Live by the Sword

by Gus Russo

  With Duran’s help, Oswald began filling out the regular application form. After photographs were added and attached to the completed application, Duran suggested, Oswald might speed its approval by getting his Soviet visa first. He hurried out to a nearby shop to get the requisite passport photographs. However, while he was doing so, Duran called the Soviet Embassy, only to learn that Soviet acceptance of a visa application might take months. Upon Oswald’s return, Duran gave him the bad news.

  No doubt upset by not having been greeted as a socialist comrade or hero, Oswald protested the bureaucratic delay and claimed he had a right to get a Cuban visa quickly—especially since his Mexican tourist visa was valid only for several days. “That’s impossible,” Oswald shouted. “I have to go to Cuba right now because I have permission for only three or four days in Mexico City. So I have to go quickly.”20 In his Cuban fantasy, Lee had never considered being frustrated by such an imbecilic delay. Couldn’t these people see the obvious? Hadn’t he traveled on his own time and at his own expense to donate his considerable expertise to the Cuban cause? And didn’t his work for the FPCC entitle him to a sliver of special consideration?

  Oswald’s angry complaints became louder and drew Azcue out from his office. The consul confirmed to Oswald that he would have to go through regular procedures for a Cuban visa, which could take several weeks. But if Oswald had a Soviet visa, said Azcue, he could grant him a 15-day visa to Cuba on the spot, without having to contact Havana.

  Oswald’s reaction to this suggestion was not pleasant. He wanted an instant visa, he said, and believed he deserved it. His demeanor upset Azcue enough for him to complain, during lunch with his wife, about the American’s “very, very bad manners,” his “nastiness,” and his “arrogance.” The Cuban even wondered whether the applicant who “screamed and shouted so violently” and “wanted to draw attention to himself” was a provocateur.21 Meanwhile, Oswald himself hurried to the Soviet Embassy, two blocks away, arriving there at about 12:30 p.m.

  At the Soviet compound, he told a sentry in Russian who he was. Led to the consul’s office, he was received by a consular officer named Valery Kostikov. Telling Kostikov of his Russian wife and his wish to return to the Soviet Union, Oswald showed him the same collection of documents and supporting items as evidence of his dedication to the socialist camp. He also claimed that the FBI kept him under constant surveillance in the United States. The Russian consulate was staffed by three men, all actually working under consular cover while carrying out their main duties as KGB officers in foreign intelligence. Kostikov called for a comrade, Oleg Nechiporenko, to come to his aid in this strange case. Nechiporenko’s specialty was foreign counterintelligence. His first impression of Oswald was of aloofness. “He seemed to be looking beyond me, absorbed in his thoughts, and did not even react as I approached him. . . [He] appeared to be in a state of physical and mental exhaustion.”22

  Well before the end of the hour or so he spent with Oswald, Nechiporenko concluded, with professional instinct, that although the KGB had surely kept watch on Oswald during his residence in the USSR, it would not have had any “operational contact” with him. “From my first impression of him, it was clear that he was not suitable agent material.”23

  Nechiporenko noted that Oswald’s mood went from discomfort to “a state of great agitation, creating the impression of a high-strung, neurotic individual.”24 Applications to travel to the Soviet Union, Nechiporenko explained to Oswald, were handled by the embassies in the countries where the applicants lived. In Oswald’s case, he could make an exception and send the necessary applications to Moscow, but the reply would still be sent to the Washington Embassy and would take four months at the least. Oswald, now distraught and “extremely agitated,” leaned forward across the desk and virtually shouted in Nechiporenko’s face: “This won’t do for me. . . For me, it’s all going to end in tragedy.” The interview had ended, but the Soviet officers decided to contact Moscow, just in case KGB headquarters had some reason to grant Oswald an immediate visa.

  Oswald returned to the Cuban consulate. It was closed—for siesta time— until the early evening, but the guard could not make that understood to Oswald, and admitted him to wait. Oswald told Duran there was “no problem” and he wanted a Cuban visa because he already obtained a Soviet one. When she asked to see it, he refused. “No, no, no,” he answered. “You can call the Soviet Consul. They’re going to give me the visa.”

  Duran felt a kind of sympathy for the young man so eager to go to Cuba. She did call. The Soviet official who answered said that he remembered Oswald, but that it was impossible for Oswald to get a Soviet visa in less than three or four months. The Soviet official said he couldn’t understand why he was claiming otherwise now.

  On his first visit to the Cuban embassy, Duran had noticed that Oswald was “very nervous, very anxious.” Now, having had his bluff called, Oswald was flushed out. When Duran told him that things did not appear to be as he claimed at the Soviet Embassy and repeated the procedure he would have to abide by, he became angry and “anguished.” “Impossible!” he shouted. “I can’t wait that long!” Duran would remember him as both white and “very red” in the face at the same time—simultaneously sad, on the point of tears, and “furious.” “He was very, very excited. He started shouting. And I started to get—well, he was a thin man and I didn’t think he could kick me or something like that, but anyway I was afraid.”25

  Duran went to Azcue’s office to ask for help with “this man out there.” In 1993, Duran recounted for Frontline what she told Azcue about Oswald:

  I think he’s becoming crazy. . . So Azcue says [to Oswald], “If you are a friend of the Cuban revolution, you don’t have to be like that—you harm the Cuban revolution, you don’t help with this attitude.” And his [Oswald’s] answer is, “I have to, to, I need that visa, I have to go to Cuba.” But he already explained to you: If you go to Cuba and you’re in transit, and soon as you get the visa from the Soviet Union, you will have your Cuban [visa] without any problems.. And then the man become more and more angry, so that Azcue becomes also excited because he didn’t want to understand and he try [sic] and explain some with passion and so he got excited also and he said, “Listen, if you continue like this, I’m going to kick you out.”

  With that, Oswald left the Embassy. The following morning, Oswald returned to the Soviet Embassy. Although it was a Saturday and the consular office was closed, the consul, Captain Pavel Yatzkov of the KGB, told the sentry to admit Oswald. Soon, Valery Kostikov and Oleg Nechiporenko joined Yatzkov, and the three consular/KGB officers heard Oswald’s plea. Disheveled, rumpled, and unshaven, he looked “hounded” to Kostikov—“much more anxious” than the day before.

  Speaking warmly of his wife and child, and apparently willing to say anything to get him quickly to Cuba, Oswald told the Soviet officials that he “dreamed” of returning to the Soviet Union, resuming his former job there and living “quietly” with his family. But he himself was anything but quiet.

  Though Oswald was extremely agitated and clearly nervous, especially whenever he mentioned the FBI, he suddenly became hysterical, began to sob, and cried through his tears, “I am afraid. . . they’ll kill me. Let me in!” Repeating over and over that he was being persecuted and that he was being followed even here in Mexico, he stuck his right hand into the left pocket of his jacket, pulled out a revolver, and placed it on the desk, saying, “See? This is what I must now carry to protect my life.”26

  Kostikov, who was startled, recalls, “It was strange to see a man who protected himself from such an organization [the FBI] with the help of a gun.”27 The consular/KGB officers had no trouble taking possession of the revolver and removing the bullets from its cylinder. But the officers did not quite know what to do with Oswald. What they did do was notice—as they could hardly help noticing—his profound emotional distress. Oswald sobbed and sobbed. Later, he “began to droop. Most likely the peak of his tension had passed, but his eyes we
re wet with tears and his hands shook. . . His state of extreme agitation had now been replaced by depression.”28

  The Soviet officers escorted him to the door. Oswald left. Raising his jacket collar to conceal his face and to prevent being clearly photographed, he dissolved into Mexico City. The three officers, in his absence, discussed Oswald. Pavel Yatzkov would write that they decided they “could not take Oswald seriously.” Yatskov said recently, “Oswald produced the impression of an insane person. . . he looked wan, a worn-out person.”29

  His nervousness during the conversations, his rambling and even nonsensical speech at times, his avoidance of answering specific questions, and the shifts from strong agitation to depression gave us reason to believe that his mental state was unstable or that, at the very least, he suffered from a serious nervous disorder.30

  They also remember a promise Oswald made after stuttering about the impossibility of living any longer in the United States. His revolver returned to him, Oswald vowed, “If they don’t leave me alone, I’m going to defend myself.”31

  If this were the full story of Oswald’s stay in Mexico City, it would only serve to elaborate on Oswald’s emotional problems. Oswald’s near breakdown in both embassies—especially his prolonged sobbing and seeming detachment from reality in the presence of the Soviet officers—could legitimately be taken as further evidence of a man “prepared for anything,” as he had written to The Militant when he sent the newspaper a print of his backyard photograph with the guns. By this time, less than eight weeks before the assassination, Oswald had clearly come to a point where his frustration and depression, mixed with a propensity for violence in the service of a political goal, indeed prepared him for anything. If he was not a lone nut, he was clearly a man obsessed enough to do anything to gain entry into Cuba.

  But there is much more to the story, for if Pavel Yatzkov and his KGB friends “could not take Oswald seriously,” there is evidence that someone did. This evidence centers around what Oswald said to the Cubans, not the Russians. It also explains what the CIA’s Melvin Beck referred to as his agency’s reliance on double agents, some of whom functioned as triple agents.

  Oswald and the Cubans in Mexico City: Echoes of Conspiracy

  Between Saturday, September 28th, when he left the Russian Consulate, and Wednesday, October 2nd at 8:30 a.m., when he boarded a bus back to Texas, Lee Oswald had four days with essentially nothing to do. And that is exactly what he did, according to the U.S.’ official government findings. Perhaps the dejected Oswald visited the pyramids, or sipped margueritas at some brightly-painted cantina. Denied full access to the complete record of Oswald’s stay, the Warren Commission was provided with what a higher authority deemed necessary. All told, enough evidence exists to safely assume that Lee Oswald didn’t just buy a sombrero and go on burro rides during those four days.

  The truth is that Oswald disappeared into what David Phillips referred to as the “conglomeration of intelligence officers, agents, spies, provocateurs, and shadowy figures” that is Mexico City. What happened to Oswald during the remainder of his trip was not so mysterious as it was dangerous. The mystery was manufactured because American intelligence lied and covered up what it knew. What did the CIA have to hide?

  There was evidence that Oswald had one additional conversation with the Soviets, and that he spoke with the Cubans about much more than just a visa. Oswald’s trail also points to surreptitious meetings with Cubans judged to be not only dangerous to top secret American operations, but to President Kennedy specifically. And Win Scott, the CIA Bureau Chief, was aware of all of this, if not immediately, then shortly after the assassination.

  First, there may have been more Oswald contact with the embassies than has been officially revealed. The CIA had extensive surveillance on the Soviet and Cuban embassies, both visual and audible. Cameras were hidden in storefronts across the street, and phone lines were tapped. It has been accepted that Oswald made no more than two phone calls to the Soviet embassy. However, in 1979, the HSCA interviewed three new witnesses, including a senior CIA officer in Mexico, a later Station Chief, and the translator who worked on transcribing the telephone conversations. They all testified that there was a third call to the Soviet embassy. The contents of the mysterious third call have never been made public. However, testimony now available makes it possible to at least start piecing together the puzzle of that call, and of Oswald’s unaccounted-for time in Mexico City.

  It is now known that, after Kennedy’s assassination, U.S. intelligence received alarming reports that went undisclosed to the Warren Commission. Some of this material was withheld by the CIA, some by President Johnson, and some by Robert Kennedy. From the CIA’s perspective, the reports they received could have given the public the misperception that the Agency had a relationship with Oswald—a perception that, from the CIA’s perspective, would have added nothing to the investigation, while possibly incurring the public’s wrath toward the already beleaguered unit. It would have also brought to light the ongoing, much-planned, super-secret Cuba Project that the CIA did not want compromised, especially for little or no good reason.

  From LBJ’s standpoint, the information was so explosive that its disclosure would have brought about a public outcry for a post-assassination retaliation against Cuba—something he strongly opposed. Robert Kennedy, ever the loyal younger brother, merely wanted to keep the family name, and his brother’s myth, intact. A full disclosure of Mexico City matters would have bared the Kennedys’ plans to murder Fidel Castro, and to barrage and invade his nation. Such a disclosure would certainly have diminished JFK’s mystique as an innocent martyr.

  What follows are some of the more intriguing stories of Oswald in Mexico City. They were never fully investigated and never disclosed to the Warren Commission.

  Story One: Lee, Sylvia and Elena—Twisting the Night Away

  First, there is the question of Sylvia Duran. As secretary to the Cuban Consul, Duran, with one important exception, has been consistent in her story that her contact with Oswald was brief and innocent. However, evidence has been accumulating over the years that indicates she may have been less than candid about her role in the events surrounding Oswald’s visit. The initial stories revolved around the allegations of a Duran friend named Elena Garro.

  Elena Garro De Paz, the cousin of Sylvia Duran’s father Ruben, tells of a “twist party” at Ruben’s home to which she and her daughter Elenita were invited. To the best of her recollection, the party occurred on either September 30 or October 1st—two of Oswald’s four “missing” days in Mexico City. Party guests included numerous Cuban Embassy employees, including Consul Azcue. At one point, Azcue and Emilio Carballido, a pro-Castro writer (and Castro agent), became involved in a heated discussion about President Kennedy. They “came to the conclusion that the only solution was to kill him.”32

  Elena’s cousin Sylvia Duran attended the party and brought three Americans with her. When Elena attempted to speak with one of them, Sylvia stepped in. To Elena, it was clear that Sylvia had romantic designs on him. Two months later, on the day Kennedy was killed, both Elena and Elenita recognized the assassin as the man at the party—Lee Harvey Oswald.33 (Duran’s name and home address were later found in Oswald’s address book.)

  Garro first told her story on October 5, 1964, eleven days after the Warren Commission findings were released.34 She told it to June Cobb Sharp, an occasional contact of the U.S. Embassy. According to Sharp, Garro had come to the conclusion that “the party must have been set up by those Cuban individuals involved, and [by] some of their Mexican friends, so that they could provide an underground for Oswald after the assassination, in which there would be people who would recognize him and assist in his escape.”35

  Sharp passed the story along, and as a result, on November 24th Garro told the story to FBI LEGAT Clark Anderson. She told Anderson that she had attempted to give her account directly to Robert Kennedy a week earlier (November 14, 1964) when he was visiting Mexico Cit
y.36 On Christmas Day, 1965 she repeated the story to the American Embassy’s Political Action Officer Charles Ashman. This time, however, she added one new detail she had learned in the interim: “Sylvia Duran had been Oswald’s mistress while he was there [in Mexico City].”37

  In the atmosphere of official “lone nut” conclusions, there was no desire to follow this information up with an interview of Sylvia Duran. In fact, Duran’s first official interrogation by the U.S. government occurred when the HSCA contacted her in May 1978. Garro’s allegations were ignored for 14 years, in spite of an important phone call Sylvia Duran herself made in 1967. Duran called an old friend (and unknown to Duran, a CIA contact viewed as very reliable by the agency), and essentially verified everything Garro had said, seemingly without knowledge of Garro’s prior testimony. According to the report filed by the contact, “Duran admitted that she had had intimate relations with Oswald, but insisted that she had no idea of his plans.”38 Subsequently, the Mexico City Station filed the following report to headquarters: