Thousands of JFK Assassination Records Declassified

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, again, everyone. Back on November 22nd, the 59th anniversary of the JFK assassination, we did a segment about the ongoing controversy over documents about the assassination that the government is still keeping secret, and that a new release of thousands of documents was expected on December 15th. Well, that was last Thursday, and that release happened, though many other documents were still held back. We've invited back the guests we had on the 22nd to walk us through what we might learn from the new information.

As a bit of context, there are serious people who are not wacko conspiracy theorists who think there was something organized behind the assassination of the President in 1963, not just the lone gunman acting on his own. Theories involving organized crime and things having to do with Cuba are prime examples. Back with us now is Larry Schnapf, a lawyer who sued the federal government for the release of more documents on behalf of the Morley and Mary Ferrell Foundation. Larry, thanks for coming on again. Welcome back to WNYC.

Larry Schnapf: Thanks for having me on again.

Brian Lehrer: Let me jump right into some content because making news from these documents is new evidence of the believed shooter Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City just a few weeks before the assassination saying he wanted to kill Kennedy. Have you seen that document and is that new to you?

Larry Schnapf: Yes, we have seen that document. That's an old story and that's been debunked. The person that reported that was interviewed by the Mexican police force, and they determined that that was just a false story.

Brian Lehrer: Things having to do with Oswald and Mexico City seem to be what some journalists are talking about with respect to this release. Is there anything there?

Larry Schnapf: Yes. Well, Oswald allegedly was in Mexico City in the end of September of 1963. He was trying to get a visa to go to Russia through Cuba. A lot of the documents relating to that episode were held back principally because, interestingly, we had two phone tap programs at that time. One was independent, and one was a joint program with the Mexican government. Apparently, there was a concern that if it became known that the Mexican President was working with us on this wiretap program, that it could jeopardize his government.

That document was finally released on Thursday, that actually has that reference that it was the President of Mexico, it was a joint program. The questions that relate to Mexico, what we've learned in this release is that we had a lot more surveillance than we thought, which calls into question why were there no photographs of Oswald picked up. Also, there's a question about whether two people used the name of Oswald. I know Hoover had told LBJ the day after the assassination, interestingly, the recording of that conversation at the LBJ Library has 14 minutes of hissing. Somebody was able to find a transcript of that conversation, when Hoover is telling LBJ then is that there's two different voices claiming to be Oswald.

We also know that a quid pro quo for that joint program was that the Mexican government would get all of the tapes, dupes of the tapes that we got, that we made. The Mexican government, apparently, at least the review board in the '90s, tried to get those records, those tapes, but they were unable to.

I think one of the emerging narratives coming out appears to be that, "Well, what they're hiding is that they knew about Oswald and they didn't follow up and tell the Secret Service or the FBI." I think that's one of the narratives that's emerging out of this.

Brian Lehrer: For example, I saw a presidential historian Michael Beschloss on MSNBC on Friday on this idea that apparently, Oswald was being closely tracked by the CIA and FBI, maybe more than had been previously disclosed, and that they might have kept this secret all this time, so that the FBI and CIA wouldn't be embarrassed by not having been able to protect the President, even when an aspiring assassin was on their radar. How much of that do you think is the case based on the evidence?

Larry Schnapf: Well, that's certainly one rationale for what they did. We know that the CIA knew a lot more about Oswald as a result of this release than we knew before, that the upper echelons, Director of Plans Richard Helms and his deputy knew about Oswald. That's one theory that this is why they're hiding this, is that they were embarrassed that they could have done something and they didn't.

Brian Lehrer: When you were on in November, you said your own suspicion is that Carlos Marcello, New Orleans head of the mafia, was behind the assassination in a sting operation whose records have been sealed. Remind us who Carlos Marcello was beyond being New Orleans head of the mafia and what kind of sting operation you were referring to there?

Larry Schnapf: Carlos Marcello was a major mafia person in New Orleans and his territory included Dallas. One of the first acts that Bobby Kennedy did when he became attorney general was to deport Carlos Marcello. He dropped him off to Guatemala City. Then Carlos Marcello had to work his way back to the country. He was actually in a trial the day of the assassination for his immigration status. There was a lot of pressure on him economically. The government was going after him, and he could have lost a large amount of assets, if they were successful.

After the assassination, his wealth actually dramatically increased. He was eventually trapped in a sting operation, was in jail, and there was a person, Van Laningham, I forgot his first name, who had befriended him in this jail. He told the FBI, and the FBI made him an undercover, and they basically put a radio in the jail cell that could record conversations. Allegedly, Marcello confessed to the planning of the assassination. Oswald's uncle actually worked for Carlos Marcello.

One of the things we're trying to get released are the actual recordings. They've been sealed by a court since the 1980s. Now, the National Archives did indicate in their press release that they are going to try to work with the Department of Justice to get this released. That's a little positive sign. We have a transcript of some of the conversations, but whether the man was just talking, trying to be a big shot or whether he was [unintelligible 00:08:42], when you hear the tape, you're able to get more information than just reading a transcript.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take a few phone calls. Maybe you've been seeing the stories about the release of these documents pertaining to the JFK assassination, the release that took place last week. My guest, Larry Schnapf, has been an attorney seeking through lawsuits, the release of more documents and knows this field well. Maybe you have a question for him about what new evidence there is about the JFK assassination. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Larry, let me just give you an open mic and say if you're a journalist writing a news story, what would your lead be about the new evidence that came out last week?

Larry Schnapf: Well, we got a little more information about the CIA operations. I have a rapid response team. I think I told you last time, that we had spent the last year and a half trying to push President Biden to have a maximum release of documents. I also got a bunch of open government types to sign a letter to Carolyn Maloney to try to get her to the whole oversight hearings, but there was no interest in that before the midterms.

We know a little bit more about the CIA operations. Interestingly, there were documents that were released that we never knew existed in the JFK collection, which is interesting. Where did these documents come from? They had about 200 documents from the National Security Agency and a whole bunch of documents for military intelligence. That raises questions about whether there are still documents out there that are not technically part of the collection.

As the Rapid Response Team, we picked about 50 or 60 documents that we thought were really key, and the vast bulk of those were not released. One of the most important ones was this guy, George Joannides, his performance records. He was the case manager for the Cuban exile group in New Orleans called the DRE. They're the ones that had that incident with Lee Oswald that was filmed in early August of 1963. He was the liaison to the House Assassinations Committee, and when they asked him, did he know who was running the DRE, who the CIA was supervising them, he said he'll look into it.

In fact, he got an award from the CIA after the HSCA was disbanded. HSCA is the House Select Assassinations Committee. He was given an award for the way he handled the "young investigators on the committee."

We have some documents that we wanted to see that were released, and there are other documents that were simply released with fewer redactions. For example, there is a memo from Arthur Schlesinger to John Kennedy from 1961, proposing in the wake of the Bay of Pigs debacle, proposing a reorganization of the CIA. Two full pages of that document are blacked out. What they did this time was they unredacted one sentence.

Brian Lehrer: You think they're still being stingy with the information? Let me go back to the content as far as you now know it, are you suggesting that somehow the mafia and the CIA become part of the same story because we usually think of the mafia as just about making money through criminal activity, but you're talking about CIA activity in New Orleans, mafia activity in New Orleans, can you tie it together?

Larry Schnapf: You have to remember that during the Kennedy administration, in the beginning, the CIA enlisted the mafia to help to try to assassinate Castro. They were working with these Cuban exiles that were based out of Miami, in the CIA station down there, which was probably the largest CIA station in the country.

Sometimes it's hard to know where the mafia ends and some of these exiles groups begin. There are people that think that there was some combination of Mafia, maybe some gunmen that were hired by the mafia to kill the President to take the pressure off. One oftentimes said, why don't they just kill Bobby? Carlos Marcello once said, there's an old Sicilian saying that you don't cut the tail of the dog, you cut the head off.

Brian Lehrer: Referring, of course, to Bobby Kennedy, JFK's brother who was the US Attorney General and was going hard after the mafia at the time?

Larry Schnapf: That is two other interesting things. There is a film called The Darnell film that was taken by an NBC photographer. Oswald told Captain Fritz for the Dallas police that he was watching the parade on the first floor. They didn't record Oswald's comments when they were interviewing him, they got Captain Fritz would take down written notes. They didn't have a tape recorder in the Dallas Police Office. He said that he was on the first floor and this was written off as one of the many lies that he told while he was in custody.

There's a film that allegedly there's some people that believe that this film captures the image of what could be Oswald on the first floor on the steps. NBC holds that film and they have not allowed it to be analyzed for any kind of software analysis to see whether this really is Oswald or not. Another thing that interests NBC is Judge Tunheim, he's a judge in the Federal District Court of Minnesota. He just stepped down from being a chief judge for that district, he was the chair of the Assassination Records Review Board. He told me last week, when we had a press conference, that the review board had asked Walter Sheridan, who was the right-hand man of Bobby Kennedy, for his files.

Walter Sheridan had done a private investigation for Bobby after the assassination, and he did some other things as well. After he was asked for those records, Walter Sheridan, went up to the JFK Library, grabbed his files, drove down to New York City, and gave them to NBC. He apparently had been hired by NBC in the late '60s to cover the Jim Garrison trial, which was the basis for the JFK movie by Oliver Stone. NBC refused to turn these materials over.

The Records Review Board prepared a subpoena, to try to get these records from NBC and the Department of Justice refused to serve it.

Brian Lehrer: Briefly, what do you think they're hiding?

Larry Schnapf: Well, The Darnell film could help us know whether, in fact, Oswald was on the first floor, not in the sixth floor the time of the assassination.

Brian Lehrer: Because the shot was fired from the sixth floor?

Larry Schnapf: Correct. Yes, that's the official story. We don't know what the Walter Sheridan files have. We haven't seen them, and NBC won't turn them over. I had interviewed Alec Baldwin back in 2017 when we did a mock trial for the Kennedy assassination. I was defending Lee Oswald. He was a keynote speaker at our dinner after the mock trial. He had said that he had prepared a 50th-anniversary program. He used to have a program on NBC on Friday night, and he had a really good program lined up, at the last minute, it was canceled. He asked why. He said he was told by a senior producer that there was a policy at the Embassy Network to support the Warren Commission findings.

Interestingly, Thursday when the records dropped at twelve o'clock, there was a private press briefing, the CIA offered. There are only three media organizations that were invited to this press briefing. It was the New York Times, The Washington Post, and NBC. Basically, the CIA's talking points were that they've released 97% of the documents, and the rest of the documents are just really methods and sources. You can't really look at the percentage because again, it's about information in the documents. It doesn't matter what percentage of documents are released, it's how much information. As I said you have that one source-

Brian Lehrer: Again, there's still a lot being withheld. Eddie in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Eddie.

Eddie: Hi, Brian. I love your show, by the way. What I want to know is, why weren't stringent security measures taken to protect Oswald after he was arrested? I mean, he was wide open for an assassination. You have lesser offenses, criminals or lesser offenses be surrounded by either the security forces or the police, Yet this important subject, this important suspect was left wide open and Ruby comes in and murders him. It really makes you suspect about the collusion between security and the-

Brian Lehrer: The assassination of Oswald just days afterward in police custody by the man named Jack Ruby, what's the best evidence as to why Ruby killed Oswald, as you see it? Was he working for somebody? Does anything in the new document release inform that?

Larry Schnapf: There is no new documents about Jack Ruby. There are questions about Jack Ruby. He definitely had some associations with the mafia. The official story is that he was dropped. He was going to the Western Union to wire some money to one of his dancers, and then just by chance, decided to walk down into the garage, and Oswald was there and he shot him. There are people that said that there are some testimony that was taken that said that people heard him the day before on a phone talking about there's going to be a delay and I'll be there and I'll take care of it. There's an open question about Jack Ruby and his affiliate.

I personally think that was a rub out, but that's just me. I will say it's about the questioner's comment. I give the Dallas police a mulligan on this. There'd never have been something like this in recent history and they were trying to be responsive to the press and they just didn't know what to do and yes, he was exposed. Ruby was there Friday night, the night of the assassination. He actually corrected Henry Wade, who was the prosecutor when Henry Wade was saying who Oswald's affiliation was, a free play for Cuba. He had said the wrong word and Ruby corrected him.

There actually is some suggestion that Ruby ran some weapons to Cuba in the late 1950s. These are some questions-

Brian Lehrer: Again, Cuba, CIA, mafia. We're just about out of time. When you were on the show in November on the anniversary, you said there'll never be a smoking gun, but I think historians will be able to pull the pieces together. I think the impression that I'm getting from our conversation right now is that there was not a smoking gun, you were right in these documents that were released and there's still so much vagueness that you're going to continue to fight for more transparency?

Larry Schnapf: Yes. If I'm right about who was behind the assassination, those people don't put things down in writing. There's never going to be a smoking gun. I think we might be able to get a little better feel for whose Oswald's associations were, but the next step we're going to do is now we feel that given the disappointing release of last week, that it's time for a Congress to have an oversight hearing. Judge Tunheim came out two days ago or actually Friday, and said he thinks it's time.

Brian Lehrer: Chief Judge of Minnesota?

Larry Schnapf: Right, and the former chair of the Records Review Board. The Republicans are taking over the house. James Comer now is replacing Carolyn Maloney. We're going to try to see if he'll hold a oversight hearing to see how we can get these rest of these records released.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. They're probably more interested in investigating living Democrats, but we will see. Larry Schnapf, lawyer who sued the federal government for the release of more JFK assassination documents on behalf of the Morley and Mary Ferrell Foundation. Thanks for picking through. I know it's thousands of pages that came out on Thursday and you've had this rapid response team and you've probably been reading about 22 hours a day since then, so thank you for coming on and sharing what you could glean.

Larry Schnapf: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

[00:23:27] [END OF AUDIO]

 

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