Oswald, Mexico, and Deep Politics
Page 24
4 The CIA initially distributed photos, said to be of the man who identified himself as Oswald, who was clearly not Oswald; in addition an early FBI memo to the Secret Service stated that a recording of the man who identified himself as Oswald had been listened to by FBI agents in Dallas, in whose opinion the "individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald" (AR 249-50). Subsequent efforts by the CIA, FBI and House Committee to rationalize the false photos and the FBI memo are in my opinion (and that of House Committee investigator Edwin Lopez) more provocative than convincing (cf. Scott, Deep Politics, 41-44; Lopez Report Introduction, 8-14).
5 Nicholas Horrock, New York Times, November 14, 1976, 30. See discussion below.
6 Scott, Lopez Report Introduction. 5-6, 20-22. For the counterintelligence concept of a "barium meal," see William R. Corson, Susan B. Trento, Joseph J. Trento. Widows (New York: Crown, 1989), 60; Peter Wright, Spycatcher (New York: Viking. 1987), 303.
7 Newman, 57, 140-41, 152-53, 319, 392-419, etc.
8 Col. Oleg Maximovich Nechiporenko, Passport to Assassination (New York: Carol/Birch Lane, 1993), 77-81.
9 Newman, 236-44; Schweiker-Han Report. 65-67; Scott, Deep Politics, 261.
10 CIA undated document, ca. 1978, "Comments upon HSCA Study: CIA’s Performance in Its Role of Support to the Warren Commission" [Staff Report, 11 AH 471-504), p. 3.
11 MEXI 6453 of 8 October 1963, CIA Document #5-1 A; 4 AH 212.
12 Cf. Lopez Report, 175-76; Newman. 413-18, etc.
13 Scott, Lopez Report Introduction, 5-6, 20-22.
14 Newman, Oswald and the CIA, 401-05, 512-13.
15 Memo of October 16, 1963 for the Ambassador (CIA Document #9-5); reprinted in Sckolnick. 122. This memo says that "This officer determined that Oswald had been at the Soviet Embassy on 28 September 1963." The author told the HSCA that this determination "must have been because she had rechecked the transcripts by this time as otherwise she would not have used such certain language" (Lopez Report, 171; cf. Newman, 367). The September 28 transcript spoke unambiguously of an "American citizen at the Cuban Embassy" (MEXI 7023 of 23 November 1963; cf. Lopez Report, 76). Yet there is no reference to the Cuban Embassy visit in the October 16 memo. The Review Board should interview the author of this memo, to ascertain what other records, if any, are being covered up by this misrepresentation.
16 Clarence Kelley, Kelley: The Story of an FBI Director (Kansas City: Andrews, McMeel and Parker, 1987), 268-69.
17 Kelley, Kelley, 269; Cun Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover. 502 (Childs).
18 David J. Garrow, The FBI and Martin Luther King [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981], 35-37.
19 Wan-en Commission Document 1359; FBI HQ 62-109090-63rd nr 172; NARA Record Number 124-10103-10138.
20 SAC New York to Director Airtel 6/11/64, Subject: Solo, IS-C, FBI HQ File 100-428091-3930; NARA Record 124-10274-10339. p. 19.
21 SAC New York to Director Ainel 6/12/64, Subject: Solo, IS-C, FBI HQ File 100-428091-3911; NARA Record 124-10274-10338, pp. 1-2.
22 "It appeared that Oswald confided to the Soviets and the Cubans that he had information on a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. He would, he promised, provide all of this highly classified information in exchange for Soviet and Cuban visas for his family and himself respectively. It is possible to assume that at the Soviet Embassy he offered to kill President Kennedy. . . .Oswald. . . told the Cuban Embassy officials much the same. But here he definitely offered to kill President Kennedy. . . .[0)ur informant "Solo," a double-agent, met with Castro after the assassination. Castro himself verified that Oswald had offered to kill the American president and that the offer was made by Oswald directly to Cuban officials at their embassy in Mexico City" (Clarence Kelley, Kelley, 268, 269).
23 Daniel SchoiT, Clearing the Air (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), 176-77: "On June 17, 1964, J. Edgar Hoover sent, by special courier, a top-secret letter to Counsel Rankin. It said that ‘through a confidential source which has furnished reliable information in the past, we have been advised of some statements made by Fidel Castro, Cuban Prime Minister, concerning die assassination of President Kennedy.’ The paragraph containing what Castro said was deleted from the letter as released in 1976 [to the public]. It stated, I have since learned, that Oswald, on his visit to the consulate, had talked of assassinating President Kennedy. The consul had taken this as a deliberate provocation. The Cuban ambassador in Mexico City had reported the incident to Havana. It had not been taken seriously at the time, but after the Kennedy assassination, Castro had come to suspect that the effort to get Oswald into Cuba was part of a right-wing conspiracy. Oswald would return from Cuba, then assassinate the President, and it would look as though Castro had been responsible."
24 SAC New York to Director Airtel 6/12/64, Subject: Solo. IS-C, FBI HQ File 100-428091-3911; NARA Record 124-10274-10338, p. 2.
25 KeUey, 269.
26 See for example Daniel Scboct, Clearing the Air, 177-78; cf. Posner, 168. One of the first to suggest that Oswald was influenced by Castro’s remarks was the CIA-linked journalist Hal Hendrix, in a story datelined November 23, 1963. See Rocky Mountain News, November 24, 1963.
27 Cf. Kelley, 317: Hosty "devoted considerable time and energy to assisting us with data on the Kennedy assassination."
28 Oleg Nechiporenko, Passport to Assassination, 77-81.
29 ‘‘The information that Oswald talked to Kostikov at the Russian Embassy was obtained variously. One method was through CIA wiretaps of the embassy’s phone in Mexico City. Oswald’s call from the Cuban to the Russian Embassy, for instance, was tapped by our government. The Soviet Embassy was also being watched by ultrasensitive CIA surveillance cameras. What’s more, the agency had some very highly placed informants within the embassy itself. Thus, the fact that Oswald met with this particularly dangerous KGB official is certain." (Kelley, Kelley, 268)
30 Edwin Lopez, "Commentary," in Lopez Report, 3; Lopez Report [1996], 223. See below.
31 MEXI 7115 of 28 November 1963, CIA Doc. * 196-626; MEXI 7613, 7615, and 7625 of December 1963; memorandum for record of 6 January 1964 (Document NR 15-232); Newman. 360, 386-90, 602.
32 As reported to the Washington Post in 1976 by David Phillips. Oswald had been overheard saying words "to the effect. ‘I have information you would be interested in, and I know you can pay my way [to Russia].’" According to Ron Kessler, the author of the news story, Phillips’ claim was supported by two other CIA employees, the translator and the typist of the message: "‘He said he had some information to tell them,’ the typist said in an interview in Mexico. ‘His main concern was in getting to one of the two countries [Russia or Cuba] and he wanted them to pay for it’" (story by Ron Kessler. Washington Post, November 26. 1976; cf. Anthony Summers, Conspiracy [New York: McGraw-Hill. 1980], 388-89; Fonzi, The Last Investigation [New York: Thunder’s Mouth. 1993], 285.)
33 Lopez Report, 87. at footnote 348. citing Phillips testimony to HSCA, November 27, 1976, 52-53. Two staff members of the Committee in 1976. Bob Tanenbaum and Gaeton Fonzi. agree that Phillips neither volunteered nor was asked about the alleged information offer in this testimony, largely because questioning focused on Phillips’ recent false claim that the tape of "Oswald"’s voice in Mexico City had been destroyed.
34 David Atlee Phillips, The Might Watch (New York: Ballantine, 1987), 181. Phillips’ book was written in 1976 and originally published by Atheneum in 1977. Phillips’ book is in other details at odds with his accounts elsewhere of the Oswald affair (Phillips, The Night Watch, 179; Lopez Report, 127). The book contains additional errors. It claims for example that the false name "Lee Henry Oswald" originated in Mexico City.
35 Discussion of Phillips’ turnaround also in Scott, Deep Politics. 121-22; Newman, 376.
36 Lopez Report, 88; draft of letter from Winston Scott to John Barron, November 25, 1970; cf. 11 AH 488 ("November 28 telegram that Oswald intended to settle down in Odessa"). This draft letter was among the materi-als which James Angleton retrieved from Scott’s personal safe in Mexic
o City, at the time of Scott’s death. Cf. also Winston Scott’s unpublished manuscript, "Foul Foe," quoted in Newman, 369.
37 A. Tarasoff Testimony, 4/28/78, 6; in Lopez Report, 83; cf. Newman, 370-75. There are no lengthy transcripts in the current official record.
38 John Goshko, Washington Post, November 13, 1976; Nicholas Horrock, New York Times, November 14, 1976, 30 (FBI informant, Castro); Norman Kempster, Los Angeles Times, November 17, 1976 (FBI informant). For these articles, and for much else in this essay, I am again indebted to Paul Hoch.
39 AR 122; cf. 3 AH 283; Blakey and Billings. 145-47.
40 National Enquirer, October 15, 1967. Cf. Summers. Conspiracy, 389; 3 AH 282-83; AR 122.
41 National Enquirer, October 15, 1967; Summers, Conspiracy, 389; 3 AH 282-83; AR 122; Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), 193. For the record, the British author whose name was falsely used on the Enquirer story actually spells his name, "Comer Clarke."
42 "You’re not man enough [to kill Kennedy]—I can do it" (Summers, 440); cf. below.
43 "Plan:" New York Times, November 14, 1976; Comer Clark, National Enquirer, October 15, 1967. "Offer;" AP story in Washington Post, May 27, 1982; cf. Kelley, Kelley, above. "Intentions:" Washington Post, November 13, 1976.
44 Washington Post. November 13, 1976; New York Times, November 14, 1976.
45 Lopez Report, p. 85; Newman, 371.
46 WR 734.
47 Paul Hoch, 4EOC 3 (1982), 5.
48 3 AH 273; cf. AR 122; 3 AH 273-75; 3 AH 282-84; Blakey and Billings, 145-47.
49 3 AH 284; Blakey and Billings, 148.
50 As noted earlier, Nicholas Honock’s article in the New York Times had twisted the story of CD 1359 to precisely this implication: "The informant, according to the memorandum, said that he had learned of Mr. Oswald’s plan from Fidel Castro, the Cuban premier. If this were true, it would be the strongest evidence yet found that Mr. Oswald had had Cuban backing in his assassination attempt" (Nicholas Horrock, New York Times, November 14, 1976, 30).
51 Blakey and Billings, 147. Cf. p. 148: "we were inclined to believe that Oswald had uttered the threat attributed to him in the Cuban Consulate." To their credit, Blakey and Billings talk throughout of a "threat," rather than of a "plan" (Horrock) or "offer" (Kelley). The question remains whether Blakey and Billings knew of any other evidence other than CD 1359 and the "Solo" assassination records. The Review Board should ask them about this.
52 Thus Castro continued: "But how could they interview me in a pizzeria [in Clark’s article]. I never go to public restaurants and that man invented that" (3 AH 274).
53 Kelley, Kelley, 267.
54 Kelley. Kelley, 268-69.
55 HUMINT sources and/or bugs in the Soviet Embassy would explain the otherwise inexplicable and suspicious claim of a CIA Station officer on October 16. 1963, that she "determined that Oswald had been at the Soviet Embassy" (Memo of 16 October 1963; Lopez Report, 170-72; Scott, Deep Politics, 41; Lopez Report Introduction, 12.)
56 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 claim to Chief Justice Warren that Castro had decided in 1963 to retaliate against U.S. government attempts to assassinate him.
57 Edwin Lopez, "Commentary," in Lopez Report (Rogra), 3: "Dan Hard way and I determined that the CIA had some double agents planted in the Cuban Embassy, maybe more. These agents could tell us so much. Did they see Oswald at the Embassy? Did they hear the discussions among the embassy staff after the assassination? What was said? Would it anger you as it did myself to learn that the CIA would not permit us to interview these double agents?"
58 Fonzi, The Last Investigation, 293-94. The presence of HUMINT assets and/or bugs inside the Cuban Consulate would appear to explain some of the extensive redactions in the released Lopez Report. It may also help explain the astonishing footnote 319 to the Report, on page A-23. This refers to a call between "a woman named Silvia" and a Consulate employee named Guillermo Ruiz (the cousin of Alpha 66 leader Antonio Veciana, another CIA asset). Silvia asks Ruiz for the Consul’s telephone number, and "Ruiz says that the number is 11-28-47." This number, which critics had hitherto assumed to be the publicly available one, is the number for the Cuban Consulate entered with Durán’s name in Oswald’s address book (16 WH 54). If it was publicly available, it is hard to understand why Silvia Durán would have had to telephone Ruiz to obtain it.
59 National Enquirer, October 15, 1967; Summers, Conspiracy, 389; 3 AH 282-83; AR 122; Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), 193.
60 Summers. Conspiracy, 389; citing Dallas Morning News, September 24, 1975 (reprinting a Los Angeles Times story by Charles Ashman).
61 Ibid.
62 Hinckle and Turner, The Fish Is Red, 163-64, 212.
63 Scott, Deep Politics, 88-89; Newman, 319 (Hemming).
64 11 AH 162; Coleman-Slawson memorandum (published by the House Committee in 1978).
65 3 AH 595 (FBI memo of December 12, 1963); Mexico City FBI serial MC 105-3702-22 (Legat Cable to HQ of November 26, 1963).
66 WR 307-08.
67 David Phillips, The Night Watch, 182.
68 WCD 1000A. In his book Phillips claimed a CIA cable from Managua said that "the Nicaraguan intelligence service had identified the walk-in as a prominent Nicaraguan Communist" (p. 182). The Managua cable we have says the opposite, that he was an informant of the Nicaraguan security service (MANAGUA cable of 26 November, 262237Z; cf. DIR 85196 of 27 November 1963).
69 WCD 1000B.4; CIA-52 of 26 November 1963; retransmitted as DIR 85199 of 27 November 1963, CIA Doc. # 136-55.
70 WCD 1000C.2.
71 MEXI 7104 of 27 November, CIA Doc. #174-616.
72 MEXI 7156 of 29 November 1963, CIA Doc. #260-670. The name of the station officer is redacted. It should now be released.
73 DIR 85199 of 27 November 1963; Memo of 25 November 1963 from CIA Station employee (CIA-40); Memo of 29 November 1963 from CIA Station to Legal Attache (CIA 491); Coleman-Slawson memo. 11 AH 162-63 (details); 3 AH 297, 300; Lopez Report, 213, etc. (corroboration).
74 Eventually there were reports, from as high as Ambassador Mann, that Oswald had made two trips to Mexico (Russell, 370-71). But these reports may indicate nothing more than their sources continued belief in the Alvarado story.
75 WCD 205, 23 WH 302.
76 WR 730 at footnote 1107, citing 11 WH 460-64 (Eric Rogers). Rogers was the penultimate alleged witness of Oswald in New Orleans; the last, a busdriver. was "uncertain of the exact date" (WR 730).
77 In all Rogers was shown three pictures of Oswald leafleting in New Orleans, and denied seeing Oswald in any of them. There are other alleged witnesses, and still other problems with them.
78 WR 308. CL MEXI 7168 of 30 Nov 1963; CIA Doc. #261-99.
79 Helms letter of 4 June 1964 to Rankin of Warren Commission. 26 WH 858; Birch D. O’Neal Memo for the Record of 3 December 1963, CIA Doc. #287-690 (Info via Papich from the FBI).
80 WCD 78.5; cf. MEXI 7324 of 10 Dec 1963. On December 3 the CIA in Mexico City, who earlier had vigorously promoted Alvarado’s story of an assassination offer, requested authority to re-interview him. but was told to defer to the officer arriving from Headquarters (MEXI 7229 of 3 Dec 63, CIA Doc. #284-688; DIR 86659 of 4 Dec 63. CIA Doc. #291-695).
81 MEXI 7072 of 26 November 1963, CIA Document #128-590. The CIA Station Chief, two months earlier, had signed off on a description of the Federal Security Police (DFS) who interviewed Durán, "as being dishonest, cruel, and abusive" (Appendix to HMMA 22267 of October 8, 1963; Project Report for September 1963). In effect the three men were proposing that Durán be tortured to obtain the story of the assassination offer. My understanding is that she was tortured.
82 MEXI 7104 of 27 November 1963; MEXI cable of November 28 1963, Anthony Summers, Conspiracy, 441. Cf. 3 AH 569.
83 DIR 84916 of 23 November; Lopez Report, 185-
86; Schweiker-Hart Report, 25.
84 DIR 85371 of 28 November 1963; Lopez Report, 187; Schweiker-Hart Report, 29.
85 Win Scott claimed to Headquarters that the second arrest was made on a Mexican Government initiative "without prior consultation with Station" (MEXI 7118 of 28 November 1963). Informed observers find this extremely unlikely.
86 Luisa Calderon talked of the assassination as if she might (by one controversial interpretation) have had foreknowledge (AR 254, 4 AH 181, 11 AH 494); the Cuban Ambassador had spoken to Cuban President Dorticos about money (MEXI 7068 of 26 November 1963; cf. MEXI 7072 of 26 November, MEXI 7104 of 27 November, 11 AH 489).