Matt Cloud

In other words, having been given information that reveals the mole -- a la Bill Simpich's "marked-cards" -- have I now tainted the recipients in further protecting the mole's identity, if they do not follow-through? Neat trick, huh?

Small elaboration: "The article you linked by Morley indicates he wasn’t about to climb on the Tennent Bagley train." THAT'S RIGHT. That's why it couldn't come from Morley -- any validation of the mole-hunt story; he had to out-source it to someone else, to Newman (or so I ... speculate).

Let me suggest a broader perspective of understanding. If sending out information on Oswald -- who would go on to be the alleged assassin -- among various persons and departments circa 1963 protected The Mole because it could then be said that Oswald was the mole and you missed him. does sending out information on The Mole circa today -- among various persons (Morley being but one example) and departments undue that protection because it could now be said that the recipients did not act on it? Are you following? Consider the counterintelligence truism that it takes a mole to catch a mole. Has a process of reverse-disclosure been occurring, now trapping those who proclaim to want to solve the Kennedy assassination on the one hand, but cannot because doing so will reveal a bigger secret? Something to chew-on.

The question wasn't tailored so narrowly. You write: "The intriguing question is whether Gheesling and Anderson took Oswald off the security watch list based solely on the report about Oswald's cooperation with the FBI, or whether they had also been tipped off that a molehunt was about to begin with Oswald's file." Golitsyn told the FBI, including Hoover, either directly or indirectly, that there was a Soviet agent in the Washington FBI office. You ask why was Oswald taken off the watch list, which went to the FBI's Soviet Desk. Was Oswald taken off because a Soviet agent took him off? Is THIS the question here, and not the framing which you have offered?

Ah. Okay. Well, since it has been shared publicly otherwise, I suppose I can share it here. I wrote Jeff Morley the following; never heard back. You'll want to read what he calls the "Hardaway Declaration" -- I think he's removed it from his website (?), wherein certain notations indicate essentially that John McMahon is evidently the authorizing authority to clear (or not, as the case may be) documents for release to the HSCA in the late '70s. So, did Jeff Morley, upon receiving this email from me, say to someone -- John Newman for instance -- something to the effect that "we have a problem ... someone's catching on to the John McMahon issue?" Did John Neman then step into the fray, into an area which he evidently did not intend to go before, or thought perhaps he could get around (the centrality of the mole issue to the JFKA), to close the gap, get out in front? I don't know. He won't answer, either of them, via email (Morley) or on Twitter (Morley and Newman). Interesting possibilities however seemingly triflingly "inside" -- if I may be so bold -- it may be ... From: Matt Cloud <[REDACTED]> Date: Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 4:17 PM Subject: Nosenko/Yurchenko To: <morleyj@[REDACTED]> Dear Jeff Morley: Regarding your question from the Deep State blog, https://jfkfacts.org/was-yuri-nosenko-a-kgb-mole/: was Nosenko a mole? And, if so, who was he protecting? In answering those questions, I wonder whether you have considered a not-so-remarked upon thread running through the Nosenko and Yurchenko defections. The attached go toward this. One of which is the Joannides exhibits which I realize of course you secured for release. The other is a Washington Times article from 1985 on the Yurchenko defection having reopened the "search for CIA mole." The connection may not be obvious -- and I apologize for being cryptic here! -- but if you would like to discuss further I have quite a bit more on the subject to say (and write). I'm in Bethesda; please feel free to give me a call at [REDACTED]. I attach, too, a recent Letter-to-the Editor of The Post by me by way of credential (which did run), however unrelated it may seem to be. Thank you, Matt Cloud

Here's a big tip but a research project to boot: Can anyone tell me where the U-2 program and the CORONA satellite program were run out of from say 1958-1963? It's never been declassified. Hint #1: It wasn't in Langley, VA. It was in Washington, DC. Hint #2: Yenching Palace – Washington, D.C. Atlas Obscura https://www.atlasobscura.com › places › yenching-palace Nov 16, 2016 — It was the final meeting place in negotiations between the U.S. and Russia to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis and avoid nuclear war. As the ... Tales From the Yenching Palace The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com › food › 2001/03/14 Mar 13, 2001 — The place was so central to the culture of the day that, if legend (and the Yenching menu) is to be believed, during the 1962 Cuban Missile ...

Exactly? It's a big story, Paul. Over 70 years of history. And it's getting to be my supper time. Besides it's not really any fun for me if I just tell you. You'd reject it it anyway, probably. As Deep Throat is said to have said, "I have to do this my way. You tell me what you know, and I'll confirm. I'll keep you in the right direction if I can, but that's all." I'm willing to go further than that; I already have. But be specific. Good questions get good answers, better questions get better answers, and so on. If there's something you don't understand about something I've posted, ask. What references, for example, didn't you get?

You're going to have to dig a bit ... it appears to not be as readily accessible as it once was. Citation: Mattson, Mike. Winter/Spring 2009. “A Counterintelligence Cold Case File: The Fourth Mole.” Intelligencer Journal. Vol. 17, No. 1.

Is that why Bob Baer has come out to pin post-Solie activities on Redmond. The Case of the Fourth Man? (Neither Ames, Hannsen or Howard can explain all the losses, esp. from 82-86. I suggest everyone look up and read Mike Mattson "Counterintelligence cold case file" Intelligencer Journal Winter/Spring 2009. There was someone above them all.)

I wonder what caused Newman to take up the most sensitive issue in national security history in 2019 and pin it on Solie .... I wonder if ... could it be ... a parallel investigation was occurring that was uncovering someone else ... Did I wrote Morley and let him know too much -- that John McMahon's identity was at risk -- and he told Newman there's a problem and Newman stepped in to fill the void? Hold that thought ...

How do Golitsyn's claims about "Fedora" fit in to CIA-FBI relations?

I suppose you could consider that feedback. I see by the newly-created thread on the "FBI alert notification turn-off" or whatever it's called, you quote at length from Chapter 5. Specifically, you raise the possibility of "... whether [the FBI] had also been tipped off that a molehunt was about to begin with Oswald's file." What does that sentence actually mean? What does it mean that a "molehunt is about to begin with Oswald's file?" Can you break that out a little bit?

Bill -- I have read it, yes. If you want to discuss what the mole-hunt means let's do it. I do not think you've adequately done so, either in State Secrets or to the extent I have read your other works, elsewhere. You dive-in in the middle. You state you are are unfamiliar with Bagley. Am I correct that you make no mention of Popov, Golitsyn and/or Nosenko? The critique that you ask for here, and in the thread you have dedicated already to the subject of your book, can just as easily take place right here, right now. I can guide, but you gotta ask. It's a subject which runs throughout the cold war. It's fundamental.

I will say further regarding Newman and McCord, in anticipation of a comment by Bill Simpich that Newman "has set his sights on McCord" now, that if Newman thinks bringing the mole-hunt into the assassination scholarship (where it belongs incidentally) has cost him friends -- something Newman says it has -- naming Watergate burglar McCord as a Soviet agent will make him radioactive. Wait -- you mean Watergate was a Soviet plot?! Should be interesting.

Well, that's just the problem. The mole-hunt goes along, addressed obliquely here and there, but never defined, never incorporated into assassination research as a whole. That's just my point. Fundamental understanding of what that means needs to be aired. John Newman is to be commended for having done one attempt at that, but as I have stated elsewhere, his work ends where it begins, with Bruce Solie. Solie is the candidate he starts with and the candidate he concludes with. Confusingly, Newman also suggests Solie was working at behest of James McCord. Why that doesn't make McCord the mole I don't know. In any case, going back to the origin of the allegation is helpful and more helpful still would be to achieve a list of potential candidates beyond Solie. (I have a good starting place in mind, btw.) Solie wasn't in the U-2 program and if he was genuinely hunting the mole naturally his "tracks" would align with the mole's. Trips to Geneva, etc. Counterintelligence personnel are always subject to suspicions due to the fact that if they are doing their job correctly, their paths should be similar to the mole's. Yes, absolutely they stated moving when Oswald was said to be in MC -- he was a defector / re-defector back in the U.S. less than a year. Notably he re-defects back here just as Cuban Missile Crisis is getting underway, an event which would force Kennedy to make concessions he would perhaps not otherwise have made. The Jupiter missiles in Turkey. Promises of no more raids on Cuba. As to removal of FBI flash please post link to something I / we can read. Thanks. Oh. Wait, I see by Sandy's instruction, that that needs to be segregated off. Well, I'll look for whatever you post there, should you do so. Thanks.

Well, it takes two to tango, and I won't deny a third or more cutting in. So, Bill, anyone, engagement is really the only way to test the ideas. Let's flesh 'em out. Come one, come all. Here is what I am subjecting to test, as written on March 20: "Consider: The persons who ran the Oswald Project were themselves the persons who created -- who enticed -- the mole hunt, by sending over, or causing to have sent over, defectors alleging the existence of a mole. Popov and the U-2 plans, then Golitsyn out of Helsinki (Frank Friberg) where Oswald had also recently passed through, Nosenko out of Geneva denying the mole, and so on. By getting CI/SIG to bite on Oswald -- something which the Soviets didn't do, or knew not to do it seems -- and then having him blamed for the assassination, the mole hunt was paralyzed. Indeed, there was mutual interest all around in having Oswald take the blame, including from the White House and DOJ. "The Mole" you see is not a mole in the spy novel sense; he was rather a KGB interlocutor, a backchannel between Washington and Moscow, known in both places at the highest levels. But revealing his existence would be a difficult explanation to the American people, to put it mildly. And it would terminate its purpose moreover. In any case, tying the mole hunt to the assassination foreclosed serious investigation into the assassination as well as the matter that had started the affair off in the first place -- the U-2 plans getting into the hands of the Soviets."

Okay -- we will resume substantive discussion and analysis, then. Today gives me hope: Two comments at least that actually addressed the concept of mole-hunting generally, and whatever mole-hunt may have gone on here specifically. We were starting to cook with gas at last. Let's have more, I say.

Or, if you prefer, do Oswald's activities within/around the U-2 program, plus his defection to the USSR, set him up in the category of possible candidates?

No. This chronology misses entirely the origin of the mole-hunt in the first place. Perhaps I can offer some perspective and context. There are, generally speaking, suspicions about a mole in U.S. intelligence from at least 1958/59 via allegations made by Popov -- that the mole was in the U-2 program and had provided plans of the aircraft to the Soviets. These suspicions were further aroused by the defector Golitsyn who is said to have confirmed and added to Popov's claim. With this in mind, therefore, CIA counterintelligence is, we can assume, looking for possible mole candidates. Do Oswald's activities within/around the U-2 program, plus his defection to the USSR put him in the category of possible candidates? The information distributed to various departments that resulted from further monitoring of Oswald is not, I think, and as the comment above suggested, rightly, some bait offered in the hope that it may be leaked. No, it is simply what it purports to be: CIA counterintelligence is monitoring Oswald. It is keeping other interested agencies and departments informed.

A valuable point. Indeed, sending out the information -- whether disinfo, misinfo, or accurate info -- only entangles more and various departments in having at some level observed/monitored Oswald. Thus, when Oswald gets blamed, more departments have egg on their face, so to speak.

Well put. The fundamental difference, to address cursorily Sandy's rough allegation of my having imposed -- excuse me, merely "displayed" -- double-standards here, is that I am not rejecting data, not constraining the inputs, but rather incorporating any and all which survive scrutiny. The issue has been miscast from the start here as a choice whether to add a mole-hunt or not. But the issue is not one of adding a mole-hunt; it exists already, in the history, in the data. It's baked-in. (Intentionally I would add.) The issue over the mole-hunt arises problematically when one attempts to exclude it, to contort around it, to ignore it.

Noted! Twice!! Albeit that's not an accurate description of what has occurred, here on this thread, or on others. If you want to get into it, cite examples -- specific quotes -- and we can compare and contrast and analyze. It is of course up to you.

I’m happy to take the blows, such as they are. Allow me to wrap-up now, with a little more concision and precision. The Soviets’ internal cables to Amb. Dobrynin immediately after the assassination — but not released until 1998 (?) — state unequivocally that the CIA’s mail-opening program is, in the parlance, “blown.” The Kremlin instructs Dobrynin to be sure to say to his counterpart Secretary of State Rusk that the “Kostin letter,” dated November 9, 1963, was not received until November 17, even though the Soviets, according to their internal communications, already had it in their possession on the 9th.* November 17 happens to be the exact date that now declassified CIA documents indicate the HTLINGUAL program intercepted and opened the Kostin letter. These facts — first, the Kremlin’s instructions to state to the U.S. that the letter was received on the 17th and, second, the Kremlin’s statement that it already knows of the mail-opening program — indicate that HTLINGUAL is not merely blown (that’s the fact of the Kremlin’s knowledge) but that a mole with operational access to the day-to-day workings of the HTLINGUAL program has tipped-off the Soviets (that’s the fact the Kremlin instructs Dobrynin to say the letter was received specifically on the 17th). More. By including the Azcue timing problem — implicating that Oswald had information as to the Cuban consulate’s replacement having occurred before it in fact did occur — whoever wrote the letter gave the Soviets the upper-hand. Including the Azcue “error” gave the Soviets the opportunity to threaten the U.S. — as Dobrynin was specifically instructed to do, impliedly — with a public disclosure of the mail-opening program, which would humiliate the C.I.A. at very least, most especially Angleton’s counter-intelligence department, should the U.S. go ahead with making an issue of the forgery possibility. As it happened, in the event, the Warren Commission indeed dropped the enquiry altogether. Unless and until the issues wrapped-up in the Soviets’ own internal communications, which logically and impliedly confirm the existence of a mole with high-level, virtually real-time access to CIA’s counterintelligence activities, are addressed, the rest of the “Mexico City Shenanigans” are just that, just as they’ve been described here. Shenanigans. Smoke and mirrors. You see, Sandy, I can be reasonable. You are correct: The letter is a forgery and there were shenanigans afoot in Mexico City. But, as with the question of whose spy was Oswald, the question also must be who was the forger and whose Mexico City Shenanigans were they. ___ *The question of how the Soviets could have received already the Kostin letter on the 9th when that was only the day on which it was mailed is a good one. Some have commented here that this seeming incongruity establishes that the Soviets must be in error within their own internal communications, that they must then have received the Kostin letter at some other, later date, but before the 17th. This is premature as a conclusion for the simple fact -- nay, simple possibility -- that the letter may have been authored/forged inside the embassy itself, some time prior to the 9th. Or it could have been authored/forged by the mysterious mole and/or his associates, again, sometime before the 9th and a copy, perhaps hand-delivered (!) and walked right over, was given to the Soviet Embassy in Washington and then another copy, the “original,” mailed from whatever post-office region it was in fact mailed from and it was that copy, the original let’s say, which was intercepted on the 17th, with the Soviet embassy having a copy from the forgers already, all along, throughout the period of the letter’s existence.

Since multiple re-posts get lost in this website's fold-up of extended message exchanges, I am re-posting in full what I posted above. 6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said: It's a pretty damn good conclusion. Why else would Scott want poor little secretary Silvia Duran AND a bunch of her associates taken in and questioned by the Mexican Police? Just because she spoke with Oswald? I mean, please! Explaining Winn Scott's orders to have Duran arrested and interrogated does not require -- and indeed no information supports -- your statement that he "suspected that the CIA plotters' plan that implicated Cuba and Russia might be true." There's an alleged assassin of the president in Texas. Some reports indicate he may have been in contact with Cuba consulate. Therefore, Winn Scott wants to find out whom he talked to, and what was said. Your comments as to what he suspected are without foundation. 6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said: If you don't like my conclusion, fine. Think of it as reasoned speculation. It is a part of my hypothesis. Speculation is a necessary part of hypotheses and theories. I cannot think of it as "reasoned" speculation because it is not reasoned. There are no reasons as such there are only assertions posing as reasons that have no support behind them. And as you write: your conclusion is part of your hypothesis. That's unsound, analytically. Yes, speculation is important, and necessary, but it needs to be identified as such. Have you ever served on a jury, Sandy, in a criminal trial, where the burden of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt?" If so, you should have received instructions from the judge, just before going into your deliberations to the effect that a "reasonable doubt" is one that can be articulated and explained based on evidence in the record. It does not mean, in other words, that one juror can simply introduce another explanation out of the infinite and say that "well, it could have been this." If for example, proof of robbing a bank turns on finger print I.D. of the person on trial matched to those acquired at the scene and a witness testifies that they do match, it is unacceptable for a jury to introduce sua sponte the mere possibility -- without something in the evidence -- that the fingerprints acquired at the scene were forged. It's unacceptable in such situations because it is not, to repeat, "reasoned." This forum, needless to say, is not a jury room, and other less stringent standards may apply -- and should apply because speculation IS important and necessary -- but announcing where you are making assumptions in a hypothesis -- and not stating them as given when they are not -- is equally, if not more so, an important part of research and would be something I think that would be encouraged here, esp by admins. Stating your assumptions is not only intellectually honest, it is useful for at least two reasons. First, it allows other researchers to understand how you go from point A to point B and then allows them to analyze that decision and determine whether it was the correct path or not. Second, it protects you from charges that you are ignoring evidence in the record or have committed some sleight-of-hand. It's really a win-win. The larger point here is one of language. It seems you rarely, unless pressed after numerous rounds back and forth, identify your assumptions or you speculations as such. It would be more helpful if you incorporated phrases that let the reader know at which point in your comments you veering into the speculative. 6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said: My theory is that it was an element of the CIA who were the assassination plotters. In Mexico City, they use Oswald impersonators to paint a fake story of Oswald negotiating with the Cubans and Russians to kill Kennedy. I don't believe that Win Scott was involved in the plotting. I believe that it appeared to Scott that Oswald might have been involved with the Cubans in assassinating Kennedy. (Which explains why he had Duran arrested.) And that belief only increased (naturally so!) when he got word of Gilberto Alvarado saying that, while in the Cuban Consulate, he overheard Oswald being paid $6500 to kill Kennedy. Here alone, these two statements are in contradiction: First: "because [Winston Scott] suspected that the CIA plotters' plan that implicated Cuba and Russia might be true." Second: "it appeared to Scott that Oswald might have been involved with the Cubans in assassinating Kennedy." Two totally different concepts tied up in those two sentences, as I have indicated previously. You insert Scott's knowledge of "the Plotters' plan" in the first with Scott being unaware of any plan in the second and he being genuinely suspicious of possible Oswald's involvement with Cubans. Very different. You conflate the assumption -- the conclusion even -- into the question, the question being why Scott had Duran arrested. A fair and good question. 6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said: Information to Excelsior might have been leaked by a corrupt police officer for profit. I can't think of any reason why the CIA, the CIA plotters, the U.S. government, or the Mexican Police would intentionally leak the story. Here again you contradict yourself in back-to-back sentences. First you say information might have been leaked by corrupt Mexican police and the very next sentence you state that you cannot think of any reason why the Mexican police would intentionally leak the story. Which is it? No, I accounted for it. With reasoned speculation. It is you who have not accounted for it. This is false. I have accounted for the explanation as to how the information from the Cuban and Soviet Consulates ended up in Excelsior, insofar as I have stated that the evidence and analysis does not point in the direction of CIA, at least not in that department of the CIA which you evidently think the pot originates -- Angleton's department. Let's walk through the issue here, again, analytically -- carefully, methodically. We have a letter purportedly by Oswald to the Soviet Embassy wherein he reveals knowledge about the goings-on inside the Soviet Embassy. That's the most important detail of this whole affair, I say -- the Soviet's decision to replace Azcue and how it makes its way into the letter. The letter however indicates Azcue's replacement as having occurred earlier in time that it did in fact occur. The possible explanations for this knowledge about the Azcue replacement at all, as so far assembled, are these: 1. Oswald had a Soviet source, because the Soviets obviously know about the decision to replace Azcue, being the ones that made it. 2. Oswald had a CIA source, because the CIA also evidently knew about the decision to replace Azcue, because of their monitoring of the Soviet consulate. Explanations 1 and 2 are a wash, they cancel each other out, and neither, without more, without introducing either an assumption or more fact, moves the needle one way or the other. The needle is in equipoise as between the source of the information, Soviets on the one hand, CIA on the other. So, does introduction of an assumption and/or fact help break the stalemate? Like you, I am willing to assume the letter is a forgery. Indeed, for reasons explained elsewhere, based on type face and signature and linguistic tells, this is not an unreasoned assumption. Unlike you, I am not prepared to immediately jump from the introduction of the assumption of a possibility to the conclusion that that possibility is correct until a fuller consideration of the assumption and the inclusion of additional facts that may follow from the assumption. The assumption, the third possibility as to arriving at an explanation as to how the Azcue replacement made its way into the Oswald letter, is stated as follows: 3. The letter is a forgery, written by someone to frame Oswald by explicitly indicating that he had inside knowledge of the Consulate's goings-on, the replacement of Azcue. But -- and this will be important -- is there a reason, why whoever forged the letter also included the "mistake" of the date of the Azcue replacement? They include in tother words, a detail that Oswald could not have known about. A detail which the Warren Commission, as mentioned before, completely dropped from attempting to explain. Let's now work through the candidates as to responsibility for the forgery (our assumption). Candidates include at least CIA, KGB, or, as as I have offered for consideration, a mix of both. This latter possibility, this group, my "Plotters," would include persons who ran the Oswald Project in the first place (going back to the '40s), with access to both CIA information and KGB information, as a long-term operation to insert a mole into U.S. intelligence to steer management of the Cold War, just as the defector Golitsyn said was happening in 1962. (I can name names.) As I wrote in response to you yesterday, but you completely ignore it in your response today, I will re-insert: "And here I would suggest consideration of the possibility that the letter was forged by the persons running the Oswald Project, neither wholly KGB or CIA, but a group privy to information within both organizations, setting the various factions at play against one another to prevent hardliners on either side from achieving the upper-hand. This would be the strategy adopted throughout the Cold War. By putting the Azcue timing issue in plan sight in the forged Oswald letter, both KGB and CIA are bound in certain respects. KGB is bound because they are implicated by Oswald having inside info as to Soviet and Cuban embassies; CIA is bound for the same reason plus because the letter -- and the cable to Dobrynin -- indicates unequivocally that the mail-opening program is blown. That's a blow to the "mole-hunt" if one accepts that terminology. In place of "mole," I would offer "KGB interlocutor," an individual known and authorized (by a few) to steer management of the Cold War, the secrecy of whose existence must be protected whatever the cost." To add, the above by me IS the claim made by Atonally Golitsyn in his 1962 warning (to RFK and others) about a mole in US intelligence -- the issue of this thread. You on the other hand, offer this: "in my theory the mention of Azcue's replacement in the Kostin Letter does NOT blow the cover on the CIA's monitoring operation of the Cuban Consulate, or of Eusebio Azcue. According to my theory, yes the letter was written by the CIA plotters... BUT the only thing the Soviets would think when they received the letter was that it was OSWALD who was aware of Azcue's replacement. Not the CIA. (Of course, Oswald was oblivious to the whole thing.)" This has to be repeated: "the only thing the Soviets would think when they received the letter was that it was OSWALD who was aware of Azcue's replacement. Not the CIA." Really!? That assumption is unfounded, and does not withstand scrutiny. Wouldn't the Soviets want to know HOW Oswald learned of the Azcue replacement? Since your theory says they would not have thought it was CIA, then they have to consider that either Azcue or someone else inside the Embassy or somewhere within Soviet intelligence is leaking inside information to an American double defector. Azcue would certainly be a likely source since he is already a target of CIA recruitment. If Soviet intelligence finds out Azcue is leaking such info without authorization, he has signed his own death warrant. The Soviets would have to be concerned that they had a massive intelligence leak, just as U.S. intelligence is at the same time, that is, whether they each have a mole of their own inside somewhere. Your analysis, excuse me, your theory, completely ignores this logical reality. More, your theory ignores the facts contained in the Dobrynin cable, wherein it states: "either [the letter] was a forgery or was sent as a deliberate provocation." So, plainly the Soviets did not do what your theory says they did -- merely assume without more that Oswald knew of Azcue's replacement -- and, on that basis, your theory seems to fail. Now, perhaps having realized the position the letter puts the Soviets in, the Soviets in a later cable do adopt at least portions of your theory when they state, "this letter was clearly a provocation: it gives the impression we had close ties with Oswald and were using him for some purposes of our own." (You and they share that point, at least.) But, like the Warren Commission, the Soviets make no attempt apparently at resolving the question how Oswald knew of the Azcue replacement. That question goes unanswered by them so far as publicly-available documents to date indicate. If the letter was a forgery by CIA as you allege, it either, then, blows the mail-opening and embassy monitoring by CIA OR it tells the Soviets they have a traitor in their midst, notwithstanding your bare assertion that "in my theory the mention of Azcue's replacement in the Kostin Letter does NOT blow the cover on the CIA's monitoring operation of the Cuban Consulate, or of Eusebio Azcue." It either blows the CIA's monitoring or it tells the Soviets that they have a mole. It's one or the other. Moreover, it is a fact -- an undeniable fact -- that both the mail-opening program and the surveillance of the Soviet Embassy -- are in fact blown, as the Dobrynin cables explicitly state, in several instances. It's not clear where or how these programs were blown, that is when the Soviets learned of them. It was clearly sometime before 11/22/63. This fact hurts your theory that the plotters came from U.S. counterintelligence. That department is weakened in this whole ordeal. With that understanding, then, how the existence of mail-opening and embassy monitoring was blown is central to the question of this thread -- whether there is a mole inside U.S. intelligence, a thread which you started to ostensibly explore that question and the merits of which you do not engage. You simply talk around them.