As every reporter and research analyst knows, whenever a major news story breaks - like Watergate, 9/11, or a political assassination, the first thing you do is begin a NAME FILE of individual players involved in the story, and a detailed chronology of every event that comes into play.
As for the JFK Assassination, Ira David Woods, III has put together the best and most complete chronology, and here's what he has for September 1963, which I am using to analyze the Higgins Memo minutes of the meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on September 25, 1963.
JFK Assassination Chronology
Ira David Woods, III
September - 1963
Antonio Veciana claims "Maurice Bishop"
introduces him to Lee Harvey Oswald at a meeting in Dallas this month. David
Atlee Phillips, is running the CIA's covert operations out of its Mexico City
station. It has long been speculated that Phillips is really "Maurice
Bishop", who is eventually identified by exile leader Veciana, speaking to
Congressional investigators in 1978, as his CIA case officer, involved in
numerous assassination plots against Castro. Although Phillips' physical
description is a near-match for that provided by Veciana, the exile has never
positively identify Phillips as "Bishop". Phillips, who will die in
1988, denied using the alias or working with Veciana.
Also this month, FBI (Philadelphia) AIRTEL to J.
Edgar Hoover regarding Marcello informant’s report on the New Orleans incident
(three men, including the “professor,” discussing a rifle ad, and President’s
coming south).
A September 1963 FBI teletype reports that a
discussion of such a plot has been overheard in March 1963. Supposedly this
information is also sent by AIRTEL to the Dallas and Miami CACs. And yet, no
such threat will be found in the Secret Service’s PRS file for Dallas prior to
the President’s ill-fated trip. AOT
September 2, 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald reportedly
visits his uncles, Charles Murret in New Orleans on this day. Otherwise, Oswald
has not been seen by anyone since August 21. He will not publicly resurface
again until September 17. It is further alleged by Elena Garro that LHO and
Silvia Duran attend a twist party at Ruban Duran’s home on either this date or
tomorrow. (This is a month earlier than LHO’s known visit to Mexico City.)
LHO’s presence is indicated only by visits to the employment office, the
cashing of unemployment checks, and the withdrawal of library books. However,
the FBI is able to authenticate LHO’s signature on hardly any of the
unemployment documents. Of the seventeen firms where LHO says he applies for
work, thirteen deny it, and four do not even exist.
The CBS Evening News goes from fifteen minutes a
night to thirty on this date. Walter Cronkite, CBS anchorman, flies this
morning from New York to Hyannis Port to film an interview with JFK for the
expanded broadcast. JFK intends to play off Cronkite’s questions in order to
put pressure on Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu. It is during this broadcast that JFK
says: “I don’t think that unless a greater effort is made by the government to
win popular support that the war can be won out there.” “In the final analysis,
it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help
them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers,
but they have to win it, the people of Vietnam, against the Communists . . .
And, in my opinion, in the last two months, the government has gotten out of
touch with the people.” During the fall of this year, JFK talks to Charles
Bartlett about who will be President in 1968. Bartlett finds him “apprehensive”
about the prospect of RFK running against LBJ. “Jack talked about how ‘68 was
going to be a contest between Bobby and Lyndon Johnson, and I don’t think he
took cordially to it at all.”
September 3, 1963 Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance,
RFK’s Army representative on the Cuban Coordination Committee (CCC), writes a
memo listing various options available to the administration in dealing with
Castro. The list includes “Bribing, embarrassing, blackmailing, assassinating,
coercing and kidnapping leaders.”
September 6, 1963 Harold Tannenbaum arrives in
Dallas and stays at Jack Ruby’s apartment. Tannenbaum is supposedly looking for
employment in Dallas.
NOTE: From May until September, Jack Ruby averages
twenty-five to thirty-five calls per month. During October and November, he
places more than seventy toll calls. The number reaches nearly one hundred the
first three weeks of November. Also on this date, Manuel Rodriguez registers as
alien in Dallas and sets up a local chapter of Alpha 66. Las Vegas Review
Courier publishes a collumn attacking J. Edgar Hoover for FBI methods used in a
local case. The article accuses him of being a demagogue. Meanwhile, the FBI
sends the first of three reports this month to CIA regarding LHO’s latest
activities. AOT
During this month, Richard Case Nagell alleges he realizes that
much of his intelligence work has not been for the CIA but for a foreign
nation. He decides against proposal made to him to participate in criminal
offense against the United States. Nagell then contacts FBI in New Orleans,
using “Kramer” alias.
September 7, 1963 Rolando Cubela, (CIA code name:
AM/LASH), a former assassin for Castro during the revolution, and now an
official in his government, meets with a CIA case officer in Brazil. Cubela
explains that he wants to overthrow Castro and has an elaborate plan to murder
him. Cubela is told that American interest in getting rid of Castro and his
government remains high. Cubela wants assurances of U.S. interest and states
that he is prepared to move against Castro once he has this assurance. In
Havana, Cuba, this same evening, Fidel Castro buttonholes Daniel Harker, a
reporter for the Associated Press, and gives him a three-hour interview.
Castro’s purpose seems to be to let the U.S. know that he will “answer in kind”
any attempt to murder Cuban leaders. “United States leaders should thing that
if they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves
will not be safe.”
NOTE: It has been suggested that Rolando Cubela
might have been working as a double agent, supplying Castro with the
information he had gleaned concerning CIA murder plots against the Cuban
leader. This Labor Day weekend, JFK writes and briefly acts in a home movie.
While a White House photographer’s camera is rolling, JFK disembarks from the
“Honey Fitz,” the family’s yacht, and walks down a pier at the Rhode Island
estate of his wife’s parents. Suddenly, he clutches his chest and falls to the
boards. Jackie and a visitor casually step over him, as if he isn’t there. Paul
Fay, an Undersecretary of the Navy and JFK’s buddy from World War II, then
falls on JFK’s body, sending a gush of red liquid spurting from the President’s
mouth. The few lines of dialogue have never been revealed. For twenty years,
this film’s existence is kept secret.
September 9, 1963 Eugene Hale Brading, an ex-convict
suspected of having ties with organized crime in Southern California has a new
driver’s license made for himself today, in the name of Jim Braden.
(Immediately following JFK’s assassination a man named Jim Braden will be
arrested and taken in for interrogation because he had been in the Dal-Tex
Building, overlooking Dealey Plaza, without a good excuse.)
September 10, 1963 The FBI sends a second report to
CIA on LHO’s recent activities. AOT
September 11, 1963 Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge,
eighteen days after his arrival in Vietnam, cables: “The time has come for the
U.S. to use what effective sanctions it has to bring about the fall of the
existing government.” This refers to the Diem regime. In response to the cable,
JFK calls a meeting for 6:00 this afternoon. During this meeting, advocates for
a coup fail to get strong presidential support.
September 12, 1963 A committee designated by the
Special Group meets today for a “brainstorming session” concerning Castro’s
recent public threat of reprisals against American leaders. The committee
concludes that although “there was a strong likelihood that Castro would
retaliate in some way . . .” it would probably be at “a low level.” The
specific possibility of “attacks against U.S. officials” is assumed to be
“unlikely.” Robert Morrow alleges in his book First Hand Knowledge that CIA
staff meet today to determine whether to use Rolando Cubela for an
assassination mission against Fidel Castro. There are those who now favor the
opinion that Cubela is a Castro plant. Washington Post reports on a
breach-of-contract suit against Bobby Baker. This development presumably makes
LBJ nervous. The Bobby Baker scandal is about to break. AOT
September 13, 1963 The New Orleans newspapers
confirm that JFK will make a one - day visit to Texas on either November 21 or
22. Dallas Times Herald prints the first unofficial report that JFK will
include Dallas in his November Texas itinerary. AOT Federal parole officer Sam
Barrett approves Eugene Brading’s request to go to Texas. He leaves via plane
today for Houston where he supposedly spends the next ten days. (Note the fact
that both Ferrie and Ruby will also appear in Houston in the coming months.)
AOT RFK is in North Dakota where he tells a gathering of Indian tribes that
their treatment by the Federal government is a national disgrace. RK
September 14, 1963 From Porto Alegre, Rolando Cubela
flies to Paris. He is there ostensibly to attend the Alliance Francaise, but
actually to take an extended vacation - of which he plans to inform Fidel
Castro only after the fact. September 15, 1963 Perry Russo, a young insurance
agent and acquaintance of David Ferrie attends a party at Ferrie’s apartment.
There Ferrie introduces him to a “Leon Oswald,” whom Russo will later be unable
to positively identify as being Lee Harvey Oswald. Russo maintains that, after
a long night of drinking, Ferrie, “Leon”, several anti-Castro Cubans, and a
tall, distinguished-looking, white-haired man introduced as “Clem Bertrand”
[most probably Clay Shaw] begin discussing how to assassinate Castro. After the
Cubans leave, Ferrie reportedly begins pacing the room, a perpetual mug of
coffee in his hand, talking of a plan to get rid of JFK and blame it on Castro.
He speaks of a “triangulation of crossfire” as the best means to assassinate
the president. (Richard Case Nagell maintains that Leon Oswald was not Lee
Harvey Oswald. He says that, a few days after this party, Leon Oswald was
eliminated. Who eliminated Leon Oswald, Nagell would not say. But since
Nagell’s orders to eliminate the real Oswald came from the KGB, it would make
sense it was the Soviets’ mistake.)
September 16, 1963 The CIA advises the FBI that the
“Agency is giving some consideration to countering the activities of [the Fair
Play For Cuba Committee ] in foreign countries.” The CIA specifically wants the
FPCC’s foreign mailing list and other documents sent over by the FBI.
Also, on this day a signature appears in a registry
of a restaurant in Hubertus, Wisconsin.
It is that of Lee Harvey Oswald. Not
long after JFK’s assassination, two deputies will say that they turn over a box
of Oswald’s personal papers to Texas D.A. Henry Wade, among which is a paper
with a reference to a planned assassination attempt on JFK in Wisconsin during
the dedication of a lake or dam in the fall of 1963. The FBI will later reject
the signature as that of Oswald and this subject will receive little attention
outside of Wisconsin.
An Interoffice Memo from Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
to JFK states: “Maury Maverick, Jr. writes that there “is a terrible fight
going on down here in Texas and, to mention a highly delicate subject, this is
true between Sen. Yarborough and the Vice President ... as a private in the
rear ranks of the Democratic party I deeply recommend that Yarborough be on the
President’s plane. He also writes that Henry Gonzales and some prominent Texas
black be included in the group. He closed with the observation that we “should put
Bobby Kennedy in the back of the plane with a whip in his hand to make
everybody act nice.”
September 17, 1963 CIA operative William George
Gaudet gets a visa to go to Mexico along with an alleged Lee Harvey Oswald.
Gaudet’s office is a “stone’s throw” from Guy Banisters office 544 Camp Street
in New Orleans.
Richard Case Nagell departs New Orleans en route to
El Paso, Texas.
LHO visits Mexican consulate general in the Whitney
Building, New Orleans, and fills out an application for a tourist card. AOT
Also on this day Ambassador Syedou Diallo of Guinea
in West Africa brings word to William Attwood, then a special advisor to the
United States delegation to the United Nations and a former U.S. ambassador to
Guinea, that Castro wants to reach some sort of understanding with the Kennedy
administration. This leads to secret meetings aimed at normalizing relations
between the U.S. and Cuba. This drive proceeds until 3 days after JFK’s
assassination, when LBJ, informed of the move, turns a cold shoulder.
September 19, 1963 JFK takes a phone call today from
Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson. Stevenson is reporting that,
through an obscure African diplomat, Fidel Castro has expressed interest in
reaching some sort of accommodation with the United States. Castro, it is
reported, is unhappy about the way Cuba is becoming tied to the Soviet Union,
and is looking for a way out. JFK gives his approval and appoints William
Attwood as a go-between. JFK has two conditions: on no account must it appear
the the United States has solicited the discussions. And the contact is to be
informal and top secret. Authur Schlesinger will eventually say: “Undoubtedly
if word leaked of President Kennedy’s efforts, that might have been exactly the
kind of thing to trigger some explosion of fanatical violence. It seems to me a
possibility not to be excluded.” (NIYL)
September 20, 1963 Richard Case Nagell gets himself
arrested by firing two shots inside the State National Bank of El Paso. Mexican
tourist cards for “Hidel” (Oswald) and “JKramer” are concealed in his luggage.
Nagell is a CIA contract agent and KGB operative. Nagell will eventually say
that he was assigned by the Soviets to prevent the assassination of JFK by
killing Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City. Instead, he pulls himself out of what
he believes to be a web of deceit by having himself arrested.
September 20, 1963 Ruth Paine arrives in New Orleans. LHO on best
behavior; supports idea of Marina going back to Texas with Ruth.
[BK Notes: For Marina to accompany Ruth Paine to Texas to have the baby was previously arranged via mail, when Ruth Paine asked Marina to write to her in care of Arthur Young of suburban Philadelphia. Arthur Young is the inventor of the Bell Helicopter, married to Ruth Forbes Paine Young, Michael Paine's mother. After visiting the Youngs, Ruth Paine picked up Marina, the daughter and their belongings, including Oswald's belongings, and drove them to Texas while Oswald ostensibly went to Mexico.]
[BK Notes: For Marina to accompany Ruth Paine to Texas to have the baby was previously arranged via mail, when Ruth Paine asked Marina to write to her in care of Arthur Young of suburban Philadelphia. Arthur Young is the inventor of the Bell Helicopter, married to Ruth Forbes Paine Young, Michael Paine's mother. After visiting the Youngs, Ruth Paine picked up Marina, the daughter and their belongings, including Oswald's belongings, and drove them to Texas while Oswald ostensibly went to Mexico.]
September 21,1963 JFK writes to McNamara (Sec. of
Defense) saying: “The events in South Vietnam since May 1963 have now raised
serious questions both about the present prospects for success against the Viet
Cong and still more about the future effectiveness of this effort.” JFK and
Mrs. Kennedy spend the afternoon aboard the White House yacht Honey Fitz. AOT
[BK Notes: (Not in Wood's Chronology) September 23, 1963 - JFK signs NSAM drawn up by McGeorge Bundy that gives the highest national security priority to Project Four Leaves, which is described as a military communications system. The only known source of this is the virtual Oval Office desk diary at the JFK Presidential Library web site. ]
[BK Notes: (Not in Wood's Chronology) September 23, 1963 - JFK signs NSAM drawn up by McGeorge Bundy that gives the highest national security priority to Project Four Leaves, which is described as a military communications system. The only known source of this is the virtual Oval Office desk diary at the JFK Presidential Library web site. ]
September 23, 1963 Oswald allegedly visits the
Soviet embassy in Mexico City and meets with Valery Vladimirovich Kostikov. The
CIA says Kostikov is known to be a staff officer of the KGB. He is connected with
the Thirteenth, or “liquid affairs” department, whose responsibilities include
assassination and sabotage. According to Col. Oleg Maximovich Nechiporenko, who
was present in the Soviet Embassy: “Throughout his story, Oswald was extremely
agitated and clearly nervous, especially whenever he mentioned the FBI, but he
suddenly became hysterical, began to sob, and through his tears cried, ‘I am
afraid ... they’ll kill me. Let me in!’ Repeating over and over that he was
being persecuted and that he was being followed even here in Mexico, he stuck
his right hand into the left pocket of his jacket and pulled out a revolver,
saying, ‘See? This is what I must now carry to protect my life.”
NOTE: Just days prior to LHO’s visit to Mexico City,
the CIA’s David Atlee Phillips is promoted to grade 15 and assigned new duties
as Chief of Cuban Operations, Mexico City. LHO also visits the Cuban Embassy
while in Mexico. Phillips has been working as a government service employee at
level GS-14 since 1955. He was assigned to the CIA station in Mexico just this
month. (PROBE Sept.- Oct. 1999)
Also on this day, on orders from JFK, Secretary
McNamara and General Maxwell Taylor, Chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff,
leave for Viet Nam to evaluate the prospects of winning the war there.
Lisa Howard, a reporter for ABC News who has
interviewed Castro in Havana (and has been to bed with him) gives a small
cocktail party at her Manhattan apartment. Ambassador William Attwood and
Carlos Lechuga (Cuban delegate to the U.N.) are there, and - at a discreet
distance from the other guests - talk cautiously for half an hour. Attwood says
he will be glad to talk with Fidel Castro if the invitation comes from Havana.
Ruth Paine and Marina Oswald leave New Orleans today, bound for Irving, Texas.
LHO leaves his apartment either this evening or the following evening. He puts
in a change-ofaddress card, forwarding all mail to the Paines in Irving. AOT
September 24, 1963 JFK’s Limited Test Ban passes the
Senate today. Eleven Democrats are opposed -- all Southerners, except for the
maverick conservative Frank Lausche of Ohio. Eight Republicans are opposed --
all Westerners, except for Margaret Chase Smith of Maine. Ted Sorensen feels
that “no other accomplishment in the White House ever gave Kennedy greater
satisfaction.” The Limited Test Ban never fulfills JFK’s and Khrushchev’s
hopes. The treaty reduces the amount of strontium 90 in the atmosphere, but its
failure to stop all forms of nuclear testing keeps it from throwing a serious
damper on the nuclear arms race.
JFK departs for Wisconsin this day and makes a
speech in Ashland, Wisconsin as part of a nationwide conservation tour. It has
been speculated that an assassination attempt was to be made during this visit.
Lee Harvey Oswald’s name is later found in a Wisconsin hotel registry. The
signature is later determined not to be LHO’s.
LHO is seen by a neighbor leaving his apartment in
New Orleans with two suitcases. FBI (SOG) sends yet another report to CIA on
the latest activities of LHO. Note also, between now and the assassination LHO,
or someone resembling him, will be seen a number to times in the company of a
Latin man. AOT William Attwood meets in Washington today with Robert Kennedy -
concerning Fidel Castro’s desire for discussions (and better relations) with
the U.S. Also today, Alex Rorke and copilot Geoffrey Sullivan leave Miami in a
rented twinengine Beechcraft heading for Honduras for a “lobster-hauling
business deal.” This same day, they arrive in Merida, Mexico. (Alex Rorke is a
photographer, journalist, pilot, rabid anti-Communist, former FBI employee and
the wealthy son-in-law of Sherman Billingsley, the celebrity owner of New
York’s famous Stork Club. Rorke also works closely with Miami millionaire
William Pawley, the ultra rightwinger who fronts and funds a number of Agency
operations.)
September 25, 1963 On this day, as Oswald is
supposed to be somewhere between New Orleans and Mexico on a bus, a person
claiming to be Harvey Oswald presents himself at the Selective Service office
in Austin, Texas. He is there for thirty minutes discussing what he might do
about his dishonorable discharge from the Marine Corps.
In Mexico, a O. H. Lee
registers at the Hotel del Comercio, a meeting place for anti-Castro Cuban
exiles.
Sometime between eight in the morning and noon, LHO cashes a Texas
unemployment check at a Winn-Dixie store at 4303 Magazine Street in New
Orleans. AOT
On the bus to Mexico City, Oswald reportedly sits next to a man
identified as Albert Osborne, an elderly itinerant preacher. Albert Osborne is
really John (“Jack”) Bowen as he finally admits to the FBI. (When Oswald is
captured following the assassination, we are told he had a library card in his
wallet with Jack L. Bowen’s name on it This card later disappeared from the evidence.)
Later, when three “tramps” are arrested in Dealey
Plaza immediately following JFK’s assassination, one of the names used by the
older tramp will be “Albert Alexander Osborne.” He will also use the name
“Howard Bowen.” LHO is seen in a Dallas bus station at 6 PM today.
There is also credible testimony that LHO is
interviewed at a Selective Service office in Austin, Texas today - between 1:05
PM and 1:35 PM. If there is not an Oswald impostor at work, then it appears
that LHO is being flown to various locations via private aircraft today -
possibly piloted by David Ferrie.
It has been speculated that the conspirators never
intended for the assassination to appear to be the act of a lone gunman without
accomplices. Rather, the lone gunman idea will be a creation of the Warren
Commission, after the fact.
On television, Joseph Valachi, a former soldier and
“made” man in New York’s Genovese family, in his appearance before Senator John
McClellan’s subcommittee on organized crime, publicly testifies on the inner
workings of the Mafia in America. For the first time, America hears the term
“Cosa Nostra.” (It is worth noting, in passing, that Lee Harvey Oswald was
heard using the expression Cosa Nostra in the summer of 1963, before the
expression was known to anyone outside of the Cosa Nostra itself and the FBI.)
William Attwood has his second secret meeting with
Carlos Lechuga regarding the possibility of better relations between Cuba and
the U.S. (NIYL)
September 26, 1963
Someone introduced as Oswald visits Sylvia Odio, a
Cuban exile in Dallas. “Oswald” is also reported to be in New Orleans this day.
One of the men accompanying “Oswald” is known (to this day) only as Leopoldo.
LHO reportedly crosses the Mexican border at Nuevo Laredo today. Following the
assassination, the FBI will find a receipt from a Laredo, Texas store in LHO’s
belongings. The receipt is for $32 dollars worth of clothing. AOT
Today, the press announces the precise day --
November 22 -- that JFK will visit Dallas.
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS DALLAS, TEXAS, THURSDAY,
SEPTEMBER 26, 1963 DALLAS INCLUDED KENNEDY TO VISIT TEXAS NOV. 21-22
By Robert E. Baskin News Staff Writer
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – White House sources told The Dallas News exclusively Wednesday night that President Kennedy will visit Texas Nov. 21 and 22. The visit will embrace major cities of the state, including Dallas. Kennedy is currently on a tour of the Midwest and West. The White House sources said the Texas trip Would be political, although they did not reveal the particular political mission. The final White House decision to make the trip to Texas came late Tuesday night, these sources said. Although specific details have not been worked out, it was considered likely that the President will visit Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Fort Worth. There has been speculation for some time that the President was contemplating a visit to Texas, but the final decision has just been reached, The News learned. It has been known that numerous Texas Democratic leaders have urged Kennedy to come to the state to repair what they regard as a deteriorating party situation. The presidential decision may have been prompted by what he has seen on his current tour: a strong trend toward conservation and Republicanism in the Western states. He is believed to feel that he must cope with this situation in preparation for the 1964 campaign.
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – White House sources told The Dallas News exclusively Wednesday night that President Kennedy will visit Texas Nov. 21 and 22. The visit will embrace major cities of the state, including Dallas. Kennedy is currently on a tour of the Midwest and West. The White House sources said the Texas trip Would be political, although they did not reveal the particular political mission. The final White House decision to make the trip to Texas came late Tuesday night, these sources said. Although specific details have not been worked out, it was considered likely that the President will visit Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Fort Worth. There has been speculation for some time that the President was contemplating a visit to Texas, but the final decision has just been reached, The News learned. It has been known that numerous Texas Democratic leaders have urged Kennedy to come to the state to repair what they regard as a deteriorating party situation. The presidential decision may have been prompted by what he has seen on his current tour: a strong trend toward conservation and Republicanism in the Western states. He is believed to feel that he must cope with this situation in preparation for the 1964 campaign.
Earlier Wednesday at Billings, Mont., Kennedy
recaptured his old campaign oratory in his best-received appearance in two days
of intensive, "nonpolitical" campaigning across the country. In a
straight-forward, rather far-reaching address to some 15,000 persons, Kennedy
gave a resounding vote of confidence to Montana's veteran Mike Mansfield,
Senate Democratic leader, and won cheers when he explained why he sought the
nuclear test ban pact. And he was obviously in high spirits as a result of the
House's approval of the tax cut bill, news of which reached him just before he
began his talk. For the first time since he left Washington. he was applauded
in the course of a speech. The subjects that won him applause, however, had
nothing to do with conservation -- the announced reason for his ....-state tour.
Foreign affairs got him his best hand Kennedy said Mansfield, up for re
-election in 1964, was responsible for ratification of the test ban treaty
Tuesday. He added that Senate GOP leader Everett M. Dirksen, Ill., had been
helpful. He recalled his confrontations with Soviet Premier Nikita S.
Khrushchev in 1961 and 1962 and how war has been avoided. "What we hope to
do," the President said, "is to lessen the chance of a military
collision between these two great powers which together have the power to kill
300 million people in a day. That is why I support the test ban treaty."
From Billings the President flew on to Jackson Hole for an overnight stop.
Earlier in the day at Cheyenne, Wyo., Kennedy claimed that his New Frontier
administration "has been able to make a start at getting our country
moving again."
JFK visits the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City.
Referring to the Test-Ban Treaty, makes a speech in which he refers to flying
over the Little Big Horn, “where General Custer was slain, a massacre which has
lived in history, four hundred or five hundred men. We are talking about three
hundred million men and women in twenty-four hours. I think it is wise to take
a first step to lessen the possibility of that happening.” The crowd gives him
a standing ovation.
According to Richard Case Nagell, still another plot
against JFK is scheduled for this day but does not materialize.
Also on this day, Henry Cabot Lodge brings in
Patrick Honey of the University of London to meet with Robert McNamara
concerning Vietnam. Honey is only identified as “Professor Smith.” McNamara’s
notes of the meeting read as follows: “Diem has aged terribly since 1960. He is
slow mentally . . . would not last 24 hours without Nhu who handles the bribes
and manipulates the power base necessary for his survival. Only a military coup
or an assassination will be effective and one or the other is likely to occur
soon. In such circumstances we have a 50% chance of getting something better.
Through independent sources he has confirmed . . . that the North Vietnamese
have approached Nhu through the French. The American government cannot do
anything other than to either publicly support Diem or keep our mouths shut. If
we follow the latter policy, a coup will probably take place within four
weeks.”
September 27, 1963 Four blocks from the bus station
in Mexico City, Lee Harvey Oswald registers at the Hotel Comercio under the
alias O.H. Lee and is given a room on the third floor. The hotel, rarely
frequented by Americans, costs only $1.28 a night. Silvia Duran, a Mexican
citizen who works in the Cuban embassy in Mexico City says Lee Harvey Oswald
visits her office to apply for a visa. She calls the Soviet Embassy and is told
Oswald’s application for a visa will take three to four months to process.
Informed of this, Oswald gets angry. Duran has to call for help from the Cuban
Consul who gets into a shouting match with Oswald and finally tells him to get
out. All calls on the morning of 9/27 are in Spanish, mention Odessa as
destination, and are to the military attaché Today, Alex Rorke and Geoffrey
Sullivan depart Merida, Mexico in their rented Beechcraft airplane and arrive in
Mexico City where they remain for four days.
September 28, 1963 Malcolm Price at the Sports Drome
Rifle Range remembers helping an “Oswald” sight his rifle today. (Oswald is
reportedly in Mexico City.) In Mexico City, Lee Harvey Oswald returns to the
Cuban Embassy. It is Saturday and the embassy is officially closed. After a
brief session with officials there he goes back to the Soviet Embassy and
suggests the the Soviet Embassy in Washington might be able to resolve the
impasse. A series of telephone calls between today and October 1 are made by
LHO - or someone impersonating LHO - to and from the Cuban and Soviet
consulates in Mexico City. Tapes of these conversations are made by the CIA.
The CIA will eventually report that these tapes were routinely destroyed BEFORE
the assassination. There are, however, FBI documents which contain detailed
accounts of how two of the tapes were listened to AFTER the assassination by
FBI agents familiar with Oswald’s voice. (PROBE Oct. - Nov. 1999 / John Newman)
NOTE: When Silvia Duran testifies before the HSCA she
will emphatically state that LHO does NOT return to the Cuban embassy on
Saturday, September 28, and that she does NOT call the Soviet consulate on his
behalf on this day. A CIA report dated June 13, 1967, by Winston Scott, chief
of station, Mexico City, reads: Headquarters attention is called to paragraphs
3 through 5 of report dated 26 May. The fact that Silvia Duran had sexual
intercourse with Lee Harvery Oswald on several occasions when the latter was in
Mexico City is probably new, but adds little to the Oswald case. The Mexican
police did not report the extent of the Duran-Oswald relationship to this
Station. CIA Document 1225- 11293 “Leopoldo” calls Silvia Odio in Dallas and
asks her what she thought of the American (Leon Oswald) he’d introduced her to
during their previous meeting. “I didn’t think anything,” Silvia tells him.
Leopoldo then tells Odio that Oswald is an ex-Marine who is “kind of nuts.”
Oswald has told the Cubans, Leopoldo claims, that they didn’t “have any guts,”
because “President Kennedy should have been assassinated after the Bay of Pigs,
and some Cubans should have done that, because he is the one who is holding the
freedom of Cuba actually.”
September 29, 1963 McNamara, Taylor, Gen. Paul
Harkins, Lodge and Admiral Felt meet with President Ngo Dinh Diem at the
presidential palace in Vietnam. These are to be the last top-level meetings
with President Diem, and from this day forward his days in Saigon are numbered.
The decision to remove him has been made. The initial secret plan calls for
Diem to have to leave the country on official business, after which a coup will
take place and he will be overthrown. This overall plan is carefully
orchestrated under JFK’s direction. JFK is staying at Bing Crosby’s secluded
house in the Palm Desert community. He spends the day relaxing beside the movie
star’s spacious pool. AOT
September 30, 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald returns to the
Russian Embassy in Mexico City for a final attempt to get his transit visa. A
guard, apparently unacquainted with Oswald’s case, asks to whom Oswald has
spoken at the embassy. Oswald explains that he has seen “Comrade Kostikov” on
September 28.
NOTE: Valery Vladimirovich Kostikov, although listed
merely as “attaché, consular office” on the embassy roster, has been identified
for some time as an intelligence officer for the KGB, who specializes in
handling Soviet agents operating under deep cover within the United States. The
FBI has recently followed another Soviet agent from the United States into
Mexico and observed his contact with Kostikov. He is also suspected of being
part of the Thirteenth Department of the KGB, which is involved with planning
sabotage and other violent acts. David Ferrie today receives the final decision
from the Eastern Airlines appeal board: it unanimously upholds his discharge
from the airlines. AOT
During the last week of this month, it is alleged
that JFK severely tears a groin muscle while frolicking poolside with one of
his sexual partners during a West Coast trip. The pain is so intense that the
White House medical staff prescribes a stiff canvas shoulder-to-groin brace
that locks his body in a rigid upright position. It is far more constraining
than his usual back brace, which he also continues to wear. The two braces are
meant to keep him as comfortable as possible during the strenuous days of
campaigning, including the upcoming trip to Dallas, Texas. JFK’s groin brace is
not in the possession of the National Archives in Washington, DC.
October -- 1963 In Martinsburg, Pennsylvania, a
housewife named Margaret Hoover finds a piece of paper with the words “RUBY,”
“RUBENSTEIN,” and “OSWALD” written on it. She suspects the note belongs to one
of her neighbors, a Cuban exile named Dr. Julio Fernandez. Fernandez will deny
having any knowledge of the piece of paper found by Hoover. Hoover loses the
piece of paper, but while in her possession, she shows it to her daughter who
will verify it to the FBI. Hoover also finds a railroad ticket from Miami to
Washington dated September 25, 1963. It was around this time that members of
the anti-Castro DRE were traveling from Miami to Washington to testify before a
Congressional Committee.
October 1, 1963 (According to CIA reports finally
released in August, 1993) Today, someone who identifies himself as Lee Harvey
Oswald calls the Soviet Consulate in Mexico City. This individual indicates
that he has visited the Soviet Consulate at least once and inquires about the
telegram the Consulate sent to Washington, DC requesting more information
regarding LHO and Marina. Fourteen minutes later, the Consulate receives
another phone call. This time, the caller identifies himself as “Lee Harvey
Oswald” and asks about the telegram sent to Washington, DC. Other evidence from
the CIA and witness testimony, indicates that the individual visited the Soviet
and Cuban Consulates on five or six different occasions. While the majority of
the evidence tends to indicate that this individual was indeed Lee Harvey
Oswald, the possibility that someone else is using Lee Harvey Oswald’s name
during this time in contacts with the Soviet and Cuban Consulates cannot be
absolutely dismissed. John Martino, a mobster and asset of AMSPELL sponsor
William Pawley, arrives today in Dallas to deliver an anti-Castro talk (based
on his recently published book, I Was Castro’s Prisoner) to Cuban exiles,
Birchers and members of the Catholic Cuban relocation committee. Silvia Odio’s
lover Father Walter Machann delivers the invocation at the Martino speech and
then abruptly disappears from public life.
Also today, Alex Rorke and Geoffrey Sullivan fly
their rented Beechcraft back to Merida, Mexico from Mexico City. They are
accompanied by “a nervous person who appears eager to resume flight,” according
to an FBI report. The trio then departs for Cozumel and, upon arriving,
immediately take off again. It is unclear whether the third person is still
with Rorke and Sullivan when they leave Cozumel the last time, but the plane is
never seen again. The rented Beechcraft has been due back on September 28th.
And FBI report dated November 13th, 1963 will note that two wealthy New York
right-wingers financed Rorke’s venture, which was meant to be a bombing mission
to Havana. The third person on the plane, according to Gerry Patrick Hemming,
is an anti-Castro veteran named Molina, who was to be infiltrated into Cuba to
monitor Castro’s movements for the hit teams that are to come later.
(A report dated January 11th, 1962 reveals that
Miami Police’s intelligence unit has been notified by the Secret Service that a
Rafael Anselmo Rodriquez Molins, known as “Rafael Molina” was a suspect in a
plan to assassinate John F. Kennedy when he visited the family home in Palm
Beach.)
A tape recording of a meeting of anti-Castro Cubans
and right-wing Americans in the Dallas suburb of Farmer's Branch is made today.
In it, a Cuban identified as Nestor Castellanos vehemently criticizes the
United States and blames President Kennedy for the U.S. Government's policy of
"non-interference" with respect to the Cuban issue. Holding his copy
of the September 26 edition of the Dallas Morning News, featuring a front-page
account of the President's planned trip to Texas in November, Castellanos vents
his hostility without restraint: CASTELLANOS. * * * we're waiting for Kennedy
the 22nd, buddy. We're going to see him in one way or the other. We're going to
give him the works when he gets in Dallas Mr. good ol' Kennedy. I wouldn't even
call him President Kennedy He stinks. QUESTIONER. Are you insinuating that
since this downfall came through the leader there [Castro in Cuba], that this
might come to us * * * ? CASTELLANOS. Yes ma'am, your present leader. He's the
one who is doing everything right now to help the United States to become
Communist.
Silvia Odio moves to a Davis Street address in Oak
Cliff with her sister, Sarita. This address is about a mile and a half from
LHO’s current boarding house address on North Beckley.
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