Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK (9 page)

The Soviets followed with more launches, and an American attempt failed. This series of events jolted America's sense of its own preeminence in science and technology, and a top secret report by the Gaither Committee recommended that the United States engage in an all-out effort to close the "missile gap." Khrushchev fed these American fears by hinting at an intercontinental capability and his willingness to use it. The missile gap, however, was not-nor would it ever be-concrete. The deployments were anticipated, and CIA intelligence estimates in 1958 and 1959 projected the early prospects for Soviet ICBMs in the hundreds. Senator Stuart Symington predicted that the Soviets would have 3000 ICBMs by 1959.

The only reassuring factor in the rising hysteria about the perceived imminent missile gap was the U-2 program. Given the size of the Soviet Union, an assessment of the missile program required a global strategy. Allen Dulles, writing in 1963, recalled how it was in 1957 to 1958: "When the Soviets started testing their missiles, they chose launching sites in their most remote and unapproachable wastelands."2S The location of the U-2s at Atsugi was crucial in getting at these remote areas.

The U-2 was destined to lie at the heart of the U.S. intelligence debate over the nature and extent of the Soviet strategic threat. Difficulties developed in the Soviet test program, difficulties identified by the U-2 that led to an interruption of their missile testing program between April 1958 and March 1959.29 This negative intelligence provided by U-2 coverage vitiated against the doomsday predictions of Soviet ICBM deployments, allowing President Eisenhower to privately discount the missile gap threat. Publicly, however, Eisenhower faced newspaper journalists like the Alsop brothers, who wrote articles under such titles as "After Ike, the Deluge" and "Our Gamble with Destiny." Khrushchev attempted to cover for the slippage in the Soviet test program with threatening nuclear signals during the Lebanese and Berlin crises of 1958.

To counter Khrushchev's bullying tactics, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles proposed to make the U-2 program public after the launch of Sputnik, but Eisenhower declined to publicize the most important means of verification he had. Eisenhower, not wanting to give the Russians-who had been vigorously protesting the U-2 violations of their airspace-any diplomatic leverage, refused to declassify the program. So the U-2 program continued under tight security, and its missions in 1958 and 1959 were increasingly influential in steering the intelligence community toward a more realistic assessment of the Soviet threat. Based on U-2 coverage, U.S. intelligence had concluded that the expected Soviet ICBM deployments would take place in late 1959 instead of early 1959.30 By early 1960 a national intelligence estimate predicted that the Soviet Union would deploy thirty-five ICBMs by mid-1960, and 140 to 200 by 1961. In the end they deployed only four by 1961.31

The critical intelligence provided by the U-2 program influenced the U.S. strategic calculus in the major crisis of 1957 to 1959. U.S. behavior changed from constrained to emboldened-notwithstanding the highly publicized missile gap myth-as the truth about the Soviet missile program emerged at the top secret level. An Americanbacked Turkish invasion of Syria to topple the pro-Soviet leadership was preempted by Sputnik and its aftermath, and the American invasion force poised to invade Indonesia in December 1957 was never sent in. Then, at this important junction, the Soviet launch program hit the rocks. Publicly, Khrushchev continued to brandish his missiles during the ensuing Middle East crisis of May to August 1958. For his part, Eisenhower, in a speech to the U.N. charged Khrushchev with "ballistic blackmail,"32 but gave the order to intervene in Lebanon with American ground forces.

The Soviet reaction to the American and British troop landings in Lebanon was muted, but the unfolding crisis soon widened to the Far East. With the Americans in Lebanon, Chinese leader Mao Zedong, in a struggle with Khrushchev and wanting to embarrass him, saw an opportunity. He provoked a crisis of his own by shelling Chinese Nationalist islands in the Taiwan Straits in August. With the geopolitical initiative slipping away, Khrushchev launched an aggressive strategy by triggering a major crisis over Berlin.33 This crisis, in turn, created favorable conditions for a revolutionary success in Cuba. In the protracted Berlin crisis that ensued during the winter of 1958 to 1959, Khrushchev's renewed claims to strategic supremacy were the crucial linchpin in his attempt to deter the West while making demands.

The terms of Khrushchev's Berlin ultimatum included the demand that the city be internationalized and its ties severed with Bonn and the West. Distracted by the Berlin crisis, Washington did not effectively counter the unfolding situation in Cuba, a subject to which we will return in a later chapter because of its importance to Oswald. The Eisenhower administration's stand in the Berlin crisis, however, was resolute. This firmness surprised Khrushchev, who, in the end, backed down. The U-2 flights provided consistent evidence that Khrushchev's missile claims were a bluff, a crucial factor in Eisenhower's calculus in not letting the perceived missile gap soften his resistance to Khrushchev's pressures.

In short, the intelligence provided by this high-flying spy plane was the most important single source in the U.S. perception of the Soviet threat. This makes Lee Harvey Oswald's movements in the Far East all the more important, since they dovetail with the salient points of the U-2's contribution to the strategic debate in Washington. Oswald was at Atsugi from early September through late November 1957, a period that precisely overlays the launching of Sputnik and the early active phase of the Soviet ICBM test program. His participation in Operation Strongback maneuvers (November 1957 to March 1958) were part of the abortive U.S. invasion of Indonesia. During his short shore deployment at Cubi Point during the early weeks of 1958, he tracked U-2 overflights of China.

The "tracks" (routes) of these Chinese overflights, which Oswald personally plotted with his grease pencil, would have given the U.S. useful intelligence on Chinese military intentions, Sino-Soviet relations, and the unfolding politicomilitary struggle in the Chinese leadership. Similarly, Oswald's stationing in Taiwan paralleled the Taiwan Straits crisis in the fall of 1958, and Oswald's knowledge of U.S. military reactions would have been helpful to the KGB. In between the Cubi Point and Taiwan deployments Oswald was back at Atsugi. This period, from March to August 1958, was when the Soviet ballistic missile testing program ground to a halt, and the U-2 missions flown from Atsugi provided critical intelligence on this significant development in U.S.-Soviet strategic relations. After Taiwan, Oswald was back in Atsugi again, in October to November 1958, in the months leading up to Khrushchev's ultimatum over Berlin, when, again, flights from Atsugi could show only one thing: that Moscow had not resumed its testing program.

Unless the CIA never varied its flight activity, Oswald's general knowledge of the frequency of missions would have been useful to the KGB. The KGB would want to know what the Americans had learned of Soviet capabilities. Oswald also possessed knowledge of the U-2 flights over China-territory out of the range of Soviet radar-knowledge that would have been very valuable to the KGB.

There is circumstantial evidence that Oswald gave away something the Soviets used. The U-2 flew thirty penetration flights over Soviet territory between June 1956 and May 1960." Twenty-eight flights occurred prior to Oswald's defection in October 1959. After his defection, the next U-2 flight, on April 9, 1960, was successful, but the one after that, on May 1, was shot down.35 The pilot, Francis Gary Powers, survived, and his own analysis suggests that Oswald betrayed the height at which the U-2 flew. In Powers's view, Oswald's work with the new MPS 16 height-finding radar looms large. If the pilot reached this conclusion, the CIA should have, at the very least, considered it. Whether or not the CIA looked into the U-2 background of Lee Harvey Oswald, the Warren Commission should have as a routine part of their investigation. They did not, an omission that deserves closer attention.

A Warren Omission: Oswald and the U-2

The Kennedy assassination led newspaper reporters to ask where the accused assassin had been stationed. It was not hard to find out that Oswald had served with the marines in Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan, and that his former commander, John E. Donovan, was living at 2009 Belmont Road, N.W., in Washington, D.C. It is not surprising, then, that within a week of the Kennedy assassination, reporters had located Donovan. The possibility that the alleged assassin of Kennedy might also have been a traitor or saboteur was a story newspapers could hardly resist. What is surprising is that when called to testify at the Warren Commission hearings, Oswald's marine colleages were not questioned about the U-2.

"Oswald was a very unpopular man that month [November 1959]," Donovan told the Washington Evening Star in December 1963.36 As the former commander of Oswald's radar unit, Donovan knew Oswald's ability to handle radar equipment and radar-related information. "Clearly, for dealing with aircraft going from 500 to 2,000 miles an hour, you don't fool with nitwits," Donovan said on December 3. "He [Oswald] was a good man on radar, there's no denying it."37 According to Donovan, Oswald's defection "compromised all our secret radio frequencies, call signs, and authentication codes." Oswald "knew the location of every unit on the West Coast and the radar capability of every installation. We had to spend thousands of man-hours changing everything, all the tactical frequencies, and verify the destruction of the codes."38

On May 5, 1964, Donovan told the Warren Commission the same story about how the military codes, call signs, and authentication procedures had to be changed once "we received word that he [Oswald] had showed up in Moscow."39 Donovan added,

He had the access to the location of all the bases in the west coast area, all radio frequencies for all squadrons, all tactical call signs, and the relative strength of all squadrons, number and type of aircraft in a squadron, who was the commanding officer, the authentication code of entering and exiting the ADIZ, which stands for Air Force [Defense] Identification Zone. He knew the range of our radar. He knew the range of our radio. And he knew the range of the surrounding units' radio and radar.... There are some things he knew on which he received instruction that there is no way of changing, such as the MPS 16 height-finder radar gear. That had recently been integrated into the Marine Corps system. It had a height-finding range far in excess of our previous equipment, and it has certain limitations. He had been schooled on those limitations.... He had been schooled on a piece of machinery called the TPX-1, which is used to transfer radio-radar and radio signals over a great distance. Radar is very susceptible to homing missiles, and this piece of equipment is used to put your radar antenna several miles away, and relay the information back to your site which you hope is relatively safe. He had been schooled on this.

All of Oswald's knowledge would have been valuable to the KGB and the Soviet military. It is interesting that this level of detail was not routinely available at Marine Corps headquarters or at the ONI and thus had not been provided to the FBI in the immediate wake of Oswald's defection in 1959.

In view of the public knowledge of the 1960 U-2 shootdown and the fact that President Eisenhower had lied about the program, it is noteworthy that there is not one reference to the U-2 in Donovan's testimony to the Warren Commission. Asked about this now, Donovan recalls:

I was briefed by the Warren Commission attorneys, and they were very hospitable, but they said, don't wander off the topic. These investigators know what you know and just need to fill in a couple of points. So I went in there and it was over so fast you wouldn't believe it. And when I came out there was one thing on my mind, and I said to one of them, "Don't you want to know anything about the U-2?" And he said, "We asked you exactly what we wanted to know from you and we asked you everything we wanted for now and that is all. And if there is anything else we want to ask you, we will." And I asked another friend of mine who had testified, "Did they ask you about the U-2?" And he said, "No, not a thing."40

At least one member of the Warren Commission knew all about the U-2 program, as he might also have known what steps, if any, the agency took after Oswald's defection. Allen Dulles had been CIA director at the time of Oswald's marine service, and he remained director until Kennedy fired him at the end of 1961.

Shortly after the Kennedy assassination, Donovan made a phone call to the CIA. An internal CIA "incident report" written on December 1, 1963-eight days after the Kennedy assassination and the day before Donovan's interviews with the newspapers-recorded this call." This would suggest that before he talked to the media, Donovan told the CIA that he had known and worked with Oswald in 1959, and that he could provide "names and etc., of Oswald's intimate acquaintances during this period."42 Furthermore, Donovan told the CIA he had not previously related this information to the FBI or the Secret Service.

Donovan recalls how he came to talk with the CIA and the FBI just after the assassination. "A guy who had been in our unit was [then] a CIA agent," Donovan explains, "and I spoke with him and he said, `You should call the Agency,' which I did, and I called the FBI too."43 On December 2 Jerome Vacek of the U.S. Marine Corps telephoned the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) to pass along that John Donovan "may be able to furnish information" on Oswald.' An internal ONI memo of the following date noted, "The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Secret Service were made cognizant of the foregoing on 2 December 1963."

"The thing that interested me," Donovan recalls, "was that all of these agencies asked a lot of questions, but only the CIA was interested in the U-2." Asked specifically if the CIA had posed questions to him about the U-2 program, Donovan responded, "You bet." Asked when the Agency posed these questions, he replied, "The CIA asked me questions about the U-2 seven to ten days after the Washington Star article, but no one else was interested."45 It is not surprising that the CIA was asking questions about Oswald and the U-2 in 1963-no more surprising than was their decision to close down U-2 operations at Atsugi after Gary Powers was shot down. Powers did not fly out of Atsugi. The only link between Atsugi and the shootdown of Powers was Lee Harvey Oswald.