North Carolina call still a mystery

[Tracy Riddle]

http://www.wfmynews2.com/story/news/loca.../76278952/

On November 23, 1963, as the clock neared midnight in Raleigh, an attempt was allegedly made at the Dallas County jail on behalf of Lee Harvey Oswald to contact one or two phone numbers in the 919 area code. It was the day after Oswald was arrested for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
What has come to be dubbed the "Raleigh Call" went unrecorded in the Warren Commission investigation. Later in the 1960s, one of the Dallas County switchboard operators on duty that night shared a story about the call with authorities.
WFMY News 2 first featured information about the call in November 2013.

The Raleigh Call links NC to the Assassination. Lee Harvey Oswald wanted to make a call from the Dallas jail to a man in Raleigh.



WATCH: Could NC Be The Missing Piece In The JFK Assassination?
The story goes that the operator reported that she had been asked to call two numbers in Raleigh, although without success, and then threw away the memo slip from the fruitless calls. Apparently she later recreated a slip, as a souvenir, that included two phone numbers along with the name "John Hurt."
Little has come of the story, and mysteries surrounding the call have contributed to assassination conspiracy theories. In July 1980, both the Raleigh Spectator and theNews and Observer printed articles attempting to expose details about the call, its related personalities and chain of events. And still the "Raleigh Call" and an Oswald connection to Raleigh remain an unsolved mystery.

[Jim Hargrove]

10:00 pm Oswald's 6[SUP]th[/SUP]Interrogation


At 10:00 pm Oswald was questioned briefly by Captain Fritz and at 10:45 pm
asked permission once again to use the telephone. He entered the jail telephone booth,
lifted the handset, and asked to place a long distance call. The operator who placed the
call was Louise G. Swinney, supervisor of the Dallas City Hall telephone operators,
while operator Alveeta A. Treon listened in. Oswald gave Mrs. Swinney two telephone
numbers in Raleigh, North Carolina: (919) 834-7430 and (919) 833-1253. Mrs. Swinney
wrote down the numbers, alerted the two unidentified men who were eavesdropping
in the next room,and began to dial the first number. Where did Oswald get these phone
numbers? There is no indication that he asked for a long distance information operator (free of
charge in 1963 ), and appears he knew these numbers from memory.


Mrs. Treon remembered when Oswald tried to place the call and told the
HSCA, "I was dumbfounded at what happened next. Mrs. Swinney opened the ( tele-
phone) key to Oswald and told him, 'I'm sorry, the number doesn't answer.' She then
unplugged and disconnected Oswald without ever really trying to put the call through.
A few moments later Mrs. Swinney tore the page off her notation and threw it into the
wastebasket." The HSCA reported, "Her (Mrs. Treon's) lasting impression of the events
that night is that Mrs. Swinney had been instructed by someone to not put the call
through for Oswald." [SUP]248[/SUP]

NOTE: Mrs. Swinneys actions clearly indicate she was ordered not to complete the call,
probably by the two unidentified men in the next room. Neither the Warren Commission,
FBI, or Dallas Police made any attempt to identify these men, who knew the identify of
each person Oswald telephoned and the substance of each conversation. If the two uni-
dentified men knew that Oswald was working as an undercover agent for the US gov-
ernment (CIA), and either knew or suspected that the person in Raleigh, North Carolina
was his contact, then they would not want any call to this man completed.

At 11:00 pm Mrs. Swinney left work and Mrs. Treon retrieved the note from the
wastebasket, which listed the phone numbers in North Carolina. She copied the infor-
mation onto a standard telephone operator's slip and wrote two phone numbers from
Raleigh, North Carolina-(919) 834-7430, (919) 833-1253-and the name, "John Hurt."
[SUP]Nov 22/23-56[/SUP]


In 1963 there were two John Hurt's living in Raleigh, North Carolina-- John D.
Hurt and John David Hurt-both of whom denied knowing Oswald. John David Hurt is
of particular interest because of his background in US Military Intelligence.


In 1978 the HSCA contacted John David Hurt at 201 Hillsborough St. Apt 4 in
Raleigh, NC (phone#919-834-7430). Hurt received a law degree from the University
of Georgia, but never practiced. He was formerly with the Army Counterintelligence
corps in Europe and Japan (1942-1946) and was recently in the insurance business. Hurt
was a short, middle-aged man who, as a result of severe arthritis, was missing most of
his fingers from both hands. He was disabled in 1955 and received full government
disability. John Hurt told HSCA investigators that he had phone number 919-834-7430
for the last 20years. [SUP]249

--from Harvey and Lee, p. 931.[/SUP]

[Jim DiEugenio]

JIm:

You left out the most important part.

The next day, Oswald was killed.

[Jim Hargrove]

[Laughing] Yeah, but that was no mystery.