Post by Rob Caprio on Oct 22, 2018 10:23:20 GMT -5
All portions are ©️ Robert Caprio 2006-2024
media.gq.com/photos/5582895b1177d66d68d51fa0/master/w_640%2Cc_limit/blogs-the-feed-2013-11-22-lee-harvey-oswald-changing-the-world-jfk-blog.jpg
A topic that is NOT discussed that much is the alleged attempted call Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) tried to make while he was in Dallas Police (DPD) custody. He was allegedly attempting to reach a John D. Hurt in Raleigh, NC, for some reason on the night of November 23, 1963 (Saturday). This has been covered extensively by Dr. Grover B. Proctor, Jr. since 1980 when he wrote an article called "The Phone Call That Never Was," Raleigh Spectator (July 17, 1980), about this attempted call, and who the man was that LHO was trying to reach.
Let’s look at this issue more closely.
***********************************
Initially the call was claimed to have been an INCOMING one rather than an outgoing one. This has been shown to NOT be the case.
We know about this event because five years after the assassination Mrs. Treon spoke with researcher and attorney Bernard Fensterwald about it and had a statement drawn up outlining what they discussed. According to Fensterwald her lawyer told her not to sign it so she never did.
Dr. Proctor was shown the statement and made an outline of what it said.
On the night of the call there were two telephone operators working the switchboard for the DPD jail, and they were Mrs. Alveeta A. Treon and Mrs. Louise Swinney. Mrs. Treon arrived for work at about 10:15 or 10:35 p.m. that evening. She was told by Mrs. Swinney once she settled in that their supervisor wanted them to assist the law enforcement officials listen in on a call LHO would be MAKING soon (note: this would mean it was an OUTGOING call).
Two men would arrive and Mrs. Treon’s perception of them was that they were Secret Service (SS) agents. They would go to an adjacent room so they could listen to the call. At about 10:45 a call came through to the jail and Mrs. Swinney took the call. It pertained to the information involving the call LHO wanted to make. Mrs. Swinney wrote down the information about the number he wanted to reach and then informed the SS agents about this.
After speaking with the men Mrs. Alveeta Treon said, “I was dumbfounded at what happened next. Mrs. Swinney opened the key to Oswald and told him, 'I'm sorry, the number doesn't answer.' She then unplugged and disconnected Oswald without ever really trying to put the call through. A few moments later, Mrs. Swinney tore the page off her notation pad and threw it into the wastepaper basket."
She was obviously told NOT to complete the call as they were either unaware of who this man was or they did know who he was and did NOT want LHO to make contact with him.
Mrs. Swinney would leave work about 11:00 p.m. and at that point Mrs. Treon would retrieve the note from the wastebasket. She would quickly copy the information onto another telephone slip and then put the original back in the wastebasket so no one would notice.
The slip of paper would turn up seven years later when it was released through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit by Chicago researcher Sherman Skolnick. The civil action was filed in Federal District Court in Chicago, April 6, 1970, No. 70C 790. It shows a number of very interesting things on it. Firstly, it shows a COLLECT CALL was attempted by LHO from the jail to a John Hurt at the number 919-834-7430. It also lists an alternate number of 919-833-1253 on it. A collect call means it was OUTGOING and not incoming as it would later be claimed.
Of course the WC did NOTHING with this information, but the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) did. They assigned a staffer, Surell Brady, to look into Raleigh call and see what they could find. The Committee opted NOT to mention the call in their final report, but they did include a 28-page memo outlining the investigation and what was found. On page 15 of the memo it incorrectly says that both numbers were unpublished in 1963. A quick check of the Southern Bell directory though showed that both numbers were listed. Why would the HSCA staffer report this when it was NOT true? Thus, anyone calling for information for the number (like a telephone switchboard operator) would have been given these numbers and told who they belonged to. Did Mrs. Swinney’s discussion with the two men (presumably SS agents) cause this concern in NOT completing the call? Did the name John Hurt mean something to them?
Here is a listing in the Raleigh directory around that time and the information Mrs. Swinney would have received:
DECEMBER, 1962
Hurt John D 415 New Bern Av TE4-7430
Hurt John W Old Wake Forest Rd 833-1253
DECEMBER, 1963
Hurt John D 201 Hillsbro 834-7430
Hurt John W Old Wake Forest Rd 833-1253
The second John Hurt for December 1963 has never been traced to anyone. The HSCA did NOT supply any information for it. The first number in red was called by Dr. Proctor and he spoke with the John Hurt in question. The most interesting thing about his man was that he was a U.S. Army Counterintelligence officer during World War II. He would acknowledge what he did during the war, but deny having any involvement in that area since then.
Proctor wrote the following about their call:
Quote on
Hurt denied that he made or received a call to or from the Dallas jail or Lee Harvey Oswald. When asked if he knew of any reason why Lee Harvey Oswald would wish to call him, he said, "I do not. I never heard of the man before President Kennedy's death." Mr. Hurt professed to having been a "great Kennedyphile," and said he "would have been more inclined to kill" Oswald than anything else. Asked if he had any explanation as to why his name and telephone number should turn up this way, he said, "None whatever."
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Researcher Anthony Summers covered this call in his book, "Conspiracy", and he would have a chance to speak with Robert Blakey in the 90s about it. Summers was skeptical about the authenticity of the call, especially whether or not it was incoming or outgoing as Mrs. Treon asserted. Blakey said: "The call apparently is real and it goes out; it does not come in. That's the sum and substance of it." Blakey continued, "It was an outgoing call, and therefore I consider it very troublesome material. The direction in which it went was deeply disturbing." This omission shocked Summers since Blakey had been so open and loud about his conclusions being wrong regarding the American intelligence groups being involved in the JFK assassination.
Skolnick has a theory that Hurt "was Oswald's ticket to verify that he [Oswald] was a lower-level intelligence operative."
Proctor wrote:
Quote on
One fact uncovered by Skolnick in sworn statements in his lawsuit that were not heard in open court is that the Secret Service took a sudden interest in someone named Hurt on November 23, 1963. In a statement from former agent Abraham Bolden, who was duty officer for the Secret Service's Chicago office that weekend, he claims that the Dallas Secret Service office called him late on the 23rd and asked for a rundown on any phonetic spelling of "Hurt" or "Heard." Obviously, something happened in Dallas that day to cause such a far-flung investigation all the way to Chicago. Whether this was because of Oswald's interest in a party named "Hurt" or because of a crank call into the Dallas jail is still unknown.
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This would bring SAIC (Chicago) Maurice Martineau into the story. Forrest Sorrels would call him and tell him to start searching for a “Mr. Hurd”. Martineau, from what I have read, was involved in the discovery of the plan against JFK in Chicago on 11/2/63 so perhaps they thought he would have heard this name before OR they thought since he uncovered one plot he could help again. He was very plugged in according to the things I have read so perhaps this is why they went to him. Researcher Vince Palamara has spent years researching the SS’s role in this case and he noted the following for Martineau in an article he did called “Secret Service Agents Who Believe In A Conspiracy:
Quote on
4) Maurice G. Martineau- Abe's boss in the Chicago office, Martineau was equally adamant to me that a conspiracy took the life of President Kennedy. He also told me he finds the work of the HSCA much more valid than that of the WC. However, when it comes to info. on the Chicago plot, Martineau is afraid to give me details to this day...;
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Here is a quick synopsis of the Chicago plot by Joesph Backes in the article “The Tenth Batch”:
Quote on
FBI Document #180-10087-10137 is a 7-page memorandum from Acting SAIC Maurice Martineau to Deputy Chief Paterni on subject Homer S. Echevarria dated November 27, 1963.
Martineau references an earlier memorandum to Paterni dated November 26, 1963 which related to information received from 2-1-266. This information concerns a group of Chicago Cubans, allegedly anti-Castro, who may have had a connection with the assassination of President Kennedy.
Martineau phoned SAIC Marlin Johnson of the FBI's Chicago Office and informed him that a confidential informant of this SS office that he had knowledge of a group of Chicago Cubans, who were bitterly opposed to President Kennedy and a member of that group made a remark to the informant, "WE now have plenty of money-- our new backers are Jews -- as soon as `we' (or `they') take care of Kennedy...".
Martineau told the FBI that this informant had worked with them before on a counterfeiting case and had proved to be reliable.
Martineau told Johnson that the Secret Service's Washington headquarters told him to provide the information to the FBI and as this group would constitute a threat to President Johnson that they should conduct a joint investigation.
Johnson called back later that day and assigned SA's Bob Baker and Walt Rogers to the investigation. Martineau then told Johnson that the informant, together with Edward Z. Tucker and Joseph E. Noonan would meet with his agents at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 26, at the intersection of Marine Drive and Lakeside Place, Chicago, Illinois.
Acting under Martineau's instruction's Tucker and Noonan met with the informant early, at 6:00 p.m. to explain that the informant was to keep the SS office advised of any contact he has with any other agency.
Acting under instructions to continue his association with the suspect, Mosley arranged to meet with Echevarria at 12:00 o'clock on Thursday, November 28, 1963, for the purpose of being taken to Echevarria's associates for discussion as to the purchase of machine guns. On November 27, Martineau interviewed Mosley, at which time Mosley assure Martineau that he had not gone to any other agency with this information.
SA's Noonan and Tucker were instructed to make a background investigation of Echevarria.
Martineau was interested in finding out how the FBI knew the identity of their informant.
web.archive.org/web/20110606215635/http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/15th_Issue/arrb_tenth2.html
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All of this is interesting to me, but the last comment makes you go hmmm. How did the FBI know about the identity of a SS INFORMANT? Two other comments in this document bear listing too.
Quote on
In early September (1963) Echevarria had indicated to the informant an interest in buying machine guns to be used in a Cuban revolution. The informant stated that he would be in a position to provide arms of this type, and Echevarria presumably relayed this information to higher authorities in the Cuban group of which he is a member. He subsequently told the informant that others in the group were interested in purchasing machine guns, but that they would first have to satisfy themselves that the informant was trustworthy and was not a CIA agent.
On Thursday, November 21, 1963, Echevarria told the informants, "We now have plenty of money -- our new backers are Jews -- as soon as `we' (or they) take care of Kennedy..." the informant was unable to continue this conversation with the suspect because of the presence of other bus drivers. (HSCA Administrative Folder N6: 124-10370-10019, p. 249)
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10032#relPageId=249
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Again we see doubt as to who the informant was – this time from the man being investigated! He mentions they have to be sure the informant was NOT CIA! It is a deep subject so I won’t go into it now, but the CIA are one of the biggest arms buyers and suppliers in the world.
Back to the topic. We see Agent Martineau was instrumental in foiling the Chicago plot so this is probably why he was called regarding this John “Hurd” (really Hurt) guy.
As stated previously, researcher Anthony Summers went into this call as well in his book “Conspiracy”. Here is a summary from that book.
Excerpt from
Conspiracy
by Anthony Summers
copyright 1989
New York: Paragon House
pp. 145-146
On November 22, 1963, once Oswald was safely installed in a cell on the fifth floor of the Dallas City Hall, Police Chief Curry gave instructions that the prisoner should be allowed all the usual rights and privileges. According to routine Dallas police reports, Oswald asked to use the telephone on Saturday, the day after the assassination. The police record shows that he was allowed to do so at least twice, at about 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. Apparently he twice reached Ruth Paine, the woman who owned the house where Oswald's wife, Marina, was living, and talked to her about his search for legal assistance. He also "failed to complete" another call. According to one of the switchboard operators, he also tried to make a call later that night. The operator, Mrs. Treon, remembers the incident because of the unusual circumstances. She says that her colleague, Mrs. Swinney, had been forewarned that law-enforcement officers--she thinks it may have been Secret Servicemen--would be coming to listen in on an Oswald call. Sure enough two men arrived, showed identification, and were shown into a room next to the switchboard. At about 10:45 p.m. a red light blinked on the panel showing that someone was placing a call from the jail telephone booth. Both telephone operators rushed to plug in, and in the event Mrs. Swinney handled the call, with Mrs. Treon listening in avidly. According to Mrs. Treon, a curious thing then occurred. Operator Swinney spoke to the two officers eavesdropping in the next room and told them Oswald was placing the expected call. As Mrs. Treon tells it: "I was dumbfounded at what happened next. Mrs. Swinney opened the key to Oswald and told him, 'I'm sorry, the number doesn't answer.' She then unplugged and disconnected Oswald without ever really trying to put the call through. A few moments later Mrs. Swinney tore the page off her notation pad and threw it into the wastepaper basket." Mrs. Treon says she later retrieved the note referring to the Oswald call, and kept a copy as a souvenir. Recent research, including inquiries by Congress' Assassinations Committee, indicates that--assuming Mrs. Treon's record is accurate, Oswald intended to call a man named "Hurt" in Raleigh, North Carolina. The note lists two alternative numbers, which do relate to listed subscribers of that man. Both men, contacted today, deny all knowledge of the Oswald call. There has been concern, however, because one of the two--John D. Hurt--served in U.S. Military Intelligence during World War II. The Chief Counsel of Congress' Assassinations Committee, Professor Blakey, says, "It was an outgoing call, and therefore I consider it very troublesome material. The direction in which it went was deeply disturbing."*
Former CIA officer [and Asst. to Deputy Director of the CIA] Victor Marchetti observes that the Oswald call was directed at a number in the same general area as the North Carolina base where--says Marchetti--U.S. Naval Intelligence once planned infiltration missions into the Soviet Union. For all the mass of minute detail about Oswald's life, and although we have his address book, Oswald had no known contacts in North Carolina. Unless further research resolved the mystery, this Oswald call remains yet another loose end in the assassination story.
* Some theorize that the aborted call was incoming; not an attempt by Oswald to call out.
Sources and notes:
Treon/Swinney episode: statement by Treon to Bernard Fensterwald, Committee to Investigate Assassinations; [Grover Proctor's articles on The Raleigh Call in] Raleigh [NC] Spectator, 17 & 24 July 1980; Raleigh [NC] News & Observer, July 17, 1980.
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Victor Marchetti has made the following comments about this call over the years (he is discussed in the recent book by James Douglas “JFK and the Unspeakable”).
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Marchetti said he thought Oswald was following the standard intelligence practice of trying to contact his case officer through a "cut-out," a "clean" intermediary with no direct involvement in an operation. As to why Oswald's call was made to North Carolina, Marchetti pointed out that the Office of Naval Intelligence had an operations center in Nags Head, North Carolina, for agents who had been sent as fake expatriates to the Soviet Union -- corresponding to Oswald's background. [Proctor, "Oswald's Raleigh Call," p. 9.]
In an interview, Marchetti said, "[Oswald] was probably calling his cut-out. He was calling somebody who could put him in touch with his case officer. He couldn't go beyond that person. There's no way he could. He just had to depend on this person to say, 'Okay, I'll deliver the message.' Now, if the cut-out has already been alerted to cut him off and ignore him, then..." [Interview with Victor Marchetti, "Marchetti: Call to Contact," Raleigh Spectator (July 24, 1980), p. 8]
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Who was LHO trying to reach? Why was he placing this call? These are important questions both the WC and HSCA left unanswered. Another question is why would a LONE NUT be making any calls in the first place? Again, this topic shows the WC did NOT investigate this crime fully and made inaccurate and incorrect claims against LHO.
We again see evidence that disputes the claims of the WC, thus, their conclusion is sunk again.
Here is the full article by Proctor regarding the Raleigh call:
groverproctor.us/jfk/jfk80.html
Here is the link to Mrs. Treon’s affidavit:
www.groverproctor.us/jfk/jfk-affidavit.html
media.gq.com/photos/5582895b1177d66d68d51fa0/master/w_640%2Cc_limit/blogs-the-feed-2013-11-22-lee-harvey-oswald-changing-the-world-jfk-blog.jpg
A topic that is NOT discussed that much is the alleged attempted call Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) tried to make while he was in Dallas Police (DPD) custody. He was allegedly attempting to reach a John D. Hurt in Raleigh, NC, for some reason on the night of November 23, 1963 (Saturday). This has been covered extensively by Dr. Grover B. Proctor, Jr. since 1980 when he wrote an article called "The Phone Call That Never Was," Raleigh Spectator (July 17, 1980), about this attempted call, and who the man was that LHO was trying to reach.
Let’s look at this issue more closely.
***********************************
Initially the call was claimed to have been an INCOMING one rather than an outgoing one. This has been shown to NOT be the case.
We know about this event because five years after the assassination Mrs. Treon spoke with researcher and attorney Bernard Fensterwald about it and had a statement drawn up outlining what they discussed. According to Fensterwald her lawyer told her not to sign it so she never did.
Dr. Proctor was shown the statement and made an outline of what it said.
On the night of the call there were two telephone operators working the switchboard for the DPD jail, and they were Mrs. Alveeta A. Treon and Mrs. Louise Swinney. Mrs. Treon arrived for work at about 10:15 or 10:35 p.m. that evening. She was told by Mrs. Swinney once she settled in that their supervisor wanted them to assist the law enforcement officials listen in on a call LHO would be MAKING soon (note: this would mean it was an OUTGOING call).
Two men would arrive and Mrs. Treon’s perception of them was that they were Secret Service (SS) agents. They would go to an adjacent room so they could listen to the call. At about 10:45 a call came through to the jail and Mrs. Swinney took the call. It pertained to the information involving the call LHO wanted to make. Mrs. Swinney wrote down the information about the number he wanted to reach and then informed the SS agents about this.
After speaking with the men Mrs. Alveeta Treon said, “I was dumbfounded at what happened next. Mrs. Swinney opened the key to Oswald and told him, 'I'm sorry, the number doesn't answer.' She then unplugged and disconnected Oswald without ever really trying to put the call through. A few moments later, Mrs. Swinney tore the page off her notation pad and threw it into the wastepaper basket."
She was obviously told NOT to complete the call as they were either unaware of who this man was or they did know who he was and did NOT want LHO to make contact with him.
Mrs. Swinney would leave work about 11:00 p.m. and at that point Mrs. Treon would retrieve the note from the wastebasket. She would quickly copy the information onto another telephone slip and then put the original back in the wastebasket so no one would notice.
The slip of paper would turn up seven years later when it was released through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit by Chicago researcher Sherman Skolnick. The civil action was filed in Federal District Court in Chicago, April 6, 1970, No. 70C 790. It shows a number of very interesting things on it. Firstly, it shows a COLLECT CALL was attempted by LHO from the jail to a John Hurt at the number 919-834-7430. It also lists an alternate number of 919-833-1253 on it. A collect call means it was OUTGOING and not incoming as it would later be claimed.
Of course the WC did NOTHING with this information, but the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) did. They assigned a staffer, Surell Brady, to look into Raleigh call and see what they could find. The Committee opted NOT to mention the call in their final report, but they did include a 28-page memo outlining the investigation and what was found. On page 15 of the memo it incorrectly says that both numbers were unpublished in 1963. A quick check of the Southern Bell directory though showed that both numbers were listed. Why would the HSCA staffer report this when it was NOT true? Thus, anyone calling for information for the number (like a telephone switchboard operator) would have been given these numbers and told who they belonged to. Did Mrs. Swinney’s discussion with the two men (presumably SS agents) cause this concern in NOT completing the call? Did the name John Hurt mean something to them?
Here is a listing in the Raleigh directory around that time and the information Mrs. Swinney would have received:
DECEMBER, 1962
Hurt John D 415 New Bern Av TE4-7430
Hurt John W Old Wake Forest Rd 833-1253
DECEMBER, 1963
Hurt John D 201 Hillsbro 834-7430
Hurt John W Old Wake Forest Rd 833-1253
The second John Hurt for December 1963 has never been traced to anyone. The HSCA did NOT supply any information for it. The first number in red was called by Dr. Proctor and he spoke with the John Hurt in question. The most interesting thing about his man was that he was a U.S. Army Counterintelligence officer during World War II. He would acknowledge what he did during the war, but deny having any involvement in that area since then.
Proctor wrote the following about their call:
Quote on
Hurt denied that he made or received a call to or from the Dallas jail or Lee Harvey Oswald. When asked if he knew of any reason why Lee Harvey Oswald would wish to call him, he said, "I do not. I never heard of the man before President Kennedy's death." Mr. Hurt professed to having been a "great Kennedyphile," and said he "would have been more inclined to kill" Oswald than anything else. Asked if he had any explanation as to why his name and telephone number should turn up this way, he said, "None whatever."
Quote off
Researcher Anthony Summers covered this call in his book, "Conspiracy", and he would have a chance to speak with Robert Blakey in the 90s about it. Summers was skeptical about the authenticity of the call, especially whether or not it was incoming or outgoing as Mrs. Treon asserted. Blakey said: "The call apparently is real and it goes out; it does not come in. That's the sum and substance of it." Blakey continued, "It was an outgoing call, and therefore I consider it very troublesome material. The direction in which it went was deeply disturbing." This omission shocked Summers since Blakey had been so open and loud about his conclusions being wrong regarding the American intelligence groups being involved in the JFK assassination.
Skolnick has a theory that Hurt "was Oswald's ticket to verify that he [Oswald] was a lower-level intelligence operative."
Proctor wrote:
Quote on
One fact uncovered by Skolnick in sworn statements in his lawsuit that were not heard in open court is that the Secret Service took a sudden interest in someone named Hurt on November 23, 1963. In a statement from former agent Abraham Bolden, who was duty officer for the Secret Service's Chicago office that weekend, he claims that the Dallas Secret Service office called him late on the 23rd and asked for a rundown on any phonetic spelling of "Hurt" or "Heard." Obviously, something happened in Dallas that day to cause such a far-flung investigation all the way to Chicago. Whether this was because of Oswald's interest in a party named "Hurt" or because of a crank call into the Dallas jail is still unknown.
Quote off
This would bring SAIC (Chicago) Maurice Martineau into the story. Forrest Sorrels would call him and tell him to start searching for a “Mr. Hurd”. Martineau, from what I have read, was involved in the discovery of the plan against JFK in Chicago on 11/2/63 so perhaps they thought he would have heard this name before OR they thought since he uncovered one plot he could help again. He was very plugged in according to the things I have read so perhaps this is why they went to him. Researcher Vince Palamara has spent years researching the SS’s role in this case and he noted the following for Martineau in an article he did called “Secret Service Agents Who Believe In A Conspiracy:
Quote on
4) Maurice G. Martineau- Abe's boss in the Chicago office, Martineau was equally adamant to me that a conspiracy took the life of President Kennedy. He also told me he finds the work of the HSCA much more valid than that of the WC. However, when it comes to info. on the Chicago plot, Martineau is afraid to give me details to this day...;
Quote off
Here is a quick synopsis of the Chicago plot by Joesph Backes in the article “The Tenth Batch”:
Quote on
FBI Document #180-10087-10137 is a 7-page memorandum from Acting SAIC Maurice Martineau to Deputy Chief Paterni on subject Homer S. Echevarria dated November 27, 1963.
Martineau references an earlier memorandum to Paterni dated November 26, 1963 which related to information received from 2-1-266. This information concerns a group of Chicago Cubans, allegedly anti-Castro, who may have had a connection with the assassination of President Kennedy.
Martineau phoned SAIC Marlin Johnson of the FBI's Chicago Office and informed him that a confidential informant of this SS office that he had knowledge of a group of Chicago Cubans, who were bitterly opposed to President Kennedy and a member of that group made a remark to the informant, "WE now have plenty of money-- our new backers are Jews -- as soon as `we' (or `they') take care of Kennedy...".
Martineau told the FBI that this informant had worked with them before on a counterfeiting case and had proved to be reliable.
Martineau told Johnson that the Secret Service's Washington headquarters told him to provide the information to the FBI and as this group would constitute a threat to President Johnson that they should conduct a joint investigation.
Johnson called back later that day and assigned SA's Bob Baker and Walt Rogers to the investigation. Martineau then told Johnson that the informant, together with Edward Z. Tucker and Joseph E. Noonan would meet with his agents at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 26, at the intersection of Marine Drive and Lakeside Place, Chicago, Illinois.
Acting under Martineau's instruction's Tucker and Noonan met with the informant early, at 6:00 p.m. to explain that the informant was to keep the SS office advised of any contact he has with any other agency.
Acting under instructions to continue his association with the suspect, Mosley arranged to meet with Echevarria at 12:00 o'clock on Thursday, November 28, 1963, for the purpose of being taken to Echevarria's associates for discussion as to the purchase of machine guns. On November 27, Martineau interviewed Mosley, at which time Mosley assure Martineau that he had not gone to any other agency with this information.
SA's Noonan and Tucker were instructed to make a background investigation of Echevarria.
Martineau was interested in finding out how the FBI knew the identity of their informant.
web.archive.org/web/20110606215635/http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/15th_Issue/arrb_tenth2.html
Quote off
All of this is interesting to me, but the last comment makes you go hmmm. How did the FBI know about the identity of a SS INFORMANT? Two other comments in this document bear listing too.
Quote on
In early September (1963) Echevarria had indicated to the informant an interest in buying machine guns to be used in a Cuban revolution. The informant stated that he would be in a position to provide arms of this type, and Echevarria presumably relayed this information to higher authorities in the Cuban group of which he is a member. He subsequently told the informant that others in the group were interested in purchasing machine guns, but that they would first have to satisfy themselves that the informant was trustworthy and was not a CIA agent.
On Thursday, November 21, 1963, Echevarria told the informants, "We now have plenty of money -- our new backers are Jews -- as soon as `we' (or they) take care of Kennedy..." the informant was unable to continue this conversation with the suspect because of the presence of other bus drivers. (HSCA Administrative Folder N6: 124-10370-10019, p. 249)
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10032#relPageId=249
Quote off
Again we see doubt as to who the informant was – this time from the man being investigated! He mentions they have to be sure the informant was NOT CIA! It is a deep subject so I won’t go into it now, but the CIA are one of the biggest arms buyers and suppliers in the world.
Back to the topic. We see Agent Martineau was instrumental in foiling the Chicago plot so this is probably why he was called regarding this John “Hurd” (really Hurt) guy.
As stated previously, researcher Anthony Summers went into this call as well in his book “Conspiracy”. Here is a summary from that book.
Excerpt from
Conspiracy
by Anthony Summers
copyright 1989
New York: Paragon House
pp. 145-146
On November 22, 1963, once Oswald was safely installed in a cell on the fifth floor of the Dallas City Hall, Police Chief Curry gave instructions that the prisoner should be allowed all the usual rights and privileges. According to routine Dallas police reports, Oswald asked to use the telephone on Saturday, the day after the assassination. The police record shows that he was allowed to do so at least twice, at about 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. Apparently he twice reached Ruth Paine, the woman who owned the house where Oswald's wife, Marina, was living, and talked to her about his search for legal assistance. He also "failed to complete" another call. According to one of the switchboard operators, he also tried to make a call later that night. The operator, Mrs. Treon, remembers the incident because of the unusual circumstances. She says that her colleague, Mrs. Swinney, had been forewarned that law-enforcement officers--she thinks it may have been Secret Servicemen--would be coming to listen in on an Oswald call. Sure enough two men arrived, showed identification, and were shown into a room next to the switchboard. At about 10:45 p.m. a red light blinked on the panel showing that someone was placing a call from the jail telephone booth. Both telephone operators rushed to plug in, and in the event Mrs. Swinney handled the call, with Mrs. Treon listening in avidly. According to Mrs. Treon, a curious thing then occurred. Operator Swinney spoke to the two officers eavesdropping in the next room and told them Oswald was placing the expected call. As Mrs. Treon tells it: "I was dumbfounded at what happened next. Mrs. Swinney opened the key to Oswald and told him, 'I'm sorry, the number doesn't answer.' She then unplugged and disconnected Oswald without ever really trying to put the call through. A few moments later Mrs. Swinney tore the page off her notation pad and threw it into the wastepaper basket." Mrs. Treon says she later retrieved the note referring to the Oswald call, and kept a copy as a souvenir. Recent research, including inquiries by Congress' Assassinations Committee, indicates that--assuming Mrs. Treon's record is accurate, Oswald intended to call a man named "Hurt" in Raleigh, North Carolina. The note lists two alternative numbers, which do relate to listed subscribers of that man. Both men, contacted today, deny all knowledge of the Oswald call. There has been concern, however, because one of the two--John D. Hurt--served in U.S. Military Intelligence during World War II. The Chief Counsel of Congress' Assassinations Committee, Professor Blakey, says, "It was an outgoing call, and therefore I consider it very troublesome material. The direction in which it went was deeply disturbing."*
Former CIA officer [and Asst. to Deputy Director of the CIA] Victor Marchetti observes that the Oswald call was directed at a number in the same general area as the North Carolina base where--says Marchetti--U.S. Naval Intelligence once planned infiltration missions into the Soviet Union. For all the mass of minute detail about Oswald's life, and although we have his address book, Oswald had no known contacts in North Carolina. Unless further research resolved the mystery, this Oswald call remains yet another loose end in the assassination story.
* Some theorize that the aborted call was incoming; not an attempt by Oswald to call out.
Sources and notes:
Treon/Swinney episode: statement by Treon to Bernard Fensterwald, Committee to Investigate Assassinations; [Grover Proctor's articles on The Raleigh Call in] Raleigh [NC] Spectator, 17 & 24 July 1980; Raleigh [NC] News & Observer, July 17, 1980.
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Victor Marchetti has made the following comments about this call over the years (he is discussed in the recent book by James Douglas “JFK and the Unspeakable”).
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Marchetti said he thought Oswald was following the standard intelligence practice of trying to contact his case officer through a "cut-out," a "clean" intermediary with no direct involvement in an operation. As to why Oswald's call was made to North Carolina, Marchetti pointed out that the Office of Naval Intelligence had an operations center in Nags Head, North Carolina, for agents who had been sent as fake expatriates to the Soviet Union -- corresponding to Oswald's background. [Proctor, "Oswald's Raleigh Call," p. 9.]
In an interview, Marchetti said, "[Oswald] was probably calling his cut-out. He was calling somebody who could put him in touch with his case officer. He couldn't go beyond that person. There's no way he could. He just had to depend on this person to say, 'Okay, I'll deliver the message.' Now, if the cut-out has already been alerted to cut him off and ignore him, then..." [Interview with Victor Marchetti, "Marchetti: Call to Contact," Raleigh Spectator (July 24, 1980), p. 8]
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Who was LHO trying to reach? Why was he placing this call? These are important questions both the WC and HSCA left unanswered. Another question is why would a LONE NUT be making any calls in the first place? Again, this topic shows the WC did NOT investigate this crime fully and made inaccurate and incorrect claims against LHO.
We again see evidence that disputes the claims of the WC, thus, their conclusion is sunk again.
Here is the full article by Proctor regarding the Raleigh call:
groverproctor.us/jfk/jfk80.html
Here is the link to Mrs. Treon’s affidavit:
www.groverproctor.us/jfk/jfk-affidavit.html