Lee Harvey Oswald's mysterious last phone call
And the two Secret Service men who had the attempted call cancelled.
On the evening of November 23, 1963, Alveeta Treon arrived for her shift as a Dallas jail telephonist.
On the fifth floor of the Dallas Municipal Building, she was greeted by her more senior colleague Louise Swinney.
If the mood in Dallas had been darkened by the Kennedy assassination, the presence of the man accused of killing him, now right there in the same building and on the same floor could only heighten the tension felt by Treon & Swinney.
Swinney told Treon they were instructed that at some point, Lee Harvey Oswald would be allowed to make a phone call. Then, two men, assumed to be Secret Service, would enter the fifth floor. They were to be admitted and shown a side room where they could monitor the phone call.
The two expected men knocked on the door of the switchboard room and shortly thereafter the bright red light on the switchboard blinked, indicating a call from the jail.
Treon later said that the two of them, her & Swinney, plugged their headphones, but the senior Swinney took the call. Oswald, who would be dead the next morning, tried to contact a lawyer. He then gave Swinney and the eavesdropping Treon the name of a person he wanted to talk to, their area code and two phone numbers.
Swinney took the key off the switchboard so Oswald could no longer hear her and switched over to the two men waiting in the side room. Meanwhile, Treon wrote down everything Oswald had said on a slip about this person he wanted to contact.
At this point, Treon said she could not hear what the two men told her colleague, but she added that Swinney looked visibly upset and nervous. When Swinney switched back to Oswald, she allegedly told him that no one answered his call.
The call, Treon said, was blocked by the two men in the side room.
For three years, from 1963 to 1966, this story remained unknown to the public until Treon told a friend during dinner about the slip. The friend, a man named Winston Smith who worked in law enforcement, later called her back informing her that he had notified Sheriff Mickey Owen and added that the FBI ought to look at the slip.
The FBI did not open an investigation, though they did interview Treon. In 1968, the story had leaked to the press. The Enquirer:
The man Oswald wanted to call, or at least the name Treon had written down, and the number matching this person, was “John Hurt” of Raleigh. He was a former Special Agent of U.S. Army Counterintelligence. It was remarkable for many reasons. This was, remember, back when every single U.S. intelligence and federal police agency denied knowing or dealing with Oswald. He was, they said, a lone gun nut, a communist gone rogue, a Soviet defector, a Cuban sympathiser. Yet here he was trying to call a former U.S. spy?
When Congress reopened the JFK case in 1976, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) interviewed Treon, who provided the testimony I opened this piece with. The HSCA also contacted Swinney, who until then had avoided the public eye. This is from the HSCA:
"When HSCA investigator Harold Rose approached 59-year-old Mrs. Swinney and identified himself, he reported she became 'very nervous' and asked, 'Do I have to talk about it? Are you going to harass me? What will happen to me if I don't talk about it?' After her fears were somewhat allayed, she told Rose that 'sometime around 7 p.m., November 23, 1963, she was told by the DPD [Dallas Police Department] that if Oswald tried to make any phone calls, they would send two men to the telephone room to 'tap in on the line.' She stated that about 10 p.m., two DPD homicide detectives came to the telephone room and identified themselves to her.' She revealed that 'Oswald tried to make two calls,' one to 'Lawyer Apt.' [sic] in New York and she doesn't remember where the other call was to.' According to her statement, 'she did not put either call through for Oswald.”
So Swinney said that Oswald first tried to call a lawyer and then called a second person whose name she could not remember, but she did not put through either of the calls. She also confirmed the presence of two men in a side room.
What could explain the attempted call to a former counterintelligence agent, if Oswald indeed was an agent himself, is the spycraft practice of contacting a “cut-out”, often used by the CIA during the cold war.
When an agent is trying to request help without blowing his cover, he would know the name or contact information of a NOC (non-official cover). Say, a former spy or asset or diplomat with no current ties to government who could, with plausible deniability, act as an intermediary between the agent and a case officer. The NOC would not know anything about which agents who might contact them, but would know that if anyone did approach them and did state the name or pseudonym of a case officer, they would deliver the information appropriately.
This cut-out strategy gives the NOC the ability to truthfully state that he did not know the agent who had tried to call him. But more importantly, it gives the case officer, and thus the Agency, the opportunity to assess if the agent could or should be assisted, without having to involve any Agency fingerprints if the answer turns out to be negative.
This cut-out strategy might have worked for Oswald during his shenanigans (or operations) in the Soviet Union or Mexico, or when he was arrested for “fighting” anti-Castro activists in New Orleans, but this was an entirely different ordeal alltogether: He was now charged with the assassination of the president. If this was Oswald’s motive for the attempted call, it goes without saying that a case officer would cut him out. The CIA would, as you would a patsy, throw him under the bus. The very attempt itself, if we accept this explanation, speaks then to the desperation Oswald felt.
The HSCA went on to interview John Hurt, the counterintelligence agent and the alleged NOC. He confirmed that the phone number written on Treon’s slip was and he confirmed his past as a Special Agent, but denied knowing anything about Oswald or being involved in any clandestine intelligence work after he officially left the field. We might never know the intent or purpose of the attempted call, nor the role of John Hurt or any other alleged NOC, until relevant documents are declassified by the CIA.
Yet this attempted call stands out as one of many peculiarities about Oswald. Here is a man in the most excruciating hot seat on earth, accused of murdering the president, isolated in a jail cell and given a couple of minutes of call time. Excluding a laywer, whom he attempted to call, he could call his parents, his wife, friends, co-workers, anyone. But he called a former counterintelligence agent? And then, two alleged Secret Service agents cut him off?
For those interested, this is what the Congressional HSCA concluded about Treon, Hurt and Oswald:
The information provided by Mrs. Treon, her daughter, and Louise Swinney all indicate that Oswald did in fact attempt to place a call from the Dallas City Hall Jail on the night of November 23, 1963. Ms. Kovac and Mrs. Swinney also confirm Mrs. Treon's allegation that "law enforcement" officials came into the switchboard room at the time of Oswald's call. The Committee has been unable to identify those men or the agency for which they worked.
Mrs. Treon's account would indicate also that Mrs. Swinney deceived Oswald and did not put his call through as requested. If believed, that may indicate there was some agreement between Mrs. Swinney and the law enforcement officials to thwart Oswald's attempt to place a call from the jail. It is known that Oswald never reached Attorney John Abt in New York City to represent him after his arrest. If the law enforcement officials did in fact interfere with Oswald's attempt to contact an attorney, the committee recognizes that that would have been a serious violation of his constitutional rights, in view of how long he had been in custody at that point and the extensive interrogation to which he had been subjected.
The Committee also notes that Mrs. Swinney appeared nervous when contacted by Committee investigators to discuss the incident. While that may indicate some concern on the part of Mrs. Swinney that she had been involved in something devious, the Committee is not able to conclude as a fact based on what has been presented that there was actually interference with Oswald's call by Mrs. Swinney.
The Committee has not been able to find any corroboration that Oswald did in fact try to call john Hurt of Raleigh, North Carolina, or even that Oswald was acquainted with a man named John Hurt. However, the allegation is disturbing because the Committee has found no evidence that Mrs. Treon had any motive to invent the story, especially with such precise details as the actual phone number listed to John Hurt.
The fact that the telephone call slip listed two numbers, both for men named John Hurt in Raleigh, North Carolina, makes it seem less plausible that Oswald was in fact trying to call one of the men. If the man had been an actual associate, it is doubtful that Oswald would have given both numbers.
While the Committee cannot explain how John Hurt's name and phone number have been raised in the assassination investigation, several "possible" explanations present themselves. If Mrs. Treon is to [be] believed, it is possible that someone had given Oswald the name and numbers to trick or deceive Oswald by putting him in touch with a person who was not in any way able to help him after his arrest. On the other hand, the fact that two numbers for two different men with the same name are given could indicate that Mrs. Treon had misunderstood the name she thought she heard on the switchboard phone, and then gotten the numbers from directory assistance to complete the telephone call slip. Each of these theories is of course mere speculation, and in the absence of any real information on how the name was given to Oswald or Mrs. Treon, cannot be resolved by this Committee.
Based on information received by the Committee that a John Heard or Hurt was being investigated by the U.S. Secret Service at the time of the assassination, it is also possible that John Hurt's name has merely been confused with a name phonetically similar. However, that does not explain how John Hurt's telephone number and the city in which he lived were also included. The Committee is also concerned by the independent allegation that John Heard or Hurt was in fact being investigated. However, the Committee cannot form any conclusion about the fact of that allegation in view of the response of the Secret Service to the contrary.
While the fact that Hurt had actually served in U.S. Army Intelligence was a provocative lead, the Committee has found no evidence to indicate that Hurt had any military intelligence assignment at the time of the assassination. His veteran records are consistent with what he told Committee investigators, that he has had no active3 military assignment or employment since the end of World War II.
Based on its investigation of Hurt and information available to the Committee from several government agencies, the Committee is satisfied that John David Hurt was in no way involved in the assassination or any subsequent investigations.
Proctor, Grover B. “Oswald’s Raleigh Call.” Raleigh Spectator (Raleigh, N.C.), July 24, 1980.
Smith, Pat. “Oswald May have tried to call Raleigh man from Dallas Jail.” News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), July 17, 1980.
JFK Assassination Records. National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report