Not in Your Lifetime: The Defining Book on the J.F.K. Assassination
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325Note 11: The Assassinations Committee failed to reach Contreras in 1978, but the author did not. Gerald Posner attempted in his book, Case Closed, to cast doubt on Contreras’ statements. Claiming that the author had used a translator to speak with Contreras, he wondered how—since the authentic Oswald could not speak Spanish—Contreras and Oswald could have communicated. The author did not use a translator to speak with Contreras, but Contreras did bring along an English-speaking colleague to ensure that he was completely understood. But the point is moot. The “Oswald” Contreras described could not have been the authentic Oswald, so any details about the real Oswald’s Spanish-language ability are irrelevant. Posner (and subsequently author Vincent Bugliosi) have complained that, in a later interview with British TV producer Mark Redhead, Contreras said his meeting with Oswald had not been in 1963 at all. The author was a consultant to Redhead, and interviewed Contreras in the flesh twice. Contreras, who became a senior journalist, knew perfectly well that President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and that his meeting with an “Oswald” was shortly before the assassination. When interviewed again in 1993, his story was exactly as recounted to the author in 1978. (Posner: , p. 191–; Bugliosi: , End Notes p. 607–).
Alcaraz: int. Alcaraz, 1993; CE 2121; and multiple FBI reports collated by the Assassination Archives and Research Center, Washington, DC;
Note 12: Alcaraz named a friend, Hector Gastelo, as probably having been present with him during the restaurant encounter with Oswald. An alternative suggestion as to how the Mexico Oswald may have come to associate with students came from the Assassinations Committee. The Committee noted that Cuban consular aide Sylvia Durán recalled suggesting that “Oswald” locate a Mexican reference for his Cuban visa application. The Committee learned that the chairman of the university philosophy department sometimes held seminars at Durán’s home. This, the Committee speculated, might explain why “Oswald” made contact with Contreras—who mentioned that the encounter occurred following a discussion at the philosophy department. (HSCA Report. p. 124–.)
Kennan/Keenan: ints. Steve Kennan; “The Man on the Motorcycle in Mexico City” by Bill Kelly, http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.ie, also drawing on work by researchers Stu Wexler, Greg Parker, and Larry Hancock.
Note 13: In a further twist, the CIA reportedly ran an agent in Mexico, code-named LICOZY-3, who was a student from Philadelphia. This according to former CIA Mexico City station officer Philip Agee, who resigned from the Agency in 1968 and took refuge in Cuba.
The Kenin located in 2006 said he did not recall the Oswald encounter described by Alcaraz, and denied having had any involvement with U.S. intelligence. (Philip Agee, Inside the Company: CIA Diary. New York: Bantam, 1976, pp. 545, 634; Kenin: int. Steve Kennan, Temple University News, October 4 & November 20, 1960, Motorcyclist magazine, August 1963)
326 Signature, etc.: HSCA III.172; HSCA Report, p. 251.
Pictures not taken: CE 2449, 2121, p. 39.
Durán not remember: ints. Durán, 1978, 1993; HSCA III.29–39, & see HSCA III.353.
Azcue on clothing: HSCA III.143 & ints. Azcue family, 1979, 1993.
Durán in Oswald book: XVI.54.
Marina denied: see Note 3, supra.—also for reference to Oswald later letter to Soviet Embassy in United States, discussed infra. in Chapter 20.
Note 14: The record of Oswald’s interrogations is inconsistent on the matter of whether or not he visited Mexico City. So far as the author can see, police Captain Fritz—who was in charge of questioning—made no reference to Mexico in surviving handwritten notes. Both he and FBI agent James Hosty, however, were to recall that when Oswald was asked—prompted by Hosty—whether he had ever been to Mexico City, he denied it. According to Hosty, he said his only visit to Mexico had been years earlier to the border town of Tijuana, while serving in the Marines. Postal Inspector Harry Holmes, who was present at the final questioning on November 24, stated in his Warren Commission testimony that Oswald admitted that he had been in Mexico City and that he had tried to get clearance to travel to Cuba. Holmes, however, had made no reference to such an admission in his formal memorandum on the Oswald interview—a fact that led Warren Commission attorney David Belin to ask skeptically: “Is this something that you think you might have picked up from just reading the papers? …” (Fritz notes: Notes of Interrogation, www.maryferrell.org; Fritz testimony: WC IV.210; Hosty: CE 832, James Hosty with Thomas Hosty, Assignment: Oswald, NY: Arcade, 1996, p. 25; Holmes Testimony: Testimony, April 2, 1964; Memo: CD 296).
327 “Weight”: HSCA Report, p. 251.
Note 15: Edwin Lopez, one of the two Committee investigators who concentrated most on the Mexico City episode and who coauthored the Committee’s study of that aspect of the case, differed. He and his colleague Dan Hardway, he said in a television appearance years later, “had no choice but to conclude that Oswald had not visited the embassies.” (Lopez speaking as sworn witness for the program On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald, Showtime, 1986)
Study: Lopez and Hardway, HSCA Mexico Report, supra. p. 250.
“Identified”: HSCA Report, p. 249.
Hensen: Newman, op. cit., p. 362–, citing Mexico City 54408 to CIA, Action: C/WH 5, July 20, 1963, NARA, JFK files, CIA, January 1994 release (5 brown boxes) release: see Box 1, Folder 2.
328 Standard operation: Bugliosi, op. cit., End Notes, p. 600, citing Russo int. of Gunn.
October 8 request: Cable, LADILLINGER, October 8, 1963, NARA 104-10151-1007; & MEXI to DIR, October 9, 1963, HSCA CIA file cited at Morley, op. cit., p. 187.
CIA cable, October 10: DIR to MEXI, October 10, 1963, NARA 104-10413-10146.
329 “It is believed”: CIA to FBI, et.al., October 10, 1963, CIA 201-289248, reproduced at Newman, op. cit., p. 513.
CIA on photograph: Report, p. 364; XI.469; CD 1287; CD 631; CD 1287; CD 674. David Phillips, (, p. 141) said there was no photograph of Oswald. See also document 948-927T, CIA internal memorandum dated May 5, 1967.
330 CIA “did not have a known”: Rocca to Houston & attachment, May 12, 1967, CIA file no. 80T01357A, www.maryferrell.org.
Colby: int. for The American Assassins, Part 2, CBS-TV, November 26, 1975.
“Photographs of a certain”: Scott to King, November 22, 1963, CIA file 80T01357A, www.maryferrell.org.
“Could be embarrassing”: CD 1287.
Note 16: The House Assassinations Committee’s Mexico Report noted that there had been one speculative identification of the photos of the man who was not Oswald. This is a reference to a CIA source—identified only as UPSTREAM—who had said the unidentified man was “a KGB type by name of ‘Yuri’ whom he knew in Moscow in 1964.” A document suggests that “Yuri” might have been one and the same as a Soviet scientist with intelligence connections named Yuri Ivanovich Moskalev. This remains only a single, unconfirmed suggestion. (Lopez & Hardway, Mexico City Report, supra., p. 179, Hopkins memorandum, April 1977, NARA 104-10428-10010).
Agency did have pictures: CD 692; CIA document 590-252, March 6, 1964 (memo to Warren Commission).
331Note 17: CIA files also contained the two Oswald photos that had been taken in 1961 in the Soviet Union by American tourists visiting Minsk. The CIA claimed they were taken fortuitously, selected for reasons having nothing to do with Oswald, and that Oswald’s presence in the pictures was not noticed until after the assassination. See discussion in Chapter 11. (CIA document 614-261, March 20, 1964; XX.474)
CIA and “wait out”: HSCA IV.215; HSCA XI.63, 491, Rankin to McCone, February 12, 1964, NARA 104-10423-10078, Rocca to Helms, March 5, 1964, CIA 201-289248, www.maryferrell.org.
Note 18: Richard Helms, who in 1963 had been the CIA Deputy Director for Plans, told the Assassinations Committee in 1978 that the factor governing whether information could be provided to the Commission was the need “to be careful about our sources and methods.” “Joh
n Scelso” (real name John Whitten), who had been chief of covert operations for Mexico and Central America, said the CIA did not tell the Commission the origin of the photo because it was “not authorized, at first, to reveal all our [sensitive] operations.” (Helms: HSCA.IV.12; Scelso/Whitten: Washington Monthly, December 2003; “not authorized”: HSCA XI.491)
Liebeler: Epstein, Chronicles, op. cit., p. 107, citing int. Liebeler.
CIA denied: Lopez & Hardway, HSCA Mexico Report, supra. pp. 9, 90–, 114–.
Cameras not used weekends: (Sov) CIA doc. re LILYRIC basehouse, April 30, 1964, NARA Record 104-10414-10091, (Cuban) corr. Jeff Morley, 2012, Morley, op. cit., p. 179.
332 Camera broke down: Morley, op. cit., p. 181, 325n, citing testimony of David Phillips.
New camera: ibid., pp. 179, 324
Dozen pictures: CIA documents 929–, 939, 927A–K (CIA Document Deposition Index); (October 1) CIA document 948-927T.
Five visits: Lopez & Hardway, Mexico City Report, supra., pp. 6, 91–.
Scott ms.: Winston Scott, Foul Foe (ms.), Chapter XXIV, p. 273, www.maryferrell.org.
Officers say CIA got Oswald photo: Rex Bradford unpub. ms, Not a Shred … , supra., p. 10–, Lopez & Hardway, Mexico City Report, supra., p. 97, Morley, op. cit., p. 179–.
“Photographs of Oswald”: HSCA Report, p. 125n.
333 AARB “CIA reports”: AARB Report, p. 87–.
Colby: int for, The American Assassins, CBS-TV, November 26, 1975.
Agency tapped/CIA record: Lopez & Hardway, Mexico City Report, supra., p. 117–, Morley, op.cit., p. 325, CD 1084d.5; CD 1084d.4–; and Ambassador Mann to Sec. State, November 28, 1963.
“Very poor Russian”: Legat Mexico City to Director, November 25, 1963, NARA 104-10400-10026
“Terrible, hardly recognizable”: David Slawson memo for record, NARA 104-10087-10116, HSCA Report, p. 251
334 Oswald’s Russian: HSCA Report, p. 251, int. Marina Oswald, 1993.
Durán: HSCA III.114
Transcribers/”Usually”: reported by Ron Kessler, Washington Post, November 26, 1976.
Scott: Winston Scott, Foul Foe (ms.), Chapter XXIV, p. 186, www.maryferrell.org.
“destroyed tape[s]: AARB Report, p. 88.
Note 19: The known comments of Mexico City CIA personnel do indicate that the routine was to wipe and reuse insignificant tapes. That seems to be what Station Chief Scott at least initially believed had been the fate of the Oswald recording of September 28. He reported: “Station unable compare voice as first tape erased prior to receipt of second call.” David Phillips, who was running anti-Castro operations out of Mexico in 1963, told a Senate Committee that a search for the tapes on November 23 confirmed that they had been erased. (David Phillips, The Night Watch, New York: Atheneum, 1977, p. 125, File Summary, David Phillips, NARA 180-10143-10126, HSCA X.46, Morley, op. cit., p. 209. But see Fonzi, op. cit., p. 285–).
Goodpasture: Morley, op. cit., p. 183.
Note 20: Author Vincent Bugliosi has suggested that Goodpasture’s statements were unreliable. Only pages later, however, he relies on other Goodpasture comments to imply that her former boss Winston Scott’s memory may have been “faulty” when he wrote his unpublished manuscript—or that his motive was sell books. (Bugliosi, op. cit., Endnotes pp. 596, 603–).
335 Hoover memo: HSCA Report, p. 249–; Sen. Int. Cttee. Performance of Intelligence Agencies, p. 32; CD 87—Secret Service control no. 104 (cite uncertainly identified on document); CIA document 14, Mexico City to HQ, November 22, 1963; HSCA Report, p. 258.
“Neither the tape”: Belmont to Tolson, November 23, 1963. Misc. Church Cttee. Records, NARA 157-10014-10169.
Johnson/Hoover: transcript of conversation, November 23, 1963, LBJ Tapes, LBJ Library, 1993–1994 releases.
336Note 21: The available record indicates that the tape to which Hoover was referring in the exchange with President Johnson was of the Saturday, September 28 “Oswald” call from the Cuban Consulate to the Soviet Embassy—a call that, as noted earlier, seems unlikely to have been made by the authentic Oswald—if, as Sylvia Durán insisted, she had not been at the Consulate on the twenty-eighth. The HSCA’s Mexico City report saw reason to believe her, and thought the intercepted call “another possible indication that an impostor may also have visited the Consulate.” (Lopez & Hardway, Mexico City Report, supra., esp. p. 409– , & see Newman, op. cit., p. 367–)
Note 22: At 7:23 p.m. CST on November 23, Dallas Agent in Charge Shanklin had sent a new report to FBI headquarters—revising his earlier communication to Belmont and stating that only a report of the “Oswald” Mexico conversation was available—not a recording. Nevertheless, a further FBI message, sent two days later to its Mexico office—on November 25—contains a request to “include tapes previous reviewed Dallas if they were returned to you.” On November 26, the Dallas office said there had apparently been “some confusion in that no tapes were taken to Dallas.” Four Dallas agents who had conversed with the authentic Oswald, meanwhile, were to tell the Assassinations Committee that they had not listened to a recording of Oswald’s voice after the assassination. Unaccounted for, however, is the recall of three other agents who had also conversed with Oswald—the Committee failed to contact them.
On November 26, in a conversation with CIA Director John McCone, Hoover would again allude to the matter of the photograph but not to a recording. (Shanklin November 23/Dallas office November 26: HSCA Report, p. 250; “tapes previously reviewed”: Washington to Legat Mexico, November 25, 1963, FBI 105-3702-16, www.history-matters.com; McCone: Max Holland, The Kennedy Assassination Tapes, New York: Knopf, 2004, p. 106.)
Tapes flown?: Staff to Schweiker & Hart, March 5, 1976, NARA 157-10014-10168, p. 3, Belmont to Tolson, November 23, 1963, supra., SA Heitman to SAC Dallas, November 22, 1963, FBI 124-10027-10345; Mexico City to Director, CIA, January 23, 1963, NARA 104-10015-10123 & see Morley, op. cit., pp. 206, 330 & Rex Bradford paper cited earlier supra.
Note 23: The FBI agent who flew up from Mexico, future congressman Eldon Rudd, was very evidently reluctant to talk when contacted by the author in the 1970s. Questioned in the 1990s by a reporter, he said, “There were no tapes to my knowledge.” (“Call on JFK Wasn’t Oswald,” AP, November 21, 1999)
Hoover-Johnson recording/“erased”: transcript of conversation, November 23, 1963, LBJ Tapes, LBJ Library, 1993–1994 releases; Notes Relating to Audio Recording contract, January 21, 1999, www.history-matters.com; & see Bradford, “Not a Speck,” supra., p. 6 & see Holland, op. cit., p. 69n15.
337 “false”/ “double-dealing”: Brennan to Sullivan, January 15, 1964, linked to “Conspiracy—Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City,” www.pbs.org.
Three witnesses: interviews—William Coleman, 1993–1994; David Slawson, 1993; former senior CIA officer, 1993–1994, on condition of anonymity, author’s memo to PBS’s Frontline producer, 1993.
Belin: transcript, Nightline, ABC News, November 11, 1983 int. by Ted Koppel, cited in Third Decade, Vol. 4, Issue 2.
338Note 24: The author obtained the interviews with Coleman, Slawson, and the CIA officer in 1993 for PBS’s Frontline program. As the author gave his word that he would not publicly reveal the officer’s name, and though the latter is apparently now dead, he does not reveal it now. He did at the time share the information with the relevant Frontline producer.
In correspondence with people other than the author, Coleman and Slawson also referred unequivocally to having listened to Oswald tapes. Slawson, moreover, reportedly said in another interview that he listened to an Oswald tape. Jeremy Gunn, who was executive director of the Assassination Records Review Board, said in 1995 that both Coleman and Slawson told him they “heard the tape.”
Much earlier in 1978, however, and in contrast to his clear recollection cited in the text, Coleman had told an Assassinations C
ommittee interviewer that he did not have “the faintest idea” whether the CIA had explained “why it did not have an actual recording of Oswald’s voice.” Coleman gave a vague, hesitant answer when asked about the matter in a recorded Assassinations Committee interview. Slawson, for his part, responded to a question by a member of the Assassination Records Review Board as to whether he had heard the tapes by saying—and repeating: “I am not at liberty to discuss that.” It had been very evident, even when the author interviewed the two former Warren attorneys, that they were concerned about perhaps breaching their national security undertakings.
Anne Goodpasture, the former aide to CIA Station Chief Scott cited alsewhere in this chapter, told the Review Board she thought Scott “squirreled away” a copy of the tape. For sources on the above, other information, and a back and forth on the issue between researchers, interested readers may study the End Notes for the book Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi, who attempted—unsuccessfully in the author’s view—to show that no tapes survived. For a rebuttal, see the unpublished paper supplied to the author by researcher Rex Bradford, entitled “Not a Speck of a Scintilla of Evidence for Conspiracy: Vincent Bugliosi on the Mexico City Impostor.” Fresh information appeared in Jefferson Morley’s 2008 book Our Man in Mexico. (Gunn/“heard the tape”: Gunn question in AARB testimony of Anne Goodpasture, December 15, 1995, p. 27; Coleman HSCA testimony/vague: audiotape of August 2, 1978 testimony at www.history-matters.com; Slawson/Goodpasture: “not at liberty,” Bradford, “Not a Speck,” supra., p. 7–, 9; Bugliosi: , p. 1049– & especially End Notes, p. 592–; fresh: Morley, op. cit, pp. 7, 290).
Note 25: The most thorough document research on Mexico of recent years has been done by Jefferson Morley and John Newman. Morley is a former Washington Post journalist whose work has also appeared in the New York Review of Books, Reader’s Digest, Slate, and Salon. He is founder of the website JFKfacts.org, which aims to improve media coverage of the assassination and press for the release of still-secret government records. Morley’s biography of Station Chief Scott, with a Foreword by Scott’s son Michael, was published in 2008.