Oswald, Mexico, and Deep Politics

by Peter Dale Scott

  5 CIA outgoing cable DIR 74673 Oci 10; 4 AH 219; Lopez Report. 146.

  6 Lopez Report, 144.

  7 Lopez Report. 143.

  8 Lopez Report. 144-47 Cf. discussion of Oswald in FBI, Secret Service, and Dallas Police files as "Harvey Lee Oswald," in Scott, Deep Politics, 277, 374-75.

  9 Lopez Report. 101; interview with Edwin Lopez. 10/9/93.

  10 HSCA, Deposition of James Angleton, 145-47, as summarized in Tom Mangold, Cold Warrior (New York: Simon and Schuster/Touchstone, 1991), 57.

  11 David Wise, Molehunt (New York: Random House. 1992), 158, 160.

  12 Curt Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover (New York: Norton, 1991), 392.

  13 Dick Russell. The Man Who Kneh Too Much (New York: Carroll and Graf, 1992), 239.

  14 Mangold, 108; Edward Jay Epstein, Deception (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 75-77.

  15 CIA Doc. # 34-538, Memo of 23 Nov 1963 from Tennant ("Pete") Bagley, Chief, SR/CI; Schweiker-Hart Report, 25; Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics, 54.

  16 Bagley memo of 23 Nov 1963; Schweiker-Hart Report, 92; Scott. Deep Politics, 39; Edward Jay Epstein, Legend (New York: Reader’s Digest Press/McGraw-Hill, 1978), 16, 237; U.S. Cong., Senate, Committee on the Judiciary. Murder International Incorporated, Hearing, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington: G.P.O., 1965).

  17 Scott, Deep Politics, 113; William Manchester, Death of a President (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), 730; see also below.

  18 Memo of 1/31/64 from Helms to Warren Commission Counsel J. Lee Rankin. "Information Developed by CIA on the Activity of Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City. 28 September—3 October 1963," CIA Document 509-803.

  19 11 AH 476. 485; Scott, Deep Politics, 61-67.

  20 Schweiker-Hart Report. 54; 3 AH 535; Scon. Deep Politics. 63 (FBI CI); Lopez Report. 141, 148-50. 183-84, etc.

  21 11 AH 63, 491; CIA internal memo of 3/5/63 from Ray Rocca of CI. reporting the recommendations of CI Chief James Angleton.

  22 This section was written before the publication by Oleg Nechiporenko of a book corroborating the meeting from sources who would normally appear to be definitive: Kostikov himself, supported by two of his colleagues in the Soviet Embassy, Pavel Yatzkov and Nechiporenko. At this point in ray text, I originally expressed skepticism about the book, on the basis of the advance report of it in Posner (p. 183). Having since both read the book and spent hours with Nechiporenko himself, I am now convinced that both the man and the book have to be taken seriously (see below). For reasons I shall explain later, however, I still believe that the Lopez Report hypothesis of a possible Oswald impostor in Mexico remains a viable one, neither proven nor disproven.

  23 Lopez Report, 78-79. The transcript is in English, which is said to indicate "cither English or Russian." But the translator of an earlier conversation on September 28. which was in broken Russian, later identified the two speakers as being the same, while his wife identified the October 1 conversation from the transcript as being in Russian (Lopez Report, 83).

  24 Lopez Report, 171; cf. discussion below.

  25 3 AH 69-70 (Duran); 3 AH 136, cf. 152 (Azcue). For what it is worth. Durán described Oswald as as blond and balding (poco pelo. 3 AH 104). This description recalls the description of Oswald, or "Oswald," by Alfred Osborne alias John Bowen, the mysterious Englishman who sat next to him in the bus that brought him to Mexico City. Osborne/Bowen also described "Oswald"’s hair as "blond and thin" (25 WH 37; 25 WH 573).

  26 Posner, Case Closed. 188-89.

  27 Lopez Repon, 186.

  28 WCD 347 (CIA Document # 509-803); CIA memorandum of 31 January’ 1964. Also WCD 426; memo of 14 February 1964 from Richard Helms to Commission Counsel J. Lee Rankin.

  29 24 WH 565.

  30 Lopez Report, 190.

  31 WCE 2123; 24 WH 680. 682. Cf. Scon. Deep Politics. 105.

  32 Scott, Deep Politics, 123, 336; Philip Agee, CM Diary (Harmondswonh, Middlesex: Penguin, 1975), 275-76, 524-26, 553.

  33 Posner. Case Closed, 182. The FBI could never locate the shop; thus the Warren Report concluded that Oswald brought with him "passport photographs which he may have obtained in the United Stales" (WR 734; cf. 25 WH 589).

  34 Fonzi, The Last Investigation, 293-94. The presence of HUMINT or human intelligence assets inside the Cuban Consulate appears 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.

  35 CIA Doc # 59-23, MEXI (Mexico City CIA cable) 7035 of 23 Nov 1963.

  36 Lopez Report. 23.

  37 Lopez Report. 87-88, 88-89; Posner, 187; Fonzj. 295. On November 16. 1993 a PBS Frontfine television report on Oswald referred to Win Scon’s claim that "persons watching these embassies photographed Oswald as he entered and left each one." PBS also elicited from Richard Helms the response. "He [Scott] couldn’t produce the photograph."

  38 Lopez Report, 13-30; footnote 363 on p. A-25.

  39 Lopez Report, 78-79, 136.

  40 Lopez Report, 79.

  41 A third account of this conversation, transmitted by House Committee investigator Gaeton Fonzi. would, if accurate, be even more conspiratorial. According to Fonzi, the CIA told the Warren Commission it had "tape recordings of Oswald telephoning the Soviets and asking for a ‘Comrade Kostin.’ (That, the Agency said, was a code name for Valery Kostikov, a Russian officer in charge of the KGB’s Department Thirteenth [sic], which was responsible for assassinations and sabotage.)" (Fonzi, 283). This version raises the question of how "Oswald" could have known a KGB code name, "Kostin," which the real Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly used afterwards in a letter of November 9, 1963, to the Soviet Embassy in Washington (WR 309-11; Scott, Deep Politics, 39-40). So far I have found no documentary evidence for Fonzi’s claim.

  42 CIA Document # 34-538, Memo of 23 November 1963 from Bagley to ADDP Karamessines.

  43 Lopez Report, 77; MEXI (Mexico City CIA cable) 7023 of November 23, 1963; DIR (CIA HQ cable) 84915 of November 23, 1963.

  44 Epstein. Legend, 87; Summers. Conspiracy, 154; WR 685; 24 WH 130.

  45 Hurt, Reasonable Doubt, 211; WR 703; WCE 1401, p. 261; WCE 994. p. 5. Posner recognizes that the caller’s broken Russian on September 28 is a problem. His response is to distinguish between the two callers on September 28 and October 1: "the tape referred to," Posner writes, "may not even have been a recording of Oswald" (Posner, 187). This solution does not deal with the fact that the CIA translators and officers identified the speaker of broken Russian on September 28 with the caller on October 1 who introduced himself as ‘Lee Oswald.’ Someone, not Oswald, who introduced himself as Oswald, could only be an impostor.

  46 CIA Document # 9-5, Memo of 16 October 1963 to the Ambassador from [deleted]; Lopez Report, 170-72; Scott, Deep Politics, 41. In Deep Politics I wrongly suggested that the author might have been David Phillips; we now learn that the author was a woman with "very much the Counter-Intelligence mentality" (Lopez Report, 171, 101).

  47 Lopez Report, 73-79. 162, 170-72. The House Committee determined that by October 16, the date of Ms. X’s memo, all four intercepts "had been linked to Oswald" (Lopez Report, 170). A post-assassination cable confirmed that "no other info available" (Lopez Report, 183).

  48 Lopez Report, 181.

  49 Lopez Report, 162.

  50 AR 249-50; Scott, Deep Politics, 41-43.

  51 Lopez Report, Addendum, 1-3.

  52 AR 250 I am reliably informed that the Report used this evasive and misleading phrase after car
eful deliberation and consultation.

  53 Fonzi. The Last Investigation, 286-87n. Slawson explained to rae that he was concerned only to establish the accuracy of the transcripts, not the identity of the speaker.

  54 Cf. Oleg M. Nechiporenko, translated by Todd P Bludeau. Passport to Assassination (New York: Birch Lane/Carol. 1993). 83.

  55 Scott, Deep Politics. 284, 291.

  56 Nechiporenko, 68.

  57 Nechiporenko, 75-81. This is the meeting at which Oswald allegedly brandished a revolver.

  58 San Francisco Chronicle, January 25, 1994, A10.

  59 National Enquirer, November 22. 1993.

  60 Ibid.; Nechiporenko. 81.

  61 Nechiporenko. 110.

  62 Nechiporenko, 179.

  63 Nechiporenko, 171-72; Schweiker-Hart Report, 24; cover-sheets to DBA 55777 (FBI de Brueys Report of 25 Oct 1963) and DBA 55715 (FBI Kaack Report of 31 Oct 1963). David Phillips, detached temporarily from Mexico City to Washington, appears to have been the recipient of the documents in SAS/CI.

  64 Nechiporenko, 94, 96, 109, 111, 221, 231. The words allegedly occur in the November 1963 report of KGB Chairman Semichastny to the Soviet Party Central Committee (p. 111). Nechiporenko’s book is sympathetic neither to Nosenko, who is accused of "moral bankruptcy" (p. 228), nor to the view of his CIA tormentors, Angleton and Bagley, that Nosenko was a KGB plant" (p. 245).

  65 Posner, Case Closed, 183, etc. Nechiporenko’s book is by do means a simple defense of the Warren Report, against whose narrative he raises a number of subtle and cogent points (e.g. p. 209).

  66 Nechiporenko interview, November 20, 1993, Dallas.

  67 Ibid. As for the October 1 phone call, he reports that Obyedkov does not remember it. The Nechiporenko story of Embassy volleyball games on Saturdays is corroborated by declassified CIA Cable MEXI 7060 of 26 November.

  68 Lopez Report, 246; 3 AH 49. Durán testified that she made only one telephone call to the Soviet Embassy, on Friday September 27 (3 AH 51); and that on Saturdays the Cuban Consulate doorman never let people in (3 AH 50) Since as early as CIA Cable MEXI 7023 of 23 November 1963, the CIA has maintained that its transcript record shows a second, independent call by Durán, with Oswald present, on Saturday, September 28 (Lopez Report, 76-77). Consul Azcue, who also spoke to Oswald, recalled three visits, and deduced that the third was probably on September 28 (3 AH 132-33; Lopez Report, 204). But he confirmed that on Saturdays the Consulate was not open to the public (3 AH 133). So did Consul Alfredo Mirabal Díaz, a witness who did not speak to Oswald, and who only recalled two visits (3 AH 173-74; Lopez Report, 205-06).

  69 Lopez Report, 77. Nechiporenko’s book (110-11) reminds us that the initial post-assassination KGB report on Oswald "states that Oswald visited the Soviet Embassy in October 1963 and requested political asylum in the USSR." The report cited a KGB "special report from Mexico no. 550 dated 3 October 1963." Nechiporenko and his book are insistent that the only Oswald visits were on September 27 and 28. The allegation of an additional October visit should be set against what the Lopez Report has to say about a possible missing intercept transcript in which Oswald asked for assistance from the Soviet Consulate (Lopez Report, 83-88).

  70 By the rules of palaeography one is accustomed to prefer the more difficult or complex variant (the difficilior lectio)—in this case, MEXI 7023. At the same time, one of the commonest errors of transcription comes from homoioteleuton or common endings: the eye of the naturally lazy transcriber skips from the first instance of a repeated passage (in this case "your Emb and") to the second instance, and thus accidentally deletes what falls between ("spoke to your Consul. I was just now at"). By this accident of homoioteleuton the impression of a Saturday September 28 meeting at the Soviet Consulate may have been falsely, but innocently, created, perhaps even before the October 16 memo. The re-creation of this impression in the DIR 84915 cable of 23 November (see below) has no such excuse, only that of the bureaucratic tendency to preserve allegations already in the file.

  71 There is additional testimony that the transcript record was edited to omit one additional intercept, in which Oswald asked for financial assistance (Lopez Report, 83-88, mentioned above at footnote 58).

  72 Lopez Report, 242, 245.

  73 According to Nechiporenko in interview, Department Thirteen of the KGB dealt not with assassinations but with the development of assets and contingency plans for future war situations. The two accounts are not necessarily incompatible Others have suggested that Department Thirteen, concerned with war plans in response to a sneak nuclear attack, did in fact plan for teams with a future sabotage and assassination capability.

  74 Wise, Molehunt, 234. Cf. Mangold, Cold Warrior, 249.

  75 Mangold, Cold Warrior, 61.

  76 11 AH 432; Sen’ York Times, February 23, 1975, 32.

  77 26 WH 45; cf. 22 WH 21.

  78 William J. Gill, The Ordeal of Otto Otepka (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1969), 324-26. The one-to-two-week figure is confirmed by the Warren Report (WR 258).

  79 Interview with Otto Otepka, September 1978.

  80 AR 201 at footnote 40; Lopez Report, 143-46. Though Ms. Egerter is not specifically named in the Assassination Report as "the individual who was directly responsible for opening the 201 file," the document number of her classified interview on 5/17/78, 014731, is identified as Ann Egerter’s in the Lopez Report on page 143 at footnote 570.

  81 CI/SIG’s responsibility for HT/LINGUAL can be deduced by comparing AR 205 at footnote 74, with the footnote to 11 AH 476 Both make reference to the testimony of an ex-FBI agent heading CI/SIG (i.e. Birch D. O’Neal, 11 AH 476) who "had jurisdiction over the HT-Lingual project files" (AR 205). This HT/LINGUAL project may well explain why a CI card was opened on Oswald in 1959 with the notation "CI/Project/RE" (AR 206) The "Projects Branch" within CI processed the information from HT/LINGUAL, and indexed the names (David C. Martin, Wilderness of Mirrors [New York: Harper and Row, 1980], 70).

  82 4 AH 206 (cover-sheet); Peter Wright, Spycatcher, 145; Martin, 127; (STAFF D).

  83 Martin, 121. The ZR cryptonyms (e.g. ZR/KN1CK, ZR/BEACH) were normally assigned to CLA radio monitoring projects collecting data for the NSA (Agee, 348, 351, etc.).

  84 WCD 49.22; Peter Dale Scott, Crime and Cover-Up (Santa Barbara: Open Archive Press, 1993), 12.

  85 Epstein. Deception, 77.

  86 Mangold, 330.

  87 Earl Warren, Memoirs (Garden City, NY: Doubleday. 1977), 357-58; reprinted in 11 AH 7.

  88 Michael R Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev 1960-1963 (New York: Edward Burlingame/HarperCollins, 1991). 675.

  89 Lopez Report, 23-24.

  90 AR 101.

  91 Mangold, 173-91; Wise, Moleunt, 134, 139, 143, etc.

  92 Gentry, 418, 645-46.

  93 Gentry, 646; cf. 418, 734.

  94 11 AH 57, 476.

  95 Scott, Deep Politics, 63-67; AR 243.

  96 PBS, Frontline show on Lee Harvey Oswald. November 16. 1993. Cf. Posner. 348n.

  97 Scott, Deep Politics, 96-97, 107. 112.

  98 CIA FLASH cable 84916 of 23 Nov 1963 (CIA Doc. 37-529). Lopez Report, 185; Schweiker-Hart Report,25.

  99 3 AH 91, cf. 86. 102; Scott, Deep Politics, 123.

  100 John Davis. The Kennedy’s (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985), 549-52. Cf. Mann’s cables MEX1 7072 of 26 Nov 1963 and MEXI 7104 of 27 Nov 1963.

  101 Wall Street Journal, October 18. 1993, A16.

  102 Wall Street Journal, October 18, 1993, A16. Cf. Schweiker-Hart Report, 41; 3 AH 568-69.

  103 DIR 85469 of 27 Nov 63 to Mexico City (CIA Doc # 178-620).

  104 Scott, Deep Politics, 275.

  105 Scott, Deep Politics, 104-05, 336. See also Peter Dale Scon and Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs. Armies, and the CIA in Central America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1991), 34-36.

  106 Scott, Deep Politics, 131-33. etc. I wish now that I had written more about the Mexican crime connections of Sam Gianca
na and Richard Cain (both allegedly involved in the CIA-mifia plots against Castro). Cain is additionally reported to bave assisted the DFS, possibly in bugging operations against the Cuban and Soviet Embassies.

  107 Lopez Report, 270.

  108 Lopez Report, 209, 231-32. 279-80, 286, A-58.

  109 Lopez Report, 209; 3 AH 304; Scott, Deep Politics, 123.

  110 Lopez Report, 232.

  111 Lopez Report, 232.

  III. CIA FILES AND THE PRE-ASSASSINATION FRAMING OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD

  March 1994

  Were CIA Files Manipulated to Prepare the Way for the Warren Commission?

  The U.S. media responded to the 30th anniversary of the John F. Kennedy assassination by reviving the Warren Commission picture of Lee Harvey Oswald as a neurotic frustrated by neglect, and "angered" (in the words of Gerald Posner) "that others failed to recognize the stature he thought he deserved."1 The newly released government files, we were assured, would add nothing to this picture.

  In fact the recently released documents tell us a great deal that is new, and important, not so much about Lee Oswald the man, who remains mysterious, but about "Lee Oswald" the file subject. The man may or may not have been neglected, but the file subject was the focus of sustained governmental interest. This lasted from the time of his alleged defection in 1959, and was particularly active in the crucial eight weeks preceding the President’s murder.

  The clearest new picture of this sustained interest comes from the files of the CIA, the fullest new release that we have to date. Although the CIA had professedly no intelligence interest in Oswald the man, incoming FBI documents on "Lee Oswald" the file subject were always distributed to widely scattered sections of the CIA’s Counterintelligence Staff, from a minimum of four persons in different sections, to as many as eleven. At least two FBI documents on "Lee Harvey Oswald" were reviewed by SAS/CI/Control, in the Counterintelligence section of the CIA’s anti-Castro Special Affairs Staff, on November 21, 1963, the day before the assassination.