In the mid-1970s, the band employed a ten-piece orchestra to back them up. She said that there is a whole lot more to tell about the TSBD than what has been publishedthat the whole building should be suspected as more or less of a safe base to operate from that day in November 1963.[9]. Mr. SAWYER - Who is the public safety commissioner? It was an infantry replacement center as well as a German POW camp. I don't recall its origins with clarity, but I think it was given to me by a professor at Southern Methodist University here in Dallas. Mr. PREYER - Thank you. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Do you have a personal opinion as to how or for what purpose the CIA might have handled any projects that involved Lee Harvey Oswald? Do you solemnly swear that the evidence you are about to give before this subcommittee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Mr. GOLDSMITH - Very generally now, what were your responsibilities as a finance employee with the agency? Mr. WILCOTT - That is correct, sir. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Did you bring that list with you today? [17] Gladys Cason, One Life, self-published book, 2004, pp. This employee said that fellow employees were subjected to similar job interviews by government agents. Mr. CORNWELL - How many of them were newspaper or magazine reporters or involved in at least the news business ? Yes, I do, and I believe there was such a reference. Mr. DODD - You may have covered this as well, Mr. Chairman, and, if you have, I will drop the question. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Drawing your attention to the period immediately after the assassination of President Kennedy, at that time, did you come across any information concerning Lee Harvey Oswald's relationship with the CIA? Mr. CORNWELL - But your testimony or your statements on the subject hadn't been made a matter of publicity on any other occasion? Mary Lea Williams, a receptionist for Allyn & Bacon, said the move occurred two or three years before the assassination. I was in too much of a hurry to remember what the three men looked like. Mr. WILCOTT - My boss, Frank O'Connor said that this was told him by the public safety commissioner and that the FBI had told the public safety commissioner. He also sent a copy of the letter from Blakey as well as a 1978 article from the Dallas Morning News concerning the aforementioned Carolyn Arnold, who states she definitely saw Oswald in the second-floor lunchroom at 12:25 pm. She told a reporter that the FBI falsified her statement to read that she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of Oswald on the first floor at 12:15.. Mr. GOLDSMITH - However, your testimony is that you spoke to only six people as an estimate who indicated that Oswald was a CIA agent -- and when I say six people, I mean six CIA people, is that correct? He saw two white men sitting by the stairs. This man said that a large wooden box, 36 x 48 x 60 inches, was used to import arms into the building, one with a false bottom. Please publish modules in offcanvas position. He said there were two musicians who had been with the band since the beginning and he would speak to them. Mr. DODD - Was he described as an agent to you or was he described as an operative or a paid informant? To his left was a door that led into the office of Scott Foresman. Mr. WILCOTT - Not publicly. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Were you ever able to find any indication in any of the XXXXXXX Station's records that Oswald was, in fact, a CIA agent? The search for a solution to these riddles leads into the murky world of intrigue involving the FBI and CIA dirty work. Shelleys second claim was that he joined the CIA. At the end of the hallway to his right was another door. Mr. GOLDSMITH - I realize this is testimony 15 years after the fact. Out of curiosity, he opened this door and saw a large storage area that took over half of the square footage of the fourth floor. Considering the noise of gun blasts and the uproar going on outside, it is odd that Oswald continued to be unconcerned. Mr. WILCOTT - I don't know how to answer that. He is about to publish his book and, as you can understand, friendship and loyalty make me reluctant to discuss this matter with anyone else. There is an interesting paradox about this issue. Admittedly, there is no record of Shelleys arrest, but that does not necessarily mean Glaze was wrong. Their whereabouts are completely unknown. Mr. PREYER - And dozens of others talked to you in a general, speculative manner? During a follow up call, he told me that the two musicians were not in contact with former members of the band and knew nothing of their whereabouts nor of their current activities. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Is that list complete and does it have. Mr. CORNWELL - Did any event cause any disagreement between you and the Agency? Mr. CORNWELL - In other words, that is, the first two letters or the last ones would have been the same as this? Dorothy Ann Garner was a former office supervisor of Scott Foresman. Mr. WILCOTT - All of the people that we mentioned in the case. 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. DODD - And you and your wife both went to work for the CIA about the same time? 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 Mr. WILCOTT - Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH - And finally, as I said at the beginning is it fair to say that you are here voluntarily today? Mr. CORNWELL - Had you ever run into any similar cryptonym? [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. 1964, of course, the Vietnam war was going on and Lyndon Johnson was now president. Mr. PREYER - The Committee will resume. Mr. WILCOTT - Well, they were such incidents as the FBI agent that was working with a group -- and this was an established fact that this person was an FBI agent and that he wa working with the group that I was working with an antiwar group and, to my mind, there is a very great likelihood that this person was there to neutralize me, as the CIA term went. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Who was George Breen? [2] Midnight/Globe, February 14, 1978. I was on the executive committee along with doctors and lawyers and some of the most respected people in the community. Mr. WILCOTT - No, sir. Missing evidence could be attributed to the systematic destruction of anything contrary to the official version. [6] They held a big meeting during which they warned everyone not to discuss the assassination with outsiders. It would be easy to verify: (1) if a reporter named Glaze has ever worked for the Lubbock newspaper, (2) if a journalist named Glaze was living in Dallas in 1974/1975. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes. After completing the questionnaire, the two F.B.I. Mr. WILCOTT - With any degree of certainty, other than just speculation, I would say, six or seven with some degree of certainty. In the decades following that fateful day, former employees of these companies have been reluctant to answer questions. Mr. WILCOTT - I don't really have anything and maybe I would just like to say I think it is time we got this thing cleared up; and I think for the good of the country and for good of the people I think it is really time that all of the facts were brought out and the people really get the facts. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Mr. Wilcott after leaving the XXXXXXXXX Station, was there any other time when you came across any information that indicated that Oswald was a CIA agent? Mr. CORNWELL - What year was that? Mr. GOLDSMITH - Do you have any knowledge of any record of the CIA at the XXXXXXXX Station ever being destroyed out of the ordinary course of business, not as a matter of routine? Mr. CORNWELL - You had signed a secrecy oath while you were employed with the Agency? The stark contrast in the quality of scholarship between the two books was one factor convincing him that there was a huge conspiracy behind the assassination. There is a very large spider guarding this web of secrecy. Mr. WILCOTT - No; I know for a fact, or I know from hearsay, and I believe it to be true from the circumstances how this conversation came up and so on. He was an accomplished journalist and author and had worked as a radio engineer in his early career. At my request, he sent me a copy. (2009), James W. Douglass explains this in detail, including the James Wilcott story. Mr. CORNWELL - At several points in your testimony you have stated there were six or seven persons, and on each occasion you raised the extent of their knowledge as "knew" or "believed." 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. GOLDSMITH - Referring to that list, would you tell the Committee where you were stationed during your period with the CIA? Did he say to you, "I think Oswald was a CIA agent," or did that first person say to you that he was a CIA agent? (Whereupon, a recess was taken while the members of I the Committee went to the floor of the House for a vote.) Its also includes links to many hours of online videos you can watch on the evidence covered. From April of 1965 to April of 1966, I was at Miami Station in finance, and I was handling the staff payroll. Mr. WILCOTT - I left the agency in April of 1966 for the Miami Station. I will ask if you will stand and be sworn. Mr. WILCOTT - I have no idea, sir. The third calm man was probably Wesley Fraizer, who stuck close to Shelley and Lovelady. Mr. WILCOTT - I am sorry, sir; I lost the thread of your question. Mr. WILCOTT - I believe that Oswald was a double agent, was sent over to the Soviet Union to do intelligence work, that the defection was phoney and it was set up and that I believe that Marina Oswald was an agent that had been recruited sometime before and was waiting their in Tokyo for Lee Harvey Oswald. She confided this information to Mrs. Bergin and told her that she had a copy of the First Ladys dress, pink in color with the black velvet collar. Mr. GOLDSMITH - And were you dismissed by the agency or did you resign? I spoke to groups in their homes and I spoke to groups in the Peace and Freedom Party and I was with the Peace and Freedom Party for several years. On October 5, 1986, Elsie Wilcott died of cancer. The November 14, 1961 date came from Leon, Sexton branch manager in Dallas from 1961 to 1964. His father died on November 2, 1990. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Your book. Mr. WILCOTT - Well, I never really looked. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, sir. At the time of the assassination of JFK, Wilcott worked at the Agency's Tokyo station where he said he was told by other Agency personnel that funds he himself had disbursed were for "Oswald" or the "Oswald Project." Mr. SAWYER - I noticed in somne of the information we are provided you say that following your leaving the CIA in 1967 or thereabouts, for a period of some three years or so, you were harassed by the CIA and the FBI and sabotaged, as I recollect it. Mr. CORNWELL - In the conversations which you have described occurring within a period of one, two or three months after the assassination with other CIA employees and officers, did they suggest in those conversations to you that their employment, the CIA's employment, of Oswald had any relation to the assassination or only that it related to the, events you have already described -- namely, the training of him in Atsugi in the Russian language and the sending of him to Russia and using of him as a double agent and that sort of thing? Mr. WILCOTT - That is correct. All that I knowand the attending dead endswere passed along to a researcher and author in Dallas a few years ago. All seven boxes had the names of schoolbook publishers stamped on them. We appreciate your being here today, Mr. Wilcott. Oswald was already dead at that time, the book might have contained a reference to either Oswald or the Oswald project and that that reference would have been to a period six months or even a year earlier, is that correct? Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, it is. I will give my card to the Committee. Obviously, the distance to Ambassador Row was too great to serve as a useful guide to anyone seeking to verify Glazes account. Mr. GOLDSMITH - And your testimony has been truthful and candid? [22] Sylvia Meagher, Accessories After the Fact, p. 74. Mr. WILCOTT - I may have, sir, and I can't remember. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes. The two new employees were administered a written questionnaire asking about their opinions of current topics of the day, especially social issues. Also puzzling is the manner by which they asked new employees point-blank if they were members of the CIA. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Would those summaries be destroyed as a matter of routine, to your knowledge? Mr. GOLDSMITH - Do you remember where this conversation took place? When, exactly, was the very first time that you heard or came across information that Oswald was an agent? Mr. Wilcott. This would include things like: (1) determining lines of fire from upper story windows, (2) planning the access and escape routes for the sniper team, (3) positioning and controlling the designated patsy as a workman inside the building, (4) fabricating evidence such as rifle, cartridges, and paper bag to implicate the patsy, (5) selecting the so-called snipers nest where the ersatz evidence would be planted. I was really scared to go to the Government and talk about any of these things. 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? Jack Cason, the TSBD president, was a stocky, robust man before the assassination. Mr. CORNWELL - On that occasion to whom did you speak? Mr. GOLDSMITH - Did you check your cash disbursement files? Mr. GOLDSMITH - When was the first time that you alleged in public that Oswald was a CIA agent. After leaving high school he might have continued as an intelligence operative working undercover in local defense plants (plural) during the last months of the war. From June of 1964 to about December of 1964, I was at Roseland. Below is an obituary from the Austin American-Statesman published on Dec. 15, 2019. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, for a limited period. The CIA and the JFK Assassination. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Can you give the Committee the names of any persons who might corroborate your allegation? He closed his 1989 letter with a lurid metaphor: I will help any wayI just want to be forewarned. Mr. SAWYER - Who told this to the community development, people? The CIA then told him a story of how someone could be thrown out of a plane without a parachute and the CIA would protect them. Mr. GOLDSMITH - And who made these references to Oswald being an agent of the CIA? Please try again. New security officers appeared. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Mr. Wilcott, assuming that Oswald had been employed as an agent by the CIA, would there have been a reference to that fact in the CIA's cash disbursement file? Elzie Dean Glaze passed away on November 15, 2019. Mr. WILCOTT - No, sir. Mr. WILCOTT - It is based on the principle that only those persons who are involved in a project or involved in operation -- and even things that would not seem to be at all in any way secret -- only those people should know about, it and nobody else should know about it, and that was a "need-to-know" basis
He was not questioned by the Warren Commission. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Why would anyone have shared this particular information with you? (National Archives, RG 272) No other event of the last 75 . No doubt the police asked Shelley a lot of questions, and it is possible that they kept him in custody until he gave satisfactory answers. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, sir. They told me that I had passed both of those. If you have something --
About a year or two after her death, while his father was away, someone broke into the house and set it on fire, creating a furious blaze. We think our readers would be interested in reading his evidence./p>, (Click here to open the document in another page.). Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, sir. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Why not? Mr. GOLDSMITH - What is the basis for that opinion? (Its address, I later learned, was 11310 Gemini Lane.) According to his testimony to the Warren Commission, after graduating from high school, he worked in defense plants a little bit during the war and started working at the Texas School Book Depository.[15] The short amount of time between his graduation in late May 1945 and the end of World War II on September 2 plus his employment in defense plants seems to conflict with his claim that he joined an intelligence service and became an officer. Mr. CORNWELL - At what point in time did your discussions outside of the Agency first become a matter of publication in a newspaper or magazine or on television? What it was is hard to guess. Mr. WILCOTT - I don't know. * Assassination Archives and Research Center leads the fight in federal court for full JFK disclosure. Please publish modules in offcanvas position. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Well, in other words, if you got the information three months after the assassination, Oswald had already been dead for three months, is that right? However, please contact me before mentioning my name to anyone. 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. Mr. WILCOTT - I believe they would at one time. Mr. WILCOTT - My name is James B. Wilcott. He kept his pocket calendars from his years of employment, and he noted when the grocery company moved out of the building to a new facility in another part of Dallas. Mr. PREYER - So that in XXXX, you indicated, six or seven people talked to you and were, as I understood it, rather definite about the Oswald connection? The White House has announced that a trove of remaining records concerning the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy will not be released as planned, due to the COVID-19 pandemic . Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, I am. Mr. WILCOTT - Well, it was "We all know all about you" and signed "The Minutemen" or some very vulgar remarks and "We know all about you and signed "Minutemen." Mr. SCHAAP - Do you mean, how many people who were in the CIA or how many people in the general population? Mr. WILCOTT - In conversation. The book depository was in a seven-story, red brick building located at 411 Elm Street. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Where is Concord located? Find all the books, read about the author, and more. ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY . JFK FILES - The Roscoe White Story: -Grassy Knoll Assassin Or Hoax? Mr. GOLDSMITH - Why has it been difficult? According to former CIA finance officer James B. Wilcott's 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." Mr. GOLDSMITH - Why did you wait five years? "[24] Lovelady must have been one of the other calm men, since, as previously noted, he made no response when Adams said that the president had been shot. Not long after Oswald departed from the scene, Shelley told Truly that Oswald was missing. Mr. WILCOTT - I was able to but I never did. There is a vast literature on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, . Mr. GOLDSMITH - Did you prepare such a list? The John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Espaol Fall 2017, Vol. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Mr. Wilcott, when did you leave the agency? Mr. PREYER - Why did you resign from the CIA? Mr. GOLDSMITH - I think we had better go over that one more time. Mr. WILCOTT - No, I didn't. Mr. CORNWELL - When was that? ", That was the kind of things that people said. Their apartment looked as if no one had ever lived in it. Mr. WILCOTT - I think the most significant thing that can be actually substantiated is the circumstances surrounding my employment with the community renewal program in Utica, and I was the finance analyst for the community renewal program in Utica. William Weston began researching the assassination of President Kennedy in 1992, after making a comparison of Anthony Summers excellent book Conspiracy to a book defending the official version called Final Disclosure by David Belin. 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. Additional gift options are available when buying one eBook at a time. His mother was a strong, confident woman before the assassination, but afterwards she suffered a complete breakdown in her health and had to be hospitalized. exactly for sure. Mr. CORNWELL - It was not normally part of your duties or the scope of the knowledge that you routinely acquired on your job, as I understand it, for you to know what the cryptonyms meant; is that correct? Mr. WILCOTT - Yes sir; at Oakland Technical High School, at the invitation of -- the social department asked me if I wanted to speak and I said yes, and so I spoke to two classes at Oakland Technical High School. There is a very large spider guarding this web of secrecy. Did you contact any CIA officer or employee with respect to the secrecy oath and discuss with them whether or not you should be permitted to discuss these matters outside of the Agency? 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. WILCOTT - Yes, sir. Mr. GOLDSMITH - And did you check any other records? Mr. PREYER - He stated that as a fact and not that he believed it was drawn out for Oswald or it could have been or something like that? Those are discussions with people who gave the indication that there was every certainty that Oswald was an agent of CIA, runout of XXXXXXX Station, and that he was freed from Russia there in the final courses in Russia and was trained by CIA people at Atsugi. 3 By James Mathis and Martha Wagner Murphy Enlarge A photograph from Warren Commission exhibits shows the open limousine that carried President and Mrs. Kennedy through downtown Dallas. G. Robert Blakey, Chief Counsel and Director. Do you believe that there was such a reference to Oswald? There was a person, Dave, who was a Deputy Chief. Wilcott worked in the accounting department and was in charge of disbursement of cash funds. Other people who worked at the book depository suffered as well. My testimony included numerous meetings with a man named Bill Shelly (I am no longer certain of the correct spelling of his last name.) And I think that is why I probably heard a lot more things than other people did, for instance, than my wife did, because of that situation. Mr. SAWYER - Are there any others that you can specifially identify as coming from the CIA or FBI? James and Elsie Wilcott: CIA Profile in Courage From: . Mr. WILCOTT - I was recruited from the school in Syracuse New York, where I was taking a course in accounting and busi- ness administration. RX-ZIM. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Do you have an opinion as to how the
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. about it & possibly do a story on it. [26] FBI report of Oswald at the police station, Warren Report, p. 619. Mr. DODD - In. Mr. SCHAAP - Excuse me. Mr. WILCOTT - Well, it has been difficult because people don't want to get involved, and people were scared. Reminder warnings were given on an individual or a small group basis. 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. 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. [7] Through some insider intrigue, a saleslady at Neiman Marcus found out what Jacqueline Kennedy was going to wear the day of her arrival in Dallas. Mr. WILCOTT - No, sir, I did not. Although he left in December 1973, he was certain that the musician who disappeared in Dallas was not among the core members of the band. 359-360, 386-387. 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. He refused to let me quote him or use his name in print. Mr. WILCOTT - No. However, while visiting the vacant building in 1983, Hurt saw seven large wooden boxes on the sixth floor, left behind by the TSBD when it moved to a new location in 1970. Mr. WILCOTT - That is correct, sir. [19] Immediately after Adams and Styles went out the back door, Officer Marion Baker came in through the front door and met Roy Truly. Mr. WILCOTT - No, sir. Mr. GOLDSMITH - And a copy of the relevant House Resolutions? Mr. SAWYER - Well, what were your antiwar activities that you refer to? I must admit that my own fear of getting involved in the investigation has prevented me from writing you earlier. That would be William Shelley, who Oswald worked under for six weeks as an order filler for the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD). In November 1963, on the Friday before Thanksgiving, President Kennedy was riding in a Lincoln convertible rolling through the streets of Dallas. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Do you have anything to add in response to that question? Mr. WILCOTT - Approximately two years, sir. Mr. PREYER - I would like before we begin to read a written statement concerning the subject of the investigation. Mr. WILCOTT - I really don't know. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes. [9] Carolyn Arnold statement in Byrd/TSBD Concerns posted by Martin Barkley on May 24, 2000 on the JFK Today website. phone, and hang up, and I would get notes written in snow or my windshield and I had slips of paper left under my, windshield and this sort of thing. Kennedy Assassination Committee. Mr. WILCOTT - June of 1964. Mr. WILCOTT - No, sir, they did not.