Agency: HSCA
Originator: HSCA
From: WILCOTT, JAMES
Document date: 01/28/1978
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

## Page 1

180-10089-10407

JFK Assassination System

Identification Form

Agency Information

Date:

9/30/201

AGENCY :

HSCA

RECORD NUMBER :

180-10089-10407

RECORD SERIES :

NUMBERED FILES

AGENCY FILE NUMBER :

006446

Document Information

ORIGINATOR:

FROM:

TO:

TITLE:

HSCA

WILCOTT, JAMES

DATE:

PAGES:

SUBJECTS :

01/28/1978

56

ACTIVITIES

OSWALD, LEE, POST-RUSSIAN PERIOD, POLITICAL AND

SUBVERSIVE..

LEADS AND INFORMATION

CIA

DOCUMENT TYPE:

SUMMARY

CLASSIFICATION:

Unclassified

RESTRICTIONS: 1A

CURRENT STATUS : Redact

DATE OF LAST REVIEW :

01/01/2003

OPENING CRITERIA :

COMMENTS :

Interview. Box 125.

v9.1

10903

D001d: 32253349

Page 1

---

## Page 2

006446

JFK Pouting Slip

NO.

DATE

2/21/25

Jocument I.D. INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW SCHÈDULE

Kian wks

INDEX

Qeut,

Suuned-fee-

CUA

Dunis

COPY TO

Robert Blakey

Gary Cornwell

Kenneth Klein

Charlie Mathews

Jim Wolf

Tiny Hutton

Beid

Jackie Hess

Cliff Fenton

Team #1

Team #2

Team #3

Special Instructions:

Team #4

iawene-...

"Team#5

Form #2

70953

D001d: 32253349

Page 2

r7.

---

## Page 3

KENNEDY

SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS

006446

Name

James Wilcott

Date _ 1/28/78

Time

Address

2761 Atlantic St.

Place

Residence

concora, Calif.

Interview:

On 1/28/78 staff investigator Harold D. Leap and staff

researcher Betsy Wolf interviewed subject at his home in Concord,

California relative to the assassination of John F. Kennedy•

Subject's wife, Elsie, also a former CIA employee, was interviewed

concerning her knowledge on certain issues discussed during the

interview.

The interview lasted about four hours. All but a small

portion of the interview was taped. Notes were taken by Miss

Wolf concerning the portion of the interview which was not recorded.

The main purpose of the interview was to determine if

Wilcott had first-hand knowledge that Oswald was a CIA agent.

Subjects covered during the interview are as follows:

Wilcott's personal history, employment, association and position

with the CIA, harassment by CIA and FBI after Wilcott resigned,

Wilcott's belief that LHO was a

CIA agent, identity of individual

CIA employees who discussed the

Oswald-agent issue with Wilcott.

For details, please refer to tape recording identified "James

Wilcott, 28 Jan. '78, HL BW"

and

a written paper prepared by

Interviewer Signature

Varied a

Reap

Typed Signature He Leap/B. WOlf_

Date transcribed

BY :

2/21/78

am. Form #4-A

HH: 50955 DocId:32253349 Page 3

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## Page 4

James Wilcott interview...page 2

Wilcott which is an attachment to this memo.

For

the convenience of researchers, the list of CIA

employees that Wilcott listed as having conversation with him

concerning the Oswald-agent

issue is as follows:

1. George Breen - Registry (Wife Eleanor)

2. Frederick Randall - Dep. COS

3. Jim Delaney - CO in China Branch

4. Jerry Fox - S.R.

5. Robert S. Hashima - Fuji Shoji Co. Ltd.

6. Chester Ito - writer for Japan Times

7. Elwood D. Martin

8. Bob ojiri - c.o. Logistics

9. Jack Randall - C.O. Finance

10. Kan Takai - Japan Branch

11. Larry Watanabe - finance (wife Doris)

12. Jim Woods - Registry (wife Louise)

13. Shizuo Yamada - Logistics

Wilcott maintains that one of the above individuals

specifically told him that Oswald was a CIA agent and gave Oswald's

cryptonym.

This individual also advised Wilcott that he (Wilcott)

had issued payment for the project that included Oswald. Wilcott

does not remember the cryptonym nor the identity of the person

at this time.

HH 50955 DooId: 32253349

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## Page 5

James Wilcott interview...page 3

Present:

Staff Investigator Harold Leap

Staff

Researcher Betsy Wolf

Mr. James Wilcott

Leap: Jim, will you give us your personal history record,

starting with your date of birth.

Wilcott: Okay. I was

born September 27, 1931 in Cleveland,

Ohio.

I went soon after I was born to Utica, New York; spent most

of my life in Utica. I spent three years in the Army, three years

and eight months, from 1947 to 1951. From there I went to college

for two years

and then to business school in Syracuse, New YOrk,

where I was recruited by the CIA. I spent three years at headquarters

in Washington with the CIA, four years in Tokyo, another year at

headquarters in CIA, and another year in Miami, where I resigned

from CIA.

Leap: What were your positions within CIA?

Wilcott: My positions were, for the whole nine years in

CIA, in Finance. I worked in payroll, headquarters payroll; I

worked as a cash disbursing person for! Tokyo station; and then

I worked again in payroll at Miami.

Leap: What were your duties as cash disbursing agent?

Wilcott: I have a full list of - you want to hold on just

a minute and I'11 get it for you.

Leap: Alright

Wilcott: Okay. My duties at Tokyo Station were daily cash

disbursements; the cash count, daily cash count at the station;

recording on the cash

-- it's the cash that was

disbursed for

various projects, etc.; the posting of vouchers -

HN 50955 DocId: 32253349 Page 5

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## Page 6

"James Wilcott interview...page 4

it's

the

- giving the leave balances, maintaining

leave balances, etc. That was daily. On a weekly basis, I

prepared housing and vehicle records, posting vouchers, housing cash

count, auditing of housing, vehicle records, posting of advances

and posting of statistical material, then recording in housing and

vehicle books the expenses for housing and vehicle basis. On a

monthly basis, auditing from TA's, posting to leave cards, computation

of payroll, preparation in payment of payrolls, making of posting

vouchers, and let's see, scheduling of expenses, preparation of

accounting for funds, and leasing of

funds-- that's

State Department funds. Annually, reports to headquarters of

, leave cards, new payroll sheets, etc. And then we

did quarterly also, did a quarterly report.

Leap: In the course of your duties in disbursing this

money, did you become acquainted with the case officers and the

projects they were working on?

Wilcott: Yes, I did. And also I became acquainted with

them through night duty - we called it night duty -- that's

security duty at the station in Tokyo where I pulled a lot of

security duty. Everybody in support at the station was required

to pull security duty unless they could find somebody to pull it

in their place. Well, I was interested in making some money,

so we were paid time and a half for five hours, from 5:00 to 10:00,

and then after 10 o'clock I'd go to sleep in a little room right

by the door that's

HH 50955 DooId: 32253349 Page 6

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## Page 7

"James Wilcott interview...page 5

Leap: Yes

Wilcott: And then on Saturdays and Sundays...

Leap:

Bringing your attention to your tour of duty in Japan,

what was the date, sir?

wilcott:

It was, let's see now, June of 1960 to May, I

believe -- wasn't it May, Elsie that we left? -- May of '64 that

we left.

Leap: Who was chief of Station at that time?

Wilcott: When I first -- when -- for the first two years -

about the first two years, Pete Wheeler was chief of Station, and

then after about a year and a half or two years, Bill Brough took

over as chief of Station.

Leap: Who were the case officers assigned to the soviet

branch of the Tokyo Station?

Wilcott: I can't remember all of the people -- I've forgotten

a lot of the people, a lot of the names -- of the stations.

know S.R. Satellite was Reid Dennis, who I worked with on an

operational thing 'till we proved that Yugoslav to spy on me and

on the Russians. And Elsie also was secretary for Reid Dennis and

chief of S.R. Satellite. So I remember Reid better. As far as

the other people I've sort of - with a list

- for

instance, with a list of the Station people, I could...

Leap: Now, Elsie is your wife?

Wilcott: Yes

Leap: Yes, when were you married?

Wilcott: We were married in -- what was it, '54, Elsie?

HN 50955 DocId:32253349 Page 7

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## Page 8

James

Wilcott interview...page 6

Elsie:

1954

Leap:

I see.

And she went abroad with you?

Wilcott:

Yes.

Leap: And also worked for the agency?

Wilcott: Yes.

Leap:

And she also had security clearance?

Wilcott: Yes.

Leap: If I would show you a roster of the Tokyo embassy

in 1963, would you point out to me the individuals that you

were acquainted with and knew and whether or not they were

working for CIA?

Wilcott: Certainly.

Leap: This list not only covers the embassy employees

at the time but also covers military personnel.

Wilcott: Mm-hmm. Well, here's William D. Brohn. Elsie,

you probably would

know more. Do you want to identify Elsie on

the tape?

Leap: Yes, we have,

Wilcott: Pete Wheeler

Elsie: Mm-hmm, Bob

Wilcott: Bob

- yeah

Leap: Now, all of these people you're naming...

Wilcott: Ralph Morgan

LeaP: ...worked for the CIA.

Wilcott: That's right.

They were regular intelligence

officers. John P. Horrigan, I remember him.

NH 50955 DooId: 32253349 Page 8

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## Page 9

James Wilcott interview...page

7

Elsie: Bill Dougherty.

Wilcott: Yeah

Elsie: Bill Brayton

Wilcott: You're thinking of Bramer - George Bramer.

This was

'63, huh?

Leap: Yes.

1963.

Wilcott: Funny Randall wasn't on here. I don't see

Randall on here. When did he come?

He may have come. ..maybe

after... This is -- let's see now, it goes down to where the end

of Japan Station?

This is all Japan Station here?

All of this is Japan Station too, huh?

Leap: yes

Wilcott: I see.

They are the people that was working for AID at

Leap:

the time. This would be the U.S. Army.

Wilcott:

U.S. Army

Elsie: Are all the names

Wilcott: I'm trying to see if there were some first names

I could recognize.

Leap: Jim, in our previous conversation you told me that

you overheard conversations that indicated that Oswald

was a CIA agent.

Wilcott:

That's right.

Leap:

Do you recall who these individuals were - where

the conversations took place that you referred to?

NH 50955 DooId: 32253349

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## Page 10

James Wilcott interview...page 8

Wilcott: The conversations all took place in Tokyo.

The

circumstances of these conversations were, a lot of times, while

I was on security duty. The case officers would be coming back

from various operations that they were carrying on in Tokyo.

They would come back to the Station, either waiting for their

wives to pick them up or waiting for a call from an agent that

was operating

somewhere in Tokyo, or something like that, and

we'd pass the time.

Usually I had a pot of coffee going for them

and most of the time these guys'd come in after drinking and so

a lot of times we got into conversations about politics and things

and about various operations that were going on. And that's how

most of these conversations came up. And it was usually just

between me and one person. And I think that's why, perhaps, I,

you know, got maybe a lot more information than I normally would

have. And I think more on security duty than anyplace else.

Well, then that usually gave me some basis on which to ask questions

when we were, you know, out drinking in

or someplace

like that.

Leap: If possible, we would like to identify these people.

Wilcott: With a list of Tokyo Station personnel I think I

could identify them.

I know Jerry Fox, who worked in SR and was

a good friend of Pete Martin, who was deputy chief of finance.

And that's really how I came to know Jerry fox pretty well.

Jerry was involved in buying information from the soviets, and

that's how -- you know, would you like me to go into that other?

Leap:

Yes -

HH 50955 DocId:32253349 Page 10

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## Page 11

James Wilcott interview...page 9

Wilcott: Well, the story that Jerry gave me was that the

Soviets were selling information to the CIA. And what they would

do is they would have - they were ripping off the CIA for millions

of dollars. And this is what he claimed. He says that the --

when they decided that a certain information was no

longer

necessary through their various cutouts -- you know, they have all

these agents that operate for either side that will buy and sell

information for anybody who has the money. Well, according to

what Jerry told me that these - the Soviets would sell information

to the CIA through these various cutouts when it was no longer

considered classified. And he says: "Well, I could care less."

He says: "I get - I get my accolades for - for selling and buying

the information. If it's, you know, phony information, I could

care less."

Leap:

Was Jerry one of the individuals that discussed

the Oswald project?

Wilcott: Yes, I'm quite sure. Now, it's been -- what is

it, it's been - fifteen years, and a lot of this has, you know,

faded in my memory. That's why I'm kinda reluctant to say this

person said that or this person said that because we were all

just, you know, talking and these were, you know, usually casual

conversations. I wasn't really interested in it all that much.

When I first heard about Oswald being involved I thought:

"These people are crazy; the CIA would never kill the President.

What is this

nonsense?? And it was, you know, it was a - it was a

shock for me even to hear somebody saying such -- such things as that.

50...

HH 50955 DooId: 32253349 Page 11

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## Page 12

James Wilcott interview...page 10

Leap:

served in Moscow?

Did you know any CIA officer in Tokyo that may have

Wilcott:

In moscow. There were - I know there were

that served with the - I forget what they call it now -- was it

the Moscow Station they called it? Or anyways, whatever they

called their station with the embassy in Moscow. I'm sure there

were because I remember people talking about it, but I can't

remember who it was.

Leap: See what I'm trying to do -- I'm trying to identify

the individual or individuals who might have first-hand information

that he was an agent or he was not. And, assuming that he was,

he would have a case officer in Moscow -- right?

Wilcott: Yes

Leap: And what I'm trying to determine is whether or not

any of those individuals would be serving in Japan in 1963 that

would have first-hand information.

Wilcott: Well, I think certainly the chief of SR and --

his name is right on the tip of my tongue and I can't - can't

recall offhand -- I'm sure the chief of SR would have, would have

known for sure.

Elsie:

Probably would have been a police officer in the Tokyo station.

Wilcott: I'm sure it would have. In fact, that was the

impression that I got was that, that it was not a regular project

of the Tokyo Station at Building 724, Washington Heights, but that

it was a special project that was based at -

NN 50955 DocId: 32253349 Page 12

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## Page 13

James Wilcott interview...page 11

Wilcott: It was a special project, but that there was

lot of, of support kind of things from the Tokyo Station people,

but that the people that were actually running Oswald were

running him out of the Yukoska Station. It was...

Leap: Were many of the CIA personnel assigned to the

military? Would the military be involved in this type of project?

Wilcott: Yes, they were. This was where the U-2 planes

took off from. And it was the super-secret luxury base of Tokyo

where

the U-2 planes were supposedly have taken off with Gary

Powers was supposedly took off from, from there.

Leap: So it's be your opinion then he was recruited, recruited in

Japan

rather than

in Russia after he defected?

really say.

Wilcott: No. See, as far as my opinion, I mean, I can't

The only thing I can say is what I heard.

Leap: Right

Wilcott: I would like to also add that I was very

reluctant - this, for instance, this Kennedy assassination article

was not meant for publication. This was meant to serve as a

background for people like yourselves doing investigation. I

don't think it serves any purpose at all to just cloud the

issue by saying things that, or publishing things. This was not

meant for publication. It was meant to serve as a basis for

investigators.

This is all heresay. And I was very reluctant

to even write this up. And the major reason that I wrote it up

was that I wanted to make a clear distinction as to what I heard

at Tokyo Station and what I'd read from other sources.

HH 50955 DocId: 32253349

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James Wilcott interview...page 12

Wilcott: So before I started, you know, a more or less

thorough study of the Kennedy assassination and so on, I wanted

to get this all down on paper. And that's, that's was, you

know, the purpose, in addition to Dean Kalbraith, who was working

on the Daily Kalb in California, in UC-Berkeley, who wanted to

do an article on the Kennedy assassination, and they were

interested in what I had to say about it. And so I said: "Fine.

Well, I'll put it all down on paper and then you can take it from

there." And, so, that's how this came to be written. AlsO,

Counterspy wanted to hear what I had to say about the Kennedy

assassination.

Leap: Did they make any attempt to follow up on the

information given - or do you know?

Wilcott: Yes, they did. They did. They talked to George

Breen. Now, some very strange things happened in my association

with the Daily Cap.

Wolf: Can I ask when you wrote this article?

Wilcott: This was January of -- let's see, just about

a year ago - '77. And there were some very strange things that

happened. They — what they wanted me to do - they said: "Well,

we want confirmation of this story." I said: "Well, what kind

of confirmation do you want?" They said: "Well, we want to

contact the people -- like George Breen that was mentioned in here."

I says: "Okay, go ahead and contact him; I don't care. You know, it's

if you want to contact him, contact him." What they wanted me to do

HH 50955 Do0Id:32253349 Page 14

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## Page 15

James

wilcott interview...page 13

was to talk to George Breen and while they were talking to him they

were going to clandestinely record it on a tape recorder. Now,

George Breen -- from the story that they told me, they'd called

him up and talked to him -- he was obviously working for the

agency; obviously was not sympathetic to what I was trying to

do - talk about CIA -- and it was a very strange situation.

said: "Look, I'm not about to try to beat them at their own game."

That's what I told Jim Killidy, the editor at Daily Cap. I said:

"I'm not about to try to beat 'em at their own game, first of alli

and

second of all," I said, "do you have a lawyer? Do you know

that this is legal to do this? We could very easily be caught in

some kind of trap -- some kind of legal thing where we were

violating the law." "No," they said, well they didn't have a lawyer.

I said: "Well, 100k, I'm not gonna do this." I said: "You know,

these people are dangerous people, and they're trying," I says,

"Dean, don't be too naive about - about these people because these

are very possibly dangerous people that could very much prove some

kind of danger to you. So you'd better be careful about what you're

doing. As far as me talking to anybody from the CIA - no, I won't

talk to them. First of all, I don't believe in talking to criminals.

And you don't talk to criminals, you put 'em in jail. Simple as

that as far as I'm concerned." Anyways, that's how the article

came to be written. They were going to write a story; and I assume

what they were gonna do was quote certain things from the material

that I've written or say: "Well, you know, this collaborates this

part of our story." So in - well, since 1968 when I broke my

HH 50955 DooId: 32253349 Page 15

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## Page 16

James Wilcott interview...page 14

secrecy agreement with the CIA -- and I've been talking about

this - you know,

I've been talking about it on the basis that

I believe this is true, and that, even though it's heresay

evidence, I believe it is true.

Leap:

Has

there been

any legal action because you broke

the secrecy oath?

Wilcott: No, I've never been contacted directly by the

CIA. Since I left CIA I've been subjected to constant harassment,

intimidation, interference at my jobs, and all kinds of weird

things.

Leap: In what form?

Wilcott: Well, for instance, the FBI Agent, Gordon Finch,

in Utica, New York - and this has been confirmed, absolutely

confirmed -- that Gordon Finch was an FBI agent. He worked with

our group. I lived with him in a commune that we had -- two

communes, in fact, one of which he broke up; actually, both of

which he broke up.

Leap:

Where was this?

Wilcott: This was in Utica, New York in 19 - starting

late '67 -- all through '68 and '69 until May of '70 when I left --

when I left Utica because I was working for the Community Renewal

Program. I was the Finance Analyst

for the Community Renewal

Program. I believe that this was a job that was, let's say, secured

for me and I was channeled into this job.

Leap: How was it secured

for you?

NH 50955 DooId: 32253349

Page 16

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## Page 17

• James Wilcott

interview...page 15

Wilcott:

Well...

Leap: And who secured it?

Wilcott: The circumstances -- I'm not even sure exactly how

I heard about the job - but the circumstances were that this -- I

heard

somewhere about this job.

I went in there and talked to Frank

O'Connor, the director of the program. And we had a long conversation

and we were -- he hired me. Now this was after I left Blue Cross, as

a

auditor for Blue Cross in Utica, under very strange circumstances

also. Anyways, to make a long story short, finally, in May or April--

April of '70 -- Frank brought in a paper from the mayor. The paper

a resignation form.

He says: "Your phone is tapped; your apartment

is under surveillance; we expect a federal indictment to come down on

you at any time."

He says: "The mayor is not gonna fire you. What

he wants you to do is sign this resignation form and when the

indictment comes out, that we will predate it a day ahead." So I signed

the form.

Leap: Did he say how he had this

information? How he came

about...

Wilcott: He told me that it was through the Public Safety

Commissioner - that this Public Safety Commissioner had had

conversations with the FBI and that the FBI had told the Public Safety

Commissioner about my phone being bugged, about my apartment being

under surveillance, and that - and about the federal indictment. I

never received any kind of federal indictment. I was never in any

way contacted by the FBI or the CIA or by any government officials

as to anything that I was doing wrong. The Vietnam Council was no

kind of revolutionary kind of thing whatsoever; it was a straight

reform thing to inform people about the Vietnam war. And I was on the

WH 5095ExB0441722CAhhilete 17 All kinds of incidents happened - my car was

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## Page 18

• James Wilcott interview...page 16

satotaged. I know this for a fact.

That it was...

Leap: What happened to your car?

Wilcott: Sugar or something was poured in the gas tank. The

garage person that fixed it said they never saw anything like it --

that there was just cakes of black stuff all around the valves

and

SO

on in the car. My tires were slashed -- that's on the police records

in Utica. I used to receive threatening phone calls - people would

call up and they would say: "We know all about you" -- and shoot a

toy machine gun into the phone and hang up. Well this could be

anybody. But I don't really think so. I think that this was part of

a systematic program of intimidation and harassment. I was -- we had

an encounter with a person who had been in the Marine Corps that had

been sent back to Utica. He wanted to get out of the Marine Corps.

He had been sent back to Utica with a .45 -- that the .45 was supposed

to have been stolen from a Marine base. He contacted a person that I

was working with in an anti-war movement with--the Vietnam Education

Council had set up a Peace Center. And the Peace Center was the office

that we maintained in Utica. It - it - this person was Pete -- his

name was Pete - was told to come and contact Dale and to tell him to

sell the .45 to me. This is what the Marine Corps had told him and

that if he would do that little chore, they would get him out of the

Marine Corps. Elsie was there. She sat right there when he told us

the whole story.

Leap: You remember what his name was, Elsie?

Elsie: No, I don't.

NH 50955

DocId: 32253349

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## Page 19

James Wilcott interview...page 17

Wilcott:

We have his full name, I think.

Elsie: There was also another incident where someone gave some

phony story about trying to escape from the Army and he wanted Jim to

drive him to the Canadian border.

This was during the Vietnam war.

Wilcott: But that was Pete, Elsie.

Elsie: That was Pete.

Wilcott: That was Pete, yeah.

Elsie: He had some phony story about he had relatives back in

East Germany and he had to get out of the Army services and he wanted

Jim to drive him. They had some kind of a network, you know, to get

people to the Canadian border who were trying to get out of the Army...

Wilcott: See, we were really....

Elsie:

...and tried to incriminate him in this way - incriminate

Jim.

Wilcott: Well, we were running an underground railroad to the

Canadian border. And what we would do is take people who wanted to

avoid the draft up to the border and there there were people that

would take them across the border into Canada -- either to avoid the

draft or who were AWOL as - and so we take them across the border

into Canada. And that's what we were doing. I only did it a couple

of times. There were a whole bunch of people that were involved in

transporting people to the Canadian border. So...

Leap: Elsie, to get back to the 1963 incident -- who was your

boss at that time?

Elsie: Reid Dennis. He was SR satellite - and that was keeping

track of the satellite embassy personnel in Poland and Czechoslovakia,

Albania and Bulgaria. They try to, you know, identify as many of them

as they could and what their activities were.

NH 50955 DocId: 32253349 Page 19

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## Page 20

• James Wilcott interview...page 18

Leap: Can you identify any of the CIA people within the Tokyo

Station -- other than what your husband has already identified?

Elsie:

Well, there's a Pete Redmond, who was the Personnel Chief,

Larry

Chester Etow.

Wilcott: Well, I have a list of the people that we can recall.

Elsie: Yeah, we made a list of all the people we could remember.

Leap: See, it's very important that we identify these people

in our efforts to determine whether or not, in fact, Oswald was an

agent;

and we're attempting to locate someone that has firsthand

information, and my guess is right now it's gonna have to be someone

that served in Japan and also served in Moscow before this can be proved.

Elsie: And also is willing to tell them.

Leap: That's right.

Elsie: I don't know of anybody that is.

Leap: What position will it put you in if we go to the CIA

and ask for a roster of all the personnel there? Do you think there'll

be any repercussions directed towards you and your wife?

Elsie: I don't know.

Leap: I'm quite sure that they're aware of your statements and

what you heard and so this would not be a surprise to them, I'm sure.

Wilcott: Well, if it's for myself, I'm certainly not worried

now.

I think there have been some progressive changes in CIA

and I think Carter's on the right track. They haven't gone as far as

we would like to see them go, but at least they're moving in the

direction of curbing a lot of this illegal, outright illegal, stuff

that's been going on for the past couple of decades. And I think that

if they were going to do anything, they would have done it now if they

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James Wilcott interview...page 19

could do it -- so I'm not really worried myself about repercussions.

I think the important thing is that this information get out about

what it was that -- you know, if Oswald was an outright agent - which

I really believe he was.

And I believe that investigation will prove

that he was.

Leap: You're familiar with the way CIA maintains their files,

their cryptonym -- whether or not the cryptonym given carried a

Japan designation or a Moscow designation? What do you remember about

the cryptonym that was given?

Wilcott: Well, actually I dealt with every cryptonym that

came through this station - practically. There might have been a

couple that were, you know, were - I dealt with every one. And

I'm sure I could probably recall - I've forgotten an awful lot of

the cryptonyms. The most common ones that I remember were things

like L.C. Flutter and things like that. It's -- I'd have to sit

down and think about 'em and I could probably come up with them.

At one time, after - after I was told this about Oswald, I wrote the

cryptonym that they claimed was monies that were either paid to

Oswald or paid for the Oswald project. And I wrote that down. I

may have even hid that when the FBI agent, Gordon Finch, destroyed

all my writings.

And - now this is a fact that can be substantiated.

Leap: What is the prefix for the cryptonyms out of Japan?

Wilcott: Let's see now, it's --

Elsie: Yeah, J.M. Wade? No, that was Miami, this J.M.

Wilcott: Yeah, I'd have to sit down and think about it.

Leap: Offhand, do you know the prefix for the cryptonyms coming

out of Moscow?

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Wilcott: I can't recall. I can't remember. I've never really

even

thought about them..

Leap:

Well, when you heard this story, Jim, wouldn't it be

a normal reaction for you to look at the records and review the project?

Wilcott:

The only thing that we got in the way of projects were

project -- were the sections of projects outlined - project outlines --

that contained the fining

section. You know, all the CIA operated on

the basis of compartmentation and need to know, see, so we never

generally saw anything. I mean there a lot of times where they didn't

really sterilize them that much, but we never saw anything as far as

the operation of parts of the projects that were concerned. When they brought..

Leap: I

see. In your position - you wouldn't have access

to the operational section of the project file?

Wilcott: That's right. Oh, no, they were very, very much -

that's top secret, you know, and that was very much. It would be...

Leap: Did you have a top secret clearance?

Wilcott: Yes - top secret - yes

Leap: I see. But you still didn't have access to the complete

project file?

project.

Wilcott: Oh, no, that was all on a need-to-know basis - every

every project was a need to know.

Leap: Well, Elsie, let me ask you a question. Alright, you

have a project file. Alright,

now there's a number of parts to a

project

file. They're not kept in all one big file, or they're

separated in different locations - the various parts of a project file?

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Elsie:

Uh, well, basically, there would be -- the main thing

was to keep

separate the cryptonyms from the real names. They would

definitely be kept separate.

Leap: I'm directing my question specifically toward your

project file.

Now, as a secretary were you involved in filing?

Elsie: Mm-hmm

Leap:

Did you type case officer reports?

Elsie: Mm-hmm

Leap: And what would you do with this report - say it was

an operational report, a report from an agent coming in?

Elsie: Well, they would be sent back to Washington. They

would be typed up, using cryptonyms, and they would be transmitted

by cable to Washington and you can just keep copies in the file, but

it would be like whoever the agent was — I mean whoever the project

officer was, he would keep his own files.

Leap: But he'd do his own filing?

Elsie: Well, a

secretary might.

Leap:

Yes, but not you specifically? Like if you type an

operational report you would give it to the case officer?

Elsie: No, the case officers - no the manager -- so I say in

my case Mr. Dennis.

We would just have it in our own files. And

we'd send it back to washington by cable and keep it in the files

in the office there.

Wolf: Well, how were your files maintained in your office in

the station?

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Elsie: Like any office.

Wolf: Well, in what -- I mean were they maintained by project,

chronologically, or in what manner?

Elsie:

Well, in my case it was like reports on the - see we'd

have one probably Albania, and we'd have various personnel in there.

We'd have

area and whatever we knew about the

personnel there and information that would come down about them.

So basically it was just simply an alphabetical filing system like in

any office. Of course, it was all -- I mean they were all locked up

in the

safe.

Leap: Do you have any questions, Betsie?

Wolf: You mentioned that after the time you were stationed

in Tokyo you spent another year in headquarters and a year following

that in Miami. Did you hear any additional information then either

Wilcott: Not specifically -- no. It was general things. I

talked to some people at my own station who were, you know, in some

kind of official capacity, about what I'd heard and they freaked out.

They said: "What! What are you talking about that kind of stuff

for? Are you crazy? You don't wanta talk about that kind of stuff."

That's the kind of things they would tell me, for instance, at

Miami Station. Now, in fact, some - I tried to put in this committee

assassination article only that information from when I left Tokyo --

what I heard at Tokyo Station. Now, it might have been some contamination

from what I'd also heard, but everything that I'd heard at Tokyo

was confirmed by what I'd heard at Miami Station about the Bay of Pigs;

about the training of the people; about the two factions, the Batista

faction and the anti-Batista faction; etc., etc. That was all confirmed.

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In fact, there might -- maybe I didn't hear all as much as I put in

here. I think it came from Tokyo Station, but it might have - some

of that might have come from Miami Station because the people at

Miami Station were very much involved in the whole Bay of Pigs thing.

So -- but I tried to separate out that which came from Miami Station

and that which came from Tokyo Station. All this was written before

there was any kind of reading. I think before this was written I'd

read part of Mark Lane's book and part of Garrison's book. I'd read

all of Garrison's book, "Heritage of Stone," and that's the only

thing I'd read; and that's why I wanted to get this written up. Because

when I decided to do a more thorough study of the Kennedy assassination,

I wanted to make sure that I - I didn't, you know, bring into things -

bring into this things that were, you know, not from other sources.

Leap: I see. Do you remember the case officers' names and

identity that were working the anti-Castro programs and projects at

that time?

Wilcott: Well, Grayson Lynch was the person that I knew

who gave me a polygraph - I believe it was Grayson Lynch.

Wolf: Thiswas in Miami?

Wilcott: Yes. The polygraph came about in a little strange way.

When I came back from Miami Station we were - when I came back from

Tokyo Station we were convinced that, you know, we had to get out of

CIA; that what CIA was doing could not be reconciled the basic

principles of democracy, or basic principles of humanism. And it,

you know, we had to get out. And we were considering on how to -

how to time that, I would say. Anyways, I got involved in the civil

rights movement with SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,

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in Washington. This was from September of '64 to '65. We worked with

SNCC and I was at the SNCC office. Of course, CIA didn't know anything

about this; and I knew they would be furious if they did find out. so

eventually I ran into a guy - his name was something like Alex

Petrokoff - who was

telling about how he knew the people that blew

up the statue that were -- set the dynamite at the Statue of Liberty

and all kinds of weird things. Would I like to take a course in

communism, and so on. Well, to me this could be nothing but a counter-

intelligence project by the CIA and it -- they somehow found out that

I was working with SNCC and they were trying to set me up to see where

things were. Anyways, I finally -- well, I went to New York City with

a bunch of SNCC people. And I was offered to a visit to Jesse Gray

and

- Who was the other one? -- Jesse Gray and HEnry Winston, and they --

I was actually taken around. I said: "Sure, I'll go and talk to 'em."

So I was taken around in a car in Harlem with the SNCC people; but

neither of them were in the offices and they were not able to get

ahold of them. However, I figure -- well, then I got thrown in jail

one night with a SNCC worker. So, well, I hadn't told the CIA about it; and

of course, anytime you get thrown in jail, you're supposed to tell the

CIA about it -- but I hadn't told them about it. But all the -- it was

a termination of these three things - Alex Petrokoff, the trip to New

York with the SNCC people to see how they, you know, where we went

around to see Henry Winston, and also visited the Boys' Club, and

SO

on. So, I finally went in to Security and told them that I'd been

working with SNCC, and they set up - they went crazy -- they set up

an appointment with Chief of Security, CIA Chief of Security, and he

took a report -- I gave him a report on what I'd been doing. And as

it turned out, what they wanted to do was get me away from Washington.

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He says: "Oh, you could have been killed." You know, well, this was

ridiculous to me because people were not some kind of weirdo subversive

communists, or anything like that; they were civil rights people

seriously interested in civil rights. Now, anyways, they said: "Okay,

look, we'd like to - we'd like to get you out of here." We had

planned to go to Mississippi with SNCC; quit CIA, go to Mississippi with

the voter registration job. We dropped those plans after I talked with

several people; for instance, my supervisor, Joe Hudson, at headquarters

who had worked in the FBI -- had been several years in the FBI -- and

he told me about, a lot about the links between CIA and the FBI. We

came to the conclusion that it would be a bad thing for SNCC -- for

us to go with SNCC -- because they would have agents following us

around and would just contaminate SNCC. So we have up our plans to

go with the voter registration drive in Mississippi and we broke off our

contacts with the people, especially after the security freaked out

so bad about my associations with them.

Elsie: Well, anyhow, they sent us to Miami.

Wilcott: They sent us to Miami. When I got down to Miami,

then I was there a couple of months -- all of a sudden, well, I was

supposed to have had a polygraph. I didn't have any polygraph. It

was

a big blunder. I never should have left headquarters without

having a polygraph. So I was given a preliminary polygraph, and

I believe it was Grayson Lynch who gave me the preliminary polygraph

in a motel room in one of the

safehouses. (It's a small hotel

that was a safehouse. And they, you know, asked me all kinds of

questions -- am I trying to hide anything; did I have contacts with

communists, and so on; had I broken off all my contacts with the

people there? Well then they sent me back to headquarters where I

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had

another polygraph at CIA security -- a more extensive polygraph - and

I was

up

there for three days from Miami Station. And then I went

back to Miami Station after, after the three days at headquarters.

Leap: Did they question you relative to your tour of duty in

Japan?

Wilcott: No.

Leap: Did they get on the subject of the assassination?

Wilcott: Oh, no, no, I wouldn't have -- you know, I was very

reluctant to talk about it and, really, at that time I was not all

that interested in, you know, for shop talk. It was shop talk, you

know, and well, I figured it was just a matter of time before all

this stuff would come out that Oswald was an agent of the CIA. We

accepted that as, you know, and the people that I knew who also

believed that accepted that as just, you know, just a matter of time

that we would find - it was never, I was never able to determine in

my mind whether this was an outright project of CIA with McCone's

approval, or whatever. I would tend to think that it may have been

a project concocted by some of these ultra-conservative crazies that

were in the CIA.

Leap: If that was the case, how would they report?

What

files would it go into?

Wilcott: Well, actually,

as far as files go, there was nothing

in the way of any black operations, or even gray operations that went

into files. You know, that's, that's...

Leap: Where would it go?

Wilcott: It wouldn't go anywhere. They would have, maybe, a

notation that, let's say there's a certain project where a certain

person is, say, a known communist and is working on the Japan Times.

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CIA tries a bunch of tricks to get rid of him; they try to blackmail him;

and in some way all that fails. Let's say push comes to shove and

they say: "Okay, we're gonna

him. Nobody is given any kind of

authorizations to

him. There is a very complicated and

sophisticated way of tacit approval being given by the signs of things.

For instance, in the operation of support classes that I took, we were

told - do you want me to go into this? It's...

Leap: Go ahead.

Wilcott: Alright. We were told about a case of an agent that

was in Europe. That this agent, through no fault of his own or in

no way totally unwittingly, had stumbled across an intelligence net

that the CIA was running. This was a hypothetical case, but I was told

later it was really not all that hypothetical, but it really happened;

that the agent's a greenhorn agent - he writes back to headquarters

asking for permission to push a guy out of a plane at 10,000 feet without

a parachute.

This is what we were told, verbatim: "You don't write

back to headquarters asking for permission to push somebody out of

a plane at 10,000 feet without a parachute. You do it and you make

damn sure that you have good reason to do it and CIA will back you up."

That's what we were told -- outright. Now, they said: "Well, you

know, there's a lot of objections." In fact, I remember one of the

women that were taking a course with us. They said -- she said:

"What about the infinite value of human life?" Well, this was a --

this kind of blew me away, 'cause I think it's a pretty concept and,

you see, she says: "Well, what about it?" You know, that this,

the hypothetical case that they gave us was -- well, this would

mean certainly the death of 10 or 15 agents maybe doing very valuable

work not to do this. How could we justify not, not killing that person?

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And that was the way the instructors argued. And it did sound as

though there was a certain rationality to it. But the point was

clearly stressed that this person had committed no crimes

against

the United States, no crimes against his country, and it, you know,

it was that's, you know, that's but that they were justified in doing

that.

Leap:

I see. Getting back to Oswald. Say he was recruited

with the knowledge of the military while he was in Japan. Now, how

would they record if they didn't utilize their standard reporting

procedure such as your standard 201? How would they record that and

document it and keep up-to-date on it? How would the supervisors

be able to stay on top of the projects? Where would we find the

records?

Wilcott: Actually, I doubt if there are any records anywhere

for any kind of real black thing except maybe phony records. In

other words, they might have phony records to try to convince

people that everything was in the record. And they might have

totally phony black operation records to try to convince people like

you that everything was

recorded. They got, they've got a thousand

tricks.

Leap: Well, how would they manage a project like that without

records?

Wilcott: This is what I think happened. That, for some reason,

they were looking for people in the military for various projects.

And Oswald -- they may not have even conceived this project of the -

Oswald going to the Soviet Union until after he was recruited. For

instance, there might have been —let's say, somebody stole something

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from a BX and they gave a bunch of people polygraphs. They came across

oswald - maybe purely by accident. They found that maybe he'd done --

committed - some kind of horrible crime -- killed somebody or something

like that. They think: "Ah, great, we've got a handle; here we've

got a handle on somebody." So, it goes through the channels -- let's

say

military intelligence informs CIA, or maybe even just in casual

conversation with a CIA person that somebody in military intelligence

knows, they say: "Hey, you know, we ran across this guy that killed

somebody. The military's thinking about prosecuting, you know, sending

it to, you know, for prosecution." So CIA says: "Oh, great, let's

-- this -- here's the perfect person we need," you know, "because we've got i

handle on him." And that was the expression that they used. I think

this may very well be how Oswald got recruited by CIA. It may be that

they just needed somebody and this was the opinion of the people at

Tokyo Station - that they had some kind of handle on him; that they

wouldn't have tried to get Oswald to go to the Soviet Union under that

kind of a project unless they had a real firm handle on him.

Leap: Alright. Say this is the way it happened. Say they

had him jammed up; they were going to use him. Now who would do the

reporting and how would that reporting be done?

Elsie: They are working through the military, probably. I

think he had military cover in Japan.

Leap: Yes, he was in the Marines -- assigned to Japan.

Alright?

Elsie: Yeah, so they would be working through the

Leap: They would have to be reporting on that particular project --

what they planned to do, how they planned to utilize him. And what

we're trying to find out, if that is what happened, how they did it.

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Elsie: It'd all be in code.

Wilcott: Yeah, I mean there's...

I mean...

Elsie: It would give their phony name and phony project and

but you couldn't get access

to the real

Somewheres there might be a record of somebody's phony name and all

that, but you couldn't tie it to Oswald.

Wilcott: That was the way with every black project.

There

was nothing, absolutely nothing, on paper on any kind of the heavy

black projects that CIA was engaged in that anybody could pin down

anything unless they just goofed. If they, you know, and this is,

you know, I think the blunders that CIA made, especially during, well

during the period that we were there, and when I talk about it, that's

all I know. I haven't even kept up that much with CIA since I left.

I should have, but it's -- but anyways, the blunders and the

inefficiency is, I think, is more remarkable than what all of these

real weirdo kinds of things you hear about James Bond kindsof things

you hear about. It just wasn't that way at all. It was just every

project that -- of any importance -- that I ever heard about eventually

had some kind of major flack.

NOW ...

Leap: Jim, in your course of duties in Miami, I'd

like to ask

you if you know certain individuals.

Wilcott: Sure

Leap: Did you ever meet E. Howard Hunt?

Wilcott: Not that -- I believe so, but I can't be sure.

I can't be sure.

Leap: Do you know anything about him?

Wilcott: No, I don't.

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Leap: HOw

about Frank Sturgis?

Wilcott: No, I don't -- don't know anything about him. These --

actually, when those names

first came out they really rang a bell,

both

Sturgis (tape interruption - end Side 1)

Leap: (The second side of the continuation tape)

Next name - Q.I. Wynn

Wolf: Q.J. Wynn

Leap: Q.J. Wynn - sounds like a cryptonym.

Wilcott: I don't remember -- don't recall it.

Wolf: How about W.I. Rogue?

Wilcott:

That I do recall from Miami Station.

Do you remember

that?

Elsie:

Wilcott: Rogue -- from Miami. Yeah, I remember him; they

used to joke about Rogue's gallery -- something about that -- from

the Rogue's gallery, or something.

Leap:

Offhand, do you remember what kind of a project he

was involved in?

Wilcott: No, I don't. At Miami Station I didn't have anywhere

near the kind of contact that I'd had with operational people at

Tokyo Station. I pulled security duty several times at Miami Station,

but I didn't have the kind of contact there. The main reason that

I had the contact with operational people at Tokyo Station was the

development project for the recruiting of Peter Danger by CIA, who

was working for the Yugoslav embassy -- and I

go into that -- but anyways, he was - I met him in language school and

I had talked about him to some people that had met when he was in

Yugoslavia. So they said: "Oh, you'll have to report that to security" --

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that any contact of people from a

so-called hostile country you have to

report to security. So I went in and reported to security how I'd met

this Peter Danger and we'd had conversation, etc., and had gone out

for coffee.

So they turned me over to Reid Dennis, and Reid developed

the development project.

Leap: Then

it did lead to the man's recruitment? Your acquaintance?

Wilcott: I don't know.

The way it worked out I maintained

contact with him over a nine-month period and I used to meet him after

class; we'd go out bumming around Tokyo, drinking, going to nightclubs

and things. CIA supplied me with unlimited funds. In fact, Reid used

to tell me: "Get him to spend moremoney; get him to spend more money.

Take him to the better places." They always give me just unlimited

funds to spend when we were out together. And then...

Leap: What type of information were you trying to solicit?

Wilcott: Oh, I wasn't trying to solicit any information. I

wrote down everything that was discussed, particularly about the

embassy or about Yugoslavia. They were particularly interested in

sentiments towards the Yugoslav government and towards the Russians.

And so for every meeting I had with him I wrote a contact report.

In other words, we just, you know, a narration of what happened and

tried a bunch of tricks

what was discussed, etc., etc. They

that they had. They didn't know whether he was trying to recruit me

or whether, you know, it was purely an innocent friendship.

Leap: What was the final decision on that issue? Was he

trying to recruit you?

Wilcott: Well, he informed me --well, they never told me,

and, but what I gathered was they said that they didn't think that he

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was

trying to recruit me. They finally brought in an agent and he was

a specialist in recruitment. And the only

name that I knew him by was

Henry. And Henry -- well they set up this

phony meeting. We used to

go to this restaurant in Tokyo called Shanzigusa and they had this

phony thing set up where Peter and I were to go to Shanzigusa. Henry

was to come bouncing in.

And here I was supposed to have met Henry

in New York and had worked for him a while. They set up this phony story.

And it -- the idea was that we were gonna introduce Henry into our

relationship. Well, we worked with Henry for two or three months --

two months, I guess. And finally I was told by Reid, Chief of SR

Satellite, to break off the contact. And what happened after that I

don't know. The presumption is that Henry started going to school with

us and studying Japanese too and the object was that Henry was gonna

take over; that I was gonna drop out of the picture: and then, of course,

it would be on a need-to-know basis.

Leap: I understand.

Wilcott: The whole idea...

Leap: Digressing a little bit - what was the results of your

polygraph after you went to Miami?

Wilcott: Well, this...

Leap: What was

the position the agency took?

Did you pass the

polygraph?

Wilcott: Oh, yeah, I had no problem with either of the

polygraphs - either the one at Miami or the one when they sent me back

to headquarters. There's no, you know, reactions to any of the

questions, you know.

"Do you know any communists? Are you keeping --

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do you have any correspondence with any of the people that you knew

at SNCC? Do you..." You know, those kind of questions they asked.

Leap: I see.

wolf:

Well, did you have anything else to say about w.I.

Rogue?

Did you...

Wilcott: I can't remember -- maybe -- except that the name

is familiar because they used to joke about the Rogue's gallery.

And I think that's where, you know, that's where the name came from.

Elsie was in - where were you, Elsie- in Logistics, right? Who was

the Chief of Logistics there?

Elsie:

Delmonti

Wilcott: Yeah, Delmonti. My boss was Chief of Finance. It

was H. Robert Braham -- or Robert H. Braham -- who went on Miami

Station and denied that - well, at Zenith Technical Enterprises; that

was the cover name for Miami Station -- and he denied that, on public

television in Miami that Zenith Technical Enterprises was a CIA

front. After that

they changed the name to Melmar Corporation --

m-e-1-m-a-r -- which stood for, let's see, Marine Electronic -- it was

supposed to be a special firm making government contracts.

Leap: What was the purpose of the organization? As far as

CIA was concerned, what was the purpose of utilizing this front?

Wilcott: Well, the main thing that they were doing about that

I knew about operationally was burning the cane fields in Cuba. They

- I had several friends in Maritime Division that was operating

the the PM, Paramilitary, Maritime Paramilitary group. They had an office

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with a great big huge plan board - like one of these war plan boards

that you see in old war films. And they had every boat that covered

Miami and the area all the way out to Cuba -- had all these boats and

little, you know, little magnetic boats that latched on to this board.

Well, I was never supposed to have been in there, of course, and the -

seen the board, but I had some friends there and they went to a trip

out to Cuba, stayed with these people that I knew in Maritime. And

what they were doing at that time was burning the cane field. They

had a frogman project that they said was that they would have these

boats go out to just off the coast of Cuba. And that these frogmen

would jump off the boats, swim to the shore and burn the cane fields,

and then they'd come and pick 'em back up. I mean they were doing a

lot of other things too, but that's what...

Leap: Who was head of that project?

Wilcott: I can't remember. With a list of the people at

Tokyo Station I could probably recall a lot more. In fact, I have

some pictures of the guy that told me all about this. That we went -

when we went on a trip we took some pictures.

Elsie: (unintelligible)

Wilcott: Yeah, Riley. He was an old-time PM Maritime man

that had been working in the agency for years and years. And, there's

Riley - and then there was a younger guy who, when we all went out

on a weekend once and we went to Key Biscayne, and that's how I got

to know him. I also was involved in a photo intelligence operation.

It was quite by accident. You know, I'm a private pilot and I wanted

to do some flying around Miami. So what -- I'd run into somebody from TSD,

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Technical

Services Division, and they said, and he told me about

these various flights that they made from time to time. I said:

"Well, I'd like to go along on one of these flights because the

ADIZ

zones, the identification, military identifications, zones

around Miami is very complicated. And, you know, you have to know

where you're going or they'll shoot you down. So, I wanted to

ride along on one of those flights, to stay with the copilot and

the navigator, and, you know, learn the flight patterns and so on.

So,

one time this friend of mine, when I was working in TSD, said:

"Well, look, we've got a flight pulling out; would you like to go

on it?" I said: "Sure, I'd like to go." So we went out; got up

4 o'clock in the morning; and went out to this airfield right nearby --

Miami - and took off on this flight. Well, as it turned out, one of the

operational people who were on this federal intelligence project

didn't show up

And they said:

"Well, would you take his place?" I said: " Well, I don't know

anything about photography." "Well," he said, "we'll show you how

" to do it." So we had one of these PBY's, you know, with the big

bubbles on the side -- and there was two of us on, you know, one

on either side, with the photo project director. And what we would

do is fly over something he wanted photographed and he would point.

And everytime he'd point, we'd click a button of the camera and

take pictures. And I took over 35 tolls of film in that one day

with these automatic cameras. And you just know that the camera's

So we took pictures of a maritime

craft; mostly it was private craft that were used from time by

CIA for projects that they would, you know, use 'em from time to

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James Wilcott interview...page 37

time in addition to all their craft that they owned. Plus, we flew --

we flew over Swan Island, for instance. That was the, you know,

the main propaganda radio station from CIA. And we also flew

over all these, this whole chain of islands -- these little islands,

you know, some of them not more than a quarter of a mile, you

know, in area with the length, where they had stashes of arms,

munitions, food. Now what they said was that they buried boats;

they buriedlife rafts; they buried arms and munitions, food on these

islands: And the idea of the photographic mission was to take

pictures of these islands where this stuff had been buried; and

then

they would be turned over to photo interpreters, and they

would look for disruptions in the terrain, because presumably this

is what Castro would be doing with these, you know, with all these

islands. And so they were supposed to be able to - the photo

interpreters were supposed to be able to spot where these stashes

were put on these islands.

Leap: In the course of your duties, do you have any

knowledge of CIA operations in New Orleans?

Wilcott: No, I don't.

Leap: How about Mexico City?

Wilcott: No, I don't.

Leap: Do you have any questions you'd like to ask, Betsie?

Wolf: Well, I have a

few more names that might ring a bell.

Are you familiar with the name William Harvey?

Wilcott: Harvey -- yes. I believe that was Harvey. I'm

not sure whether that was from Tokyo or Miami. That name definitely

rings a bell.

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James

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Wolf: How about Daniel Carsley?

Wilcott: Doesn't ring

bell.

Wolf: Mitchell Robell?

Wilcott:

Robell?

Wolf: Warbell

Wilcott: Warbell?

Wolf: It's spelled

w-e-r-b-e-1-1.

Wilcott: Not offhand.

Wolf:

Bernardo Detores?

Wolf: Louis Posato?

Wilcott:

That sounds familiar, but I can't -- you know,

it just sounds like a familiar name.

Leap: You wouldn't by chance happen to know Priscilla

Johnson McMillen?

Wilcott: Not that - no, no, that's

Leap:

This will be the termination of the interview.

This is a continuation of the interview with Mr. James Wilcott.

Wilcott: You would like to ask a question?

Wolf: Okay, I was wondering why-if you contacted any

formal investigative body, such as the Warren Commission, Rockefeller

Commission, Church Committee; or, if you didn't, did you have any

thoughts about contacting any of these people at the time you were

first doing allegations as to Oswald's involvement with the CIA;

and if you didn't, why not?

Wilcott: Well, first of all, I -- the information that

I had, which was from heresay -- I didn't think was any kind of

information that would, you know, serve any purpose. I -- I was

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reluctant to even repeat some of these conversations because

was

afraid I might, you know, just - just cloud the issue more

than help it. And so I didn't think there was anything even

that I had to say about CIA that was all that interesting. And

it wasn't until two years later...

Wolf: Being when?

Wilcott: That was when we came out here. But I was also

very, very reluctant, particularly under the Johnson administration

and particularly under the Nixon administration, to talk about it.

Now, all these various harassment and intimidation incidents had

occurred and now I thought it was -- would be - the next thing

to suicide to talk to people because I felt that people were

incredibly naive about what was going on in this country - what

the CIA was all about; what they were involved in -- and I was

not all that

anxious to talk to the -- well, Warren Commission

was, you know, to my mind, a whitewash of the first order. I

didn't believe a thing they said and I really felt that - not

that these people were gonna do anything -- but their, their

lack of security, the lack of security in the government for

somebody who was gonna talk about these kinds of things would

really put me in jeopardy. And I was not willing to do that

without a lawyer and without a public support group. And, for

instance, just recently I talked to a lawyer, Eric Winesider,

right here in San Francisco, about some things that I wanted

to undertake concerning CIA. He said: "Well, to tell you the truth

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Jim, I'm scared for my own safety."

Well, my God, what am I to

do?

I said: "My civil rights are being violated and you're

afraid to defend me?"

"Well," he says, "I'1l do it, but I'd just

as soon not because I'm afraid for my career and I'm afraid for

my safety." Well, I freaked out. What! A lawyer! How am I

gonna protect myself? And this is the - well, this is more or

less of an extreme case that happened within the past eight years.

The same thing was prevalent on my -- I was not willing to go to

the government, government people and talk about it because you

never knew who was in the government. From what I knew of CIA,

with agents all over in the government, it would be an unwise thing

to do. So there is the instant -- now I tried to contact -- when

I came out here -- in fact, after my boss in community renewal

program, Frank O'Connor had brought me the resignation form from

the mayor and all of the people that I had been associated with

were leaving Utica -- things were getting too hot there. I

decided well, I've gotta get the hell out of there or, you know,

things just, just ain't too healthy. So, as it turned out,

my mother lives in Fremont. She had a lobotomy and is on ATD; and

my aunt had been living with her, but my aunt was going to Turkey.

So in order to keep my mother in her own place, there had to be

somebody nearby or they'd put her in an institution. Well, I

was the only one available, so that's how I came to come out to

the area.

But I went - one of the first things I did when I

got out here. is to go to Ranparts; and I went to Ranparts to

tell them, you know, that I would like to talk about CIA and so on.

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Well, the way they said:

"Well, write it all up; write it all up

and

then we'll talk to you." I said: "Well, you know, nine years

is a long time, you know. Is there any particular aspect that

you're interested in. I don't know whether I have anything that's

worthwhile to talk about or not." Well, they didn't want to talk

to me, so I

said: "Okay, well, we'll

forget it then." And the

way I'd been talking since '68, mostly to small groups of people in

their home - and that's the way I like to talk about CIA, impromptu

kind of meetings. Now the pressure has eased off a lot, but the

pressure was absolutely fantastic during that time when I had

great doubts as to whether I would survive to see this day. I

believe that these

interests killed Kennedy; I believe they killed

Bobbie Kennedy, Martin Luther King, all that; you know, who the

hell am I? They'd snuff me without, without giving a second

thought about it. So while I considered it a social duty to talk

about the kinds of things. I wasn't all that anxious to talk

about it unless it was under conditions that I had some kind of

control over. So what I'd like to, what I would tell anybody:

"Look, anytime you want to know about the CIA, I'll be glad to talk

to you. "

Leap: Let me ask you, Jim, did any of the individuals

you talked to at the Tokyo Station say anything that you construed

to be firsthand information?

Wilcott: Oh, yes; oh, yes. Much of the information,

especially, the most important thing is this. When this person

came right there and

I was

standing right at my window -- I had

a little cashier's cage where I disbursed money - said that was --

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that was a project that CIA -- it mentioned the crypto; it mentioned

the crypto that was the Oswald project.

Leap: And you say that conversations of this nature,

relative to this subject, would be limited to possibly four or

five agents within that station?

Wilcott: Yeah, see everybody was talking about it -

speculating -- I mean, you know, just the same way that people

were speculating on the street as to, you know, various things.

But as far as the kind of information that's in here, I believe --

and I didn't talk about all that in this article here -- but the -

it's the kind of information that I think people had; in other

words, some expertise either with direct acquaintance or could

infer from previous experience that there was some real substance

to what they were saying. Now, in this article I tried to include

everything possible that would have any kind of weight one way or

another, either for or against, you know, the things, because it

seemed

to me that the important thing was the motivation -- what

was the motivation to killing Kennedy. That's what seems to hold

together in the story that I heard out there in Tokyo.

Leap: I see. Now, if, by chance--and I'm not sure that

I can đo this

-- if I'm able to get a list of the CIA personnel

in Japan and their photographs, could you identify the individuals

who made such remarks that he was a CIA agent?

Wilcott: I think so.

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Leap:

You could do that?

Wilcott: I think I could identify them -- some of them,

certainly. I remember there was a guy in China branch, who I

knew quite well, who used to meet the Polish ships. In fact, he

told a story about this pill that CIA developed for him where he

could take this pill and drink enormous quantities of booze and

never get drunk; and that the Poles were very impressed. The

Polish sailors on the ships that he met, the Polish ships, were

real impressed with the amount of booze that he could drink.

Well, anyways,

he was one, I'm sure, that I talked to. Fred

Randall had said some things, maybe not direct, but that indicated

that, that, you know, that Kennedy was killed by -- he was my

instructor in this course that I took, I believe I mentioned in

here, in international relations. And we talked, you know, a few

words, not much, not much, but I remember -- I can't remember

exactly what it was, but something in connection with the

Kennedy assassination-it was after I had talked to Fred Randall

that I really began to believe well, you know, maybe these people

aren't just crazies off their rocker, that there was

really

something involved with CIA killing Kennedy.

Let me ask you a question. From these conversations,

Leap:

did you assume or get the impression that the project was run in

Japan?

Wilcott: Yes, I did.

Wolf: Well, along that line, you knew, heard these

allegations and you heard Oswald's cryptonym, did you recognize

the cryptony or...

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Wilcott: Yes

Wolf: ...or did you happen to go back at that time and

check any of your previous records to see if you had made payments

to that person?

Wilcott: Not really. I wasn't all that interested. That

was

shop talk, more or less.

Leap: You would have noticed if it was not a Japanese

cryptonym?

Wilcott: Yes.

Leap: Right. S0...

Wilcott: I've forgotten a lot now about 'em -- there were

SO

many that came across. Every, every person in the station who

was

working on a project came and drew funds from me under that

project name. They'd fill out a request for advance, citing the

project. They'd take the request for advance to Chief of Finance

or the Deputy Chief, who would sign off, and then -- well, first

they would take it to will Dunham. He was the auditor, what we

call the auditor,

and he would check in the project book to see

how much funds were available. Each project was funded quarterly.

Like if they had a million dollars for a project that was to last

a year, then every quarter they'd get $250,000 for that project.

Leap: Well, let me ask you this.

Wilcott: So, every...

Leap: You say Oswald was a project.

Wilcott: Mm-hmm

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Leap: Would Will Donovan know that?

Wilcott: No, no.

That's all he had was the finance,

the sterilized copy of the project outline that he originally set

these books up

for.

Leap: I see.

So, he wouldn't necessarily know who the

individual was?

Wilcott: No. In fact, they made the...

Wolf: By true name, by cryptonym, or anything?

Wilcott: No, unless he heard about, you know, from

conversation or, you know, the need-to-know principle was not

observed in all cases and things slipped out from time to time,

you know, and people got familiar with projects from time to time.

Leap: I see. You have any other questions?

Wolf: Could we take a break?

Leap: Yes.

We'll have a break at this time.

* * * **

Leap: Continuation of interview -- time 12:40 p.m.

Wolf: Perhaps you could tell us a little about your knowledge

as to how the files were set up - either 201 files -- well, I can

do that to begin with.

Wilcott: Okay. As I remember, the 201 files were

headquarters personnel files that they, they had to be hand-carried;

they had to be signed in and signed out. We never had access to

those files.

Wolf: When you say you, you mean in the Finance Office?

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46

Wilcott: Yes, in Finance -- any of the Finance offices

that I worked in the field

or at Tokyo Station disbursing

funds, or at Miami Station on payroll - we never had access to those

files. They had to be signed in and signed out; that only Personnel --

I believe it was only Personnel people - could draw those files

out and so on.

But we had division files. Now, as I understand it,

the 201 files that they, I believe I remember being told at one time

that the reason that they used the 201 was to smokescreen, since the

military also used 201 for their files. Then it would smokescreen

CIA 201 files. But CIA 201 files were entirely different from

military 201 files. You know, they were entirely - and as far as

I remember, that 201 files were only employee files. For instance,

if Oswald had a CIA 201 file, he must have been a regular agent

of the agency. He must have been; I mean an agent of the agency --

because they were just, you know, agent files and employee files.

Now, one time I did an audit, an exhaustive audit, on a guy who

had been in the Soviet Union -- had been in jail in the Soviet Union.

CIA was paying him

a regular salary and keeping it in escrow.

That

was the only time I ever saw a 201 file, you know, up close -- or

looked through it or anything. Joe Hudson had it and they were

real, real -- they were real uptight about the 201 files. Now,

there was...

Leap: What was the individual's name, do you remember?

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Wilcott: I don't remember; I don't recall. It was -- I

did an audit over

the three years.

There had been mistakes

and

there had been pay raises and so on that he should have got but he

was in jail and, as I recall, he had three or four more years to

go on his

sentence.

Leap:

What year was it that you did this audit?

Wilcott: This was '64 -- late '64, early '65 --

between the time that I went from, when I went back to headquarters

from Tokyo Station after my

and we went to Miami.

And the - now there were a lot of division files. There were

personnel files that each division had its own personnel. And

there were divison files. And that's what was used, for instance,

when I had my performance reviews and so on. When I had the

polygraph at headquarters, after working with SNCC, they had my,

the Chief, Chief of Security who gave me the interview -- not the

polygraph interview but the first interview I had in my 201 file --

but they were, as I remember, very uptight. But this is all kind

of hazy. I'm not, you know, exactly sure, but that's the best

I can remember.

Wolf: In your recollection of either your 201 file or of

this other person's file, do you happen to know if they had

photographs of the personnel in the 201's?

Wilcott: Well, I remember in the case of the agent that

was

in the Soviet prison they had photographs -- they had a lot of

photographs. It was a big file; it was a great big file. My

file

was not that big. I saw it on his desk and my kid remembers.

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His name is Robert something. He's Chief of security. But I saw

it on his desk; and it wasn't that big. It was a thin file. But

the Russian agent in the soviet prison was a great big fat fellow.

Leap: Do you remember where abouts

in Russia he was

incarcerated?

Wilcott: No, I don't. I don't remember anything about him.

In fact, I wasn't even supposed to see the file.

That's all I was

supposed to do was do the audit.

Leap: Correct his pay?

Wilcott: Yeah

Leap:

Pay records?

Wilcott: Yeah. I'd go all the way back from the time,

you know, he was first went off CIA payroll and it went

into

escrow payroll, I recall it, escrow payroll. And then I had to go

back and recompute it and look up all these changes -- stacks and

stacks of changes in the three years, you know, that have come

about

Wolf: What about in your jobs with the CIA? Did you have

occasion to see 201 files?

Elsie: Nn-Nnn

Wolf: So they did it in the offices that you worked

upstairs with. In the Tokyo Station there there were no copies

of 201 files as such?

Wolf: Did - you said that you were employed by the

agency when you were overseas. Did you have any employment with

the agencies when you were

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Elsie: Yes, I was a regular employee in Washington and

I had the whole security clearance and everything. But I

terminated in Washington

so in Tokyo

I was like a contract employee, which is a wife of a CIA agent.

And in Miami I worked also

as a contract employee.

WOlf:

And you didn't work in headquarters when you

came back that year between Tokyo and Miami?

Elsie:

NO

Wolf: Okay. Are either of you familiar with the term "Green-

list check?"

Wilcott:

The what?

Wolf: Greenlist check?

Wilcott: Greenlist check?

There were so many list checks.

It sounds familiar, but I can't, can't, they had so many of 'em

going around and, you know, I wasn't really all that interested.

It was

all shop talk, you know, try to get away from it; try to get...

Wolf: Could you explain anything as to how the finance

office was and

was

set up?

Wilcott: Oh, yes. What - the major files that we had in

the

Finance office were the project funding files. In other words,

there was a ledger kept that each project -- this is now we're

talking about operational funds, strictly operational funds. There --

a large book was kept by Will Dunham and Pete Martin, who was also,

was Deputy Chief of Tokyo Station, and Will Dunham, who was

the

auditor at Tokyo Station, were, maintained the operational files.

Each branch had a book, and every project was listed. We'd get

a copy of the project outline, and the project outline -- now, let's

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see, maybe I ought to go back as to how projects were, were first

set up. As I understand it, the, an agent, well, say the New York,

the Japan Times instance. They'd say: "Well, we wanta place an

agent on the Japan Times." Alright. They-- an agent would draw up

a project as to how

it would be done - the intelligence officer, or

something -- and he would submit it to his supervisor and his

supervisor would usually work with him on it and draw up the project.

They they would submit it to the chief -- chief of the branch. The

chief of the branch would either approve it or disapprove it. If

he approved

it, then it would be sent to headquarters for approval

at the desk, at the headquarters desk. If the headquarters desk

approved it, then they would send back a project outline, and it

was divided into several sections. There would be the operational

section; there would be the TSD section, the Technical Services

Section; there'd be the finance section. What we got are the

project outlines which were our basis for setting up the account

and allocating the funds. Too, it was the sterilized copy of the

project outline.

Everything would be cut out except the finance

section of the project outline. There was also -- I can't quite

remember exactly how the numbering, but there was a complicated

system of numbering, numbers and everything. And then we would

set that up in the book, and as soon as the funds came from

headquarters, we'd get lists of funds for allocations by numbers.

And then we would set up -- once it was approved by headquarters

and the allocation of funds were made in our Tokyo Station budget --

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then we would set up the total amount for the branch. And now

we're just talking about operational funds... And then we would

have to go through and allocate to each project how much of that

project-- how munch money went to each of the projects under the

total for each budget. Like China branch would have, you know,

a whole bunch of projects. We'd go through and allocate that.

I used

to help them with that from time to time. Then, it was done in

quarterly allotments. That the -- I kept the allotment ledgers

for each of the operational funds for a while, and it would be

allocated on a quarterly basis that if a fund had $1,250,000 it

would be set up for the first three months. And then people would draw

- if they, they -- when they wanted money for that project, they

would draw money, and then that was controlled by the crypto. And

each project had a crypto in additon to the numbers that they had.

We mostly dealt with numbers, while operation stuff mostly was

cryptos. And so then they would bring the request for advance --

they fill out the request for advance. It would be signed by...

Leap: By the case officer?

Wilcott: Well, yes, but it also would be signed by the

branch chief. And then there was a place for the case officer

who was making the -- withdrawing the money. And then there's a --

somebody, chief of finance -- and they'd come in, bring it to will

Dunham, he would look up the account in the ledger book by project

and say he would usually initial off. And then when he brought it

to Clay, Clay Norman, who was the -- Clay Norman III was the first

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chief of finance at Tokyo Station. And Jack Randall was the

second one - Clay was back after about two years. So they would

sign off; Will Dunham would initial it; Clay would know if there

was enough money in the project to cover it; he would sign off;

and then they'd bring it to me and I'd look for Clay's signature

and disburse the money and set it up on my daily cash record.

Wolf: So in the case of a black operation such as we

discussed before, how were the funds for that

Wilcott: Well, in the same way. There'd be nothing

whatsoever in the project outline -- anything else to indicate that

it was any kind of black operation. Never did I see - even though

there were black operations that I knew were going on and that

people have told me about - it was never... For instance the

Zangokowans was one of the -- it's one of the original projects of

CIA. It goes way back many years till late '50's. And the zangokowans

were what CIA called a quasi-political religious organization that

they had members in the diet and everything. This was one of the

channels that they used to route agents into the Communist party

through the Zangokowans. And that was one of their big projects

in Tokyo once -- Zangokowans - and they infiltrated people into

labor unions, into all kinds of political, you know, every kind of

group you could imagine. For instance, moral, moral rearmament was

a project of CIA. It was conceived by CIA. CIA went and

approached all of these religious people for the - for moral

rearmament.

And that was -- that was their project. I don't know,

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• 53

maybe I'm getting off the beaten path

• here kind of comments.

Leap: Do you have any other questions?

Wolf: You mentioned an article that after the Bay of

Pigs that there had - there was a change in administration as

far as

procedures for operations, assigning cryptonyms, and that

type of thing. Could you elaborate?

Wilcott: Well now, the way it hit us was that we had,

you know, all these complicated numbers that -- all the projects

were by this complicated numbering system. And even though we

had in our ledgers the crypto, we were not so concerned with the

crypto as with the numbering. All that changed. The cryptos were

all changed. There are a lot of other things that I was not directly

concerned with I'd heard about. For instance, that where there was

a lot more work gonna be done outside the station - this was

especially after the flare-up; they had building 724 in Washington

Heights - where they came out in one of the papers that building 724

was CIA headquarters in Tokyo. So, they -- there were all kinds

of changes that were made as to way — to the way I think about it

is that these were the changes that they talked about where Dulles

and Bissel had promised Kennedy that these changes would be made,

and that's where the changes that were made, which was really

shuffling. You know, it was more efficient in a way. The -- things

tightened up -- housing allowances, vehicle allowances that we were

directly associated with were tightened up. As far as the operations

people, they were really miffed off about a lot of things that were

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coming down at that time because they were gonna rely a lot more on

outside deep cover agents. So that meant that the agent, the

intelligence officer, the case officer, and so on would be cut

out of those projects, you know, the real heavy stuff, and the

deep cover agents were gonna take over a lot more of that stuff --

something like that.

Incidentally, at that time enormous amounts

of material were destroyed-shredded. In fact, I worked on -- a

couple of times for overtime for, I think it was Logistics -- and

helping 'em shred stuff. And huge volumes of material were shredded.

Leap: Project files?

Wilcott: Project files, operational stuff. They'd really

tightened up on what they put. Logistics, for instance, if they

wanted, let's say, a camera. They'd go to Logistics; ISD would

give them, you know, an outline as to what kind of camera they

thought would be the best camera for this kind of thing. So they'd

take it to Logistics. Logistics -- Bob Ulgeri was chief of Logistics

- then he would go out on a local market and try to pick the

camera up or they'd, he would contact one of the other stations

somewhere else, maybe if it was something real special, to get

the camera and have it shipped to Tokyo Station for that particular

project.

Leap: Do you have any guidelines

relative to destruction

of files determined to be of no further value to the agency. Are

there any existing guidelines relative to that subject?

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Wilcott:

Well, there is an awful lot that was -- after

the shakeup -- that was - they told me that they were really,

really going uptight. That's what -- things were really getting

uptight. And that huge volumes of files were being destroyed and

that there was

gonna be a lot more reliance on, you know, reliable

people, reliable people. You know, how, how whether people would

go along with this higher duty theory -- the kind of higher duty

theory -- and that - so, this was one of the, you know, as I

remember, the things that - they were doing away with a lot of

the people where - that they previously had, and relying more

on people that were gonna, you know, that were gonna follow

directives, etc.

Leap: Jim, I have a question, a standard question I

have to ask you.

Is there anything in your background that would

discredit you if you were called as a witness before the Committee?

Wilcott: Well, that all -- that all depends on who's -- who's

saying what is discrediting.

Leap:

emotional or medical problems?

Well, for instance, do you have any history of

Wilcott:

No, I don't.

Leap:

I see. You ever been arrested?

Wilcott: No, not for -- I was arrested once in -- with

SNCC, but it was overnight.

Leap: Do you remember right now what the charge was?

Wilcott: Public intoxication is what the charge was, but

I was...

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James Wilcott interview...page 56

Leap: Disposition?

Wilcott: Pardon?

Leap: What was the disposition of the charge?

Wilcott:

Well, Elsie came down and bailed me out.

Elsie: I just paid $20.

Well, the thing is in Washington

at that time, you know, there was a lot of racial tension -- I guess

the idea of a white person being out with a black person late at

night. So, they more or less said they were arresting Jim for his

own good because he wasn't safe being out with a black person,

you know, about one o'clock in the morning.

Leap: I see.

Elsie: So, I don't remember. I just paid $20

Leap:

Well, I do thank you very much for your time, your

efforts.

Wilcott: Well, if there's anything more we can -- we can

help with something, we'll be glad to help.

Elsie:

I know it's very frustrating not to have anything

tangible.

Leap:

Well, thank you very much. This will terminate

the interview on this date, January 28th. The time is 1:00

p.M.

#

HW

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