A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination

by Philip Shenon

  And then we found arguably the most important, most credible witness of all: Elena Garro’s nephew Francisco Guerrero Garro, a prominent Mexican newspaperman who had been a twenty-three-year-old university student at the time of the Kennedy assassination and who has kept his silence for half a century about what he knew about Lee Harvey Oswald.

  Guerrero, now seventy-three, a founder and the retired editor in chief of La Jornada, a major left-wing newspaper in Mexico, said he had said nothing about Oswald for decades out of fear that what he knew would put his family in danger. “I had never wanted to tell,” he said. “We did get scared back then when we realized many of the people involved in the Kennedy case died” in mysterious circumstances.

  Guerrero’s secret? He said he had been at the party where his aunt had encountered Oswald and Silvia Duran. In fact, he had driven his aunt and his mother—Deva Guerrero, Elena’s sister—to the party. And he said he is certain that he saw Oswald, too. “He was standing there, next to the chimney,” Guerrero said. “His face was unmistakable … he was very gloomy. He was just standing there, looking at the people, like scrutinizing people.… I can swear that he was there.”

  In the hours after the Kennedy assassination and the first images of Oswald were made public, he recalled, there was a panicked telephone conversation between his mother and his aunt, Elena Garro.

  “I heard my mom say on the phone: ‘It’s not possible! It’s not possible! Really, Elena, it’s not possible! Are you sure?… I’ll be right there.’” Guerrero said his mother ordered him to get the family car. “She then tells me, ‘Take me to Elena’s house.’” Guerrero said he protested that he needed to leave for class and his mother replied, “Doesn’t matter. Take me to Elena’s house.”

  They drove straight to the home of Elena Garro, who had a television, and together they watched the first reports from Dallas, and saw the first flickering images of Oswald under arrest. Guerrero remembered that his mother and Elena turned to each other and became hysterical as they realized that they had seen the president’s assassin at a family party a few weeks earlier. “Yes, yes, that’s him, that’s him!” he remembered everyone yelling out. “His face appeared on TV again and again,” he said. “My mom would insist: ‘It is him! It is him!’”

  He remembered asking out loud if the Mexican secret police would somehow try to implicate his family in the Kennedy assassination if it became known that they had attended a party where Oswald had been. “What the hell do we have to do with this? We only went to a party where this man was. We didn’t take him there.”

  His mother vowed to keep her silence forever about what she had seen, Francisco said. She was a dedicated Communist—the political opposite of her sister, Elena—and she knew how to keep secrets at a time when being a declared Marxist in Mexico could be dangerous. Everyone else at the party decided to keep silent too, Francisco said. “There was consensus that it was him [Oswald],” he said. “But nobody wanted to talk about this. I think they were afraid. I was afraid myself.”

  The subject became “taboo,” he said. “No one spoke about it.”

  He said the one person who did tell authorities about the party and about Oswald was his aunt, Elena, and that she went to talk to someone at the United States embassy—“with whom, I do not know”—either the day after the assassination or the following day. She was driven there, he said, by one of his uncles, Albano Garro, Elena’s brother, who has since died. Francisco remembered that his uncle was angry because Elena, who only intended to stay fifteen minutes at the embassy, did not leave for nearly four hours. He heard from his mother that Elena Garro then received telephone calls “several times” from someone at the embassy “as if it was an important matter.”

  * * *

  There is no absolute proof in the archives of the CIA or the Mexican government that Silvia Duran was anyone’s spy, although there was clearly plenty of suspicion about it in 1963 and 1964. Duran insists today, as she has in the past, that she spent no time with Oswald outside of the four walls of the Cuban consulate. But if Duran has been telling the truth all these years, many, many people must have lied, including people who were her relatives and once close friends, some of whom are still alive today. And half a century later, why would they still be lying?

  The credibility of the people I have tracked down in Mexico for this book is enhanced by the fact that they have not tried, like so many in the United States and elsewhere, to profit from what they knew about the president’s assassin. They have not written tell-all books or attempted to sell interviews. The same is true for the survivors of Charles William Thomas. His widow, Cynthia, and other members of his family have refused for decades to talk to journalists about what happened to a fine man whose cherished career, and then whose life, ended so cruelly for reasons they have never fully understood. I am honored that all of these people would take the risk of talking to me, with no promise of anything but my commitment to try to determine if what Elena Garro told Charles Thomas all those years ago was true—that Lee Harvey Oswald was invited by Silvia Duran to a dance party in Mexico City attended by Cuban diplomats and spies, as well as Mexican supporters of Castro’s government, and that some of the guests had spoken openly of their hope that someone would assassinate President John F. Kennedy, if only to ensure the survival of the revolution in Cuba that Kennedy had been so desperate to crush. “The fact is we saw Oswald at the party,” Francisco Guerrero Garro insists today. “We met and saw and spoke with someone who then went and killed the president of the United States.”

  Washington, DC

  September 2013

  Notes

  The page numbers for the notes that appeared in the print version of this title are not in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for the relevant passages documented or discussed.

  The Warren Commission (the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy) published a final 888-page report, as well as a twenty-six-volume appendix of hearing transcripts and evidence reports. For the purposes of simplicity, they are identified in these endnotes as Warren Report (for the central volume) and Warren Appendix (volumes 1–26). There were two major congressional investigations in the 1970s that reviewed the work of the Warren Commission, one by the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (better known as the Church Committee, named for its chairman, Senator Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho), the other by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. They are identified in these notes as the Church Committee and HSCA. In 1992, largely in response to conspiracy theories fueled by the Oliver Stone film JFK, Congress created the Assassination Records Review Board, to review and release assassination-related records. In these notes, the board is referred to as ARRB. Most Warren Commission records are stored by the National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter NARA). Other valuable records about the commission’s work are found at the Library of Congress (hereafter LOC), the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan (hereafter Ford Library), the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas (hereafter LBJ Library), the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston (hereafter JFK Library), and the Richard B. Russell Library at the University of Georgia Library at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia (hereafter Russell Library).

  In the decades after the assassination, virtually all of the FBI’s internal files regarding the Warren Commission and the Kennedy assassination have been declassified and made public. Most are maintained electronically, largely in chronological order, by the Mary Ferrell Foundation and other private assassination-research organizations, as well as by the National Archives. The FBI archives of assassinated-related documents (hereafter FBI) are to some degree searchable online on the Mary Ferrell Web site: http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/JFK_Documents_-_FBI.

  I was the first outside researcher to have access to the uncensored transcripts of interviews conducted
with the late senator Arlen Specter for his 2000 memoir, Passion for Truth. The transcripts are stored at the Arlen Specter Center for Public Policy at Philadelphia University, which opened in 2013. In the full interviews, Specter offered opinions that he chose not to share in his book, including harsh criticism of Chief Justice Warren and of elements of the commission’s work. I interviewed Specter myself. For the purposes of these notes, Specter’s interviews for his memoirs are identified hereafter as Specter memoir transcripts. Material from my interviews is identified as Specter interviews.

  PROLOGUE

  On Monday, April 12: Death certificate, District of Columbia Department of Health; Cynthia Thomas interviews.

  And since he had: The description of the term “selected out” described in unsigned article, “Undiplomatic Reforms,” Time, November 15, 1971.

  At first, he thought: Thomas interviews.

  And on July 25: Copies of Thomas’s memos were obtained from his widow, Cynthia. Copies are also found in the archives of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, NARA.

  He wanted to be remembered: Thomas interviews.

  Thomas was a self-made man: State Department personnel records on Charles Thomas were obtained from Cynthia Thomas; Thomas interviews.

  In September 1964, the presidential commission: Warren Report, pp. 21, 24.

  In the body of the memo: Biographical material on Garro is available from several sources, including: Cypess, Uncivil Wars, and from Garro’s obituary in the New York Times, August 28, 1998.

  He made sure: Biographical material on Scott and information on his friendship with Angleton are available in Morley, Our Man in Mexico, the definitive biography of Scott.

  After his suicide two years later: Washington Post, April 14, 1971.

  “I always thought it”: Interview with former House of Representatives investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

  Former senator Birch Bayh of Indiana: Bayh interview.

  The caller was someone I had never met: Interview with former Warren Commission staff lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

  In interviews shortly: Hosty interviews.

  The title of this book: Warren Report, p. 1.

  The records of the Warren Commission: “Introduction to the Records of the Warren Commission,” NARA Web site, http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/intro.html (accessed June 10, 2013).

  The rose-pink suit worn: Washington Post, February 5, 2011. President Kennedy’s comment is reported in “Remembering Jackie,” New Yorker, May 30, 1994.

  A separate vault: Associated Press, April 2, 1997.

  Much of Warren’s personal paperwork: “Collection Summary: Earl Warren, 1864–1974,” LOC Web site, http://lccn.loc.gov/mm82052258.

  CHAPTER 1

  Navy Commander James Humes: Deposition of Dr. James Joseph Humes, ARRB, February 13, 1996, p. 138 (hereafter Humes Deposition). Humes gave testimony or interviews about the autopsy to several government investigations, including an interview with a panel of medical experts to the HSCA on September 16, 1977, in Washington (hereafter Humes interview) and less detailed testimony to the HSCA on September 7, 1978 (hereafter Humes Testimony).

  At about eleven that night: Humes Deposition, p. 135. Description of home in interview with Humes’s son James Jr.

  “It doesn’t have to be done”: Jacqueline Kennedy, as quoted by Burkley in an interview for the JFK Library, October 17, 1967, p. 8.

  He reminded her: The most authoritative account of the conversation aboard Air Force One was obtained by William Manchester for his book The Death of a President, the history that was originally authorized by the Kennedy family, pp. 349–50. Also see Burkley interview with JFK Library, passim.

  Commander J. Thornton Boswell: Deposition of J. Thornton Boswell, ARRB, February 26, 1996, p. 15 (hereafter Boswell Deposition).

  Neither Humes nor Boswell: Ibid., p. 18.

  What might recommend: Humes Deposition, p. 51.

  The autopsy room: Ibid., p. 57.

  The president’s body arrived: Boswell Deposition, p. 14.

  The autopsy was: Ibid., p. 46. Also see Humes Deposition, interview.

  “Those people were in”: Boswell Deposition, p. 101.

  He knew the Kennedy family: Ibid., p. 24. Also see Burkley interview with JFK Library.

  “Let them see”: Manchester, Death, p. 348.

  Burkley had another: Humes Deposition, p. 29.

  “He promised George Burkley”: Boswell Deposition, p. 11.

  Days after the autopsy: Humes Deposition, p. 38.

  “He told me”: Ibid., p. 148.

  The doctors began to worry: Boswell Deposition, p. 109.

  “There was no way we could”: Humes interview, p. 243.

  “I x-rayed the president”: Humes Deposition, pp. 34, 113.

  “The minute he said”: Humes interview, p. 257.

  That Saturday night: Humes Deposition, pp. 125, 126; Boswell Deposition, p. 111.

  “I sat down”: Humes Testimony, p. 5.

  “When I noticed”: Humes Deposition, p. 126.

  Humes gave the original notes: Ibid., pp. 133–35.

  On Friday, hours after: Testimony of Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald, February 5, 1964, Warren Appendix, Vol. 1, p. 79. Also see commission exhibit 1788 from Warren Appendix, Vol. 23, “FBI report setting forth circumstances surrounding the publication in Life magazine and other publications of Oswald holding rifle,” pp. 400–401.

  Her mother-in-law would later insist: Testimony of Mrs. Marguerite Oswald, February 10, 1964, Warren Appendix, Vol. 1, p. 152.

  At about six p.m. Sunday: Hosty interviews; Hosty, Assignment: Oswald, pp. 59, 29.

  Hosty had a lot to protect: Hosty, Assignment, pp. 16, 83.

  CHAPTER 2

  The knock on the heavy oak door: Warren, The Memoirs of Chief Justice Earl Warren, p. 351.

  “The President was shot”: The text of the note is as it is found in Warren, Memoirs, p. 351. (Obituaries of McHugh offer a slightly different text: “It was reported that the President has been shot while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas.”)

  The members of the court: Warren, Memoirs, p. 352.

  Warren and the other justices: Ibid., pp. 351–52.

  During the 1960 campaign: New York Times, November 5, 1960.

  At the White House reception: Ibid.

  The assassination was “like”: Warren, as quoted in Weaver, Warren, the Man, the Court, the Era, p. 300.

  “The days and nights”: Undated letter from Warren to journalist Jim Bishop, Warren Commission correspondence files, Earl Warren papers, LOC.

  After receiving confirmation: Manchester, Death, p. 205.

  It was the fulfillment: Warren, Memoirs, p. 260.

  Eisenhower came to regret: The “biggest damned fool” remark has been repeatedly attributed to Eisenhower, including in the New York Times obituary of Earl Warren, July 10, 1974. Although friends and advisers to Eisenhower say the comment reflected his views about Warren, there has been debate about whether the former president actually uttered those specific words.

  Within hours of the assassination: Warren statements, November 22, 1963, Warren papers, LOC.

  Later that day: Warren, Memoirs, p. 352; Johnson, The Vantage Point, p. 26.

  At about nine that evening: Warren, Memoirs, pp. 352–53.

  “John Fitzgerald Kennedy—a good”: as published in Warren, Memoirs, pp. 353–54.

  Robert Kennedy told friends: Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, p. 611. (Schlesinger suggests he was given access to a transcript of Kennedy’s interviews with William Manchester for his book The Death of a President. The Manchester transcripts have not been made public by the JFK Library in Boston.)

  Senator Richard Brevard Russell: Russell note, December 5, 1963, Russell Library.

  On the afternoon: Mudd, The Place to Be, p. 127.

  Soon, however, Russell would have cause: Holland, The Kennedy Assassination Tapes, pp. 196–2
06.

  In a horrible twist of fate: Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, p. 276.

  Seconds after receiving word: Manchester, Death, p. 196.

  Morgenthau recalled later: Manchester, Death, p. 196.

  Years later: Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, p. 608.

  “There’s been so much hate”: Guthman, We Band of Brothers, p. 244.

  After the debacle: New York Times, April 25, 1966. The article reported: “President Kennedy, as the enormity of the Bay of Pigs disaster came home to him, said to one of the highest officials of his administration that he wanted ‘to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.’”

  “I asked McCone”: Walter Sheridan, RFK Oral History Project, JFK Library, June 12, 1979. As quoted in Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, p. 616.

  Rather than wait for others to investigate: Thomas, Robert Kennedy, p. 277. (Thomas’s book provides the richest, most authoritative history of what happened at Hickory Hill on the afternoon the assassination.)

  CHAPTER 3

  He had often felt humiliated: The use of “Uncle Cornpone” by Kennedy aides described in several places in Caro, The Passage of Power, passim.

  Now, in his first panicky minutes: As recounted by Johnson in phone conversation with aide Bill Moyers, December 26, 1966, as published in Holland, The Kennedy Assassination Tapes, p. 363.

  One of Johnson’s first orders: Manchester, Death, p. 220.

  Fearful of snipers: Johnson, The Vantage Point, p. 12.

  Although Secret Service agents: Elements of this scene are captured in Johnson, The Vantage Point; Manchester, Death; and Caro, Passage.