Sturgis: I tried to help

Press, 5 November 1977, Page 8

Sturgis: I tried to help

NZPA-Reuter New York The convicted Watergate burglar, Frank Sturgis, said yesterday that he was trying to help, not hurt, a former United States Central Intelligence Agency, informant who claims Sturgis shot at President Kennedy on the day of his assassination in Dallas. Miss Marita Lorenz, once the lover of Dr Fidel Castro, the Cuban President had Sturgis arrested on Monday night on harrassment charges after he had entered her luxury apartment. Sturgis, who was security head of Dr Castro’s air force, won release from jail on Thursday on $lO,OOO bail raised by friends. He said he bore no malice to his “friend” Miss Lorenz. “I have tried to help this

young lady who 1 have known for a long time,” he said at a news conference. “There are elements behind her that have pressed her to do what she had done. It’s something I’d like to find out myself.” ! Miss Lorenz is reported to have talked to a House of Representatives committee about Sturgis’s alleged links with the Kennedy assassination and her own role in a plot to kill Dr Castro. Sturgis rejected Miss Lorenz's claim that they and Lee Harvey Oswald had driven together to Dallas days before Kennedy’s death and that Sturgis had been a “second gun” in the assasination. He also said he had never known Oswald. On the day of the assassination, Sturgis claimed he

i had been in Miami at home i with his family. The convicted burglar i said, however, that he had given information to the I Government about a con- : spiracy to assassinate Kennedy “I have told all the assas- ' sination committee members, i I have given some evidence to the committee which I believe leads to the con- , spiracy and people involved in the conspiracy to kill the President of the United States,” he said. “Marita Lorenz was not involved" Sturgis refused to confirm , newspaper reports that he had documents linking Dr Castro to the Kennedy assassination and proving that Jack Ruby, who shot Oswald dead, had been in Havana tw r o months before : the assassination.