Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

• 10/1963 "NATO leaders were disturbed in October when US Deputy Defense Secretary Roswell Gilpatric, speaking in Chicago, declared that American forces abroad could be thinned out without weakening the nation's capacity to deal with Soviet aggression. This speech, coming in the midst of Operation Big Lift' in which the United States flew a 15,000-man division from Texas to West Germany, suggested that henceforth the United States would station more of its troops at home." (1964 Collier's Encyclopedia Yearbook) From story on "doomsday clock" on cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: "In 10/63, the nuclear test ban treaty moved the hands back to 12 minutes before midnight - the farthest from doom ever." San Francisco Examiner/UPI [3/24/69]
  
• Late Fall 1963 Longtime JFK friend Torby Macdonald is secretly sent to Saigon to urge Diem to remove the Nhus from his government. Diem refused.
  
• 10/1/1963 (Tue) In New Orleans, Jesse Garner informed the local FBI that the Oswald had left Magazine St.
  
• 10/1/1963 Meeting of anti-Castro Cubans and right-wing Americans in the Dallas suburb of Farmer's Branch; a recording of the conversation exists. The local John Birch Society hosted three militant Cuban exiles; a member of the audience taped Bay of Pigs vet Nestor Castellanos ranting about JFK.
  
• 10/1/1963 10:31am Mexico City: a man calls Soviet embassy, saying in broken Russian "This is Lee Harvey Oswald" and he "was at your place last Saturday and talked to your Consul" asked if anything new about telegram to Washington DC, mentions Kostikov.
  
• 10/1/1963 Winston Scott memo to Clark D. Anderson (legal attache) about 7 telephone wiretaps involving Oswald in Mexico City.
  
• 10/1/1963 Hoover received and then approved a combined COMINFIL-COINTELPRO plan against the civil rights movement. The approved plan called for intensifying "coverage of Communist influence on the Negro."
  
• 10/2/1963 (Wed) Richard Starnes story in Washington Daily News saying that CIA had become a malignancy and could stage a coup
  
• 10/2/1963 Connally had a meeting at the Hotel Adolphus about the President's trip with J. Eric Jonsson (chairman of the Citizens Council), Robert Cullum (Chamber of Commerce president), R.L. Thornton (publisher of Dallas Morning News), and Albert Jackson of the Dallas Times Herald.
  
• 10/2/1963 8:30am Oswald supposedly leaves Mexico City today by bus
  
• 10/2/1963 "Memorandum for the President. Subject: Report of McNamara-Taylor Mission to South Vietnam. The military campaign has made great progress and continues to progress. There are serious political tensions in Saigon (and perhaps elsewhere in South Vietnam) where the Diem-Nhu government is becoming increasingly unpopular..."
  
• 10/2/1963 As Taylor now believes that the coup against Diem has been called off, Kennedy cables Lodge that no encouragement to a coup should be given, though contacts should be made with a potential alternative leader. (World Almanac of the Vietnam War p61)
  
• 10/3/1963 (Thur) Arthur Krock 's NYT article "The Intra-Administration War In Vietnam"
  
• 10/3/1963 1:35am - Oswald crossed Mexican border to US from Nuevo Laredo into Texas. Leaves Laredo at 3am. (HSCA)
  
• 10/3/1963 Honduras: military coup ousted liberal President Ramon Villeda Morales.
  
• 10/3/1963 2:20pm - Oswald arrived in Dallas. (HSCA) He checked in at the YMCA. Later that day he went to the Texas Employment Commission to look for work, listing his address as 2515 West 5th Street, Ruth Paine's house in Irving.
  
• 10/3/1963 3:39pm: unidentified man outside calls Soviet embassy in Mexico City, speaks in broken Spanish, then English, says he is looking for visa to Russia.
  
• 10/3/1963 US, UK and Soviet foreign ministers agreed in principle to ban nuclear weapons in space.
  
• 10/3/1963 at about 6 pm, Oswald was in Alice, Texas -- some 400 miles south of Dallas - asking about a job at radio station KOPY.
  
• 10/3/1963 New Orleans FBI office wired Hosty that the Oswalds had left New Orleans a short time before.
  
• 10/3/1963 JFK is traveling in Arkansas with Sen. Fulbright, who warns him not to go to Dallas. (Death of a President p39)
  
• 10/4/1963 (Fri) Armed Forces' Pacific Stars and Stripes headline: "White House Report: U.S. Troops Seen Out of Viet by '65"
  
• 10/4/1963 For 4 days, Cuba was ravaged by the longest and most relentless Caribbean storm in 75 years. At least 1000 people died.
  
• 10/4/1963 Connally is at the White House to talk about the Texas trip; it was agreed that Connally would largely plan the events in Texas.
  
• 10/4/1963 Oswald looked through the job ads and went to an employment agency in the Adolphus Tower, telling them that he has lived in Dallas for 15 years. "Oswald" returned to KOPY in Alice, Texas accompanied by Marina and June.
  
• 10/4/1963 The CIA Station Chief in Saigon, John H. Richardson, is recalled at Lodge's request.
  
• 10/4/1963 Richard Helms later told the WC that the CIA's photo of the mystery man in Mexico City was taken on this date, though Oswald was not even in Mexico anymore. (Fonzi, Last Investigation 422)
  
• 10/5/1963 (Sat) Dallas Morning News described Connally's meeting with JFK. He said that Kennedy might visit Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth and San Antonio. "White House sources last week frankly stated that the visit would be a political one."
  
• 10/5/1963 Oswald tells Marina some details of his Mexico trip. (H 1 27-59)
  
• 10/5/1963 In a meeting, JFK decided to take a wait-and-see approach to the possibility of a coup in Saigon. (In Retrospect 81) Lodge reported to Kennedy that the coup was on; JFK assures Gen. Minh that the US will not thwart a coup. (World Almanac of the Vietnam War)
  
• 10/5/1963 NYTimes did its first major piece on the Bobby Baker scandal.
  
• 10/6/1963 (Sun) The Oswalds moved into Ruth Paine's home.
  
• 10/6/1963 A want-ad in the Dallas Morning News advertises a room available at 1026 N. Beckley.
  
• 10/6/1963 A CIA cable to Lodge warned him and the CIA station chief to "preserve security and deniability" in all contacts with the coup plotters. (The Politics of Lying p40)
  
• 10/7/1963 (Mon) JFK signed the Test Ban treaty in Washington, prohibiting nuclear testing in the atmosphere, underwater or in outer space.
  
• 10/7/1963 Madame Nhu arrives in the US, but her presence is officially ignored by the Kennedy administration.
  
• 10/7/1963 Bobby Baker resigned his post as Secretary to the Senate Majority Leader.
  
• 10/7/1963 Cuban Ambassador Lechuga spoke before the UN General Assembly and rejected the treaty, claiming that US-sponsored violence against Cuba was increasing.
  
• 10/7/1963 FBI requested authority again for technical surveillance of MLK and the SCLC.
  
• 10/7/1963 Oswald's visa application was received at the Foreign Ministry in Havana and rejected 10/15 because he did not have a Soviet visa.
  
• 10/7/1963 Ruth Paine gave Oswald an ENCO map of Dallas for him to use while looking for a job; this would later be found in his apartment with suspicious markings on it. Ruth drove Oswald to the bus station, and she told him that Marina could stay until they got back on their feet. Oswald found a room at 621 Marsalis St in Oak Cliff, Dallas. He registered under his real name, and moved in that same day. (H 6 401-2) Oswald went to a job interview at Solid State Electronics.
  
• 10/8/1963 (Tue) "On 8 October, the very day that the Mexico City story on Oswald arrived at FBI HQS, Marvin Gheesling took Oswald off of the espionage watch list a list he had been on since his defection to the USSR on Halloween Day, 1959. Moreover, the person in the CIA's SAS who handled liaison with the FBI, Austin Horn, was wired into Oswald's Cuban and the operation in Mexico and thus had reason to believe that there was a legitimate counter-FPCC operation ongoing in Mexico. Horn had no reason to alert the FBI that the Oswald story in Mexico was cause for concern.With no warning indicators from the CIA, Gheesling's removal of Oswald from the watch list at FBI ensured that Oswald would not be placed on the security index…Hoover censured Gheesling for his action. Why Gheesling has never been deposed and asked why he removed Oswald from the list or who told him to do it is one of the lingering questions…" (John Newman, Oswald and the CIA, 2008)
  
• 10/8/1963 David Atlee Phillips told the HSCA in the '70s that on this date he signed off on a cable from Mexico City to CIA headquarters reporting Oswald's visit to the Soviet embassy. Later, records would reveal that Phillips was on leave at the JM/WAVE station in Miami and didn't return to Mexico City station until 10/9. (The Last Investigation)
  
• 10/8/1963 On planning of JFK visit to Dallas - earliest mention of 11/22 visit apparently 10/8/63 in headline of Dallas Times Herald.
  
• 10/9/1963 (Wed) JFK announced sale of 150 million bushels of wheat to the Soviets, costing them $250 million
  
• 10/9/1963 Oswald had a job interview with Burton-Dixie Co, but didn't get it
  
• 10/9/1963 CIA headquarters received a cable from its Mexico City Station about an October 1 phone call to the Soviet Consulate that had been wiretapped, taped, transcribed, and translated from Russian into English.
  
• 10/10/1963 (Thu) RFK gave the go-ahead for a limited "trial basis" bugging of MLK "and to continue it if productive results were forthcoming." (Courtney Evans memo to Alan Belmont)
  
• 10/10/1963 FBI is told by an informant the CIA is meeting with AM/LASH.
  
• 10/10/1963 The Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty went into effect as Britain signed the treaty.
  
• 10/10/1963 JFK met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and prodded him about the continued presence of Soviet troops in Cuba.
  
• 10/10/1963 Dallas Morning News attacked JFK for resisting the "seizure of power by anti-communist forces" in Honduras and the Dominican Republic. 10/10/1963 CD 631, a CIA teletype message to FBI, Navy, and State Dept, is sent about Oswald's visit to Mexico City
  
• 10/10/1963 Oswald appears at the Jobco Employment Agency in Dallas, and lists his "closest friend" as George de Mohrenschildt. He looks for a job at the De Vibiss Co.
  
• 10/10/1963 Marquis Childs syndicated column "Washington Calling" quoted JFK as criticizing the Hunt family for having "paid small amounts in federal income tax last year" and used "various forms of tax exemption and special tax allowances to subsidize the ultraright on television, radio and in print."
  
• 10/11/1963 (Fri) Oswald remained his his room all day and evening, according to his landlady.
  
• 10/11/1963 President Kennedy issues National Security Action Memorandum 263, making official government policy the withdrawal from Vietnam of "1 ,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963" and " by the end of 1965 . . . the bulk of U.S. personnel. "
  
• 10/12/1963 (Sat) Oswald lost his room at 621 N. Marsalis St. today
  
• 10/13/1963 (Sun) Ruth gave Oswald some driving lessons in the parking lot of a closed shopping-center.
  
• 10/13/1963 Gallup Poll shows that 57% of Americans approve of JFK and his policies, 28% disapprove.
  
• 10/14/1963 (Mon) Ruth drove Lee into Dallas on her way to do errands. Later that day, Ruth, Marina, Dorothy Roberts and Linnie Mae Randle were talking about Lee's situation; Randle suggested that Lee might check out the Texas School Book Depository, where her brother had recently been hired
  
• 10/14/1963 Radio Havana put on the air several American defectors to Cuba, who denounced the Red Cross as a agency of the US government and criticized the US for harassing Cuba.
  
• 10/14/1963 Oswald rented a small room in a boardinghouse at 1026 North Beckley Avenue in Oak Cliff, Dallas; he registered as O.H. Lee.
  
• 10/15/1963 (Tue) The day before Oswald began work at the Texas School Book Depository, Robert Adams of the Texas Employment Commission phoned the Paine residence with a much better job prospect for Oswald.
  
• 10/15/1963 Oswald went to the TSBD for an interview and was hired.
  
• 10/15/1963 Washington, D.C motorcade: Brig. Gen. Godfrey McHugh is with Special Agent Bill Greer and ASAIC Floyd Boring in the front seat. Either Boring or SAIC Gerald Behn rode in the limousine on all motorcades --- until the Texas tour, when a third-stringer, ASAIC Roy Kellerman, took their place. And, as we know, military aides McHugh and Clifton were not in the limousine at all in Dallas.
  
• 10/15/1963 West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer gave a farewell speech to the Bundestag after 14 years in office.
  
• In mid-October, Soviet troops held up two US convoys, one for over two days, on the Berlin autobahn.
  
• 10/15/1963 The Wall St Journal accused the Kennedy administration of giving 'mere lip service to economic freedom' while pursuing a foreign aid program that favored socialism and a domestic program that led to bureacratic control of the economy. The paper charged that Kennedy's policies reflected a hostility to 'the philosophy of freedom'.
  
• 10/16/1963 (Wed) Oswald's first day at the TSBD
  
• 10/16/1963 South Korea: Gen. Park Chung Hee was elected president. West Germany: Ludwig Erhard was elected the new chancellor.
  
• 10/16/1963 The Russians detained a British convoy for 9 hours before allowing it to enter West Germany.
  
• 10/17/1963 (Thu) JFK met with Yugoslav ruler Tito in Washington while protestors marched outside the White House.
  
• 10/17/1963 Ngo Dinh Nhu charged that the CIA was plotting with the Buddhists to overthrow the regime in Saigon.
  
• 10/18/1963 (Fri) The Delaware State News editorialized, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. His name right now happens to be Kennedy - let's shoot him, literally, before Christmas."
  
• 10/18/1963 Oswald came out to Irving with Buell Frazier. Marina and Ruth surprised Lee with a birthday party
  
• 10/18-19 or 20/1963 Constitution Party national convention in Indianapolis. This meeting of right-wing extremists was attended by Joseph Milteer and Willie Somersett. Col. William Gale was one of the speakers.
  
• 10/18/1963 the FBI distributed a memorandum on King to the Justice Department, officials at the White House, the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, the Defense Department, and Defense Department intelligence agencies. It was a personal diatribe against MLK's character. The attorney general was outraged and demanded that Hoover seek the return of the report. By October 28, all copies were returned. This was the first-and last-official action to deter Hoover's vendetta against King.
  
• 10/18/1963 FBI headquarters is told by its Mexico representative of Oswald's visit to the embassy.
  
• 10/20/1963 (Sun) Oswald's second daughter, Rachel, is born
  
• 10/20/1963 The White House gave an estimate attributed to McNamara and Taylor that 1000 men or more could be out of Vietnam by the end of the year.
  
• 10/21/1963 (Mon) Oswald went to work with Frazier, then back to Irving that evening. He visited Marina at the hospital this evening; she remembered him being very happy about having another daughter.
  
• 10/21/1963 US announced it would deny funds to Vietnam's Special Forces if they are used for anything other than fighting the VC, and would not renew the agreement to supply Saigon with surplus food.
  
• 10/22/1963 (Tue) Operation Big Lift: In the early morning, soldiers of the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas, lumbered up with their gear and individual weapons to an assembly of large cargo aircraft from the Military Air Transportation Service. Their destination was the front-line of the Cold War, Central Europe.
  
• 10/22/1963 FBI agent Hosty receives INS information on Oswald and forwards it to New Orleans. Oswald rides to work from Irving with Frazier; in the evening, he returns to his roominghouse on the bus.
  
• 10/22/1963 Vietnam: Gen. Harkins expresses to Gen. Don his disapproval of a coup against Diem.
  
• 10/22/1963 UPI in Miami reports that "A big Cuban exile raiding party, heavily armed and accompanied by an American free lance photographer, was intercepted and stopped off Miami Beach Sunday night as it headed for Cuba, US Customs officials announced Monday. There were 21 Cuban men, all members of the Commando L organization…Leader of the raiders was 56-year-old Santiago Alvarez, former governor of Matanzas Province during the Fulgencio Batista regime."
  
• 10/22/1963 Radio Havana broadcasts an English translation of a recent Castro speech, accusing the US of magnifying the effects of Hurricane Flora: "Our people do not need the aid of the US imperialists….What we ask for is an end to the economic blockade against our country!"
  
• 10/23/1963 (Wed) Tonight, Oswald attended a right-wing rally at the Memorial Auditorium Theater in Dallas, at which Gen. Walker addressed 1,300 people.
  
• 10/23/1963 Ruth Paine had a pocket calendar for 1963, and it wound up being Commission Exhibit 401. For the month of March, there is, in the margin, a note saying "Oct. 23," followed by a star, and the words "LHO purchase of rifle". The note is in Ruth Paine's handwriting, which Mrs. Paine readily acknowledged.
  
• 10/23/1963 Washington announced that the embargo against Cuba would remain in place.
  
• 10/24/1963 (Thu) French reporter Jean Daniel, conducts a brief interview with JFK before setting off on an assignment in Cuba. Though JFK is critical of Castro, he suggests Daniel broach the subject of reestablishing U.S.-Cuba relations with Castro, asks Daniel to report back to him.
  
• 10/24/1963 UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, in a visit to Dallas, was jeered, jostled and spit on by angry right-wing protestors outside the Dallas Memorial Auditorium Theater.
  
• 10/24/1963 CIA requested Navy Dept send recent photographs of Oswald to the Agency so they could be forwarded "to our representative in Mexico."
  
• 10/24/1963 UPI dispatch from New York: "Special forces troops of the US Army are in Guatemala on a secret mission, apparently either to train Cuban exiles for another strike against Fidel Castro or to instruct Guatemalan troops in anti-communist tactics."
  
• 10/25/1963 (Fri) Oswald left work at the TSBD and spent the weekend in Irving, getting a ride home with Frazier. That evening he attended an ACLU meeting on the campus of Southern Methodist with Michael Paine. Oswald spoke up and criticized Gen. Walker, and told one person after the meeting that JFK "is doing a real fine job, a real good job."
  
• 10/25/1963 "The President may make powerful enemies among his own people, and I would not rule out the possibility of an attempted assassination or worse if he is caught off his guard. Mr. President, I am deeply concerned for your personal safety and would respectfully urge you to strengthen your bodyguard, especially when you are in the streets and other public places." - John Pendragin, astrologer, in British Fate magazine, October 25, 1963
  
• 10/25/1963 The New Orleans FBI office advised Hosty that through another agency they had determined that Oswald had made contact with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City a few days earlier. Report by FBI agent DeBrueys determined that Oswald's ties to the FPCC didn't seem to pan out and the P.O. Box number on his handouts "was determined to be non-existent."
  
• 10/25/1963 Ambassador Lodge cabled that a coup in South Vietnam was likely and should not be prevented by the US.
  
• 10/26/1963 (Sat) New Orleans FBI tells Dallas office that Oswalds have moved from their Irving address, and requests that their new location be found.
  
• 10/26/1963 Khrushchev said the Soviets would not race the US to the moon, but ruled out the joint mission JFK had proposed. Khrushchev also called for a cooling-off period in the dispute between USSR and China.
  
• 10/26/1963 Jimmy Hoffa financial adviser Irwin S. Weiner had a phone conversation with Jack Ruby at 12:07pm.
  
• 10/27/1963 (Sun) Headline in Dallas Morning News: Mayor Cabell is quoted as saying about the people who attacked Stevenson, "They are not conservatives, they are radicals….We have an opportunity to redeem ourselves when the President pays us a visit next month."
  
• 10/28/1963 (Mon) Former CIA Director Allen Dulles was in Dallas. A luncheon was put on at the Baker Hotel where the Dallas Council on World Affairs honored him. Dulles gave a speech titled, 'The American Intelligence Service - Its Role In Our National Security'.
  
• 10/28/1963 Democratic advance man Jerry Bruno arrived in Austin, Texas.
  
• 10/28/1963 Oswald drives in to work with Frazier, returns to his roominghouse after work. Dallas City Council unanimously passed an ordinance forbidding the harassment of public speakers. Business leaders were becoming increasingly concerned that the fanatical fringe was making the city look bad.
  
• 10/28/1963 After three weeks without a reply from Havana, with Attwood's approval Lisa Howard began phoning Rene Vallejo, Castro's aide and confidant, who favored a U.S .-Cuban dialogue. Howard doubted the message from Lechuga had ever gotten past the Cuban Foreign Office.
  
• 10/28/1963 The Militant accuses Kennedy of stripping the civil rights bill to appeal to Southern racists. Radio Havana slams the US for continued terrorist acts against Cuba.
  
• 10/29/1963 (Tue) After a week of leaving phone messages for Lisa Howard, Castro's aide Rene Vallejo finally reached Howard at her home. He assured her that Castro was as eager as he had been during her visit in April to improve relations with the United States.
  
• 10/29/1963 Desmond FitzGerald, a senior CIA official, meets AM/LASH. Fitzgerald tells him that a coup against Castro would receive U.S. support.
  
• 10/29/1963 New Orleans FBI office advised Hosty that they had a Dallas-area address for the Oswalds, 2515 W. 5th St., Irving. He places a higher priority on finding Oswald now that he knows Oswald had been in contact with the Soviet embassy. (H 4 447) Today, Hosty also goes out to Irving and talks with Dorothy Roberts, who tells him that Ruth Paine has a Russian-speaking woman living with her.
  
• 10/29/1963 In a NSC meeting, RFK, Taylor, and McCone recommended that it would not be wise to abandon Diem at this point. (In Retrospect 81) JFK cables Lodge to ask the generals to postpone the coup, but Lodge never delivers the message. (World Almanac of the Vietnam War)
  
• 10/29/1963 Radio Havana accuses the US of planning another invasion of Cuba.
  
• 10/30/1963 (Wed) Hosty tells New Orleans FBI that the Oswalds live with Ruth Paine, but Lee lives elsewhere.
  
• 10/30/1963 Investigation by Secret Service of threats to JFK, two involving his trip to Dallas, the third giving no details on time or place. In the third case, Secret Service report says subject was interviewed by FBI 11/14/63, with no indication where this was done; subject reported to have told FBI he was a member of the KKK and that assassination attempt would be made by "militant group of National States Rights Party".
  
• 10/30/1963 Jack Ruby called Carlos Marcello lieutenant Nofio J. Pecora in New Orleans, apparently to reach Harold Tannenbaum.
  
• 10/30/1963 Cables between Washington and Saigon showed Lodge pushing for a coup, while the administration was more reluctant.
  
• 10/30/1963 Castro announced that they had captured several CIA agents and accused the CIA of operating a raider ship in a sabotage mission against Cuba.
  
• 10/31/1963 (Thu) Conservative romance novelist Taylor Caldwell wrote an editorial in the The Wanderer (St. Paul, Minnesota), warning that JFK might be assassinated by Communists or other leftists who were angry that he had not governed as they had hoped he would.
  
• 10/31/1963 JFK, in a press conference, made further reference to the withdrawing of advisors from Vietnam. He was also asked if he wanted LBJ on the ticket and if he would keep him on; Kennedy answered quickly, "Yes to both questions." He was also asked about the legality and propriety of Fred Korth's activity in the TFX scandal. Kennedy said he had "no evidence that Mr. Korth acted improperly in the TFX matter."
  
• 10/31/1963 JFK, RFK and Hoover had a private lunch. Dave Powers later said they might have discussed Hoover's retirement.
  
• 10/31/1963 An FBI report dealing with Oswald's finances suggests that he cashed a check in a grocery store in Irving the night of 10/31 (CE 1165) but the WC decided that this happened on Friday, 11/1, because Oswald supposedly only came home from Dallas on Fridays. (WR 331)
  
• 10/31/1963 Hosty spent considerable time interviewing people who knew the Paines and checked to see if they had any sort of police or subversive records. He found none. New Orleans FBI sends the results of its Oswald investigation to headquarters in Washington; Hoover in turn informs the CIA of Oswald's activities.
  
• 10/31/1963 Rene Vallejo phoned Lisa Howard again, saying " Castro would very much like to talk to the U.S. official anytime and appreciated the importance of discretion to all concerned. "
  
• 10/31/1963 Adm. Harry Felt flew to Saigon for talks with Lodge and Gen. Paul Harkins, as well as with Gen. Gran Van Don, one of the leaders in the plot that would out Diem. (NYT 11/1/63)
  
• 10/31/1963 This evening, the NYT correspondent in Saigon received a note with a coded message saying that the long-awaited coup was imminent. (Time 11/8/63)
  
• In late October, Oswald wrote to Arnold Johnson, information director of the Communist Party in New York City, that he had settled in Dallas.