Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK (88 page)

13. The FBI was conducting interviews in New Orleans while Oswald was in Mexico City, on October 1, 1963. See October 1, Kaack report; NARA, JFK files, FBI 105-82555, CIA DDP 201 file.

14. Note: Received by CIA/RID October 2, 1963, 4:26 P.M. by AN-6; read by CI/LS Jane Roman, October 4, 1963; read by SAS/CI (Austin) Horn, October 8, 1963; read by SAS/CI/CONTROL, October 10, 1963 "CR"; read by CI/ SI, (prob) October 10, 1962, Ann Egerter; read by CI/IC, date UNK "C7"; read by REDACTED, date UNK; read by CUSTAFF, room 2B03, date UNK; also has date stamp October 3, 1963, 9:36; coded 100-300-11, later lined through and replaced by 201-289248; document number DBA 52355.

15. Mexico City cable 6453 to headquarters October 9, 1963; NARA, JFK files, CIA 201 file on Oswald.

16. CIA cable 74673 to FBI, State Department, and Navy, October 10, 1963; NARA, JFK files, CIA 201 file on Oswald.

17. CIA headquarters cable 74830 to Mexico station, October 10, 1963; NARA, JFK files, CIA 201 file on Oswald.

18. The Agency's attempt to conceal the name of the drafter seems pointless. John Scelso's (may be a pseudonym) name is all over the hundreds of newly released cables between headquarters and Mexico City [see NARA, JFK files, HSCA records, CIA segregated collection, boxes 51-53, the CIA January 1994 (5 brown boxes release) and other locations], as is a B. [probably Bob] Reichardt, and their positions as the chiefs of WH/3 and WH/3/Mexico respectively. The redacted space for both cables in the Lopez Report is II spaces. Anyone who works crossword puzzles could venture a decent guess at who it probably was.

19. Lopez Report, p. 142.

20. Lopez Report, p. 143.

21. Lopez Report. p. 143.

22. Lopez Report, pp. 146-150.

23. Egerter was identified as signing for CUSPG. Could this stand for "Special Projects Group"?-possibly the same as CUSIG? Ann Egerter worked in SIG.

24. Lopez Report, p. 151; see also footnote 588, on p. 40 of the notes.

25. Lopez Report, p. 155.

26. CD 691, p. 3; see also NARA, JFK files, CIA document number 509-803.

27. Might this problem be explained if the 100-300-11 file into which the FBI reports had been directed was withheld from the Mexico City desk? The answer is no. Even if the 100-300-I1 file were withheld, we know that the 201 file was furnished to the drafter and that FBI agent Fain's August 8, 1962, report on Oswald was in it.

28. This was the August 8, 1962, Fain report: see NARA, JFK files, CIA DDP 201 file on Oswald.

29. The out-of-date Soviet focus of the cable is underscored by a CIA description of the October 10 cable in a later October 15, 1963, cable as "Attempts of Lee Oswald and wife to reenter U.S." This comment appeared on the bottom of the headquarters copy of a Mexico City station cable dated October 15, 1963, requesting a photo of Oswald be pouched. See NARA, JFK files, CIA 201 file on Oswald.

30. Copy provided courtesy of Jeff Morley.

31. Copy provided courtesy of Jeff Morley.

32. CIA document entitled "Information Developed by CIA on the Activity of Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City, 28 September-3 October 1963." January 31, 1964, p. 3; NARA, JFK files, CIA document 509-803, and CIA DDP Oswald 201 file. 1992 release, boxes 1-2. See also WC CD 692.

33. Jane Roman, November 3, 1994, interview with Jeff Morley and John Newman.

34. Jane Roman, November 3, 1994, interview with Jeff Morley and John Newman.

35. Scelso is openly identified as chief of WH/3 throughout the Lopez Report.

36. NARA, CIA document number 377-731: C/WH/3 memorandum for the deputy director (Plans). The subject is given as "Plans for the Oswald Investigation." The "Oswald," however, is handwritten over a redacted word, probably "GPFLOOR." GPFLOOR was a cryptonym used for Oswald.

37. CIA document, attachment No. 2 to [redacted] Project Renewal, forwarded in HMMA-25141; NARA, JFK files, CIA January 1994 (5 brown boxes) release; in sequence as 00787 to documents also containing material on cryptonyms AMROD and GPFLOOR (Oswald); see also CIA Monthly Operational Support for Project, October 1963, from Chief of Station Mexico City, to Chief WH Division, HMMA22452, November 7, 1963.

38. Lopez Report, p. 181.

39. See NARA, JFK files, CIA document number 64-552. See also Lopez Report, p. 185.

40. See NARA JFK files, Department of State airgram from Mexico City, A-631, by D. E. Boster, December 2, 1963; CIA record is DST 28350.

41. See CIA memo to Rankin. February 21, 1964; NARA, JFK files, CIA document XAAZ-22759.

42. Warren Report, p. 735.

43. Warren Report, footnote 1170 to Section XIII (p. 735), p. 868.

44. Helms memorandum to Rankin. February 19, 1964; NARA, JFK files, CIA document XAAZ-36365.

45. Mexican government note to the U.S. Embassy, May 14, 1964, WC Vol. XXIV, CE 2120, p. 569.

46. Memorandum to A. H. Belmont from W. C. Sullivan, December 3, 1963; NARA, JFK files, RIF 124-10003-10417.

47. FBI report from the "Mexico FBI Rep," subject: Activities of Oswald in Mexico City, undated. This document also happens to be one of the rare occasions when the National Archives RIF sheet is misdated, in this case to July 27, 1963. It was probably between November 23 and the end of December 1963. See NARA, JFK files, RIF, 1993.07.17.09:34:53:46010.

48. FBI memo, from A. H. Belmont to Clyde Tolson, November 27, 1963; NARA, JFK files, 157-10003-10396.

49. HSCA, Vol. III, pp. 30-31.

50. HSCA, Vol. III, pp. 49-51.

51. HSCA, Vol. III, p. 59.

52. CIA memo for the record, by John Scelso, November 23, 1963; NARA, JFK files, CIA document number 36-540, TX-1240. See Lopez Report, in which Scott is named along with Scelso, pp. 185-186.

53. Lopez Report, p. 186; for the flash cable, see DIR849-6 to Mexico City, November 23, 1963, NARA, JFK Files, CIA document number 37-529.

54. Lopez Report, p. 187.

55. Warren Report, p. 736.

56. Lopez Report, p. 190.

57. CIA document entitled "Information Developed by CIA on the Activity of Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City, 28 September-3 October 1963," January 31, 1964; NARA, JFK files, CIA document 509-803, and DDP Oswald 201 file 1992 release, boxes 1-2. See also WC CD 692.

58. Lopez Report, p. 175.

59. NARA, JFK files, CIA document number 603-256, XAAZ-27168, March 12, 1964, "Memo for Record on 12 March Meeting of Rankin, Willems, Helms, Murphy, Rocca, etal on CIA Contribution to Commission."

60. NARA JFK files, RIF 1993.07.02.13:52:25:560530. The document is stamped "Cl [counterintelligence] 314-75, dated September 18, 1975, and stamped "George T. Kalaris."

61. Kalaris may not have been fully briefed by his predecessor, Angleton, a possibility we might consider if it turns out that this document was inadvertently released. It appears to have been written for the Church Committee investigators who were then probing the Agency's activities. (SSCI Box 265-14, 10076; from Curt Smothers to Rhett Dawson; Subject "Status of Assassination Report," August I, 1975; NARA, JFK files. RIF [SSCIA;I 157-0005-10076.) We know from a Church Committee document that its investigators were seeking FBI materials on "Lee Harvey Oswald (a.k.a. A. J. Hidel or O. H. Lee)" in the files of Mexico City (Church Committee memo from Paul G. Wallach to Michael E. Shaheen, Jr., November 24, 1975; NARA, JFK files, RIF 157-10003-10233). Oswald used all three names there. He used the name Oswald, Hidel was on his FPCC identification card, and he used O. H. Lee for his bus ticket back to the U.S. The Church Committee investigators were seeking CIA materials on the same three names in the Mexico City files.

In what may be a coincidence, a register of CIA documents on the Kennedy assassination is annotated with text describing withheld or partially withheld documents. The register contains two items from September 18, 1975, one of which was the Kalaris memo, and two more from September 22, both of which concerned a "compromise" of intelligence information, meaning something was inadvertently released. The first, 1189-1001. was described in the register this way:

This document was denied. The document discusses the compromise of some classified intelligence information and the possible consequences in terms of damage to foreign intelligence sources and methods. The release of this document would provide public confirmation of the validity of the information leaked and would make certain the damage which at this point is only problematical. The document is therefore properly classified and denied.

The second September 22, 1975, document listed in 1190-1002 contains this remark:

This document was denied. The document contains a continuation of the discussion of the compromise of the classified information stated in the document listed immediately above. The same consequences would be entailed should this document be released. It is therefore properly classified and denied. (CIA document register, 1189-1001, September 22, 1975.)

To recapitulate, these two denied documents describe a security compromise we are theorizing might be the Kalaris memo. A firm conclusion must await the full release of pertinent information. Following this security compromise, and possibly related to it, the "security measures" that greeted Church Committee investigators Dan Dwyer and Ed Greissing eleven days later (November 3) were tight. In their memo of November 14, 1975, they explained that the CIA had decreed that "any notes taken by members of the SSCI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities] will be photocopied at the end of each session's review. Second, briefcases will remain in the custody of the Cl [counterintelligence] office while documents are being reviewed." (Church Committee memorandum from Dan Dwyer and Ed Greissing to Paul Wallach on review of Oswald 201 file, November 3, 1975; NARA, JFK files, SSCI BOX 265-15, 10091.)

62. Win Scott, Foul Foe, p. 268.

63. Win Scott, Foul Foe, pp. 268-269.

64. Lopez Report, p. 172.

65. Lopez Report, p. 174.

66. The Lopez Report found that nearly everyone thought that this information should have been passed on to headquarters, but people seemed divided on whether it actually happened. Only one person interviewed by the HSCA was certain of her recollection that a second cable had been sent. However, it was an important person-the unidentified CIA Woman who identified Goodpasture as the very person who sent such a cable.

67. Lopez Report, p. 181.

68. Former director of Central Intelligence, Richard Helms, August 23, 1994, interview with John Newman.

69. Norman Kempster, Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1977, p. 1.

70. See, for example, the Ottober 3 headquarters cable to Mexico included in the documents republished with this book. The handwriting is the author's attempt to reconstruct this cable. It is clear that the CIA station was allowed to share some Soviet cases with the FBI, but something very sensitive is not being shared, and it is going on at the time of Oswald's visit to Mexico City. It is possible that this was the Agency's penetration of the Cuban Consulate.

Chapter 20

1. Kelley, Kelley: The Story of an FBI Director, p. 268.

2. Kelley, Kelley: The Story of an FBI Director, p. 279.

3. Henry Steele Commager, "Intelligence: The Constitution Betrayed," New York Review of Books, September 30, 1976, pp. 32-39.

4. Henry Steele Commager, "Intelligence: The Constitution Betrayed," New York Review of Books, September 30, 1976, pp. 32-39.

EPILOGUE, 2008

The Plot to Murder
President Kennedy:
A New Interpretation

The Plot and the National Security Cover-up

My views on the assassination of President Kennedy have evolved in the thirteen years since the publication of Oswald and the CIA. While the six million records made available as a result of the 1993 congressional passage of the JFK Records Act have not made it possible to identify those who were ultimately responsible for the Kennedy assassination, these records do shed light on the nature and design of the plot and the national security cover-up that followed.

It is now clear that most of the U.S. leaders and officials who participated in the national security cover-up had nothing to do with the plot that was hatched before the president's murder. Many of themincluding leading legislators and Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren-were motivated by the perceived threat of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. Inside the executive branch of government, many others were motivated by the desire to protect their jobs and their institutions. Their collective actions, however, were not the result of an accident; rather, they were the forced checkmate in the endgame of an ingenious plan.

The plan was designed to force official Washington to bury a radioactive story in Oswald's files in order for America to survive. The plan worked. No matter how sloppy the performance of the shooters in Dallas was, no matter how bungled the autopsy and the handling of the evidence was, all would be trumped by the threat of WWIII and 40 million dead Americans. From the beginning, the plot was based upon the assumption that, when presented with this horrific possibility, everyone would fall into line. This assumption was correct.

In Mexico: Linking Oswald to Castro and Khrushchev to WWII

I do not know who directly handled Oswald in 1963, but someone involved in the murder of the president did. Many researchers think they know who this person was and perhaps they do. Some think it might have been David Atlee Phillips who, at the time of Oswald's visit to Mexico City, was head of Cuban operations at the CIA station there. Another candidate might be William Gaudet, a CIA Latin American operative who happened to be standing in line in front of Oswald the day the two men got their tourist permits from the Mexican Consulate in New Orleans.'
It might have been someone else.

Whether or not Oswald's handler or handlers understood that their activities would lead to the death of the president, they were nevertheless taking cues from someone in CIA counterintelligence who was harnessed to the plot. If there were some CIA officers who saw Oswald's trip to Mexico as part of a legitimate counter-Castro operation, someone, somewhere in the Agency's counterintelligence operations understood that what happened on that trip was designed to force a national security cover-up after the president's murder.