In my reading, it was no mistake that Lee Harvey wound up in New Orleans, working for Guy Banister -- a right-wing speaker and politician in the South, and a leader of his local Minutemen, like Ex-General Walker. What was Oswald doing for Guy Banister? He was setting up a Fake FPCC in New Orleans. Now, why would anybody want to do that?
Those who are familiar with the history of 1960's Cuba, with Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and FPCC, know that the FPCC was the favorite political vehicle for Fidel Castro in 1962-1963. It was a Front. It was a friendly face that Fidel could use in the USA to keep collecting contributions for his new Cuban Revolutionary government. The FBI was very worried about it. The US Radical Rightists were more worried about it.
ACT ONE
The expert in the New Orleans scene remains Jim Garrison, beloved District Attorney of his family's old neighborhood. Garrison knew that the New Orleans FPCC was a Fake Front for Guy Banister. On the surface, Banister would use his FPCC to pretend to recruit college kids for the Left, and then find ways to blackmail them, to keep them out of local politics. At a deeper level, Guy Banister dreamed of using his FPCC to offer the US Rightist Underground a vehicle for infiltrating the Left so deeply, that they could trick their way into Havana, and assassinate Fidel Castro.
This is what Lee Harvey Oswald was doing there, as I gather from the evidence that Jim Garrison bequeathed. Whether the plot was a half-baked scheme or not, it drew lots of money from solid citizens like Clay Shaw, from criminal elements like Carlos Marcello, and from all points in between. Jim Garrison shows us Lee Harvey Oswald on Canal Street, handing out FPCC flyers. He also shows us two young helpers -- fresh off the unemployment line -- paid to hand out these leaflets. Jim recognized one of the boys and visited his father. The boy caught hell that night -- but he insisted he only did it for the money. Guy Banister's tricks; oh, well, it's a free country.
Now let's look at this from the viewpoint of Lee Harvey Oswald. He had missed his shot at Ex-General Walker. Days later he got a call from his old Civil Air Patrol instructor, David Ferrie, offering him a great opportunity in New Orleans -- to join the Underground for a chance to get a full-time job in the CIA. (Ferrie was in no position to promise a CIA job, but many folks working for Guy Banister were pretending to be CIA agents. Young folks believed them.)
It had been Lee's long term dream to get a steady job as a spy. All Lee had to do was play ball -- set up this Fake FPCC, compile a resumé of street credentials in police records, newspaper clippings, radio programs and a spot on TV -- extolling the FPCC and the greatness of Fidel Castro. Lee could play 007 to his heart's content. Two weeks after the Walker shooting, Lee was in New Orleans, eager to play.
I visited New Orleans to see the geography. I saw that 544 Camp Street no longer exists. That location across the street from Lafayette Park has long since been cemented over by a professional building and mall. The odd fact was how close it had been from Reily Coffee Company on Magazine Street, where Lee Harvey Oswald worked for several weeks (but was fired for poor attendance). It was only a few steps across the street from the Reily Coffee Company to 544 Camp Street. Oswald would take a public bus from his duplex on Magazine Street in the morning, to his job on Magazine Street. As his co-workers said, he could rarely be found after that. That was no accident. He was really working for Guy Banister.
ACT TWO
Act two of this charade would be played out in Mexico City. The fruit of a summer in New Orleans would be a resumé for a portfolio to use as proof at the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City that Lee Harvey Oswald was a valuable asset to Fidel Castro -- a loyal officer of the FPCC. In theory, the clerks at the Cuba Consulate were too dumb to read, and would believe anything an American told them, when presented with so much paperwork. With this instant visa into Cuba, then, Lee Harvey Oswald would join a team in Havana to kill Fidel Castro. At the end of this plot, Lee would be flown back to the USA, collect a huge cash award, and a full-time job in the CIA.
That was the plan as Lee Harvey Oswald believed it. (Guy Banister, David Ferrie and Ex-General Walker has a secret plan.) This was the motive for Lee Harvey Oswald cooperating so closely and so faithfully with the people who would shoot him dead in only three more months. I have plenty of evidence from Silvia Duran, Harry Dean, the Warren Commission, the HSCA and recently released FBI documents. Though most of the JFK Research Community is still obsessed with the CIA-did-it CT, which has failed miserably for the past 50 years, the evidence of a US Rightist conspiracy against JFK was seen even by Jim Garrison in 1967-1968.
In my opinion, Lee Harvey Oswald was driven driven by Loran Hall and Larry Howard to Mexico City during the final week of September, 1963. Mexican immigration records show that Lee entered and existed Mexico as a passenger in a car. (Lee did not got by bus, as the Warren Commission lied. Why did they lie? Because the Lone Nut was the new US dogma, while a passenger in a car has accomplices, and so cannot be a Lone Nut.)
In any case, when Lee arrived in Mexico City, he was not prepared for the professionalism of the clerks at the Cuba Consulate. They were coordinated very tightly with Havana. They had an official list of genuine FPCC officers -- and Lee Harvey Oswald was not on that list. Also, Lee's resumé portfolio smelled to high heaven. It included a Communist Party card. Well, there is no such thing as a Communist Party card -- and the clerks at the Cuban Consulate spotted that immediately.
It was obvious that Lee was a flunky of some trouble-making group -- no friend of Fidel Castro -- and there was no way that Lee Harvey Oswald would get an instant Visa to Havana today or ever. Lee was told flat out -- get somebody official to vouch for you, or just go away.
While in Mexico City -- Lee tried again by faking an official visit to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. The clerks at the Soviet Embassy were no fools, either. KGB agents, Oleg Nechiporenko and Val Kostikov, both agreed that Lee Harvey Oswald acted like a 'nut.' Lee came in with a pistol for dramatic effect, weeping tears about his hard life -- and claimed that he really wanted to go back to the USSR, but he only needed this quick trip to Havana first.
They kicked him out. Undaunted, Lee went back to the Cuban Consulate and told them that the Soviets gave him a green light. One phone call to the Soviets, however, smashed that fib. Lee was escorted out of the Cuban Consulate and told never to return.
So much for the New Orleans FPCC in Mexico City, right? Wrong. Actually, Guy Banister, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, Gerry Patrick Hemming, Loran Hall, Larry Howard and Ex-General Edwin Walker had accomplished everything they wanted to accomplish. Lee Harvey Oswald was now 100% framed as a Fidel-Castro-loving Communist. That label sticks in the opinions of most official journalists to this very day.
ACT THREE
One last thing about Mexico City. This is from Bill SImpich's eBook, still available for free at the Mary Ferrell web site, namely, State Secret: Wiretapping in Mexico City (2014). Simpich's expert research shows from unclassified CIA records that some mole inside the CIA impersonated Lee over the most wiretapped phone in the world at the time -- the phone between the Cuban Consulate and the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City.
That phone was so hot, that the CIA translators had to translate every call on that phone, and place the English version on the CIA Director's desk within 15 minutes, along with background folders. They did that. They quickly knew four facts: (1) the caller was not Lee Harvey Oswald, though he claimed to be; (2) the caller spoke broken Russian and fluent Spanish, while Lee spoke fluent Russian and broken Spanish; (3) the caller insisted on getting the name of KGB agent Val Kostikov repeated by the Soviet clerk, to join the two names in the CIA record; and (4) the only person who would now how to use this special phone to forge this CIA record would be a CIA agent -- but not under orders. They had a Mole.
OK, getting back to the main point of the Mexico City episode. Again, Guy Banister, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, Gerry Patrick Hemming, Loran Hall, Larry Howard and Ex-General Edwin Walker had accomplished everything they wanted to accomplish. Lee Harvey Oswald was tightly framed as a Communist and as a Fidel Castro supporting officer of the FPCC.
If it had not been for the Simpich Mole Hunt, even the CIA would have insisted that Lee Harvey Oswald was a Communist. But the Mole Hunt was real. The CIA would never get their story straight about Lee Harvey Oswald -- to this very day.
Why go to all that trouble to frame Lee Harvey Oswald as a fall guy? Perhaps Gerry Patrick Hemming said it best: "Why go after somebody small like Fidel Castro, when you could target Washington DC and the Big Communist himself, JFK?"
(to be continued)