Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

• Spring 1963 - Life magazine editorially adopts the cause of the exiles as its own with photo essays. Claire Booth Luce, wife of Time-Life magazine publisher Henry Luce, former congresswoman, and U.S. ambassador, helped finance an anti-Castro platoon. The Mafia also becomes more active in helping to arm Cuban exile groups.
  
• 4/1963 The US and Britain signed agreement for the purchase of up to 100 Polaris missiles. The US at the same time withdrew its Jupiter missiles from Turkey and replaced them with Polaris missiles on submarines patrolling the eastern Mediterranean.
  
• 4/1963 CIA tries to use an unwitting James Donovan to deliver a poisoned diving suit to Castro.
  
• 4/1963 J. Gordon Shanklin becomes agent-in-charge of the Dallas FBI office.
  
• 4/1963 attempts at cease-fire in Laos
  
• 4/2/1963 Michael Paine meets Lee Oswald
  
• 4/2/1963 Birmingham, Alabama: Sheriff Bull Connor sets police dogs on demonstrators led by MLK.
  
• 4/3/1963 Oswald receives and cashes his last full week's paycheck at Jaggars
  
• 4/4/1963 Detective Sgt. C.H. Sapp of the Miami Police Intelligence Unit reported to Asst Chief A.W. Anderson about exile animosity toward JFK
  
• 4/5/1963 Oswald supposedly gives one of the "backyard photos" to George de Mohrenschildt.
  
• 4/6/1963 Oswald's last day at Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall
  
• 4/7/1963 According to Marina, Oswald left with the Carcano, and she didn't see it again for several days
  
• 4/8/1963 Canada: Conservative PM John Diefenbaker lost the general election to Lester Pearson's Liberal Party
  
• 4/8-9/1963 Two men and a car are seen acting suspiciously around Gen. Walker's home in Dallas
  
• 4/10/1963 The US atomic sub Thresher sinks 200 miles east of Boston with 129 crew while on sea trials following an overhaul.
  
• 4/10/1963 Jack Ruby placed a long-distance phone call from the Carousel Club to Clarence Rector, who lived in Sulphur Springs, Texas. A week later, on April 17, 1963 the Dallas Police sold one of their patrol cars, a 1962 Ford to used-car dealer Elvis Blount, who also lived in Sulphur Springs.
  
• 4/10/1963 Tonight, Gen. Edwin Walker narrowly escapes assassination.
  
• 4/11/1963 JFK writes a private letter to Khrushchev assuring him that he is trying to stop exile raids on Cuba.
  
• 4/11/1963 Pope John XXIII issues his encyclical letter, Pacem in Terris (" Peace on Earth ")
  
• 4/12/1963 Diem's brother, Nhu, told CIA station chief John Richardson that it would be good for the US to reduce the number of Americans in Vietnam.
  
• 4/12/1963 Birmingham, Alabama police use dogs & cattle prods on peaceful demonstrators. Martin Luther King is arrested.
  
• 4/12/1963 Oswald goes downtown to the Texas Employment Commission
  
• 4/13/1963 The de Mohrenschildts visit the Oswalds at their Neely St. apartment and see the Oswalds for the last time.
  
• 4/13-21/1963 William Harvey is in Plantation Key, Florida with Johnny Roselli
  
• 4/14/1963 Oswald supposedly retrieves the rifle from the Walker shooting.
  
• 4/15/1963 (approx) Oswald staged a brief "Hands off Cuba" demonstration in downtown Dallas and wrote the FPCC about it.
  
• 4/16/1963 In an exchange of notes Canada and the US reached an agreement on making nuclear warheads available to Canada for North American defense.
  
• 4/18/1963 Anti-JFK tract circulated among Cuban exile community in Miami, signed by a Texan, hoping that Johnson would soon become President by an act of God. Dr. Jose Miro Cardona, head of the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC) in Miami, resigned in protest to the shift in U.S. policy.
  
• 4/19/1963 The de Mohrenschildts left Dallas, and never saw the Oswalds again
  
• 4/21/1963 Oswald's letter to the FPCC is opened by the FBI and examined.
  
• 4/22/1963 Oswald supposedly wants to kill Nixon, according to Marina
  
• 4/23/1963 LBJ met in Dallas with executives of the Times-Herald and KRLD, who quoted him as saying that JFK might visit Texas that summer. LBJ quip about not shooting JFK until November.
  
• 4/24/1963 Dallas Times Herald reported that JFK would visit Dallas in November.
  
• 4/24/1963 Ruth Paine drives Oswald to the bus station.
  
• 4/25/1963 Oswald called his aunt Lillian Murret from the bus station in New Orleans
  
• 4/25/1963 DeMohrenschiltd arrived in New York City and on April 25 met along with Clemard Charles, a CIA associate, Thomas J. Devine. CIA documents inform that after the first meeting DeMohrenschildt was clearly the priority of interest of Devine and his CIA superior, C. Frank Stone III. Three subsequent meetings or encounters between DeMohrenschildt and Devine were described in CIA documents by May 19,1963.
  
• 4/26/1963 Oswald visited the Louisiana Division of Employment Security Office to look for work
  
• Late April - At Donovan's recommendation, Castro granted ABC reporter Lisa Howard an interview.
  
• 4/27-5/23/1963 Fidel Castro and a large entourage begin a five-week, fourteen-city visit to the Soviet Union.
  
• 5/1963 Alleged Castro coup plan by Cuban exiles, CIA and Robert Kennedy put together.
  
• 5/1963 Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul H. Nitze sent a the White House proposing "a possible scenario whereby an attack on a United States reconnaissance aircraft could be exploited toward the end of effecting the removal of the Castro regime."
  
• 5/1963 the first coordinated Vietnam War protests occur in London and Denmark.
  
• 5/1/1963 After her lengthy interview with Fidel Castro, ABC News anchorwoman Lisa Howard is debriefed by the CIA when she returned to the U.S
  
• 5/1/1963 In Moscow, Castro is told by Khrushchev about his private conversations with JFK
  
• 5/3/1963 Civil rights marches in Birmingham turn violent; ousted Mayor Eugene "Bull" Connor orders firehoses and dogs turned on peaceful protestors, which is seen on national TV.
  
• 5/6/1963 McNamara directed the military to prepare to withdraw 1000 advisers from Vietnam by year's end.
  
• 5/7/1963 Communications satellite Telstar II is launched from Cape Canaveral.
  
• 5/7/1963 New York Times reported that JFK had appointed David L. McDonald as Chief of Naval Operations, bringing "a surprising end to Adm. George W. Anderson's one-term tenure."
  
• 5/8/1963 South Vietnam: Diem's troops fire on thousands of Buddhists protestors gathered in Hue after bombs are detonated, apparently set by US intelligence agents.
  
• 5/9/1963 Roger Hilsman confirmed by the Senate in his new State Department position as the primary officer responsible for Vietnam. Hilsman later says JFK wanted a policy of neutralization for Vietnam, like Laos.
  
• 5/9/1963 Oswald rents at 4905/4907 Magazine St. and found a job at the William Reily Coffee Co.
  
• 5/10/1963 Ruth Paine, Marina and the children set out in Ruth's 1955 Chevy station wagon for New Orleans.
  
• 5/12/1963 Washington Post reports that Nhu and Diem wanted far fewer Americans in Vietnam.
  
• 5/12/1963 two bombs demolished the home of MLK's brother, A.D. King, in Birmingham. More blasts damaged the Gaston Hotel from which MLK and other SCLC leaders had just left.
  
• 5/14/1963 Ruth Paine returned to Dallas. Oswald wrote the New York headquarters of the FPCC, gave them his new address, and a few days later did the same for the Soviet Embassy. Mid-May FBI agent Hosty went to the Neely St. house to interview Marina, but found they had moved with no forwarding address.
  
• 5/15/1963 Mercury 9 mission: Gordon Cooper sees a UFO
  
• 5/18/1963 JFK trip to Nashville, motorcade and possible assassination attempts
  
• 5/20/1963 Sukarno appointed president of Indonesia
  
• 5/21-23/1963 Oswald obtained a library card at the Napoleon Branch of the New Orleans Public Library
  
• 5/22/1963 JFK says in press conference that US will withdraw troops from Vietnam if formally asked to do so by the South Vietnamese government.
  
• 5/22/1963 Greece: assassination of leftist parliamentary deputy Gregorios Lambrakis, a popular pacifist leader
  
• 5/25/1963 Marina wrote a letter to Ruth complaining about her unhappy circumstances
  
• 5/26/1963 Oswald wrote a letter to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) saying he wanted to open his own branch in New Orleans
  
• 5/29/1963 Vincent T. Lee writes back to Oswald that forming a branch of the FPCC in New Orleans might not be worth the trouble since there were so few supporters in that city. Oswald ordered Hands off Cuba leaflets
  
• 6/1963 The announcement this month that Adm. George W. Anderson would not be reappointed as chief of naval operations, and Curtis LeMay would be reappointed for a single year only, prompted legislation in Congress to fix a four-year term for all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
  
• 6/1963 Johnny Rosselli came to Washington to meet with William Harvey who picks him up at Dulles Airport and takes him to dinner.
  
• 6/1/1963 Jomo Kenyatta becomes premier of Kenya
  
• 6/2/1963 the De Mohrenschildts leave for Haiti
  
• 6/3/1963 US government resumed normal relations with Haiti and withdrew a naval task force from Haitian waters.
  
• 6/3/1963 Pope John XXIII died from stomach cancer.
  
• 6/3/1963 Oswald rented a P.O. Box in New Orleans, listing himself, Marina and A.J. Hidell as people authorized to use it. He ordered from a printer 500 copies of a yellow, 4x9" membership application for his FPCC.
  
• 6/4/1963 JFK issued Executive Order 11110, which called for issuance of $4 billion in notes through the US Treasury rather than through the Federal Reserve System.
  
• 6/4/1963 Oswald picked up the handbills from Jones Printing Co. Two witnesses later told Harold Weisberg that the man who picked them up wasn't Oswald.
  
• 6/5/1963 John Profumo resigned as British War Secretary after admitting that he had lied to the House of Commons in denying any impropriety with Christine Keeler.
  
• 6/5/1963 Kennedy spoke at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, then stopped in El Paso, Texas for a motorcade and a meeting with LBJ and Connally at the Cortez Hotel. They agreed on a trip to Dallas in November.
  
• 6/5/1963 CIA transmits more than a half dozen intelligence reports indicating that Castro was interested in mending the U.S.-Cuban conflict and establishing normal ties.
  
• 6/5/1963 Marina Oswald wrote to Ruth Paine complaining that Lee "insists that I go away to the Soviet Union - which I certainly don't want to do." Oswald picked up his order from Mailing Service Co.
  
• 6/5/1963 Jack Ruby called the French Opera House strip joint in New Orleans. He then left Dallas. While in New Orleans, Ruby was not seen or heard from 6/5-8/1963.
  
• 6/5/1963 Hoover friend Rep. Edwin E. Willis (D-Louisiana) was elected chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
  
• 6/5-10/1963 Somewhere during this time, Oswald wrote an undated letter to FPCC saying that he was going ahead with forming his own chapter. "I have decided to take an office…you may think the circular it too provocative, but I want it to attract attention, even if it's the attention of the lunitic fringe."
  
• 6/6/1963 United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) created.
  
• 6/6 or 5/1963 Religious rioting in Iran led to arrests of Moslem leaders, including Ayatollah Khomeini. They are charged with trying to topple the Tehran regime.
  
• 6/6/1963 JFK visit to San Diego and motorcade.
  
• 6/7/1963 JFK visit to China Lake, California, and motorcade
  
• 6/6 or 8/1963 Oswald wrote his name on a government form titled 'International Certificates of Vaccination or Revaccination against Smallpox' and then used his cheap rubber-stamping kit to stamp in the name "Dr. A.J. Hideel." He now told Marina that he would go to Cuba, then China, and finally join her in Russia. He told her that he couldn't travel with her being pregnant.
  
• 6/8-9/1963 JFK trip to Hawaii and motorcade
  
• 6/8/1963 Bayo-Pawley raid on Cuba
  
• 6/8/1963 Lee took Marina to the New Orleans Charity Hospital for prenatal care. Date of a fake vaccination card Oswald made.
  
• 6/8/1963 Jack Ruby arrived in New Orleans; his whereabouts on the 6th and 7th are completely unknown. On this day and the 9th, Chicago mobsters began to show up in Dallas to discuss moving taking over the local vice rackets.
  
• 6/10 and 13/1963 Ruby placed calls to a restaurant in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where some of the mobsters were meeting.
  
• 6/9/1963 Jack Ruby returned to Dallas.
  
• 6/10/1963 JFK's American University peace speech, envisioning a world without a Cold War
  
• 6/10/1963 Oswald sends letter to The Worker advising them he formed a FPCC chapter and asks for literature. He also enclosed honorary membership cards for Gus Hall and Ben Davis.
  
• 6/11/1963 a Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc, burned himself to death in Saigon in protest to Diem's repressive policies.
  
• 6/11/1963 Governor George C. Wallace tries to stop the court-ordered integration of the University of Alabama by "standing in the schoolhouse door." JFK's civil rights speech given on TV tonight.
  
• 6/12/1963 NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers shot dead in sniper ambush in Mississippi
  
• 6/13/1963 Senate Bill 603, governing J. Edgar Hoover's replacement, is passed in the Senate but there is no corresponding legislation in the House.
  
• 6/14/1963 The Chinese press attacks Khrushchev, calling him the "Great Revisionist." Beginning of Sino-Soviet split
  
• 6/15/1963 The French government informed the NATO secretary-general that France would withdraw its naval forces from the NATO command.
  
• 6/16/1963 New Orleans: Oswald passed out FPCC leaflets at the Dumaine Street Wharf, where the aircraft carrier Wasp was docked.
  
• 6/16/1963 First woman in space is Russian Valentina Tereshkova in Vostok VI; she returned to Earth 6/19.
  
• 6/17/1963 Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Township v. Schempp that required reading of Lord's Prayer and Bible in public schools was unconstitutional.
  
• 6/17/1963 Agent Hosty asks New Orleans FBI to verify Oswald's presence in New Orleans.
  
• 6/19/1963 JFK civil rights bill submitted to Congress. JFK approves new sabotage program against Cuba
  
• 6/20/1963 A memorandum of understanding between the United States and the Soviet Union establishing a "hot line" between Washington and Moscow is signed
  
• 6/23/1963 Hoover announced the arrest of a suspect in the Medgar Evers case, Byron de la Beckwith.
  
• 6/24/1963 Oswald applied for a new passport, listing possible destinations as England, France, Germany, Holland, Finland, Poland, Italy and the USSR. It was issued the next day.
  
• 6/25/1963 JFK speech in Frankfurt
  
• 6/26/1963 JFK speech in Berlin
  
• 6/27/1963 Henry Cabot Lodge appointed US ambassador to South Vietnam.
  
• 6/27-29/1963 JFK is in Ireland