The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Papers reveal a British newspaper received a phone call about ‘some big news’ 25 minutes before the assassination
A British local newspaper received an anonymous call about “some big news” in America 25 minutes before President John F Kennedy was assassinated, documents have shown.
The revelation was made in papers relating to the killing, which happened on November 22 1963.
A memo to the director of the FBI said the anonymous phone call was made to the senior reporter at the Cambridge News at 6.05pm on the day Kennedy was shot in Dallas, Texas.
The document, from deputy director James Angleton, said: “The British Security Service (MI-5) has reported that at 1805GMT on 22 November an anonymous telephone call was made in Cambridge, England, to the senior reporter of the Cambridge News.
“The caller said only that the Cambridge News reporter should call the American Embassy in London for some big news and then hung up.”
President Kennedy was shot as he rode in a presidential motorcade in Dealey Plaza at 12.30pm Central Standard Time, which is six hours behind Greenwich Mean Time.
The memo added: “After the word of the president’s death was received the reporter informed the Cambridge police of the anonymous call and the police informed MI-5.
“The important point is that the call was made, according to MI-5 calculations, about 25 minutes before the President was shot.
A copy of the memo, dated November 26 1963, was released by the National Archives in July this year, but had gone unreported until the latest batch of documents pertaining to the Kennedy assassination were released this week.
Partial records from long-secret files relating to the assassination capture the frantic days following the killing as officials madly chased after tips, juggled rumours and sifted through leads worldwide.
The final cache of official secret papers had been expected to be released on Thursday, but US President Donald Trump delayed the publication of hundreds of records.
In the end, 2,800 documents were released, while others were kept secret because of national security concerns.
Among the records published were cables, notes and reports stamped “Secret” that reveal the suspicions of the era around Cubans and Communists.
They cast a wide net over varied activities of the Kennedy administration, such as its covert efforts to upend Fidel Castro’s government in Cuba.
In the chaotic aftermath of the assassination, followed two days later by the murder of the shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, while in police custody, FBI director J Edgar Hoover vented his frustration in a formerly secret report found in the files.
“The thing I am concerned about, and so is (deputy attorney general) Mr Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin,” he said.
He also reported: “Last night we received a call from our Dallas office from a man talking in a calm voice and saying he was a member of a committee organised to kill Oswald.”
Hoover said he relayed that warning to Dallas police and was assured Oswald would be sufficiently protected. Oswald was shot dead the next day by Jack Ruby.
A document from 1975 contains a partial deposition by Richard Helms, a deputy CIA director under Kennedy who later became CIA chief, to the Rockefeller Commission, which was studying unauthorised CIA activities in domestic affairs.
A commission lawyer asks Helms: “Is there any information involved with the assassination of President Kennedy which in any way shows that Lee Harvey Oswald was in some way a CIA agent or agent” – here the document ends, short of his answer.