The Threats to Kill Oswald - Part 2
By Paul Abbott
With Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry’s gross incompetence; his lack of regard for due diligence and caution when it came to the handling of Lee Oswald’s security, we must still ask - how legitimate were the ‘committee’ threats against Oswald? The ‘committee’, on whose behalf they were being made, has never been identified. To speculate: which organization would feel so strongly about avenging President Kennedy’s murder? Presumably, they would either have had the membership or resources and motivation in Dallas at the time to mobilize there come Saturday night / Sunday morning.
Of course, we must bear in mind that Dallas at the time, on account of its heavy, often extreme right-wing climate, was perceived as being the most worrisome of cities that President Kennedy’s tour included that weekend. And with the Democrat Kennedy’s reputation there for being bad for business and soft on communism considered, to the point of being accused of ‘Treason’, are we to suppose that there was an equally extreme organization, to quote Vernon Glossup, that was neither left or right leaning, who felt so strongly about Kennedy’s murder to the point of threatening the life of his accused assassin? It is doubtful.
One final, but simple point on the ‘committee’ front is that, from the moment of Oswald’s arrest to the morning of his transfer, there was never any record or reports of a large, angry group gathered along the streets of Dallas. No trace of an angry-mob type ‘committee’ anywhere in Dallas that weekend, let alone on November 24, which seems to indicate we can pretty much call the ‘threats’ from a ‘committee’ dubious.
With the ‘committee’ aspect discounted, what about the caller at least? There is sufficient evidence to substantiate that at least two calls were made that morning. However, the caller/s did not identify themselves nor the organization they were representing, so it literally could have been anyone. The wording attributed to the threat makers by Glossup and Newsom at the FBI, and McCoy at the Sheriff’s Department is interesting and almost verbatim in some parts to each other, particularly with reference to the reason the caller said he was warning of the threat...to ensure no one in the Sheriff or Police departments got injured. Of course, this could be attributed to Glossup’s notes made during the call and the resulting memo passed on to Newsom when calling the Sheriff’s Department and alerting the DPD about it. But neither item ever surfaced, so we can only take Glossup and Newsom’s word for it. Nonetheless, the DPD was not contacted by the threat makers directly, so just how sincere was the caller/s regard for their safety as well?
Let’s not forget another interesting detail present in both Glossup and the second of McCoy’s calls from the threat makers… that when both first took the call, the caller sounded like they handed the receiver to another man who then warned of harm to Oswald. It’s an odd detail that lends an almost absurdly stage-managed/manufactured slant on it all.
Could one or both of the callers have been Jack Ruby? If so, was he making such a call to sabotage an order or assignment that he did not want, or was he getting cold feet? It’s an interesting and viable theory that many researchers subscribe to.
One person largely overlooked, but was central to the whole threat episode, of course, was FBI Special Agent Milton Newsom. He was not present when the clerk, Vernon Glossup, received the first call from the threat makers. This seems odd: for the ranking agent on duty not to be present at that particular moment. Where was Newsom at 2 am? It’s not like it was during the daytime, and therefore there was a greater likelihood of his being in a meeting or out in the field. Wherever he was, he wasn’t far as he seemed to get word of the threat from Glossup and act on it quickly by contacting both the Sheriff and Police departments.
Perhaps most curious about Newsom was the fact that it was he, and only he, who took the only statement of Deputy McCoy, and the first of Captains Frazier and Talbert for the FBI regarding the whole threat episode. Talk about tying a neat bow on the recording of an event that he was involved in from the start!
We also have reason to question Newsom on this front because William Frazier, during his testimony to the Warren Commission, disputed literally most of his statement attributed to him by Newsom. For example:
- Newsom’s statement had Frazier saying that it was Vernon Glossup who rang him to advise of the threat received by him on Oswald’s life.
- Yet Frazier said it was Newsom who called the DPD and spoke to him.
- Newsom’s statement also quoted Frazier as saying that plans to transfer Oswald to the County Jail may be changed in view of the threat.
- Frazier told the Warren Commission that he would not have said this because he did not know what the plans were to transfer Oswald, therefore, he did not know how they might be changed.
- Newsom’s statement also quoted Frazier as saying Oswald’s planned transfer had been publicized primarily as a form of cooperation with the press and news agencies.
- Frazier also denied making this statement to Newsom.
Bear in mind, Frazier’s statement, like McCoy’s and Talbert’s, was barely one page long and consisted of a few paragraphs each. With the above considered, the only portion of his statement that Frazier could confirm as correct was how he (Frazier) mentioned that the DPD had not received any threats and that he was advised that the Sheriff’s office had received a similar threat call.
Compared to the three-page statement he submitted to Sheriff Bill Decker, C.C. McCoy’s statement attributed to him by Newsom barely lines up. It too attributed McCoy as saying that plans to transfer Oswald to the County Jail at 10:00 am had been made public through news releases. Unfortunately, McCoy did not testify on the matter, so we do not have any record of him denying or confirming Newsom’s accuracy in his statement.
What we do know is that both Glossup and Milton Newsom continued to work for the FBI in Dallas until at least the late 1970s. The only other part that Newsom played in the assassination investigation was the handling of the Bronson film of President Kennedy’s shooting. In fact, the death notice of Newsom in 2012 stated that he was a 30-year veteran of the Bureau. Vernon Glossup had even worked his way up to Special Agent status and by all reports is still alive. It is a loss to history that both were not subjected to more scrutiny about the threat matter. Unless Mr. Glossop would be willing and able to provide any further details after all these years, we are only left to speculate on him, Newsom and their conduct, in light of Oswald’s fate.
Threading the Threat Needle
If the phone call threats on Lee Oswald’s life were not legitimate from either a committee or an (unidentified) individual vengeful against him but merciful for the FBI, Sheriff and Police departments, all we are left with are pieces to speculate on their origin and purpose.
Let me propose something that might seem outlandish at first glance: the threat phone calls were staged by either Milton Newsom or someone doing so on his orders. Why? He did so to apply pressure on the DPD and, after the fact, manipulate witness statements to further discredit the police.
Context:
In his Saturday morning statement, Curry inadvertently accused the FBI of either not knowing of someone like Lee Harvey Oswald and therefore not warning them of his presence in Dallas ahead of President Kennedy’s visit, or knowing of him but not warning them. With its association with Oswald confirmed, to what length did the FBI know of or use Oswald? And how concerned were they that weekend of being implicated by association for the president’s assassination? While Oswald was still alive, they were rendered officially helpless as killing the president was not a federal crime at that time. They would have had more of a stake investigating Oswald if he had shot a postman.
What we must also consider is that the longer the weekend went with Oswald in police custody at City Hall, the more outrage and controversy were being stirred. For the most part, the scenes filmed and reported on by the media were chaos. Oswald, despite looking unkempt, calmly pronouncing his innocence, asking for legal assistance, and protesting the lineups he was in, provided a clear perception that the Dallas authorities barely had a handle on the situation. And an assortment of officials, including District Attorney Henry Wade, Chief Curry and Captain Fritz, providing updates on the investigation into Oswald did not help either. Doing so attracted the ire of people like J. Edgar Hoover and President Johnson, who were, fairly, worried that Oswald’s defense could argue for a mistrial on the grounds that he could never have received a fair trial thanks to the early opining of police and legal officials.
Motivation:
If the Dallas Police Department was out of its depth, with little help and steady guidance from Chief Curry, perhaps the FBI saw an opportunity to exploit this by creating a situation that would really highlight the point – something that would only add to the pressure already heaped on the DPD: a serious threat to Lee Oswald’s life. Such a scheme could be hatched locally with literally nothing to lose and everything to gain for the FBI. It would be the ultimate acid test to see what Chief Curry and his DPD would do. Perhaps the intent was to scare the DPD into actually getting with the program and ensuring Oswald’s security by transferring him sooner rather than later. That’s the best-case scenario because, given his Saturday afternoon statement to the press of when Oswald’s transfer would take place and his reputation for maintaining a closeknit relationship with them, it was more than a safe bet that Curry would remain to his word … even in response to a ‘credible’ threat and not budge on moving Oswald. Recall that Curry is on record as telling his beloved press mid-morning on Sunday that Oswald could have been transferred overnight in light of threats received on his life. But it did not happen because, Curry said, he didn’t want ‘to cross you people.’
What was the desired outcome? Aside from assuring Oswald’s safety by being transferred early, regardless of how the DPD responded, I think the underlying intent was to completely undermine Curry and the DPD so as to both minimize any more backlash on the FBI from his comments on Saturday morning and to position itself as the ideal body to step in at the right time to competently investigate President Kennedy’s assassination. With control and oversight of the overall investigation, the FBI would be in a position to cover its own tracks in terms of their association with Lee Oswald and protect itself against the likely catastrophic fallout it would attract. Like the fact that Oswald was an informant for the FBI. Which would have been a disaster for J. Edgar Hoover.
How:
I think it was as simple as at least two threatening phone calls being made on behalf of a conveniently nameless, purposeless organization that was neither right nor left leaning by a person who also remained nameless. And despite saying they were warning of the threat out of concern for the welfare of FBI, Sheriff and DPD personnel, the threat makers did not bother calling the police to warn them. It was all too easy to make up and do so in such a way that could not be traced back to the FBI. Perhaps the DPD were not called for fear of the call somehow being traced or the voice being recognised. If Newsom was behind it, why risk it when all he had to do was either make or have a call phoned into the FBI (if one was made at all)? From there, Vernon Glossup would have wittingly or unwittingly cooperated in the charade by providing a memorandum to Newsom to make the whole episode official. At that point, Newsom could have made or had someone make two ‘threat warning’ calls to the Sheriff’s Department whilst he, in an official capacity, would call the Sheriff and DPD. That is all it could have taken to whip up the storm that followed that morning.
Wrapping everything up neatly, as it were, Newsom could have easily positioned himself on behalf of the FBI to take the statements of the two other people pivotal to the threat response – McCoy and Frazier - to cement the narrative. And in doing so, sink a final boot into the Dallas Police Department by misquoting both men to implant a damning reference of Oswald’s transfer being publicized.
Evidently, the FBI’s stake increased once Oswald was killed because his murder effectively ended the Dallas Police investigation into him. What soon followed was the infamous Belmont memo on November 24th, which mandated that the country be convinced of Oswald’s guilt in killing President Kennedy alone through a report submitted by the FBI. Essentially, with Oswald dead and the DPD out of the picture, with no other suspect to investigate any further, the ball was handed firmly to the FBI to control the narrative. Because the FBI very quickly, yet momentarily, came to sit at the center of the investigation on the back of Oswald’s murder.
Johnson and Warren Wrap it all Up.
President Lyndon B. Johnson would establish the Warren Commission on November 29th, which was essentially a high-level PR piece that would ‘review and evaluate’ the findings of the FBI’s investigation into President Kennedy’s assassination and Lee Oswald’s sole guilt. This was because Johnson was concerned that a single report from the FBI would not be enough to prevent a ‘rash of investigations’ that would amount to a ‘three-ring circus’ that would steer away the public from the desired Oswald-lone nut narrative.
Chief Justice Earl Warren was approached directly by Johnson to head up the commission. Warren originally said no, but when Johnson countered him by putting forth information he had received from Director Hoover about a ‘little incident in Mexico City’, Warren tearfully agreed.
Just what exactly Johnson used to pressure Warren with has been speculated about ever since. Some have interpreted this reference to be some kind of sordid or salacious piece of blackmail that Hoover had procured on Warren and paid it forward to Johnson. I disagree – I think it was more like the information that FBI-contact/asset Washington Star reporter, Jerry O’Leary, happened upon when in Dallas covering the aftermath of the assassination. I have laid this episode out in another article, but essentially, Jerry O’Leary (who was later named as an asset within the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird) met with a CIA contact of his in Dallas who was an ‘unimpeachable’ source who told him that Oswald returned from Mexico with five thousand dollars in cash. Instead of publishing a story on this stunning revelation, O’Leary promptly reported it to the FBI, who took it straight up to the State Department and the White House. The implication was that either the Soviets or Cubans were behind the president’s murder and that such information could be the catalyst for all-out war with the Soviets. The Warren Commission was formed with sitting senators and representatives such as Hale Boggs, Gerald Ford and Richard Russell, as well as Washington powerhouses in John McCloy and Allen Dulles. Surely enough the Commission would submit its findings that Lee Harvey Oswald was solely guilty of killing President Kennedy and police officer J.D. Tippit on November 22nd and anything contrary to these conclusions was either ignored or manipulated. War against the Soviet Union and Cuba was averted, but the truth behind President Kennedy’s murder, his accused assassin’s intelligence links and Oswald’s own suspicious murder have remained enduring mysteries. We can now add to this mosaic the momentary influence the FBI had when it came to ‘investigating’ the Kennedy assassination and ponder what it did to cover its own tracks when it came to its proven association with Lee Oswald.
