An Anonymous Tip

Officer J. D. Tippit of Dallas was killed shortly after the murder of
President Kennedy, several miles from the site of the assassination. The
Warren Commission determined that Tippit's murderer and Kennedy's were
one and the same -- Lee Harvey Oswald.

Mrs. Jack Tippit of Westport, Connecticut was married to a distant
relative of Tippit's. An FBI report of November 30, 1963, tells us she
received a telephone call shortly after the assassination from a woman
with a foreign accent. The woman had information to relay; she would not
identify herself. Jack Tippit picked up a second extension at about this
time, and overheard the rest of the call (57).

The caller implied she was calling from a public phone and refused to
identify herself; she said she was afraid of being killed. "The woman
requested that nothing be said to the press about a woman calling as they
would know her identity and she would be killed" (58).

"The woman said she personally knew Oswald's father and uncle. (Lee
Harvey Oswald of New Orleans had no father or uncles -- all were
deceased.) She said they were Hungarians, and had lived at 77th Street
and 2nd Avenue in New York. This is Manhattan's German community and
locally known as Yorkville. The two men had been unemployed, received all
their money from Communists, and spent all of their time on Communist
activities" (59).

The woman became audibly quite agitated, and her speech became indistinct
and disjointed. She mentioned the name "Emile Kardos," describing Kardos
as the "head of the Communists." She said this group in New York "now has
charts and maps," an item whose significance was never explained. She
said something about a "brother-in-law." When Mrs. Tippit tried to
question her about this, the woman simply kept repeating
"brother-in-law." She then mentioned someone named "Weinstock," the
editor of something the FBI report refers to as *Woman's World.* She said
the group in New York "plans to take over the government, that of course
they would deny this but she knew it to be true." She then hung up
abruptly. "Mrs. Tippit thought the woman had an Austrian or German
accent; Mr. Tippit believed it was Spanish. Both felt the woman sounded
like a mature adult and did not have a youthful voice," so they did not
consider it a crank call (60).

Louis Weinstock was an official of the Communist Party of the United
States in the '50s and '60s. He was not the editor of Woman's World, if
there was such a publication. As the FBI surely knew, he was general
manager and editor of *The Worker,* the Communist newspaper located at 23
West 26th Street in New York City which Lee Harvey Oswald subscribed to
and corresponded with. (As historian Peter Dale Scott points out,
Hoover's FBI had a habit of "mishearing" or "misspelling" sensitive
names; this may be the case in this report.)

Weinstock had written to Lee Harvey Oswald on December 19, 1962, as a
representative of *The Worker,* and was asked by the Warren Commission to
swear an affidavit explaining the circumstance. Oswald had written to the
Communist Party and *The Worker* a number of times, offering his services
as a "photographic expert," inquiring about job openings in their New
York office, and asking advice on matters pertaining to his political
activities. One of these letters was answered by Louis Weinstock, who
thanked him for his interest, and said he would be in touch with him
about some photographic work (61). None of Oswald's correspondence seems
to have been addressed to Weinstock, and the letters don't appear to be
significantly different from those he addressed to other communist or
leftist organizations at the time.

"In New York City twelve years earlier, Louis Weinstock had been one of
twenty-one people arrested and facing trial for communist-related
activities (62). Weinstock must have had a good lawyer. This was the
height of the McCarthy era, when everyone was afraid of being labeled a
Communist. Is it likely that Hungarian immigrants would openly promote
Communism in the middle of New York City at a time when many of the most
active members of the American Communist Party were actually FBI agents
working undercover?" (63)

Clearly, the woman who phoned Mr. and Mrs. Jack Tippit connected
Weinstock with Oswald, from what she claimed was first-hand knowledge.
Given the danger of being an avowed Communist at that time, we speculate
that Oswald's Communist uncle and father may have been in reality agents
of American intelligence, acting as agents provocateur uncovering and
identifying domestic communists. An editorial position at a
Communist-affiliated newspaper would be an excellent vantage point for
such an operation.

Is there anything else linking Oswald to Hungary or Hungarians? Nothing
concrete. However, when Oswald was issued a passport on September 10,
1959, it bore not only the standard, printed message, "This passport is
not valid for travel to the following areas under control of authorities
with which the United States does not have diplomatic relations: Albania,
Bulgaria, and those portions of China, Korea and Viet-Nam under Communist
control" -- but also a particular stamped instruction: "This passport is
not valid for travel in Hungary." Over top of this stamp is stamped in
much larger letters, "VOID."

On September 23, 1998, this author wrote the Department of State, noting
these precise instructions on Oswald's passport and the date it was
issued - without using Oswald's name - and asking what the reason for
these two stamped additions were, if they were routine for a September
1959, and if the subject's status as a USMC reserve could be relevant. I
received a letter back on October 22, 1998, signed Vanessa D. Washington,
Chief, Research and Liaison Branch, Passport Services. The letter only
read, "In order to be of assistance in answering your questions, we need
to see the original passport book or copies of documents with the stamped
restrictions."

The Hungarian uprising of 1956 was far in the past. The US had no
specific sanctions upon travel to Hungary. The additions to the young
Marine's passport are as yet unexplained.

To suggest that the man known as Lee Harvey Oswald was born to one of the
men known by Mrs. Jack Tippit's anonymous caller is, of course, only a
theory. It is offered as a possible, partial explanation of the events
detailed below.

On November 29, 1994, the *New York Times* noted that Louis Weinstock, a
"top communist and a union leader," had died on November 26th. He was 91.