149 One FBI 17-11-1963 Teletype
Q: Mr. Walter, of course your name has popped up on terms of the, concerning the investigation of the Kennedy
assassination and indications that the FBI night have known before hand that there night have been an
assassination attempt and it all centers around a teletype statement or a memo of some sort. Can you tell us
what this is all about, sir, and what you got when you worked for the PEI?
Walter: Well, what was received by the New Orleans FBI Office on the 17th of November of 1963 was a normal
movement teletype that the FBI offices throughout the country would receive if a dignitary or the President
would cone into your area and they were primarily concerned with developing information as to if there were any
demonstrations planned or any embarrassing situations that the President or dignitary nay be placed in and this
particular teletype was sent from Washington to all the SACs in the offices and I happened to be working the
night from 12 midnight to 8 in the morning the night that it cane in, indicating that they, the FBI, had received
information that a possible attempt would be cads on President Kennedy's life in Dallas on the Dallas trip.
Q: Well, the FBI here is is denying any sort of knowledge of that Reno or any kind of teletype message whatsoever.
Are they just mistaken, or lying or covering mp, or what?
Walter: Well, that, you know that's, well, I guess that's for the public to decide. I'm willing to go to a Grand Jury or a
Senate investigative hearing and give and give the evidence that I have and also name names and I think possibly the
Bureau has always taken the position, and I don't have anything against the Bureau. I worked there for five and a half
years. Zr, the Bureau's always taken the position of don't embarrass the Bureau and they felt at this time that this
information couldn't couldn't have been handled in a more professional canner and wouldn't have had any sr. effect at
all on who would assassinate Kennedy.or of the outcome of the assassination.
(...)
Q: Did you put that, that teletype in the file when you received it?
Walter: No, my, my procedure was to call the Special Agent in Charge, then call the Agents, er, that would deal with
those kind of cases and then mark that notation on the file and put it on the Special Agent is Charge's desk. See, this
was, this came in at 1:47 a.m. Central Standard Tine, en, on the 17th of November, 1963.
Interviewer: And it apparently disappeared from that point on?
Walter: Well that was in the file at one stage and then of course after the assassination if, er,
a group of, er, employees at the office, we were concerned primarily over whether or not, er, anybody in the New Orleans
Office would, would be criticized for handling of that teletype or whether or not that teletype had produced any, er,
positive information as to anything that was gonna happen in Dallas and so a couple of us, who had talked about it, were
concerned about who was gonna get in trouble and if anybody was gonna get is trouble and we want back to locate the
teletype and we were able to locate it about three days after the assassination but after that we didn't see it any more.
And we looked.
(From
TRANSCRIPT OP TAPED INTERVIEW OF WILLIAM S. WALTER, MORNING OF OCTOBER 1, 1975 BY WGSO RADIO, NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA)
The Teletype message as remembered by William S. Walter:The committee also examined a claim by Walter that he saw a teletype on November 17,
1963, sent by FBI headquarters, warning that there would be an assassination attempt against
President Kennedy. Walter claimed the teletype had vanished a few days later, when he
tried to locate it after the shooting in Dallas. Walter's prime witness, whom he believed could
corroborate his story, has stated that she recalls nothing about it. Based on this, the Select
Committee concluded that Walter was not a credible witness. Based on several contacts with
Walter, the author concurs.
(Henry Hurt,
Reasonable Doubt, footnote on p. 306)
Vincent Michael Palamara is one of the most respected JFK assassination researchers. In his excellent, eye-
opening book
Survivor’s Guilt: The Secret Service and the Failure to Protect President Kennedy (2013), he
expresses no doubt that William S. Walter “received a memo via telex warning of a plot to kill JFK [by] ‘a militant
revolutionary group [which] may attempt to assassinate President Kennedy on his proposed trip to Dallas…’”
Palamara has come across an obscure official Secret Service document, dated only two days before the Walter
telex, and published by the Warren Commission in 1964, which seems to substantiate Walter’s testimony about
the telex. The document states on its face that it is based on “information received telephonically from FBI
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.” It also says that the FBI acquired its information from an individual “interviewed
by the FBI on November 14, 1963…” On page 65 of his book Palamara writes: “Some have tried to discredit the
authenticity of this telex, but a document ignored by the Warren Commission, and since discovered by the author,
appears to corroborate it. Originating from the San Antonio, Texas field office [of the Secret Service] and dated
11/15/63, here is the pertinent part of the text: ‘… a militant group of the National States Rights Party plans to
assassinate the President and other high-level officials.” (For anyone interested in crosschecking, a photocopy
of the Secret Service document Palamara refers to is on page 566 of volume 17 of the Hearings Before the
President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.)
(Donald E. Wilkes Jr.,
Did J. Edgar Hoover Kill JFK?, 12-27-2017)