Former Cambridge News journalist claims MI5 may have COVERED UP mystery JFK assassination tip-off
Dominic O'Brien questioned whether the reporter who took the call may have been persuaded to keep quiet about President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, Texas
A FORMER Cambridge News journalist claims the MI5 may have covered up the mystery tip-off about JFK's assassination.
Dominic O'Brien - who began working as a news reporter a few weeks after President Kenneday was shot dead in Dallas, Texas - questioned whether the reporter who took the call may have been persuaded to keep quiet about it.
A document released last week revealed the newspaper had received a call shortly after 6pm on November 22, 1963, warning "Call the American Embassy in London for some big news", before hanging up.
The document did not name the reporter, and the story that a call may have been made did not first emerge until the 1970s.
Former news journalists said they had no knowledge of the message.
But Mr O'Brien said the fact that he never heard anything about a mystery call during his 10 year time at the paper forces him to believe there a call may have taken place.
"It may be that this 'loyal person' was persuaded that it would be unhelpful if any reference to a call by then shown to have apparently given mysterious advance notice of a shocking and highly sensitive matter of international significance, and by then in the hands of MI5, found its way into print," the 74-year-old said.
Reacting to the newly-released document, former crime reporter Fulton Gillespie, said:
"There is no way in hell that would have happened without being talked about.
"There are three or four of us that still get together, 'the old farts', and there's no way that wouldn't have been talked about - that would have never ever got past us."
But Rodney Tibbs, 83, who was working as a reporter at the time, said the call "could never have happened".
He said: "The proof is that no story of that nature was ever published at the time. No such call was received as far as I'm concerned - You wouldn't just sit on a story like that.
"If we were onto something it would have been a front page lead. You would have got yourself the best front page lead you were ever going to get."
In full, the CIA document stated: “An anonymous call was made to Cambridge, England, to the senior reporter of the Cambridge News. The caller said only that the reporter should call the American Embassy in London for some big news, and then rang off.
"After word of the President’s death was received, the reporter informed the Cambridge police of the call. Important thing is that the call was made, according to British calculations, about 25 minutes before the President was shot.”
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