Elizabeth Cole - prior knowledge

[Guest John Gillespie]

In 1975, Elizabeth Cole told the FBI that in the first week of November, 1963 she attended a Foreign Students Convention in New Jersey.

While there, she overheard a telephone conversation between a Cuban student and an unknown third party. In the phone conversation, the Cuban student related that JFK was going to be assassinated. The date of the assassination, the City of Dallas and a book company were also mentioned.

Cole said that she called the FBI when she returned to NYC, but never heard back from them.

You can read the details here:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...mp;relPageId=54

_____________________________

Steve,

Nice work as always. The Ferrell site is fertile indeed. But it's too bad that S/A Clem, already in Wayne, New Jersey to interview Ms Cole, apparently didn't bother to take the relatively short drive to the REGISTRAR'S OFFICE at Farleigh Dickenson, flash those impressive FBI credentials and do some digging there. Looks like this golden lead withered, again apparently. Thanks again. I always look for your postings.

JG

[Lee Forman]

In 1975, Elizabeth Cole told the FBI that in the first week of November, 1963 she attended a Foreign Students Convention in New Jersey.

While there, she overheard a telephone conversation between a Cuban student and an unknown third party. In the phone conversation, the Cuban student related that JFK was going to be assassinated. The date of the assassination, the City of Dallas and a book company were also mentioned.

Cole said that she called the FBI when she returned to NYC, but never heard back from them.

You can read the details here:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...mp;relPageId=54

_____________________________

Steve,

Nice work as always. The Ferrell site is fertile indeed. But it's too bad that S/A Clem, already in Wayne, New Jersey to interview Ms Cole, apparently didn't bother to take the relatively short drive to the REGISTRAR'S OFFICE at Farleigh Dickenson, flash those impressive FBI credentials and do some digging there. Looks like this golden lead withered, again apparently. Thanks again. I always look for your postings.

JG

It will be interesting to see if Steve's sister turns anything up. I sort of lay odds against it. The first few FBI memos seems to make it very clear that this Cuban was representing his school - 'Fairly Ridiculous' as we call it locally - but if you continue reading [and also after speaking with Elisabeth] - she didn't believe that you necessarily had to attend the school that you represented at the conference. Also, it was attended by both students and non-students. As a designated party, she was provided free room and board at the convention by Hunter - she didn't know if the Cuban was an official delegate or not.

It would be interesting to find out if the University of Texas had anyone representing them at this conference.

- lee

[Guest John Gillespie]

Hi Ron,

Fermin's brother-in-law confirmed that he attended the University of Dallas. I also believe that Ray and Mary Fontaine in their book, 'Oswald Talked' puts him there as well.

It is going to be difficult to tie Fermin to Farleigh Dickinson as since his death, no one is talking.

James

__________

Maybe there's a paper trail.

In 1975, Elizabeth Cole told the FBI that in the first week of November, 1963 she attended a Foreign Students Convention in New Jersey.

While there, she overheard a telephone conversation between a Cuban student and an unknown third party. In the phone conversation, the Cuban student related that JFK was going to be assassinated. The date of the assassination, the City of Dallas and a book company were also mentioned.

Cole said that she called the FBI when she returned to NYC, but never heard back from them.

You can read the details here:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...mp;relPageId=54

_____________________________

Steve,

Nice work as always. The Ferrell site is fertile indeed. But it's too bad that S/A Clem, already in Wayne, New Jersey to interview Ms Cole, apparently didn't bother to take the relatively short drive to the REGISTRAR'S OFFICE at Farleigh Dickenson, flash those impressive FBI credentials and do some digging there. Looks like this golden lead withered, again apparently. Thanks again. I always look for your postings.

JG

___________________________________

FROM LEE:

"Also, it was attended by both students and non-students. As a designated party, she was provided free room and board at the convention by Hunter - she didn't know if the Cuban was an official delegate or not.

It would be interesting to find out if the University of Texas had anyone representing them at this conference."

______________________

Nice...a couple of cogent points, Lee. Thanks.

JG

Edited November 16, 2006 by John Gillespie

[Steve Thomas]

Lee,

w.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...mp;relPageId=54[/url]

It will be interesting to see if Steve's sister turns anything up. I sort of lay odds against it.

It would be interesting to find out if the University of Texas had anyone representing them at this conference.

- lee

The Library at Farleigh Dickinson University DOES have the yearbook from 1963, but will not loan it out, nor give out any information over the phone. You have to go to the Library and look at it there.

So, anybody in the neighborhood of Farleigh Dickinson?

James Richards said that Fermin de Goicochea Sanchez, aka George Parrel, who was a student at the Univ of Dallas, did go to New York City in the early part of November to attend a student conference.

(This would be right around the same time period as Elizabeth Cole's conference).

Steve Thomas

[Lee Forman]

Lee,

w.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...mp;relPageId=54[/url]

It will be interesting to see if Steve's sister turns anything up. I sort of lay odds against it.

It would be interesting to find out if the University of Texas had anyone representing them at this conference.

- lee

The Library at Farleigh Dickinson University DOES have the yearbook from 1963, but will not loan it out, nor give out any information over the phone. You have to go to the Library and look at it there.

So, anybody in the neighborhood of Farleigh Dickinson?

James Richards said that Fermin de Goicochea Sanchez, aka George Parrel, who was a student at the Univ of Dallas, did go to New York City in the early part of November to attend a student conference.

(This would be right around the same time period as Elizabeth Cole's conference).

Steve Thomas

I am - and I volunteer. However, again, I'm not expecting to find much of anything. Give me a week. Maybe if I a lucky I can see if they have anything on the conference while I am there.

- lee

my posts don't seem to register. Anyway - I'll post if I find anything interesting.

Edited November 18, 2006 by Lee Forman

[Lee Forman]

Just back from Fairleigh - the 1963 yearbook held no answers. Very few individuals in attendance with Hispanic type names - Manuel E. Martin, Ramon V. Martinez, Mireille Bueno de Mesquita, Gypsy Da Silva, were a few I wrote down for the heck of it. No Fermin - no one that looked like him. No George Parrell, or Perrell. Checked all clubs, organizations, etc. esp the International Club of Language & Culture, International Relations Club, the Political clubs, etc.

Oddly enough I did find an individual that I used to work with in 1992. Didn't know he went to FD.

General Westmoreland was there for an event apparently - there was no text associated with the photo, aside from his name and 2 students - J. Vida and J. Williams.

One of their Political Clubs apparently wrote about the General Walker incident at Ole Miss in one of their publications.

Nice campus.

[William Kelly]

Just back from Fairleigh - the 1963 yearbook held no answers. Very few individuals in attendance with Hispanic type names - Manuel E. Martin, Ramon V. Martinez, Mireille Bueno de Mesquita, Gypsy Da Silva, were a few I wrote down for the heck of it. No Fermin - no one that looked like him. No George Parrell, or Perrell. Checked all clubs, organizations, etc. esp the International Club of Language & Culture, International Relations Club, the Political clubs, etc.

Oddly enough I did find an individual that I used to work with in 1992. Didn't know he went to FD.

General Westmoreland was there for an event apparently - there was no text associated with the photo, aside from his name and 2 students - J. Vida and J. Williams.

One of their Political Clubs apparently wrote about the General Walker incident at Ole Miss in one of their publications.

Nice campus.

Lee, Thanks for taking the time to do this.

BK

[Steve Thomas]

Lee,

Lee, Thanks for taking the time to do this.

BK

Me too.

Steve

[Lee Forman]

My pleasure Gents. Would have replied sooner but I wasn't finished.

Here we go.

The event was called 'International Week End.' It was indeed hosted by Douglas College at Rutgers, on the 8th - 10th of November in 1963, their 15th session.

From the info I gathered, I have made the following observations:

- The invites were dated September 25th, and went to the attention of the school's Foreign Student Advisor.

- The list of attendees I managed to find is incomplete [and I don't know where to get a complete one]

- Three individuals attending from Fairleigh are noted, yet none of them represented Cuba, and none of them have Hispanic / Spanish type names.

- Since Douglas was originally founded as a woman's school, there was a limit of 4 male representatives of any of the schools invited. Fairleigh = 3 documented males.

Edward Gray, representing Liberia

Reuben Seggayle, representing Uganda

John Yfantis, representing Greece

- Irmina Bestard apparently represented Cuba for 2 different schools - Yale and the College of New Rochelle

- The list of attendees appears to demonstrate that the International Week End was first and foremost a local event - EASTERN SEABOARD - Colleges from Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. Hence, UT would not have received an invite.

- The focus of this particular weekend was Religious in nature - "Religion - Help or Hindrance in the Modern State."

- Key note speaker was Santha Rama Rau, originally of India.

- Photos were taken of the event, but I was only able to get the ones published. I don't know if there is a collection of unused photos stored away someplace.

And the best part, 'Elizabeth' [sic] Cole is in the Student newspaper as attending for France, representing Hunter.

Speculation says that if it's Fermin that attended, then it may have been through some Jesuit relationship - why else bother penetrating an event centered on Religion? If he did attend, it is not obvious from the information I was able to gather.

Limited document dump to follow. I sourced info from an Alumni book, the Douglas Yearbook, Dean's files on the International Weekend, and two of the Rutgers College Newspapers, The Caellian and the Daily Targum.

First we'll start with the invite.

I am going to stop here - too dammed annoying to try to post again and have attachments all mixed in with one another, as well as text within the original post. Is there some kind of trick to avoid that?

- lee

Edited November 29, 2006 by Lee Forman

[Lee Forman]

Let's see if I can get away from the 'clusterpost' this way.

Posted list of attendees in the school newspaper, on the day of the event.

Photos of the event from the Douglas Yearbook.

I copied more more photo, but it wasn't clear if it was associated with the weekend or not. It followed directly in the book, and came before their Christmas function. The scene has a lot of Christmas decorations - perhaps unusual for Nov 8 - 10th. Also, the individuals aren't wearing nametags. Too bad I don't have a photo of Cole from 1963.

If anyone wants to see some of the other documents, let me know - they have little information beyond that which I have already posted about.

What an evil clusterpost this turned out to be. Hope you can follow it.

Edited November 29, 2006 by Lee Forman

[Steve Thomas]

Lee,

Let's see if I can get away from the 'clusterpost' this way.

Posted list of attendees in the school newspaper, on the day of the event.

Great research work Lee.

Do you have any plans of trying to contact Elizabeth Cole again to show her that list of names?

Steve Thomas

[Michael Hogan]

Great research work Lee.

Yes. My sentiments also.

Edited November 30, 2006 by Michael Hogan

[Lee Forman]

Great research work Lee.

Yes. My sentiments also.

Thanks. I wasn't planning to. She doesn't remember names or faces - plus she said that the man from Fairleigh Dickinson represented Cuba - there's nothing on record to substantiate that.

Was thinking - perhaps a secondary motive for travelling so far was, in part, for the use of a payphone. I have spoken to folks and read about numerous instances where a lot of covert type work was done payphone to payphone - that way you had more security - no worries about traces or having your conversation tapped. Not a primary motive, but quite possibly a secondary.

I think if anything else is to be learned here it will not be through Elisabeth, with whom I have lost contact, and believe she may have been re-incarcerated due to the shenanigans associated with her fleecing.

I have a few more irons in the fire here - we'll see if they pan out. Here's an interesting concept - you could simply do a walk-in registration, and then sell a line - get your 'Hello I'm Fermin' type badge, with any school name and Cuba - however, maybe it's more logical that you have someone assisting you from the start - otherwise how would you learn about the function to begin with? A longshot I suppose, but I thought perhaps I would post the names of the staff that were responsible for putting the gig together.

And if you represent Cuba, wouldn't the other rep from Cuba cross paths with you? So far, unable to raise Irmina Bestard Rodriguez to enquire.

Let's say that it was Fermin [Yago] - whoever it was apparently spoke very bitterly about Kennedy, talked a lot about the BOP disaster, spoke fluent Spanish - that's about all there really is - I did find it interesting that the one caption referred to 'heated' discussions - in which case, perhaps one of the break-out groups was exposed to a former 2056's vitriol - and well warranted, IMO. So it's always possible that another individual may have remember something of the incident - but why even bother attending? That's the part I don't get. I recognize that it was somewhat standard to be infiltrating student associations, and etc., but this one? What's the point?

- lee

[Lee Forman]

Small update - Cole isn't in any of the photos I posted.

I may have answered one of my own questions, particularly if it was Fermin, driven by Salvat, to the International Week End - Religion in the modern state, and a possible Catholic interest in same.

I will look to link this back to that other thread on the religious connections to the JFK assassination. And I should probably continue on the Jesuits at some point.

http://cuban-exile.com/doc_101-125/doc0117.html

DIRECTORIO REVOLUCINARIO ESTUDIANTIL (DRE)

Often known in the North American press as the Cuban Student Directorate, the DRE was, in the words of one CIA analyst, "perhaps the most militant and deeply motivated" of all the Cuban exile organizations seeking to oust Castro after the Cuban revolution of 1959. According to a CIA study in October in 1962, the DRE had the largest following of any individual exile group.

The group was formed by Alberto Muller, Ernesto Travieso, and Juan Manual Salvat, young Catholic students at the University of Havana, in February 1960. They protested the visit of the Anastas Mikoyan, the Soviet deputy foreign minister. They battled with pro-Castro activists near the statue of Jose Marti in Havana's Parque Central. Later that spring they were expelled from the University in hearings presided over by Castro's campus enforcer, Rolando Cubela.

In Miami the DRE-in-Exile quickly attracted the support of CIA covert operations officers such as David Phillips and Howard Hunt. (Both men took care in their memoirs to praise the leaders of the DRE. See Phillips's "The Night Watch" and Hunt's "Give Us This Day.")

In early 1961 Muller, who had been a member of Castro's 26th of July Movement, returned to the island to organize peasants in the Escambray mountains to resist the new communist government. Muller, an intelligent and charismatic young man, attracted a small following but was arrested by Castro's security forces at a bus stop just before the exiles' aborted invasion at the Bay of Pigs. He would spend the next twenty years in jail.

In August 1962, Salvat led a group of DRE militants in a small boat from Miami to Havana to launch a maritime midnight raid on the Hornedo de Rosita Hotel, located on the beach on the west side of Havana. Salvat and Co sprayed the hotel with cannon fire terrorizing the residents, mostly advisers from Eastern European countries, but otherwise doing no damage. The DRE denied it was an assassination attempt.

The group's leaders passed along reports of Soviet missile installations in Cuba to the CIA in the summer of 1962. When these reports were confirmed by photographs from U.S. reconnaissance planes, the Cuban Missile Crisis resulted.

After the missile crisis the group's claims that the Soviet Union had not removed all of its missiles but had stashed some in caves, won headlines but were soon discredited by the CIA.

In August 1963, the group's delegation in New Orleans had a series of encounters with a pro-Castro activist named Lee Harvey Oswald. After the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, the DRE publicized Oswald's activities on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Their statements attracted wide media coverage in the wake of the president's murder.

By 1963-64, the group's membership was declining along with its organizational effectiveness. The DRE was formally disbanded in December 1966 by co-founder Juan Manuel Salvat who is now director of publishing house Universal Editions [ Ediciones Universal ] in Miami.

Albert Muller was released from Cuban jail in 1980 and lives in Miami.

Carlos Bringuier lives in Miami.

Several members of the DRE would go on to prominent roles in the Cuban exile community.

Jose Basulto, the triggerman in the 1962 Hornedo de Rosita attack, founded the

humanitarian organization Brothers to the Rescue in 1995.

Jorge Mas Canosa, the late founder and president of the Cuban American National

Foundation (CANF), got his start in politics as a young member of the DRE.

-----------------

Jefferson Morley

Washington Post

January 2000

[Steve Thomas]

In 1975, Elizabeth Cole told the FBI that in the first week of November, 1963 she attended a Foreign Students Convention in New Jersey.

While there, she overheard a telephone conversation between a Cuban student and an unknown third party. In the phone conversation, the Cuban student related that JFK was going to be assassinated. The date of the assassination, the City of Dallas and a book company were also mentioned.

It is alleged that the name of the Cuban student overheard by Miss Cole has the same last name as that of a Cuban picked up and released in Dallas on 11/22/63.

See here:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...p;relPageId=112

Steve Thomas

From Oswald's 201 File 104-10015-10127 p. 2

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=1

From Mexico City:

Luis Echiverria, acting Secretary of the Gobernacion personally asked COS 23 Nov for all information on FNU Rodriguez Molina. Said heard on radio Rodriguez picked up in connection with assassination and that he Mexican.

Steve Thomas