report. For every assassination recordthat the Review Board located and included inthe JFK Collection, the staff literally reviewedhundreds of documents. The need to reviewevery file on a document-by-document basismeant that the Review Board simply did nothave time to request additional informationand records on every research lead that itreceived. For those requests that the ReviewBoard staff did make, the Review Board staffteam leaders kept notebooks that documentedthe Review Board staff’s efforts to locate addi-tional records at the FBI, CIA, and Departmentof Defense. To the extent that the public isi n t e rested in finding information on theReview Board’s additional requests, the note-books document which records Review Boardstaff reviewed and which records the ReviewBoard has designated as assassination-related.

CHAPTER 6

PART I: ENDNOTES

1 JFK Act, § 5(c)(2)(H).

2 Chapter 5 of this Report defines the CIA’s Sequestered Collection.

3 In Volume 11 of its report, the HSCA attempted to deal with allegations of a possible mili-tary investigation of Oswald by the Marine Corps following the assassination. Also, some for-mer USMC associates of Oswald have told researchers that they recall civilian investigatorsasking questions about Oswald following his defection in late 1959 or early 1960.

4 The in-person, unsworn interview was tape-recorded, and the three written interviewreports are dated August 5, August 13, and September 16, 1997, respectively.

5 Reeves served in the District Intelligence Office of the San Diego, California 11th NavalDistrict.

6 One of the officers who called Mr. Reeves was Rufus Taylor, who was Director of NavalIntelligence in 1964.

7 The Office of Operations later became the Domestic Contacts Division (DCD) of the Direc-torate of Operations.

8 See the HSCA’s report on Oswald in Mexico City, The Lopez Report, where the subject ofCIA photographic surveillance operations is discussed at length.

9 The Review Board was not able to locate cables or dispatches from the following periods:Mexico City Station to Headquarters (September 26–30, 1963); Headquarters to Mexico CityStation (September 26–30, 1963); JMWAVE to Headquarters (September 26–November 21,1963); Headquarters to JMWAVE (September 26–November 21, 1963); and all traffic betweenthe Mexico City Station and JMWAVE for the periods September 26–October 20, 1963 andNovember 22–December 30, 1963.

10 According to CIA, in the 1960s, offices of record for cable traffic and dispatches did not cre-ate cable and dispatch files for reference collection purposes.

11 Approximately half of the records on Cuba were from 1962 and the other half were from1963. Very few records from 1961 or 1964 were present.

12 The RFK donor committee was established in the 1970s for the purpose of overseeing theprocessing of RFK papers which were held on a deposit agreement at the JFK Library. It tradi-tionally has been comprised of Kennedy family members and scholars and is now headed byMax Kennedy, one of Robert F. Kennedy’s sons.

13 When the Review Board decided in 1996 that it would not object to the JFK Library keep-ing custody of the RFK Cuba-related records, provided that the JFK Library agree to releasethe records, the JFK Library moved to process the records as part of the executive ordermandatory review declassification. Consequently, the Library included the RFK records in thepilot scanning project conducted by CIA, with the stipulation that they be reviewed under JFKAct guidelines. The process was delayed due to a combination of technical problems with thescanning project and a change in leadership of the donor committee following the death ofMichael Kennedy.

14 The CIAmemoranda bear the dates November 23, 1976; August 5, 1977; and November 29,1979.

15 Secret Service Final Declaration of Compliance.

16 OIP Final Declaration of Compliance.

17 Mr. Miller was later subpoenaed by the Review Board, and he had retained numerousrecords from his tenure as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division.

18 Criminal Division Initial Statement of Compliance (dated January 29, 1997).

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19 Dec. 19, 1996, Review Board Letter to Main Treasury.

20 Main Treasury Final Declaration ¶ 10.

21 Id. ¶ 19.

22 In the early 1960s, the Technical Services Division (TSD), was a part of the Directorate ofPlans (now the Directorate of Operations). Later administrative shifts moved TSD (renamedthe Office of Technical Service) to the DS&T and the files of the relocated office were incorpo-rated into the DS&T system.

23 The FBI had only designated for processing under the JFK Act sections 17–18 and 20–37 ofthe Giancana file. Section 17 of the file began with the year 1963, and so the FBI had not des-ignated for processing any volumes of records that predated January 1, 1963.

24 Robert Blakey and Richard Billings, Fatal Hour (1981); Anthony Summers, Conspiracy503–504 (1980); Gerald Posner, Case Closed 459–460 (1993); John H. Davis, Mafia Kingfish,519–524 (1989); Ronald Goldfarb, Did the Mob Kill JFK?, Washington Post, Dec. 10, 1995 at C3:1.

2 5 When the FBI determines that electronic surveillance is a necessary component of a partic-ular investigation, the FBI goes to a federal court and obtains authorization pursuant to Title IIIto establish the surveillance. Title III operates to automatically place a l l materials obtained fro mthe overhear under court seal. Then, if the U.S. Attorney wants to use the tapes in a pro s e c u-tion, they have to petition the federal court to have the seal lifted only for the portions of thetapes that will be played at trial. The practical effect of this pro c e d u re is that everything that isn o t played at trial remains under seal. Thus, in order for the Review Board staff to obtain accessto the BriLab surveillance, it had to move to unseal the materials for the purpose of its re v i e w.Then, when the Review Board staff located assassination re c o rds within the BriLab materials, itrequested the Title III court to unseal the re c o rds for the purpose of public disclosure.

26 The Worker newspaper, to which Oswald subscribed, often mentioned Abt.

27 Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos, Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years At Lockheed. NewYork: Little Brown, and Company. 1994.

28 Scheduled to be released on September 18, 1998.

29 William Manchester, Foreward to The Death of a President, Harper & Row, Publishers, NewYork, p. ix–x.