Live by the Sword

by Gus Russo

  In a flurry of calls, all tapped by the CIA, Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticos phoned his representative in Mexico City, Ambassador Joaquin Hernandez Armas, wanting to know what Duran had told the police. In his call on Tuesday, November 26, Dorticos asked, “Had the police threatened [Duran] so that she would make a statement that the [Cuban] Consulate gave money to that man— that American?” The Cuban President repeated the question numerous times, just to make sure Hernandez understood. Hernandez said he had debriefed Duran, and the answer was “no.”97

  The CIA had been aware since at least 1960 that Cubela accompanied Dorticos on foreign trips (CIA Memo of Dorticos’ Uruguay Trip, June 20, 1960). Recall also that Dorticos, also a known friend of AMLASH/Cubela, traveled to New York in 1962 with a member of a Cuban terrorist cell linked to the Fair Play For Cuba Committee.

  President Dorticos may have been interested in the Duran interrogation because of the appearance in the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City the previous day of Gilberto Alvarado. Alvarado, a young Nicaraguan, had told the U.S. officials that in mid-September, 1963, when he was in the Cuban Embassy to secure a visa, he saw Lee Oswald there. According to Alvarado, Oswald was in the company of a white man and a red-haired black man. Alvarado also claimed that, in the Cuban Embassy, Oswald’s alleged lover, Sylvia Duran, gave Alfredo Mirabal, Consul Azcue’s assistant, a total of $6500 in cash. Mirabal, in turn, handed it to Oswald. Accepting the money, Oswald commented, “You’re not man enough [to kill him]. I can do it.”98

  At the same time, the CIA was being advised of rumors circulating in Mexico “that Oswald made a bank deposit of five thousand dollars in the United States after he got back from Mexico.” Knowing of no such deposits, the CIA quickly disregarded this potentially corroborative piece of information.99 Also, about this time, President Johnson received a letter from a Mexican credit investigator named Pedro Gutierrez. Gutierrez stated that he too had seen Oswald receive a large wad of money in the Cuban Embassy.

  Although Gutierrez was viewed as a reliable witness, his story was never corroborated, and the big questions it raised were left unresolved; the Warren Commission’s allocated research time had elapsed.100

  Alvarado’s original statement about an embassy money-exchange had set off a frenzy of activity in Washington and Mexico City. Eventually, Alvarado insisted that he had invented the story, then retracted his retraction, saying the story was true all along, but he had been pressured to retract it by the Mexican Police.

  There was never any proof that President Dorticos knew of Alvarado. In discussing the subject, he may have been referring to the allegation (by Verson) linking Oswald to Cuban Ambassador Hernandez, or to any of the numerous other sinister possibilities linking Oswald to the Cubans. In any event, even if the Alvarado story is fiction, the persistence of Dorticos’ calls remains striking.101 He called Hernandez back twice that night, at late hours, still demanding to be assured that Sylvia Duran had said nothing about “money” and an offer to Oswald. Ambassador Hernandez seemed unsuccessful at easing Dorticos’s worries. In closing their last conversation that night, Dorticos again asked if Duran had been questioned about money. Hernandez again said no.

  It is worth noting that, at the time of this writing, virtually all of the Warren Commission documents (“Commission Documents or CDs”) have been released, with a few exceptions, most involving personal tax records. One of the other exceptions is CD 1551. Parts of this document are still withheld by the CIA on the grounds that their release may endanger national security interests. As of this writing, it has been thirty-five years since the assassination, and one wonders what could still be of national security interest. Perhaps the subjects of the document, which are known, offer a clue. CD 1551 contains references to both Dorticos and Hernandez, and most likely concerns their telephone conversations.

  The day after these conversations, Sylvia Duran attempted to flee Mexico City for Havana, but she was caught in the act and re-arrested by Mexican authorities.102 Duran’s friend, Theresa Proenza, however, did return to Cuba. She was relieved of her post in Mexico City within a month of the killing, and sent back to Havana, where, according to her brother, Alvaro, she was appointed Director of the Federal Public Library.103

  By December 1963, the CIA would receive a report from a “very good source,” stating:

  Fidel Castro reportedly extremely concerned with persistence of investigation into President Kennedy’s murder and with possible disclosures that could result. . . Dozen people in know have been jailed. . . Close friend [of source], Celia Sanchez, [claimed] plot organized by Castro. . . No Soviet participation. . . contact men in Dallas are [DELETED], and Fernandez Feito.104

  There is no further information on the name “Feito.” According to a reliable Cuban Intelligence Officer who defected to the U.S. after the assassination (known as A-1, or AM/MUG), Havana sent out instructions to sort and box all DGI documents according to secrecy classification. Travel by DGI officers, and the transporting of all DGI pouches, were suspended.105 Through its UN Ambassador, Havana was sending out word to its various delegations “to cease looking happy in public” about President Kennedy’s demise.

  Oswald’s Secret Life

  Oswald’s secret life is as key to unraveling the mysteries of the Kennedy assassination as his propensity to violence, his willingness to kill. “The question is not, ‘Did Lee Harvey Oswald shoot the President?’ The question is, ‘Did he have help?’” stated Robert Blakey, former Chief Counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, in 1993. “Within 30 hours of the assassination, that was the question. Thirty years later, that remains the question.” Between that Saturday night and Monday morning, the question of whether there was a conspiracy to help Oswald was on the minds of Bobby Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and top officials in the CIA and FBI. All of these men would satisfy their curiosity in their own ways, but none of them would allow their conclusions to go on the record. And the historical record is far worse for it.

  Due to these sadly incomplete investigations and the slow pace of investigation technology, the question of whether or not Oswald committed the assassination has dominated the discussion for 35 years. In the decades since the assassination, many genuinely puzzling questions have arisen: about ballistics, about echoes of gun fire in Dealey Plaza, about other possible shooters there, and about seeming contradictions in the medical and autopsy evidence. It took a range of scientific capabilities and tests developed after the late 1970’s to lay the suspicions to rest: to confirm that the bullets that killed Kennedy came from Oswald’s rifle and no other weapon; to demonstrate conclusively that there had been no other shots; and to prove that the “magic bullet” that traveled from Oswald’s perch in the Texas School Book Depository through President Kennedy and through Governor John Connally had behaved quite normally, given its composition, path, and obstacles.

  Still, Lyndon Johnson, Bobby Kennedy, and top-ranking government officials, for their own disparate reasons, obfuscated and clouded the issue, and the muddle they created has survived for thirty-five years. Skeptics would point to the “dark areas” in the case, the places the official investigations ignored, as evidence that each of these investigations had been subverted by a laughably huge conspiracy. In fact, these dark spots did represent a coverup—but not of a conspiracy to assassinate the President. This coverup was actually the effort of these “great men” who realized that to uncover the truth, whatever its shape, would possibly precipitate a nuclear war, and certainly destroy the memory of “Camelot.”

  The assassination of John F. Kennedy was a classic example of “blowback,” as some in the intelligence profession call it: a disastrous backfire on a covert operation. Either Lee Oswald had found out what the Kennedys were up to, or someone loyal to Fidel had so informed him, and this information led to the tragic event of November 22, 1963. Evidence would be uncovered in the early investigations. The Redbird and Cubana Airlines incidents, Gilberto Policarpo Lopez’s Saturday border crossing, “Julio
Fernandez” and his associates’ overhearing of an Oswald pro-Castro meeting, the Dorticos phone calls, the Alvarado story, the Calderon evidence and transcripts—all implied a Cuban conspiracy to kill the American President. And these aforementioned leads are only those publicly acknowledged in the case, not the information from the results of the private queries of Bobby Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Allen Dulles, Win Scott (CIA Mexico City Station Chief), and numerous others in sensitive posts who never went on the record—leads which are now nearly impossible to pursue.

  This evidence certainly seems to imply that Cuban agents were either pushing Oswald’s buttons or helping him with money, equipment, or a means of escape. But these leads would not be followed. Unfortunately—and perhaps fortunately— they were left unresolved. The coverup prevented the discovery of the true facts about the President, and may have prevented a world war in retaliation for the Kennedy assassination.

  For reasons both patriotic and selfish, America’s “great men” of the times shielded from view both the secret war against Castro and the hints of a Cuban conspiracy to assassinate the President. These details became “The Big Secret.” For three decades, Kennedy loyalists would fight tooth and nail to perpetuate the “lone nut” hypothesis and to keep the lid on the Kennedys’ attempts to murder Fidel Castro. In their extreme efforts, the knights of Camelot allowed all sorts of other conspiracy theories to flourish. All that mattered was that “The Big Secret” not be revealed. From Lyndon Johnson to Bobby Kennedy, to members of the Warren Commission, they would all say that Oswald acted alone with no clear motive. They lied, or in the case of the Warren Commission, were kept out of the loop.

  Bobby Kennedy did not want his culpability in his brother’s murder to become a matter of public scrutiny. Castro had his own reasons to hide Oswald’s Cuban connection. And Lyndon Johnson (and others like him) knew the feeling of the American public for Kennedy and against Castro. As the nation’s new leader, he realized that if it were uncovered that the assassination may have been the result of Castro’s success in the Kennedys’ private feud, it could begin World War III. Thus, he hid the truth, and refused to follow suspicious, yet promising leads. LBJ, Bobby Kennedy, and others would help to clamp down the dirt on Kennedy and Oswald’s graves, leaving a trail of doubt and unanswered questions lasting 35 years.

  “William Bobo”

  On Monday morning, November 25, while the nation was watching the lavish tribute and burial of John Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery, Lee Oswald was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Fort Worth.106 The two gravediggers were told that they were preparing a plot for a “William Bobo.”107 When Oswald’s cheap moleskin-covered pine coffin arrived with over one hundred policemen in tow, the grave-diggers deduced whose hole they were digging.

  Lee’s brother Robert had assumed the difficult task of arranging for the funeral. As Marina’s biographer Priscilla McMillan wrote, “One cemetery after another refused even to countenance the suggestion that they sell Robert a plot for his brother’s body. . . The same thing happened with ministers. Four of them turned Robert down.”108

  The Lutheran minister who ended up presiding was practically forced to do so by the National Council of Churches in Dallas. At the proceedings, his hesitation and reluctance were not lost on the grief-stricken family.

  Robert Oswald accompanied Marina and Marguerite to the burial, helping to carry Lee’s daughters June and four-week-old Rachel. That was the extent of Oswald’s mourners. The family was surrounded by FBI, Secret Service, and members of the press. Many of the press managed to reach a new low in insensitivity, even for members of the fourth estate. Conscripted into acting as pall-bearers, some of the journalists were photographed laughing and joking as they carried the coffin past the grieving family.

  One of the journalists so conscripted was Jerry Herald, a free-lance photographer working now for the French magazine Paris Match. “It was pretty gruesome,” remembers Herald. “There weren’t very many volunteers to help carry the body so that might give you an idea of the anger—I would say there were not a lot of sad faces for Lee Oswald,” says Herald. Just before the coffin was to be lowered into the ground, the FBI instructed that the casket be opened for final identification by Oswald’s survivors. When this was done, Marina placed her wedding ring on the finger of her deceased husband, just as Jackie had days before.109

  Upon returning to the motel sanctuary, federal agents Kunkle and Howard resumed their debriefing of the Oswalds. By this time, New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison had finally spoken with Dave Ferrie, who had voluntarily surrendered himself to Garrison’s office. Garrison had no reason to hold Ferrie, so he turned him over to the FBI for more questioning. Like Garrison, the FBI, many of whom knew Ferrie, also found no reason to hold him. According to Mike Howard, word of this reached the Justice Department in Washington.

  Suddenly a phone call came to Howard from Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department. “They wanted us to ask Marina if she had ever heard of Dave Ferrie,” remembers Howard. “We did—she didn’t.”110

  By February 1964, Robert Kennedy would personally authorize the FBI to place bugs and wiretaps on Marina Oswald’s residence. No conspiratorial contact was ever overheard.111

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE INVESTIGATIONS

  “Looking back, I feel a certain amount of shame. I think the FBI can look back and feel that this one investigation disgraced a great organization.”

  —FBI Supervisor Laurence Keenan, who conducted the Mexico City portion of the FBI’s investigation1

  “I personally believe Oswald was the assassin. . . As to whether he was the only man gives me great concern; we have several letters. . . written to him from Cuba referring to the job he was going to do, his good marksmanship, and stating when it was all over, he would be brought back to Cuba and presented to the chief. We do not know if the chief was Castro and cannot make an investigation because we have no intelligence operation in Cuba.”

  —J. Edgar Hoover, December 12, 19632

  “The Warren Commission relied on the intelligence agencies for investigation and analysis, but unfortunately, the agencies failed the Commission and the American public. The most notable intelligence failure related to the investigation of possible complicity by the Cuban government. The CIA. . . had ample reason to suspect Cuban involvement.”

  —James H. Johnston, counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (the “Church Committee”), 1993

  The Early Investigations

  The investigation of the assassination, predictably, fell to the CIA and the FBI, with the Justice Department directing. After reviewing international intercepts and NSA surveillance of the Kremlin, the CIA had assured itself that there was no Soviet complicity in the crime. Given the CIA’s foreign purview, and its knowledge of the Kennedys’ provocative Cuban policies, the other principal suspect was Cuba.

  The day after the assassination, Richard Helms assigned “John Scelso” (pseudonym) of the CIA’s Special Affairs Staff (SAS), which contained the largest concentration of Agency experts on Cuba, to oversee the initial investigation. Scelso, assisted by Birch O’Neal, stated that “Helms gave me broad powers.”

  One month later, Helms announced that the investigation was being turned over to James Angleton and Ray Rocca. In his brief tenure, however, Scelso had deduced one of Oswald’s true motives for the murder—of which the official investigators (the Warren Commission) could have no inkling. As Scelso testified in 1978, “Oswald was a genuine pro-Castro nut and he was excited about what he read about our attempts to knock off Castro.”3

  But in 1976, the Church Committee concluded that the SAS, which was run by Des FitzGerald, had contributed next to nothing tangible to the investigation. The Committee’s findings stated:

  There is no evidence whatsoever that SAS was asked or ever volunteered to analyze Oswald’s contacts with Cuban groups. . . The CIA investigation into any Cuban connection, whether pro-Castro or anti-Castro, was passive in nature. . . In
view of Oswald’s preoccupation with Cuba, and his visit to Mexico City to obtain visas to Cuba and the Soviet Union, it would appear that potential involvement with pro-Castro or anti-Castro groups should have been investigated.4

  The CIA’s Coverup

  Further compromising the investigation was the CIA’s desire to shield Oswald’s Cuban Embassy visit from official scrutiny. In 1963, Boris and Anna Tarassoff were a husband and wife team employed by the CIA to translate from Russian the Agency’s surveillance tapes of the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. Anna Tarassoff later testified that they translated Oswald’s phone call to the Soviet Embassy when he told the Soviets of his visit to the Cuban Embassy. Boris Tarassoff added that at the time of Oswald’s visit, the CIA was “very hot about the whole thing.” He said, “It was possible that Oswald first came to the Station’s attention through Oswald’s contact with the Cuban Embassy.” Anna added that the CIA’s order to learn what they could about Oswald “was marked as urgent.”5 Even Station Chief Winston Scott, in his manuscript, Foul Foe, wrote:

  In fact, Lee Harvey Oswald became a person of great interest to us during this 27 September to 2 October, 1963 period. . .[In] the Warren Commission Report [pg. 777] the erroneous statement was made that it was not known until after the assassination that Oswald had visited the Cuban Embassy! . . .Every piece of information concerning Lee Harvey Oswald was reported immediately after it was received. . . These reports were made on all his contacts with both the Cuban Consulate and the Soviets.6

  A CIA internal memo discovered years later states flatly that “it was the combination of visits to both the Cuban and Soviet Embassies which caused the Mexico City Station to report this to Headquarters.”7 When confronted with the abundance of damaging evidence in 1995, former CIA Director Richard Helms said of the CIA’s official denials, “I think probably the answer is that they didn’t want to blow their source.”8 According to an undated internal CIA memo, the Agency had successfully developed sources within the Cuban Embassy—sources who could possibly shed light on Oswald’s contacts and conversations, but to this day have not been made available to official investigators of JFK’s death.9