Possible Hijack Collaborator - Richard Case Nagell - After August 6, 1963

This article concludes a series.

The first article was Lee Harvey Oswald's Activities During the Housemans' Vacation.

The second article was The Oswalds' Plan to Hijack an Airplane.

The third article was Possible Hijack Collaborator - Jack Leslie Bowen.

The fourth article was Possible Hijack Collaborator - Richard Case Nagell - Through August 6, 1963

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From about August 9 to September 10, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald planned to hijack an airplane in order to fly himself, his wife Marina and his daughter June to Cuba. Marina tried to talk him out of the plan but reluctantly agreed to go along with him.

At one point during this period, Lee told Marina that some other man -- Lee did not name the man to Marina -- had offered to help Lee take over the airplane. Lee considered the man's offer but ultimately rejected it. Lee explained to Marina that, "your accomplice is your enemy for life".

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I think that such an offer was made to Oswald by Richard Case Nagell, a financially troubled former US Army counter-intelligence officer.

In the summer of 1962, Nagell had been fired from his job working as an investigator for the California state government. Nagell's wife left him, taking along their two children, and demanded child support. Therefore Nagell tried to earn money by selling secrets first to the Cuban intelligence service, then to the Soviet intelligence service, and third to the CIA. Nagell did not realize that his Cuban contact and his CIA contact actually were FBI agents, who were interested mostly in learning from him about his interactions with his Soviet contact.

The Soviet contact instructed Nagell to collect information about the Oswalds. Nagell visited Dallas in October 1962 and in April 1963 to collect such information. Nagell claims that he and Oswald met secretly in Mexico City at the end of July 1963. (This trip of Oswald to Mexico City is unknown; it is not Oswald's famous trip at the end of September 1963.) On August 6, Nagell returned from Mexico City to Los Angeles.

On August 5 and 8, two airplanes were hijacked to Cuba. In the following days, Oswald in New Orleans began to develop his plan to hijack an airliner to Cuba.

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On August 10, the Houseman family arrived at Kellerman's Mountain House.

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Nagell's activities during August and September 1963 are mysterious. He never told his full story in a coherent manner. He did not want to admit that he had been trying to sell secrets to Cuba and to the Soviet Union or that he had been deceived and manipulated by the FBI. He was a liar and fabricator, and he often was confused, paranoid and irrational.

However, his claim that the Soviet intelligence service had tasked him to collect information about the Oswalds is plausible. Nagell's collection effort eventually might have led him to meet personally with Oswald in August and September. Nagell might have secretly tape-recorded Oswald involved in a discussion with two Cuban immigrants about assassinating President Kennedy. Nagell might have tried to sell that tape recording to the FBI. That is the essence of what happened with Nagell, in my opinion.

Furthermore, I speculate that Oswald discussed his hijack plan with Nagell and that Nagell played along but ultimately argued against that plan.

However, during August and September 1963, Oswald was not thinking about assassinating President Kennedy. If Nagell indeed recorded Oswald participating in such a conversation, Oswald was merely playing along with the two Cubans who were driving the conversation. During August and September, Oswald was preoccupied with his desire to emigrate to Cuba.

Years later, Nagell's incoherent, self-serving story was blown out of proportion. Nagell has received more credit than he has deserved because (I believe) the FBI has covered up his story and has persecuted him in order to discredit and silence him.

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In Los Angeles during August, Nagell continued (he claimed) to spy on two Cuban immigrants -- "Angel" and "Leopoldo" -- who were planning to assassinate President Kennedy. Through some unknown series of events, Nagell met with Oswald during August 23-27 in New Orleans, where Nagell secretly tape-recorded a conversation that included himself, Oswald, Angel and another person (logically, Leopoldo). In this tape-recorded conversation, the four men discussed assassinating President Kennedy.

If Angel and Leopoldo really existed and if this conversation really happened, then I speculate that Oswald was merely playing along with the assassination talk, primarily in order to somehow get money to buy airplane tickets.

Nagell's motivation for arranging and tape-recording such a conversation would have been to sell incriminating information about Angel and Leopoldo to his various intelligence-service contacts.

Nagell has claimed that on August 27 Nagell tried to warn the CIA that Angel was trying to recruit Oswald for a plot to assassinate President Kennedy. What really happened (I think) was that Nagell tried to sell his tape-recording to his CIA contact (i.e. to the FBI employee, "Bob", pretending to be Nagell's CIA contact).  However, Nagell did not get the price he demanded, so he kept the tape-recording for a potential future sale.

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During the last days of August when Nagell was meeting with Oswald in New Orleans, Nagell began persuading Oswald to give up his plan to hijack an airliner. Nagell initially played along with Oswalds plan by offering to help in the hijacking. After he gained Oswald's confidence, however, Nagell began persuading him to return to Mexico City a second time in order to apply for a visas at the Cuban and Soviet embassies.

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Years later, Nagell wrote a memorandum that summarized some of his adventures as follows:

During the period 1962-1963, and prior thereto, as a civilian, I may have performed intelligence services for a foreign nation, after being deceived by signing a contract and by other reasons into thinking that I was functioning for the CIA.

I arrived at this conclusion in September 1963, after conducting investigations of certain persons, among whom were ... Lee H. Oswald, later accused as the lone assassin of President John F. Kennedy.

In other words, during September 1963 figured out that "Bob" was not really a CIA officer. However, Nagell did not figure out that "Bob" was an FBI officer. Rather, Nagell guessed incorrectly that "Bob" was a Cuban or Soviet intelligence officer.

Nagell explained his situation to New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who in turn wrote a memorandum summarizing Nagell's situation as follows:

In late August or early September of 1963 for reasons he [Nagell] would not spell out, it became apparent that an exceedingly large – he emphasized the word "large" – operation, pointing toward the assassination of President Kennedy, was under way.

At just about the time of this discovery, for reasons he would not explain, the individual who had given him the assignment was moved to another part of the country, and Nagell suddenly found himself without a direct contact.

Nagell writes that after he failed in his efforts to contact the CIA and FBI, he tried to "neutralize" the assassination plot.

... When I signed papers in 1962 acknowledging I was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency, I did so in good faith and with a clear conscience, and I did not know or even suspect I was working for other interests.

Later, when I became cognizant of my actual employer, I made every reasonable effort to correct the situation. I initiated a number of approaches to both the CIA and the FBI in Mexico and in five different locales within the United States.

When these agencies demonstrated they considered me just another crank, or, in the case of the FBI specifically, when its agents seemed more bent on trying me into a violation of the law than helping me, I took other steps to neutralized the capacity in which I was acting. ...

Nagell therefore met with Oswald on about September 10 to discourage him from further collaboration we Angel and Leopoldo. Nagell later described this meeting as follows:

In September 1963, "Laredo" [Nagell] (a code name unknown to Oswald) met with Oswald at Jackson Squire in New Orleans, where both were photographed. Photos of two of Oswald's associates, whom I specially call "Leopoldo" and "Angel," were displayed to Oswald.

Oswald was informed [by Nagell] that neither Leopoldo nor Angel were agents of Cuban G-2 (as the Dirección General de Intelligencia was then called), a story they had strapped on Oswald the previous month. He was informed that the two were in fact counter-revolutionaries known to be connected with a violence-prone faction of a CIA-financed group operating in Mexico City (and elsewhere), that in 1962 both of them had participated in a bomb-throwing incident directed against an employee of the Cuban Embassy there, that both were well-known to Cuban and Mexican authorities and, of course, to the CIA.

He [Oswald] was informed [by Nagell], in so many words, that he was being "used" by fascist elements in an attempt to disrupt the Cuban revolution to ruin chances for a contemplated rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, probably to incite the U.S. government to initiate severe retaliatory measures against Cuba (in the form of an invasion), etc.

He [Oswald] was asked [by Nagell] some subtle questions relating to his discussions with Leopoldo and Angel, about his pending move to Baltimore, Md., why he was going there without his wife and child, etc. Despite evidence to contrary, he denied that there had been any serious discussion to kill President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, or anybody else.

In mid-September, Nagell finally heard again from "Bob," who was now considered by Nagell to be a KGB agent, not a CIA agent. It seems that "Bob" officially informed Nagell that he preparations had been completed for some new task that Nagell was supposed to do.

In Sept.1963 I was informed by an American, known to me as an agent of the same foreign government, that arrangements for my participation in the aforementioned [undefined criminal] act were completed. At this time I refused the aforesaid proposal.

Because Nagell now believed that "Bob" really was a Cuban or Soviet agent, Nagell refused to cooperate further with him.

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Now Nagell tried again to sell his secrets directly with the FBI. Sometime during the days September 13-17 he sent the FBI a letter that he later described as follows:

... In the aforesaid letter [sent during September 13-17], I advised [FBI Director] Mr. Hoover of a conspiracy (although I did not use the word "conspiracy") involving Lee Harvey Oswald "to murder the Chief Executive of the United States, (President) John F. Kennedy." I indicated that the attempt would take place "during the latter part of September (1963), probably on the 26th, 27th, 28th, or 29th," presumably at Washington, D.C.

I furnished a complete and accurate physical description of Mr. Oswald, listing his true name, two of his aliases, his residence address, and other pertinent facts about him. I disclosed sufficient data about the conspiracy (citing an overt act which constituted a violation of federal law) to warrant an immediate investigation if not an arrest of Mr. Oswald.

I revealed something about myself which incriminated me on another matter. I stated "by the time you receive this letter, I shall have departed the USA for good." ...

I think that if Nagell really did send such a letter to the FBI, then at least part of his motivation was to sell his tape-recording of Oswald, Angel and Leopoldo discussing plans to assassinate President Kennedy.

The FBI has denied all knowledge of Nagell's letter, and Nagell himself did not keep a copy. It's certainly possible that Nagell never sent such a letter at all, but I believe that he did send the letter and that the FBI eventually destroyed it.

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On September 17 -- about the same day when Nagell sent his letter to the FBI -- Oswald went to a Mexican consulate in New Orleans and obtained a visa to visit Mexico, where he intended to visit the Cuban Embassy and obtain a visa to travel from Mexico to Cuba. So, Oswald had been convinced -- perhaps by Nagell -- to give up the hijack plan for good.

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Three days later, on September 20, Nagell walked into a bank, shot two bullets into the banks' ceiling, walked outside, and waited for the police to arrive to arrest him. Later he explained that he did so in order to obtain psychiatric treatment.

Even though it was obvious that Nagell had not really attempted to rob the bank, he was sentenced to ten years in prison. That punishment caused reasonable suspicions that the US Government was trying to silence Nagell.

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A superb account of Nagell's activities has been written by Dave Reitzes. If you read all of it, you will see that Nagell became insane by the end of his life.

Below is a video of Dick Russell talking about his book The Man Who Knew Too Much.