The CIA Knew About Oswald and His Cuban Involvement: What the Warren Report Missed (2004)

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One of Oswald's Fair Play for Cuba leaflets had the address "544 Camp Street" hand-stamped on it, apparently by Oswald himself. The address was in the "Newman Building" which, from October 1961 to February 1962, housed a militant anti-Castro group, the Cuban Revolutionary Council. Around the corner but located in the same building, with a different entrance, was the address 531 Lafayette Street—the address of "Guy Banister Associates", a private detective agency run by former FBI agent Guy Banister. Banister's office was involved in anti-Castro and private investigative activities in the New Orleans area (a CIA file indicated that in September 1960, the CIA had considered "using Guy Banister Associates for the collection of foreign intelligence, but ultimately decided against it"). In the late 1970s, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) investigated the possible relationship of Oswald to Banister's office. While the committee was unable to interview Guy Banister (who died in 1964), the committee did interview his brother Ross Banister. Ross "told the committee that his brother had mentioned seeing Oswald hand out Fair Play for Cuba literature on one occasion. Ross theorized that Oswald had used the 544 Camp Street address on his literature to embarrass Guy."[136] Guy Banister's secretary, Delphine Roberts, told author Anthony Summers that she saw Oswald at Banister's office, and that he filled out one of Banister's "agent" application forms. She said, "Oswald came back a number of times. He seemed to be on familiar terms with Banister and with the office."[137] The House Select Committee on Assassinations investigated Roberts' claims and said that "because of contradictions in Roberts' statements to the committee and lack of independent corroboration of many of her statements, the reliability of her statements could not be determined."[138] Oswald's 1963 New Orleans activities were later investigated by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, as part of his prosecution of Clay Shaw in 1967–1969. Garrison was particularly interested in an associate of Guy Banister—a man named David Ferrie[139] and his possible connection to Oswald, which Ferrie himself denied.[140] Ferrie died before Garrison could complete his investigation.[141] Charged with conspiracy in the JFK assassination, Shaw was found not guilty. The Warren Commission examined Oswald's involvement with a New Orleans Civil Air Patrol troop he briefly attended in 1955 with high school friend Edward Voebel. Several witnesses testified that David Ferrie was the Civil Air Patrol unit's commander during at least some of the time that Oswald attended C.A.P. meetings.[35][142][143][144][145] However, the FBI interviewed Ferrie shortly after the assassination and concluded there was no relationship of significance in regards to Oswald.[146] A more extensive investigation was done by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which interviewed several of Oswald's former fellow cadets and others, none of whom recalled Ferrie and Oswald interacting. These fellow cadets said that Oswald attended some 8 to 10 C.A.P. meetings over a two-month period.[33][34][35] In 1993, the PBS television program Frontline obtained a photograph taken in 1955 showing Oswald and Ferrie at a C.A.P. cookout with other cadets. Marina's friend, Ruth Paine, transported Marina and her child by car from New Orleans to the Paine home in Irving, Texas, near Dallas, on September 23, 1963.[110][149] Oswald stayed in New Orleans at least two more days to collect a $33 unemployment check. It is uncertain when he left New Orleans; he is next known to have boarded a bus in Houston on September 26—bound for the Mexican border, rather than Dallas—and to have told other bus passengers that he planned to travel to Cuba via Mexico.[150][151] He arrived in Mexico City on September 27, where he applied for a transit visa at the Cuban Embassy,[152] claiming he wanted to visit Cuba on his way to the Soviet Union. The Cuban embassy officials insisted Oswald would need Soviet approval, but he was unable to get prompt co-operation from the Soviet embassy. After five days of shuttling between consulates—that included a heated argument with an official at the Cuban consulate, impassioned pleas to KGB agents, and at least some CIA scrutiny[153]—Oswald was told by a Cuban consular officer that he was disinclined to approve the visa, saying "a person like [Oswald] in place of aiding the Cuban Revolution, was doing it harm." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald