Mr. SCHAAP - Do you mean, how many people who were in the CIA or how many people in the general population? However, please contact me before mentioning my name to anyone. Mr. GOLDSMITH - And finally, as I said at the beginning is it fair to say that you are here voluntarily today? 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. WILCOTT - Yes. 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. GOLDSMITH - And when you testified earlier that you learned Oswald's cryptonym, by that do you mean that you learned both Oswald's personal cryptonym and his project cryptonym, or was it one of the two? Mr. WILCOTT - Jerry Fox was a Case Officer for his branch the Soviet Russia Branch, XXXXXXXXXX Station, who purchased information from the Soviets. Wilcott swore in a secret session Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, in a speculative manner. 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. Give as a gift or purchase for a team or group. of the Select Committee on 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. SCHAAP - For the record, I have made a list of all of these spellings of the names which have been mentioned, which I will give to the stenographer so that he will have, them correctly. These promotions will be applied to this item: Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. I think, or I am certain, in my own mind, that, if these people were approached that some of these people -- Mr. WILCOTT - I don't know how to answer that. One label read Texas School Book Depository, 500 Red Pony books by John Steinbeck, from Bobbs-Merrill. Retired TSBD vice president Ochus Campbell said the move took place about five years prior to the assassination. the day we would list all of the advances that were made in an advance book. 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. PREYER - I believe you have written an article about this, an unpublished article. He was not questioned by the Warren Commission. Mr. WILCOTT - No, sir. His first day on the job was October 29, 1945. Mr. WILCOTT - They called me up to chief of security, the agent security, and they interviewed me on the association that I had had with the group, and then they gave me a polygraph -- in fact, two polygraphs -- concerning my association with the group of people that I met with the group. In the decades following that fateful day, former employees of these companies have been reluctant to answer questions. Here, by your own testimony, you were supportive of the President, and certainly the most significant tragedy, I think, probably in the last 15 years or 20 years was the assassination of President Kennedy, and you are told by some who worked for the Agency that Oswald was a CIA agent and you already were dissatisfied with the actions of the Agency and you are told this in 1964 and yet it takes four, years, or two years, after you had left the Agency, recognizing the tremendous import and significance of that, and I am terribly confused as to why you decided to keep that information to yourself and to your wife. Mr. GOLDSMITH - I realize this is testimony 15 years after the fact. Mr. SAWYER - Well, what were your antiwar activities that you refer to? Please try again. Mr. DODD - It would have been a cryptonym and he was telling you, you had, in fact, made a disbursement? Mr. GOLDSMITH - To your knowledge, would any records at CIA Headquarters document that Oswald was a CIA agent? Mr. WILCOTT - Well, I was on day duty for the station. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes. Mr. WILCOTT - I am sorry, sir; I lost the thread of your question. 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. 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? He closed his 1989 letter with a lurid metaphor: I will help any wayI just want to be forewarned. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Did you check your cash disbursement files? Mr. SCHAAP - Excuse me. It was not until 1999 that I located and spoke with Leslie Thompson, one of the original members. Mr. WILCOTT - No, I am not saying that. Mr. CORNWELL - That is, that subject matter, your statement on the Oswald agency matter, be printed or otherwise publicized in a news publication, radio or TV or anything like that on any other occasion? There is a very large spider guarding this web of secrecy. Mr. SAWYER - Were there any other instances of harassment? Mr. GOLDSMITH - Why did you wait five years? It was more of a casual kind of thing, to my way of thinking. or C.I.A. Butler took over as branch manager after Leon transferred to Los Angeles. Mr. CORNWELL - To your knowledge, when was the first point in time at which your extra-agency discussions on this subject matter came to the attention of the Agency, if ever? Reminder warnings were given on an individual or a small group basis. (Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.) JAMES WILCOTT'S TESTIMONYJames B. Wilcott, a former CIA accountant, swore in a secret session of the House Select Committee on Assassinations that he was told by other CIA employees that Lee Harvey Oswald was paid by the CIA, and that money he himself had disbursed was for "Oswald or the Oswald project." suspicious that many of the other things that happened may have had as its source the CIA. From June of 1960 to June of 1964, I was stationed at XXXXXXX Station, and my primary duty was finance and cash disbursements. I was on the executive committee along with doctors and lawyers and some of the most respected people in the community. Mr. SAWYER - Thank you. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, sir. Two men, who identified themselves (with I.D.) This would put his visit in a period sometime during the summer or fall of 1963. Mr. GOLDSMITH - And have you just described one of those instances to us? Earlier that year, he graduated from Crozier Technical School in Dallas. Mr. WILCOTT - Well, the payments that were made especially to substations like Oswald's was operated -- it was a substation of the XXXXXXXX station, and they had one in XXXXXX and they had one in XXXXXXXXX-- and it may be six months or even a year after the intial allocation that the final accounting for those funds were submitted, and they would operate out of revolving funds or out of their own personal funds in many cases. From June of 1964 to about December of 1964, I was at Roseland. 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? The largest typical box for books measured 12 x 14 x 18 inches, was made out of cardboard, and when filled with books weighed 55 pounds. As you can well imagine, she was quite confused because the job was low-paying and involved minor duties. In addition, all of my interview notes and tapes inexplicably disappeared. We will. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH - excuse me, just answer the question very generally, without referring to anything right now, and please describe generally what your responsibilities were as a finance officer. 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. WILCOTT - The first time I heard about Oswald being connected in any way with CIA was the day after the Kennedy assassination. Mr. CORNWELL - Did they request that you leave? Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, it is. We appreciate your being here today, Mr. Wilcott. As many JFK researchers know, James Wilcott was a CIA accountant from May 1957 through April 1966. Mr. PREYER - I would like before we begin to read a written statement concerning the subject of the investigation. In 1938, he became a salesman for Scott Foresman. * 2017 JFK has a detailed guide to the massive JFK disclosures scheduled for October 2017. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for JFK Assassination : The James B. Wilcott Files And The CIA Oswald Project: An Investigative Report at Amazon.com. While working as a journalist in Dallas, Tx. There is a very large spider guarding this web of secrecy. [13] Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985), pp. Mr. CORNWELL - Had you done anything or said anything engaged in any activity which became of concern to them? EXECUTIVE SESSION Mr. DODD - You may have covered this as well, Mr. Chairman, and, if you have, I will drop the question. This is more than just an investigative report. Roy Truly, who started working for the book depository in 1934, took a part-time job at the North American Aviation plant in Arlington, Texas during the war years. Mr. CORNWELL - You had signed a secrecy oath while you were employed with the Agency? However, information on the Prayer-man.com website shows that Shelley was indeed an officer during the war, albeit as a lieutenant in the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Crozier Tech. 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. 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. I must admit that my own fear of getting involved in the investigation has prevented me from writing you earlier. As far as that they actually said, they said they were having trouble with Oswald and that there was dissatisfaction with Oswald after he came back from the Soviet Union, and the would say things like "Well, you know this was the way to get rid of him -- to get him involved in this assassination thing and put the blame on Cuba as a pretext for another invasion or another attack against Cuba. Namely the mention that Shelley was a CIA operative, while at the same time he was an employee in the schoolbook business. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Just give us their names. A huge cast of suspects. Mr. GOLDSMITH - And the first time you alleged in public this allegation was in 1968? Mr. SAWYER - Who is the public safety commissioner? They constructed a new building in the northwest part of Dallas, which both companies shared. We publish here the Wilcott affidavit and interrogation by the HSCA, declassified by the Assassination Records Review Board. He thereafter went outside and stood around for five or ten minutes with foreman BILL SHELLEY, and thereafter went home. [15] Shelley testimony, Volume 6 of the Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits on page 327, hereafter to be cited as 6H327. And I will ask the question again, okay. Do you believe that there was such a reference to Oswald? Feel free to use any part of it as you please. Hurt initially doubted that such a large container could be moved into the building inconspicuously. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Were there any other times during your stay with the CIA at XXXXXXXXXX Station that you came across information that Oswald had been a CIA agent? However, if you received this information two or three months after the assassination, at a time that Oswald was already dead and had been dead for two or three months, what purpose would have been served by checking records that were only 30 days old? 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. In 1970, the TSBD and the schoolbook publishers moved out of the old 411 Elm Street building. Mr. GOLDSMITH - What is that explanation? After failing to get anywhere, I let the matter sit for six years. I can't remember what it was. Mr. WILCOTT - I believe they would at one time. Mr. WILCOTT - That is correct, sir. * Assassination Archives and Research Center leads the fight in federal court for full JFK disclosure. Whether they are there now or not is hard to say. 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? Mr. GOLDSMITH - I am not sure I am following, then, what specifically you did check. We appreciate that, and if at, any time you think of any further way in which your testimony can be corroborated or the name of any other CIA man or any record or anything of that sort that might be available we hope you will get in touch with us and let us know about it. Mr. WILCOTT - In conversation. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Would your Counsel identify himself for the recorder? 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. SAWYER - When you refer to Oswald as an agent, you are referring to the extent you have -- as an agent as opposed to a paid informer, in effect? Mr. GOLDSMITH - And who is Jerry Fox? Mr. GOLDSMITH - Mr. Wilcott, when did you leave the agency? Mr. DODD - In. Mr. WILCOTT - That he was a regular employee, receiving a full-time salary for agent work for doing CIA operational work. Spaulding Jones, former branch manager of MacMillan, said they moved in around 1957 or 1958. Mr. DODD - I have no further questions. Kennedy Assassination Committee. Mr. DODD - Was he described as an agent to you or was he described as an operative or a paid informant? Like Frazier, who was eating lunch in the basement, Oswald went to the first-floor lunchroom to eat his lunch. I will give my card to the Committee. He was fortunate to have many travels, including celebration of his 60th birthday in Antarctica. Told to report to base by the tower. There was a fourth calm man, perhaps unnoticed by MacNeil, who was getting a coke on the second floor. Mr. WILCOTT - At least -- there was at least six or seven people, specifically, who said that they either knew or believed Oswald to be an agent of the CIA. Additional gift options are available when buying one eBook at a time. SILENCED! Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, sir. 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. 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. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes. Mr. WILCOTT - No. Mr. GOLDSMITH - And you testified without any reservation? Behind the building are five loading docks and an asphalt lot extensive enough to accommodate a number of trucks of any given size. That was the SR branch which had all of the projects having anything to do with the Soviet Union. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Very generally now, what were your responsibilities as a finance employee with the agency? Mr. GOLDSMITH - Were any of these people on your list possible subjects who made references to Oswald being a CIA agent? It was a total loss. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, sir; I believe that happened. Mr. WILCOTT - Well, my tires were slashed and damage done to my car and I believe sugar poured in the gas tank, and whether this was actually CIA or not I have no way of knowing, and it could also have been just for harassment as a result of antiwar activities but I think there is also a possibility that it could have been attempts to intimidate me into talking about the CIA. Mr. WILCOTT - I can't remember the exact persons. Mr. WILCOTT - I worked from the years, May, of 1957 to, April, of 1966. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Did you discuss this information with Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, for a limited period. On October 5, 1986, Elsie Wilcott died of cancer. 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. Mr. CORNWELL - On any other occasion? at the best online prices at eBay! Mr. WILCOTT - I cannot remember. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Is that list complete and does it have. Mr. WILCOTT - Yes, sir. Henry Hurt, author of Reasonable Doubt, discovered such boxes while investigating the claims of an alleged conspirator. Mr. WILCOTT - That is correct. Mr. SAWYER - Could you tell us what those things consisted of? I was in too much of a hurry to remember what the three men looked like. 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. ", That was the kind of things that people said. Mr. GOLDSMITH - Have you received a copy of the Committee's rules? Mr. GOLDSMITH - Mr. Wilcott, did I ask you to prepare a list indicating the dates that you were employed with the CIA and where you were stationed? If you have something -- Two retired Sexton officials told me that they moved out of the building on November 14, 1961, and that it remained vacant for at least a year. James Wilcott worked out of the Tokyo CIA station at the time of the assassination. I am a reporter there. Unknown adversaries tormented Cason so much at his home on Druid Lane, that he was forced to relocate to another part of the city. In the work that Oliver Stone has done for his upcoming four-part documentary series on the JFK case, he uncovered information that Truly was not being paid directly through the Texas School Book Depository in 1963. For instance, in accounting, when we had our audits, for instance, in most of the audits, he would call up somebody -- let's say in China Branch -- and say "I know you were having problems with this, would you like to look it over before the auditors come? Butler said that the 411 Elm Street building was vacant for at least a year after his company moved out. And perhaps even having people inside the TSBD as assets. Upon exiting the elevator, he saw a short hallway. Can you recall whether the tone of it was rumor or shop talk or was the tone of it that "this is true"? 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