PART 2.
TESTIMONY OF JAMES B.
WILCOTT
A FORMER EMPLOYEE
OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY:
- Mr. Dodd.
I have just a couple of questions. First of all I
apologize for having to run in and out during
your testimony and some of this you may have already
covered; and, if you have,
then I will not proceed with it. But I was intrigued --
and it may have been in the transcription
but you were in XXXXX as financial disbursement officer
-- is it your testimony that you
were told by a case officer that you had disbursed funds
for an Oswald project?
- Mr. Dodd.
Am I to believe by that that you were not aware at the
time you made the disbursement
that it was, in fact, an Oswald project?
- Mr. Wilcott.
That is correct, sir.
- Mr. Dodd.
It would have been a cryptonym and he was telling you,
you had, in fact, made a
disbursement?
- Mr. Dodd.
And this would have been, now, shortly after the
assassination?
- Mr. Dodd.
Talking about hours afterwards or a day afterwards?
- Mr. Wilcott.
It was at least a matter of weeks and perhaps as much as
three months after.
- Mr. Dodd.
After the assassination actually occurred?
- Mr. Dodd.
When you were told all of this?
- Mr. Dodd.
And it includes the information that Oswald Was an agent?
- Mr. Dodd.
Was he described as an agent to you or was he described
as an operative or a paid
informant?
- Mr. Wilcott.
No, sir; he was described to me as an agent and I was led
to believe, from the
conversations that he was an agent.
- Mr. Dodd.
As a point of information, are people who work within the
Agency fairly careful in their
language in describing what the category of certain
people are who work for the Agency?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Generally so, I would say, at that time.
- Mr. Dodd.
And it is your clear recollection that he was described
as an agent?
- Mr. Dodd.
And the information given you occurred sometime three
months after the actual
assassination. That would have put it into 1964?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Yes, sir, early 1964.
- Mr. Dodd.
When did you leave to go back?
- Mr. Wilcott.
June of 1964.
- Mr. Wilcott.
So it was sometime between February and June of 1964?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Or perhaps January.
- Mr. Dodd.
In. 1964, of course, the Vietnam war was going on and
Lyndon Johnson was now president.
And when did you begin to develop attitudes of
dissatisfaction with the Agency and its reaction
and attitudes toward what you described as undemocratic
principles and a lack of humanism?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Well, actually even prior to the Kennedy assassination,
my wife and I both became disturbed about
the stories that we kept hearing about things, control of
newspapers and so on.
- Mr. Dodd.
How long had you been married by the way?
- Mr. Wilcott.
We were married in 1954, sir.
- Mr. Dodd.
And you and your wife both went to work for the CIA about
the same time?
- Mr. Dodd.
Am I to presume that you told your wife of the
conversation you had with this case officer at
the time it occurred?
- Mr. Dodd.
And she was aware of it from 1964 up until 1968 --
- Mr. Dodd.
-- when you decided to release that information?
- Mr. Dodd.
And your dissatisfaction with the Agency and with the
course of American government preceded
the actual assassination of President Kennedy?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Well, with the Agency, yes, sir.
- Mr. Dodd.
And this was a view shared by you and your wife --
- Mr. Dodd.
-- at that time?
- Mr. Dodd.
Did anyone else at the Agency know of your views at the
Agency and did you communicate
with other people about your dissatisfaction?
- Mr. Dodd.
Would you care to tell us any of the names of people whom
you communicated with?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Particularly George Breen and XXXXXXXXX to a lesser
extent.
- Mr. Dodd.
I am a little confused, I suppose, Mr. Wilcott, did you
vote for President Kennedy?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Yes, sir, I did.
- Mr. Dodd.
I am just a little confused, I guess, over your reaction.
Here, by your own testimony,
you were supportive of the President, and certainly the
most significant
tragedy, I think, probably in the last 15 years or 20
years was the assassination of
President Kennedy, and you are told by some who worked
for the Agency that Oswald
was a CIA agent and you already were dissatisfied with
the actions of the Agency and
you are told this in 1964 and yet it takes four years, or
two years, after you had left
the Agency, recognizing the tremendous import and
significance of that, and I am
terribly confused as to why you decided to keep that
information to yourself and to your wife.
- Mr. Wilcott.
I was afraid quite frankly.
- Mr. Dodd.
You may have covered this as well, Mr. Chairman, and, if
you have, I will drop the question.
But you apparently indicated that you feel there was a
direct connection between the Bay of Pigs
operation and the assassination of the President. Did you
cover this ground? Did you want
to do this or intend to proceed with that line of
questioning?
- Mr. Goldsmith.
I did not intend to get into that area.
- Mr. Dodd.
Just one second, then.
- Mr. Wilcott,
maybe we can expedite this somewhat by asking you this:
Do you have any first-hand knowledge
or information as to a link between the failed Bay of
Pigs operation and the assassination of
John Fitzgerald Kennedy?
- Mr. Dodd.
I have no further questions.
- Mr. Cornwell.
In the conversations which you have described occurring
within a period of one, two or three
months after the assassination with other CIA employees
and officers, did they suggest in
those conversations to you that their employment, the CIA's
employment, of Oswald had any
relation to the assassination or only that it related to
the events you have already described
-- namely, the training of him in Atsugi in the Russian
language and the sending of him
to Russia and using of him as a double agent and that
sort of thing?
- Mr. Wilcott.
I am sorry, sir; I lost the thread of your question.
- Mr. Cornwell.
In the conversations you had with other CIA employees,
the six or seven persons who
purported to have good information about the use of
Oswald as an agent, did any
of those people say anything to you which suggested that
the CIA had some role in the
assassination of President Kennedy?
- Mr. Cornwell.
What did they say along those lines?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Along those lines they said things like, well, that
Oswald couldn't have pulled the trigger,
that only CIA could have set up such an elaborate project
and there was nobody with
the kind of knowledge or information that could have done
this, and this was more in the
speculative realm. As far as that they actually said,
they said they were having trouble with
Oswald and that there was dissatisfaction with Oswald
after he came back from the
Soviet Union, and the would say things like "Well,
you know this was the way to get
rid of him -- to get him involved in this assassination
thing and put the blame on Cuba
as a pretext for another invasion or another attack
against Cuba."
That was the kind of things that people said. How much
exact knowledge they had it is
impossible for me to say. I believe it was more in a
speculative realm.
- Mr. Cornwell. At several points in your testimony
you have stated there were six or
seven persons, and on each occasion you raised the extent
of their knowledge
as "knew" or "believed." Apart from
the one officer who said to you that you had
paid monies with respect to Oswald's cryptonym, what were
the other six or seven
persons' purported connection with Oswald and the Agency's
relation to him.
- Mr. Wilcott.
They never revealed that to me, sir, as far as their
relations with Oswald.
- Mr. Cornwell.
Do you have any knowledge, based upon your tenure XXXXXXX
as to who would
have trained Oswald in the Russian language if that
occurred?
- Mr: Preyer.
Let me interrupt. I am afraid we are going to have to
leave to make this vote right now.
I will be back in about 10 minutes. (Whereupon, a brief
recess was taken.)
- Mr. Preyer.
The committee will resume. Did you have further questions?
- Mr. Cornwell.
The cryptonym -- did you write it down at any point?
- Mr. Wilcott.
I may have, sir, and I can't remember exactly for sure.
It seems to me that I
recall jotting it on a little pad. that I had at my gate,
and I did that with cryptonyms
from time to time for something -- we would want to check
back into their accounting
for something.
- Mr. Cornwell.
Is there any chance that that record stil exists?
- Mr. Wilcott.
I doubt it, sir.
- Mr. Cornwell.
Your best memory is, you wrote it on a note paid, is.
that correct?
- Mr. Wilcott.
That is true, sir.
- Mr. Cornweil.
What routinely was done with such note pads?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Usually I threw them away at the end of the day or once
in a while I would put it in
-- I had a little folder where I kept personal things and
it is possible I could have out
it in there, but certainly it would have been destroyed
when I left.
- Mr. Cornwell.
Do you recall whether or not you used that in the process
of looking through the
30-day book you described?
- Mr. Wilcott.
I can't remember, sir.
- Mr. Cornwell.
It was not normally part of your duties or the scope of
the knowledge that
you routinely acquired on your job, as I understand it,
for you to know what the
cryptonyms meant; is that correct?
- Mr. Wilcott.
That is correct, sir.
- Mr. Cornwell.
However, I take it from the fact that, as you describe it,
it wasn't always applied,
that occasionally you did learn something about the
identities of the persons
or projects that the cryptonyms referred to; is that
correct?
- Mr. Wilcott.
That is true.
- Mr. Cornwell.
When this cryptonym was given to you by the officer, did
any part of it ring any
familiar note with you? Did you recognize any part of it,
the first two letters
or the last portions of it, as referring to any
geographic area or any type of activity
or anything like that?
- Mr. Wilcott.
No, sir, not that I can recall.
- Mr. Cornwell.
Had you ever run into any similar cryptonym?
- Mr. Cornwell.
In other words, that is, the first two letters or the
last ones would have been the
same as this?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Yes, sir; it was a cryptonym that I was familiar with,
that it must have been at
least two or three occasions that I had remembered it and
it did ring a bell, yes.
- Mr. Cornwell.
Do you remember anything about it?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Not at this time. I can't remember what it was.
- Mr. Cornwell.
All you can recall is that, when you heard it, that was
not the first occasion
on which you had seen it or heard it?
- Mr. Wilcott.
That is correct, sir.
- Mr. Cornwell.
Why did you leave the CIA?
- Mr. Wilcott.
My wife and I both left the CIA because we became
convinced that what CIA was
doing couldn't be reconciled to basic principles of
democracy or basic principles of humanism.
- Mr. Cornwell.
Is that the only reason?
- Mr. Wilcott.
The principal reason --
- Mr. Cornwell.
Let me rephrase it. Was there any dispute between you and
the Agency?
- Mr. Cornwell.
Did they request that you leave?
- Mr. Wilcott.
No, sir, they did not.
- Mr. Cornwell.
Did any event cause any disagreement between you and the
Agency?
- Mr. Cornwell.
Had you done anything or said anything engaged in any
activity which became
of concern to them?
- Mr. Wilcott.
No, sir. I had been involved at one poin with a group
civil rights group, and they
had investigated it and said that there was no wrongdoing
on my part as far a
this association with the civil rights group.
- Mr. Cornwell.
What group was it?
- Mr. Wilcott.
This was SNIC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee before
they became a black power group
- Mr. Cornwell.
What, if any, investigation did the Agency do with
respect to that?
- Mr. Wilcott.
They called me up to chief of security, the agent
security, and they interviewed me on
the association that I had had with the group, and then
they gave me a polygraph
-- in fact, two polygraphs -- concerning my association
with the group of people that I
met with the group.
- Mr. Cornwell.
Did they tell you whether or not you passed the
polygraphs?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Yes, they did. They told me that I had passed both of
those.
- Mr. Cornwell.
It is your testimony, as I understand it, the first time
that you spoke about the
Oswald agency matter outside of the CIA was after you
left the CIA; is that correct?
- Mr. Wilcott.
That is true, sir.
- Mr. Cornwell.
On that occasion to whom did you speak?
- Mr. Wilcott.
When I first started speaking, both my wife and I
discussed it and we felt that
we should be speaking out about not only Oswald but some
other things.
The was that we did this was to contact as many people
all at once and we figured
this would be our best protection, that the more people
that knew about it, the more
protection it would be for us.
- Mr. Cornwell.
What type of people were they?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Most of the people were involved in the civil rights
movement or in the antiwar
movement in 1968.
- Mr. Cornwell.
How many of them were newspaper or magazine reporters or
involved
in at least the news business ?
- Mr. Wilcott.
None initially. The first contact I had with any reporter
or any newspaper
people or any media people was with Glad Day Press.
- Mr. Cornwell.
What year was that?
- Mr. Wilcott.
That was late '68 or perhaps early 1969.
- Mr. Cornwell.
You had signed a secrecy oath while you were employed
with the Agency?
- Mr. Cornwell.
Did you -- at the time you made the decision to discuss
outside of the Agency this matter,
did you focus on the secrecy oath problem?
- Mr. Schaap.
Mr. Chairma, I would like to interpose, I guess, an
objection, although I would like
to make it more in the nature of a request, that I have
some problems in terms of
advising my client with respect to possibly self-incrimination,
that I would not advise
him to go into questions of his specific knowledge of the
oath and the application
to what he did other than the fact that he has told you,
which is a fact, that he did
sign the oath; but to go into his mental processes as to
whether he felt what he was
then doing related to the oath in a particular way, I
would request that those questions
not be asked on the grounds that they may violate either
his First Amendment rights
or his Fifth Amendment rights, if that would be all right.
If you have something --
- Mr. Cornwell.
Perhaps I can rephrase the question and get more
pointedly what I need without
running into the problem that you see.
Did you contact any CIA officer or employee with respect
to the secrecy oath and
discuss with them whether or not you should be permitted
to discuss these matters
outside of the Agency?
- Mr. Wilcott.
No, sir, I did not.
- Mr. Cornwell.
To your knowledge, when was the first point in time at
which your extra-agency
discussions on this subject matter came to the attention
of the Agency, if ever?
- Mr. Wilcott.
I have no idea, Sir.
- Mr. Cornwell.
At what point in time did your discussions outside of the
Agency first become a
matter of publication in a newspaper or magazine or on
television?
- Mr. Wilcott.
In December of 1975, in the little magazine called The
Pelican at the University
of California, and an interview was conducted by a
reporter from that magazine.
- Mr. Cornwell.
And would that -- at least in part --would that interview
have contained your
resume of the Oswald agency matter, your statements about
that matter?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Very briefly it did, yes, in what was finally published.
- Mr. Cornwell.
That is, that subject matter, your statement on the
Oswald agency matter,
be printed or otherwise publicized in a news publication,
radio or TV or anything
like that on any other occasion?
- Mr. Cornwell.
When was that?
- Mr. Wilcott.
On two other occasions, I was on KPOO Radio in San
Francisco and I discussed
in detail, in quite a bit of detail, the speculations and
also the incident of the case officer
contacting me at the window.
- Mr. Cornwell.
What year was that?
- Mr. Wilcott.
That was November of 1977.
- Mr. Cornwell.
Last November?
- Mr. Cornwell.
On any other occasion?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Yes sir; at Oakland Technical High School, at the
invitation of -- the social department
asked me if I wanted to speak and I said yes, and so I
spoke to two classes at
Oakland Technical High School. This was about, believe --
about October of 1975.
- Mr. Cornwell.
On any other occasions?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Not publicly. I soke to groups in their homes and I spoke
to groups in the Peace and
Freedom Party and I was with the Peace and Freedom Party
for several years.
- Mr. Cornwell.
But your testimony or your statements on the subject hadn't
been made a matter
of publicity on any other occasion?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Not to my knowledge.
- Mr. Cornwell.
Has any representative of the Agency or anyone who you
believed might be a
representative of the Agency ever come to you and
discussed these matters?
- Mr. Wilcott.
Not directly, no, sir.
- Mr. Cornwell.
I have no further questions.
- Mr. Preyer.
Under our committee rules, Mr. Wilcott, a witness is
entitled, at the conclusion
of the questioning, to make a five-minute statement if he
wishes or to give a fuller
explanation of any of his answers; so that at this time
we make that five minutes
available to you if you care to elaborate or say anything
further.
- Mr. Wilcott.
I don't really have anything and maybe I would just like
to say I think it is time
we got this thing cleared up; and I think for the good of
the country and for
good of the people I think it is really time that all of
the facts were brought out
and the people really get the facts.
- Mr. Preyer.
Thank you. We appreciate that, and if at any time you
think of any further way in
which your testimony can be corroborated or the name of
any other CIA man or any
record or anything of that sort that might be available
we hope you will get in touch
with us and let us know about it.
- Mr. Wilcott.
Surely, sir.
- Mr. Preyer.
Thank you very much and we appreciate you and Mr. Schaap
being with us today,
and the hearing will stand in recess.
(Whereupon, at 12:55 p.m. the subcommittee recessed.)
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