From: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: Richard Case Nagell
Keywords: Mr X.
Date: 22 Jul 92 23:44:50 GMT
Reply-To: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technologies, Mt. View, California.


The following excerpt is from Jim Garrison, "On the Trail of the 
Assassins:  My Investigation and Prosecution of the Murder of 
President Kennedy"  (New York:  Sheridan Square Press, 1988)

I am fascinated by this man and his remarkable testimony.  Richard E.
Sprague's letters to Stokes and Blakey indicate that the HSCA was
aware of and did not call Nagell to testify before the committee, though he
was, as Garrison notes, interviewed by the FBI, for reasons unspecified,
during the investigation of the Warren Commission.

I know that Oliver Stone has stated that Mr X. is a composite figure.  I
think one component is taken from Garrison's meeting with Nagell in
Central Park.

Paul Collacchi


_____

Meanwhile, relatives of Richard Case Nagell, a federal intelligence agent,
had been in touch with me.  They said that in mid-1963 he had discovered an
operation to assassinate President Kennedy.  His attempt to warn the
government of this, they explained, had resulted in his being sent to the
federal penitentiary for three years.  He was in the process of being
released and wanted to meet with me in another city.  If I could not go see
him, the family would visit me.

I agreed, and two members of his family flew from New York down to New
Orleans to set up the meeting.  Their confirmation of the story -- although
lacking in the background which only he could provide -- was convincing.
However, he refused to travel outside of New York City, where he recently
had arrived following his release from federal prison.  I agreed with his
family to discuss the matter further the next day.

At home that night I went through the Warren Commission material.
According to the hearings index, the name of Nagell had never come up.  It
did not seem to be in the commission exhibits either.  Nevertheless, I was
curious about this unusual story and determined to find whatever I could
about Nagell.  If he had been close enough to the assassination planning to
have learned about it in advance, I reasoned, then the federal bureaucracy
would have produced a report on Nagell.  Even if it had been altered to 
point in the wrong direction, somewhere there had to be a report.

Then, in the Commission documents, I finally stumbled across it.  The FBI
report said, in full:

	For the record he would like to say that his association with
	Oswald (meaning Lee Harvey Oswald) was purely social and that
	he had met him in Mexico City and in Texas.


Nagell indeed had been on the fringe of things, at least, or he would not
have been in the Bureau's report.  It was evident, however, that it had
been heavily sanitized.  It was one of the shortest reports produced in the
entire FBI investigation.  There was no reference to Nagell's occupation.
There was no hint of why the FBI had questioned him.  There was no
reference to the federal charge against him at the time the report had been
written.  Yet the charge had been real enough that he only now -- three
years later -- was getting out of prison. 

The next morning I met with Nagell's family again at my office, and in a
few minutes I was talking to him on the phone.  He was explicit in his
requirements for a rendezvous.  It had to be in New York City.  I had to be
the one to go there; he would not talk to anyone simply representing me.
The meeting had to be in the open air, not in a hotel or other enclosed
building.

A very uptight guy, I thought, but I assumed he had his reasons.  I
described a sport in South Central Park, just across 59th Street from the
Plaza Hotel, near the great pond.  It was an area of light trees and
scattered shrubbery and benches.  He was agreeable to our meeting there.

So I flew to New York. [1]  A few minutes before the appointed time, I
stepped out of the Plaza Hotel and walked across the crowded street into
the park.  The area was deserted except for a tall, lean man who was
standing there with his hands in his pockets.  His blondish hair was
thinning.  He studied me as I approached him.

We shook hands and sat down on a bench together.  It was hard to believe
that we were in the heart of New York.  It was a sunny day, with a light
breeze riffling through the small trees.  There followed, as I recall it,
one of the most provocative and frustrating conversations I have ever had.
I cannot say he did not warn me at the outset.

"I am not going to identify the organization I worked for in 1963," he
said.  "You simply will have to draw your own conclusions about that.  Nor
will I say exactly what I was working on.  I am bound by some laws in this
area, and I've already had enough problems from the government without
having any new ones."

Nevertheless, I could not withhold the query.  "Were you with the Company?"
I asked.

He shook his head.  "I cannot answer the question."

"Then just what information can you give me?"  I asked.  I had not come all
the way to New York to hear him recite the standard secrecy agreement that
all agents in the intelligence community are required to sign.

"I am already on record about my learning that the assassination was
scheduled and about my effort to contact the Bureau and warn them about it.
As far as I am concerned, I have a right to go into that because I have
already done so before.  I just thought that you should know firsthand what
I have to say.  Is this of any interest to you?"

I nodded.

In mid-1963 he had been working for the United States government, so
Nagell's story began, in an agency which he would not identify.  The people
for whom he worked, a vagueness from which he never departed were curious
about a project involving a fellow named, Lee Oswald and some other men.
Consequently, Nagell was assigned to spend some time establishing the
necessary relationships and observing.  In late August or early September
of 1963, for reasons he would not spell out, it became apparent that an
exceedlingly large -- he emphasized the word "large" -- operation, pointing
toward the assassination of President Kennedy, was under way.  At just
about the time of this discovery, for reasons he would not explain, the
individual who had given him his assignment was moved to another part of
the country, and Nagell suddenly found himself without a direct contact. 

It was a strange tale, Nagell being "frozen out" by the very government
agency which had assigned him to conduct a penetration of the ongoing
activity.  I can only say that Nagell impressed me as being utterly honest
and sincere in his account.

Knowing what was going to happen, he went on, but having no way of knowing
when, he decided that the best solution was to notify J. Edgar Hoover, the
director of the FBI.  He wrote Hoover a letter spelling out all that he had
been able to learn about the proposed assasination.  He sent the letter
registered, return receipt requested.  Then as the days and weeks passed
with no answer from the FBI chief, he concluded that his attempt to warn
of what was approaching had been in vain.  Worse, he sensed from the
silence which his letter had met that there was a very real danger of his
being drawn into a trap.  After all, he had been in the company of Oswald
and others with him, during much of the summer of 1963.

Finally, in what he admitted was an act of desperation, he decided that his
one safe course was to insure that he was in a federal institution on the
day the assassination occurred.  He would rather be charged, he reasoned,
with malicious mischief than be drawn into a giant trap involving the
assassination of a President.  He walked into a federal bank in El Paso,
fired several shots in the ceiling, then waited outside sitting on the curb
until the guard came running by.  He had to call back the guard, who in his
haste had rushed past him.

But Nagell was not charged with malicious mischief.  The government charged
him with armed robbery.  Moreover, at his trial, he was convicted, and the
judge sentenced him to ten years imprisonment. [2]  Nagell answered a few
questions.  Had he actually been in physical association with Lee Oswald?
Right there with him?  Yes, he replied.  And with other men connected with
Oswald?  The answer was yes.  Where did this occur?  In New Orleans and
Texas.

I asked him whether these other men and Oswald were working together on the
project or whether the others were manipulating Oswald.  He thought this
question through at some length.  Then he said that he did not pretend to
have been close enough to know for sure, but his intuition was that the
others had manipulated Oswald from the outset.

I asked him the names of the other men.  He hesitated, but when the answer
came, it was specific:  Guy Banister, Clay Shaw, and David Ferrie.

With what organization were these men connected?  Now he looked at me with
a half smile and shook his head slowly.  I pressed.  Were they connected
with the CIA?  "I cannot discuss or name any government organization," he
replied.  In spite of the troubles he had been through, he would not say a
word about the intelligence community at large, with the single exception
of the FBI's having ignored his warning letter about President Kennedy's
murder.  And that was the sum of Nagell's story.  Beyond the precise
parameters he had established he would not be budged a centimeter.

During most of my flight home I reflected long and hard on my Central Park
meeting with Richard Case Nagell.  I had studied him closely for all of the
three hours or so we were together, and I was satisfied that weaving a
fabricated tale was not in this man's makeup.  On the other hand, there
seemed to be no getting around the fact that his account was not easy to
digest.  I concluded that I would probably have to chalk up the Central
Park scene to experience.

Many years down the road I found myself reading an account of Nagell's
arrest by East German police as he attempted to cross back into West
Germany.  Richard Case Nagell definitely was not your basic insurance
salesman.

--
[1]  The air fare, as well as the hotel, now had to be paid by me
personally, and this was the way things would be from now on because 
of the newspapers' watch over our fines and fees fund.

[2]  He had served three years.  Two years later, his conviction was
reversed on the grounds there was no evidence of intent to rob.