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Winston Scott: CIA Station Chief in Mexico


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H. R. Haldeman, President Nixon's chief of staff, claimed in his book, The Ends of Power: "After Kennedy was killed, the CIA launched a fantastic cover-up. The CIA literally erased any connection between Kennedy's assassination and the CIA... in fact, Counter intelligence Chief James Angleton of the CIA called Bill Sullivan of the FBI and rehearsed the questions and answers they would give to the Warren Commission investigators."

I have already written about Angleton's role in removing Mary Pinchot Meyer's diary after her death. There was also another incident where he took away a manuscriot after someone died.

Winston Scott was CIA's station chief in Mexico in 1963. Scott retired in 1969 and began a memoir about his time in the FBI, OSS and the CIA. He completed the manuscript, It Came To Late, and made plans to discuss the contents of the book with CIA director, Richard Helms, in Washington on 30th April, 1971.

Winston Scott died on 26th April, 1971. No autopsy was performed, and a postmortem suggested he had suffered a heart attack.

Michael Scott. Winston Scott's son, told Dick Russell that James Angleton took away his father's manuscript. Angleton also confiscated three large cartons of files including a tape-recording of the voice of Lee Harvey Oswald. Michael Scott was also told by a CIA source that his father had not died from natural causes.

Michael Scott eventually got his father's manuscript back from the CIA. However, 150 pages were missing. Chapters 13 to 16 were deleted in their entirety. In fact, everything about his life after 1947 had been removed on grounds of national security.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKscottW.htm

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Michael Scott eventually got his father's manuscript back from the CIA. However, 150 pages were missing. Chapters 13 to 16 were deleted in their entirety. In fact, everything about his life after 1947 had been removed on grounds of national security.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKscottW.htm

There is a CIA report available in the Russ Holmes work file which goes point by point through Scott's allegations and dismisses them. After reading it, I found myself actually trusting the CIA's interpretation over Scott's. The reason why I don't trust Scott's recount is that it differs from just about everybody else's memory of the events, and is at odds with the Lopez report, which is damaging enough. As I interpreted it, most of Scott's mistakes seem to have come from his faded memories of actual events, mixed in with some Thomas Mann-influenced suspicion of Cuban involvement.

I don't even find it surprising that Angleton took it upon himself to prevent anything potentially embarrassing to the CIA from surfacing. That is how the man viewed his job; he believed anything embarrassing to the CIA, no matter how true, was a potential tool to be exploited by the KGB. This paranoid and defensive and ultimately delusional view of the world is driven home when one reads Richard Helms' memoirs, where he states it is obvious that the Garrison investigation was at some level monitored and orchestrated by the KGB.

To men like Angleton and Helms the world was a plaything between two powers, one good and one evil, the CIA and the KGB. As the defenders of all things good, Angleton and Helms didn't feel that the normal rules applied. While this made them dangerous, in their minds they were honorable men worthy of the trust of the free world. While they were in their own way monsters, I don't believe this means they colluded on the murder of the President.

Edited by Pat Speer
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Michael Scott eventually got his father's manuscript back from the CIA. However, 150 pages were missing. Chapters 13 to 16 were deleted in their entirety. In fact, everything about his life after 1947 had been removed on grounds of national security.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKscottW.htm

Pat:

I always find your posts well-reasoned and articulate. Consequently, I seldom disagree, but in this case, I'd add a provisional caveat to your conclusion re: Win Scott. A few comments will illustrate why:

There is a CIA report available in the Russ Holmes work file which goes point by point through Scott's allegations and dismisses them. After reading it, I found myself actually trusting the CIA's interpretation over Scott's.

I believe this refers to the critical, clarifying comments of Annie Goodpasture. On their face, they seem quite reasonable, if not necessarily completely persuasive, which I suspect is your reaction to them, as well. However...

The reason why I don't trust Scott's recount is that it differs from just about everybody else's memory of the events, and is at odds with the Lopez report, which is damaging enough.

If Scott was murdered, and allow me to stress the word "if," I suspect it was entirely because of the discrepancies that Scott's manuscript contained, versus the received version of events vis a vis CIA. Scott's memoirs made a number of allegations that would have proved highly problematic for CIA, and the credibility of the Commission's report, irrespective of whether or not they were true. Scott excoriated the WC/CIA version of events, alleging that Mexico City station paid close attention to Oswald during his alleged visit there, did manage to photograph him during at least one of his visit to the Cuban and Soviet diplomatic residences there, and that he - Scott - retained a recording of Oswald's voice.

Close attention to details reveals that Scott was corroborated on all these counts. The Mexico City interpreters both recalled in HSCA testimony they were pressured to put a "rush" on transcribing the "Oswald" audio "take," which is certainly more congruent with Scott's version of events than CIA's. You'll also note that Jane Roman and others within CIA referred to a "keen interest" or "operational interest" in Oswald, which is, again, closer to Scott's "truth" than CIA's.

As for the existence of an "Oswald" photo and audio recording, author Dick Russell footnoted that his CIA sources, present in Mexico City at the time, claimed to have seen the photo, and heard the recording, which was some type of acetate, rather than a reel to reel tape.

The fact that Scott was making these allegations in print, intended for mass public consumption, must have given CIA's upper echelon personnel nightsweats. Does that mean they killed him? No, despite a self-evident motive. The foregoing data do, however, indicate that Scott's version of events is incompatible only with CIA's; not with the recollections of the interpreters or Dick Russell's anonymous CIA sources.

As I interpreted it, most of Scott's mistakes seem to have come from his faded memories of actual events, mixed in with some Thomas Mann-influenced suspicion of Cuban involvement.

If, and I stress that word again, there were [a] photo and tape recording in Scott's possession, they would demonstrate that Scott was far more truthful and credible than the Agency for which he worked. If so, his memories seem far less "faded" than any number of Agency gossips have laboured to make it appear. If you dare suggest that there may be some truth to Scott's manuscript on any internet forum, you'll encounter any number of helpful sorts rushing to assure you that Scott was a drunk, or delusional, or what-have-you. Rather makes one wonder how the man kept so sensitive a job, given his various flaws and failings. "Scott's mistakes?" Perhaps not...

As for Thomas Mann, I think you may have their roles reversed. Mann's suspicions of Cuban involvement were based solely upon the false data being fed to him by Mexico City CIA, Gilberto "D" Alverado being the highest profile red herring served up for Mann's consumption by Dave Phillips, et al. Mann didn't influence Scott; Scott's staff poisoned Mann's view with transparently bogus data.

I don't even find it surprising that Angleton took it upon himself to prevent anything potentially embarrassing to the CIA from surfacing. That is how the man viewed his job; he believed anything embarrassing to the CIA, no matter how true, was a potential tool to be exploited by the KGB. This paranoid and defensive and ultimately delusional view of the world is driven home when one reads Richard Helms' memoirs, where he states it is obvious that the Garrison investigation was at some level monitored and orchestrated by the KGB.

Yet the proof offered for this contention is, as you'll have noted, more smoke and mirrors than tangible evidence. What we do know, now, is that the Agency itself was paying particularly close attention to Garrison's progress, and trying to impede it at every turn. Any number of "legitimate" reasons to justify such actions may exist, but since the Agency and its shills refuse to admit that it did so, no such "legitimate" reasons are on offer.

To men like Angleton and Helms the world was a plaything between two powers, one good and one evil, the CIA and the KGB. As the defenders of all things good, Angleton and Helms didn't feel that the normal rules applied. While this made them dangerous, in their minds they were honorable men worthy of the trust of the free world. While they were in their own way monsters, I don't believe this means they colluded on the murder of the President.

And yet, we have all of the above, and others within CIA, colluding before and after the assassination to ensnare Oswald in a variety of questionable acts in Mexico City, then denying that they had done so. So great was their studied disinterest in this man that, despite the mistake having been corrected within its files in the interim, the Agency continued to refer to him as Lee HENRY Oswald. Further, it asserted that it had no interest in him whatsoever. Yet Scott was stung by this assertion, for it besmirched his professionalism, and when he tried to set the record straight in his memoirs, his version of events received corroboration from others who were there at the time.

I would pay more attention to them than to those who, for their own purposes, continued to call the assassin-in-grooming Henry...

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  • 1 year later...

Someone ought to hire Ed Lopez as a consultant, a few translators and go to Mexico City where the flickering embers of truth may still exist about what really happened there in 1963. Admittedly. the longest of shots, maybe someone there is still alive that could shed light on this most important matter. Chances are its already too late. In all likelihood, the full truth now resides beyond our ability to know.

The real keepers of the truth were US Intelligence and they are of course, long since gone.

I would love to see a historian tackle the subject. John Armstrong did a great job in his remarkable book, Harvey & Lee. His research puts a lot of things about Mexico City in context, yet in the final analysis, seems to raise more questions than it answers.

By the way Robert, thanks for your posts. I always learn something from them.

Mike Hogan

Edited by Michael Hogan
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Someone ought to hire Ed Lopez as a consultant, a few translators and go to Mexico City where the flickering embers of truth may still exist about what really happened there in 1963. Admittedly. the longest of shots, maybe someone there is still alive that could shed light on this most important matter. Chances are its already too late. In all likelihood, the full truth now resides beyond our ability to know.

The real keepers of the truth were US Intelligence and they are of course, long since gone.

I would love to see a historian tackle the subject. John Armstrong did a great job in his remarkable book, Harvey & Lee. His research puts a lot of things about Mexico City in context, yet in the final analysis, seems to raise more questions that it answers.

By the way Robert, thanks for your posts. I always learn something from them.

Mike Hogan

Thank's Michael. Ed Lopez has done valuable work in forming the 'Lopez Report' for the HSCA about the Mexico City angle, insofar as how it ties in with the real story of Oswald's sojourn there. I also share your interest in John Armstrong's 'Harvey & Lee' material. One regret I have is that there seems to be a 'believability factor' insofar as taboo-ish or controversial type topics peripheral and not so peripheral to the assassination. Example: Gordon Lonsdale is cited by Armstrong as illustrating that a literal double in intelligence operations is not 'out in left field' so to speak. When you add that to the fact, that it has been de facto established that there were indeed, many Oswald impersonation's leading up to the very day of the assassination, the lack of interest in his work is astounding.

The UFO area is another, individuals such as Fred Lee Chrisman, Major General Charles Cabell are part of certified historical events involving UFO's and nary a word is mentioned as to this dynamic, although I should qualify that by saying I am sure someone has, I just couldn't tell you. Instead of being afraid to investigate controversial matters for fear of being linked with 'UFO stories,' one should at least have a modus, or way, to navigate the waters.

As far as Armstrong's work goes, he has bona fide leads regarding the assassination of JFK that, I suspect a lot of JFK researchers, are not even aware of, as you may well recognize.

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Well, I believe the material you've posted is very applicable to demonstrating the problem in having 'government official's who were there, utilizing their recollections to 'support a dog that doesen't hunt.'

I can't speak for other Forum Members, but in the world of ideas, to borrow a phrase, only irrelevant, or totally unreliable sources of information, would come close to meeting the criteria for 'being met with derision.'

I would also add, that relying on gov't officials [in this case Ambassador Mann] who can't conceal their disdain for an individual, or his politicies as President, doesen't appear to be a 'reliable source' for an impartial 'recollection' of facts.

In fact, Robert Kennedy had some recollections about the very same topics Ambassador Mann spoke about and it is rather obvious, that there was not only divergence's of outlook between RFK and Mann, but some rather unpleasant moments personally.

This is from RFK: In His Own Word's [these are selected excerpts, as the material goes on quite awhile.]

RFK: "We got into one rather violent argument, a substantive argument on what to do about Cuba about the time that two or three fishing vessels arrived in Florida, in [u.S.] territorial waters. I was invited to a N.S.C. meeting on that matter".......

"My major argument at that time was with Tom Mann and with Bob McNamara. I said that I thought [the Cuban vessels] should be sent back. Ultimately, that point of view prevailed. Then it was a question of what we were going to do with Cuba. All of us were in favor of cutting off the water and supplying our own water [at Guantanamo], so they couldn't keep cutting it off and putting it back on. The major question was what to do about the employees. There were several thousand [Cuban] employees down there. And Tom Mann was in favor of firing the employees. He said they brought in ten million dollars a year to the Cuban government, or five million dollars. It didn't make any sense to give to the Cuban government. They were security risks".......

"Subsequently, he [Mann] said that the reason we should fire them was that the only thing the South American's understood was money. And when you took away this money from the Castro government, it would be a sign to the rest of the countries of Latin America that this was a new administration, which was going to stand up to them, that money was going to be involved, and that if they misbehaved, they would lose economically"..........

"I said I thought that he sounded like Barry Goldwater making a speech at the Economics Club, that this policy of the United States had gone out 50 years before."

Edited by Robert Howard
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  • 3 months later...
H. R. Haldeman, President Nixon's chief of staff, claimed in his book, The Ends of Power: "After Kennedy was killed, the CIA launched a fantastic cover-up. The CIA literally erased any connection between Kennedy's assassination and the CIA... in fact, Counter intelligence Chief James Angleton of the CIA called Bill Sullivan of the FBI and rehearsed the questions and answers they would give to the Warren Commission investigators."

I have already written about Angleton's role in removing Mary Pinchot Meyer's diary after her death. There was also another incident where he took away a manuscriot after someone died.

Winston Scott was CIA's station chief in Mexico in 1963. Scott retired in 1969 and began a memoir about his time in the FBI, OSS and the CIA. He completed the manuscript, It Came To Late, and made plans to discuss the contents of the book with CIA director, Richard Helms, in Washington on 30th April, 1971.

Winston Scott died on 26th April, 1971. No autopsy was performed, and a postmortem suggested he had suffered a heart attack.

Michael Scott. Winston Scott's son, told Dick Russell that James Angleton took away his father's manuscript. Angleton also confiscated three large cartons of files including a tape-recording of the voice of Lee Harvey Oswald. Michael Scott was also told by a CIA source that his father had not died from natural causes.

Michael Scott eventually got his father's manuscript back from the CIA. However, 150 pages were missing. Chapters 13 to 16 were deleted in their entirety. In fact, everything about his life after 1947 had been removed on grounds of national security.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKscottW.htm

There may have been another reason for wanting Win Scott out of the way.

He knew the identity of the Mystery man.

Attached is an image of a document sent to "J. C." (a pseudonym?)

I am pretty sure this J. C. has been identified already, but, I do not recall the name.

Also, has anyone seen the backs of the mystery man photos? Win says the visit dates are stamped upon them.

Chuck

Edited by Chuck Robbins
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While I wouldn't subscribe to Win Scott's account of the Oswald visit in It Came to Little automatically, I also wouldn't throw it out simply because it doesn't match "the record." There are many indications that the existing "hard record" from Mexico City has been subjected to falsification. Here are just a couple:

1. Ray Rocca, Chief of R&A in CounterIntelligence, in his HSCA testimony, became very confused because he distinctly remembered "earlier cables" than the Oct 8 cable from Mexico City.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...oc.do?docId=249

2. Anne Goodpasture wrote a Mexico City station history in 1970. In one paragraph, she wrote "wrong" dates for the start at end of Oswald's visit, said that it was known that he had visited the Cuban Embassy (the official story has this being unnoticed until 11/22), and said that he called the Soviet Embassy and used the name Lee Oswald and Harvey Oswald. This last thing is not the kind of thing you make up. Ms. Goodpasture was later handed the record and from it wrote the CIA's official 133-page chronology on Mexico City; this is when she started getting her facts "straight."

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...bsPageId=234458

3. The Tarasoff translator couple both, in 1976, very distinctly remembered a "third call" involving Oswald, who used English (not broken Russian). The call was lengthy and in various other ways differed markedly from the "visa calls" we now have. For what it's worth David Phillips also talked about such a call. The Tarasoffs also said that the call generated a lot of excitement, and that the tape was delivered and the transcript picked up with haste and not at the usual pace. Boris Tarasoff in 1978 had a convenient memory lapse about this, but Anna testified again to it. It's worth noting that the Lopez Report is completely silent on this and several other events - perhaps Lopez and Hardway didn't have access to the Sprague-era files where some of this stuff lived.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...oc.do?docId=258

This list could go on an on, but I only love to hear myself talk to a certain point. :-)

Everybody knows for instance that Alvarado's story about the $6500 handed to Oswald in the Cuban Embassy was refuted partly because of the date of Sept 18; the FBI determined that Oswald was in New Orleans that day. There is not a single word in the record about any other date provided by Alvarado other than the 18th. So why is that on Nov 29 Hoover told LBJ the following:

"This angle in Mexico is giving us a great deal of trouble, because the story is they have this man, Oswald, getting $6500 from the Cuban Embassy, and then coming back to this country with it. We're not able to prove that fact but the information was that he was there on the 18th of September in Mexico City, and we are able to prove conclusively that he was in New Orleans that day. Now then they've changed the dates - the story came in changing the dates to the 28th of September, and he was in Mexico on the 28th."

I defy anyone to come up with a document related to Alvarado that says that he changed the date to the 28th. Hoover made a lot of mistakes, but this seems hardly like the kind of thing he would make up.

So this is a long-winded way of saying I think it's hard to pin down the reality of Mexico City because the record has been badly f**ked with. Scott is hardly alone among the participants who said or wrote things which are completely at variance with the cables and transcripts and other documents, which largely come from a single agency - the CIA. It's worth noting, for instance, that all the information we have about tapes of Oswald not matching his voice come from the FBI. In the world of CIA records of the assassination, it never happened. I think they are more skilled at this sort of thing.

Rex

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Everybody knows for instance that Alvarado's story about the $6500 handed to Oswald in the Cuban Embassy was refuted partly because of the date of Sept 18; the FBI determined that Oswald was in New Orleans that day. There is not a single word in the record about any other date provided by Alvarado other than the 18th. So why is that on Nov 29 Hoover told LBJ the following:

"This angle in Mexico is giving us a great deal of trouble, because the story is they have this man, Oswald, getting $6500 from the Cuban Embassy, and then coming back to this country with it. We're not able to prove that fact but the information was that he was there on the 18th of September in Mexico City, and we are able to prove conclusively that he was in New Orleans that day. Now then they've changed the dates - the story came in changing the dates to the 28th of September, and he was in Mexico on the 28th."

I defy anyone to come up with a document related to Alvarado that says that he changed the date to the 28th. Hoover made a lot of mistakes, but this seems hardly like the kind of thing he would make up.

Rex:

It's wholly hypothetical speculation on my part, but I think the answer may reside with Pedro Gutierrez Valencia, about whom you've written at some length in the past. Once Alvarado's report had been debunked based upon the incorrect date of Sept. 18, Gutierrez emerged to tell precisely the same tale, but amended the date to a variety of dates, including Sept. 30, or Oct. 1, or Sept. 27. Now, as you're well aware, he did so by way of a letter to President Johnson as of Dec. 2/63, making it too late-arriving to be the source for what Hoover discussed on November 29.

However, if we speculate that somebody within Mexico City had already encountered Gutierrez [or fabricated his tale for him, more likely], such information could have been passed onto Hoover well prior to the arrival of the Gutierrez letter. The fabrication of the information, as alluded to in the letter, is also suggested by his later denunciation of virtually the whole letter's content. It seems to me that somebody other than Gutierrez was responsible for concocting the tale, and only lacked a local man with a plausible reason for having visited the Cuban consulate on the pertinent date to take credit for the tale in order for it to take wing. Or, so it was hoped.

It's always struck me suspiciously convenient that when Alvarado's lie was exposed, another person materialized as if on cue to tell precisely the same lie, but with the benefit of a date that matched Oswald's purported brief visit to MC. I suggest that Gutierrez was recruited by CIA to tell this lie, just as Alvarado had been, with the specific intent of blaming the assassination on Castro, which has been a recurring tic for the Agency since 11/22/63.

If Hoover was referring to a new, improved version of the Alvarado tale on November 29, with a more tenable date than Alvarado claimed, how could it not be from Gutierrez? Was there a third xxxx spreading the same lie that wouldn't die? Or was CIA simply insisting that its script be adhered to, with an improved date, before it had even located a secondary performer to recite the scripted lines? Later, Gutierrez could put into his subsequent letter the information CIA had already passed onto Hoover, making it appear to the outside world - in the event the tale in Gutierrez's letter was accepted as genuine - that he had written to Johnson of his own volition, with no trace of CIA authorship for his tale.

FWIW...

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Rex:

It's wholly hypothetical speculation on my part, but I think the answer may reside with Pedro Gutierrez Valencia, about whom you've written at some length in the past. Once Alvarado's report had been debunked based upon the incorrect date of Sept. 18, Gutierrez emerged to tell precisely the same tale, but amended the date to a variety of dates, including Sept. 30, or Oct. 1, or Sept. 27. Now, as you're well aware, he did so by way of a letter to President Johnson as of Dec. 2/63, making it too late-arriving to be the source for what Hoover discussed on November 29.

However, if we speculate that somebody within Mexico City had already encountered Gutierrez [or fabricated his tale for him, more likely], such information could have been passed onto Hoover well prior to the arrival of the Gutierrez letter. The fabrication of the information, as alluded to in the letter, is also suggested by his later denunciation of virtually the whole letter's content. It seems to me that somebody other than Gutierrez was responsible for concocting the tale, and only lacked a local man with a plausible reason for having visited the Cuban consulate on the pertinent date to take credit for the tale in order for it to take wing. Or, so it was hoped.

It's always struck me suspiciously convenient that when Alvarado's lie was exposed, another person materialized as if on cue to tell precisely the same lie, but with the benefit of a date that matched Oswald's purported brief visit to MC. I suggest that Gutierrez was recruited by CIA to tell this lie, just as Alvarado had been, with the specific intent of blaming the assassination on Castro, which has been a recurring tic for the Agency since 11/22/63.

If Hoover was referring to a new, improved version of the Alvarado tale on November 29, with a more tenable date than Alvarado claimed, how could it not be from Gutierrez? Was there a third xxxx spreading the same lie that wouldn't die? Or was CIA simply insisting that its script be adhered to, with an improved date, before it had even located a secondary performer to recite the scripted lines? Later, Gutierrez could put into his subsequent letter the information CIA had already passed onto Hoover, making it appear to the outside world - in the event the tale in Gutierrez's letter was accepted as genuine - that he had written to Johnson of his own volition, with no trace of CIA authorship for his tale.

FWIW...

Robert,

It's an interesting idea, but it seems unlikely to me that the Gutierrez story reached Hoover prior to the arrival of the letter in Washington. CIA and FBI were not exactly chums, and if this were a CIA op it would be too obvious for them to show they knew about it before the letter had made it to its destination. Plus, Gutierrez never gave the 28th specifically as a date - as I recall he thought it was either Sept 30 or Oct 1.

Alvarado was handed over to the Mexican authorities mid-afternoon on Nov 28. His interrogator first thought him to be either telling the truth or the best xxxx he had ever seen, and "I have seen a lot of them." I would guess that Alvarado changed his dates during the Mexican interrogation, and the FBI had a pipeline into what the Mexicans were getting from Alvarado. This would leave plenty of time for Hoover to have received this information by his 1:40 PM 11-29 call with LBJ.

One of the curious aspects to Alvarado's story and the other ones like it is how they held fatal flaws which made them ultimately unravel. If Alvarado was operating on behalf of the CIA, why wouldn't he have been given and used the 28th as the date right off the bat? Also he said that Oswald wore glasses, to give a less important example. Peter Scott has speculated on the idea that the stories may have been designed to ultimately fall apart after accomplishing their purpose, or at least to be manageable either way, depending on political needs. See the sections on "managed stories" in this essay of his:

http://www.history-matters.com/pds/DP3_Overview.htm

Rex

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Robert,

It's an interesting idea, but it seems unlikely to me that the Gutierrez story reached Hoover prior to the arrival of the letter in Washington. CIA and FBI were not exactly chums, and if this were a CIA op it would be too obvious for them to show they knew about it before the letter had made it to its destination.

Since virtually everything that MC station developed was floated by arms-length "deniables," I wouldn't expect the Agency to have passed it onto the Bureau. Rather, my surmise is that it arrived at the MC legat's office via a walkin. If not via Gutierrez, then perhaps via a third party trying to sell the same story, and salvage what was first asserted by Alvarado.

Plus, Gutierrez never gave the 28th specifically as a date - as I recall he thought it was either Sept 30 or Oct 1.

The two former dates were his initial best guess, but September 27 was his latter-day recollection when interviewed by Ed Lopez. I have no idea from whence September 28 was plucked, but as you know, that was a problematic date, being a Saturday, when the consulate was usually closed to outsiders.

Alvarado was handed over to the Mexican authorities mid-afternoon on Nov 28. His interrogator first thought him to be either telling the truth or the best xxxx he had ever seen, and "I have seen a lot of them." I would guess that Alvarado changed his dates during the Mexican interrogation, and the FBI had a pipeline into what the Mexicans were getting from Alvarado. This would leave plenty of time for Hoover to have received this information by his 1:40 PM 11-29 call with LBJ.

It's certainly feasible, given that the Bureau seems to have had its own access to Agency sources and methods, including the DFS and the joint surveillance programs undertaken by DFS and the Agency. A wild card in this speculation is the human intel asset working inside the Cuban consulate who might have been present on the 28th. If "Oswald" was inside the Cuban consulate that day, in order to place the spurious phone call from there to the Soviets, that date may have originated with him/her/them.

One of the curious aspects to Alvarado's story and the other ones like it is how they held fatal flaws which made them ultimately unravel. If Alvarado was operating on behalf of the CIA, why wouldn't he have been given and used the 28th as the date right off the bat? Also he said that Oswald wore glasses, to give a less important example. Peter Scott has speculated on the idea that the stories may have been designed to ultimately fall apart after accomplishing their purpose, or at least to be manageable either way, depending on political needs. See the sections on "managed stories" in this essay of his:

http://www.history-matters.com/pds/DP3_Overview.htm

This is why the MC episode remains so fascinating, and frustrating. The Agency certainly stonewalled Lopez, and has resisted all attempts to divine what actually transpired.

It's possible Alvarado was a genuine witness to a genuine event, but mistook someone else for "Oswald."

It's possible Alvarado's tale was true, but he mistook the date on which it occurred, irrespective of whether it was "Oswald" or someone else who received the payoff from the "red haired Negro."

More likely, to my mind at least, is one of the two following conjectures:

Alvarado witnessed a genuine event, which had been staged for the purpose of him seeing it.

Alvarado witnessed nothing, but simply reiterated for US consumption what he had been instructed to relay.

If the Alvarado tale was predesigned to crumble under scrutiny, one questions why it was thought prudent or necessary to rehabilitate the tale by producing another witness to the same event, who provided a more tenable date on which it purportedly transpired. Just how many times did a tall "red haired Negro" hand out money to Yanquis inside the Cuban consulate?

It seems to me quite foolhardy to produce a second witness to so questionable an event, once the first such witness had already been discredited. Perhaps it was a measure of the urgency felt by someone within the Agency that the tale be sold to the highest powers in Washington, despite knowing it to be false.

My own feeling is that the issue was invented out of whole cloth, and when the first salesman failed to sell it, a second salesman was recruited. That they both lied is self-evident, based upon the internal contradictions and inconsistencies contained in their stories. Why they lied, and for whom, is the far more germane issue, I think.

As you may know, Peter Dale Scott is among the few I hold in highest regard within the so-called research community. You have done us all a great service by giving his work a wider audience, and by continuing his work with your own essays. Thank you for both.

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This is why the MC episode remains so fascinating, and frustrating. The Agency certainly stonewalled Lopez, and has resisted all attempts to divine what actually transpired.

It's possible Alvarado was a genuine witness to a genuine event, but mistook someone else for "Oswald."

It's possible Alvarado's tale was true, but he mistook the date on which it occurred, irrespective of whether it was "Oswald" or someone else who received the payoff from the "red haired Negro."

More likely, to my mind at least, is one of the two following conjectures:

Alvarado witnessed a genuine event, which had been staged for the purpose of him seeing it.

Alvarado witnessed nothing, but simply reiterated for US consumption what he had been instructed to relay.

If the Alvarado tale was predesigned to crumble under scrutiny, one questions why it was thought prudent or necessary to rehabilitate the tale by producing another witness to the same event, who provided a more tenable date on which it purportedly transpired. Just how many times did a tall "red haired Negro" hand out money to Yanquis inside the Cuban consulate?

It seems to me quite foolhardy to produce a second witness to so questionable an event, once the first such witness had already been discredited. Perhaps it was a measure of the urgency felt by someone within the Agency that the tale be sold to the highest powers in Washington, despite knowing it to be false.

My own feeling is that the issue was invented out of whole cloth, and when the first salesman failed to sell it, a second salesman was recruited. That they both lied is self-evident, based upon the internal contradictions and inconsistencies contained in their stories. Why they lied, and for whom, is the far more germane issue, I think.

As you may know, Peter Dale Scott is among the few I hold in highest regard within the so-called research community. You have done us all a great service by giving his work a wider audience, and by continuing his work with your own essays. Thank you for both.

Robert,

You are too kind. I agree that the Mexico City affairs are maddening. As to the issue of why produce a second "witness" with a story akin to the first, it's a good question without a great answer. But it's interesting to note that Gutierrez actually held up better to scrutiny than did Alvarado. This is obscured by the Warren Commission's focus on Alvarado ("D") and not Gutierrez, but the Coleman-Slawson "conspiracy report" released in the 1990s worries more about Gutierrez. Ultimately he was ignored based on an inability to pick Oswald out of some photos and the fact that CIA photo surveillance didn't pick him up. Of course, the same photo surveillance didn't pick up Oswald on the same dates, something Larry Hancock kindly pointed out to me.

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...es/contents.htm

If the Mexico City stories were not "lone nut" walkons, and I don't think they were, they sure kept coming too. A Cuban DGI defector code-named AMMUG (Vladimir Rodriguez Lahera) apparently told his CIA handlers stories in April of 1964. Then SOLO told the FBI of Castro saying Oswald threatened to kill Kennedy in the Cuban Embassy. Elena Garro De Paz, possibly suppressed in 1963, surfaced with her story in late 1964. Then there was the Luisa Calderon "foreknowledge" idiocy, kept in a hip pocket until needed in the 1970s. Maybe the point of the stories wasn't to accomplish anything other than a constant reminder of what the alternative to the lone nut conclusion would be. Maybe the next walk-on wouldn't be discreditable.

Rex

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One of the interesting facets of the various MC stories is the persistence of some unusual common threads between them. The most obvious example of this is the "red-haired negro" seen both in the Alvarado story and the Garro de Paz story. Another interesting parallel can be found between the Alvarado story and the Odio story... I believe both have Oswald basically accusing his Cuban compatriots of not being "man enough to do it"; "it" being the assassination. If I recall correctly, there is some Cuban the CIA knew of who was connected to G2 black ops and who had red-hair or a red beard of some sort.

I actually do not dismiss the possibilty that these meetings happened in "some" capacity and were "enhanced" post-assassination. I now strongly believe that Oswald was recruited into a Castro assassination plot. Such a plot would have only been known to someone like David Phillips and maybe Anne Goodpasture, because both actually had connections to departments in the CIA that were behind those Castro plots (Phillips was the SAS [whose fingerprints are all over Oswald from August to September] man in Mexico City.) I think Phillips pseudo-fictional account of this plot is not that far off the mark. Now if one imagines that, they can see that there really isn't that much of a contradiction between the CIA's obvious efforts to cover-up surveillance that we would EXPECT them to have while at the same time planting Castro-did-it stories... A contingent wanted to parlay the Mexico City stories into the "plot" against Castro that never happened while others who were intimate with the plot and with the surveillance at the same time (Phillips, possibly Goodpasture) knew about the skeleton in the closet if those plots were exposed.

-Stu

This is why the MC episode remains so fascinating, and frustrating. The Agency certainly stonewalled Lopez, and has resisted all attempts to divine what actually transpired.

It's possible Alvarado was a genuine witness to a genuine event, but mistook someone else for "Oswald."

It's possible Alvarado's tale was true, but he mistook the date on which it occurred, irrespective of whether it was "Oswald" or someone else who received the payoff from the "red haired Negro."

More likely, to my mind at least, is one of the two following conjectures:

Alvarado witnessed a genuine event, which had been staged for the purpose of him seeing it.

Alvarado witnessed nothing, but simply reiterated for US consumption what he had been instructed to relay.

If the Alvarado tale was predesigned to crumble under scrutiny, one questions why it was thought prudent or necessary to rehabilitate the tale by producing another witness to the same event, who provided a more tenable date on which it purportedly transpired. Just how many times did a tall "red haired Negro" hand out money to Yanquis inside the Cuban consulate?

It seems to me quite foolhardy to produce a second witness to so questionable an event, once the first such witness had already been discredited. Perhaps it was a measure of the urgency felt by someone within the Agency that the tale be sold to the highest powers in Washington, despite knowing it to be false.

My own feeling is that the issue was invented out of whole cloth, and when the first salesman failed to sell it, a second salesman was recruited. That they both lied is self-evident, based upon the internal contradictions and inconsistencies contained in their stories. Why they lied, and for whom, is the far more germane issue, I think.

As you may know, Peter Dale Scott is among the few I hold in highest regard within the so-called research community. You have done us all a great service by giving his work a wider audience, and by continuing his work with your own essays. Thank you for both.

Robert,

You are too kind. I agree that the Mexico City affairs are maddening. As to the issue of why produce a second "witness" with a story akin to the first, it's a good question without a great answer. But it's interesting to note that Gutierrez actually held up better to scrutiny than did Alvarado. This is obscured by the Warren Commission's focus on Alvarado ("D") and not Gutierrez, but the Coleman-Slawson "conspiracy report" released in the 1990s worries more about Gutierrez. Ultimately he was ignored based on an inability to pick Oswald out of some photos and the fact that CIA photo surveillance didn't pick him up. Of course, the same photo surveillance didn't pick up Oswald on the same dates, something Larry Hancock kindly pointed out to me.

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...es/contents.htm

If the Mexico City stories were not "lone nut" walkons, and I don't think they were, they sure kept coming too. A Cuban DGI defector code-named AMMUG (Vladimir Rodriguez Lahera) apparently told his CIA handlers stories in April of 1964. Then SOLO told the FBI of Castro saying Oswald threatened to kill Kennedy in the Cuban Embassy. Elena Garro De Paz, possibly suppressed in 1963, surfaced with her story in late 1964. Then there was the Luisa Calderon "foreknowledge" idiocy, kept in a hip pocket until needed in the 1970s. Maybe the point of the stories wasn't to accomplish anything other than a constant reminder of what the alternative to the lone nut conclusion would be. Maybe the next walk-on wouldn't be discreditable.

Rex

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Rex:

It's wholly hypothetical speculation on my part, but I think the answer may reside with Pedro Gutierrez Valencia, about whom you've written at some length in the past. Once Alvarado's report had been debunked based upon the incorrect date of Sept. 18, Gutierrez emerged to tell precisely the same tale, but amended the date to a variety of dates, including Sept. 30, or Oct. 1, or Sept. 27. Now, as you're well aware, he did so by way of a letter to President Johnson as of Dec. 2/63, making it too late-arriving to be the source for what Hoover discussed on November 29.

However, if we speculate that somebody within Mexico City had already encountered Gutierrez [or fabricated his tale for him, more likely], such information could have been passed onto Hoover well prior to the arrival of the Gutierrez letter. The fabrication of the information, as alluded to in the letter, is also suggested by his later denunciation of virtually the whole letter's content. It seems to me that somebody other than Gutierrez was responsible for concocting the tale, and only lacked a local man with a plausible reason for having visited the Cuban consulate on the pertinent date to take credit for the tale in order for it to take wing. Or, so it was hoped.

It's always struck me suspiciously convenient that when Alvarado's lie was exposed, another person materialized as if on cue to tell precisely the same lie, but with the benefit of a date that matched Oswald's purported brief visit to MC. I suggest that Gutierrez was recruited by CIA to tell this lie, just as Alvarado had been, with the specific intent of blaming the assassination on Castro, which has been a recurring tic for the Agency since 11/22/63.

If Hoover was referring to a new, improved version of the Alvarado tale on November 29, with a more tenable date than Alvarado claimed, how could it not be from Gutierrez? Was there a third xxxx spreading the same lie that wouldn't die? Or was CIA simply insisting that its script be adhered to, with an improved date, before it had even located a secondary performer to recite the scripted lines? Later, Gutierrez could put into his subsequent letter the information CIA had already passed onto Hoover, making it appear to the outside world - in the event the tale in Gutierrez's letter was accepted as genuine - that he had written to Johnson of his own volition, with no trace of CIA authorship for his tale.

FWIW...

Robert,

It's an interesting idea, but it seems unlikely to me that the Gutierrez story reached Hoover prior to the arrival of the letter in Washington. CIA and FBI were not exactly chums, and if this were a CIA op it would be too obvious for them to show they knew about it before the letter had made it to its destination. Plus, Gutierrez never gave the 28th specifically as a date - as I recall he thought it was either Sept 30 or Oct 1.

Alvarado was handed over to the Mexican authorities mid-afternoon on Nov 28. His interrogator first thought him to be either telling the truth or the best xxxx he had ever seen, and "I have seen a lot of them." I would guess that Alvarado changed his dates during the Mexican interrogation, and the FBI had a pipeline into what the Mexicans were getting from Alvarado. This would leave plenty of time for Hoover to have received this information by his 1:40 PM 11-29 call with LBJ.

One of the curious aspects to Alvarado's story and the other ones like it is how they held fatal flaws which made them ultimately unravel. If Alvarado was operating on behalf of the CIA, why wouldn't he have been given and used the 28th as the date right off the bat? Also he said that Oswald wore glasses, to give a less important example. Peter Scott has speculated on the idea that the stories may have been designed to ultimately fall apart after accomplishing their purpose, or at least to be manageable either way, depending on political needs. See the sections on "managed stories" in this essay of his:

http://www.history-matters.com/pds/DP3_Overview.htm

Rex

Glasses worn by Oswald is a recurring story, coming from different areas, mentioned by different people.

Recently, a member posted a story, which related to a man who served w/ Oswald. This man also said the Oswald he knew wore glasses.

The reason for planting the "Oswald was in Mexico" story is pretty obvious, in my opinion.

Cuba is a prime piece of real estate that managed to slip out of the U.S. sphere of influence.

Chuck

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