The Role of Oswald

[Tim Gratz]

I am intrigued by this passage from an essay by Peter Dale Scott:

In the preceding two chapters I have argued that, beginning some two or three months before the assassination, events attributed to Oswald were systematically misrepresented in CIA files. These misrepresentations appear to have been part of an intelligence operation, whether one run by the CIA or possibly some other agency.

However these misrepresentations need not necessarily have been conscious preparations for the "lone assassin" phase-two account of the Kennedy assassination. One can imagine an alternative version of events, in which some or all of the authors of the misrepresentations are not themselves part of a complex assassination conspiracy (involving a "phase one" story about Oswald and Kostikov), but the victims of such a conspiracy.

This alternative version supposes a force outside the CIA, but knowledgeable about CIA operations and procedures, and possibly represented within its ranks. In such a situation someone could embarrass the CIA into evasive procedures, delays, and even falsifications.

Let us pursue the hypothesis that the CIA had mounted a counterintelligence operation involving Oswald, or the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, or the Cuban Embassy there. And let us return to the distinction raised by the authors of the Lopez Report, that Oswald visited the Cuban and Soviet Embassies on September 27, but that the man who identified himself as Lee Oswald on October I (and allegedly "spoke with consul whom he believed be... Kostikov") was someone else, an impostor. (1)

If so, the second man may well have been part of a plot, launched outside the CIA, to implicate Oswald as the patsy in the assassination. If Oswald was part of a different, authorized CIA operation, then the evasive behavior of Egerter, Roman, et al. would be understandable. The standard CIA procedure of reporting such Embassy contacts to the FBI would have put the authors of the October 10 messages in a bind; they did not want the Oswald-Kostikov link to be investigated, because in the resulting "flap" the authorized Oswald operation would be blown.

It is my opinion that Scott may be right here: that Oswald was on a mission of some sort for the CIA and was used by the plotters (from outside the agency) as a patsy in part because of his relationship with the CIA, the plotters realizing that would guarantee a cover-up.

If Oswald was working on something for the CIA, that might explain RFK's lengthy conversation with McCone the afternoon of the assassination.

If the imposter was Saul Sague (as identified by Gerry Hemming) that provides another avenue to explore. If Hemming is correct about Sague (and there is no question that Hemming had in the past worked with Sague so would recognize his photo) that tells me there is something to McDonald's books. When McDonald called the "Mexico City mystery man" (who allegedly confessed his role in the conspiracy to McDonald) Saul, he was not just making up the name. That being said, I acknowledge there are problems in the story Sague told McDonald, but perhaps the errors are insufficient to invalidate the entire story, particularly given the identification of the Mexico City mystery man as a real man named Saul.

Edited July 16, 2005 by Tim Gratz