offices for night meetings and wanted to make an appointment to meet him. He said nothing transpired . . . He also stated that about four or five months ago another fellow -- (white male; about 37-8, 5'11" medium build; light olive complexion; dark eyes; dark brown hair) came to see him about renting an office he wanted to use for night classes in Spanish.

The rest of the story is the same.

It seems to have escaped the Secret Service that this time closely coincides with the beginning of the Oswald propaganda venture and his distribution of literature with the 544 Camp Street return address. And it apparently escaped everybody that Banister and his Cubans were and remained in that building.

How little they are alike, with the difference of a year or more in the period of the Cuban Revolutionary Council rental space, and by virtue of the editing by the FBI of the connection to the Cuban Revolutionary Council of Banister and his employee, of the services rendered by Banister. There are tremendous differences, in what is said of the same thing and in what is omitted when it should have been stated. Neither agency said what it knew and could have said -- and certainly should have.

Now, these are the reports used by the Commission as the equivalent of the sworn testimony of its witnesses. This exposes the soul, if not the heart of the investigation, for the Commission had and wanted no investigators of its own. It used these same FBI and Secret Service investigators to make its investigation. Is it reasonable to presume the FBI was less selective in what it on other occasions reported to the Commission than Wall and Folse were in their Newman report? Is it reasonable to presume that on all other occasions the FBI did not continue to just leave out what it did not like? That it did not evade and deceive on other occasions also? There are countless cases where the FBI was wrong but the Commission believed it in preference to anything or anyone else, including pictures.

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How much closer can the federal police get to complete irresponsibility and undependability? And if this is their standard when a President is murdered, what can we expect of them in ordinary crimes?

The Secret Service is no better. Remember its abandoned assault on Jack Martin? The Anthony Gerrets who signed it on December 13, 1963, is the same Anthony Gerrets who knew Martin's connection with Banister and the Cuban Revolutionary Council on December 2. There is no reason to presume he did not know of Ferrie's relations with Banister. If he did not know of Ferrie's with Arcacha and of deBrueys' with everybody, he conducted no investigation, spoke to no Cubans, lives in a different city and in a different world.

In this case the investigators had not a writer but a Commission going over their work, and not only part of it, but all of it. There were the lawyers of established competence, including a former police commissioner of the City of New York, all under a former solicitor general of the United States. The one. thing that cannot explain any of this is incompetence. If "sloppiness" were the acceptable apology those who seek to defend this fraudulent Report claim, there is nothing sacred or honorable or decent in our society. This is not sloppiness, not incompetence. It is a whitewash.

We have not exhausted the information that escaped elimination in its gathering and suppression in Commission file cabinets.

There is the report that Arcacha might be wanted on a "Dyer Act" charge (the Act concerns stolen automobiles) offered by his former associate, Ronny Caire, who has an advertising agency. If this is false, where is that famous "protection of the innocent" standard? If it is true, where is that fabled efficiency of the FBI?

This report concludes with two paragraphs on Oswald and that address, 544 Camp Street. Special Agent

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in Charge of the Secret Service New Orleans Office Rice asked FBI Agent Paul Alker "as to the results of any investigation" which they may have conducted (didn't the Secret Service know what the FBI was doing to investigate the assassination, and vice versa?) in an attempt to connect Lee Harvey Oswald and the 'FAIR PLAY FOR CUBA COMMITTEE' with the address 544 Camp Street, New Orleans. SA Alker advised that they had checked this angle out thoroughly but with negative results."

It will take the production of many reports of the interrogations of dozens of witnesses who from the available record were entirely ignored before this statement can be regarded with anything but cynicism and the utmost suspicion.

The Secret Service's final word is more modest. It is captioned, "Undeveloped Leads," and reads,

The overal1 investigation with reference to Lee Harvey Oswald is being continued at New Orleans and in the event any information is developed which would place him at 544 Camp St., New Orleans, it will be the subject of another report.

The difference is semantic. The FBI said it had washed its hands and the Secret Service washed its hands without so saying.

The synopsis with which this report began is less modest. "Extensive investigation conducted," the very first words, tell a lie. How can any investigation from the internal evidence of this report alone, be said to have been conducted without interrogation if Quiroga and Martin and their associates, without any reference to Banister, with no one from the Cuban Revolutionary Council, Arcacha or any one else, interviewed; with those leads from Newman untouched -- with no real witness outside Newman mentioned? It was not even a decent pretense of an investigation or an intelligent sham of reporting. One small example is what could have been learned from Newman, or what

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was suppressed from the report if it was learned, that he had seen Arcacha, Quiroga, Martin and Ferrie together in Banister's office and all of them in Mancuso's cafe in the street-floor corner of the building, next to Banister's office. (Mancuso declines to talk to me.) How could they ask and credit Martin about Oswald if they were going to have to clobber him over Ferrie? And how could they speak to and record the others without pulling the plug?

The joint report of Agents Adrian G. Vial, Anthony E. Gerrets and Roger D. Counts, filed December 3, 1963, and covering their investigation from November 22 through December 2, has been quoted earlier. It is a compendium of political ignorance, bias and stupidities directed at minor political deviates, civil rights workers and pacifists. There are 24 single-spaced typewritten pages that also demonstrate how frivolously the government invokes the rights of the innocent as a guise for suppression of evidence. It assassinates character right and left. But it also has a little - - very little -- information about some of the exiles and their organizations.

The report is a massive, misguided, and in part illegible, collection of both the necessities and the trivialities that occupy the limited bureaucratic investigative mind that is the prisoner of its own political ignorance and prejudice.

From one Carlos Grimader the Secret Service got the names of those men entitled to sign checks for the "Crusade to Free Cuba Committee" (which might better have been called "The Crusade to Fill Sergio Arcacha's Pockets") and the Cuban Revolutionary Council. These are Arnesto Rodriguez, Sr., and Jr., Luis Ravel, Joaquin Villodas, Manuel Gil and Sergio Arcacha Smith. The comment following the name of Arnesto Rodriguez, Jr., might have interested agents whose bonnets were not buzzing with imaginary red

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bees. It reads, "alleged owner of Berlitz School," and It is a kind of a clue.

Arnesto Rodriguez, Sr., was 72 years old when he was interviewed by Gerrets on December 1 (Exhibit 1414). He emigrated to New Orleans as a young man, got an education, including two years of business college, and returned to Havana, where he established himself in the wholesale electrical business. In 1960 his considerable holdings -- business, bank accounts, real estate and other -- were confiscated. He returned to New Orleans. The elder Rodriguez provided Gerrets with misdirected conjecture mixed with propaganda and some information about his associates, not including his son, Arnesto, Jr.:

Mr. Rodriguez, Sr. stated that Sergio Arcacha Smith, mentioned on Page 15 of SA Vial's report of 12/3/63, was formerly the New Orleans delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Council, with offices at 544 Camp Street, Room #6, second floor, New Orleans, La. He said that Arcacha was "fired" from his position as New Orleans delegate to the "C R C" by the organization's main office in Miami because practically all Cubans In New Orleans were against Arcacha and his activities -- not because he was cooperating with Castro but because of his dishonesty. According to Mr. Rodriguez, Arcacha was misappropriating the organization's funds. Mr. Rodriguez was of the opinion that Arcacha may possibly be now in Miami but not at all certain as to this.

Mr. Rodriguez, Sr., stated that Carlos Quiroga, mentioned on Pages 14 and 20 of SA Vial's report of 12/3/63 knew Arcacha well and was with him frequently (very close connection) at 544 Camp Street. Mr. Rodriguez did not know what happened to Quiroga's connection with Arcacha after the latter was fired

Mr. Rodriguez stated that Arcacha made frequent visits to the office of Ronny Caire, then located at 705 Cagali Bldg. . ., New Orleans. He said Ronny Caire was the principal organizer of the organization known as "CRUSADE TO FREE CUBA COMMITTEE," with headquarters at Ronny Caire's office and not at 544 Camp Street. He said that Ronny Caire had prevailed upon Arcacha to join or become a part of the "CRUSADE TO FREE CUBA COMMITTEE" and that Arcacha was connected with the "CRUSADE" even after he was fired as New Orleans delegate to the "CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL," against the opinion of the Cubans.

According to Mr. Rodriguez, Sr., Carlos Quiroga was not an actual member of either the "CRUSADE TO FREE CUBA" or the "CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL" but participated in meetings held for the purpose of promoting unity among or between the several local anti-Castro organizations such as the "CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY COUN -

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CIL " and the "STUDENTS' REVOLUTIONARY DIRECTORATE."

Mr. Rodriguez, Sr., stated that the: "CRUSADE TO FREE CUBA COMMITTEE" was founded primarily to raise funds with which to buy arms and supplies for use by the "CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL" and that the "CRUSADE" had no actual revolutionary activities of any kind against Castro. He added that the "CRUSADE" was, however, definitely opposed to Castro and would offer cooperation in the overthrow of Castro.

Mr. Rodriguez, Sr., stated that Ronny Caire had a quantity of pamphlets or circulars printed, which he had distributed by hand soliciting funds for the "CRUSADE TO FREE CUBA COMMITTEE." According to Mr. Rodriguez, Ronny Calre showed that contributions were to be sent either to 544 Camp Street or to the Post Office box of Sergio Arcacha . . .

He said that he had no idea why (Oswald) was using the address of 544 Camp Street, Nev Orleans, former address of the "CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL," an anti-Castro organization . . .

Manuel Gil could have been much more informative. He had connections Gerrets did not here note:

On 12/1/63 interviewed Mr. Manuel Gil, . . . mentioned on page 15 of SA Vial's report of 12/3/63. Mr. Gil stated that he did not know Oswald personally and had never seen him. He said he had seen photos of Oswald on television and in newspapers since President Kennedy's assassination.

Mr. Gil stated that he has been a member of the "CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL" for about the past two years. He said that this organization formerly had offices at 544 Camp St, 2nd floor, for about six months during 1961-62; that Sergio Arcacha Smith has been the New Orleans delegate to the "C R C." He said that Luis Ravel, Arnesto N. Rodriguez, Sr., Arnesto N. Rodriguez, Jr., Sergio Arcacha Smith, and himself were authorized to sign checks In behalf of the "C R C," as was Carlos J. Grimader, CPA . . .

Manuel Gil stated that he is presently employed as Production Manager by "THE INFORMATION COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAS," explaining that he makes tape recordings of information received from refugees from Communist countries, which recordings are broadcast in Latin American countries. He indicated that some of these recordings are also used in some Louisiana schools. "THE INFORMATION COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAS, INC." has offices at 620 Gravier Street, New Orleans -- Telephone: 523-3614.

Next in the report is Arcacha's successor:

On 12/2/63 interviewed Mr. Luis Ravel, 4651 Marigny St., New Orleans -- Telephone: 282-7981 (next door). This is actually the telephone number of Charles I. Camp, Mr. Ravel's son-in-law.

Mr. Ravel stated that he was formerly connected with the "CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL" . . . had become the New Orleans delegate .. . when Sergio Arcacha Smith was "fired" from that position. Mr.

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Ravel . . . could furnish no information about (Oswald). Mr. Ravel was shown a copy of the booklet entitled "The Crime Against Cuba" but could furnish no information as to why the rubber stamp impression "F P C C 544 Camp St. NEW ORLEANS, LA." appeared on this booklet . . .

Mr. Ravel stated that Billy Monteleone, of the Monteleone Hotel, New Orleans, had been Chairman and Sponsor of the "CRUSADE TO FREE CUBA COMMITTEE."

Mr. Ravel stated that Sergio Arcacha Smith had a poor reputation for honesty insofar as financial matters were concerned; that Arcacha was suspected of having embezzled some of the funds of the "CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL." He said that Arcacha had allegedly gone to Miami about a year or so ago after be had been fired as delegate at New Orleans by the "C R C." . . .

On 12/2/63 reporting agent also received a telephone call from Mr. Luis Ravel. He stated that be had looked up some records and determined that he took over as delegate for the "CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL," New Orleans, in February, 1962, and a short time thereafter moved this organization's office from 544 Camp Street to his home. He said that the "CRUSADE TO FREE CUBA COMMITTEE" was organized shortly thereafter and lasted only about a month or so Mr Ravel stated that the "CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL" is still in existence, the present delegate being Mr. FRANK BARTES, 1608 Mason Smith Ave., Metairie, La. -- Telephone: 835-3462 . . .

Here there is a clue that certainly should have been investigated if anyone was at all serious about finding out why Oswald used the return address 544 Camp Street and what other Cuban groups, if any, also did. This should have been done, if only to prove the obvious wrong.

Ravel, Arcacha's successor, said that shortly after he took over he moved the Cuban Revolutionary Council to his home and that "the 'CRUSADE TO FREE CUBA COMMITTEE' was organized shortly thereafter.

But according to Arnesto Rodriguez, Sr., "Ronny Caire . . . the principal organizer" of the "Crusade," "prevailed upon Arcacha to join or become part of" it. And also according to Rodriguez, the Ronny Caire fund-solicitation literature "showed that contributions were to be sent to either 544 Camp Street or to the Post Office box of Sergio Arcacha."

Aside from the revelation of Arcacha's capacity for keeping his feet in the trough, this says that after the

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Cuban Revolutionary Council no longer had offices at 544 Camp Street, Arcacha was using it interchangeably with his personal post office box for mail and that mail addressed to an exile group at 544 Camp Street would reach it!

Of course, it is possible one or both of these Secret Service sources were wrong. It is also possible they were right. Such is the nature of this investigation. But the most obvious probability is that "Crusade" and "Arcacha" mail reached Banister's office.

In light of Rodriguez's statement that Ronny Caire "had prevailed upon Arcacha" (one can imagine how much pressure it took!) to join the "Crusade" against the opinion of the Cubans" (the underlined emphasis supplied by the Secret Service), and that Arcacha wound up getting the contributions, the ensuing language of the report may be regarded with some skepticism:

At approximately 2:00 p.m. on 12/2/63 reporting agent telephoned Ronny Caire Advertising Agency proprietor, with offices at his home located at 616 Dumaine St, New Orleans. Mr Caire stated that Sergio Arcacha Smith had at one time been a delegate to the "CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL" at New Orleans. He said that funds collected by the "CRUSADE TO FREE CUBA COMMITTEE" were deposited in the Whitney National Bank New Orleans; that the drive to raise funds was not too successful and the crusade gradually "folded up." He said he knew nothing of Lee Harvey Oswald ever having any connections with the address at 544 Camp Street, New Orleans.

A polite understatement of what most likely happened is this:

On 12/2/63 reporting agent interviewed Mr. William A. Monteleone, President, Monteleone Hotel, New Orleans. He stated that he had been persuaded by a number of his friends to join the "CRUSADE TO FREE CUBA COMMITTEE" and that he was chosen as General Chairman of the organization. Mr. Monteleone stated that the "CRUSADE TO FREE CUBA COMMITTEE" was organized to raise funds in support of the "CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL", that it was soon realized that all of the funds raised by the "CRUSADE TO FREE CUBA COMMITTEE" were being used to defray expenses incurred by the "CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL" such as newspaper, television and radio

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publicity, etc., etc. He stated that interest in the "CRUSADE TO FREE CUBA COMMITTEE" soon laded and the organization "folded up." Mr. Monteleone could furnish no information re Lee Harvey Oswald.

None of the agents or agencies patched together even that slight amount of the available exile group information that they did collect.

One more such item might be interesting. It is a little addition to what these reports say of the man who wanted space at 544 Camp Street, of all the available space in New Orleans:

He was an electrician. We can learn little about Arnesto Rodriguez, Jr., from these reports, but we do know that his father's business was electrical.

He taught Spanish. Arnesto, Jr., Was connected with "Berlitz."

(Arnesto was not merely a member but was an official entitled to sign the checks of both interlocking groups.)

These reports are not much, but they are all we have to go on, thanks to the "thoroughness" of the "extensive investigation."

With Dave Ferrie we learned that there was more available about him in the newspapers than from the "thorough" official investigation. Possibly the flimsy skeleton of the official "Cuban" investigation can in this way be fleshed out.

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14. GARRISON'S GALLERY

NEW ORLEANS -- Off Lafayette Square, across the street from the magnolia trees, the azalea bushes, the statue of Benjamin Franklin, and the newspaper plant of the Times-Picayune and States-Item, are two vacant offices which now carry "For Rent" signs.

One office, on the Camp Street side, once housed Cuban exiles involved in anti-Castro activities after the Bay of Pigs invasion; the other, on the Lafayette Street side, was the headquarters for Guy Banister Associates, Inc., a private detective agency.

In the days before and after the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, the Cubans met often in Banister's office. And there, two people are reliably reported to have informed Dist. Atty. Jim Garrison, Lee Harvey Oswald was seen with the Cubans and the group around Banister.

That group included three of the persons whose names have surfaced since Garrison's investigation . . . They are: Jack S. Martin, David Lewis, and David William Ferrie.

Martin and Lewis were employed by Banister's firm . . Ferrie . . . had been working closely with Banister in anti-Castro activities and also had retained Banister's firm to help him in a morals case with which he had been charged.

One of the Cubans who used to go to Banister's office told this reporter . . . that Garrison had questioned him a number of times in the past month. Garrison told him, the Cuban said, that witnesses have stated they saw him there with Oswald and the others.

The Cuban flatly denies it . . .

That same Cuban, who wants to remain anonymous, in fact did meet Oswald at Oswald's apartment . .. in August 1963. He had gone there in an attempt to learn . . . about Oswald's supposed Fair Play for Cuba Committee organization in the area.

(This language renders dubious and fraudulent the request for anonymity, for it spells out "Carlos Quiroga" and no one else. It is Quiroga who unsuccessfully undertook just this impossible mission for Bringuier, and it is Bringuier who gave his name to the government.)

They talked for about half an hour . . . promptly reported his contact with Oswald to the New Orleans Police Department . . .

The Warren Commission was fully aware of his meeting, although his name does not appear in the report.

This is the opening of a major, lengthy, copyrighted story across the top of the front page of the Washington Star Sunday morning, February 26, 1967, Written

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by Haynes Johnson. In blurbing his piece, the Star referred to "The Bay of Pigs," saying that he wrote it "with the assistance of the Cuban leaders of the 1961 invasion of Cuba." Only such excellent relations enabled him to write, so soon after the surfacing of the Garrison investigation, an account with information that did not appear elsewhere, including in the official investigation.

His is an important story. It was not, however, immediately followed up. The leads to further information were not exploited. There it ended.

From this point Johnson proceeds to protect the FBI and the rest of the government and to speak deprecatingly of Garrison personally and of his investigation. Then Johnson analyzes what he estimates Garrison's concepts to be. With minor exceptions, these coincide with exposures of my two Whitewash books and from what had been gathered for Whitewash III: The Archive and for this book, originally intended to be part of Whitewash III.

It is Garrison's obvious contention that Cubans were somehow involved in the President's death . . . his case appears to rest on one theory about the assassination:

That Oswald was working with an anti-Castro right-wing organization and actually intended to kill Fidel; that Oswald's publicly pro-Communist activities in New Orleans and his attempt to enter Mexico and secure a Cuban visa were a ruse to enable him to carry out that Castro assassination objective; that when Oswald was denied entrance to Cuba, the plot shifted, and Kennedy, accused of letting down the anti-Castro Cubans at the Bay of Pigs. became the target. This theory has, been examined at length in the past and has been discarded.

To these basic ingredients, Garrison seems to have added new factors. These are among them:

The evidence of a training camp for Cubans in St. Tammany Parish (County) across Lake Pontchartrain in the summer of 1963 where, supposedly, Oswald went for the purpose of participating in the plot to kill Castro.

[As I have shown earlier, this is "new" only in the

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Oswald-training angle. I discuss this camp in Whitewash, then got the proof from the Commission's files. There is no evidence Oswald took training there.]

* The later movement of an American, who reportedly organized that camp, from New Orleans to Houston.

* Two canceled checks drawn on the New Orleans Bank of Commerce in New Orleans in the summer of 1961, used to help pay the way back to Miami for two of the Cubans from that camp.

* The departure of other Cubans, from New Orleans to Miami, and one to Dallas.

* Documents from an anti-Castro organization which operated briefly in New Orleans in 1962 and then was disbanded.

* A photograph of Oswald distributing pro-Castro literature on Canal Street here that shows a man supposedly later photographed behind a sign in Dealey Plaza in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

This is the picture to which I referred earlier, taken by a tourist.

From here Johnson proceeds to the conclusion that is correct only if one assumes, as did the government, that Oswald was the assassin:

Out of all the smoke, one thing is certain: To prove any conspiracy Garrison must be able to link Oswald with others. That is where the relationship between Guy Banister's detective agency and the Cubans becomes crucial.

Banister is important, as is Oswald, but there could have been a variety of conspiracies in which neither was an active participant. Oswald could have been exactly what he claimed after arrest in Dallas, a "patsy," a conveniently framed fall guy. This is my belief, based on the Commission's own misrepresented, misused and suppressed evidence.

For a while Banister published a weekly paper across the river from New Orleans. When he organized his detective agency in 1960, he took Jack S. Martin with him from the paper. Johnson says:

Banister, without question, was actively involved in the anti-Castro cause before the Bay of Pigs. Whether in fact his office was the center of an arms cache, as is alleged here, is not known, but it is a fact that

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Cubans met there along with David Ferrie, a former pilot, and that they were observed by two of Banister's employees Martin and David Lewis.

Johnson believes these two men are Garrison's principal sources of information and that neither is reliable. Johnson may be right on either or both counts. Only the final presentation of the court case will tell us. It is, however, not likely that one finds bishops picking pockets. It is not reasonable to expect the most solid citizens to associate with the Banisters, Arcachas, Ferries and other assorted types engaged in the Cuban-exile futilities and third-grade soldier-of-fortune business. What is more important is not who these men are but what they know and whether they speak truthfully on these matters.

Shakespeare addressed himself to this in Act IV of All's Well That Ends Well when he said,

'Tis not the many oaths that make the truth,

But the plain single vow that is vowed true.

In the course of his character study of Martin, presented largely in the words of Mrs. Martin, Haynes Johnson reports Martin had been a "Flying Tiger" in World War II, hero is another pilot in the cast of characters; is an amateur painter; had autographed pictures from Banister and Richard Nixon, among others, and had been photographed with a former New Orleans mayor and Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz; and "wherever there is excitement or intrigue, that's where Jack is going to be."

Mrs. Martin told Johnson "that she had known Ferrie and a number of anti-Castro Cubans. She said she had never met Oswald, although she had heard the rumor that 'Guy Banister's office was in this building, so were the Cubans,' and so, theoretically, was Lee Oswald's.'"

Here was real intrigue. If Johnson pursued it, he does not so report.

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What was Oswald, who never earned a typist's wage in his life, whose unemployment compensation, the Commission says, was enough for him to live on comfortably and almost as much as his earnings when he worked, doing with an office in a downtown building? Whose office was it, if it was not his? Is it just coincidence that when the Cuban Revolutionary Council took an office (and then for but a short while) they selected the building that housed the swashbuckling former FBI agent, Banister, who on his own or otherwise was engaged in the same Cuba-invasion business and who arranged for their office through his employee, Martin?

Unlike most of the others reporting from New Orleans the end of February, Johnson says little about David Lewis. He does not ridicule or belittle the younger man. He quotes Mrs. Martin as saying, "Lewis has an amazingly retentive memory." Johnson accurately paraphrases what Lewis did say, that "he knows five persons involved in the assassination with Oswald."

Johnson concludes his important story of more than a full, seven-column newspaper page with about a half-column on "The Cubans," of whom he says too little and too little of what they told him. He places the number whose names are "being bandied about in New Orleans" at from four to fourteen, "depending upon whom you talk to."

Of the "several" of these whose names "are common knowledge" Johnson said he spoke to two. He quotes one whose name he hides but who might well be Quiroga:

He spoke readily about his contacts with other Cubans and with Ferrie and Banister. "Ferrie was active in the Cuban revolutionary front," he said . . . "He tried to help us raise money. We used to go to Guy Banister's office, and one of the reasons was because he was an anti-communist . . ."

He added later, about Ferrie: "Ferrie could dream of things -- he was a very bright intelligent person - - and one time I remember be was going

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to try and get a small submarine and plan to get into Havana Bay and blow up one of those docks over there." . . .

He gave the names of people he knew involved in meetings at Banister's office, just as he has to Garrison and includes the name of a young American who has left town.

The Commission also made no mention of Quiroga's name. It is not in the Report, or in the index of names mentioned in the testimony. Quiroga did speak to federal investigators. They had as little interest in what he had to say as did the New Orleans police, for whom Quiroga offered to become a stool pigeon. Quiroga told the Secret Service that his offer was ignored, strange for the Red-dreaming New Orleans police.

Probably the proofreader at the Star erred. What Johnson's informant said is not only that Ferrie was active in "the Cuban revolutionary front" but specifically in the organization of that name, the Cuban Revolutionary Front, as Pena had told me.

Johnson and I agree that only time will tell whether Garrison's is a "crazy" investigation. That will be decided in court, where Garrison will not have it as easy as the Commission lawyers did. Liebeler and the others were not bound by the rules of evidence, were not inhibited by the excellent laws against self-incrimination, did not have to concern themselves with slanders and libels secretly wholesaled by witnesses they would never have dared produce in court, and they were never confronted by opposing counsel, never had any kind of opposition or cross-examination to contend with. The rules under which the New Orleans courts function are fixed and known; those of the Commission were virtually nonexistent and were improvised to meet the changing needs of the case, the predetermined conclusion its lawyers sought to make credible.

Johnson, however, is one of a number of sources that tie Ferrie to the extremist Cuban exiles, and tie them and him to others. All the information he had, and much more, was available to the government, which

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just did not want it.

In my opinion, this article is the most significant and informative of those written in the early days of the Garrison investigation. New Orleans was then well covered by some of the world's best reputed by-line writers. It is a journalistic achievement and a public service that Johnson gathered and reported as much as he did in a single writing. I disagree with some of his interpretations and opinions but respect his accomplishment.

Other reporters also gathered fact -- to them, news. Despite the ardent antagonism toward Garrison, a virtually monolithic rally-round-the-government attitude, much appeared in the newspapers that is not in accord with the government's and press's preconceptions, much that should have been developed and analyzed in hearings and was not.

Arcacha was arrested on April 3 for extradition from Dallas to New Orleans. He was charged with conspiracy to burglarize a munitions bunker. Charged with him was Gordon Novel who had made headlines for the month prior to his arrest in a successful public relations campaign that reached its zenith when NBC News and the Hearst Headline Service arranged for a self-serving and deceptive "lie detector" test in suburban Washington.

The Commission was almost 100 percent successful in keeping all reference to Arcacha from the testimony as the FBI and Secret Service were from the exhibits. The indexer just left him out. Nonetheless, the Commission had an "Arcacha file." I have duplicate copies of folio 471 of File 75, part 2. One and by far the clearer has a stamp at the top of it, "Other Individuals and Organizations Involved or Interviewed." From this category we must conclude that there is more "sloppiness" or that Arcacha was either "involved" or "interviewed." I have found no copy of any interview with him. This being the case, he was, in the concept of

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someone on the staff, "involved," making all the more incomprehensible the absence of any interview. He could have been found easily. The elimination of his name and that of his organization from the index and Liebeler's quick shuffle when Pena volunteered Arcacha's name does not diminish suspicion.

The Arcacha file copy of this report, made by FBI Agent Earl L. Hassell following a November 27, 1963, interview with Manuel Gil, has the mention of his name encircled in the body of the report. It is written in large black capital letters across the top, and bears the additional legend, "O-POST." To Manuel Gil and in this report Arcacha is also "head of an anti-Castro Cuban organization" in New Orleans as of about January 1962. It had a name, and if Gil did not give it, the FBI knew it.

Another "coincidence" is that all mention of Arcacha avoids reference to his background and experience. The neat, well-tailored, natty-mustached and smooth gentleman is a former diplomat in the service of Dictator Batista. The relationship to the deposed tyrant is not unique with Arcacha in this story. Nor is official failure to mention it.

From the newspaper accounts, this could be an entrancing file if the entire story is ever released. From Arcacha one can follow a trail almost any where and to almost anyone. There are repeated references to him and Ferrie together and to him and close associates of Ferrie. These go back six years, back to the pre-Bay of Pigs period. The robbery of the explosives store at Houma, Louisiana, is of that pre-assassination period.

His interests and activities were so well known and understood that three weeks before his arrest, Gordon Novel told the press when he was summoned by the grand jury for questioning that, according to the New York Times of March 17, "he believed he had been subpoenaed for questioning about the activities of a one-time Cuban exile leader. Mr. Novel identified the

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leader as Sergio Arcacha Smith . . . a leader of the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front, an anti-Castro group."

An incident late in the night of August 30, 1961, resulted in a police record for Arcacha and a public connection with Ferrie as of that date although it was, of course, of much longer standing. Pena tells me Ferrie enjoyed the Arcacha table. Newspaper accounts of this incident are not entirely consistent. The New Orleans States-Item of February 27, 1967, quoted New Orleans police as saying "they stopped two young men in a car on August 30, 1961, and found in the auto a pistol and makeup kit with a wig. When police voiced suspicion, the youths took them to the home of Sergio Arcacha so he could vouch for them. Arcacha's wife told police that Ferrie had been at the home a short time earlier, and the pistol and kit belonged to him. The youths were released."

Other accounts have the car parked and the young men waiting for Ferrie. George Lardner wrote in the Washington Post of February 27:

One Layton Martens had been at Arcacha's apartment when the police rapped on the door back in 1961; he had then furnished them with identification saying he was second in command here of the Cuban group headed by Arcacha.

This claim by Martens is more likely boasting mixed with alibi. He was but a boy then. It should be noted that he was also Ferrie's roommate in 1963.

The day before, Lardner said what is clearly the case and what should have interested the government during the assassination inquiry:

At one point Ferrie was also alleged to have been "working out of" the New Orleans office of the Frente Revolucionario Democratico headed locally by Sergio Arcacha, who Newsweek reporter Philip D. Carter found moved from New Orleans well before the assassination and wound up in Dallas in the police investigation of the August 30 incident revolving around Sergio Arcacha Smith's home here, the New Orleans intelligence division reported several months later, that "apparently this group (the

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Cuban Revolutionary Democratic Front) was legitimate in nature and presumably had the sanction of the CIA, although this could not be determined locally."

This incident of the boys and Ferrie's car at Arcacha's home came but four days after Ferrie was in the news on one of the sex charges against him. The States-ltem reported that

. . . a search of Ferrie's home turned up numerous maps of Cuba and seven or eight World War I rifles with a quantity of ammunition. A juvenile told officers he had flown to Cuba with Ferrie on several occasions. Ferrie asked another teenager to drive a Cuban citizen to Miami, police said.

Of course, Ferrie might have been a "maps of Cuba" buff, as he might have collected old rifles, ammunition, and aerial bombs, just for the love of them.

His early participation in these Cuban activities is confirmed by Orest Pena, who attended the meetings until he could get no accounting of the funds he collected and contributed and began to doubt Arcacha's financial probity. It is he, Pena tells me, who went to the Miami headquarters of the Cuban Revolutionary Council and initiated the inquiry that ended with Arcacha's ouster.

I suggest that the undenied CIA interest in Arcacha and his group its consistent with Ferrie's activities and associations and with the official hands-off policy during the investigation of the assassination.

Until now, Arcacha has always landed on his feet, as the earlier accounts of his ventures show. He usually has the right friend in the right place at the right time. In the most bizarre aspect of his recent career, during February 1967 Dallas Assistant District Attorney Bill Alexander acted as his legal counselor and the Dallas police as his protectors against New Orleans authorities. None of this is inconsistent with the reported CIA interest. The treatment of Arcacha contrasts vividly with how these same Dallas officials treated Oswald.

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According to George Lardner, Bringuier "stated that it was he who helped Garrison's men to find Arcacha. Arcacha had called Bringuier to find out what was going on in New Orleans."

There had been a long period of silence about Arcacha. Stories had appeared about him, but he had not been located. Rumor had him going to Miami when he left New Orleans.".

Then it was learned he was in Houston at the time of the assassination, or at least so it was reported. On February 26, 1967, New Orleans TV Station WWL (whose radio affiliate has been part of the official U.S. anti-Castro propaganda operation) broke the story of Arcacha's Dallas benefactors. This is what the Associated Press said following a lead dealing with earlier inquiries about Ferrie.

Meanwhile, in New Orleans, WWL -TV said today in a newscast in a had learned two key Garrison investigators were in Dallas over the weekend to question a man who was once a Cuban exile leader in New Orleans.

The man was identified as Sergio Arcachia , now a Dallas resident.

Bill Gervitch (sic) and another Garrison investigator flew to Dallas to Gervitch 's private plane, WWL -TV said, met Arcachia in the Dallas police station but asked him no questions when he requested the interrogation be conducted in the presence of Dallas detectives.

Arcachia, the report continued, said he was being legally represented by Asst. Dist. Atty. Bill Alexander of Dallas; who when questioned said he had only advised Arcachia of his rights after the man had told him Garrison was "hounding him" to go to New Orleans for questioning.

The New Orleans TV station said it had confirmed its information from Garrison, who appears to see a key link in the assassination between a Cuban exile group and Ferrie.

Alexander's denial that he was Arcacha's attorney and his attitude of I'm-just-a-good-guy- always-willing-to-help-the-down-trodden-and-helpless -- free -- did not impress Arcacha. In the inevitable press conference following his release under $1,500 bail in Dallas April 3, Arcacha explained his reasons for fighting extradition and refusing to talk to Garrison: ". . . he refused to talk to me with my attorney present . . ."

In New Orleans, William Gurvich answered Arca -

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