excerpt from
"The Case That Would Not Rest" by Andrew Hacker
The New York Review of Books
July 17, 1980
a review of Conspiracy by Anthony Summers (1980, McGraw-Hill)
However Summers found another connection which, even if circumstantial, has serious implications. While in the Dallas jail, Oswald was allowed two telephone calls, one of which went to the house where his wife was staying. The other was to a number in Area Code 919, which covers the eastern half of North Carolina. Neither his address book nor any other inquiries have shown that Oswald had contact with anyone in that region. However as it happened, his freedom to make calls was not wholly unrestricted. Two men with federal credentials stationed themselves by the switchboard and, on hearing the request for the 919 number, instructed the operator to tell Oswald that the call could not get through. Who might Oswald have been calling in his final hour of need? The only hint comes from Victor Marchetti, who recollected to Summers that Naval Intelligence had a program at Nags Head, North Carolina, for selected sailors and marines, "who were made to appear disenchanted, poor, American youths who had become turned off and wanted to see what communism was all about."
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