Thomas Graves

Dear Paul, OK. What's the title of you're thread going to be? (lol) -- Tommy Pedro Gutierrez Valencia, a Mexican credit investigator for a Mexico City department store, claimed to have literally bumped into Oswald and a 5' 4", broad-shouldered, 33 year old-looking Cuban with whom Oswald was arguing right outside the MC Cuban Consulate on September 30 or October 1, 1963. He said that Oswald looked about 27 years old and that he saw the Cuban hand Oswald a big wad of American money. (He said nothing, however, about whether or not the guy had a scar on his left eyebrow.) He said they got into a late model Renault and drove away together, with the Cuban behind the wheel. He said that he remembered the two guys because of the argument they were having (in English) and the because of the handing over of the money during said argument. He said that when he saw photos of LHO in Mexican newspapers a few days after the assassination, he realized that the guy who had received the money was Oswald. http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh24/pdf/WH24_CE_2121.pdf (Hint: press F and ctrl at the same time and type in valencia) FWIW. -- Tommy

Dear Paul, Because I don't want to delete the conversations I've had with Gerry Patrick Hemming [q.v.], Gary Mack, Larry Hancock, James Richards [q.v.], Chris Newton, Bill Simpich, Robert Prudhomme, Alvin Beaubouef [q.v.], Steven Roy, Bill Kelly, etc. Why? What do you want to know? (lol) --Tommy

Dear Paul, OK. What's the title of you're thread going to be? (lol) -- Tommy

Chris, Yes, there was. I don't want to post the details on this "from memory," so I'll look into it and update my answer later. I know John Newman writes about it in "Oswald and the CIA." Newman writes extensively about it in Oswald and the CIA, Chris. Bottom line, "5'9", 150 lb" Oswald was handing out his FPCC flyers to Navy personnel near the USS Wasp on Sunday, June 16, 1963, and alluded to this activity in a letter he wrote to FPCC national director Vincent T. Lee on August 1, 1963. -- Tommy

Dear Paul, Some researchers and students are still wondering whether or not the "Mexico City Mystery Man" photographed outside the Russian Embassy on at least one day in early October, 1963, was GRU agent and "scientist" Moskalev. Bill Simpich believes that Mexico City CIA wanted the Soviets to think that CIA believed the Mexico City Oswald Impersonator was their GRU agent, Moskalev. If this theory is correct, it would help to explain why it took Mexico City Station so long to send to Headquarters the cable about, and the photos of, "Mystery Man" / (Oswald(?)) as he was leaving the Russian Embassy. -- Tommy PS What would you rather talk about?

Chris, Yes, there was. I don't want to post the details on this "from memory," so I'll look into it and update my answer later. I know John Newman writes about it in "Oswald and the CIA." -- Tommy

Here's the pdf document by CIA Latin America Division Chief, Raymond A. Warren, that James Richards was trying to post, or at least part of it: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.history-matters.com%2Farchive%2Fjfk%2Fcia%2Frussholmes%2Fpdf%2F104-10413-10077.pdf&ei=EF34UbLAB6j8yAHE74G4Cw&usg=AFQjCNHaTxzIcAcdrHOpOJvAv8dLdpJ_6g&sig2=oCLwIQayggJQgyJEju8x2A&bvm=bv.49967636,d.cGE According to page 2 of a CIA document which Bill Simpich recently brought to our attention in another thread ( http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=17471&page=2 ), Yuiry Ivanovich Moskalev was born circa 1921, so he would have been about 42 years old in October of 1963 when the photos of Mexico City Mystery Man were taken. Here's the document: http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=4546&relPageId=2 Another Simpich link shows what Moskalev looked like in 1971 when he was around 50 years old: http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=4158&relPageId=2 Moskalev does look like the Mexico City Mystery Man, IMHO, especially in the photographs taken on October 15, 1963, at the Cuban Embassy / Cuban Consulate: http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=4172&relPageId=65 http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=4172&relPageId=67 What do the other members think? Bear in mind that there is a difference of eight years between the photographs taken in 1963 and in 1971. --Tommy bumped

Interesting view of the Prayer Man position. Do I see Prayer Man's raised arms just below a tiny, tiny white spot? Click to enlarge. http://derosaworld.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c7c7d53ef012875649017970c-pi -- Tommy

Moved here from the "Miguel Mariano Cruz" thread. Paul Brancato, on 05 Oct 2016 - 08:09 AM, said: Dear Paul, Sequentially-listed "observations," made while watching that part of the video. They are not listed in order of importance: 1 ) Neck Scratcher's great interest in LHO 2 ) His athletic physique 3 ) His skin color 4 ) His unusual "scratching" of his neck -- sending a message or hiding something? 5 ) His wearing a ("CIA") suit on a hot afternoon -- also noticed by 14 year-old Jim Doyle. 6 ) His having a camera strap around his neck -- Jim Doyle said a suited man was taking photos of LHO with an expensive-looking camera. The same strap is visible in a photo of DSM taken three years later, in which, btw, he's wearing a similar looking dark-colored suit. 7 ) His index finger is light colored on top and on the side -- like Morales' in a photo taken of him in Vietnam. 8 ) His apparently not wanting his own face to be "caught" on film by Jim Doyle. 9 ) The fact that LHO appears to sneak a look at him. Also: 1 ) "Spanish Trace" / "Carousel Strip-Joint Buddy" / had a scar on his left eyebrow. 2 ) As Larry Hancock has said, Morales was a hands-on kind of guy when it came to running Op's. 3 ) Morales was stationed at JM/WAVE in Miami, and theoretically could have been New Orleans to size up LHO. That's about it, Paul. -- Tommy

Tommy, I believe that Bill Simpich's book, "State Secret" (2014) answers the questions about the large blonde Russian guy whose photograph appears in Lee Oswald's CIA 401 file. According to Bill Simpich... He wasn't impersonating Lee Oswald -- the CIA high-command chose to start a "mole-hunt" to find out which "mole" had impersonated Lee Harvey Oswald, ostensibly to link his name with KGB Agent Valery Kostikov. The CIA high-command deliberately altered Lee Oswald's 401 file in many ways, including (1) replacing the photo with a stranger; (2) changing Oswald's middle name to "Henry," (3) slightly changing the names of his parents; (4) slightly changing some date information. Sadly, when the JFK assassination occurred, and the Warren Commission demanded the CIA files on Lee Harvey Oswald, the CIA handed over the tampered-with files. That's all that anybody knew at the lower levels of the CIA. Regards, --Paul Trejo Paul, Very well put, but I'm afraid you're unwittingly reducing the five different characters I'm alluding to into only two or three. Of the five "people" I'm talking about, one is either a real Russian "scientist" (or a still unidentified "mystery man"), the second is a composite of two real people -- false defectors Robert Webster and Lee Harvey Oswald --, and the fifth one is the "blonde-or-dark-blonde," very thin-faced "Oswald" that Cuban Consul Azque dealt with in a (very memorable-for- him) way on September 27, 1963. When you say "the large blonde Russian guy whose photograph appears in Lee Oswald's CIA 401 file," you're actually talking about the guy Bill Simpich identified as Yuri Moskalev, a balding, brown-haired Russian "scientist" and GRU agent who may have been the man who was photographed (and eventually labeled "The Mexico City Mystery Man") while leaving the Mexico City Soviet Embassy on October 2, 1963, one day after someone had impersonated Oswald by calling the Russian Embassy, alluding to an earlier visit, and identifying himself as "Oswald." Although "Moskalev" / "Mexico City Mystery Man" was large ("athletic build," actually), he wasn't blonde (or even dark blonde), and therein lies some of the basis for my contending that you've oversimplified things a bit too much or that you didn't properly address the questions I posed in my earlier post. In a cable Anne Goodpasture sent to CIA headquarters, she fibbed about the date Moskalev(?) was photographed because, for urgent Mexico City "mole hunting" reasons and to preserve the operational viability of a much older Oswald-involved "marked card" operation, she desperately needed a CIA photograph taken of any 35-ish, white, American-looking male, preferably with dark-blonde or light- brown hair, who had been "captured" on film while entering the Russian Embassy on or about October 1. Since the only CIA-taken photo Goodpasture could find that was close to that date (and in which the subject reasonably approximated the above-listed physical description requirements), happened to have been of the dark-haired Moskalev-character on October 2, Goodpasture used it and said that the guy (who was apparently unknown to her) was photographed on the mandatory-for-her October 1 date, instead. And why did Goodpasture have to say October 1? Because that was when an Oswald impostor was tape recorded calling the Mexico City Soviet Embassy and stating, "My name is Oswald." Moskalev(?) below. Please note that whoever this man is, he is not blonde, or even dark blonde. FWIW, here's a Russ Holmes HSCA CIA document from 1977 which speculates that the Mexico City Mystery Man might have been Moskalev: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/cia/russholmes/104-10413/104-10413-10055/html/104-10413-10055_0002a.htm A handwritten note on this 1971 document says Moskalev was in the U.S. in October, 1963. https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=6532&relPageId=2 Moving ahead now, in my earlier post I was wondering why the thin-faced, "blonde or dark blonde" Oswald impostor whom Azque encountered in the Cuban Consulate on September 27 hadn't died his hair light brown to look more like the real Oswald, and the best answer I could come up with is that the "bad guys" had either not cared about trying to match Oswald's hair color, or had believed that he had blonde or dark-blonde hair. But why would they think that? Answer: Because Robert E. Webster had blonde dark-blonde hair, and because Webster's and Oswald's physical descriptions had been merged in a Popov Mole "marked card" operation right after the brown-haired Oswald had "defected" to Russia in 1959, and the "bad guys," who apparently were privy to that "marked card" information, were themselves fooled by it into believing that Oswald has blond or dark-blond hair. http://jfkassassination.net/russ/jfkinfo/hscaascu.htm Side note: Two things that have always troubled me about Sylvia Duran's testimony is that she claimed Oswald was short, only about 5' 5",apparently, and that he was dressed "cheaply." The real Oswald was, at 5' 9.5", about four inches taller than her and was wearing a nice vest sweater and tie in the passport photos he had just had taken of him about an hour earlier! Scroll down on this link to see his Cuban Visa application photograph: http://history-matters.com/essays/frameup/MoreMexicoMysteries/MoreMexicoMysteries_1.htm Would Eusebio Azcue or Sylvia Duran lie about what "Oswald" looked like? Did Duran and Azcue somehow deal with different Oswald impostors? Is Duran lying or is Azcue lying, or are they both lying? Regardless, I hope this helps you understand what I was talking about in the earlier post. --Tommy FWIW, here's a photo of the blond-haired Robert E. Webster in Russia. No, I'm not saying that Robert Webster was in Mexico City. I'm saying that the "blond, dark-blond" M.C. Oswald impersonator that Azcue encountered may have "inherited" Webster's hair color through the bad guy's misinterpretation of the CIA's Oswald-Webster "marked card" process, originally begun by the CIA some three years earlier in an attempt to catch "Popov's Mole.". Edit: I believe this 1962 newspaper photograph of Webster was doctored to make him look even more like Oswald than he already did. [...] [...] edited and bumped

"Yes" what? "Yes, Neck Scratcher is too tall to be Morales." or "Yes, I think Neck Scratcher could be Morales." ? -- Tommy

edited and bumped

Anyone but Bob Prudhomme. LOL. Just kidding, Bob.

One of the three anti-Castro Cubans arrested, along with Oswald, for disturbing the peace in the 700 block of Canal Street on August 9, 1963, was 47 year-old Celso Macario Hernandez. http://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh25/pdf/WH25_CE_2210.pdf http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh26/pdf/WH26_CE_3032.pdf The 99 year-old Celso M. Hernandez listed here http://publicrecords.directory/profiles/celso-hernandez.8860319.html not only has the "right" name (although there's always the possibility that the middle initial "M" stands for different middle names), but lives in the "right" state and is of the "correct" age. Would any Spanish-speaking "researcher" like to call that phone number to see if he's still alive? And, if so, if he was arrested with Oswald in August of 1963? And, regardless, was he arrested with "Oswald" by the lake in New Orleans in the fall of 1961 (as alleged by John Armstrong)? A good, "non-threatening" lead-up question to that last one is whether or not he worked as a TV electrician in New Orleans, because when "Oswald" and a "Celso Hernandez" were allegedly arrested in New Orleans in October of 1961, they were, according to Richard Gilbride, sitting in a a pickup truck with the words "TV Electronics parts and Service" on the side. https://books.google.com/books?id=SC-wBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA199&lpg=PA199&dq=%22charles+noto%22+louisiana+police&source=bl&ots=ee-N3tQIOw&sig=m17j-DT0f9v9WTFNBWAddjtJ9A8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjY64L5tMLPAhUT0WMKHTayA0UQ6AEIKzAC#v=onepage&q=%22charles%20noto%22%20louisiana%20police&f=false -- Tommy Note: The International Trade Mart was at the corner of Camp Street and Commons Street, and was only about two blocks from where Hernandez, Bringuier, Cruz, and Oswald were arrested in the 700 block of Canal Street on August 9, 1963.

Dear Paul, Isn't that the video's segment I've been pointing out regarding "Neck Scratcher" for a couple of years now? -- Tommy PS We know that Morales was 5'10". Do you think "Neck Scratcher" is too tall to be Morales?

Really? You can? Where, exactly? (At what minute and second mark in the video?) Thanks, -- Tommy

OK, would anyone care to say anything about "Neck Scratcher," or David Sanchez Morales? -- Tommy

Dear Paul, The bottom part was copied and pasted here from Bill Kelly's "Miguel Mariano Cruz" thread. [And now back here, again.] Now, if you read it carefully and follow the instructions I've provided in it, you'll see a short, mustachioed, light-colored suit wearing, middle-aged, Cuban-looking guy leaving the courthouse with Bringuer, and dark-suited, 17-year-old Cruz. Seeing as how Bringuier, Cruz, and Celso Hernandez were all arrested together on 8/09/63, it's reasonable to assume that they left the court house together, kinda hanging together like that for "moral support." Just a hunch, Paul, just a hunch. I believe I've read that the "Celso Hernandez" who was allegedly arrested 2 years earlier with "Oswald" was about 45 at the time. Going from memory here, Paul. Could that be the (almost) 18-year-old Miguel Mariano Cruz following Carlos Bringuier out of the New Orleans court house at 3:37 of this Black Op Radio video? (Warning: He's visible for only a split second.) He is shown again at 3:43. I can only assume that the short, sunglasses-wearing guy with the moustache following right behind him at 3:43 is the 47-year-old Celso Hernandez who was arrested along with Bringuier and Cruz and Oswald on 8/09/63. Here's the video, Paul: https://youtu.be/r6IvEZaX_Pg -- Tommy

IDK. I haven't read the ponderous tome titled "Harvey and Lee."

Paul, I know what he looks like (I can see him in my mind's eye right now), but I haven't made a conscious effort to spot him in New Orleans. Knowing the way my mind works, though, I think I would have noticed him by now, if he had indeed been "captured" in any of the New Orleans photos or films. Or anyplace else for that matter, not even the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in June, 1968. -- Tommy

FWIW, Having lived in the Czech Republic for seven years (six in, ironically, Svataplunk Osvald's birth city, Brno!), I know that the Russian language and the Czech language, although both "Slavic," are so different as to be mutually unintelligible to the citizens of those two countries. It's interesting to note that the person who telephonically "impersonated Oswald" in Mexico City spoke "terrible, hardly recognizable" Russian, and spoke (apparently good) English to Azque. Question: How well did Azque himself speak English? Was Azque's testimony to the WC in his own English, or was it translated from Spanish to English by an interpreter? -- Tommy Edit: I just did some more "research" and found out that Azque "was examined" by the HSCA through an interpreter. "TESTIMONY OF SENOR EUSEBIO AZCUE LOPEZ, FORMER CUBAN CONSUL IN MEXICO CITY [The examination of Senor Azcue was conducted through the interpreter.] ... " http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol3/pdf/HSCA_Vol3_0918_2_Azcue.pdf So it's theoretically possible that, .... never mind. I gotta think about this some more. After I get some sleep. LOL

Excellent questions, Larry. Thanks for the input. Edit: Actually, in 1978 the HSCA lawyer (Cornwell) questioning Azque apparently did show him that photo, and Azque said it wasn't the same "Oswald" he'd dealt with in Mexico City. Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to direct your attention to an exhibit which has been marked for identification as JFK exhibit F-408. That exhibit is provided in an enlargement form, and a photograph of it in a smaller form has been handed to the witness. Can you tell us what type of document that is? Senor AZCUE. This form is a request that was given to foreigners who approached the consulate requesting a visa to travel to Cuba. Mr. CORNWELL. May we have that exhibit admitted into evidence, Mr. Chairman? Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered in the record at this point. [...] http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol3/pdf/HSCA_Vol3_0918_2_Azcue.pdf -- Tommy PS For those "newbies" who want to expand their mind, please see the post immediately preceding this one.

Tommy, I believe that Bill Simpich's book, "State Secret" (2014) answers the questions about the large blonde Russian guy whose photograph appears in Lee Oswald's CIA 401 file. According to Bill Simpich... He wasn't impersonating Lee Oswald -- the CIA high-command chose to start a "mole-hunt" to find out which "mole" had impersonated Lee Harvey Oswald, ostensibly to link his name with KGB Agent Valery Kostikov. The CIA high-command deliberately altered Lee Oswald's 401 file in many ways, including (1) replacing the photo with a stranger; (2) changing Oswald's middle name to "Henry," (3) slightly changing the names of his parents; (4) slightly changing some date information. Sadly, when the JFK assassination occurred, and the Warren Commission demanded the CIA files on Lee Harvey Oswald, the CIA handed over the tampered-with files. That's all that anybody knew at the lower levels of the CIA. Regards, --Paul Trejo Paul, Very well put, but I'm afraid you're unwittingly reducing the five different characters I'm alluding to into only two. Of the five "people" I'm talking about, one is either a real Russian "scientist" or a still unidentified "mystery man," the second is a composite of two real people -- false defectors Robert Webster and Lee Harvey Oswald --, and the fifth one is the "blonde-or-dark-blonde," very thin-faced "Oswald" that Cuban Consul Azque dealt with in a (for him) very memorable way on September 27, 1963. When you say "the large blonde Russian guy whose photograph appears in Lee Oswald's CIA 401 file," you're actually talking about the guy Bill Simpich identified as Yuri Moskalev, a balding, brown-haired Russian "scientist" and GRU agent who may have been the man who was photographed (and eventually labeled "The Mexico City Mystery Man") while leaving the Mexico City Soviet Embassy on October 2, 1963, one day after someone had telephonically impersonated Oswald by calling the Russian Embassy, identifying himself as Oswald, and claiming to have visited Vice Consul Kostakov there earlier. Although "Moskalev" / "Mexico City Mystery Man" was large ("athletic build," actually), he wasn't blonde (or even dark blonde), and therein lies some of the basis for my contending that you've oversimplified things a bit too much or that you didn't properly address the questions I posed in my earlier post. In a cable Anne Goodpasture sent to CIA headquarters, she fibbed about the date Moskalev(?) was photographed because, for urgent Mexico City "mole hunting" reasons and to preserve the operational viability of a much older Oswald-involved "marked card" operation, she desperately needed a CIA photograph taken of any 35-ish, white, American-looking male, preferably with dark-blonde or light- brown hair, who had been "captured" on film while entering the Russian Embassy on or about October 1. Since the only CIA-taken photo Goodpasture could find that was close to that date (and in which the subject reasonably approximated the above-listed physical description requirements), happened to have been of the dark-haired Moskalev-character on October 2, Goodpasture used it and said that the guy (who was apparently unknown to her) was photographed on the mandatory-for-her October 1 date, instead. And why did Goodpasture have to say October 1? Because that was when an Oswald impostor was tape recorded calling the Mexico City Soviet Embassy and stating, "My name is Oswald." Moskalev(?) below. Please note that whoever this man is, he is not blonde, or even dark blonde. FWIW, here's a Russ Holmes HSCA CIA document from 1977 which speculates that the Mexico City Mystery Man might have been Moskalev: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/cia/russholmes/104-10413/104-10413-10055/html/104-10413-10055_0002a.htm A handwritten note on this 1971 document says Moskalev was in the U.S. in October, 1963. https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=6532&relPageId=2 Moving ahead now, in my earlier post I was wondering why the thin-faced, "blonde or dark blonde" Oswald impostor whom Azque encountered in the Cuban Consulate on September 27 hadn't died his hair light brown to look more like the real Oswald, and the best answer I could come up with is that the "bad guys" had either not cared about trying to match Oswald's hair color, or had believed that he had blonde or dark-blonde hair. But why would they think that? Answer: Because Robert E. Webster had blonde dark-blonde hair, and because Webster's and Oswald's physical descriptions had been merged in a Popov Mole "marked card" operation right after the brown-haired Oswald had "defected" to Russia in 1959, and the "bad guys," who apparently were privy to that "marked card" information, were themselves fooled by it into believing that Oswald has blond or dark-blond hair. http://jfkassassination.net/russ/jfkinfo/hscaascu.htm Two things that have always troubled me about Sylvia Duran's testimony is that she claimed Oswald was short, only about 5' 5",apparently, and that he was dressed "cheaply." The real Oswald was, at 5' 9.5", about four inches taller than her and was wearing a nice vest sweater and tie in the passport photos he had just had taken of him about an hour earlier! Scroll down on this link to see his Cuban Visa application photograph: http://history-matters.com/essays/frameup/MoreMexicoMysteries/MoreMexicoMysteries_1.htm Would Eusebio Azcue or Sylvia Duran lie about what "Oswald" looked like? Did Duran and Azcue somehow deal with different Oswald impostors? Is Duran lying or is Azcue lying, or are they both lying? I'm starting to think that the real Oswald didn't even go to Mexico City, and that something really, really "fishy" was going on down there. I hope this helps you understand what I was talking about in the earlier post. --Tommy FWIW, here's a photo of the blond-haired Robert E. Webster in Russia. No, I'm not saying that Robert Webster was in Mexico City. I'm saying that the "blond, dark-blond" M.C. Oswald impersonator that Azcue encountered may have "inherited" Webster's hair color through the bad guy's misinterpretation of the CIA's Oswald-Webster "marked card" process, originally begun by the CIA some three years earlier in an attempt to catch "Popov's Mole.". Edit: I believe this 1962 newspaper photograph of Webster was doctored to make him look even more like Oswald than he already did. Edited and bumped. time to bump it again so some of the "newbies" can get educated