Live by the Sword

by Gus Russo

  That Sylvia Duran had sexual intercourse with Lee Harvey Oswald on several occasions when the latter was in Mexico is probably new, but adds little to the Oswald case.39

  It is not known who authored the report to headquarters, but whoever it was clearly reached the wrong conclusion, whether on his/her own, or because of pressure from above. Others in the CIA Station knew that Duran was a double agent, and that piece of information would certainly add a great deal to “the Oswald case.”

  Story Two: Sylvia Duran, Double Agent

  Fifteen years after the assassination, David Phillips, the CIA’s Cuban specialist in Mexico City (and later Chief of the Western Hemisphere), told Congress of his belief that “Duran was possibly an agent or a source” for the U.S.40 Phillips allegedly told more to Houston Post reporter, Lonnie Hudkins, with whom he was friendly. According to Hudkins, Phillips told him of a meeting attended by three people: Lee Harvey Oswald; a CIA undercover man; and Sylvia Duran, posing as a prostitute. Phillips admitted to Hudkins that, in Mexico City, he had often bought information from Duran.41

  All this corroborates what New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews told the New Orleans District Attorney’s office. After the assassination, he claimed to have learned that Oswald had “befriended a CIA whore” in Mexico City.42 A confidential source told the HSCA that “all that would have to be done to recruit Sylvia Duran, whom he referred to by using the Spanish word for ‘whore/ would be to get a blond, blue-eyed American into bed with her.”43 The HSCA received many other reports of Duran’s promiscuity.

  An internal CIA memo dated June 13, 1967 seems to lend weight to the possibility of a CIA relationship with Duran at the same time she was trysting with Oswald. The memo was prepared for “Willard C. Curtis” (Win Scott), by the same CIA agent/asset who had received the call from Sylvia Duran admitting her relationship with Oswald. The agent stated that he was “doing his best to keep active certain contacts. . . on the periphery of the official Cuban circle.”

  According to the document, one of those contacts was Sylvia Duran, who is “well-known to headquarters.”44 Laurence Keenan, the FBI agent sent to Mexico City after the assassination to coordinate the investigation, has said “Sylvia Duran was possibly a source of information for the Agency [CIA] or the Bureau [FBI].”45

  Lastly, a Congressional investigator, Edwin Lopez, told author John Newman, “We saw an interesting file on Duran. It said that the CIA was considering using her affair with Carlos Lechuga [Cuban Ambassador to the U.N. and former Ambassador to Mexico City] to recruit her.”46 As damaging as this would be to the CIA—the assassin of President Kennedy having met with a CIA contact in Mexico—one can only imagine the damage to the Agency if Duran had been a triple agent, whose ultimate loyalties belonged to Havana.

  Story Three: Sylvia Duran, Triple Agent

  Barney Hidalgo, a CIA officer in Mexico City, told the HSCA that “he thought Duran was a Cuban intelligence agent.”47 The CIA apparently had more evidence that connected Duran to Cuban Intelligence, but revealing this information to the official investigators of President Kennedy’s death would have jeopardized the still-ongoing, top-secret administration plans for a new Cuban invasion.

  At the time of the Oswald visit to Mexico City, an important part of the Cuba Project was being run directly out of Mexico City. This operation seems to have been part of the AM/LASH-AM/TRUNK coup that was in its final planning stages. A recently-declassified CIA memo describes the mandate: “Pursuant to instructions from the 303 Committee of the Kennedy Administration [another name for Bobby Kennedy’s Cuban Coordinating Committee], the CIA established among its objectives against Fidel Castro’s Cuba the fragmenting of its governing coalition and the undermining of its relations with the USSR.”

  According to this same memo, a sensitive operation in Mexico City involved Teresa Proenza, the Cuban Cultural Attaché, known to be a long-standing Cuban Communist and a contact of Soviet intelligence in Mexico. In addition, Proenza had highly-placed confidantes in Havana, including the Vice-Minister of Defense. Thus, Proenza became the target of a complicated CIA scheme.

  The details are still sketchy. However, it is clear that the CIA used Proenza, whom it believed was a lesbian, to mount a clever campaign of slander against the pro-Moscow Cuban Vice Minister of Defense. Through a CIA asset in the Cuban Embassy, false papers were planted on Proenza implicating the Vice-Minister of Defense as a CIA spy. The object was to drive a wedge between Moscow, which could be expected to rise to the minister’s defense, and Havana. Apparently the scheme worked, for CIA documents state that the minister was arrested by the Cubans on charges of treason. The operation was so sensitive that the CIA, in 1978, was still refusing to turn over its Proenza file to HSCA investigators.

  At that time, the CIA sent the investigators a memo that concludes with the following mysterious language:

  This is but the barest outline of a highly complex operations system that made use of a wide variety of techniques which have not been revealed to the public. The story would make the juiciest of headlines if it became known. . . In short, this file is a Pandora’s Box, the opening of which would not only expose the cryptonyms of other operations of this type, but would attract unfavorable publicity for the Agency in certain quarters, and would expose hitherto secret techniques and assets [that] would make their employment in the future very difficult.

  Although this operation had nothing to do with the Kennedy assassination, it hints at the reasons the CIA concealed Proenza’s involvement in the Oswald case. According to another document, Proenza was Sylvia Duran’s best friend. She, in fact, had recommended Duran for the job at the Cuban Consulate. When later interviewed by the HSCA, Proenza’s brother Alvaro told the investigators that Teresa admitted that one of Oswald’s “acquaintances” had contacted Proenza in the Cuban Embassy.48 FBI documents show that Teresa Proenza told a close friend that she was the first person to speak with Oswald when he entered the Embassy.49

  In other words, protection of intelligence secrets, an investigation of which could have shed light on Proenza’s knowledge of Oswald (or her relationship with the lover of Lee Harvey Oswald), was given a higher level of importance than the investigation of President Kennedy’s assassination. These revelations help explain why, the day after JFK’s murder, the Mexico City Station received a phone call from CIA headquarters in Washington instructing them to stop Duran’s arrest by Mexican police.

  Story Four: Oswald and the Cuban Embassy Officials

  Some of the most explosive reports that were never fully investigated deal with possible clandestine meetings between Oswald and Cuban embassy officials. Salvador Diaz Verson, a former newspaperman and Chief of Cuban Military intelligence under former Cuban President Carlos Prio, was regarded by the FBI as “of highly reliable character.” He told a story that, he said, had been related to him by Dr. Eduardo Borrell Navarros, an exiled Cuban newspaperman.

  According to Prio, on the day after Oswald arrived in Mexico, Oswald went with Sylvia Duran to the Caballo Blanco restaurant near Chapultepec Park, on the outskirts of the city, “where they met an official of the Cuban embassy.” That official was supposedly the Cuban Ambassador to Mexico, Joaquin Hernandez Armas. They had an extended conversation. Then Oswald and the ambassador left in the ambassador’s car “for a talk without being overheard.”

  According to the FBI report, this information was brought to the FBI’s attention by the White House.50 In the wake of the assassination, monitored phone calls in Mexico City seemed to give this story credibility.

  Navarros initially denied to the FBI that he was the source of this information. This is understandable: with so many Castro spies in its midst, the Cuban exile community was gripped by fear after the assassination. However, when interviewed in 1993, Navarros made it apparent that he had not been candid with the investigators, and now gave the following details:

  My main sources were Cubans. . . ex army officials under Batista. I learned about his [Oswald’s] activ
ities through Conrado Peres Mundriera, who was a high Cuban official at one time. . . It was through him that I learned about Oswald’s visits to the Embassy, to the consulate, and that it was also said at the time that he paid a visit to the Caballo Blanco, a very well-known Mexican restaurant. . . that he had contact with Cuban diplomats.51

  Still wary of divulging too much, Navarros abruptly ended the 1993 interview, saying, “I really have little more to tell you—I’m limiting myself to what I can tell you.”

  The testimony of Pedro Gutierrez confirmed reports of Oswald’s secret Embassy liaisons. A credit investigator for a Mexican department store, Gutierrez told a CIA contact that he saw an American leaving the Cuban Embassy in the company of a tall Cuban. He later identified the American as Lee Harvey Oswald. The two men, Gutierrez recalls, got into a car and drove off together. When the FBI later traced the car described by Gutierrez, a Renault, it turned out to be owned by the family of Sylvia Duran. Duran’s car had Texas license plates, and was known to make frequent trips to Texas.52

  Is it plausible, though, that a Cuban ambassador could be personally involved in planning the assassination of a foreign leader? Consider the story of the former Cuban Ambassador to Morocco, Walterio Carbonell. Carbonell, a Castro friend since his law school days, was advised in 1960 that Castro, before making ambassadorial appointments, demanded that each ambassadorial candidate promise him that he would assassinate U.S. leaders if called upon to do so. According to the Miami Herald:

  Cuban Premier Fidel Castro had arranged the assassinations of several U.S. ambassadors in the event any suspected CIA plots to kill him during his early days in power were successful. . . The assassinations would be carried out by various Cuban ambassadors and Carbonell had to agree to be one of them if he wanted the post.53

  In addition, the CIA’s JM/WAVE station in Florida was told by an informant that Cuba “employs killers and assassins. . . Two persons [were] killed in Mexico by Robert Coronevsky who received three hundred dollars for the deed from Embassy [in] Mexico.”54 This echoes an FBI report of October 25, 1962, which stated that the Bureau had information that a former Cuban ambassador to Panama, named Jimenez, had teamed with a Castro “repression” agent named Humberto Rodriguez Diaz for the purpose of assassinating the President of Panama, Roberto Chiari.55 And, as will be seen, pro-Castro terrorists belonging to the Fair Play For Cuba Committee were known by the FBI to be under the control of Cuban Embassy officials.

  Story Five: An Offer the Cubans Couldn’t Refuse?

  If Oswald had secret meetings with Cuban Embassy officials already prone to use “executive action,” one huge question is raised: Did the potential murder of Castro’s nemesis, John Kennedy, become a subject of discussion? There is evidence that it did.

  Ernesto Rodriguez was a CIA contract agent in Mexico City at the time of Oswald’s visit. In 1975, he told a news reporter that Oswald disclosed to the Soviets and the Cubans that he had learned (no doubt on the streets of New Orleans) of a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. According to Rodriguez, Oswald also unmasked this plot to members of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in Mexico City.56 It was at this point, according to Oswald’s FBI case officer, Jim Hosty, that Oswald made an offer to Cuban intelligence that he hoped they couldn’t refuse.

  According to Hosty (and corroborated by government documents), FBI Director Hoover, after the assassination, dispatched two undercover agents to Havana to carry out a “vetting” —to feel Castro out.57 The agents, officially designated “Solo Source,” were, it has been revealed, Morris Childs, treasurer of the U.S. Communist Party, and his brother Jack Childs, editor of The Daily Worker.58 “Solo Source” represented at the time the U.S.’ most significant penetration into the international Communist Party. What Castro told the agents goes far beyond what the premier has said publicly. According to Hosty, the Cuban leader confided that Oswald had offered to kill President Kennedy because Kennedy was threatening Castro. Castro claimed that the Cubans turned down Oswald’s offer.

  In another version of this story, according to a document withheld until 1995, Castro told “Solo Source” that he was informed by Embassy officials in Mexico City that Oswald’s exact words were: “I’m going to kill that bastard. I’m going to kill Kennedy.” Castro further stated that he was told of the remarks immediately, but they were considered a madman’s rantings, and not an offer.59

  Even this version is ominous. If true, Castro allowed Oswald to proceed without warning U.S. authorities. Castro apparently repeated the story again in July 1967 to British writer Comer Clark, who said Castro told him a story similar to the one he told “Solo Source.” According to Clark, Castro explained:

  I was told he [Oswald] wanted to work for us. He was asked to explain, but he wouldn’t. The second time [Oswald came to the embassy], he said he wanted to “free Cuba from American imperialism.” Then he said something like, “Somebody ought to shoot that President Kennedy. Maybe I’ll try to do it.”60

  According to award-winning TV journalist Daniel Schorr, the Cuban Ambassador to Mexico relayed this offer to Havana.61 Castro later admitted, according to Clark, “Yes, I heard of Lee Harvey Oswald’s plan to kill President Kennedy. It’s possible that I could have saved him, but I didn’t.”62

  Some have sought to disparage the Comer Clark story, citing his connection with tabloid journalism, and pointing to Castro’s expected denials that he met with Clark. However, the HSCA believed differently:

  The committee was informed that the substance of it [the Comer Clark story] had been independently reported to the U.S. government A highly confidential but reliable source reported that Oswald had indeed vowed in the presence of Cuban Consulate officials to assassinate the President.63

  Houston Post reporter and regular CIA contact Lonnie Hudkins claims that he learned from a high-ranking minister in Castro’s government that Oswald returned to the Cuban Embassy after October 1st. At this secret meeting, according to Hudkins, Oswald was given explicit details of the Kennedy assassination plots against Fidel Castro. Oswald became infuriated and decided then and there to do away with Kennedy.64

  Story Six: The Story of “A-1”

  Still more evidence seems to show that Havana knew of Oswald’s intentions, and that the FBI and the CIA knew also, but never turned this information over to the Warren Commission.

  In 1964, a Cuban defector and former Cuban intelligence officer, described as a “well-placed individual, who has been in contact with officers of the Cuban Directorate General of Intelligence (DGI),” told of sensitive Oswald contacts in the Cuban embassy. The defector, code-named AM/MUG-1 or “A-1,” claimed that Oswald “was in contact with three Cuban agents before, during, and after” his visit to the Embassy. The Cuban agents were identified as Cuban Consulate employees Luisa Calderon, Manuel Vega Perez, and Rogelio Rodriguez Lopez. According to A-1, Castro knew of these contacts in advance of the assassination, and of Oswald’s offer to kill President Kennedy. The source further stated that, after the assassination, the DGI took extraordinary security precautions to cover its tracks.65

  During the second week of November 1963, Oswald worked on drafts of a letter that, on November 12th, he would send to the Soviet Embassy in Washington. The letter is replete with Oswald lies and exaggerations about his time in Mexico, Hosty, etc. However, the letter’s most intriguing aspect is its closing sentence, which refers to the “stupid” Cuban Consul (Azcue), and how Oswald was “glad he had been replaced by another.”66 Azcue would be replaced at the Cuban Embassy on November 18. The obvious question is: How did Oswald know of this personnel change (and a week before it took place)? Was this common knowledge among young warehouse workers in Dallas?

  The answer is that A-1’s allegations were correct: Between the time of his visit to Mexico City and the time of the assassination, Oswald maintained contact with someone in the Cuban Consulate. According to “A-1,” that person was Luisa Calderon. After the assassination, this highly sensitive lead was never investigated
.

  In the wake of the assassination, CIA Counterintelligence executive Raymond Rocca was especially concerned that Vega and Rodriguez may have been involved in Kennedy’s murder. According to Rocca, both men were known to have been Cuban intelligence officers (DGI) and to have run assassination operations in Nicaragua. Rocca further stated, “Vega, it is established, was on post in Mexico City during Oswald’s stay there. . . All individuals going to Cuba, legally or illegally, had to pass through him first. He took the biographical data [of Oswald] and sent it to Cuba for name checking,” along with Oswald’s application, which Oswald filled out in the Cuban Embassy. In addition, Rodriguez was known to have run into V.T. Lee, the Fair Play for Cuba leader, in Cuba on numerous occasions in 1962 and 1963 (Lee Oswald had been in regular contact with V.T. Lee in 1963).67

  In 1978, the HCSA interviewed “A-1,” whose bona fides were strongly vouched for after he defected to the United States in late 1963. According to A-1, Consulate employee and alleged Castro agent Luisa Calderon had a relationship with Oswald that went “beyond her capacity as secretary in the Mexico City Consulate.” A-1 also knew of a letter—presumably intercepted by another of Castro’s Mexico City agents—sent to Calderon soon after Oswald’s visit. The letter was from an American (Calderon had been seen in Mexico City with a young American) whose name sounded like “Ower”—conceivably Oswald after mouth-to-mouth communication in two languages.

  Immediately after the assassination, Calderon was recalled to Havana. On the day Kennedy was killed, she was asked if she had heard the news. A reliable source quoted her as saying, “Yes, of course. I found out almost before Kennedy.”68

  CIA transcripts of the conversation support the source. But they reveal even more detail. The conversation is punctuated by so much laughter, and such joyous disbelief, that the two parties appear giddy. Calderon, through her laughter, said that she couldn’t believe the news of Kennedy’s death, and continually remarked on how great it was. When the caller said that Kennedy was “shot three times in the face,” Calderon exclaimed, “Perfect!”