Frank Sturgis - Alleged JFK Assassination Connections

Alleged JFK Assassination Connections

In an article published in the South Florida Sun Sentinel on December 4, 1963, James Buchanan, former reporter for the Pompano Beach Sun-Sentinel, claimed that Sturgis had met Lee Harvey Oswald in Miami, Florida shortly before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Buchanan claimed that Oswald had tried to infiltrate the International Anti-Communist Brigade. When he was questioned by the FBI about this story, Sturgis claimed that Buchanan had misquoted his comments about Oswald.

According to a memo sent by L. Patrick Gray, acting FBI Director, to H. R. Haldeman in 1972: "Sources in Miami say he (Sturgis) is now associated with organized crime activities". In his book, Assassination of JFK (1977), Bernard Fensterwald claims that Sturgis was heavily involved with the Mafia, particularly with Santo Trafficante's and Meyer Lansky's activities in Florida.

The Rockefeller Commission of the U.S. Congress in 1974 investigated Sturgis and E. Howard Hunt in connection with the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Specifically, it investigated allegations that E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis were CIA agents and were present in Dallas at the time of the assassination, and could have fired the alleged shots from the grassy knoll. Some support for Hunt's involvement came from Kerry Wendell Thornley, who believed he had conversed with Hunt (who Thornley claimed used the alias "Gary Kirstein") on numerous occasions from 1961 to 1963 about plans to assassinate John F. Kennedy. Newsweek magazine reported and printed photographs of three men, including two supposedly resembling Hunt and Sturgis, who were detained at the grassy knoll shortly after the assassination. The Newsweek article stated the official reports that the men were released and were only "railroad bums" who would find shelter sleeping in the boxcars of the trains located near the grassy knoll. According to Newsweek, the men were released without further inquiry.

According to the 1975 Rockefeller Commission report, Hunt testified that he had never met Sturgis before they were introduced by Bernard Barker in Miami in 1972. Sturgis testified to the same effect, except that he did not recall whether the introduction had taken place in late 1971 or early 1972. Sturgis further testified that while he had often heard of "Eduardo," a CIA political officer who had been active in the work of the Cuban Revolutionary Council in Miami prior to the Bay of Pigs operation in April 1961, he had never met him and did not know until 1971 or 1972 that "Eduardo" was E. Howard Hunt.

In a deathbed statement released in 2007, Hunt named Sturgis as one of the participants in "The Big Event", which Hunt's son claims to be the code name for the assassination.