“If Oswald
was working for the FBI, it could explain many things […]. It […] might explain a well-documented
instance of the FBI destroying evidence after the assassination. In August 1975, the Dallas Times Herald reported it had recently learned that two weeks
before the JFK assassination, Oswald had delivered a note to the Dallas FBI
office and that the note had been destroyed after the assassination. This story prompted an investigation by the Justice
Department and eventually became the center of hearings before a subcommittee
of the House Judiciary Committee.
“It is now
certain that two to three weeks prior to the assassination, Oswald came to the
Dallas FBI office and asked a receptionist to see Agent [James] Hosty. When told Hosty was not in, Oswald left a
note. The receptionist, Nancy Fenner,
noted that Oswald asked for ‘S.A.
[Special Agent] Hosty… [in] exactly those words.’ It’s surprising that Oswald would be so
familiar with Bureau jargon. Years later
Fenner recalled the note said something like:
‘Let this be a warning. I will
blow up the FBI and the Dallas Police Department if you don’t stop bothering my
wife—Lee Harvey Oswald.’
“Hosty, who
said he was told not to mention the note at the time of the assassination, said
the note was not violent in tone and that it said something like: ‘If you have anything you want to learn about
me, come talk to me directly. If you don’t
cease bothering my wife, I will take appropriate action and report this to the proper
authorities.’
“Hosty also
said the note was folded and expressed doubts that Fenner had read it properly.
“He said
that within hours of the assassination, he was called into the office of the
special-agent-in-charge, J. Gordon Shanklin.
Hosty said Shanklin was visibly ‘agitated and upset’ and wanted to know
about the Oswald note.
“After
Oswald had been killed, Shanklin again called in Hosty. Hosty said Shanklin produced the Oswald note
from his desk drawer and said, ‘Oswald’s dead now. There can be no trial. Here, get rid of this.’ As Hosty tore up the note, Shanklin
cried: ‘No! Get it out of here. I don’t even want it in this office. Get rid of it!’ Hosty said he took the pieces of note to a
nearby restroom and ‘flushed it down the drain.’
“Before the
House subcommittee, Shanklin denied any knowledge of the Oswald note. But assistant FBI director William Sullivan
said Shanklin had discussed an ‘internal problem’ concerning a message from
Oswald with him and that the presence of the note was common knowledge at FBI
headquarters.
“Another Dallas agent, Kenneth
Howe, also testified he showed Shanklin the Oswald note the weekend of the
assassination. Existence of the note also
was talked about among some members of the Dallas Police Department.
“Mrs. Ruth
Paine even mentioned that Oswald had dropped off a note to the FBI in her
testimony to the Warren Commission in 1964. She told the Commission: ‘[Oswald] told me he had stopped at the
downtown office of the FBI and tried to see the agents and left a note…’
“Why then
did the Bureau only acknowledge the existence of the note after media reports
in 1975? The House Select Committee on Assassinations
said the incident concerning the note was a ‘serious impeachment of Shanklin’s
and Hosty’s credibility,’ and that with the note’s destruction, ‘it was not
possible to establish with confidence what its contents were.’
“It seems
unbelievable, however, that the FBI would knowingly destroy evidence,
especially if it would have proven Oswald prone to violence. Some researchers say a more plausible
explanation is that Oswald, as an FBI informant, tried to warn the Bureau about
the coming assassination [emphasis added—RG]. This could explain the receptionist’s
insistence that the note contained threatening words. It also could explain why the FBI was so
concerned and fearful of the note that it was ordered destroyed.”
--JIM MARRS, CROSSFIRE: THE PLOT THAT KILLED KENNEDY (1989), pp.
233-34
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