Erasing the Past to Protect a Fairytale

84. The after-action reports of Army Intelligence officer Edward J. Coyle


Related:
82 James Powell's other 22-11-1963 Love Field/ Dealey Plaza photographs
83 James Powell's notes

"You know, I don’t recall writing any reports. I really don’t. And yet this was so much a part of
our activities that I must have. I must have."

(Transcript of ARRB Interview with Edward J. Coyle, October 26, 1996)


TSBD at 12:42 on 22-11-1963

The John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Act, passed in 1992. requires "expeditious
disclosure" of all assassination-related documents.

One federal agency that has failed to produce any documents is U.S. Army Intelligence.
(...) Nor has the Army found the after-action reports of Edward J. Coyle, the Army
counterintelligence officer who was monitoring the Fort Hood investigation and who met
with Frank Ellsworth on Nov. 22, 1963. Coyle's written reports, if they exist, are relevant
to the assassination because he was also assigned to presidential security that day,
according to the sworn testimony of his commanding officers.

(Ray and Mary La Fontaine,The Fourth Tramp, Oswald's Lost Cellmate and the Gunrunners
of Dallas, THE WASHINGTON POST, SUNDAY, August 7, 1994)


(The) meeting of federal agents familiar with the Fort
Hood arms thefts (.... ) included James Hosty of the FBI and a U.S. Army counterintelligence
officer named Edward J. Coyle. On the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, while the rest of the city
buzzed in anticipation of President Kennedy's visit, the three agents discussed the Fort Hood
case. In a 1993 interview, Hosty explained that Ellsworth was particularly interested in the
possible involvement of the Dallas Minutemen in the thefts.

While Ellsworth shared what he knew with his colleagues, he didn't gain much information
in return. In Hosty's account of the meeting, there was no discussion of the bureau's
use of Nonte to obtain inside information (about the possible Cuba invasion) from Masen.
The meeting broke up around noon. Half an hour later, Ellsworth heard that the president's
motorcade had been shot at and he rushed to Dealey Plaza to search for clues.

(Ray and Mary La Fontaine, The Fourth Tramp, Oswald's Lost Cellmate and the Gunrunners
of Dallas, THE WASHINGTON POST, SUNDAY, August 7, 1994)


Coyle lived at 2809 San Marcos when assigned to Dallas

After the motorcade went by, I turned around and it was only half a block to our office. I walked
up the street, entered the building, and was just going to go up in the elevator and my boss, Steve
Weiss, came along, and we rode up to the 9th floor together. And he asked me if I had been to
lunch, and I said No, I hadn’t been, but I had to drop some things off in the office before I could go.
And when we went upstairs the radio was playing, and we said Hi to some people in the office, and
went about doing our business. We weren’t there but just a minute or so.

(...)

Colonel Pate was in his office, and he picked up his phone -- there were very few people in the
entire office during that time, because it was lunchtime -- he picked up the phone, and he heard
what the individual had said, and he told this individual: “You be damn sure.” He says, “Look, you go
out and you check with somebody else, and you be damn sure that the President has been shot
before we pass this news on to our headquarters.”

It was one of our agents, and he was in the School Book Depository Building. He told us where he
was. He called. He went out and he checked, and he called back again, and it was only a very short
period of time when he returned the phone call. And he said, “The President has been shot. Bring me
a camera.” And he wanted one of our cameras. Whether, why he wanted a camera, I have no idea,
but he asked for one. So we got a camera out of the supply room, we loaded it with film, and then
myself and I think it was Steve Weiss, we ran down to the School Book Depository Building. Now that
was only about five blocks from where we were, but the sirens were going so bad at that time --
every police vehicle in the city was headed for the School Book Depository Building, and the traffic
was just, you know, was just a mess down in that particular area. So we didn’t get in a car, we just
ran down there.

And when we got down to the School Book Depository Building, I could see our agent -- and I forget
his name. He was at the front door. He was inside the building. The police had cordoned off the
building: they would not let anybody in, and no one could get out. And they said that was going to be
that way until Jack Revill from the Dallas Police Department got there -- he was in charge of the
investigation of the people in that School Book Depository Building. But Jack was at the luncheon site
where they were going to have the luncheon for the President, and they had to wait for him to come
back to the School Book Depository Building. When Jack came back -- oh, while we were down there,
Frank Ellsworth was there too, because I remember seeing him. When Jack Revill arrived at the building,
I turn around, I knew Jack, and I told him, “Jack, one of our men is in that building.” I said, “I’d like to
get him out.” He asked me which one it was and I pointed it out to him, and he had one of the police
officers take down some information from him and he let him out of the building.

(...)

I think it was standard operational procedure for every military unit in the area. We kept track of ...
We would gather any information of news that came our way. I don’t know that we went out and
actually did any investigation of these groups. But any information that we became aware of was
reported to headquarters. Now let’s face it: I don’t know how many people know it, you know, but
the general public does not know that in the event of a military takeover in the United States that
the Army is in control? The Army is in control.

(Transcript of ARRB Interview with Edward J. Coyle, October 26, 1996)