Secrets & SPIES Who made the call to the Cambridge News in November 1963 and who received it? Chris Elliott digs deeper into the riddle of the phone message half an hour before JFK’s assassination T’S a mystery that may never, ever when thousands of other secret documents about the be solved. assassination were declassifed, makes no bones about Just over half a century ago, in saying the person involved was “known to them” – but the early evening of November 22 the name has never been formally revealed. 1963, the Cambridge News reportedly If the call was indeed made, why? And why the received an anonymous phone call Cambridge News, and not a national newspaper, or the – tipping off the paper about ‘big BBC? news’. One theory is that the caller was a Soviet agent based “Ring the American Embassy in London,” the caller in the UK, keen to sow the seed that the assassination urged, then rang off. was part of a conspiracy. Michael Eddowes, a London- IHalf an hour later, President John F Kennedy, based lawyer fascinated by the JKF story, told the News travelling in a motorcade 4,700 miles away in Dallas, in the early 1980s that he was convinced the call was Texas, was shot dead. genuine, and that the caller was a British-born Soviet It was an act of violence that stunned the world, agent, Albert Osborne – who two months before the but for some reason that telephone call to Cambridge, killing had been with Lee Harvey Oswald, the man which appeared to foreshadow the brutal event, was charged with murdering Kennedy. not reported. And it remained unreported for nearly a Mr Eddowes said the Soviets wanted to “leave decade and a half, until 1977, when it was revealed in a every single lead they could . and the call was their memo written soon after JFK’s assassination by James fnal effort.” The Cambridge News was alerted, he said, Angleton, chief of the CIA’s counter-intelligence unit. because if Osborne had rung a bigger organisation, The memo, uncovered under the USA’s Freedom of a national paper, the information might not have Information laws, was addressed to the then director surfaced, whereas the News was smaller and whoever of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover, and it said: “The British received it would be much more likely to pay attention Security Service (MI5) has reported that at 1805 GMT on to the message. 22 November an anonymous telephone call was made Another theory is that because of the infamous in Cambridge, England, to the senior reporter of the Cambridge Spy Ring – the nest of traitors who met at Cambridge News. Cambridge University and then began passing secrets “The caller said only that the Cambridge News to the Russians – the city was already known as a place reporter should call the American Embassy for some where conspiracy fourished. big news and then hung up. The call, of course, might simply have been a hoax “After word of the President’s death was received – or it might have happened, but then was deliberately the reporter informed the Cambridge police of the hushed up. In the 60s, the use of D-Notices (Defence anonymous call and the police informed MI5. Notices) was relatively commonplace– a request to “The important point is that the call was made, newspaper editors by the Government not to publish according to MI5 calculations, about 25 minutes before information that might be harmful to national the President was shot. security. Editors were not forced to comply, but most “The Cambridge reporter had never received a call did. Perhaps a D-Notice had been slapped on the News, Dallas’ Dealey Plaza as it is today and, inset, JFK and the newsroom of this kind before and MI5 state that he is known to urging the paper to keep the Kennedy call under its in the 60s at the Cambridge News them as a sound and loyal person with no security hat? record.” Dominic O’Brien, who worked as a journalist on the The memo, which surfaced again last October Cambridge News back in the 60s, believes that is a 25 Secrets & SPIES Who made the call to the Cambridge News in November 1963 and who received it? Chris Elliott digs deeper into the riddle of the phone message half an hour before JFK’s assassination T’S a mystery that may never, ever when thousands of other secret documents about the be solved. assassination were declassifed, makes no bones about Just over half a century ago, in saying the person involved was “known to them” – but the early evening of November 22 the name has never been formally revealed. 1963, the Cambridge News reportedly If the call was indeed made, why? And why the received an anonymous phone call Cambridge News, and not a national newspaper, or the – tipping off the paper about ‘big BBC? news’. One theory is that the caller was a Soviet agent based “Ring the American Embassy in London,” the caller in the UK, keen to sow the seed that the assassination urged, then rang off. was part of a conspiracy. Michael Eddowes, a London- IHalf an hour later, President John F Kennedy, based lawyer fascinated by the JKF story, told the News travelling in a motorcade 4,700 miles away in Dallas, in the early 1980s that he was convinced the call was Texas, was shot dead. genuine, and that the caller was a British-born Soviet It was an act of violence that stunned the world, agent, Albert Osborne – who two months before the but for some reason that telephone call to Cambridge, killing had been with Lee Harvey Oswald, the man which appeared to foreshadow the brutal event, was charged with murdering Kennedy. not reported. And it remained unreported for nearly a Mr Eddowes said the Soviets wanted to “leave decade and a half, until 1977, when it was revealed in a every single lead they could . and the call was their memo written soon after JFK’s assassination by James fnal effort.” The Cambridge News was alerted, he said, Angleton, chief of the CIA’s counter-intelligence unit. because if Osborne had rung a bigger organisation, The memo, uncovered under the USA’s Freedom of a national paper, the information might not have Information laws, was addressed to the then director surfaced, whereas the News was smaller and whoever of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover, and it said: “The British received it would be much more likely to pay attention Security Service (MI5) has reported that at 1805 GMT on to the message. 22 November an anonymous telephone call was made Another theory is that because of the infamous in Cambridge, England, to the senior reporter of the Cambridge Spy Ring – the nest of traitors who met at Cambridge News. Cambridge University and then began passing secrets “The caller said only that the Cambridge News to the Russians – the city was already known as a place reporter should call the American Embassy for some where conspiracy fourished. big news and then hung up. The call, of course, might simply have been a hoax “After word of the President’s death was received – or it might have happened, but then was deliberately the reporter informed the Cambridge police of the hushed up. In the 60s, the use of D-Notices (Defence anonymous call and the police informed MI5. Notices) was relatively commonplace– a request to “The important point is that the call was made, newspaper editors by the Government not to publish according to MI5 calculations, about 25 minutes before information that might be harmful to national the President was shot. security. Editors were not forced to comply, but most “The Cambridge reporter had never received a call did. Perhaps a D-Notice had been slapped on the News, Dallas’ Dealey Plaza as it is today and, inset, JFK and the newsroom of this kind before and MI5 state that he is known to urging the paper to keep the Kennedy call under its in the 60s at the Cambridge News them as a sound and loyal person with no security hat? record.” Dominic O’Brien, who worked as a journalist on the The memo, which surfaced again last October Cambridge News back in the 60s, believes that is a 25 Left, the presidential motorcade in Dallas, just a the frst shot was fred and, right, former News journalist Dominic O’Brien distinct possibility. He began working for the News as person with no security record. a reporter a few weeks after the JFK murder, and he “It may be that this ‘loyal person’ was persuaded that believes it may be that the reporter who took the call it would be unhelpful if any reference to a call by then was persuaded to keep quiet about it. shown to have apparently given mysterious advance Mr O’Brien, 74, who now lives in Wales and is a notice of a shocking and highly sensitive matter of columnist for the Aberystwyth-based Cambrian News, international signifcance, and by then in the hands of said: “I was a reporter and then sub-editor at the MI5, found its way into print.” Cambridge News – later the Cambridge Evening News – Eddie Duller is another journalist who worked at the from shortly after the Kennedy assassination until News in 1963, as a feature writer, but he said he was not 1973. in the offce on the day the call was apparently made. “The fact that I never, during those 10 years, heard His son had been born early in November, and he was anything about a mystery call taken by a reporter away on leave of absence, not returning until early in minutes before the shooting does not convince me 1964, when he was appointed news editor.