Jefferson Morley: Our Man in Mexico

[Chuck Robbins]

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/story/index/date/1714

<H1 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px">CIA Still Stonewalls on JFK Mystery Man</H1><H4></H4>By Jefferson Morley 04/30/2008 07:20PM Flouting a federal court order, the CIA refused Wednesday to make public long-secret records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

At a federal court hearing in Washington, CIA attorneys declined to provide any records related to the secret operations of a deceased undercover officer named George Joannides whose role in the JFK story has never been explained by the agency.

A three-judge appellate court panel ruled in December that the agency had to search its files for records of Joannides' secret operations in 1963, when he served undercover in Miami running "psychological warfare" operations against the government of Fidel Castro. The court also ordered the CIA to explain why 17 reports on Joannides' secret operations in 1962-1964 are missing from the National Archives.

The CIA provided no written explanation of its actions during a hearing before Judge Richard Leon. Afterwords, agency attorney John Truong claimed orally that a search of files on Joannides operations found no records responsive to my 2003 Freedom of Information Act request.

Truong offered no explanation, written or oral of the missing records, In December, Judge Judith Rogers ruled that the CIA's previous explanation of the 17 missing reports was inadequate. "On remand the CIA must supplement its explanation," she wrote. That has yet to happen, despite the agency promising to comply with the appellate court order by April 30.

Maybe it's time to start holding the CIA representatives in contempt of court and jail them.

From what I have heard the incarceration could be continued until the documents which have been demanded are surrendered.

What good is a court if it cannot or will not use every means at it's disposal to enforce it's orders and/or rulings?

ultimatums in the form of time limits would put some teeth in the court's rulings. Until then, it's just the same old

song and dance we have come to know so well.

[Steve Rosen]

If you haven't yet done so, check the second link in Bill's post, which lists the full article:

http://washingtonindependent.com/view/cia-still-stonewalls

The judge ordered the CIA to provide a written explanation by June 11. Their delay tactic is a frustrating but not unexpected turn of events.

Steve

[John Simkin]

http://mwcnews.net/content/view/22212/26/

CIA Lies and Stonewalling: The JFK Assassination

by Jacob G. Hornberger

In his new book Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA by Jefferson Morley, a former Washington Post columnist, Morley delves into an interesting and revealing aspect of the John Kennedy assassination.

Morley points out that the CIA’s official story had long been that the CIA had been unaware of Lee Harvey Oswald’s trip to Mexico City in October 1963 until after the Kennedy assassination. It was during that trip that Oswald purportedly visited both the Soviet and Cuban embassies.

You’ll recall that initially unpublished portions of the Warren Report were not to be published for 75 years after the assassination. Morley points out that faced with criticisms of his movie JFK, which posited a CIA role in the killing, Stone had a telling response: If the CIA had nothing to hide, why was it still withholding files some 40 years after the assassination? Largely as a result of that pointed question, Congress passed the JFK Records Act of 1992, which ordered the release of all government records relating to the assassination.

Since Oswald visited Mexico City during Scott’s tenure as head of the CIA’s Mexico City office, Morley’s book delves into that aspect of the assassination. Morley’s examination of the documents that were released as a result of the 1992 JFK Records Act revealed that the CIA was fully aware of Oswald’s visit to Mexico City prior to the assassination.

In other words, CIA officials lied about this critical aspect of the assassination investigation and maintained the lie for some 40 years.

As Morley carefully points out, however, the lying doesn’t necessarily establish that the CIA was involved in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy but it certainly raises an important question: Why did CIA officials lie about this critically important aspect of the Kennedy investigation and why did they believe it necessary to maintain the lie for some 40 years after the assassination?

An interesting aside is that for years Morley has been attempting to secure CIA documents relating to the role that CIA agent George Joannides played in the Kennedy investigation. Despite the 1992 legislation, the CIA has steadfastly refused to comply with the law requiring the release of the Joannides files. Over the vehement objections of the CIA, Morley successfully secured a federal court order ordering the CIA to release its Joannides files.

Joannides’s role in the assassination investigation is intriguing. He was the CIA agent responsible for funding the radical anti-Castro group in New Orleans that Oswald, who was initially posing as an anti-Castro advocate, initially tried to infiltrate. Later, as a pro-Castro advocate, Oswald entered into a much-publicized altercation with the anti-Castro group.

The CIA kept Joannides’s relationship with the anti-Castro group secret from the Warren Commission.

When the Kennedy assassination was again investigated by the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations in the 1970s, the CIA called Joannides out of retirement to serve as a liaison between the CIA and the House Committee. While serving in that capacity, Joannides and the CIA steadfastly maintained the secrecy of his relationship with the anti-Castro group. In fact, Joannides actions remained secret until 2001 when an article published by Morley exposed them.

As U.S. federal Judge John Tunheim, who chaired the Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s, put it, “[Joannides] was central to the time period, and central to the [JFK] story. There is no question we were misled on Joannides for a long time.”

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the CIA hasn’t changed its stripes at all. In an April 30, 2008, article entitled “CIA Still Stonewalls on JFK Mystery Man,” an article that provides an excellent summary of the Joannides matter, Morley points out:

“Flouting a federal court order, the CIA refused to make public long-secret records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. At a federal court hearing in Washington, CIA attorneys declined to provide any records related to the secret operations of a deceased undercover officer named George Joannides whose role in the JFK story has never been explained by the agency. A three-judge appellate court panel ruled in December that the agency had to search its files for records of Joannides' secret operations in 1963, when he served undercover in Miami running ‘psychological warfare’ operations against the government of Fidel Castro. The court also ordered the CIA to explain why 17 reports on Joannides' secret operations in 1962-1964 are missing from the National Archives.”

[Tony Frank]

The only evidence of Oswald being in Mexico is someone using his name when they called the Soviet Embassy on October 1, 1963. But there is no way that Oswald was in Mexico.

John Scelso, a high-ranking CIA officer stationed in Mexico during the assassination, who testified before the HSCA, tried to explain why the CIA had no photographs of Oswald at either of the two Embassies in Mexico. He stated that CIA officers handling the photo operations “come to recognize the regular Embassy staff and visitors who frequently come and go, and do not attempt to photograph them every time. They attempt to get pictures of new visitors.”

He was asked how it could be explained that Oswald, a new visitor, “managed to escape the surveillance coverage” while “the agency’s records document that Oswald made an appearance at the Cuban Embassy and Russian Embassy, or Consulate, a total of six times.”

Scelso then testified that the explanation for Oswald not being photographed was that the “photo operations are not set up . . . to photograph and identify unknown people entering and leaving the Embassy. They are set up primarily to get good photos, recognition photos, of the Soviet personnel or Cuban personnel in the place.”

Scelso clearly contradicted himself by first claiming “regular Embassy staff and visitors who frequently come and go” are not photographed while “new visitors” are photographed, and then claiming it was “Soviet personnel or Cuban personnel in the place” who are photographed, while the “unknown people entering and leaving the Embassy” are not photographed. He also bemoaned how it was “very, very difficult” to get CIA officers to perform this particular function because it was “deadening” and “boring.”

He was then asked, “Do you regard it unusual, nevertheless, that Oswald managed to avoid being photographed?”

“Yes, I do,” he replied.

The CIA documented that their “criteria for selecting subjects for photographing” is as follows: “If the target is unknown, and/or a previous photograph has not been taken, the observer takes one.” (Oswald was unknown and a previous photograph of him had not been taken.)

A November 27, 1963, CIA memorandum states, “We have photographic coverage during daylight hours on the USSR and Cuban Embassies. Their consulates are located in the embassies and therefore the coverage of the embassies would include coverage of the consulates. The photographic coverage of the mentioned installations is of a continuous nature during daylight hours.”

Another CIA memo states that during September 1963, Soviet Embassy hours were from “0900 to 1800,” which would be 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and “offices in the Soviet compound may be visited by appointment only.”

The memorandum also states, “Visitors may enter the Cuban Consulate from 1000 to 1400 hours, Monday through Friday,” which would be 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

On November 24, 1963, the CIA documented that Sylvia Duran, the woman who spoke to the man using Oswald’s name, “works at the Cuban Consulate from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. daily.”

The CIA’s information shows clearly that Oswald’s alleged visits to the two embassies would have occurred “during daylight hours” when the “photographic coverage” of the embassies “is of a continuous nature.”

If Oswald had actually made six visits to the Soviet and Cuban Embassies, CIA observers at each embassy would have had ample opportunity to take several pictures of him coming and going. But a November 23, 1963, CIA memorandum states, “None of our several photo observation points in Mexico City had ever taken an identifiable picture of Lee Oswald.”

And a 1967 CIA memorandum confirms, “No photograph was taken, acquired, or received of Oswald alone or with any individual in front of the Cuban Embassy, the Soviet Embassy, or anywhere else in Mexico.”

The 1967 memorandum states that there were three separate photographs of the “unidentified individual” taken on October 1, the day that Oswald allegedly contacted the Soviet Embassy. It goes on to state that the Mexico station “guessed” that one of the photographs taken outside the Soviet Embassy on October 1 “might be Oswald” because of the “coincidence in time between the photograph and the report of Oswald’s contact with the Soviets.”

On October 10, 1963, after CIA Headquarters received a report that someone using the name Lee Oswald contacted the Soviet Embassy, a cable was sent to the CIA’s Mexico City station to inform the station that there is a 23-year-old defector named Oswald, who has “light brown wavy hair,” is “five feet ten inches” tall, and weighs “one hundred sixty five pounds.” (CIA Headquarters did not receive the photograph of the “unidentified mystery man” until after President Kennedy’s assassination.)

October 10 is also the day that CIA Headquarters sent cables to the State Department, the FBI, and the Department of the Navy to inform them that the “American male who identified himself as Lee Oswald” was “approximately 35 years old with an athletic build, about six feet tall, with a receding hairline.”

The two cables were both sent from CIA Headquarters on the same day, and each had a description of Oswald. Yet, the description of the “American male who identified himself as Lee Oswald” was completely different from the description of the defector named Oswald with “light brown wavy hair” who is “five feet ten inches” tall, and weighs “one hundred sixty five pounds.”

Regardless of the two completely different descriptions, the cable to the Mexico City station stated that the person who called the Soviet Embassy on October 1 was “probably identical” with the 23-year-old defector named Oswald. But the cable sent to the State Department, the FBI, and the Department of the Navy stated in no uncertain terms that the American male identifying himself as Oswald was “approximately 35 years old with an athletic build, about six feet tall, with a receding hairline.”

How can someone who is “approximately 35 years old with an athletic build, about six feet tall” be “identical” with someone who is 23 years old, 5 feet, 10 inches tall, and weighs 165 pounds? (CIA Headquarters added one inch to Oswald’s height and fifteen pounds to his weight, because someone was hoping to lessen the disparity in the two descriptions.)

On October 15, the same day that Oswald was filling out a job application at the Texas School Book Depository, the Mexico City station sent a cable to Headquarters asking Headquarters to “please pouch photo Oswald,” which means that the station wanted Headquarters to place a photograph of Oswald in a diplomatic pouch and send it to Mexico.

Nine days later, on October 24, CIA Headquarters sent a cable to the Department of the Navy and requested that the Navy send “two copies of the most recent photograph” of Oswald. The cable also stated, “We will forward them to our representative in Mexico, who will attempt to determine if the Lee Oswald in Mexico City and subject are the same individual.”

The CIA also told the Department of the Navy that an earlier cable to the Navy had been in regards to the “possible presence of subject in Mexico City.”

On November 22, 1963, thirty-eight days after the CIA’s Mexico City station requested a photograph of Oswald, one had still not been received, and thus by the time that President Kennedy was assassinated, the Mexico City station could not determine if it was actually Oswald who had been to either the Soviet Embassy or the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City.

Upon hearing a Voice of America broadcast that “Lee H. Oswald” had been arrested in Dallas on November 22, the Mexico City station cabled Headquarters that they were sending copies of the “only visitor” to the Soviet Embassy on October 1 “who could be identical with Oswald.”

On the following day, November 23, the Mexico City station sent another cable to Headquarters stating that they had seen photographs of Oswald on television the night of November 22, and it was “obvious” that “photographs sent to Dallas were not identical with Lee Harvey Oswald held in Dallas.”

The CIA stated that on November 26, 1963, “The Mexico station received through the open mail, directly from the Department of the Navy, a photograph of Oswald.”

In due time, the CIA explained that “Oswald” had not actually gone to the Soviet Embassy on October 1. They alleged that after six visits to the Soviet and Cuban embassies on September 27 and 28, Oswald simply called the Soviet Embassy on October 1, whereupon he stated, “This is Lee Oswald.”

But prior to October 1, the CIA had no information to indicate that Oswald had been to either the Soviet or the Cuban Embassies because they had no photograph of him coming or going from either embassy. And they didn’t intercept any phone conversations in which the name Oswald was used because the man impersonating him did not use the name Oswald in a phone conversation prior to October 1.

CIA Headquarters sent a cable to the Mexico City station on November 23 stating that they wanted the Mexico City station to send a CIA officer “with all photos Oswald to HQ on next available flight.” For some reason, President Kennedy’s assassination meant that Oswald’s alleged “possible presence” in Mexico City was now a definite presence in Mexico City, and, for some reason, it meant that “the Lee Oswald in Mexico City” was indeed a defector named Lee Oswald. As such, CIA Headquarters now wanted the Mexico City station to send all of the photographs of “Oswald” at the Cuban and Soviet Embassies.

But the Mexico City station sent a cable back to Headquarters on November 23 stating that they had done a “complete recheck” of the photographs of “all visitors” to the Soviet and Cuban Embassies from September 1 through the “first half November” and that the complete recheck “shows no evidence Oswald visit.”

The evidence is overwhelming that Oswald was not at either the Soviet Embassy or the Cuban Embassy, but the entire cover-up hinged on having President Johnson fear that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban Premier Fidel Castro were behind President Kennedy’s assassination, hence, Oswald’s alleged visits to the Soviet and Cuban Embassies.

In 1975, the CIA alleged that the reason why they had no photograph of Oswald during the visit to the Cuban Embassy on Friday, September 27, 1963, was because, “The camera, based upon the recollection of officers still in service at headquarters, was down on the 27 because of mechanical malfunction.”

But on November 23, when the CIA’s Mexico City station did a “complete recheck” of the photographs of all visitors to the Soviet and Cuban Embassies from September 1 through the first half November, the complete recheck that “shows no evidence Oswald visit,” they made no mention of a malfunctioning camera at the Cuban Embassy on September 27.

The allegedly malfunctioning camera explained only why Oswald wasn’t photographed visiting the Cuban Embassy on Friday, September 27, but as for the alleged Soviet Embassy visit on that day, the CIA stated, “Why Oswald was missed in his probable entry to the Soviet installation on the 27th is not yet explained.”

And as for no photographs of Oswald during his alleged visits to the two embassies on Saturday, September 28, the CIA stated, “Both the Cuban and Soviet Embassies were closed to the public on Saturdays,” and “photographic coverage was normally suspended” on Saturdays. (How could Oswald have visited either embassy on Saturday, September 28, if both embassies were closed to the public that day?)

In 1978, the CIA came up with a new story in a memorandum to the HSCA about the “camera bases” at the Soviet Embassy, stating, “There were two separate bases which covered the Soviet gate,” and one base “was not working on September 28, 1963, a Saturday, although it did work four out of the eight Saturdays in September and October 1963 . . . . Coverage for the Soviet gate on Saturdays was standard operating procedure.”

So now they’re saying that photographic coverage was not suspended on Saturdays, but one of the two cameras covering the Soviet Embassy wasn’t working on some Saturdays, whereas their previous story was that the camera covering the Cuban Embassy wasn’t working on Friday, September 27.

Again, there had been no mention of a malfunctioning camera when the CIA did the “complete recheck” of all visitors to the Soviet and Cuban Embassies from September 1 through the first half of November. And since they were checking for photographs of Oswald visiting the embassies, it certainly would have been important to say something about cameras not functioning on the two specific days in question.

The CIA’s 1978 story continues on by stating that the other camera base covering the Soviet Embassy that “would have been working on the afternoon of the 27th and on Saturday the 28th is the base whose production is unaccountably missing. The Agency has not as yet offered any explanation as to why the production is ‘missing.’”

The Assassination Records Review Board stated that the CIA “acknowledged” that in 1963, the Mexico City station had “three photographic surveillance operations targeting the Soviet compound; and one photographic surveillance operation, which employed at least two cameras, targeting the Cuban compound.”

On March 12, 1964, the Warren Commission told the CIA that no government agency could “fill in the very large gaps still existing in Lee Harvey Oswald’s visit to Mexico.” The Commission also stated “there were many days during which we knew nothing about his whereabouts” and “the evenings of his entire trip were unaccounted for.”

Further, the Warren Commission stated the “registry” at the hotel where Oswald allegedly stayed “showed the name of Oswald,” but the hotel clerk “completely denies any other memory of Oswald’s being at the hotel . . . . All the subordinate hotel personnel, such as cleaning ladies, etc., likewise deny any memory of Oswald.”

© 2007 An Agency Gone Bad; Anthony R. Frank. All rights reserved.

[William Kelly]

Frank,

But there is a photo of Oswald in Mexico City.

The Cubans had it and gave it to us, from Oswald's visa application.

Oswald visited the Cuban embassy, got a visa applicaiton, was told he needed some photos, and Sylvia Duran told him where to go to get photos.

He returned with application and photos, which were made part of the Cuban records.

I believe the photo shows Oswald in a cardigan sweater.

Where the photo was taken was never identified, though it had to be within walking distance of the Cuban embassy.

So if Oswald didn't go to Mexico City, how do you explain this photo?

Bill Kelly

[Tony Frank]

Frank,

But there is a photo of Oswald in Mexico City.

The Cubans had it and gave it to us, from Oswald's visa application.

Oswald visited the Cuban embassy, got a visa applicaiton, was told he needed some photos, and Sylvia Duran told him where to go to get photos.

He returned with application and photos, which were made part of the Cuban records.

I believe the photo shows Oswald in a cardigan sweater.

Where the photo was taken was never identified, though it had to be within walking distance of the Cuban embassy.

So if Oswald didn't go to Mexico City, how do you explain this photo?

Bill Kelly

Bill,

A staff member for the HSCA asked Sylvia Duran how much the man using Oswald’s name weighed, and she said, “About your weight.”

She also said, “He has stronger shoulders, perhaps, than yours.”

The staff member then stated, “Just for the record, my weight is 199 pounds.”

Duran also testified that the man she saw “didn’t have very much hair.”

When asked if “his hair line” was “receding,” she said, “Yeah, yeah. Quite a bit.”

But less than two months after the alleged visit to Mexico, the autopsy report on Oswald stated he was only 5 feet, 9 inches and weighed 150 pounds, which is exactly what Oswald put on his job applications, including his application for employment at the Texas School Book Depository on October 15, less than three weeks after the alleged Mexico visit.

Duran’s description matched the description of the man photographed by the CIA at the Soviet Embassy, who obviously impersonated Oswald.

A CIA memo states that in 1978, Eusebio Azcue, a Cuban Consul who spoke with the man using Oswald’s name, “said that the man who applied for a visa was not the man shown on TV as Lee Harvey Oswald.”

Azcue stated at a gathering in Havana, “In no way did the person I saw in film and photographs resemble the person who visited me.”

What is your source for stating that Sylvia Duran told Oswald where to go to get photos, and what is your source for Oswald obtaining a photo?

[William Kelly]

Frank,

But there is a photo of Oswald in Mexico City.

The Cubans had it and gave it to us, from Oswald's visa application.

Oswald visited the Cuban embassy, got a visa applicaiton, was told he needed some photos, and Sylvia Duran told him where to go to get photos.

He returned with application and photos, which were made part of the Cuban records.

I believe the photo shows Oswald in a cardigan sweater.

Where the photo was taken was never identified, though it had to be within walking distance of the Cuban embassy.

So if Oswald didn't go to Mexico City, how do you explain this photo?

Bill Kelly

Bill,

A staff member for the HSCA asked Sylvia Duran how much the man using Oswald's name weighed, and she said, "About your weight."

She also said, "He has stronger shoulders, perhaps, than yours."

The staff member then stated, "Just for the record, my weight is 199 pounds."

Duran also testified that the man she saw "didn't have very much hair."

When asked if "his hair line" was "receding," she said, "Yeah, yeah. Quite a bit."

But less than two months after the alleged visit to Mexico, the autopsy report on Oswald stated he was only 5 feet, 9 inches and weighed 150 pounds, which is exactly what Oswald put on his job applications, including his application for employment at the Texas School Book Depository on October 15, less than three weeks after the alleged Mexico visit.

Duran's description matched the description of the man photographed by the CIA at the Soviet Embassy, who obviously impersonated Oswald.

A CIA memo states that in 1978, Eusebio Azcue, a Cuban Consul who spoke with the man using Oswald's name, "said that the man who applied for a visa was not the man shown on TV as Lee Harvey Oswald."

Azcue stated at a gathering in Havana, "In no way did the person I saw in film and photographs resemble the person who visited me."

What is your source for stating that Sylvia Duran told Oswald where to go to get photos, and what is your source for Oswald obtaining a photo?

Tony, I don't dispute anything you have to say above.

I'm just saying that to make the case that Lee Harvey Oswald didn't go to Mexico City and visit the Cuban embassy, you have to explain the photo of Oswald that is attached to his visa application from the Cuban embassy.

He reportedly presented the photo and application and signed it in front of Sylvia Duran, who would have had to not look at the photo or the person presenting it to her when he signed the papers, a signature that has been verified as being Oswald's signature.

I'm willing, as many have tried to convince me, that Oswald didn't go to Mexico City, if you can get around this photo and signature on the application.

BK

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:ATt9m...cd=20&gl=us

Photograph of Lee Oswald present on his visa application to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City.

HSCA Exhibit F-194

[Tony Frank]

Bill,

The photo and the alleged signature are interesting, but I have 3 questions;

1. Who produced this photo?

2. Where does it say that the signature on the application was verified as being Oswald's signature?

3. Who reported that Oswald presented the photo and application and signed it in front of Sylvia Duran?

[William Kelly]

Bill,

The photo and the alleged signature are interesting, but I have 3 questions;

1. Who produced this photo?

2. Where does it say that the signature on the application was verified as being Oswald's signature?

3. Who reported that Oswald presented the photo and application and signed it in front of Sylvia Duran?

Okay Tony, I'll go down this alley one more time, though it isn't me who says that Oswald didn't go to Mexico City. I'm just giving you a few reasons why it really seems like he did.

The Cubans must have produced the photo, identified as HSCA F-194, and used in analysis to show that the line in the chin of the subject in backyard photos is not a line in the photos but a real line on the chin of Oswald, which is clear in F-194.

Where the photo came from is less clear. It appears to be the type taken in an arcade machine that produces a half dozen or more in quick succession.

Or it could be a professional made for a passport.

While I've read reports of Sylvia Duran advising Oswald on where in Mexico City he could get the photo needed for his visa application, and can't site this source off the top of my head, the Warren Report indicates that since the source of the photo could not be found in Mexico City, Oswald may have brought the photo with him from USA.

It seems kind of odd to me that Oswald would be wearing a sweater in Mexico City in September.

As for signature, I haven't seen the entire visa applicaition itself, but both the Warren Commission and HSCA had handwriting analysists review relevant signatures but I don't have time to locate these records at the moment. I will defer to T. Michael Griffith on this, though I don't think, as Fonzi suggests, they are CIA plants.

T. Michael Griffith, who I agree with on most points, also skirts around the issue:

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:q5-Sq...;cd=5&gl=us

What about the Oswald photos and the signatures on the visa application? Consul Azcue pointed out that the clerk could have allowed the visitor to take the visa application out of the embassy, thus providing an opportunity to obtain the real Oswald's signature. Or, the signatures could have been expertly faked. After the assassination, researchers found a photocopy of Oswald's Social Security card on which someone appeared to have been practicing how to forge Oswald's signature (11:392). As for the Oswald pictures on the application, intensive research after the shooting revealed that they were not made at any of the local photo shops in Mexico City (14:349). If the imposter was allowed to take the application out of the embassy, he could have simply attached Oswald's pictures to it.

Posner argues that the visitor must have been Oswald or else the clerk would have noticed that the photos did not match the applicant. But Consul Azcue said the clerk might not have checked the pictures against the individual who was applying, explaining that "occupied as she was, she most probably proceeded to place the photograph on the application without this check" (14:349). Fonzi raises the possibility that the pictures and the signed application were planted by the CIA agents who worked at the embassy (61:293- 294).

[Tony Frank]

Thanks for explaining everything, Bill. Your concerns about the Oswald wearing a sweater in Mexico City in September are certainly valid. I think that you've made a clear case for the impostor bringing the photo with him.

In December 1975, the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas Field Office sent a memo to FBI Headquarters in which he put forth the possibility that “the unidentified individual photographed entering or departing the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City was a CIA operative.”

The Dallas FBI agent also stated, “CIA would likely know the identity of this individual, although they obviously would be most reluctant to publicly identify him.”

Dispatches from the CIA’s Western Hemisphere Division Chief in 1967 stated “the unidentified mystery man,” who had originally been identified as Oswald, had been photographed “coming out of both the Soviet and Cuban Embassies.”

I believe that continuing the cover up is contingent upon maintaining that Oswald was in Mexico City. It wouldn't surprise me if the impostor brought a visa application to Mexico with Oswald's signature already on it.

I just don't see the photo and visa application as making a case for Oswald actually being in Mexico. It would have been very easy for Oswald's handlers to have him sign a visa application and then have the impostor take it to Mexico.

In addition to the mountain of evidence cited earlier, the CIA said that in a call to the Soviet Embassy, the person using Oswald's name “spoke terrible, hardly recognizable Russian.”

But let's look at Oswald's Russian speaking abilities.

Peter Paul Gregory, who was born in Siberia and educated in Russia until age 16, and who taught the Russian language in Fort Worth, Texas, testified to the Warren Commission that he met Oswald in June 1962, shortly after Oswald’s return from the Soviet Union. Oswald “was looking for a job as a translator or interpreter in the Russian and English languages,” and he wanted Gregory to vouch for his ability to speak and translate Russian. Gregory had him come by his office and tested his Russian speaking skills.

Gregory testified to the Warren Commission that Oswald did “very well,” after which Gregory “gave him a letter addressed to whom it may concern that in my opinion he was capable of being an interpreter or a translator.”

The FBI on December 13, 1963, interviewed a woman named Rosaleen Quinn, who met Oswald in the summer of 1959 when he was stationed in California just a few months before his two and a half year sojourn in Russia. According to the FBI report, she met with Oswald because her nephew, who was in the Marines with Oswald, informed her that “Oswald was studying the Russian language and since she had taken a Berlitz course in this language, her nephew felt that it would give both of them an opportunity to practice speaking the language.

“She commented that she thought that Oswald spoke Russian well for someone who had not attended a formal course in the language.”

Oswald then spent thirty-two months in Russia, fourteen of which were spent with his Russian wife who, when she came to the United States with Oswald, spoke “no English whatsoever.” Oswald’s ability to speak Russian was undoubtedly honed during his thirty-two months in Russia, so much so that he “was capable of being an interpreter or a translator” when he arrived in the United States in June 1962.

A Secret Service report states that when Oswald was present at a family get-together in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thanksgiving Day 1962, he made a phone call, and “a young Russian man came to the house and spoke Russian with Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife, who does not speak English.”

Oswald and his wife and child left with the “unknown Russian speaking person” in his car “shortly after he arrived.”

A Russian-speaking friend of the Oswalds, Elena Hall, whose parents were both born in Russia, testified to the Warren Commission that she knew Oswald and his wife from July 1962 through Easter of 1963. She testified that Russian was the language she learned as a child while living abroad and that while she was growing up, “We spoke Russian in our home.”

She was asked about Oswald’s “ability to use the Russian language,” and she testified, “I think he talked very good Russian. He could read and write and everything.”

When Hoover called President Johnson on November 29, 1963, he told Johnson that Oswald’s wife “speaks Russian and Russian only . . . . I sent a Russian-speaking Agent into Dallas last night to interview her.”

Dallas County Deputy Sheriff Buddy Walthers wrote up a report on November 22, 1963, in which he stated that when he went to the Oswald home, “Mrs. Oswald spoke only Russian” and her Russian-speaking landlady acted as an interpreter.

After his arrival from the Soviet Union in June 1962, Oswald lived with his Russian-speaking wife for all but about two weeks of the next fifteen months. At the time of the alleged visits to the Soviet and Cuban Embassies, Oswald was clearly fluent in the Russian language. But as has been cited, the “North American” who was at the Cuban Embassy on September 28, 1963, “spoke terrible, hardly recognizable Russian” when he spoke by phone with someone at the Soviet Embassy.

Edited May 5, 2008 by Tony Frank

[William Kelly]

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/story/index/date/1714

CIA Still Stonewalls on JFK Mystery Man

By Jefferson Morley 04/30/2008 07:20PM Flouting a federal court order, the CIA refused Wednesday to make public long-secret records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

At a federal court hearing in Washington, CIA attorneys declined to provide any records related to the secret operations of a deceased undercover officer named George Joannides whose role in the JFK story has never been explained by the agency.

A three-judge appellate court panel ruled in December that the agency had to search its files for records of Joannides' secret operations in 1963, when he served undercover in Miami running "psychological warfare" operations against the government of Fidel Castro. The court also ordered the CIA to explain why 17 reports on Joannides' secret operations in 1962-1964 are missing from the National Archives.

The CIA provided no written explanation of its actions during a hearing before Judge Richard Leon. Afterwords, agency attorney John Truong claimed orally that a search of files on Joannides operations found no records responsive to my 2003 Freedom of Information Act request.

Truong offered no explanation, written or oral of the missing records, In December, Judge Judith Rogers ruled that the CIA's previous explanation of the 17 missing reports was inadequate. "On remand the CIA must supplement its explanation," she wrote. That has yet to happen, despite the agency promising to comply with the appellate court order by April 30.

Maybe it's time to start holding the CIA representatives in contempt of court and jail them.

From what I have heard the incarceration could be continued until the documents which have been demanded are surrendered.

What good is a court if it cannot or will not use every means at it's disposal to enforce it's orders and/or rulings?

ultimatums in the form of time limits would put some teeth in the court's rulings. Until then, it's just the same old

song and dance we have come to know so well.

Chuck, and Peter, who expressed equal frustration in another post, the ability to enforce the JFK Act is the responsibility of Congress, where the Waxman's House Oversight Committee has been holding hearings on all newsworthy topics, usualy after the issue is raised on the front page of the New York Times or Washington Post - as we have seen with the election machines, Walter Reed Hospital scandal, tourture at Guantamano, etc.

The subcommittee responsible for the Oversight of Information Policy, Census and the National Archives, is headed by Rep. Clay of St. Louis, Mo., but they have not responded to any and all requests for JFK Act Oversigth hearings, as mandated by the act itself.

Apparently they will only if the issue makes national headlines.

I thought the discovery and release of the new Dallas DA records, which should have been made part of the NARA JFK records collection but weren't, together with the Morley vs. CIA action in court would be enough to kick start such hearings.

Perhaps, as MLK was inspired to do, direct civil action should be considered.

A protest with signs and pickets outside CIA HQ could get some attention, or picketing Waxman's office would get his attention, or I might just give Dick Gregory a call and see if he wants to go handcuff himself to the CIA front gate and get arrested. That might do it.

In any case, I don't think the CIA is inclined to release any more records unless they are absolutly forced to do so.

BK

[Steve Rosen]

Tony,

You wrote here that "[T]here is no way that Oswald was in Mexico".

That's a strong statement. Have you had a chance to read the book that is the subject of this post? It's a great book, and I think it would inform and clarify your understanding of Oswald and his travels.

Jefferson Morley's book Our Man in Mexico discusses the surveillance photographs of Oswald taken at the Cuban embassy under a collection program code-named LIERODE.

Stanley Watson, deputy chief of station under Win Scott from 1965 to 1969, and Joseph Piccolo, an agency officer stationed in Mexico City, both were quoted in the Lopez Report as saying that they saw two photos of Oswald in the CIA's Oswald file that were taken at the Cuban embassy.

The book discusses these photos and the tapes of Oswald from the Soviet embassy were very likely among Scott's possessions pilfered from his home safe by James Angleton, and later destroyed by the CIA around 1987.

Have you examined this evidence?

Also, in your post, your argument relies heavily on CIA cables and documents, including the October 10, 1963 CIA HQ cable to the Mexico City station. This cable, as discussed in Morley's book and articles ("What Jane Roman Said") and John Newman's book Oswald and the CIA - approved by Richard Helms' deputy Tom Karamessines - was almost certainly designed to deceive Win Scott and keep him out of the loop on "the latest HQ information" on Oswald.

Thus the trap in relying extensively on CIA cables and documents to argue that Oswald was not in Mexico City is that those very cables may have been written with an intent to cover-up the the CIA's intelligence failures surrounding November 22, and with the intent to keep hidden aspects of the CIA's covert photo collection capabilities.

In other words, those CIA cables don't tell the full story, and the supplemental testimony of former Mexico City station officers should be strongly considered.

Finally, I note that you wrote in previous posts that you personally knew Richard Helms and William Casey. Did you ever ask them about Oswald, Mexico City, or other events related to November 22, 1963?

Steve

Edited May 6, 2008 by Steve Rosen

[Tony Frank]

Steve,

The CIA readily admitted that someone used the name Lee Oswald when calling the Soviet embassy on 1 October 1963. I don't see any "intent to cover-up the the CIA's intelligence failures surrounding November 22."

With all the information that I cited concerning the CIA's photo surveillance in Mexico City, I don't see any CIA intention to keep "aspects" of their covert photo collection capabilities "hidden."

The "supplemental testimony of former Mexico City station officers" is simply a CIA effort to maintain that Oswald was actually in Mexico.

I see no reason why the CIA would not have produced a photo of Oswald if they had one. They were desperately trying to make a case for Oswald being in Mexico.

In 1984, Helms and Casey knew perfectly well what happened on 11/22. But Casey was a cocaine addict and Helms was an alcoholic in 1984. They were pretty useless.

[Steve Rosen]

Tony,

Again, I believe that you are missing out on the latest facts and theory regarding Oswald and Mexico City if you have not studied Our Man in Mexico. The points I touched on are expanded greatly in that book.

I note that you have not cited this important work in your conclusions posted here. I urge you to read the book, especially if you are publishing your own book with analysis on Oswald and Mexico City, and whose stated purpose is to expose "who killed President Kennedy and why" (per your signature). The credibility of your book will strengthened by consulting Morley (and Newman's) works.

In response to your points, I wrote that some of the CIA cables "may have been written with an intent to cover-up the the CIA's intelligence failures surrounding November 22.". You might not see that cover-up, for the simple reason that it largely worked. However, as discussed in OMiM, Oswald passed through 4 CIA collection programs: LIENVOY, LIEMPTY, AMSPELL, and LIERODE. The intelligence failure is the fact that the CIA was acutely aware of Oswald's meanderings prior to November 22, through their DRE contacts, photo surveillance, and wire taps, and yet it seems nothing was done to alert law enforcement (FBI, Dallas police, Secret Service, etc.) as to his movements.

The other, more chilling possibility, as put forth by Morley, Newman, and others, is that Oswald was involved in a still-classified, authorized covert operation that had nothing to do with the assassination. This conclusion is discussed somewhat in OMiM, and this recent article speaks directly to the point: http://hnn.us/articles/49179.html. The October 10, 1963 cable, depending on your interpretation of its authors, signators, and contents (as well as what is left out), could be considered evidence of such an operation.

If an authorized CIA operation existed that utilized Oswald in some capacity, and he later assassinated Kennedy (with or without CIA or other assistance), certainly that would qualify as an "intelligence failure" on behalf of the CIA.

You wrote that "[w]ith all the information that I cited concerning the CIA's photo surveillance in Mexico City, I don't see any CIA intention to keep 'aspects' of their covert photo collection capabilities 'hidden.'"

Again, I said the cables and documents you cited may have been composed with the intent to preserve aspects of the CIA's photo collection capabilities. The point is that the CIA was not (and has not been to date) completely forthcoming with what it knew about Oswald and when they knew it (witholding tapes and photos of him; stating that they were unaware he visited the Cuban embassy until after JFK was killed, a claim that Winston Scott sharply rebutted). Therefore, if you rely almost entirely on CIA cables and documents to explain the CIA's actions and tracking of Oswald's movements, you risk a narrow view.

[Another overt example of keeping intel collection confidential that comes to mind is the photo of the "Mexico City Mystery Man" (originally purported to be Oswald), whose photo is shown with the background removed. Why? To keep the location of the photographers and the angle of their shots hidden.]

What is your basis for casually disregarding the testimony of three former Mexico City station officers as a "CIA effort to maintain that Oswald was actually in Mexico"? Do you believe Win Scott was yet another officer lying, when he wrote in his autobiography that Oswald was in Mexico at the Russian and Cuban embassies, and that the CIA knew so? Why do you accept CIA cables and reports as the complete picture of the CIA's actions in Mexico City, when we know, to cite one example, that the October 10, 1963 cable was grossly misleading, if not downright false?

You wrote: "I see no reason why the CIA would not have produced a photo of Oswald if they had one. They were desperately trying to make a case for Oswald being in Mexico."

Oswald was in Mexico according to all available evidence. Producing a photo of Oswald, after he passed through no less than four CIA intelligence collection programs, would have been devasting for the CIA, publicly and privately: it would have exposed - in black and white - at a minimum the CIA's extravagant incompetence in monitoring but failing to follow-up on Oswald.

Possibly, but not conclusively, it would have exposed to investigating bodies an authorized CIA intelligence operation involving Oswald, who after the events of November 22 was accused as the president's killer.

Steve

Edited May 6, 2008 by Steve Rosen

[Tony Frank]

Steve,

I agree that "Oswald was involved in a still-classified, authorized covert operation that had nothing to do with the assassination." My book clearly states that he was recruited to feign defection to the Soviet Union, and I back it up with solid information.

But I have to disagree with your other assertions.

On October 10, 1963, CIA Headquarters sent cables to the State Department, the FBI, and the Department of the Navy to inform them that an “American male who identified himself as Lee Oswald” was at the Soviet Embassy on October 1. That contradicts your claim that "nothing was done to alert law enforcement (FBI, Dallas police, Secret Service, etc.) as to his movements."

Upon hearing that Oswald was arrested, the CIA’s Mexico station checked its telephone taps of the Soviet Embassy and discovered that the person using Oswald’s name had made several visits to the Soviet Embassy and the Cuban Embassy in late September.

If they were aware that he had been to the Cuban Embassy prior to the assassination, why, on October 10, would they tell the State Department, the FBI, and the Department of the Navy that he was at the Soviet Embassy and not acknowledge that he was at the Cuban Embassy?

Or is your position that the State Department, the FBI, and the Department of the Navy were alerted to Oswald being at the Cuban Embassy but they, too, are covering it up?

I think that Morley tied in the 4 CIA collection programs with the alleged trip, and he took the position that the CIA would have had specific information on Oswald and the alleged trip. Morley is basing his entire theory on Oswald having made the trip, but you have not cited any proof that Oswald made the trip and passed through 4 CIA collection programs.

On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that he was impersonated in Mexico in order to give LBJ the impression that Khrushchev and Castro were involved in the assassination.

Edited May 6, 2008 by Tony Frank