Guy Banister and the CIA

[David Boylan]

Arnesto was not a CIA officer. His brother Emilio was. Arnesto was a Banister crony.

As far as impersonating Sylvia Duran, I can only speculate. Arnesto's wife was Mexican and her mother lived in Mexico City. "Hey honey, want to do me and Emilio a favor?" 🙂

 

[Larry Hancock]

Bill Simpich and I have pointed out that given the way certain of the taps on the Cuban consulate were set up, it was perfectly possible to impersonate a call from the embassy on a tap line at a CIA safe house.  That means that anyone with sanctioned (or unsanctioned) access to the safe house could have made the call in question - and most probably did it that given that the Cuban facility itself was closed that day.  Now which actors were involved, almost impossible to say but my guess is that it would have had to be facilitated by the AMOTS who did training for the safe house and surveillance personnel and who actually operated independently of Mexico City station in Mexico....tasked strictly by Sforsa out of JMWAVE in Miami.

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, David Boylan said:

Arnesto was not a CIA officer. His brother Emilio was. Arnesto was a Banister crony.

As far as impersonating Sylvia Duran, I can only speculate. Arnesto's wife was Mexican and her mother lived in Mexico City. "Hey honey, want to do me and Emilio a favor?" 🙂

 

She : "Say what ?!?!"

Next we have Arnesto running down the street, being chased by his wife...

Oops, sorry, my brain automatically decided to visualize this scene.

[Gerry Down]

2 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

Bill Simpich and I have pointed out that given the way certain of the taps on the Cuban consulate were set up, it was perfectly possible to impersonate a call from the embassy on a tap line at a CIA safe house.  That means that anyone with sanctioned (or unsanctioned) access to the safe house could have made the call in question - and most probably did it that given that the Cuban facility itself was closed that day.  Now which actors were involved, almost impossible to say but my guess is that it would have had to be facilitated by the AMOTS who did training for the safe house and surveillance personnel and who actually operated independently of Mexico City station in Mexico....tasked strictly by Sforsa out of JMWAVE in Miami.

 

Was the CIA station, as part of these taps, able to see the specific phone number in the Cuban consulate office from which a call was being made to the Soviet embassy? In other words, did the CIA station know for sure that the Oswald call was coming from Silvia Duran's phone number because they recognized Duran's desk telephone number as being the phone from which this phonecall was being made to the Soviet embassy?

[Larry Hancock]

One external tap was directly on the Cuban embassy line - its like putting a bridge tap on a phone line where multiple phone sets can share the same number.  Any call recorded off that line would have been for the general Cuban office number with no detail on an extension.  That allowed the CIA personnel to record any call made outgoing or incoming to the main office number of the embassy.

It would also allow any call from the safehouse side of the tap to appear as if it was from the Cuban embassy itself.

At different times there were different types of taps and bugs inside the office itself but those often did not last long - Bill Simpich discusses all this in great detail on his work about the Mexico City station.

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/State_Secret.html

 

 

[Gerry Down]

5 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

One external tap was directly on the Cuban embassy line - its like putting a bridge tap on a phone line where multiple phone sets can share the same number.  Any call recorded off that line would have been for the general Cuban office number with no detail on an extension.  That allowed the CIA personnel to record any call made outgoing or incoming to the main office number of the embassy.

It would also allow any call from the safehouse side of the tap to appear as if it was from the Cuban embassy itself.

At different times there were different types of taps and bugs inside the office itself but those often did not last long - Bill Simpich discusses all this in great detail on his work about the Mexico City station.

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/State_Secret.html

 

 

Great, thanks.

Of course the call could also have come from a public payphone. 

[David Boylan]

Like Larry, I also recommend reading Bill Simpich's State Secret. It's loaded with great info on Mexico City. I find that Bill has already covered subjects that I've been looking at.

[Larry Hancock]

I suspect Bill covers it but I think there was a record of the number originating the call that allowed it to be matched to the Cuban embassy line....the CIA could also have verified that as they also had a very complex tap system at a Central telephone exchange - with multiple recorders on multiple switched lines - and could have recorded a call from the Cuban embassy there, capturing both the origin and destination of the call.  

If there was no call record identifying the origin of the call, then as you say it could have been from a pay phone or any other phone for that matter - perhaps after the twist party (nope, not going there).

[David Boylan]

From Bill's State Secret:

The Church Committee staff refused to accept the FBI’s assurances that the tapes had been destroyed. What the staff missed, unfortunately, was a report from Alan Belmont. (Since the action largely shifted from Dallas to Langley, events will be described using Eastern Standard Time.) At 9:15 am EST, Shanklin told Belmont that Oswald was impersonated on the September 28 call.

“The Agents who spoke to Oswald have listened to the tape provided by the CIA of the call allegedly made by Oswald to the Soviet embassy, and they do not think that the individual was Oswald, as his voice is different and he spoke in broken English.”[ 48 ]

 

From State Secret on poor Russian:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=41073#relPageId=34

Edited December 22, 2022 by David Boylan

[Benjamin Cole]

8 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

If you take a careful look at some of the designations in the document (Special Agent in Charge, etc) I think you are seeing the FBI station chief in LA signing off on a background check on Emilio ordered out of FBI HQ in DC pursuant to a standard CIA request at the time Emilio was being cleared for a new set of responsibilities on his return to the US - which included foreign intelligence work against Cubans domestically and in Mexico.

Standard practice for agencies to use the FBI investigations group in background checks for clearances.  As to why LA, I suspect Jean Paul is right right in that the LA office handled surveillance on the Cuban consulate in LA, as well as some matters related to Mexico including international travel.

 

Yes...the designation Dale Whiteside Special Agent in Charge made me think FBI. 

[Tom Gram]

42 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Yes...the designation Dale Whiteside Special Agent in Charge made me think FBI. 

I just stumbled on this doc while doing a search for any info on Whiteside.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2022/104-10161-10352.pdf

Apparently Emilio Rodriguez was also in contact with the NSA. I’d have to check the previous release but it looks his name on this doc was only just unredacted.

[David Boylan]

10 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

I just stumbled on this doc while doing a search for any info on Whiteside.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2022/104-10161-10352.pdf

Apparently Emilio Rodriguez was also in contact with the NSA. I’d have to check the previous release but it looks his name on this doc was only just unredacted.

Tom,

It was Noell that was redacted.

http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/jfk/NARA-Oct2017/2018/104-10161-10127.pdf

[David Boylan]

John Whitten's report on Oswald in Mexico City with all redactions removed.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2022/104-10004-10199.pdf

[Larry Hancock]

One of the really interesting things about Whitten's report is that given all his focus on Mexico City, and conversations with personnel there, as well as review of related reports from FBI and elsewhere there is no mention at all of Oswald representing himself as affiliated with the FPCC at the Cuban Embassy and for that matter any sign that Mexico City station personnel were made aware even after the assassination of the full Oswald background in 1963 including any of his activities in New Orleans.

It appears that information was still being held separately and the Whitten report presents a very isolated picture of Oswald.  Clearly there were many questions he could have raised with Mexi staff like Phillips if he had been aware of the FPCC linkages and of the fact that under SAS Phillips himself had been tasked with propaganda against FPCC.

[Gerry Down]

4 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

One of the really interesting things about Whitten's report is that given all his focus on Mexico City, and conversations with personnel there, as well as review of related reports from FBI and elsewhere there is no mention at all of Oswald representing himself as affiliated with the FPCC at the Cuban Embassy and for that matter any sign that Mexico City station personnel were made aware even after the assassination of the full Oswald background in 1963 including any of his activities in New Orleans.

It appears that information was still being held separately and the Whitten report presents a very isolated picture of Oswald.  Clearly there were many questions he could have raised with Mexi staff like Phillips if he had been aware of the FPCC linkages and of the fact that under SAS Phillips himself had been tasked with propaganda against FPCC.

But the reports of Oswald being connected with the FPCC had been on tv the weekend of the assassination. The DRE were heavily pushing Oswald's FPCC connection in the newspapers. All Whitten had to do was turn on his TV and open his newspaper.

Do you think it's possible Whitten knew about Oswald's FPCC activities in N.O. from the tv and newspapers, but the CIA was hiding from Whitten the fact Oswald had mentioned anything about the FPCC while inside the Cuban consulate?

I can't see Win Scott holding anything back from Whitten. 

Unless Helms and Angleton were coaching Whitten on what to and what not to put in his report. And Oswald affiliating himself with the FPCC inside the Cuban consulate was something they didn't want in his report.