Agency: HSCA
Originator: HSCA
Document date: 6/8/78
Document type: OUTSIDE CONTACT REPORT

## Page 1

JFK Assassination System

Identification Form

Agency Information

Date:

10/20/20

AGENCY :

HSCA

RECORD NUMBER :

180-10110-10108

RECORD SERIES :

SECURITY CLASSIFIED FILES

AGENCY FILE NUMBER :

009093

Document Information

ORIGINATOR :

FROM:

TO :

TITLE:

HSCA

DATE: 06/08/1978

PAGES:

4

SUBJECTS :

Released under the John

F. Kennedy

assassination Records

Collection Act of 1992

144 USC 2107 Notel.

Case#:NW 53080 Date:

05-30-2017

[Restricted]

DOCUMENT TYPE: OUTSIDE CONTACT REPORT

CLASSIFICATION: Unclassified

RESTRICTIONS: 1A

CURRENT STATUS : Redact

DATE OF LAST REVIEW: 06/13/1997

OPENING CRITERIA:

COMMENTS :

Press clipping attached. Box 4.

v9.1

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## Page 2

KENNEDY

Intensicia

009093

DATE 6/8/78

TIME 3:00

I.

Identifying Information:

Name Cynthia Thomas

Address

4420 50th St. NW., Washington D.C.

Type of Contact:

Telephone

Person

Telephone

XX.

II.

III.

Summary of Contact:

On 5/29/78 Ms. Thomas was interviewed at her home on 50th Street NW by Dan

Hardway and Harold Leap. Ms. Thomas said that her husband, Charles W.

Thomas had committed suicide in 1971.

Ms Thomas was questioned about Elena Garro de Paz.

She said that she was

familiar with the story and only wondered why we had not contacted her earlier.

She said that Elena is now in hiding and has always been a little bit wild.

Ms. Thomas was adament in denying that Elena was at all "crazy"

Ms. Thomas

believes very strongly that Elena had to have had some basis for her reporting.

Ms. Thomas said that she believed Elena's allegation about Duran being

Oswald's lover because Elena was not the type of woman who took part in

gossip,

"women talk'' or stories about other women.. Ms. Thomas said that

it was her husband, not Elena, who had figured out the correct dates of:

the party from Elena's datebook. • Ms. Thomas does not know where this date-.

book is now. Ms. Thomas said that Elena was very bright and "knew too much"

Recommended Follow-up (if any) :

more-

HH: 53080 DocIM.3520545eP5

Don Hardwort

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When

asked

why she knew too much, Ms. Thomas hedged and did not divulge

any specifics.

Ms. Thomas said that their last contact with Elena was

in 1968. At that time Elena called her husband from New York. She (Elena)

said that she

was being held at a hotel against her will and asked Charles

Thomas for help.

Thomas

tried to help her. Cynthia does not remember

all the

things that her husband did to try to help, but does remember that

he called Octavio Paz.

She was sure that Thomas took other actions at

the time but cannot remember them. She said that he always kept extensive

notes and she would try to locate his notes from this incident. After

contacting Octavio, Charles Thomas tried to locate Elena at the hotel she

claimed to be at. When he called there he was told that she had checked

out in

a hurry, leaving

her luggage behind.

Ms. Thomas said that Elena had trusted Charles Thomas and had taken

him into her inner circle of friends. Most of Elena's friends were Mexican

intellectuals and leftests, hence the value of this contact to the CIA.

Ms. Thomas

said that the CIA used Thomas to get information from these

people and that Charles Thomas willingly cooperated in this effort.

Ms. Thomas offered two reasons why Charles Thomas' report of Elena's

allegations recieved the type of response from the American officials that

it did. The first reason was that Win Scott was very close to President

Diaz Ordaz and that this, in some way, may have been the reason for suppressing

Elena's story. The second reason

that she offered was that Ferris, the

Legal Attache at the time, resented someone from the political section

poking around in his business.

Ms. Thomas said that her husband had always "bailed out" the CIA

by providing them

with the information that he obtained. She said, because

of this the CIA was always trying to "pick up" their expenses but they

NH 53080 DooId:32263513

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always declined the CIA's offers.

The Thomas' left Mexico City in 1967. At that time a CIA officer

took over Charles Thomas' contacts. Ms. Thomas said that the officer

was named Stanley Watson and that he was now retired and living in

Cuenavaca,

Mexico.

Ms. Thomas termed Waton

a "bungling manipulator".

She said that Waston was involved in some way that she is not sure of

in the Student riots in Mexico in 1968. She speculated that he may

have been involved in inciting them. When asked specifically whether

Watson had taken

over the contact with Elena in 1967 Ms. Thomas

responded affirmatively.

Not long after the last contact with Elena in 1968, Charles Thomas

learned that he was being ''selected out" of the Foreign Service. The

reason for his selection out was that he had not recieved a promontion

in the required manner. After his selection

out Mr. Thomas applied for

over 2000 jobs. He remained unemployed nevertheless until his suicide

in 1971. It is Ms. Thomas' beleif that he was blackballed. Ms. Thomas

provided an article about her husband that appeared in the Washington

Evening Star. (Copy attached.) She also showed us a copy of an article

that appeared in Time magazine, p. 20, on 11/15/71.

After Charles' suicide, Cynthia took actions to get her husband

reinstated in the Foreign Service. As a result of this she obtained

a job in the Foreign Service. William Fulbright and the Senate Foreign

Relations Committee held hearings on the case.

Most of Charles' documents

were turned over to the SFRC. Mrs. Thomas dealt with Robert Dockery (phon.).

at the SFRC. After holding hearings the SFRC introduced a private bill

which reinstated Charles Thomas. (Copies of report and bill attatched:)

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Ms. Thomas said that she took the matter to the Foriegn Relations Committee

only after she had tried to get relief through State Department channels.

She said that her case was handled at the State Department by Wilmet Hastings,

an assistant to Eliot Richardson,

and John McCumber.

Ms. Thomas said that

it was McCumber who offered her

the job with the Foreign Service, and that

he is now associated with the Museum of Modern Art.

She said that he has

always had strong

• ties to the CIA.

Ms. Thomas suggested two other people who might know something about

Charles Thomas and Elena Garro de Paz's allegations. Wally Stewart was the

Political Consul in Mexico City at the time and all of Charles Thomas'

reports went to him. He was Thomas' direct superior. Ms. Thomas said

that he was also

a very good friend of the Legal Attache. The other person

Clare Boonstra was also

a political officer and was aware of the

discussions with Elena. Ms. Thomas thinks that Stewart is retired in

Mexico and that Boonstra is retired somewhere in Florida.

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## Page 6

Despair

Among

Diplomats

BY GEORGE SHERMAN

Star Start Write

"Selection

, "Oo long in class"

"involuntary

oscure terms, perhaps, but the

pell despa

scule un bile Manuel sur

Inese are

une conke

WOrdS 101

veting a career alpiomar he k

dred

They are part of a system that

is coming

under attack both in-

side

State

partment.

De-

uven ohicers woo have sti

vived the tough competition for

promotion say morale is sagging

and te move is erit to artene

mined move is

(for organization)

grip on the promotion sys-

In Congress, Sen.

Birch Bayh,

D-Ind.

Senate

Minority

Leader Hugh Scott,

R-Pa.

officer Charles W. Thomas, 48,

would operate directly under the

State,

The

shock

which produced

this momentum came April 12

when

"Tenree" Noreen vernce

Almost two years earlier, July

31, 1969, Thomas had been forced

out

of the

without

State

pension

claimed he was

Department

risk. He was

failed to

in the required eight years.

Today the department estab

lishment acknowledges that "un-

sonale mistakes

were mart

in •une nones case

They

i and el

another-

errors unknown to the pro-

For two years Thomas and his

wife,

Cynthia,

tried to appeal

the verdict. They went through

past 18

they

had

served for

years.

They

Thomas

irrevocably

out,"

only

to discover

wa.

over halee

adde

middle-aged misfit in civil.

Late that

FSO: Despair Among 'Retired' Diplomats

Continued From Page A-1

the critics. They do not take a suits

of

departmental

He collected nearly 2,000 job

position on the substance or as forces set up

by Macomber

complaint.

recommendation

mendation is base of his or panel set up bances. Taey

one of

his'"O" to hear

grevances

simply support 1969. Mace and others claim that task forces, which, in turn-the are

rejecton leuers. me went neavi-

called

for

ly into debt against his $10,000

law, "right

the

not

in

Foreign

process of now

Office

being crities

say-was controlled by Service regulations. They do

not

made the scapegoat for an

the personnel bureaucrats.

keep stenographic records,

Foreign Service annuity which

They point out that the State human promotion system prev-

"O" Office has also attempted do

they

would begin at age 60. He was

Department. alone Ir

considering

a job as a night

federal

bureaucracy

the huge

iously forced on the department to drown out demands for an in-'

not

allow

the

complaining

does

not by demanas or money and onb

dependent grievance

have

an operational

grievance time overstaffing of middle and

system

by appoint an outside representa-

waiter to save his family from

I sendins

hearing tive. or to question witnesses.

, In

system.

destitution. Now that he is dead,

tions,

upper tallas.

only one hearing has been

They point to the forced reduc-

panels through its own jurisdic. a word they are not independent

mis widow gets 15.500 a vear

These

in the hands of or open.

held in

20 years--and

that has

tions in personnel ordered by the

from a government pension to

been dragging on for 18 months Johnson

administration--the

SO

Gordon,

1 00.

The result is one more step in

support her two children.

without result.

called Balpa 1 and Balpa

*CUL

hand career officer.

Macomber

deteriorating

confidence

am

the

first to admit that backs,

those

due

commissioned him a year ago as Foreign Service system. Young-

Mrs.

Thomas also has been

need a grevance oystent,

"balance-of-payments" difficul

OMallest:

officers

helpless,

older

hear complaints from the serv-

officers

given a job in the State Depart-

said Mace.

we

are

all ties.

Under

Nixon came a third

on everything from travel

ment.

She intends to continue

babes

in

"But

the wood on this thing, alphabetical

exercise

in man- allowances to promotion.

about surviving the cruel compe

The

cynical of all

I1s al so new.

tition.

until two power-the

so-called Opred

her campaign to have her hus-

years ago I never heard a thing erations Reductions of the State

More disenchanted critics ages

wonder if

they

are living

sand reinstated posthumously.

promo- Department

charge

that the result has be-

through

the

"house-cleaning'

about

grievances

over

come

informal

Today a "Mr. X"' in the de-

It all seems the outgrowth

Mace estimates that since 1968

network

non.

promised by

the

presidential

partment (he prefers to remain

of

the unrest of youth in this these cutbacks have cost the de

"kangaroo courts, three-mem-

candidate Richard Nixon in 1968

CHARLES W. THOMAS

anonymous) is facing the same

country.

Organizations

dilemma-being selected out for Macomber,

elan

Service

of For- partment 1500 foreign service of

otters nave oe

at through executive or

who

can

narrow come

outspoken

advocates of der from the White House. Only

too long in class," eight years down

the promotion nists,

and employe rights.

coincidentally

the Nixon admin

in Class 4 without promotion. He then to Rogers for final approv-

The largest of those organiza-

istration has set out to "rational.

too is under 50, therefore legally al.

tions-the

American

Foreign ize"

Foreign

Service employ-

inchgble for a pension: he is a

The 0 office

a group

of

Service Association-is demand-

trained linguist and economist about 135 personnel profession-

ing

action.

ment by getting new balance be-

Immeciate

It han-tween young and old, specialists

with

no

contacts

outside

the

als — is enormously important pens

to be in hot

negotiations and "generalists."

diplomatic world

organizing

this

procedure.

with Macomber on an executive

The

critics

answer that Ma-

At 45, he too is worried about

Macomber is in over-all charge,

¡order President Nixon is to issue comber's tactics in carrying out

support

for

his wife and two

but day-to-day operations

— and this summer on the whole range

admittedly

difficult

children.

The best he has been

decisions

this sanagemen empole range admite demoralized the siers-

Unerte solar 1s 110- car Crlen-

Масс.

are controlled by tions in the State Department.

ico more. In the name of greater

efficiency

and despite universal

sion of his time in Class 4. mak-

him-he

"non-per-!

The Staff Work

Basis For Legislation

suspicion of nis "O" office

says-d

son" ineligible for promotion.

"O" Office does the staff work

The association wants that or- has just moved to centralize and

Mr. X has refused. He charges

for

the promotion boards.

"O" der

tO

include

elaborate control

department

with inequity

Mittle tllec and cnanne s the Pie

grievance

system.

and injustice

and is demanding

fiency

reports which the promo.

duced

draft-in fact, it is the

It has pro- still more tightly from thators

flis

udy. In court.

That means

tion boards receive each vear on

basis for the Bayh-Scott legisla-

a grievance committee to hear every officer-reports written by

LIon.

sources in don Macom

complaints

committee

officer's

superior

ber's office and in the associa-

which

inte

say

viewed at the next higher level.

tion say

that "something like"

should be

formed within five

Insiders insist that the boards,

this grievance system probably

working days after the request

inundated

with

thousands

of re-

will

go into the President's exec-

ports, rely heavily on the advice

utive order.

of Mace's subordinate-the chief

Meanwhile

Macomber

and :

He has gone right up the lad-i

ner in protest

— trom irector

of the Performance

Evaluation

company in the

"O" Office,

are

clearly trying to avoid revolt in

of Personnel

Deouty

Howard P. Mace.

Undersecretary

the ranks.

he charges of injus.

Each year the process is re-

State for Administration William

tice,

coercion,

arbitrary

deci.!

peated.

A candidate is rated,

B.

Macomber Jr.

10

Secretary

sions are clearly embarrassing

promoted,

of State William P. Rogers him-

or

passed over. If he

to a secretary of state who took

not in either the highest

office in January 1989 promising

self. He claims that his whole

lowest percentage one year, he the Foreign Service "a receptive !

career

in the Foreign Service

must

start over

com-

has been organized to insure his petition the next year.

and oper

establishment"' allow.

"divergent views

ultimate "selection out."

Here is

where time in class

Macomber

given

Mrs

For instance, in the early '60s takes a toll. As the years build Cynthia

Thomas

job in the

just after

being

promoted to

up in any one class,

officers office

of the science

adviser in

Inernine censerate lor tramoulor.

denartment.

•L The 11701

Class 4. he acceoted several spe-

cial

assignments.

They

were Mr.

believes

that

he

considered a tribute to his excel. penalized

this

competition,

tons 014,0 salut ore in erlice

rank below

Tende

a vear at Harvard Uni

because for at least two years that of her dead husband.

versity in graduate economics at

of the eight

he was allowed,

government

expense.

Ms. Thomas is a highly trained

another

standara ericiency reports were woman.

But even those

year in a tough East European

there for the promotion boards

Macomber

close to

that

Mrs

language course in Washington.

lo doston

Nor

Out of Channels

does the loss of time end

To come way livese da

come

job-hard

days

the

Mr.

X did not

He ended

go to East Eu- office lower

there. By specific order

of the

State Department-as an "act of

boards

are ordered

Geneva

conscience.

The fact that Bayh

give

priority to those

working

in tan

Amarican

in 1s-

clainina

longest

their

has

been

investigating

the

and refusing:

sion on international economics

An analysis

in The

Service

May

Journal

accept

case

the official explanations

He liked the job enormously

But

those

Foreign

may

be another reason,

critics

snon discovorod that

pointed

special

out

the stark

results-

say.

out

assignments, taking him

orticers are allowed To remain 1i

of the

"normal"'

State

De-

years in Class 3, but 93 percent

in another

move, the director

marimeni channels or ciliciency

of all

those promoted that

reports by superiors.

had hurt

Class

2 had

veer

their

general. sues ore st Service,

Burns-

who stands be-

. e and Ma comes in

his promotion chances

grade six years or less.

Promotion boards meet every

Supporters of X argue that the

tween" hierarchy-has propos-

ed

relaxation of the promotion

fall. one cach for the & classes of

years he

lost, early

during rules.

the Foreign Service. They assess his time in Class

were

of cru

In

some

15.000 people in the State

cial

importance.

He

had won a

essence

the

proposed

vedarument

Arency idi

Inter

quick

promotion

out

of

Class 5

changes would end the

insecurity"

in the middlo

national Development, and Unit-

Only

become a victim of too-

grades

4 and 5. Instead o

ed States

Information Agency

long-in-class-4.

the short time now allowed

indu: Face 3000 da rees seven

Each

'General' Grievance

board

seven

each

class,

the

officer

would

mommer.

SOme

rankIng

His plea for a hearing has through

given 20 years to get

all

three

classes into

Foreign

Service officers.

some gotten

nowhere.

from other

grievance

No outside higher ranking Class 2.

departments,

some

from

the

larre

shat his

cummittee

has

been

Mace has informed hin

Would Keep Tenure

The Evening Star

#roat PagE

ине 7,1971

rington.o.c

grievance about promo

spe-

Those who failed would still

These

boards are allowed to tion is too "general.

have 20-year tenure. The depart-

recommend a certain percentags cifically

exempted

from

he

intends to ask Congress to

of the hundreds in each class for

grievance system

Yeah

the

ment

regu-

allow

pensions for

4448

Clas

3 4 offl

& per-

dons far more Lian 4 vears

below

centage

based

largely on the

"If I give in on X," said Mace

officers

more

50.

able

-Younger

money available from Congress.

in an interview.

to

find

"everyone else

civilian job if forced to leave

They also rate the lowest 5 or 10 will want his case reviewed. It the service, would face tougher

each class

uld

matically hecome candidates

undermine

discipline and competition

screening

away with une selecton ovara selm: across

is he threshold"

sclection out. Recommens

to Class 4.

Deputy

Unders

his

attitude only infuriates

These

proposals are the re

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