OSWALD IN MONTREAL: A CONCLUSION

Is there any reality behind Jean-Paul Tremblay’s report? Why was the FBI report on Oswald’s apparition in Montreal suppressed for so many years?

At first view, when we know how much effort the Warren Commission and the FBI have investED to study Oswald every moves, we would think that the answer to Tremblay’s report would be: “We know as a fact that Oswald wasn’t in Montreal at this date, we had reports placing him in New Orleans.” But, even if the FBI tried to discredit Tremblay’s report with affirmation that Oswald, in June 1963, was working in N.O., at William Reily Coffee Co., the problem that still persist is that: 1) the FBI made, voluntarily or not, a poor job at determining the time of the Oswald in Montreal sighting; and 2) the FBI information about Oswald’s activity at the most probable time for his Montreal presence is quite weak. If we pay attention to those 2 points, we may find that there is indeed a possibility that Oswald’s known whereabouts doesn’t rule out the possibility that he might have traveled to Montreal in spring 1963.

Let see a few excerpts from the FBI report:
“(…) Jean Paul Tremblay, Investigator, Customs and Excise, Montreal said on November 27, 1963, that he, Tremblay, had received one of the above—mentioned pamphlets from a man St. Jacques Street in Montreal. He said he believed this incident occurred in August, 1963, and he, Tremblay, is positive this individual was LEE OSWALD. According to Mr. Chasse, Tremblay said OSWALD at the time was accompanied by a short, homely, heavy woman who took unusually long steps when walking and by two men about the same age and weight as OWALD.”

“Photographs of persons participating in the Quebec-Washington-Guantanamo Walk for Peace in Montreal on June 7 and 8, 1963, were shown to Mr. Tremblay and he positively identified two of them as having been engaged in the distribution of leaflets on the day in question. One of the persons he positively identified was the woman referred to by Chasse in his letter to the Secret Service. The other person identified by Tremblay was believed by the agency making the above inquiry to be a Mr. Fred Moore of San Antonio, Texas.”

In the second excerpt there is a clever deception (or a embarrassing mistake) that you can detect only if you look at the photographs and if you have more background information on the QWG walk. The photos were not taken in Montreal, but in some countryside at an unspecified location. They may show persons that have participated at some events in Montreal, but the pictures were not taken during those events. The reality is that the pictures in the countryside were taken on June 7 and 8 but the QWG leaved town days earlier, around May 26. So inferring that Oswald was seen at the date the picture where shot is grossly deceptive.

So, even if Tremblay guessed he saw Oswald in August 1963, and even if the FBI placed this sighting in June, according to the chronology of the Québec-Washington-Guantanamo Peace Walk the only time when Tremblay could have seen Oswald leafleting with Fred Moore or Erika Enzer (the lady that Tremblay identified on picture) would be prior to the walk, thus before May 26, 1963.

The interesting thing is that this is one of the rare periods where Oswald whereabouts are poorly accounted for. In May, Oswald had left Dallas for New Orleans and had supposedly start to work for William B. Reily Coffee Co on May 15. But there is not a lot of witnesses and reports to corroborate Oswald was in New Orleans all of the time in May. John Newman, in Oswald and the CIA made a good case of showing that it is unclear exactly when the FBI knew of Oswald presence in N.O. at that time and that at least in one instance they were wrong on the date of his employment with Reily.

Newman wrote on page 288 of his book:
“Then something strange happened : the FBI lost track of Oswald for two months, from April 24, through June 26. These dates cover Oswald’s move to New Orleans and his first month of FPCC activity there.”
Newman also noted that there is at least one instance in which a FBI report about Oswald employment with Reily was giving a false date. At page 348, Newman wrote:
”On September 10, 1963, Special Agent Hosty sent a report to the Bureau and to New Orleans. (…) Hosty then said Oswald had been working at the William Reily Coffe Company on August 5. He apparently did not know that Oswald had been fired from his job at Reily Coffee on July 19.”

In addition of this foggy period in Oswald's chronology, another curious fact tends to give credibility to the possibility that Oswald took a trip to Montreal at this time. On May 29, just after his hypothetical return from Montreal, Oswald used the name “Osborne” when ordering FPCC handbill in New Orleans. The curious things are that: 1) Osborne was the name of Oswald’s companion on his us trip to Mexico, and 2) that Osborne was from Montreal. That opens many questions: Did Oswald knew Osborne during his spring trip to Montreal? Did Osborne travel to Montreal with Oswald just as he did when Oswald got to Mexico to visit the Cuban embassy? Was Osborne, in Montreal, an handler of Oswald in his FPCC penetration activities?

In conclusion, given Jean-Paul Tremblay’s credibility as a witness (he was a professional investigator); given Aurelien Chassé and Lawrence Fleshman’s endorsement of Tremblay’s account (they were U.S. treasury high officials); given the fact that both RCMP and FBI have not dismissed Tremblay’s account and had made investigative works on its basis; given the hole in Oswald’s whereabouts and his use of the Osborne name that seems to corroborate his contact with this Montrealer; I am on the opinion that Oswald was indeed the man seen by Tremblay in Montreal. Obviously, such a trip wasn’t initiate on his own and had intelligence purposes.