Captions on U2 Photos of Cuba

 

Did Oswald Place Captions on U2 Photos at Jaggers-Chiles-Stoval?

In the course of the Cuban Missile Crisis, much of it recorded for posterity, President Kennedy asks about the briefing maps, how the captions, arrows and circles were placed on them, and how many maps were printed.

In The Kennedy Tapes – Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis (Edited by E. May and P. Zelikow; Belknap Press, Harvard, 1997), “Kennedy was in the Cabinet Room with his 5-year old daughter, Caroline, when the advisors filed in, accompanied by Arthur Lundahl from NPIC [National Photo Interpretation Center], and another CIA expert, Sidney Graybeal. CIA as a whole was represented by Acting Director Marshall Carter. McCone was on the West Coast, arranging the burial of his stepson. As Caroline left and the meeting began, Kennedy turned on the tape recorder…..”

President Kennedy: What is this map?

Carter: That shows the circular range capability….

Kennedy: Well, I was just wondering whether San Diego de los Banos is where these missles are.

Carter: Yes, sir.

Kennedy: Well, I wonder how many of these [maps] have been printed out.

Bundy: The circle is drawn in red ink on the map, Mr. President.

Kennedy: Oh, I see. It was never printed?

Carter: No, that’s on top.

Kennedy: I see, it isn’t printed...

At Allen Dulles Airport a public display on the U2 (circa 1996) included a mock up of the U2 airplane and some photographs taken during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which John Judge noticed included the typed reference at the bottom in small print:
“Photo Courtesy of Jaggers-Chiles-Stoval.”

From: Legend The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald By Edward Jay Epstein (Readers Digest Press, , 1978) p.189-197

Chapter XI – The Underground Man

“On October 7, 1962, George DeMohrenschildt called his 18 year old daughter, Alexandra, and invited her and her husband to meet a young American who had just returned from Russia. His name was Lee Harvey Oswald, and he lived in Fort Worth with his Russian wife and daughter, who was almost the same age as Alexandra’s son. DeMohrenschildt said that he was going that afternoon to the Van Cliburn competition in Fort Worth – in which four Soviet pianists were taking part – and suggested that they all meet afterwards at the Oswald’s apartment on Mercedes Street.”

“...When Alexandra and Gary arrived at the Oswald’s apartment that afternoon, they found an odd assortment of people gathered in the living room. There was Oswald, sitting silently in a T-shirt and slacks, looking slightly contemptuously at the others who were discussing his future, and Marina,…(who) was talking in Russian to Elena Hall, the dental technician who had arranged dental treatment for her at a clinic in Dallas, and Anna Meller, another member of the Russian community... Oswald’s mother was also in the room...She seemed to have the impression that DeMohrenschildt had already arranged a job for her son in Dallas, and that was why he had suddenly decided to leave Fort Worth.”

“Oswald had precipitated the immediate crisis by saying that he had been fired from his job at Leslie Welding in Fort Worth (in fact, he not only was still employed, but was looked on with favor at Leslie Welding.)…..As far as Gary Taylor could see, DeMohrenschildt was clearly the leader in planning Oswald’s move to Dallas….Anna Meller knew someone who worked for the Texas Employment Commission. While Oswald looked for work, Marina could stay with the Taylors in Dallas or the Halls in Fort Worth. And until they found an apartment in Dallas, the Oswalds’ furtniture could be stored in the Hall’s garage.”

“...The next evening Oswald left his apartment and made his way to Dallas. No one, not even Marina, was to know his precise whereabouts in Dallas for the next month. He had told some friends that he was staying at the Carleton Boarding House, but as Marina realized at the time, that was a lie meant to conceal his real place of residence. He was now, as he hiself later wrote in a letter, ‘underground.’” [1]

“...On Tuesday, October 9, Oswald went to the offices of the Texas Employment Commission. He was immaculately dressed in a dark business suit, white shirt and tie. He asked to see Helen Cunningham, a counselor with the commission. Anna Meller’s husband [BK – a Fort Worth attorney and former head of security for Convair Aircraft Co. division of General Dynamics] had already called Mrs. Cunningham, who was a friend of his, and asked her to help Oswald get a job…Mrs. Cunningham found Oswald ‘self-contained, able…and entirely presentable as far as grooming and appearance were concerned.’ Oswald explained that he had had some photographic experience in the Marine Corps and preferred to find a position where he could use that skill.”

“Mrs. Cunningham turned him over to Louise Latham, a job placement expert who specialized in the sort of clerical-photographic work in which Oswald seemed most interested. Latham was also impressed with Oswald. She recalls: ‘Lee had finesse. E was very mannerly...He was the kind of person who would come around and pull my chair out at the desk, or light a cigarette for someone…He was quiet, a good thinker…and beautifully groomed.’”

“She first sent Oswald to an architectural firm that had an opening for a messenger…he failed to get the job because he told them that he wanted something with an opportunity for advancement. The employment commission’s records note that Oswald returned to them and was then sent on October 11 for an interview at Jaggers-Chiles-Stoval (JCS), a large typesetting firm in Dallas.”

“When Oswald met John Graef, the director of the company’s photographic department, he again made a very effective first impression. He looked clean-cut and eager for the job. When asked about his last job, he explained that he had been a Marine. ‘Honorably discharged, of course,’ Graef said half-jokingly. ‘Oh, yes,’ Oswald replied, mentioning his service in the Far East.”

“The interview lasted only fifteen minutes. Later that day Oswald learned that he had the job as a photo-print trainee.”

“The next day Oswald reported to work in the ‘print shop’ in downtown Dallas. He filled out an employee identification questionnaire, in which he gave Gary Taylor’s address and phone number as his own. The foreman, Leonard Calverley, took Oswald to the phototypesetting department, where he would begin by learning how to use the various cameras and reproduction equipment. It was to be a six-day-a-week job, for which he would be paid $1.35 an hour.”

“The main business of Jaggars-Chiles-Stoval was preparing printing mattes for newspapers, magazines, catalogues and advertising agencies in the Southwest. This required reducing photographs in size, phototypesetting typescript and using sophisticated lenses and equipment to arrange advertising displays and charts.”

“Jaggers-Chiles-Stoval also had a contract with the Army Map Service to set the typescript for its maps. Although the maps themselves were not on the premises, this was nevertheless highly classified work. For one thing, the maps were made from secret aerial photographs presumably taken from spy satellites, U2 planes and other forms of clandestine reconnaissance. For another, the lists of names of cities and areas in the Soviet Union, China and Cuba which were being set, themselves provide clues to the targets of these reconnaissance missions.”

“Like all other employees of the typesetting department, Oswald had complete access to the worktables on which the secret lists of place-names for the Army Map Service were kept. In theory, these were supposed to be ‘restricted areas’ in which only employees with a security clearance from the FBI were allowed to be present. In fact, however, little effort was made to enforce these restrictions. There were no guards or security measures which prevented employees from entering the areas in which the classified work was done….It was even possible, according to Calverly, for employees to use the cameras in the plant to reproduce the list of names.”

“...The employees of JCS set the long lists of geographical names, which came from the Army Map Service, on three-inch strips of paper. Some of these names were written in Cryrillic characters and identified Russian cities; others appeared to be Chinese names. And in the fresh batch of names that arrived almost daily some of the employees began to notice the appearance of odd-sounding Cuban names on the list.”

“At CIA headquarters in Langley, photo analysts were receiving a similar set of Cuban place-names on the latest batch of U2 photographs from Cuba. Throughout the first two weeks of October intelligence reports had indicated that the Soviets were constructing concrete bunkers and installing electronic equipment at sites in Cuba under conditions of extraordinary secrecy. Hence the U2 overflights. Then, on October 14, the U2 planes focusing on the area around San Cristobal in eastern Cuba photographed newly built structures which could be unmistakably identified as missile launchers for intermediate range missiles. Every city within the eastern part of the United States would be vulnerable to these missiles, when operational. On receiving this ominous report, President Kennedy summoned an emergency meeting of the National Security Council. The Cuban Missile Crisis had begun.”

“At JCS, Oswald was taught how to operate such highly specialized photographic equipment as distortion cameras, phototypesetters and Robertson vertical cameras. He was shown how to reproduce perfectly a pictorial display, then to reduce or distort it with optical lenses so that I fitted perfectly on a standard-size printing mat. Soon he became proficient at such techniques as line modifications, blowups, reverses and minaturizations, as he himself noted in an autobiographical sketch that he wrote some months later in New Orleans.”

“Oswald used these skills to forge identification papers for himself at JCS under the alias A.J. Hidell, including a fake Selective Service Card and Certificate of Service in the Marines. (He also provided himself with a bogus license under the name O.H. Lee.)”

“He found that his knowledge of Russian came in handy in the ‘print shop.’ He offered on at least one occasion to translate the Cyrillic symbols on a list that was being prepared for the Army Map Service and explained to the foreman of the section working on this classified material that these were Russian place-names. This exchange was observed by one of Oswald’s fellow workers, Jack Bowen, who also noticed that Oswald kept an ‘old red book on Russian’ in his desk.”

“Oswald also couldn’t resist impressing Dennis Hyman Ofstein, who had taught him how to use some of the photographic equipment, with his fluent Russian. Ofstein, who was about the same age as Oswald, had learned Russian himself when he served in the Army Security Agency (the predecessor to the National Security Agency). He was, however, not nearly as proficient in the language as Oswald and therefore tried to practice it by speaking to him in Russian during the working hours.”

“Oswald was initially closemouthed about himself and volunteered little more than he had been a Marine who had served in Japan. Then he asked Ofstein to help him blow up an odd-looking photograph he had brought into the shop. It showed a river in the foreground and an interesting-looking building in the background. When Ofstein asked whether this was a picture Oswald had taken during his tour of Japan, Oswald answered, ‘No, it wasn’t in Japan.’ Then he changed the subject, as he generally did when he didn’t want to answer a question.”

“A short while later Oswald told Ofstein that the picture had been taken in Minsk, Russia. The building in the picture was a military headquarters, which was tightly guarded by soldiers who had orders to shoot to kill any trespassers, Oswald said….Little by little Oswald told Ofstein more about his stay in the Soviet Union. He said that the MVD secret police had one of their headquarter buildings in Minsk. He mentioned that he had traveled within the Soviet Union and spent one May Day in Moscow observing Soviet military equipment on parade....Oswald casually revealed to Ofstein that he had married a ‘White Russian’ while he was in Minsk.”

“As they grew friendlier, Oswald asked Ofstein if he knew what the term ‘microdot’ meant...Oswald then explained that it was a technique used in espionage. A mass of documents could be reduced through a special photographic process literally to a dot which could be hidden ‘under a postage stamp.’ Spies used such microdots for sending data…In his personal address book, next to the entry for Jaggers-Chiles-Stoval, Oswald carefully wrote the word ‘microdot,’ connecting the place where he worked with a basic technique of espionage. Some eight months after Oswald left JCS, the FBI conducted an investigation of his employment there. Agents showed his fellow workers a photograph of a leather pouch that they believed Oswald might have used to conceal a miniature camera, but no one recalled seeing Oswald with either the pouch or the camera.” [6]

“...During the first month at JCS, Oswald saw very little of Marina. DeMohrenschildt attempted to find a separate home for her. He first arranged for her to stay at his daughter’s apartment. Then, after staying one night at DeMohrenschildt’s own house, Marina moved to Elena Hall’s house for most of October (She had the house to herself for a week when Mrs. Hall was hospitalized after an automobile accident.)”

“...On Sunday, October 21, Marina invited Gali and Max Clark over to the Hall’s house for a Russian dinner which she cooked herself. Gali Clark, whose family had been Russian aristocrats before the Revolution, had come over almost every day to help Marina shop and look after her baby.”

“...Before visiting Marina the next weekend, Oswald stopped over at DeMohrenschildt’s home. Only days before, the United States and the Soviet Union had moved to the brink of war over the issue of the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba. Another U2 had been shot down over Cuba. But Khruschchev had finally backed down and agreed to remove the missiles. DeMohrenschildt seemed relieved that war had been averted and spoke for a while to Oswald.” [8]

“...The next week, after work at JCS, he found an apartment on Elsbeth Street in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. It was on the ground floor of a Tudor brick building and had three small rooms. It also had both a front and a back entrance. The rent was $68 a month…”

[Note: Other than four days at the YMCA, it is unknown where Oswald maintained his residence or slept during Oct. 1962]

Oswald in October, 1962 -

- October – 1 – George DeMohrenschildet takes Marina and baby to visit Adml. Chester Bruton, an executive at Collins Radio; Oswald shows up later in the day and DeMohrenschildet suggests Oswald get a job at Collins.

- Oct. – 1 - Mississippi – Gen. E. Walker arrested for “insurrection” & placed under psychiatric examination. (BA)

- Oct. 1 – Texas – Walker associate arrested with arsenal.

- Oct. 1 – N.O., La. – Dallas, Tx. – David Ferrie calls Belcher Oil Co., Dallas. (PW)

- Oct. 5 – N.O., La. – Dallas, Tx. – David Ferrie calls Belcher Oil. Co., Dallas (PW)

- Oct. 7 – 8 -? - Ft. Worth – Oswald leaves Leslie Welding Co. job because hours are reduced; total take $500.

- Oct. 7 – Ft. Worth – Oswald meets with George DeMohrenschildt, Gary and Alexandra Taylor, Elena Hall and Anna Meller, George Bouhe.

- Oct. 8 – 10 - Ft. Worth – Dallas – George DeMohrenschildt helps Oswalds move (BA) from Mercedes St. to Elana Hall’s house (AA).

- Oct. 8 – Jean LeGon DeMohrenschildt takes Marina to Baylor Dental Clinic. (BA)

- Oct. 9 – Oswald interviewed at Texas Employment Commission. (BA)

- Oct. 9 – Yale Prof. F. Barghoorn meets V. Petrof in USSR. ? 9BA)

- Oct. 9 – 10 ? - Oswald obtains P.O. Box 2915. (AA) (BA)

- Oct. 10 – Oswald tested for aptitude by Texas Employment Commission (AA) – [bright enough for college]

- Oct. 10 – Jean LeGon deMohrenschildt takes Marina to Baylor Dental Clinic. (BA)

- Oct. 11 – Oswald referred to Jaggers-Chiles-Stoval. (BA)

- Oct. 11 – Florida – Cuba – Alpha 66 raid on Cuba.

- Oct. 12 – Dallas – Oswald gets job a JCS.

- Oct. 14 – U2 recon flight over Cuba spots missile site construction.

- Oct. 15 – 18 – Oswald stays at Rm. 415 at YMCA on North Ervay, Dallas (Joe McRee, Mgr.-BA)

- Oct. 16 – Oswald’s daughter June baptized. (BA)

- Oct. 16 – D.C. – Kennedy Act taxes oil profits from abroad.

- Oct. 16 – Barghoorn and Petrov meet in USSR. (BA)

- Oct. 18 – N.O. – Tx – Ferrie calls Belcher Oil Co., Dallas.

- Oct. 22 – Moscow, USSR – Col. Oleg Penkovsky arrested for espionage; his contact Dr. Alexis Davidson.

- Oct. 22 – DC – Havana – Moscow – Cuban Missile Crisis.

- Oct. 27 – DeMohrenschildt meets with Oswald; shows movie of walk through Central America.

- Oct. ? – Ocean City, Maryland ? – LBJ visits Bobby Baker’s Carousel resort motel.

- Oct.? – Cuba – Fla. – John Martino released from Cuban prison. (LH)

- Oct. 30 – Dallas, Tx. – Oswald applies for membership in Socialist Workers Party.

- Oct. 30 – Fla. – D.C. – Task Force W. operations halted; William Harvey complains to RFK (LH)

- Oct. 31 – Halloween, Prescott Bush to Allen Dulles, “I still feel deeply worried about this Cuban situation.” (BA)

- Oct. 31 – David Atlee Phillip’s Birthday [“Maurice Bishop directs Antonio Veciana and Alpha 66 to attack Soviet merchant ships in Havana harbor…during the height of the Cuban missile crisis.- LH]


BA: Bruce Campbell Adamson – JFK Assassination Timeline Chart – (circa 1995)
PW: Peter Whitmey – Fourth Deacde Journal.
AA: Assassination Almanac – Tom Miller
LH: Larry Hancock Chronology – (unpublished)

Warren Commission Hearings, Volume XXIII
Current Section: CE 1850 - Lee Harvey Oswald's daily timesheets for October 12-31, 1962, when he was employed by Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, Inc.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1139&relPageId=562

PLEASE NOTE THAT ONCE OSWALD RELOCATED TO NEW ORLEANS HE BEGAN TO RECEIVE UNEMPLOYMENT CHECKS THAT HE EARNED WHILE WORKING AT jcs, SO HE WASN'T FIRED AND jcs in effect, bankrolled his FPCC summer in New Orleans. -