Oswald Call to WOR in Early-Mid October?

[Chris Courtwright]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...ocs2/jfk143.pdf

I wanted to again thank Steve Thomas for all of his diligence in summarizing the document releases from the Dallas DA. I asked about this back in the "Dallas On-Line" thread, but it is starting to get buried in the more general ongoing discussion.

Had anyone else ever hear about this supposed call to WOR "about six weeks before the assassination"? I can't recall ever having heard about this before, and I'm certain I've not seen any declassified documents about it. I was hoping maybe Jack White or Robert Charles-Dunne or others with a good deal more institutional memory on this kind of thing than me can tell us if they'd stumbled across this before or is this new to them, as well? Is this really all we have on this? A third-party account after the host, Nebel, has told the columnist, Considine, about it? It's odd that there wouldn't have been follow-up FBI interviews of one or both of them that would not have turned up in the files over the years. In any event, the call would have been around Oct 11, so if Nebel was remembering it correctly, it would not seem possible that Oswald would have been calling him from Louisiana around that time. Was someone impersonating Oswald for the benefit of a nationally known radio show famous for covering provocative topics? For what purpose? It's also interesting to me that the call was "paid" and that "Oswald" volunteered to travel to New York on his own dime to do a radio interview.

Anyone have any thoughts or perspectives on all this? Thanks in advance!

Chris

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...ocs2/jfk143.pdf

I wanted to again thank Steve Thomas for all of his diligence in summarizing the document releases from the Dallas DA. I asked about this back in the "Dallas On-Line" thread, but it is starting to get buried in the more general ongoing discussion.

I wish to second the plaudits for Steve Thomas' summaries of the Dallas DA files. Those who don't have enough hours in the day very much appreciate when a superb researcher such as Steve voluntarily throws himself into such a time consuming task, to the beneit of all like-minded fellows.

Had anyone else ever hear about this supposed call to WOR "about six weeks before the assassination"? I can't recall ever having heard about this before, and I'm certain I've not seen any declassified documents about it. I was hoping maybe Jack White or Robert Charles-Dunne or others with a good deal more institutional memory on this kind of thing than me can tell us if they'd stumbled across this before or is this new to them, as well? Is this really all we have on this? A third-party account after the host, Nebel, has told the columnist, Considine, about it? It's odd that there wouldn't have been follow-up FBI interviews of one or both of them that would not have turned up in the files over the years. In any event, the call would have been around Oct 11, so if Nebel was remembering it correctly, it would not seem possible that Oswald would have been calling him from Louisiana around that time. Was someone impersonating Oswald for the benefit of a nationally known radio show famous for covering provocative topics? For what purpose? It's also interesting to me that the call was "paid" and that "Oswald" volunteered to travel to New York on his own dime to do a radio interview.

Anyone have any thoughts or perspectives on all this? Thanks in advance!

Chris

I've been combing my fading memory banks for the first mention I read of this, without success. However, Paris Flammonde ["The Kennedy Conspiracy"] was a producer for the Long John Knebel show, and I suspect the first mention I read of this came from the Garrison period, so my first encounter with this may have been Flammonde-related. [i don't think it's in his book, however.] Knebel married Candy Jones, alleged CIA mind control victim, so the "woo woo" factor must be considered. I do remember wondering whether Long John Knebel was related to author Fletcher Knebel ["Seven Days In May"], but never did get around to finding out. If I have a moment of clarity on this topic, I'll post further.

[Michael Hogan]

I've been combing my fading memory banks for the first mention I read of this, without success. However, Paris Flammonde ["The Kennedy Conspiracy"] was a producer for the Long John Knebel show, and I suspect the first mention I read of this came from the Garrison period, so my first encounter with this may have been Flammonde-related. [i don't think it's in his book, however.] Knebel married Candy Jones, alleged CIA mind control victim, so the "woo woo" factor must be considered. I do remember wondering whether Long John Knebel was related to author Fletcher Knebel ["Seven Days In May"], but never did get around to finding out. If I have a moment of clarity on this topic, I'll post further.

Robert's memory banks still continue to impress me. Flammonde also ghosted This Way Out World for Knebel in 1961.

Flammonde recently authored Assassination of America, a four volume set with the longest subtitle I have ever seen.

I found a brief reference to Knebel and WOR, but not in the context of that article by Bob Considine.

[Kathleen Collins]

Had anyone else ever hear about this supposed call to WOR "about six weeks before the assassination"? I can't recall ever having heard about this before, and I'm certain I've not seen any declassified documents about it. I was hoping maybe Jack White or Robert Charles-Dunne or others with a good deal more institutional memory on this kind of thing than me can tell us if they'd stumbled across this before or is this new to them, as well? Is this really all we have on this? A third-party account after the host, Nebel, has told the columnist, Considine, about it? It's odd that there wouldn't have been follow-up FBI interviews of one or both of them that would not have turned up in the files over the years. In any event, the call would have been around Oct 11, so if Nebel was remembering it correctly, it would not seem possible that Oswald would have been calling him from Louisiana around that time. Was someone impersonating Oswald for the benefit of a nationally known radio show famous for covering provocative topics? For what purpose? It's also interesting to me that the call was "paid" and that "Oswald" volunteered to travel to New York on his own dime to do a radio interview.

Anyone have any thoughts or perspectives on all this? Thanks in advance!

Chris

I don't go back as far as 1963, but since 1969 or so, until he died, I listened to Long John Knebel every night. His show continued for 5+1/2 hours. It started at Midnight.

Knebel was known as a hoaxer. Still, I don't think he would joke around about the Kennedy Assassination. Can we get access to the tape?

In 1973, I do remember Long John had on the publisher of Marilyn by Norman Mailer. And they talked about Monroe and Bobby, but nothing substantial. In 1974, Knebel had the author of The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe, Robert Slatzer, to me a disinfo man, now also dead. He was of the belief that Kennedy had her murdered so she wouldn't call a press conference that she was having affairs with them and Govt secrets -- like Castro, the bomb, UFOs, Hoffa, etc.

Knebel was very interested in this. Knebel was Republican, btw, and only turned against Nixon when he found out that Nixon cursed!

Kathy

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

Chris:

The Considine piece originated during Ruby's trial in early '64, but the FBI apparently knew something well prior to that date. The following are from the NARA holdings. Please note the dates:

AGENCY INFORMATION

AGENCY : FBI

RECORD NUMBER : 124-10254-10296

RECORDS SERIES : NK

AGENCY FILE NUMBER : 62-3060-30

DOCUMENT INFORMATION

ORIGINATOR : FBI

FROM : REESE, MERRILL F.

TO : SAC, NK

TITLE : [No Title]

DATE : 11/26/1963

PAGES : 1

DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

SUBJECTS : LHO, TELCAL, ADVICE, RADIO, WOR, OPINION, "LONG JOHN"

CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED

RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL

CURRENT STATUS : OPEN

DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 06/02/1994

AGENCY INFORMATION

AGENCY : FBI

RECORD NUMBER : 124-10014-10165

RECORDS SERIES : HQ

AGENCY FILE NUMBER : 105-82555-297

DOCUMENT INFORMATION

ORIGINATOR : FBI

FROM : SAC, PH

TO : DIRECTOR, FBI

TITLE : [No Title]

DATE : 12/03/1963

PAGES : 1

DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

SUBJECTS : LHO, POST-RUSSIAN PERIOD, ASSOC, NEVELL, LONG JOHN,

RADIO, WOR

CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED

RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL

CURRENT STATUS : OPEN

DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 10/26/1992

Also odd is FBI's failure to spell Knebel's name correctly. A search of NARA using "Knebel" returns only references to Fletcher, while searching for Nebel returns nothing. It is only by searching for WOR Radio that a dozen hits come up, all except the two above referencing Mark Lane's or Jim Garrison's appearances on the station.

[Chris Courtwright]

Thanks, RCD! I'll see if I can't get ahold of these documents.

To Kathleen's point, the thing that interested me about Nebel (Knebel?) is that based I what I found out about him digging around on the Internet last week, he was indeed increasingly controversial later in his career, what with his wife and the Marilyn Monroe stuff, etc. But his reputation as of October '63 was simply that of a guy who liked to discuss provocative topics and had a large national audience, I gather because of the strength of WOR's signal. So he would have been a logical choice for someone to call up in October of '63 if they were trying to replay/reinforce Oswald's pro-Castro antics and rants from the New Orleans episodes (street scuffles and radio station interview) over the summer. In other words, could this have been an effort to sheep-dip Oswald on a slightly larger stage? This is suddenly fascinating the hell out of me. Remember that the whole Landesberg stuff that John Armstrong covered occurred in New York.

[William Kelly]

Dallas DA - Records : (per Steve Thomas Reports)

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;#entry139907

Group 23 ....

p. 6. Article. 6 weeks prior to assassination, Oswald phones New York radio station WOR and asks to be put on the air and be interviewed about the Fair Play For Cuba Committee. Says he will pay for trip to New York himself. When radio personality says no, Oswald goes into a tirade.