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According to the search-facility (admittedly not very good) we have not had a thread on Guy Banister. He joined the FBI in 1934. Originally based in Indianapolis, he later moved to New York City where he was involved in the investigation of the American Communist Party. J. Edgar Hoover was impressed by Banister's work and in 1938 he was promoted to run the FBI unit in Butte, Montana. He also served in Oklahoma City, Minneapolis and Chicago before he retired from the FBI in 1954.

Banister moved back to Louisiana and in January 1955 became Assistant Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department where he was given the task of investigating organized crime and corruption within the police force. It later emerged that he was also involved in looking at the role that left-wing political activists were playing in the struggle for black civil rights in New Orleans.

Banister developed extreme right-wing views and worked as an investigator for the Louisiana Un-American Activities Committee. He also published the racist Louisiana Intelligence Digest. Banister had a deep hatred of the civil rights movement and believed that the policy of racial integration was part of a a plan formulated by Joseph Stalin to create racial conflict in America.

Bannister claimed that members of the American Communist Party were involved in a plot to contaminate crops in the United States. He also told the Special Committee of the Arkansas State Legislature that left-wing activists were behind the race riots in Little Rock.

Banister was suspended by the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) for an incident with a gun in a bar. His suspension ended in June 1954, but when he refused to be transferred to the NOPD's Planning Department, he was dismissed from the force. After leaving the police he established his own private detective agency, Guy Banister Associates.

In 1963 Banister and David Ferrie began working for the lawyer G. Wray Gill and his client, Carlos Marcello. This involved attempts to block Marcello's deportation to Guatemala. Later Banister was linked to the plot to assassinate JFK. On 9th August, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald distributed leaflets that supported Fidel Castro and his government in Cuba. On these leaflets was the address 544 Camp Street, New Orleans. This was also the office of Carlos Bringuier, an anti-Castro exile. Around the corner from 544 Camp Street, located in the same building, was 531 Lafayette Street, which housed the detective agency run by Banister. This raised suspicions that Oswald had been involved in a right-wing conspiracy to kill Kennedy.

On the afternoon of 22nd November, 1963, Banister and Jack Martin went drinking together. On their return to Banister's office the two men got involved in a dispute about a missing file. Banister became so angry that he he drew his Magnum revolver and hit Martin with it several times. Martin was so badly injured that he had to be detained in the local Charily Hospital.

Over the next few days Martin told friends that Banister and David Ferrie had been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. According to Martin, Ferrie was the getaway man whose job it was to fly the assassin out of Texas. He also claimed that Ferrie knew Lee Harvey Oswald from their days in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol and had given him lessons on how to use a rifle with a telescopic sight.

On 25th November, Martin was contacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He told them that he thought Ferrie had hypnotized Oswald into assassinating Kennedy. The FBI considered Martin's evidence unreliable and decided not to investigate Banister and Ferrie.

This information eventually reached Jim Garrison, the district attorney of New Orleans. He interviewed Martin about these accusations. Martin claimed that during the summer of 1963 Banister and David Ferrie were involved in something very sinister with a group of Cuban exiles.

Jim Garrison now became convinced that a group of right-wing activists, including Banister, David Ferrie, Carlos Bringuier and Clay Shaw, were involved in a conspiracy with the CIA to kill JFK. Garrison claimed this was in retaliation for his attempts to obtain a peace settlement in both Cuba and Vietnam.

Delphine Roberts worked for Banister and later became his mistress. Roberts told Anthony Summers that during the summer of 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald worked for Banister. She said she was in the office when Banister suggested that Oswald should establish a local Fair Play for Cuba Committee. This story was supported by her daughter who met Oswald during this period.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbannister.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKrobertsD.htm

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Guy Banister died in June of 1964, before Garrison had a chance to interrogate him. Of a heart attack, of course. When working for the FBI, Guy Banister was associated with Robert Maheu, who was an FBI and CIA liaison for the mob.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maheu

Also check out Wiki on Banister:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Banister

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Guy Banister died in June of 1964

And it seems he died a bankrupt. According to Harold Weisberg (I think it is in Oswald In New Orleans) Bannister was many months behind on his office rent when he died. THis indicates that Bannister is one person who did not profit from the JFK assassination, and that fact -- plus the absence of reliable evidence against him -- makes him a most unlikely suspect, IMHO.

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  • 2 months later...

Recently discovered evidence of Banister's role with the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, through the auspices of Senator James O. Eastland and DeLesseps Morrison, former mayor of New Orleans indicates to me that Banister not only played a very important role in setting up the Oswald legend from scratch but he also was very active in anti-Civil Rights operations at the behest of both James O. Eastland and Wickliffe P. Draper and Leander Perez the political boss of Plaquemines Parish which was Jim Garrison's election district.

1) Banister and Ferrie were allegedly sighted at the Clinton, LA voter registration drive involving Oswald.

2) Banister has been identified by Dick Russell as the person behind the Oswald FPCC leafletting campaign. The leaflets were stamped with 544 Camp Street, in the same office building as Banister.

3) Banister apparently worked for James Eastland's Senate Internal Security Sub-committee in all of these roles.

4) Eastland was on the payroll of Wickliffe P. Draper as head of Draper's Genetics Committee at SISS.

5) Draper was the MAIN SUPPORTER of The Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a project of James Eastland, to the tune of over $250,000 according to Doug Blackmon in the June 11, 1999 issue of The Wall Street Journal.

6) Eastland (and perhaps Thomas J. Dodd as well) set-up Oswald to order a mail-order Manlicher-Carcano from Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago and that was later used by the Warren Commission to further implicate Oswald.

7) Banister headed up The Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean which later was rolled into the World Anti-Communist League and became one of its major delegate contributors with 10-12 Latin American and Central American nations later represented.

8) Banister was a John Bircher of the first magnitude and circled in the orbit of some of the South's most virulent and violent anti-Communists, anti-Liberals and anti-Civil Rights activists.

9) I believe his office was in the same building as United Fruit who listed people like Allen Dulles, John Foster Dulles, the Paines, the Cabots, the Lodges, Gen. Robert E. Wood from America First and the American Security Council and of course Andrew Preston, Wickliffe Draper's cousin from Boston Fruit as major shareholders over the decades.

10) James Eastland was one of the primary movers and shakers behind Operation Red Cross (Operation Tilt) also known as The Bayo/Pawley Affair which almost everyone agrees was an attempt at the Character Assassination of JFK. After it's failure, the plot turned into the REAL THING. Senator Barry Goldwater was going to be the primary beneficiary if Bayo had indeed been able to produce any Russian Missile Officers. Nathaniel Weyl stated that Operation Red Cross, specifically DID NOT have a CIA COMPONENT to it, after the demands of Eddie Bayo and Co.

My conclusion, is therefore 100% diametrically opposed to the concept that William Guy Banister was small potatoes in the JFK conundrum. While he was not CIA, like Garrison claimed, he was certainly one of the Top 3 conspirators and plotters in the New Orleans area. Maybe there are some who would automatically disqualify

Baniser BECAUSE HE WAS NOT CIA, but that would be a grossly egregious error in judgment IMHO.

Guy Banister should be pursued because he was so close to 4 of the Top Ten JFK Conspirators: Senator James O. Eastland, Robert J. Morris, Leander Perez who organized the Jung Hotel meeting in New Orleans the week before the JFK hit, and Wickliffe Preston Draper. Banister either headed up or was a major organizer in Five of the Top Ten organizations behind the plot to murder JFK: Senate Internal Security Subcommittee of Eastland, Dodd and ...ahem Robert J. ("Mr. McCarthyism") Morris Eastland's chief counsel on SISS, The John Birch Society of Morris, Willoughby and Walker, the World Anti-Communist League, The Mississippi Sovereignty Commission of Eastland and Draper and Wickliffe Draper's Draper Eugenics Committee on SISS and The Pioneer Fund.

The role of Banister in the JFK hit was MASSIVE, ALL-PERVASIVE, ALL-INCLUSIVE and ALL-ENCOMPASSING. To say otherwise, is IN MY HONEST OPINION, very short-sighted.

I have now raised Banister's ranking to include him as a TOP TEN JFK Conspirator after being sent the attached memo and other articles, indicating that Banister was considered one of the primary MSC investigators, one of Oswald's main legend builders, and a close confidante of both Draper, Morris and Eastland. End of argument?

post-6199-1261829780_thumb.png

Edited by John Bevilaqua
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2) Banister has been identified by Dick Russell as the person behind the Oswald FPCC leafletting campaign. The leaflets were stamped with 544 Camp Street, in the same office building as Banister.

In his book The Man Who Knew Too Much, (Carroll & Graf 1992, p 395), Russell credits Anthony Summers' book Conspiracy as his source. Summers' interview with Delphine Roberts was particularly telling.

John Simkin mentioned that interview when he started this thread.

Edited by Michael Hogan
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2) Banister has been identified by Dick Russell as the person behind the Oswald FPCC leafletting campaign. The leaflets were stamped with 544 Camp Street, in the same office building as Banister.

In his book The Man Who Knew Too Much, (Carroll & Graf 1992, p 395), Russell credits Anthony Summers' book Conspiracy as his source. Summers' interview with Delphine Roberts was particularly telling.

John Simkin mentioned that interview when he started this thread.

Missed that somehow and I was quoting another source who referenced Russell's book as if it was the direct

citation. What is your take on the confluence of evidence pinpointing Banister as what I now consider to be

one of the Top Ten lynch pins in the entire JFK conundrum?

Have you always considered Banister a big time, major JFK conspirator and has this series of incriminating links surrounding these "sinister Southern racists" affected your opinion of Banister, Eastland, Morris and Draper at all?

And how about Operation Red Cross and what Weyl said about no CIA representation being allowed?

Taken together, if you buy into all of this as described by and as ascribed to Weyl, Eastland, Morris, Banister, Draper and Company, has got to be considered one of the "blockbuster breakthroughs" in the last few years, no? Those who hold to the "CIA-centric" view of Operation Red Cross and the roles of Banister, Eastland and Draper will have a hard time swallowing any of this, of course, but you seem more open to this conceptual and perceptual interpretation, am I correct?

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Selective commentary on John Simkin's page on William "Guy" Banister (also sometimes misspelled "Bannister")

whom I now believe played major behind-the-scenes roles with General Edwin A. Walker's insurrection and treason efforts at both the Ole Miss Riots; at the Little Rock, Arkansas desegregation attempts; at the Jung Hotel meeting in New Orleans run by Edwin A. Walker and Leander Perez; with Senator James O. Eastland and Wickliffe Draper at both the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, the Draper-Eastland Genetics Committee at SISS; as an investigator for SISS for both Robert J. Morris, the chief counsel to McCarthy, Eastland and Dodd; with Lee Harvey Oswald to formulate his legend during the FPCC leafleting campaign, during the Clinton, LA voter registration drive, and during the Klein's Sporting Goods rifle purchase ruse run by Senator James O. Eastland to further incriminate Oswald well in advance of his role as either a "patsy" or a hypnotized (by Ferrie) or programmed assassin; with E. Howard Hunt, and perhaps even Allen W. Dulles and "Banana Sam" Zemurry plus the Prestons and the Drapers including the Forbes, the Paines, the Cabots and the Lodges from United Fruit including "Rip" Robertson during the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatamala in 1954 via his Anti-Communism League of the Caribbean. The oriental dude, photographed near Oswald during the FPCC leafleting campaign was probably some sort of representative from the Asian People's Anti-Communist League who wanted to prove how Oswald could be made to perform on command, by incriminating himself as a pro-Communist, all the while acting as a programmed agent or puppet on a string.

Banana Sam Zemurry - How United Fruit Shaped the World

The offices of United Fruit (nee The Boston Fruit Company c. 1900) were either in the same complex or very near the Banister Detective Agency headquarters in New Orleans and Banister used Maurice Brooks Gatlin as his attorney and confidante, the same lawyer used by Brig. Gen. Bonner Fellers to incorporate his For America and Ten Million Americans Mobilizing for Justice at the very same Banister complex. Fellers was involved in Cairo, Egypt with both Major Carleton S. Coon (OSS) and Brig. Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg in covert actions also involving mind control, programmed assassins and similar activities later taken over by Clendenin J. Ryan and Uliuss L. Amoss of the OSS. Coon's pistol was used to assassinate Admiral Darlan, the Vichy French leader, perhaps by Coon or by an associate of his.

Fellers was exposed by me and several others as the inside source who relayed all of Monty's tank movements in nearby Northern Africa right through James Angleton in Rome and back to the fake "Desert Fox", Edwin A. Rommel.

Folks, this newly coalesced information is SO BIG that you may find it difficult to swallow at first gulp. And I never would have re-opened my examination William "Guy" Banister had it not been for a posting made by Susan Klopfer on the "Mississippi Roots of the JFK Assassination", which oddly enough, was inspired by my original testimony to the ARRB about 15 years ago.

"Banister moved back to Louisiana and in January 1955 became Assistant Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department where he was given the task of investigating organized crime and corruption within the police force. It later emerged that he was also involved in looking at the role that left-wing political activists were playing in the struggle for black civil rights in New Orleans."

And apparently Banister did the same work in Arkansas, Mississippi and maybe even Texas and Alabama.

"Banister developed extreme right-wing views and worked as an investigator for the Louisiana Un-American Activities Committee. He also published the racist Louisiana Intelligence Digest. Banister had a deep hatred of the civil rights movement and believed that the policy of racial integration was part of a a plan formulated by Joseph Stalin to create racial conflict in America.

Bannister claimed that members of the American Communist Party were involved in a plot to contaminate crops in the United States. He also told the Special Committee of the Arkansas State Legislature that left-wing activists were behind the race riots in Little Rock."

Hmmm... typical of Walker, Perez, Eastland and Draper rhetoric.

"Banister was suspended by the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) for an incident with a gun in a bar. His suspension ended in June 1954, but when he refused to be transferred to the NOPD's Planning Department, he was dismissed from the force. After leaving the police he established his own private detective agency, Guy Banister Associates."

His hot temper got him fired from the FBI and the NOPD and led to Jack Martin ratting him out.

"In 1963 Banister and David Ferrie began working for the lawyer G. Wray Gill and his client, Carlos Marcello. This involved attempts to block Marcello's deportation to Guatemala.

Later Banister was linked to the plot to assassinate John F. Kennedy. On 9th August, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald distributed leaflets that supported Fidel Castro and his government in Cuba. On these leaflets was the address 544 Camp Street, New Orleans. This was also the office of Carlos Bringuier, an anti-Castro exile. Around the corner from 544 Camp Street, located in the same building, was 531 Lafayette Street, which housed the detective agency run by Banister. This raised suspicions that Oswald had been involved in a right-wing conspiracy to kill Kennedy."

On the afternoon of 22nd November, 1963, Banister and Jack Martin went drinking together. On their return to Banister's office the two men got involved in a dispute about a missing file. Banister became so angry that he he drew his Magnum revolver and hit Martin with it several times. Martin was so badly injured that he had to be detained in the local Charity Hospital."

All very telling and so close to the events in Dallas, that it had to be related to them.

"Over the next few days Martin told friends that Banister and David Ferrie had been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. According to Martin, Ferrie was the getaway man whose job it was to fly the assassin out of Texas. He also claimed that Ferrie knew Lee Harvey Oswald from their days in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol and had given him lessons on how to use a rifle with a telescopic sight."

I used to scoff at this years ago, but now believe it to be true.

"On 25th November, Martin was contacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He told them that he thought Ferrie had hypnotized Oswald into assassinating Kennedy. The FBI considered Martin's evidence unreliable and decided not to investigate Banister and Ferrie.

This information eventually reached Jim Garrison, the district attorney of New Orleans. He interviewed Martin about these accusations. Martin claimed that during the summer of 1963 Banister and David Ferrie were involved in something very sinister with a group of Cuban exiles.

"Jim Garrison now became convinced that a group of right-wing activists, including Banister, David Ferrie, Carlos Bringuier and Clay Shaw, were involved in a conspiracy with the CIA to kill John F. Kennedy. Garrison claimed this was in retaliation for his attempts to obtain a peace settlement in both Cuba and Vietnam."

While Banister was not IN the CIA or the FBI he certainly had many, many covert contacts with them.

"Delphine Roberts worked for Banister and later became his mistress. Roberts told Anthony Summers that during the summer of 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald worked for Banister. She said she was in the office when Banister suggested that Oswald should establish a local Fair Play for Cuba Committee. This story was supported by her daughter who met Oswald during this period.

Guy Banister died of coronary thrombosis on June 6, 1964."

What would the diagnosis have been if H. L. Hunt had someone snuff Banister with his recent favorite little spy toy, the Stashinsky Gun? Hunt was greatly enamored with The Stashinsky Gun as a way to snuff his opponents.

Answer: Coronary Thrombosis.

(1) Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins (1988)

To Jack Martin, Banister's private investigator:

"I guess I blew up," he continued, his face flushed with memories of injustice. "That's when I told him he'd better not talk to me like that. I told him I remembered the people I had seen around the office that summer. And that's when he hit me. Fast as a flash - pulled out that big Magnum and slammed me on the side of the head with it."

"Just because you remembered the people you'd seen at his office the past summer?" I asked.

"Yeah, that's all it took. He went bananas on that one."

"And just who were the people you'd seen in the office that summer?" I prodded softly.

"There was a bunch of them. It was like a circus. There were all those Cubans - coming in and going out, coming in and going out. They all looked alike to me."

Someone once commenced that whenever you really want to do something unseen, whenever you go to great pains to make sure that you are unobserved, there always turns out to be someone who was sitting under the oak tree. At the strange place that was Banister's office. Jack Martin, unnoticed in the middle of it all, was the one sitting under the oak tree.

He drew a long breath and then went on. "Then there were all these other characters. There was Dave Ferrie - you know about him by now."

"Was he there very often?" I asked.

"Often? He practically lived there."

Then Martin fell silent. I saw by the look in his eyes that he had come to a full stop.

I was not about to let my weekend visit to 544 Camp Street go down the drain that easily, so I gave him a hand. 'And Lee Harvey Oswald'" I added.

Jack swallowed, then nodded. It was almost as if he felt relief in finally having a burden lifted from him. "Yeah, he was there too. Sometimes he'd be meeting with Guy Banister with the door shut. Other times he'd be shooting the bull with Dave Ferrie. But he was there all right."

"What was Guy Banister doing while all this was going on?"

"Hell, he was the one running the circus."

"What about his private detective work?"

"Not much of that came in, but when it did, I handled it. That's why I was there."

"So, Jack," I said. "Just what was going on at Banister's office?"

He held up his hand. "I can't answer that," he said firmly. "I can't go into that stuff at all." Unexpectedly, he stood up. "I think I'd better go," he said.

"Hold on. Jack. What's the problem with our going into what was happening at Banister's office?"

"What's the problem?" he said. "What's the problem?" he repeated, as if in disbelief. "The problem is that we're going to bring the goddamned federal government down on our backs. Do I need to spell it out? I could get killed - and so could you."

He turned around. "I'd better go," he mumbled. He wobbled as he headed for the door.

Breach of Trust

(2) Anthony Summers, The Kennedy Conspiracy (1980)

According to Delphine Roberts, Lee Oswald walked into her office sometime in 1963 and asked to fill in the forms for accreditation as one of Banister's "agents." Mrs. Roberts told me, "Oswald introduced himself by name and said he was seeking an application form. I did not think that was really why he was there. During the course of the conversation I gained the impression that he and Guy Banister already knew each other. After Oswald filled out the application form Guy Banister called him into the office. The door was closed, and a lengthy conversation took place. Then the young man left. I presumed then, and now am certain, that the reason for Oswald being there was that he was required to act undercover."

Mrs. Roberts said she was sure that whatever the nature of Banister's "interest" in Oswald, it concerned anti-Castro schemes, plans which she feels certain had the support and encouragement of government intelligence agencies. As she put it, "Mr. Banister had been a special agent for the FBI and was still working for them. There were quite a number of connections which he kept with the FBI and the CIA, too. I know he and the FBI traded information due to his former association...."

(3) Joachim Joesten, How Kennedy Was Killed (1968)

Guy Banister, a former FBI official and onetime assistant superintendent of the New Orleans police department, had had a 'stormy' career, according to the New Orleans States-Item of May 5, 1967. After he had left police work officially, if not earlier, Banister was active for years as a top U.S. intelligence agent in the South and in Latin America. His spacious office, at 531 Lafayette Street, in New Orleans, served both as a rallying point for Minutemen, Cuban exiles and assorted right-wing and intelligence operatives and as an arms distribution centre for these elements. This has been brought out with dazzling clarity both by the Garrison investigation and through independent research by the local press.

A close friend and adviser of Banister's told the States-Item the veteran FBI agent was a key liaison man for U.S. government-sponsored anti-Communist activities in Latin America, the New Orleans paper reported and added:

"Guy participated in every important anti-Communist South and Central American revolution which came along while he had the office on Lafayette Street," the source reported. The paper also stated that Banister is believed to have worked in cooperation with a U.S. military intelligence office here."

Hmmm.... Military Intelligence as in Army Intelligence perhaps? Walker, Willoughby? Or Air Force Intelligence and Bonner Fellers whose offices were also on Camp Street with Maurice Brooks Gatlin?

(4) William Turner, Rearview Mirror (2001)

I walked over to 531 Lafayette Place. There was no inscription on the door denoting it as Banister's business, only a realtor's shingle and a sticker of the then-nascent Republican Party of Louisiana. The door opened to stairs leading to a second-floor space that was unoccupied. Diagonally across the space was a second set of stairs, which led down to a door on Camp Street. The number over the door read "544." 544 Camp Street was the return address Lee Harvey Oswald had stamped on the first batch of pro-Castro literature he handed out on the streets of the Crescent City in August 1963- Subsequent batches bore a post office box number, suggesting that the use of the street address had been a lapse. What was Oswald's connection to Banister?

When I reported the Camp Street discovery to Garrison, I recommended that we assign priority to interviewing Banister. Too late, he said, Banister had been found dead in bed in June 1964, his pearlhandled, monogrammed .357 Magnum revolver at his side. Although there was no autopsy, his demise was attributed to a heart attack. But Brooks, who had done some clipping and filing for Banister in 1962, had identified his deputy, Hugh F. Ward, as also belonging to the Minutemen as well as an outfit called the Anti-Communism League of the Caribbean, which was headed by Banister after he came to New Orleans in 1955. Brooks credited the ACLC with helping the CIA overthrow the leftist Arbenz government in Guatemala, opening the way for a succession of rightist strongmen.

The ACLC continued to act as an intermediary between the CIA and right-wing insurgency movements in the Caribbean, including Cuba after Castro gained power. There was a chance that Ward would be willing to talk, but it turned out he was gone as well. On May 23, 1965, he was at the controls of a Piper Aztec chartered by former New Orleans mayor DeLessups Morrison when the craft, engines sputtering, crashed on a fog-shrouded hill near Ciudad Victoria, Mexico, killing all on board. That left Maurice Brooks Gatlin, Sr., an attorney associated with Banister, on Brooks's list of key Minutemen in Louisiana. According to Brooks, Gatlin served as legal counsel to the ACLC. In fact, Brooks had been a kind of protege of Gatlin. The attorney's passport was stamped with visas of countries around the world. In Brooks's estimation, he was a "transporter" for the CIA. On one occasion Gatlin bodaciously told Brooks, "I have pretty good connections. Stick with me-I'll give you a license to kill." Brooks became a firm believer in 1962 when Gatlin displayed a thick wad of bills, saying he had $100,000 of CIA money earmarked for a French reactionary clique planning to assassinate General de Gaulle. Shortly thereafter Gatlin flew to Paris, and shortly after that came the Secret Army Organization's abortive ambush of the French president. But Gatlin as well was beyond Garrison's reach. In 1964 he fell or was pushed from the sixth floor of the Panama Hotel in Panama, dying instantly.

As I sat in Garrison's office discussing the fates of Banister, Ward and Gatlin, my mind flashed back to the previous November when Ramparts had run a story on the "mysterious deaths" theory of doughty Texas editor Penn Jones, Jr. With David Welsh, I had gone down to Midlothian, a dusty cotton market town south of Dallas, to meet with Jones on his front porch. He had compiled a list of an unlucky thirteen people who were witnesses to the assassination or somehow touched by it and had died violently or questionably inside of three years, which he saw as a highly excessive actuarial rate. One on the list was Tom Howard, Jack Ruby's initial attorney, who concocted the story that the mobster killed Oswald to spare Jacqueline Kennedy the ordeal of a trial (he died of a supposed heart attack). Another was Lee Bowers, who was sitting in a railroad tower behind the grassy knoll and spotted two strange men behind the picket fence on the knoll just as the presidential limousine passed and a flash and commotion ensued (he was involved in a one-car accident). A third was Earlene Roberts, the boarding house manager who stated that Oswald rushed into his room for a few minutes shortly after the shooting in Dealey Plaza, during which a Dallas police car stopped in front and honked twice as if to signal (she was struck by a presumed heart attack). The mysterious-deaths article so fascinated Walter Cronkite that he sent a film crew to Midlothian for a CBS News series on Jones. Although the theory caught on as "evidence" of a conspiracy, I was bemusedly skeptical.

But the untimely deaths of Banister, Ward and Gatlin gave me pause that there might in fact have been systematic elimination of people who knew too much. Two months earlier there had been a fourth curious mortality in this set: David William Ferric, an investigator for the ex-FBI official's private detective agency, Guy Banister & Associates. Garrison's interest in Ferrie dated back to the morning after the assassination, when he summoned his staff to the office for a "brainstorming" session to explore the possibility that Oswald had accomplices in New Orleans.

Although it would not be known until after the Warren Report was published, on that same Saturday morning the Secret Service was checking out the return address of 544 Camp Street that the accused assassin had rubber-stamped on some of his handouts promoting a rump chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The agents asked the building manager if Oswald "had occupied office space" but learned instead that "Cuban revolutionaries had been tenants until recently." They talked to an exile accountant who revealed that "those Cubans were members of organizations known as 'Crusade to Free Cuba Committee' and 'Cuban Revolutionary Council', which had been headed by Sergio Arcacha Smith, a former Batista diplomat. The agents reported that they had been unable to find any trace of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, evincing no curiosity over why pro-Castro literature would bear the address of anti-Castro groups.

On Monday, the Warren Report later disclosed, the FBI's Ernest C. Wall, Jr., a Spanish-speaking agent who liaisoned with the exile groups, called Guy Banister to inquire about Arcacha Smith. According to Wall's single-paragraph report, Banister responded that Arcacha Smith had been the head of the Cuban Revolutionary Council and "some time ago had told him on one occasion that he, Smith, had an office in the building located at 544 Camp Street." Nothing about Banister and the Cuban Revolutionary Council, created by the CIA as an umbrella group for the Bay of Pigs invasion, being under the same roof. As a limited hangout, it was a classic. The Warren Report dutifully stated that "investigation has indicated that neither the Fair Play for Cuba Committee nor Lee Oswald ever maintained an office at that address."

Convinced yet?

Edited by John Bevilaqua
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United Fruit and The Banana Wars

new internationalist

issue 317 - October 1999

The Battle of the Banana

Corporate coups and the rise and fall of political regimes -

all par for the course in the ongoing war to control the banana trade.

Business in bunches

In 1870 Captain Lorenzo Dow Baker landed the schooner Telegraph in Jamaica and saw that bananas were popular on local markets. He purchased 160 bunches for one shilling per stalk on Port Antonio docks; 11 days later he sold bunches for two dollars each in Jersey City, making a huge profit. The legendary bounty of the banana trade was established. Bananas were shipped to Boston and New Orleans from Cuba and the Dominican Republic as well as Jamaica. By 1898 some 16 million bunches were being imported into the US.

Uncrowned king

In 1899 the United Fruit Company (UFCO) was formed in Boston and began to develop its own plantations in Central America. In Costa Rica, Minor Keith did a deal with the Government to build - with great loss of life - a railway to the Atlantic coast and planted bananas beside the track. He married the daughter of the President and became known as the 'Uncrowned King of Central America'. UFCO's 'Great White Fleet' totalled 95 ships by 1930. Panama disease or wilting first destroyed banana farms in 1900, and continued to create major problems for UFCO's banana plantations thereafter.

Sam the Man

Samuel Zemurray - 'Sam the Banana Man' - went to Honduras in 1905, where he financed a coup that brought very favourable concessions for his developing banana business. He pioneered new plantation techniques, and in 1915 began production from large new landholdings in the Motagua Valley, on the disputed Honduras/ Guatemala border. In 1930 United Fruit bought out Zemurray's holdings for $31.5 million; in 1933, as the largest shareholder, he became UFCO's Managing Director. By then the company owned plantations the size of Switzerland in Central America and the Caribbean.

Imperial unease

The British Government became worried about US influence in its Caribbean colonies. In 1901 it provided a large subsidy for the Elder Dempster shipping company to begin a refrigerated service to Jamaica (pictured right). In 1913 the Fyffes company was created for the banana trade, but it ran into financial difficulties and was taken over - by United Fruit. The Imperial Economic Committee in London reported in 1926 that an 'organization under American control monopolizes the whole supply of bananas from Central America and Jamaica to the United Kingdom'. A strategy of providing financial assistance to associations of banana growers, who would supply the British market independently of UFCO, was implemented. By 1938 Jamaica produced 78 per cent of British imports.

War of the Worlds

The Second World War brought the banana trade to a halt - boats were requisitioned for the war effort and shipping was disrupted, causing great hardship in the region. In 1945 bananas returned again to Britain, shipped from Jamaica under the control of the Ministry of Food. The Moyne Commission published its pre-war findings on the dreadful conditions in Britain's West Indian colonies. It recommended financial support for small-scale banana production, particularly in the Windward Islands. On 6 December 1950 a ship arrived at Liverpool from Sierra Leone with a cargo of bananas of which 78,000 were too ripe; 3,000 dock workers were asked to eat all they could and got through 37,000. The British taste for bananas had survived the war.

Carve-up

In 1952 the British Government 're-privatized' the banana industry. Imports paid for in US dollars - which, in bankrupt Britain, were extremely scarce - required a licence. In 1954 Geest, a company owned by Dutch brothers based in Britain, signed a ten-year contract with all the growers' associations operating in the Windward Islands. In 1958 the Windward Islands Banana Growers' Association (WINBAN) based in St Lucia was formed. By 1959 banana imports to Britain had for the first time surpassed the pre-war high. Between 1964 and 1966 a mini Banana War broke out between Geest and Fyffes, who eventually agreed to split the British market between them. In 1969 Fyffes unilaterally broke its contract with Jamaica, importing low-cost fruit from Côte d'Ivoire and Surinam instead.

Miss ChiquitaMiss Chiquita

UFCO launched a 'Miss Chiquita' (pictured right) advertising campaign in the US in 1944. Technical changes were also made to the production process. In 1961 bananas were pre-cut and placed in boxes instead of bunches, to protect against bruising. Following a period of unrest on its plantations, in 1954 the company orchestrated a coup against the Government of Guatemala. After an anti-trust suit in 1958, UFCO was slowly broken up into the 'Big Three' banana companies. Between them, they increased their domination of the European market, by now the world's largest importer. All three were subsequently absorbed into a succession of multinational conglomerates.

Bust and boom

The Windward Islands faced two major setbacks in 1973; the oil crisis which increased the cost of shipping and chemical inputs, and the accession of Britain to the European Economic Community. Here it joined France, whose 'Overseas Departments' in Martinique and Guadeloupe were guaranteed two-thirds of the French banana market. Britain negotiated a 20-per-cent tariff on 'dollar' bananas. Then, in 1975, the first Lomé Convention guaranteed 42 former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific ('ACP') trading terms on a par with the best of the preceding years. From the late 1970s to the early 1990s a 'banana boom' swept the Windward Islands.

Rules of engagement

In 1992 the Single European Market and European Union (EU) were designed to remove internal trade barriers. A single new banana 'regime' imposed tariffs and quotas for each exporting country, overall quotas for 'dollar' bananas and 'traditional' or ACP countries, plus additional tradable licenses. Chiquita decided to oppose the new EU regime altogether at the World Trade Organization (WTO) after it was established in 1995. On three separate occasions the WTO has found against the EU regime. In early 1999 Chiquita persuaded the US Government to impose punitive import tariffs on EU imports. The latest skirmish in the Banana War continues, with another adjudication from the WTO expected in November. During the 1990s, however, an increasingly effective international network of trade unions, campaigns, organic and fair-trade producers has joined the fray to change the rules of engagement.

Sources: Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit, Sinclair Browne, London, 1982; Lawrence S Grossman, The Political Ecology of Bananas, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 1998; Green Gold, Latin America Bureau, London, 1987.

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"On 9th August, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald distributed leaflets that supported Fidel Castro and his government in Cuba. On these leaflets was the address 544 Camp Street, New Orleans. This was also the office of Carlos Bringuier, an anti-Castro exile."

Sorry, but none of the leaflets contained the 544 Camp Street Address.

Also, what is your source that 544 Camp Street Address was Bringuier's office?

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Guy Banister died in June of 1964

And it seems he died a bankrupt. According to Harold Weisberg (I think it is in Oswald In New Orleans) Bannister was many months behind on his office rent when he died. THis indicates that Bannister is one person who did not profit from the JFK assassination, and that fact -- plus the absence of reliable evidence against him -- makes him a most unlikely suspect, IMHO.

As loose a cannon as "Sparky" Ruby, Banister may just have been cut out of the loop along with other embarrassing Cuba invasion types, before his inevitable termination.

Or the non-payment may have been meant to hasten his death - Banister was something of a walking heart attack (the Martin assault, the gun discharge on duty), and a heavy drinker to boot.

Edited by David Andrews
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"On 9th August, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald distributed leaflets that supported Fidel Castro and his government in Cuba. On these leaflets was the address 544 Camp Street, New Orleans. This was also the office of Carlos Bringuier, an anti-Castro exile."

Sorry, but none of the leaflets contained the 544 Camp Street Address.

Also, what is your source that 544 Camp Street Address was Bringuier's office?

Someone recently published an image with a rubber stamped address 544 Camp St. on an alleged FPCC leaflet

signed or stamped by the FPCC president, whomever it was at the time. (F. T. Lee (?)) Are you saying that it is a forgery or that you have just never seen this item to be able to determine its authenticity?

The Bringuier office address residence was taken from a posting on John Simkin's webpage on Banister, citing some 3rd party author as I recall. Have you read that page recently, and if you did why did you not question that posting? Just curious.

So what is your conclusion about Guy Banister and his ascribed roles with United Fruit, The Boston Fruit Company, The Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, the Ole Miss Riots, the Little Rock Arkansas High School Desegregation, the John Birch Society, WACL, Edwin A. Walker, Leander Perez and the Jung Hotel Meeting, The Anti-Communism League of the Caribbean, SISS with James O. Eastland and Robert J. Morris, DeLesseps Morrison, Brig Gen Bonner Fellers and For America, plus Ten Million Americans (TMA), the Guatamala Coup with E. Howard Hunt, Rip Robertston and Allen Dulles? Do these pass muster with you? Just curious.

Here is just one of 5 authors who cite this rubber stamped 544 Camp St. address (on a Corliss Lamont FPCC pamphlet)

I am going with Bill Davy's reference.

Chapter Four:

The Return of Lee Harvey Oswald

by Bill Davy

he Bolton Ford episode was not the only event to indelibly link Guy Banister with the accused assassin. In April of 1963, Oswald returned to the city of his birth. By May 9th he had found work at the Reily Coffee Company, conveniently located two blocks from Banister’s offices. Its owner, William B. Reily, was yet another right-wing reactionary. Reily provided financial support to such groups as Arcacha’s Crusade to Free Cuba and Ed Butler’s propaganda outfit, INCA.(1)

Oswald’s employment at Reily’s lasted until July 19th, when he was let go, supposedly for spending too much work time next door at Adrian Alba’s garage. The Crescent City Garage was home to the local government agencies’ motor pools. One day Alba recalled observing an FBI agent handing a white envelope to Oswald, who was standing in front of Reily’s. Alba watched as Oswald clutched the envelope close to his chest and walked back into Reily’s.(2)

One of the things about Reily’s that later aroused Garrison’s suspicions was the number of employees that left shortly after Oswald’s departure to begin careers in the aerospace industry. For example, Oswald’s superiors, Alfred Claude and Emmett Barbee both left Reily’s in July and went to work for NASA in eastern New Orleans.(3) Two of Oswald’s co-workers, John D. Branyon and Dante Marachini, were also later hired by NASA.(4) Marachini is of particular interest since he was a self-described friend of David Ferrie’s as well as Clay Shaw’s next door neighbor.(5) A vice-president of Reily’s who testified before the Warren Commission, William Monaghan, was a former career FBI man who left the bureau to become an executive with Standard Fruit.(6) After his stint at Reily’s he, along with William Reily’s brother, Eustis, show up on the board of directors of Aaron Kohn’s Metropolitan Crime Commission.(7) According to an INCA bulletin from 1962, Monaghan is listed as a charter member of that organization as well.

All of this peculiar activity led Garrison to surmise that Reily’s was part of an intelligence apparatus. Recent file releases seem to bear out Garrison’s suspicions. A CIA memo dated January 31, 1964 reads, "this firm [Reily’s] was of interest as of April 1949."(8) Also according to this memo, Reily’s was assigned Agency number EE-334.(9) In addition, career soldier-of-fortune and CIA contract employee, Gerry Patrick Hemming confirmed that William Reily had worked for the CIA for years.(10)

After his departure from Reily’s, Oswald began what Bill Turner wittily describes as his "guerrilla theater" on the streets of New Orleans—touting his one-man Fair Play for Cuba Committee and distributing pro-Castro literature amid this hotbed of anti-Castro sentiment.(11) On August 9th, Oswald was attacked by Carlos Bringuier and other Cuban exiles as he was handing out his literature, complete with pro-Castro placards, on Canal Street. Oswald had visited Bringuier’s clothing store four days earlier offering to train members of Bringuier’s exile group, the CIA funded Cuban Student Directorate or DRE. Oddly, at approximately the same time Oswald was engaging in his gratuitous picketing, Ferrie, along with several anti-Castro Cubans, was taking part in his own "counter" demonstration, also on Canal Street.(12)

After the Canal Street fracas Oswald was arrested and taken to the police station where he promptly asked to speak to an FBI agent. The following morning John Quigley was dispatched and interviewed Oswald at some length.(13) Quigley also retained some of Oswald’s one-sheet Fair Play For Cuba flyers and other materials. Oswald normally rubber-stamped these sheets with either his name or "FPCC" and also his home address or a post office box number. However, on this occasion he also handed out a 40-page pamphlet written by Corliss Lamont, entitled, The Crime Against Cuba. The usual rubber stamp adorned this literature as well, except it read:

FPCC

544 Camp Street

New Orleans, LA

What the FBI and the Secret Service would later discover (and what Quigley must have surely known) was that 544 Camp was the side entrance to 531 Lafayette. In the summer of 1963, 544 Camp housed just three tenants: a restaurant worker’s union, a railway union, and Guy Banister Associates. Strangely, this was the only incident where Oswald used the Banister address. Another curious sidebar to this affair is that Oswald wrote to the FPCC headquarters in New York informing them of his street altercation. In his letter Oswald wrote, "Through the efforts of some exile "gusanos" [a derogatory term for anti-Castro exiles, literally translated as "worms"] a street demonstration was attacked and we were officially cautioned by police. This incident robbed me of what support I had leaving me alone. Nevertheless thousands of circulars were distributed and many, many pamphlets which your office supplied..." The problem with this letter was that it was written on August 4th, five days before the incident actually occurred.(14)

What is also odd about this affair is the pamphlet itself. Written by a well-known New York peace activist, the tract was critical of the Bay of Pigs invasion. In 1963 the pamphlet had already gone through four printings. However, the copies that Oswald distributed were from the first printing of June of 1961, a period that found Oswald still in Russia. In 1961 a large bulk order for this first printing came directly from the Central Intelligence Agency.(15)

On August 16th Oswald once again hit the streets, this time distributing his FPCC materials in front of the International Trade Mart, then managed by Clay Shaw. However, the supposedly impecunious Oswald had hired two individuals from the local employment agency to assist him.(16) Local news cameramen captured this event for posterity on film. Curiously, Clay Shaw’s right hand man, Jesse Core, had summoned the cameras.(17)

Prior to this incident and just after the Canal Street demonstration, Oswald received a visitor at his home. Carlos Quiroga was a mutual associate of both Carlos Bringuier and Sergio Arcacha. Bringuier stated he sent Quiroga to Oswald’s home in an effort to "infiltrate" Oswald’s communist cell. According to Bringuier, Quiroga brought with him a couple of the sheets Oswald had dropped on Canal Street. But there are two reasons why this incident is suspicious. First, both Bringuier and Quiroga lied to the Warren Commission by telling them this event occurred after the Trade Mart demonstration.(18) Secondly, Oswald’s landlady, Mrs. Garner observed Quiroga when he arrived at the Oswald home. According to Garner, Quiroga did not have one or two "Hands Off Cuba" sheets, but rather a stack five to six inches thick.(19) As journalists Ray and Mary La Fontaine and others have noted, it seems more likely Quiroga was delivering the pamphlets rather than attempting to infiltrate the FPCC. In fact, Quiroga was given a polygraph exam by Garrison’s office and sent the needle off the chart when he answered "No" to the question, "You have said you tried to infiltrate Oswald’s "organization." Isn’t it a fact that you knew that his "Fair Play for Cuba" activities were merely a cover?"(20)

So what was Oswald’s purpose in using the 544 Camp address? Was he trying to embarrass the notoriously right-wing Banister? Or was he in fact an operative in the Banister cell? There is compelling evidence that strongly indicates the latter.

Oswald and 544 Camp Street

Delphine Roberts, Banister’s longtime secretary, mistress and confidante, revealed to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and later to British journalist, Anthony Summers, that Oswald walked into Banister’s office sometime in 1963. He was given a form to fill out as one of Banister’s "agents."(21) After Oswald filled out the form, he met with Banister behind closed doors. According to Roberts, "Oswald came back a number of times. He seemed to be on familiar terms with Banister and with the office. As I understood it he had use of an office on the second floor, above the main office where we worked...Mr. Banister brought me upstairs, and in the office above I saw various writings stuck up on the wall pertaining to Cuba. There were various leaflets up there pertaining to Fair Play for Cuba."(22) Roberts’ daughter, also named Delphine, told Summers that she and a photographer friend also saw Oswald at Banister’s on occasion.(23) Further corroboration of Oswald’s second floor offices comes from former Banister associate Bill Nitschke. In a 1967 interview with a New Orleans States Item reporter, Nitschke revealed that sometime before the Kennedy assassination, he visited Banister’s office and the second floor anterooms. Nitschke recalled seeing crudely lettered placards that he believed had something to do with Castro. He told the States Item that "it didn’t make any sense to me how Guy got tied up to those signs."(24) As a side note, Nitschke also recalled Delphine Roberts telling him that Banister, Ferrie, and sometime Banister operative and pilot, Hugh Ward, were all involved in running guns to Miami and other places.(25)

Dan Campbell, an ex-Marine that worked for Banister infiltrating left-wing groups on college campuses confirmed the gunrunning, recalling that "Banister was a bagman for the CIA and was running guns to Alpha 66 in Miami."(26) Campbell also assisted Banister in small arms training for the Cubans and received $50 per week for his services.(27) Campbell’s recollection of Banister is telling. He describes Banister as "one of the most frighteningly violent persons I have ever known."(28) The Banister menagerie he added "were the worst kind of fanatics."(29) Campbell also remembered one day when he was in Banister’s office and a young man came in and used the phone. "I knew he was a Marine from his bearing and speech pattern the minute he walked into 544 Camp Street," he recalled.(30) The next time he saw this young man was when his picture was on television as the accused assassin of President Kennedy. Interestingly, Campbell also recalled seeing Oswald’s buddy from his Marine Corps days, Kerry Thornley, pop in and out of Banister’s office.(31) Strangely enough on the day Kennedy was shot Thornley was with Allen Campbell, Dan’s brother.(32) Allen, like his brother, also worked for Banister. On one of the days Oswald was handing out his leaflets, Allen remembered Delphine Roberts returning to the office and complaining to Banister that "that young man is passing out pro-Castro leaflets in the street."(33) Allen recalled Banister’s reaction was calm, "Don’t worry about him. He’s a nervous fellow, he’s confused. He’s with us, he’s associated with the office."(34) This cavalier attitude on the part of Banister was confirmed by George Higginbotham. Like the Campbells, Higginbotham was also assigned to infiltrate supposed communist groups. Banister even went as far as providing him with false credentials. Higginbotham remembered bringing the Oswald leafleting incident to Banister’s attention. Banister’s response was, "Cool it. One of them is one of mine."(35)

Former Banister investigator Vernon Gerdes, who later went to work for New Orleans attorney Stephen Plotkin, told Plotkin that he had seen Oswald and Ferrie together with Banister.(36) Plotkin would later tell an attorney for Clay Shaw that he considered Gerdes "reliable."(37)

William Gaudet, a twenty-year CIA veteran who worked out of the International Trade Mart, told Anthony Summers that, "I did see Oswald discussing various things with Banister at the time," and added, "I suppose you are looking into Ferrie. He was with Oswald."(38) Finally Gaudet said, "Another vital person is Sergio Arcacha Smith. I know he knew Oswald and knows more about the Kennedy affair than he ever admitted."(39)

Jack Martin, who we saw earlier suffered at the hands of Banister, provided a statement to the New Orleans DA’s office that he had seen Oswald with Ferrie in Banister’s office in the summer of 1963.(40) Additionally, Banister’s wife recalled seeing Fair Play for Cuba sheets in Banister’s office.(41)

Infiltrating left-wing groups with his agents provocateur was a particular specialty of Banister’s. Tommy Baumler, a New Orleans attorney, revealed in a 1981 interview that he too worked for Guy Banister, joining left-wing college groups and reporting back to Banister. Baumler also recalled that "Clay Shaw, Banister, and Guy Johnson made up the intelligence apparatus in New Orleans."(42) Johnson was a former Lieutenant Commander in the Navy in World War II and a former assistant D.A. in New Orleans from 1938-1942. In 1950, he was granted a Top Secret clearance by the Office of Naval Intelligence, while working out of the office of the Chief of Naval Operations.(43) Johnson later went into private practice as an attorney, but it is not known when his intelligence career ended.(44) In a letter from Banister to Johnson, dated January 5, 1959, Banister discusses the possibility of hiring a candidate for his infiltration squad. Banister writes:

We have discussed the advisability as well as the feasibility of establishing certain channels of information and it is possible that the above named individual will qualify...

Mr. Bergeron, in the course of conversation, advised that he served in the Air Force and had just gotten out and entered school. He said he served in the security section and has atomic clearance.

I mentioned, during the conversation, the United States National Students Association and he said that he heard someone mention this organization on Channel 12 (WJMR-TV, the Citizen’s Council Program) and said that he had checked and found that there is a small organization on the campus.

If it is satisfactory and you can determine this individual’s reliability, I will set him up to begin work with me and pass on to you any information he produces.(45)

Finally, evidence of Oswald’s association with the Banister clique, may have come from the CIA itself. In an intriguing, but incomplete, memo from April 9, 1968, someone at the CIA wrote:

Moreover, until then, there had been no secret as far as anyone was concerned in regard to the fact that Banister, David William Ferrie and Subj. [Oswald] may have known or been acquainted with one another.(46)

It should be noted however, that this is the exact same wording from an affidavit from Jack Martin. So it seems the CIA was quoting from Martin’s affidavit in this memo rather than stating their own conclusion.(47)

At the end of August Oswald made a memorable appearance in Clinton, Louisiana, which we will examine in detail in Chapter 11. In September Oswald left from New Orleans for Texas, by way of Mexico City. He eventually found work at the Texas School Book Depository and settled in Dallas to await the denouement to this strange play, whose opening act may have begun that summer in New Orleans.

Let Justice Be Done. Order your copy today!

Edited by John Bevilaqua
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Guy Banister died in June of 1964

And it seems he died a bankrupt. According to Harold Weisberg (I think it is in Oswald In New Orleans) Bannister was many months behind on his office rent when he died. THis indicates that Bannister is one person who did not profit from the JFK assassination, and that fact -- plus the absence of reliable evidence against him -- makes him a most unlikely suspect, IMHO.

As loose a cannon as "Sparky" Ruby, Banister may just have been cut out of the loop along with other embarrassing Cuba invasion types, before his inevitable termination.

Or the non-payment may have been meant to hasten his death - Banister was something of a walking heart attack (the Martin assault, the gun discharge on duty), and a heavy drinker to boot.

Take a look at the evidence below which documents what I believe to cement Banister as one of the Top Ten most pivotal participants in the conspiracy in fact. And since I have some several very personal experiences with how the anti-Castro Cuban exiles promised all sorts of rewards and payoffs to more than one South Florida SOF or gun-runner, after performing some very risky, life-threatening, precarious and self-incriminating boom and bang operation or transportation task only to withhold the promised payments after that you might want to reconsider your rather primitive cause and effect analysis and conclusions.

Here is a conversation related to me by a wanna-be SOF after dealing with these anti-Castro exiles...

SOF: "But you said you were going to give me $5,000 after I finished this operation! You bastidges!"

Exile: "Here is $1,000. Take it or leave it!"

SOF: "Why you SOB I am gonna... I will tell... "

Exile: "Oh yeah! Who you goin' to tell, gringo? Who can you tell? Stupido! You goin' to go to jail if you tell anyone

about what you did. You are more guilty than we are."

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I agree with you, John, that Banister was logistically important, even philosophically important, in the JFK hit. But to the ultimate conspirators, he was just about as expendable as a gay former airline pilot or a strip-club owner (both of whom might have trumpeted their own conceptions of their individual logistical-philosophical importance, for all the good it would have done them).

Edited by David Andrews
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"On 9th August, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald distributed leaflets that supported Fidel Castro and his government in Cuba. On these leaflets was the address 544 Camp Street, New Orleans. This was also the office of Carlos Bringuier, an anti-Castro exile."

Sorry, but none of the leaflets contained the 544 Camp Street Address.

After arresting Oswald, the New Orleans police took his placard and two sets of "leaflets" or handbills. One set bore Lee H Oswald's name

and the other had A J Hidell's name. The Oswald leaflet had the incorrect address of 4907 Magazine St. The Hidell leaflet had an incorrect PO box.

It was Corliss Lamont's 39-page pamphlet that had the 744 Camp Street address. Oswald gave a copy (he had 14 in his possession) of this

to SA Quigley, after Quigley came to visit Oswald in his cell.

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"On 9th August, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald distributed leaflets that supported Fidel Castro and his government in Cuba. On these leaflets was the address 544 Camp Street, New Orleans. This was also the office of Carlos Bringuier, an anti-Castro exile."

Sorry, but none of the leaflets contained the 544 Camp Street Address.

Also, what is your source that 544 Camp Street Address was Bringuier's office?

Todd:

My belief, for many years, was that the 544 Camp address appeared only on the Lamont "Crime Against Cuba" pamphlets. I was startled when Groden published a color image of one of Oswald's FPCC leaflets with the 544 address, and I wondered if it was a fake, or some artifact from the Stone film. Then Gus Russo printed one of Oswald's leaflets with the 544 address. My understanding is that it was real, that it was acquired from Oswald by NOPD officer Francis Martello when Oswald was arrested in New Orleans but kept by him for posterity, and that it ended up in the posession of Martello's widow. I understand there are also more of them. All this from a respected researcher.

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