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As soon as I walked into Gordon Shanklin's smoke-filled office, I saw the copy of the newspaper lying on his desk. I grabbed it. Staring back at me in bold, black print was the front-page headline: "FBI KNEW OSWALD CAPABLE OF ACT, REPORTS INDICATE."
I quickly scanned the first few paragraphs while Shanklin sat quietly behind his desk puffing away. The story read, "A source close to the Warren Commission told the Dallas News Thursday that the Commission has testimony from Dallas police that an FBI agent told them moments after the arrest and identification of Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22, that 'we knew he was capable of assassinating the president, but we didn't dream he would do it...'
James Hosty, Assignment: Oswald (1996)
The source was not Jack Revill. Maybe you can call him the designated whistle blower....but the snitch-- was the government informant Hugh Grant Aynesworth.
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J. Edgar Hoover came out blasting. He categorically denied the story's contentions. Revill himself partially retracted some of the article's allegations; he told the Dallas Times Herald that the comment that I never dreamed Oswald would kill the president was all someone else's fabrication. But Aynesworth and the Morning News had done the damage. It would prove to be irreversible regarding my relationships with the Dallas police and the Dallas media. Contrary to Aynesworth's assertion, Bryan supported my version of the events. He reported that he did not hear me make any kind of comment suggesting I knew Oswald was capable of killing the president.
The whole purpose of the false leak was further incrimination of Oswald...conformation to the general public that Lee Oswald was indeed the assassin.
the snitch-- was the government informant Hugh Grant Aynesworth.
Please tell us the basis for that conclusion.
Here is another side of the story:
From "Witness to History" by Hugh Aynesworth pages 43-44:
Over at City Hall, Chief Curry was stirring up a storm of his own. After returning from Love Field, where he was on hand at 2:38 P.M. to watch Judge Hughes swear in Johnson, Curry read Lieutenant Revill's report on his basement conversation with FBI Agent Hosty with considerable interest.
"If we had known a defector or extremist was anywhere in the city, much less on the parade route, we would have been sitting in his lap," Curry was later quoted by the Associated Press.
The chief told me that up on DPD's third-floor office complex, "I was stopped going down the hall, and the press wanted to know all about what evidence we had and why a Russian defector had been ignored along the mororcade route. I told them that there was a rifle and a pistol belonging to Oswald. And I guess I stepped a bit too far at that point. I said, "The FBI knew all about this man, knew he was capable of killing the president and so forth."
Within the hour FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover dispatched Gordon Shanklin to Curry's office with a message. The bespectacled Shanklin apologized for being there, Curry told me, but nonetheless insisted that the chief retract his statement.
Curry trusted that Lieutenant Revill's report was accurate, but "at that point," he explained, "I didn't see what all the shouting was about. I knew the truth would come out soon. But when Shanklin told me the bureau had not had Oswald under surveillance, I agreed and did soften that statement a few minutes later."
Shanklin hadn't been entirely truthful with Chief Curry. While Oswald wasn't kept under surveillance, the FBI had been very interested in locating him, particularly after they learned in October that he'd visited the Soviet embassy in Mexico City.
But Curry kept his word. As the chief returned to Captain John-known as Will, his middle name-Fritz's office in Homicide and Robbery a few minutes later, he told the big crowd of reporters, "I do not know if and when the bureau interviewed him [Oswald]."
Our story of Jack Revill's memo and Joe Hosty's remarks must have stung sharply over at the Times Herald, for the paper promptly published a poorly considered response that caused embarrassment even to some of its own reporters. The afternoon our story ran, the Times Herald bannered its front page with "FBI Denies Statement on Oswald," and quited Hoover directly. Referring to Revill's recollection the director allegedly said, "That is absolutely false. The agent made no such statement, and the FBI had no such knowledge."
It was a great knock-down of our original story, except for one problem - the Hoover quote was a fabrication. My source for this information was the article's putative writer, George Carter. Angry and deeply embarrassed, George called me to say that not only was his name put on the story without his knowledge but also that the Hoover interview had never occurred. The FBI director would not talk to the Times Herald, Carter told me. He wasn't sure whether the newspaper blithely spliced his name to another official's words or, even worse, made up the quotes altogether.
