Hugh Aynesworth...Solver of the Kennedy Assassination

[Jerry Freeman]

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.

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.

[Charles Collins]

Quote
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.
Quote
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.

[Jerry Freeman]

Please tell us the basis for that conclusion

Go get your eyes checked. If you are going to troll my posts...try being a bit more creative. I will enlarge print for your apparent deficient vision.---

About a week after the assassination, Aynesworth, along with Bill Alexander, an assistant district attorney in Dallas, decided to find out if Lee Oswald had been an informant of the Dallas FBI, and of mine in particular. To this end, they concocted a totally false story about how Lee Oswald was a regularly paid informant of the Dallas FBI. At the time, I had no idea what information the Houston Post was relying on; it wasn't until February 1976, in Esquire magazine, that Aynesworth finally admitted he and Alexander had lied and made up the entire story in an effort to draw the FBI out on this issue. They said Oswald was paid $200 a month and even made up an imaginary informant number for Oswald, S172 - which was not in any way how the FBI classified their informants. Aynesworth then fed this story to Lonnie Hudkins of the Post, who ran it on January 1, 1964. Hudkins cited confidential but reliable sources for his story's allegations. The FBI issued a flat denial of the Post story. I was once again prohibited by Bureau procedure from commenting. It was clear that they were pointing a finger at me, since I was known to be the agent in charge of the Oswald file.

                                                                                                     James Hosty, Assignment: Oswald

 FBI SA James Hosty... --Aynesworth = liar ............source cited
Aynesworth---I am not a liar---trust me [meaning = f**k off]
Whether or not Oswald was actually an informant for the FBI could not be revealed...so we will never know. We do know that Aynesworth supplied mis-information unless this post was read with your eyes closed. I realize that Mr Aynesworth must have really sugar talked you somewhere along the line.
Have him canonized if you wish.

[Charles Collins]

Go get your eyes checked. If you are going to troll my posts...try being a bit more creative. I will enlarge print for your apparent deficient vision.---                                                                                                     James Hosty, Assignment: Oswald

 FBI SA James Hosty... --Aynesworth = liar ............source cited
Aynesworth---I am not a liar---trust me [meaning = f**k off]
Whether or not Oswald was actually an informant for the FBI could not be revealed...so we will never know. We do know that Aynesworth supplied mis-information unless this post was read with your eyes closed. I realize that Mr Aynesworth must have really sugar talked you somewhere along the line.
Have him canonized if you wish.

Go get your eyes checked.

Your post that you made your claim in doesn't include any basis for your claim. If it is in an earlier post, then I missed it because I didn't look back there. Include something to support your claim in the same post as your claim and you might be able avoid such confusion.


FBI SA James Hosty... --Aynesworth = liar ............source cited
Aynesworth---I am not a liar---trust me [meaning = f**k off]
Whether or not Oswald was actually an informant for the FBI could not be revealed...so we will never know. We do know that Aynesworth supplied mis-information unless this post was read with your eyes closed. I realize that Mr Aynesworth must have really sugar talked you somewhere along the line.
Have him canonized if you wish.

You are now referencing an entirely different event than you did in the post that has your claim and that I responded to earlier. Here is another side of this incident from "Witness to History by Hugh Aynesworth:

One reporter who felt certain Oswald had worked for the government was Alonzo "Lonnie" Hudkins of the Houston Post. Lonnie called constantly, hoping I'd uncovered something to move the story along. In time, I grew tired of Lonnie's queries, especially since I doubted his sources were that good. One day as I was busily juggling deadline stories for Newsweek, where I was then a stringer, and the Times of London as well as a weekend piece for the News, Lonnie called once more and asked me, "You hear anything about this FBI link with Oswald?" Tired of him bugging me, I said to him "You got his payroll number, don't you?"

"Yeah, yeah," Lonnie said.

I reached over on my desk for a telegram and read part of a Telex number to him.

"Yeah, yeah, he said, "that's the same one I've got."

I knew that if Lonnie accepted the number as legitimate, he had nothing. He said he'd check his sources and get back to me.

Weeks passed, and I forgot about the call until January 1, 1964, when Hudkins published a front page article in the Post, alleging that Oswald may have been a federal operative. Naturally the story caused quite a stir. Members of the newly created Warren Commission summoned several top Texas law enforcement officials and advisers to Washingto to discuss the development, including Waggoner Carr, the state Attorney General, Dallas DA Henry Wade, and his assistant Bill Alexander; J. Edgar Hoover of course told the commission that the story was not true. The Texas folks denied any knowledge of where Hudkins got his story, and the story pretty much died - for a while.

Lonnie never disclosed his source for the bogus number, and I didn't admit to it for at least several years.

FBI Agent Joe Hosty was among those upset over the Hudkins story. In Assignment Oswald, he castigated me not only for the Jack Revill story that Jim Ewell and I published but also for being, along with Bill Alexander, the supposed source of Hudkins' fantasy.

When Hosty later called me, it was in part to apologize for that mistake. "Just wanted you to know that I visited with Hudkins later," he said, "and understand that it was his contention, not yours and Alexander's, about the alleged financial connection between the bureau and Oswald. I always admit my errors."



I know that you desperately want to believe Aynesworth is a liar. But it doesn't appear that way to me.

[Jerry Freeman]

I know that you desperately want to believe Aynesworth is a liar. But it doesn't appear that way to me.

And you desperately want to believe that he isn't...illustrating that you never will.
So I might as well continue this particular discussion with the dead as discussed in another post
One thing I did enjoy was about his stuff--- is when Mr Anyesworth called out Bill O'Reilly in his lie about his uncertain presence in Florida [from the BS book 'Killing Kennedy']
I never did like snotty snobby Bill O'Reilly who BTW was too famously heralded also.
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/hugh-aynesworth-talks-about-why-bill-oreilly-would-lie-about-jfk-assassination-7122922

[Dale Nason]

Jerry, I appreciate that you have an opinion. However, I think you'd have a much more acceptable opinion if you didn't automatically criticize others opinions or statements. I've made it a point to not get into arguments or heated discussions with others on here because I'm more into learning about facts and new information than getting insulted or criticized because I disagree with someone. I'm not here for the DRAMA. As Joe Friday said in DRAGNET....." just the facts ma'am, just the facts".

[Jerry Freeman]

   Quote from: Dale Nason on Today at 06:58:36 PM

    Jerry, I appreciate that you have an opinion.

You are also entitled to yours.