Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK (61 page)

If Oswald's trip was related to an operation, what was the role of the Oswald impostor in Mexico? Was he part of a headquarters operation or part of an unconnected local operation against the Cuban and Soviet consulates? Answers to these questions await the full release of the pertinent documents. In their absence, we can still reconstruct some of this intricate puzzle. In assembling the pieces, it is crucial to properly place the cables between the CIA and its station in Mexico City and the Agency's reporting to the FBI, State, and Navy.

Where were the cables between headquarters and the Mexico City station filed before the assassination? During the 1975 Church Committee investigation, investigators Dan Dwyer and Ed Greissing visited the CIA on November 3 and examined Oswald's 201 file. Their report contained this passage on the comments of Mr. Wall, a member of the CIA's counterintelligence staff:

Mr. Wall explained that some of the documents now filed in the Oswald 201 were not filed there at the time of the President's assassination. Some were located in file 200 (miscellaneous international file); others in file 100 (miscellaneous domestic file); others in the WH Division files (those generated by the Mexico City station); and, others in the files reserved for documents with sensitivity indicators' [emphasis added].

According to the documents lists, the cables to and from the CIA station in Mexico City, as well as the CIA reports to the FBI and other governmental departments, were also placed in Oswald's 201 file.'

From the above, it is apparent that Oswald documents were going to several different locations. Was there anyone who had access to all of them? Again, the 100-300-11 location seems to be the latchkey. Besides those directly involved in Cuban operations, such as the SAS and the Mexico City desk, other CIA elements had been involved with FPCC operations. As previously discussed, Birch O'Neal had written reports about the FPCC for CI/SIG, and in the Security Office James McCord had been connected to counterintelligence operations against the FPCC since at least early 1961.9 Were either of these offices associated with the special handling of the New Orleans FBI reporting on Oswald?

The answer is yes. One of the two documents lists contains an interesting note in the "Formerly Filed" column for the September 10 Hosty report. It states, "Copy CUSIG [351 164] 100-300-11."10 The other documents list has a column with the heading "Location of Original," that has this entry: "CUSI File 100-300-11."" CUSI was short for CI/SIG, and it appears that the mole-hunting unit was again connected with a key change in Oswald's CIA file designators." Moreover, the association of Oswald's security number (351164) with the 100-300-11 file denotes a security office tie-in. They had been tracking Oswald all along and now had access to this file too. Thus it appears that it was Angleton's CI/SIG which, in conjunction with the Security Office, had all the pieces to the Oswald puzzle.

Piecing together the story of the government's operations against the FPCC is a puzzle in its own right. The considerable CIA-FBI cooperation at the time of Oswald's trip is noteworthy. On October 2, while Oswald was in Mexico City, FBI agents were searching for him in New Orleans." Six days earlier, FBI headquarters had informed its New York office of the CIA's request for the FPCC's mailing list and "other documents," and directed that office to find out if these materials were "obtainable." Remarkably, on October 4, the New York office responded that an "informant" might be able to provide "both of the above-mentioned items" on October 27. This means that while Oswald was in Mexico City, the FBIon behalf of the CIA-was planning another break-in into the FPCC offices in New York.

The CIA has not been forthcoming about these operations over the years. The Agency knew about Oswald's FPCC activities before his trip to Mexico and the exchange of information with their station there, yet the Agency blocked an attempt by the Church Committee in 1975 to find out if and to whom such information had been circulated. At the urging of researcher Paul Hoch, the committee asked the CIA whether any information about the FPCC "other than" an October 25, 1963, report (which we will shortly discuss) had been disseminated to "any CIA employees or informants." The Agency's response was misleading at best. "Prior to the assassination," stated the reply, "CIA had no information concerning Oswald's activities in New Orleans beyond this report." This was not true. Perhaps this was another Agency attempt at a technically accurate but tricky and evasive response. If so, the CIA outwitted itself and became vulnerable to the charge of misleading Congress. Earlier New Orleans FBI reports on Oswald's FPCC activities did constitute other information. The record and routing sheets attached to these earlier reports show that they were examined by a variety of CIA counterintelligence, Soviet, and Cuban operations offices.

As we have seen, the real CIA paper trail on Oswald and the FPCC began with the arrival of Hosty's report on September 23. The next report, written on September 24, arrived on October 2, five days before the Mexico City station notified headquarters of Oswald's visit." This FBI report contained the details of most of Oswald's New Orleans FPCC activities-minus the Quigley jailhouse interview. It was in the hands of the SAS counterintelligence office during the crucial exchange of cables between the station and headquarters on October 9-10. It is to those cables that we now turn.

Smoke I: The Six-Foot Balding Oswald

When the Mexico City station did finally decide to inform headquarters about Oswald's presence, it referred to the transcript of an intercepted telephone call. As discussed in Chapter Eighteen, this September 28 call was probably made by an impostor. This is the full text of the Mexico City station cable 6453, sent on October 9:

1. Acc [redacted] 1 Oct 63, American Male who spoke broken Russian said his name Lee Oswald (phonetic), stated he at Sovemb on 28 Sept when spoke with consul whom he believed be Valeriy Vladimirovich Kostikov. Subj asked Sov Guard Ivan Obyedkov who answered, if there anything new re telegram to Washington. Obyedkov upon checking said nothing received yet, but request had been sent. 2. Have photos male appears be American entering Sovemb 1216 hours, leaving 1222 on 1 Oct. apparent age 35, athletic build, circa 6 feet, receding hairline, balding top. Wore khakis and sport shirt. Source [redacted]. 3. No local dissem."

The station's description of this man was based on photographic surveillance of his entry and exit from the embassy. He has earned the appellative "mystery man" because his true identity has never been established. Obviously this physical description did not fit Oswald. Most important, the station did not state that the man in the photograph was the man who used Oswald's name. The cable reports only two facts: A man used Oswald's name on the phone, and a six-foot balding man entered the building 12:15 P.M.

It is reasonable to assume that the station thought the photograph might have been of the man using Oswald's name, but the cable deserves credit for not making this connection explicit and for reporting only the facts. The station could not be expected to know whether Oswald was thirty-five, six feet tall, and balding. At headquarters, however, they knew better.

The following day, October 10, at 5:12 P.M., the CIA did something strange. They sent a cable to the FBI, State, and Navy, which did connect the call to the photograph:

On 1 October 1963 a reliable and sensitive source in Mexico reported that an American male, who identified himself as Lee Oswald, contacted the Soviet embassy in Mexico City inquiring whether the embassy had received any news concerning a telegram which had been sent to Washington. The American was described as approximately 35 years old, with an athletic build, about six feet tall, with receding hairline1B [emphasis added].

Moreover, the CIA went on to state that it "believed that Oswald may be identical to Lee Henry Oswald," a statement which suggests that the drafter had Oswald's 201 opening sheet close by. On that 1960 document Oswald's name was incorrectly given as "Lee Henry Oswald."

"As I recall," a CIA employee later wrote in the margin of the cable, "this description was of the individual in Helms's affidavit of 7 Aug [19641. Not Oswald! WRONG!" [emphasis on original]. Indeed. But this headquarters cable is more than just wrong. They knew it was wrong when they sent it at 5:12 P.M. The evidence that it was deliberate is rock solid. Just two hours later (7:29 P.M.) the Agency said this in a cable to the station in Mexico: "Oswald is five feet ten inches, one hundred sixty-five pounds, light brown wavy hair, [and] blue eyes."" This description proves that the CIA knew Oswald's true physical characteristics and therefore that the cable to the FBI, State, and Navy was deliberately misleading.

It is noteworthy that the headquarters cable to the FBI, State, and Navy slightly edited the bogus Oswald description. It dropped the station's description "balding," but was nevertheless content to report to official Washington that a six-foot man believed to be Lee Henry Oswald had been walking around the Soviet Embassy. Who was responsible for this?

The CIA isn't telling. The drafter's name is still classified." So is the name of the "authenticating officer," who is identified only as CH/WH/R, possibly meaning Chief, Western Hemisphere, Research. The names of the two people with whom it was coordinated are also redacted, but their offices, CI/SIG and SR/CI, along with the fact that their names have been released as coordinators for the associated cable to Mexico, permits us to identify them as Ann Egerter and Stephan Roll respectively. The only CIA name the Agency let remain on the cable was that belonging to the "releasing officer," Jane Roman. We will return to her comments about these cables.

"She took the routine steps of requesting a name trace," the Lopez Report says of the Mexico City desk person to whom the station's cable was assigned after its arrival in headquarters.19 Indeed, she considered the cable itself to be "routine." But not for long. The name trace led her to Oswald's 201 file, and the fact that it was restricted to Ann Egerter in Angleton's mole-hunting unit, CI/SIG. Egerter acceded to a request by our nameless Mexico City desk "person" for access to the 201 file. CI/SIG lent the Oswald 201 to the Mexico City desk (WH/3/Mexico) until the Kennedy assassination. So we know that this desk had the 201 files and the cables. What is not clear is whether they had access to the 100300-11 file.

After examining the 201 file, the nameless woman at the Mexico City desk concluded that the station cable was "very significant." When asked by the HSCA why she changed her mind, this is what she said:

Any American who had tried to renounce his U.S. citizenship in the Soviet Union now having again a relationship with the Soviet Embassy would lead one to wonder why he had tried to renounce his citizenship in the first place, and why he was still in contact with the Soviets, whether there was a possibility he really was working for the Soviets or what.20

Egerter recalled the station cable "caused a lot of excitement" because of "the contact with Kostikov." The CIA denies that they figured out Kostikov's connection to Department 13-which handled assassination for the KGB-until after Kennedy's murder. Perhaps. But at the very least the Agency knew he was KGB. When asked what significance the Agency attached to Kostikov at the time the cable arrived, she responded, "I think we considered him a KGB man." Was there any other reason, the HSCA asked? "He had to be up to something bad," Egerter replied, "to be so anxious to go back to the Soviet Union. At least that is the way I felt.""

According to the Lopez Report, the "six-foot Oswald" cable to the FBI, State, and Navy and the "five-foot-ten-inch Oswald" cable to Mexico were drafted at the same time. The excitement over the cable from Mexico and the idea that Oswald was up to something bad and in contact with the KGB makes implausible any explanation that this contradiction was inadvertent or trivial. It is reasonable to conclude that the false description of Oswald was a deliberate act. The HSCA wanted to know why. The answers they got were less than convincing." One was the so-called third agency rule, under which the Agency could not disseminate any information obtained from a third agency of the government. However, this did not square with the instruction in the cable to Mexico to disseminate the true description of Oswald to the Navy and FBI. Clearly, if the third agency rule applied to headquarters disseminations to the FBI and State, it also applied to Mexico Station disseminations to the FBI and State.

Another CIA employee tried this: "they had not been sure" that the Oswald reported by Mexico was the same Oswald "on whom they [headquarters] had a file." If so, then why state in the cable that he "probably" was the same Oswald? The person most knowledgeable about Oswald's CIA file, Ann Egerter, signed off on both cables for accuracy. When she was asked to explain the contradiction, Egerter would say only that "she could not say why the description discrepancies occurred." We will return to this issue after examining the cable to Mexico City.

Smoke II: The "Latest HDQS Info" on Oswald

More than Oswald's physical description was different in the two cables. Other distinctions included the content and coordination process. For the cable to the FBI, State, and Navy, Jane Roman was the releasing officer, while for the cable to the station in Mexico, Thomas Karamessines was the releasing officer. Roman worked for the liaison section of Angleton's counterintelligence staff, while Karamessines was the assistant deputy director for Plans (A/DDP), the man next in line after the DDP himself, Richard Helms. Why these differences?

A clue lies in the larger number of organizations that were involved in the coordination of the cable to Mexico. In the space reserved for the authenticating officer, William Hood (a WH division deputy) signed in place of J. C. King, chief of Western Hemisphere Division. Three people were involved in the draft coordination process: Stephan Roll for SR/CI/A (Analysis, Counterintelligence, Soviet Russia Division); Jane Roman for CI Liaison, and Ann Egerter.21 After their names, John Scelso (possibly a pseudonym), Chief/WH/3, signed on the line at the bottom of the cable.