Oswald, Mexico, and Deep Politics

by Peter Dale Scott

47 Kelley, Kelley, 288-89.

  48 SAC WFO to DIR FBI, 11-19-63; FBI HQ serial 105-8255-78. apparently filed December 5. 1963.

  49 The Warren Report tells us that on November 1 and 5 Hosty had driven out to the Paine residence where Marina was staying, but "on neither occasion was Oswald present" (WR 739).

  50 WCE 830, 17 WH 777 (a redacted version of Hosty’s Report of 12/11/63 on Ruth Paine, WCD 208, pages 10-11, 23 WH 508-09). Cf. 4 WH 454 (Hosty testimony); Kelley. 277. The date of the FBI memo published as WCE 830 is not given in Volume 17; but Hosty had already written up the contents in his memo to Shanklin of November 24, 1963 (Dallas FBI 100-10461-72), which was not seen by the Warren Commission. The FBI seems to have been evasive about WCE 830. Alan Belmont, the number three man in the FBI, told the Warren Commission that "we checked with our Dallas office, and they do not have a specific record of when that information was recorded" (5 WH 26). (WCE 830 is obviously not, as the Table of Contents describes it [17 WH xxii], "Two pages from an F.B.I. Report by Special Agent Fain [sic!], dated September 10, 1963.)

  51 Hosty to SAC, 11-24-63, DL FBI 100-10461-72.

  52 Ruth’s estranged husband Michael, who spent time alone with Oswald, allegedly told Deputy Sheriff Eddy Walthers on November 22 that Oswald was "a Communist" (7 WH 549). And Dallas Police Captain Westbrook reportedly told Sergeant Gerald Hill on the afternoon of November 22 that "our suspect had admitted being a Communist" (7 WH 59). All three of the alleged sources were questioned by the Warren Commission and its staff; none were asked if Oswald had ever made such an admission. Ruth Paine was asked a different question, if she had said this to Agent Hosty (3 WH 104). Her first answer was "Oh, I doubt seriously I said Trotskyite Communist. I would think Leninist Communist, but I am not certain." Her questioner, Albert Jenner, was not tempted by this to ask what Oswald had said. Nor did Assistant Commission Counsel Liebeler run to ground Michael Paine’s statement: "It was mentioned could he be connected with a Communist plot and there I thought of Russian Communists and that didn’t seem to ring a bell" (2 WH 414; cf. 408: "I thought to myself if that is the way he has to meet his Communists, he has not yet found the Communist group in Dallas"). Westbrook’s closest testimony was that he "had nothing to do with Oswald after he got to City Hall" (7 WH 114).

  54 112th Army Intelligence Group Region II Spot Report 417, 1715 hrs, Nov.22 (Dallas FBI serial 89-43-2381C). (Note: this Spot Report refers to an earlier one, #415, that is not known to have been released.)

  55 Stringfellow’s information seems of course to be wildly wrong. Oswald told the press at 6:37 PM that "I never killed anybody" (20 WH 362), and at his midnight press conference Oswald said the first he had heard about killing the President "was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question" (WR 201, 24 WH 817; cf. 20 WH 373).

  56 U.S. Army Cable 480587 from Fort Sam Houston, Texas, to U.S. Strike Command, McDill AFB, Florida, 230405Z (Nov. 22. 10:05 CST). Discussion in Scott, Deep Politics, 275, etc.

  57 16 WH 343 ("FPCC membership card"), 16 WH 346 ("letters commending photo work by the Party"). Cf. WR 734. fn. 1157 ("connected"); also Priscilla McMillan, Marina and Lee [New York; Harper and Row, 1967], 364).

  58 The Committee heard from outgoing Cuban consul Eusebio Azcue that the "Observations" had been typed by consulate employee Silvia Durln, for the signature of the incoming consul Alfredo Mirabal (3 AH 142). Mirabal stated that Durán and Azcue "provided me with all the information" in the "Observations" (3 AH 176). Durán confirmed typing the words (3 AH 38, 40).

  59 24 WH 587, 25 WH 634 ("signed statement"). No version that we have is actually signed by Durán, and all are in the third person. CIA Cable MEX! 43699 of January 27, 1978 quotes from a blind FBI memo dated May 5, 1964, as follows: "SA [FBI Special Agent) Joe B. Garcia. . . handled liaison with the Mexican Federal Security Police [DFS] and arranged for delivery of a copy of the signed statement of Silvia Tirado de Durán by Captain Fernando Gutierrez Barrios" (NR 19-263). The "Duran" statement in the Warren volumes at 25 WH 634-37 is in fact signed by Gutierrez, not by her. Did the CIA know this, and draft a misleading cable accordingly? Or was a statement signed by Durán actually delivered to the FBI? If the latter, where is it? One person whom the Review Board might ask about this is SA Joe B. Garcia; another is Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios, who later became President Salinas’ Mexican Minister of Gobernación.

  60 Lopez Report, 186-91. In the Warren Volumes, the later version, CE 2120, appears to have reached the Commission via the State Department and Mexican Foreign Ministry on May 28, 1964 (25 WH 562). In the Warren version, Durán’s description of Oswald as "blonde"—the description supplied by Azcue in 1978—had been deleted, presumably because it did not appear to fit the man arrested in Dallas. (Lopez Report, 186). Although the Dallas Oswald was clearly not blonde, the Spanish word used by Durán ("rubio") could cover brown hair like Oswald’s, as opposed to black. The issue here is not the murky one of who called himself Oswald in Mexico, but the simple fact that what is called Durán’s "signed statement" of November 23 (24 WH 587, 25 WH 634), had changed between November 26 and May 1964.

  61 MEXI 7046 to DIRfector], 240419Z, CIA Document # 66-567.

  62 Excelsior, November 25, 1963, 1A; in Mexico City Oswald FBI file at serial 105-3702-30. Contextually it would appear that Oswald said this in the Soviet Embassy. Durán told the House Committee in 1978 that it was the police who gave her story to "Excelsior. . . the first government paper" (3 AH 87). Cf. CIA MEXI 7055 (251721Z) on Excelsior story: "Cannot eliminate Gobernación [Ministry of DFS] as source." Cf. New York Times, December 3, 1963, reprinted at 24 WH 585: "A Mexican official said Oswald told the Cubans and the Russians he was a Communist who had lived two years in the Soviet Union and had married a Russian woman."

  63 Branigan to Rosen, 11-27-63 (Serial 105-82555-122). The FBI cable on Durán’s statement of November 23 is likewise silent on the issue of Oswald’s political status and documentation; it mentions only his U.S. passport and Soviet wife (Legat to DIR. 11/25/63; 105-82555-967, p. 3).

  64 Washington was alerted to its and Horton’s arrival by MEX1 7105 of November 27 (cf. CIA memo, "Response to HSCA Request of 28 August 1978," ND 6-32; Win Scott letter of November 27, 1963, to J.C. King, CIA Document # 1380-1073-A).

  65 JKB memo and Attachment of 26 November, 1963, CIA Doc. #131-593; translated in DIR 85758 of 29 November 1963, CIA Doc. #223-647. The JKB cover memo is clearly an assassination-related document which should be reviewed.

  66 WR 302. Compare the FBI translation of the same passage: "because of his background and his partisanship and personal activities in favor of the Cuban movement, the declarant [Ms. Durinj’s not being able to specify because she does not remember whether or not he said that he was a member of the Communist party" (24 WH 565; as translated at 24 WH 589. 25 WH 636).

  67 According to the Lopez Report, the CIA told the House Committee that the Mexico City Station had no personality file on Durán. This was untrue: the Station’s personality file on Durán was "P-7969," which to judge from its number was probably opened some time before the assassination (MEXI 7065 of 25 November 1963, CIA Document #96-372). The Review Board should obtain it. All documentation on Durán should be considered assassination-related.

  68 Washington Post, November 26, 1976, A7; 3 AH 34 (1978).

  69 Evidence that the May version of the November 23 statement has been altered alerts us to the possibility of alterations in CE 93 as well. As published by the Warren Commission (16 WH 337-46), and in the bowdlerized DPD Report (24 WH 279-83), Oswald’s "qualifications as a ‘Marxist’" consist of ten lined notebook pages on seven sheets. However, when turned over in early December to the FBI by the Dallas police, the same notes (according to an FBI report) consisted of seven pages (FBI HQ serial 105-82555, 2nd no. 89; 62-109060-1835: "7 page background on lined notebook paper found by Adamcik Stovall Rose Moore Nov. 23, turned over 12/2 to Bookhout and George W.H. Carlson"). Quite possibly the FBI report meant to say "seven sheets," rather tha
n "pages." However the discrepancy makes us aware that the famous self-description as a "Marxist" ("I first read the communist manifesto and 1st volume of capital in 1954 when I was 15") is on the reverse side of one of the sheets signed into evidence, and is possibly an addition.

  70 Lopez Report, 192; citing p. 28 of Durán’s testimony (i.e. 3 AH 33).

  71 24 WH 17. For the problematic story of the Marine Corps Reserve Card, see Ray and Mary La Fontaine. Houston Post, November 22, 1992, A-l; Scott, Deep Politics, 372.

  72 Schweiker-Hart Report, 25. We now know that the cited documents are MEXI 7029 of 23 November, not yet released (see Lopez Report, 185, A49), Scelso’s memo of 23 November (TX-1240 of 23 Nov 1963, CIA Document #36-540), and DIR 84916 of 23 November (232319Z; CIA Document # 37-529). I have proposed the lime of 3:47 PM EST (8:47 GMT, or 2320472) for MEXI 7029, because MEXI 7028 has a Zulu time group of 232045Z, and MEXI 7030 of 232049Z.

  73 MEXI 7023 of 23 November, 231659Z; CIA Document # 49-545.

  74 MEXI 7025 of 23 November. 232034Z; CIA Document # 60-550.

  75 Kelley, Kelley, 293. See above.

  76 Memo from Rosen to DeLoach, 2/15/67; quoted in Schweiker-Hart Report, 81. The memo was in response to an inquiry from the Secret Service, prompted by columnist Drew Pearson’s report to Chief Justice Warren that Castro had decided in 1963 to retaliate against U.S. government attempts to assassinate him.

  77 MEXI 7026 of 23 November (232024Z); cf. WR 237-38.

  78 Ray and Mary La Fontaine, Washington Post, August 7, 1994, CI, C6; Scott, Deep Politics, 255-56; cf. WCD 853A.2.

  79 SAC Washington Field Office to FBI DIR. 11/23/63; FBI HQ 62-109060-1570.

  80 SA Paul Scranton to SAC Miami; Miami FBI 105-8342-29.

  81 For a schedule of OSI documents on Oswald through 1961, see Appendix C.

  82 U.S. State Dept. Passport File for Lee Harvey Oswald, Document X-67, OSI Review sheet, 3/8/60; NARA RG 59 Lot File 85D275, Box 2. Record Number 119-10004-10083.

  83 23 WH 383-84, FBI version (written by James Bookhout) of affidavit taken from Marina Oswald on November 22; discussion above at footnote 41, also in Scott, Deep Politics, 267-72. The DPD account of this affidavit in the DPD Report (24 WH 219) lacks this provocative language.

  84 112th Army Intelligence Group Region II Spot Report 419, 2235 hrs, Nov. 22 (Dallas FBI serial 89-43-2381B).

  85 Antonio FBI Letterhead Memorandum of November 22, 1963; FBI HQ serial 102-82555-49D.

  86 This is the "JKB" statement hand-camed to Washington on November 27 by a Headquarters CIA officer, John Horton. See above at footnote 65.

  87 JKB memo and Attachment of 26 November, 1963, CIA Doc. #131-593; pp. 7 (twice), 8, 9, 10.

  88 DIR 85758 of 291945Z (CIA HQ to White House, Sute Dept., and FBI), CIA Document # 223-647.

  89 FBI serial MC 105-3702-254 [redacted]; NARA # 124-10029-10270. This enclosure, this earlier file, and indeed all government documents which deal with Harvey Lee Oswald, should be considered assassination-related. There are many such documents. I have appended a schedule showing that they emanate from Mexico City, from Dallas, and many other places, and from such diverse agencies as Army Intelligence, the Secret Service, FBI, CIA, and the Dallas Police Department. See Appendix II, "Harvey Lee Oswald."

  90 Other documents, once described as referring to "Harvey Lee Oswald," may have been re-labeled. One example is the File of the Dallas County Sheriff on Oswald, entered into evidence on April 16, 1964, as follows: "Mr. HUBERT. Let me mark this document, then—I am marking it. . . as Exhibit 5323, Deposition of Sheriff J.E. Decker. . . .It is called Acco Press on the inside and bears the label on the outside, ‘Harvey Lee Oswald, WM 24, Murder—11-22-63 of John Fitzgerald Kennedy’" (12 WH 51). However the File as reproduced in the Warren volumes bears a different title: "OSWALD. Lee Harvey W/M 24 MURDER 11-22-63 of JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY" (19 WH 54).

  91 4 WH 432 (see Appendix C, "Harvey Lee Oswald"); Scott, Deep Politics, 258. At least one of the policemen who reportedly asked for "Harvey Lee Oswald" at the Beckley St. rooming house (6 WH 438), was B.L. Senkel, who had just driven in the pilot car of the presidential parade with a local army reserve commander (discussion in Scott, Deep Politics, 273).

  92 Cf. Scott, Deep Politics, 277.

  93 WR 404, 16 WH 510, 17 WH 498. Many critics have noted the incongruity of Oswald holding the newspapers of two parties, the Communist Party and the Socialist Workers’ Party, that detested each other. It may be pertinent that, according to the army intelligence cable about Harvey Lee Oswald as a card-carrying Communist, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee was described as "primarily controlled by the SWP with CPUSA influences present" (U.S. Army Cable 480587 from Fort Sam Houston, Texas, to U.S. Strike Command, McDill AFB, Florida, 230405Z).

  94 See for example Kelley, Kelley, 269. Discussion in Chapter VIII, 90-109.

  VIII. "I’M GOING TO KILL KENNEDY FOR THIS:"

  DID OSWALD SAY THIS IN THE CUBAN EMBASSY? OR WAS THE STORY PLANTED?

  Updated Revision of Paper Presented at COPA Conference, October 7-10, 1994

  The CIA’s On-Going Oswald Secret

  Did Lee Harvey Oswald remark during his visit to the Cuban Embassy in September 1963 that he was going to kill Kennedy? In October 1994 I presented a tentative argument that Lee Harvey Oswald (or someone else using this name) might have made such remarks, and that the CIA may have had (and since concealed) knowledge of them that pre-dated the Kennedy assassination. I called for the release of the key documents that could corroborate this claim, notably Warren Commission Document 1359 of June 17, 1964, the only top-secret document transmitted to the Commission by the FBI, and the FBI’s "Solo" assassination records that gave rise to it.

  Since my initial presentation of this material in October 1994 CD 1359 and the "Solo" records have been released. These confirm that one of the FBI’s top Communist Party informants, Jack Childs ("Solo"), reported in June 1964 to the Party (and simultaneously to the FBI) that Castro told him a version of this story: namely that Oswald, angry and frustrated at the Cuban refusal to issue him a visa, "headed out saying, Tm going to kill Kennedy for this.’"1

  That CD 1359 contains this allegation does not mean that it happened. As we shall see, Castro himself denied a corrupted version of this story (attributed falsely to an alleged interview with the British journalist Comer Clark). Knowledgeable Cuban officials have continued to deny corrupted accounts, falsely used to link Cuba to the assassination. CIA officials have promoted similar stories, obviously false.

  On the other hand it is clear that the CIA did have something in its pre-assassination files that it hid from the FBI in 1963 and still wishes to hide: a secret so sensitive that it is still willing, not just to suppress documents, but even to dissemble about them. This key suppression has to do with Oswald’s visit to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, which the CIA initially kept secret from the FBI, and CIA Headquarters’ knowledge in October 1963 of Oswald’s Cuban activities (both in New Orleans and in Mexico City), when the CIA affected ignorance of them in a misleading cable to the FBI.2 Some of this dissembling has verged on the criminal, as when the CIA falsified an FBI transmittal form in order to conceal their knowledge in October of Oswald’s Cuban activities from the Warren Commission.3

  That the CIA sent a misleading cable about Oswald in October 1963 became itself a secret. It appears however to be a secondary secret, protecting another secret, that was both prior and more important. In this paper I shall argue what that prior secret may have been: a pre-assassination report (true or false) that in September 1963 someone in the Cuban Embassy identified himself as Lee Oswald and threatened to kill President Kennedy. The available evidence would suggest, furthermore, that despite contrary evidence in the Warren Report that person may not have been the Lee Oswald arrested in Dallas.4

  It is important before proceeding to contextualize this threat. First we must forestall the easy but erroneous suggestion, once made by the New York Times, that it would constitute "evidence. . . that
Mr. Oswald had had Cuban backing in his assassination attempt."5

  A similar word must be said in defense of the now beleaguered CIA. I myself suspect that the CIA possibly knew by October of Oswald’s assassination remarks, took steps to cover them up, and may even have played the major role in making the remarks happen. Even if true, these facts would not by themselves prove CIA involvement in the assassination, although they would seem to implicate one or more individuals who had knowledge of what was going on.

  I myself shall argue, as I have before, that there may be a quite different explanation for the CIA’s systematic falsification of information about Oswald, including the story of the assassination remarks. This is that information about Oswald was being disseminated in different forms through different channels, as part of what the counterintelligence world calls a "barium meal," to trace and define a possible leak of information to the Soviets.6 John Newman’s new book, Oswald and the CIA, has thoroughly documented the recurring anomaly in Oswald files of both the CIA and FBI: the splitting or compartmentalization of Oswald information in ways that are not cross-referenced.7 The fact that Oswald’s 201 file was opened and maintained by CI/SIG, the CIA’s mole-hunting unit, strengthens the hypothesis that Oswald’s provocative behavior in embassies, in 1959 and again in 1963, was grist for a counterintelligence operation, and intended to provoke a leak.

  Of course, if this provocative behavior involved an assassination threat, or (as Oleg Nechi-porenko has claimed) the display of a gun, other covert operations, such as an authorized propaganda operation or an unauthorized assassination plot, could have been piggy-backed upon the original counterintelligence operation.8 Manufactured evidence that Oswald was a Soviet-controlled potential assassin could be rationalized as pan of the propaganda offensive which we know was being mounted against the FPCC by both the CIA and FBI.9 It could also mean that some of those officers controlling the authorized propaganda operation were simultaneously involved in a criminal assassination plot.