This piece from Bugliosi's Reclaiming History;
The following morning, January 22, a bombshell exploded on the Commission. Texas attorney general Waggoner Carr telephoned the Commission’s general counsel, J. Lee Rankin, to inform him that an allegation was floating around Dallas that Oswald had been an “undercover agent” (the “undercover agent” designation quickly evolved into that of “paid informant”) for the FBI, receiving two hundred dollars a month “for an account designated as number 179.” Rankin immediately informed Chief Justice Warren, who called an emergency meeting of the Commission that evening.123 In a hushed, tense, executive session, Rankin explained the allegation to the Commission. They speculated about what the FBI might have been using Oswald for, then turned their attention to the implications of the allegation. Rankin found it unusual that the FBI was insisting that Oswald was the lone assassin, yet the bureau hadn’t yet run down “all kinds of leads in Mexico or in Russia.” This, he said, “raises questions.”
Rankin told the Commission members that he and Chief Justice Warren had reflected on this and “we said if [the allegation] was true and it ever came out and could be established,” then simply because of it, some people would think “that there was a conspiracy to accomplish this assassination” and “nothing the Commission did” could change this impression. Representative Boggs: “You are so right.”
“Oh, terrible,” Allen Dulles moaned.
“[The] implications of this are fantastic, don’t you think so?” Hale Boggs observed.
“Terrific [possibly a typographical error for terrible],” Chief Justice Warren answered.
When Dulles asked the question of why, if Oswald were an FBI informant, “it would be in their [FBI’s] interest…to say [Oswald] is…the only guilty one?” Warren answered, “They would like to have us fold up and quit.”
“This closes the case, you see,” Boggs interjected. “Don’t you see?”
“Yes, I see that,” Dulles acknowledged.
“They found the man,” Rankin continued. “There is nothing more to do. The Commission supports their conclusions, and we can go home and that is the end of it.”
“But that puts the men [typo for burden?] right on them,” Dulles argued. “If he was not the killer, and they employed him, they are already it, you see. [This sentence would seem to make sense only if Dulles had not used the word “not.” He could have misspoken or the stenographer could have made a mistake.] So your argument is correct if they are sure that this is going to close the case, but if it [doesn’t] close the case, they are worse off than ever by doing this.”
“Yes, I would think so,” Boggs replied “…I don’t even like to see this being taken down.”
“Yes,” Dulles agreed. “I think this record ought to be destroyed. Do you think we need a record of this?”
Rankin: “I don’t, except that we said we would have records of meetings.”124
On January 23, 1964, Texas attorney general Waggoner Carr, along with two of his special counsels, Dean Storey and Leon Jaworski, and Dallas County district attorney Henry Wade and his assistant, Dallas DA William Alexander, flew to Washington, D.C. The following day they met with Chief Justice Warren and General Counsel Rankin to discuss the explosive allegation. At the meeting, the Texas contingent said the rumor was “constant” in Texas, and that “the source of their information was a man by the name of Hudkins [newspaper reporter Alonzo Hudkins].”
Although the source of the allegation has become almost permanently mired in dispute and obfuscation, one thing is very clear. It was a fabricated story with no substance (see in-depth discussion in FBI conspiracy section), but at the time, the Warren Commission did not know this and took the allegation very seriously.
Reclaiming History Vincent Bugliosi
JohnM