by Mark Lane
A memorandum signed by J. Edgar Hoover asserted that seven special agents of the FBI had interrogated Oswald starting just after his arrest. The agents, frightened by their director who might have been critical of their performance, or more likely, just following orders, had claimed that no verbatim notes had been made and Oswald’s responses were not recorded on tape. That Hoover memorandum, nevertheless, when analyzed in conjunction with the case being developed by Tanenbaum and Sprague, provided evidence of the CIA’s complicity in the assassination and led to the destruction of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
The special agents of the FBI, having talked with Oswald for many hours, could recognize his voice. They also had been provided with the CIA’s tape recordings of Oswald in Mexico City. Possibly to impress Hoover so that he could secretly tweak the CIA, the agents all truthfully stated that it was not Oswald’s voice on the CIA recording.
Hoover then wrote a secret memorandum, which he may have thought he was directing at some CIA mix-up or filing error, in which he said that Oswald’s voice was not recorded by the CIA in Mexico City and that all seven FBI agents who were familiar with the sound of his voice all agreed that it was not Oswald.
I was not an official member of the team conducting the congressional investigation. Although I shared with the committee counsel much of what I had learned during the previous several years I had no expectation that I would be regularly briefed about their progress. However, on occasion, I was told about important events especially when they took place after I had briefed them on the subject matter.
One of those events concerned David Atlee Phillips. Sometime after Phillips testified about the Mexico City affair, counsel told me that Phillips had sworn that the CIA had proof that Oswald had been there, that he had met with an official at the Soviet embassy and had also visited the Cuban embassy in that city. These events all supposedly took place in late September and early October in 1963. They were proof, according to Phillips, that Oswald had been planning the assassination for almost two months before he murdered the president. That proof was the CIA’s often repeated assurances that it had surreptitiously recorded Oswald as he talked to his contacts and photographed him as he entered and left the Soviet embassy. That indisputable evidence of Oswald’s presence in Mexico City and his mind-set were the tape recordings with Oswald’s voice and the photographs of him at the embassy.
Of course, Tanenbaum asked if Phillips had brought the evidence, since that was the basis for his appearance before the investigators. He had not, said Phillips and then he swore that the camera had malfunctioned and the picture was of a man other than Oswald. There was no picture of Oswald in Mexico City, much less of Oswald at the Soviet embassy.
That left only the tape recordings. However Phillips also swore that the tapes had been destroyed by the CIA in the regular course of business. How could the best evidence, the historic documents, be destroyed, why had copies not been made, why were there no transcripts of the recordings and numerous other questions came immediately to mind.
The sole explanation by Phillips was his sworn statement that they would have been preserved if Oswald was a suspect but they had been destroyed before November 22, 1963. That assertion was at best quite dubious. Oswald had been, according to the CIA, talking to the KGB agent in charge of assassinations in the Western Hemisphere, the same geographic area that was Phillips’s jurisdiction. After the CIA had learned of Oswald’s interest in murdering the president why were the FBI and the Secret Service not notified in September that Oswald was a suspect? Why was there no concern when the intelligence authorities learned that Oswald, having met with the Soviet agent responsible for assassinations in our country, was working at a building that overlooked the presidential motorcade when the president’s limousine would be proceeding at its slowest speed to make a very sharp turn in front of that building, the Texas School Book Depository? Of course, there were no answers, and could be none, since Oswald had never been to Mexico City.
After I learned of the Phillips testimony I spent some time alone in my office conducting mental research in an effort to remember what document I had seen some long time before, of the literally tens of thousands I had read, that might cast a light on the matter. I recalled my trips to the National Archives. And I remembered the Hoover memorandum. The tape recording had not been destroyed before Oswald was arrested. Phillips had committed demonstrable perjury and obstruction of Congress. Later, baseball legend Roger Clemens was indicted for having made false statements to Congress, perjury and obstruction of Congress. Clemens had merely denied that he had knowingly used steroids, a matter where the Congress had little or no jurisdiction. Phillips had lied about planning the assassination of the president of the United States and the Congress was conducting the first serious investigation into the facts.
I called the offices of the Select Committee to inquire if Tanenbaum was there. He was and I walked to the committee’s office. Tanenbaum, whom I did not know very well, although I now count him as one of my most respected and admired friends, stood up when I walked in, which surprised me. He asked me to be seated and I told him that I had just come to deliver a document to him. I handed him an envelope with the Hoover memorandum in it. He asked what I thought he should do with the document once he read it. I said that once he read it, he would know and that I was confident that he would do what was right.
Tanenbaum directed Phillips to return for further questioning. When Phillips walked into the committee room for his second encounter with counsel he appeared, as he often did, confident and somewhat arrogant. He had already told his story, explained why it could no longer be proved since the evidence to accomplish that was unfortunately gone and irretrievable. He was sanguine about his testimony and expected to be there but a short time to restate his previous position.
Counsel asked him to again state the facts and he responded by repeating his previous false testimony. There was a pause while Tanenbaum took a document from his file and handed it to Phillips. It was, of course, the Hoover memorandum. The tapes had existed after Oswald had been arrested; they had not been destroyed weeks before as Phillips had testified. The memo not only existed, it offered proof that the CIA legend had been fabricated. Oswald had never been to Mexico City and Phillips knew that to be the case when he offered false testimony to the contrary.
There was a pause while Phillips read the document and then slowly folded it up and put it in his pocket. He then rose and silently left the room. He was a witness before a committee of Congress and had not been excused. He was at that moment guilty of obstructing Congress and numerous counts of perjury and uttering false statements. If the Congress acted in accordance with its rules the case would have been referred to the Department of Justice for a perjury indictment on many counts and for obstruction of Congress and for making false statements. Congress itself could act, was required to, by citing Phillips for contempt. Phillips could not speak at that moment since he knew that his life had changed. The Hoover memorandum should have been located and destroyed by CIA moles in the FBI. Phillips had failed and his meticulously fabricated legend was in tatters. He faced public disgrace as well as a substantial prison term and the destruction of the life he had known.
Whether he fled to meet with counsel or his superiors in the CIA is not known. As it turned out he had become a broken man, unable to function any longer in the CIA and finally willing to tell some semblance of the truth. Some years later, quite coincidentally, a debate between CIA officials and those who questioned their methods and goals had been set at the University of Southern California (USC). I was to debate Phillips; he did not know that I was privy to portions of his testimony before the committee.
Early in our exchanges I pointed out that in the most recent work published by Phillips, he stated that Oswald had sent a note to the FBI in which he threatened to “blow up the FBI and Dallas Police Department.” Thus Oswald was again demonized as a violent radical. The note Phillips was referrin
g to was sent by Oswald to Special Agent James Hosty. Oswald was concerned that Hosty was bothering his wife, Marina. He wrote, “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 proper authorities.” No threat, no bomb, no blowing up anything. It was a letter respectful of authority and was moderate, not radical, in tone. If a lawyer had written it for him it could not have been more appropriate while still making the point. Phillips had lied yet again; his response was conciliatory but devoid of an explanation for the fabricated “quotation.” He said, while addressing me, “About my book, and the statement that Oswald had threatened to blow up the FBI building, I appreciate your clarification on that. I’m glad to get it straight.”
At the debate I revealed some of his misconduct before the congressional committee. He was both surprised and furious but he was careful not to deny the import of his testimony. Present in the audience was Abby Mann, a dear friend and the talented screenwriter of Judgment at Nuremberg, the great film of World War II. Abby asked Phillips why he and the CIA had tried to destroy me and if he did not agree that such a strategy was unfair. In essence Phillips said that it was a CIA strategy since I was raising questions about the assassination of President Kennedy that the CIA did not want the American people to be informed about.
He added, “There are certainly a number of things I regret, and I regret the attempts to destroy Mr. Lane. There are a number of things for which intelligence officers should go to jail if they violate the law. Sure, I regret a lot of it.”
As Phillips went on about how difficult it was to be a CIA officer, a student in the audience interrupted to call out a question. “Mexico City, Mr. Phillips. What is the truth about Mexico City?” Phillips began his response by saying, “I am not in a position today to talk to you about the inner workings of the CIA station in Mexico City.” He could have then turned to another subject since he said he was not permitted to answer the question. Instead he volunteered to continue, “But I will tell you this, that when the record comes out, we will find that there was never a photograph taken of Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City. We will find out that Lee Harvey Oswald never visited, let me put it, that is a categorical statement, there, there, we will find out there is no evidence, first of all no proof of that. Second there is no evidence to show that Lee Harvey Oswald visited the Soviet embassy.”
Phillips had confessed that the entire CIA-fabricated legend that it so assiduously sold to the Warren Commission was untrue. In addition, most troubling to him, and startling to those familiar with his testimony before the congressional committee, he had just confessed to having committed several counts of perjury and obstruction of Congress.
William Colby, the former director of the CIA, missed my debate with Phillips. When he arrived reporters asked him several questions about Oswald that had no reference to Mexico City. He responded, “All I know about Lee Harvey Oswald is that he visited the Soviet embassy in Mexico City. Ask David Phillips about that. He’s the expert. Thank you, gentlemen.”
Apologists for the CIA and the Warren Commission who based their conclusions upon the Mexico City Legend were hardpressed to find a reasonable response. One, who had admitted that he received payment to argue that Oswald was the lone assassin, even before he had examined the facts, wrote a book comprised of more than 1,600 pages which attempted to reinvent history, but could not find room in it to present a credible explanation for the Phillips confession.
Robert G. Blakey, who later derailed the congressional committee, sought to explain away the Phillips confession. He wrote that I must have upset Phillips by my cross-examination of him about Mexico City. As we have seen I did not even inquire about the matter; a student seated in the audience asked the question. In addition, Blakey, a Justice Department bureaucrat, betrayed his lack of knowledge about trial procedure. Cross-examination is the engine that runs the system of due process and often brings forth the truth after a rehearsed and unrevealing direct examination. In any event, my questioning of Phillips about other matters never rose to the level of cross-examination; it could not have done so given the circumstances. There was no judge ordering Phillips to answer; he had not been present due to the process of law, that is, he had not been subject to subpoena. He was not in a courtroom. He was a volunteer who came to a university to speak, and he knew that he could at any moment invoke the “well, I can’t talk about that” phrase, which in fact he had done. While the debates were educational, it is our system of justice that requires that wrongs be addressed. Compared to that mandate we had engaged in useful theater.
Tanenbaum and Sprague knew that their committee was obligated to act. Tanenbaum had specifically been guaranteed by the members of Congress that there would be no political interference with their work. Yet when presented with the facts and the need to vote to hold Phillips in contempt and to recommend that he be indicted, the members of congress cowered. The intelligence organizations counterattacked, knowing that Phillips was vulnerable, and therefore their weakest link. Massive lobbying efforts were organized with FBI agents instructing representatives about what was at stake. Old debts were called in and old embarrassing files utilized. The media assets were again activated. Those who had regularly made false statements about critics of the Warren Commission Report were enlisted to demean and defame Sprague.
Tanenbaum briefed the chairman of the congressional committee about the opportunity to take a major step to resolve the issues about the assassination, the stated purpose of the resolution that established the committee. He knew that it would take a measure of courage and suggested that the facts be presented to the president so that the Department of Justice, armed with the facts, could take effective action. The plan was sound but the needed courage was absent. Congress, in the face of the intelligence-directed onslaught, suffered a failure of nerve.
Tanenbaum had been regularly meeting with members of the House of Representatives to explain to them why the investigation was important and to provide information to them as to why they should vote for the funding. At the end of March 1977, the day before the vote on the funding, Tanenbaum met with Representative Louis Stokes, the chairman of the committee. Stokes said that he would not vote for funding if Sprague remained.
Tanenbaum and Sprague met later and Tanenbaum suggested that they both resign, as they did not wish to be part of an ineffective effort that was turning toward becoming a cover-up. Sprague said that he would resign but urged Tanenbaum to stay on. Tanenbaum was concerned that the media had been manipulated so that it would be said that Sprague, not the intelligence organizations, would be held responsible for the committee’s failure. He also stated that they could no longer remain in leadership positions with a committee that operated politically and had abandoned its search for the truth. Both men resigned; Tanenbaum stayed on for a short while to help with the transition.
Tanenbaum met G. Robert Blakey, the newly appointed general counsel for the committee. Blakey showed Tanenbaum a booklet he had prepared about how to investigate the case. It was called “Means, Motive and Opportunity.” Tanenbaum laughed and advised Blakey that if he had any concern for his reputation, he should never show that booklet to anyone else. Tanenbaum explained that the elements of the crime do not include means, motive or opportunity, and that television concepts are totally unrelated to the real world. Factors to be considered, he said, include witness credibility, and matters of that kind. Tanenbaum’s last words to Blakey were, “I take it you have never tried a case, is that correct?” Blakey admitted he had not.
Sprague told me that his position had become untenable because he insisted on asking questions about CIA operations in Mexico City and that he had demanded total access to the employees there and all documents about photographs, tape recordings and transcripts. I told him that I was sorry that I had invited him into what turned out to be a most unpleasant experience for him. He was gracious and thanked me for his very intere
sting sojourn.
Unlike Sprague, who had insisted upon using the power of subpoena to obtain documents and testimony and who had assembled a group of talented and brilliant counsel, Blakey relied upon the judgment of the CIA and the FBI, who placed their operatives on his staff and who provided only those documents that they wanted the Congress to see. The congressional committee had been captured.
Blakey signed the secrecy agreement and required that all those who worked for him do the same. He opposed the use of subpoenas; he cleared the FBI and the CIA of complicity in the murder, and he refused to explore the CIA’s activities in Mexico City.
I met with him one time to present that evidence. He seemed uninterested, and he could not respond since I had not signed a secrecy agreement. What was not a secret is that the CIA had prevailed once again.
Blakey favored the concept that Oswald had acted alone, but the committee members were facing an election and could not return to their districts with a story that few of their constituents would accept. The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that the assassination of President Kennedy was likely the result of a conspiracy to commit murder. That finding by the government was the figurative stamping across the cover of each copy of the Warren Report the words,No Longer Valid. If you have a copy you might want to ask the Government Printing Office for a refund.
Blakey then moved toward the second CIA option. He would blame it all on organized crime and bar all evidence that led to contrary conclusion, especially if it seemed to implicate the CIA.
Perhaps the most egregious example of Blakey’s misconduct was the person he appointed to act on his behalf to secure information from the intelligence agencies. That person, George E. Joannides, became crucial to Blakey’s operation. Joannides was brought in to guide Blakey and to provide him exclusively with documents that the CIA wanted him to see and above all, to be certain that documents that implicated the CIA were never produced or even referred to. Joannides was chosen by the CIA for that post.
