Missing evidence could be attributed to the systematic destruction of anything contrary to the official version. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Mr. Wilcott, you indicated that after receiving this information concerning Oswald's cryptonym, you went back to check some files, is that correct? By comparing the window next to them, which measured 14 inches off the floor, one box was about 15 x 30 x 60 inches, and thus had an estimated capacity of 15 cubic feet. Upon request, the National Archives sent me a copy of the letter. Larry Watanabi, XXXXXX Branch, Senior Case Officer; and XXXXXXXXXXX, deep commercial cover agent. Occupation of the building during the summer of 1963 could be a first step in a planning stage. Mr. WILCOTT - They were extremely vulgar and I don't think that I should give the full context of them. Mr. GOLDSMITH - And you have had access to the cash disbursement files at XXXXXXXXXXXXX Station? [8] Jim Marrs, Crossfire (Carroll & Graf. TESTIMONY OF JAMES B. WILCOTT, A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: Mr. GOLDSMITH - For the record, would you please state your name and address and occupation? Mr. GOLDSMITH - Do you remember the name of this Case Officer? 66-67. Mr. SAWYER - How long were you associated with that? Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, for a limited period. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Did you check your cash disbursement files? [19] Immediately after Adams and Styles went out the back door, Officer Marion Baker came in through the front door and met Roy Truly. [17] Gladys Cason, One Life, self-published book, 2004, pp. Mr. WILCOTT - That is true, sir. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, sir. Mr. WILCOTT - On two other occasions, I was on KPOO Radio in San Francisco and I discussed in detail, in quite a bit of detail, the speculations and also the incident of the case officer contacting me at the window. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Would you read the list to the Committee? Confirming these observations were two more spectators, Ronald Fischer and Robert Edwards, who saw a man with light-colored hair and a light-colored open-neck shirt at a window on the fifth floor. James Wilcott worked out of the Tokyo CIA station at the time of the assassination. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes. Mr. CORNWELL - Do you recall whether or not you used that in the process of looking through the 30-day book you described? In the mid-1970s, the band employed a ten-piece orchestra to back them up. Mr. WILCOTT - That is true. G. Robert Blakey, Chief Counsel and Director. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Where is Concord located? Mr. GOLDSMITH - I have nothing further, Mr. Chairman. Mr. WILCOTT - The specific incident was soon after the Kennedy assassination, where an agent, a Case Officer -- I am sure it was a Case Officer -- came up to my window to draw money, and he specifically said in the conversation that ensued, he specifically said, "Well, Jim, the money that I drew the last couple of weeks ago or so was money," either for the Oswald project or for Oswald. They were co-hosts of a program called Alternative Views featuring news, interviews, and opinion pieces from a progressive point of view. [28] A roll call of warehouse employees seemed to indicate that Oswald was indeed absent. This fear casting a shadow over the lives of former employees was also directed against journalists seeking to lift the veil of secrecy. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes. Mr. PREYER - Thank you very much and we appreciate you and Mr. Schaap being with us today, and the hearing will stand in recess. If Shelleys claim to Glaze about his association with the CIA is true, it indicates that he was leading a double life as a schoolbook man as well as an intelligence operative. Mr. WILCOTT - It was my Request for Advance Book. Mr. DODD - You liked him? New York, 1989) p. 319. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, sir. Mr. WILCOTT - The first time I heard about Oswald being connected in any way with CIA was the day after the Kennedy assassination. Mr. PREYER - I understand this might be a good place for us to break and go and vote, so that we will take another recess for about ten minutes. James Earl Ray fired one shot at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [10] Larry Ray Harris at the age of 44 died in an automobile accident on October 5, 1996. Mr. GOLDSMITH - And were you dismissed by the agency or did you resign? Top subscription boxes right to your door, 1996-2023, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates, Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon, includes free international wireless delivery via. Mr. WILCOTT - It has been 15 years, and I can't remember specifically who said what, but certainly I am sure that Jerry Fox, for instance, had at least made some mention of it. Mr. DODD - In. Had the seemingly insignificant trail of bread crumbs I stumbled across had not been so he avidly guarded, I might never have given it a second thought. Mr. GOLDSMITH - And the first time you alleged in public this allegation was in 1968? My efforts to follow up on the leads suggested by Harris were initially unsuccessful. He was not questioned by the Warren Commission. It was just a three-ring binder, and we would list down the advances by cryptonym and the amounts and then reconcile that with the daily disbursements. This is more than just an investigative report. Wilcott worked in the accounting department and was in charge of disbursement of cash funds. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Your book. men asked the employees point blank if they were members of the C.I.A. One of said employees, her husband, and child, disappeared without a trace a few hours after granting me an interview. Mr. SAWYER - Do you distinguish between an agent and a paid informant or do you use those terms interchangeably? As a CIA employee, Wilcott stated under oath that many people told him that Lee Harvey Oswald was an agent of the CIA after the assassination had occurred. Mr. WILCOTT - Not to my knowledge. At the end of the hallway to his right was another door. Mr. WILCOTT - I do. Mr. GOLDSMITH - I understand. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Did you check any of the earlier books? Mr. DODD - How long had you been married by the way? One label read Texas School Book Depository, 500 Red Pony books by John Steinbeck, from Bobbs-Merrill. At the time of the assassination, Shelley was in his sixteenth year of employment at the TSBD. Was there any dispute between you and the Agency? By the way, I am a Mr.not a Ms.as the letter from Mr. Blakey indicates. When Joe entered the building, he took a recently installed passenger elevator to the fourth floor. Mr. DODD - And this was a view shared by you and your, wife -- ", and they might look it over and retype the accounting for funds for their project and, you know, make changes that they might think were in their interest to do. Mr. WILCOTT - Not directly, no, sir. Regardless, it ended up in my files around the time we opened the JFK Center in 1989. His desire to tell what he knew overcame his fear at least twice in his life. Mr. WILCOTT - My current one that I had on my counter. And we thought every year it was going to be coming out, and especially I didn't think that -- since what I had heard was all hearsay that I would never have seen Oswald or anything like that -- this is not the kind of thing that would be used for even something like the Warren Commission, and they would have to have something more substantial than that to go on, aside from the fact that I never would have done it in the CIA, being a very risky thing to do with the CIA. at the best online prices at eBay! Mr. WILCOTT - No. They received threats over the telephone, even death threats. Also Present: Elizabeth Berning, Chief Clerk, and Charles Berk, Betsy Wolf and James Wolf. Mr. WILCOTT - I have been trying to talk about this thing and other things for the last ten years. When, exactly, was the very first time that you heard or came across information that Oswald was an agent? Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, sir. Mr. WILCOTT - When I first started speaking, both my wife and I discussed it and we felt that we should be speaking out about not only Oswald but some other things. Mr. SAWYER - He was in Utica also? Mr. PREYER - And have you made that available to us? I will be back in about 10 minutes. [23] William Weston, Robert MacNeil and the Three Calm Men, in the November 1994 issue of The Fourth Decade. Prior to this time, the building was occupied by a wholesale grocery company engaged in supplying restaurants and institutions.[4] The wholesale grocery company was the John Sexton Company. Mr. WILCOTT - Generally so, I would say, at that time. Mr. GOLDSMITH - What was their response? Wilcott lost a good job after leaving the CIA after his employer was told he would soon be under incitement when he wasnt and never was. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Were you ever able to check those particular files? Mr. WILCOTT - The "need-to-know" principle was not all that we followed, and just about every one of the big projects that the agency was involved in, information leaked out, and we especially within the CIA knew about it, and someone would go to a party and have a little bit too much to drink and start saying things that they really shouldn't be saying to keep in mind what the "need-to-know" principle was. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes. Mr. WILCOTT - They never revealed that to me, sir, as far as their relations with Oswald. Glazes meetings with Shelley were therefore not at the Ambassador Row facility, as I originally believed, but rather they occurred at the building on Gemini Lane. This we concluded from putting various pieces of information together. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, sir. Walther was sure they were not as high as the sixth floor. They told me that I had passed both of those. Mr. WILCOTT - No. In the new 2017 November release of JFK documents, he was interviewed in executive session under oath by the House Select Committee On Assassinations on March 22,1978. We publish here the Wilcott affidavit and interrogation by the HSCA, declassified by the Assassination Records Review Board. Mr. CORNWELL - The cryptonym -- did you write it down at any point? Mr. WILCOTT - Yes. But you apparently indicated that you feel there was a direct connection between the Bay of Pigs operation and the assassination of the President. There is a vast literature on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, . Mr. GOLDSMITH - How did you know, in 1963, what type of security precautions the Warren Commission had for conducting its investigation? Mr. WILCOTT - Anything they had there would have -- sometimes they used as many as two or three different cryptonyms and they would have -- it all depended on how far they wanted to isolate it from the original source, from the original source as to where the project was run. Mr. WILCOTT - With any degree of certainty, other than just speculation, I would say, six or seven with some degree of certainty. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Do you have an opinion as to how the I will help any wayI just want to be forewarned. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, sir, I did. Mr. CORNWELL - On that occasion to whom did you speak? Mr. WILCOTT - No, I am not saying that. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, sir. If you have something -- In the decade following his HSCA testimony, Jim Wilcott joined Vietnam veteran Brian Willson and the Nuremberg Actions community outside the Concord Naval Weapons Station in nonviolent resistance to weapons shipments to the CIA-sponsored Contra war in Nicaragua. Jack Cason, the TSBD president, was a stocky, robust man before the assassination. During this same time, I also met and spoke with relevant employees who later worked for Lee Harvey Oswalds supervisor after the assassination of President Kennedy. . Mr. GOLDSMITH - Only of Case Officers. It doesn't have every one. Mr. DODD - Would you care to tell us any of the names of people whom you communicated with? Mr. CORNWELL - Perhaps I can rephrase the question and get more pointedly what I need without running into the problem that you see. He stated that he left work because, in his opinion, based upon remarks of BILL SHELLEY, he did not believe that there was going to be any more work that day due to the confusion in the building. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Mr. Wilcott, when did you leave the agency? Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold. His tires were slashed and sugar was poured into his gas tank. Mr. DODD - When you were told all of this? Mr. WILCOTT - No, I don't. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Was he a CIA employee? Told to report to base by the tower. While working as a journalist in Dallas, Tx. Mr. WILCOTT - From the time I left I talked at various times, especially at parties and things like that, on social occasions, with people at headquarters and with people at my station, and we would converse about it and I used to say things like, "What do you think about Oswald being connected with the CIA? Why would men who had just shown their FBI identification badges suspect that new employees were concealing the fact that they too were connected to an intelligence agency? According to former CIA finance officer James B. Wilcotts testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), Lee Harvey Oswald was a regular employee, receiving a full-time salary for agent work, for doing CIA operational work.[1] A memorandum by Warren Commission general counsel J. Lee Rankin said that Oswalds CIA payroll number was 110669. (Its address, I later learned, was 11310 Gemini Lane.) He followed environmental concerns and space exploration, and he enjoyed playing and watching sports. I . He claims the charges were dropped, but he stated that he turned away several newspapers and magazines offering huge amounts of money for his personal account of the assassination. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Do you remember which of these individuals if any, made the specific allegation or reference that Oswald was an agent? Joe Molina, credit manager for the book depository since 1947, worked with FBI informer William Lowery in infiltrating leftist organizations. Mr. WILCOTT - That is correct. Its perhaps a moot point anyway, because based on what youve told me, you now know more than I do. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, I did. Mr. GOLDSMITH - How many people have you spoken to that said that Oswald was an agent of the CIA, to the best of your recollection? Since the floors were not strong enough to accommodate forklifts, he wondered how the warehouse men could have moved such enormous boxes. Mr. DODD - Am I to presume that you told your wife of the conversation you had with this case officer at the time it occurred? Also in this investigative report is information and connections on prime suspects : CIA Agent William King Harvey, CIA Agent George Joannides , CIA Agent David Altee Phillips and the confessions of CIA agent David Sanchez Morals and E Howard Hunt. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Upon your memory and the list that your brought with you today, will you tell the Committee the names of the CIA Case Officers who you remember working XXXXXXXXXX in 1963? After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Mr. SAWYER - Well, what were your antiwar activities that you refer to? Mr. WILCOTT - My name is James B. Wilcott. In 1999, a friend and fellow researcher named Steve Gaal discovered among the listings of the JFK assassination section of the National Archives website a notice of a letter written by a Mr. Glaze to the HSCA. [27] Gerald McKnight, Breach of Trust p. 115. Standing next to him was a man wearing a brown suitcoat. Mr. WILCOTT - June of 1964. Common to both the 1977 and 1989 letters are the strange men asking strange questions. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, I did. As mentioned, this woman, her husband, and young child disappeared within hours after my interview. However, please contact me before mentioning my name to anyone. Mr. WILCOTT - Approximately two years, sir. Copyright 2016-2022 by kennedysandking.com All Rights Reserved. Mr. WILCOTT - Well, sir, the day after the assassination I don't think that there was any of that kind of talk. We are operating under House Resolution 222, which mandates the Committee to conduct a full and complete investigation and study of the circumstances surrounding the assassination and death of President John F. Kennedy, including determining whether the existing laws of the United States concerning the protection of the President and the investigatory jurisdiction and capability of agencies and departments are adequate in their provisions and enforcement; and whether there was full disclosure of evidence and information among agencies and department of the United States Government and whether any evidence or information not in the possession of an agency of department would have been of assistance in investigating the assassination and why such information was not provided or collected by that agency or department, and to make recommendations to the House if the Select Committee deems it appropriate for the amendment of existing legislation or the enactment of new legislation. every CIA Case Officer who worked XXXXXXXXXX in 1963? Mr. WILCOTT - I believe our full strength was around XXXXXXX and we never actually had that many, I don't think. [5] Examination of city directories and phone books in the Dallas Public Library shows that the book depository and the publishing companies did not have the 411 Elm Street address until 1963. Mr. WILCOTT - That is correct, sir. Mr. WILCOTT - No, sir. Mr. WILCOTT - The principal reason. anyone? Mr. SAWYER - What was the gist of them? He closed his 1989 letter with a lurid metaphor: I will help any wayI just want to be forewarned. It has every one that I can remember. I have no further questions. Mr. SCHAAP - My name is William Schaap, S - c - h - a -, a - p (spelling), and I am an Attorney here in Washington. Mr. WILCOTT - That is correct. Mr. CORNWELL - On any other occasion? My testimony included numerous meetings with a man named Bill Shelly (I am no longer certain of the correct spelling of his last name.) Did you recognize any part of it, the first two letters or the last portions of it, as referring to any geographic area or any type of activity or anything like that? There was a person, Dave, who was a Deputy Chief. There are photos of him getting into a police car along with Bonnie Ray Williams and Daniel Arce. Shelleys claim that he was an intelligence officer would make sense if, as an ROTC lieutenant, he received intelligence training and perhaps even given some assignments in counterespionage. [14] William Harvey obituary in The New York Times, June 14, 1976. Afterwards, Joe visited him in his office and could hardly believe the change that came over him. Mar 26, 2017, 6:30:52 PM to The dubious allegations of James Wilcott, a former CIA finance officer who testified before the HSCA in executive session, are still repeated by theorists promoting. I apologize. Mr. GOLDSMITH - I am not sure I am following, then, what specifically you did check. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, I am. The 1960 directory lists him as a department manager for the Texas School Book Depository, living in a house at 126 Tatum Avenue. 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