Was Oswald an Intelligence Agent?

[Thomas Graves]

Tommy, those devices are nothing more than radar sets, a quick qoogle on the numbers and radar will give you the details of each. They had nothing to do with the U2 project

As to Oswald seeing a U2 over China, just not possible, it took the underpowered U2 hours to reach mission height, which it did with a series of rising ellipses as I recall. Oswald

was working a relatively short range approach control radar at Atsuki, I'm just guessing but no more than 100 to 200 miles at best and with a limited height finder was well. I suppose he might have

seen a U2 take off to the west but that's about it. And if you check into the books I referenced earlier you will find that U2 missions over China were no big secret either. As usual

I recommend reading a lot more broadly than what is in the routine JFK literature.

In any event, anything to do with the U2 would be CIA, certainly nothing to do with ONI.

OK, Larry.

I guess former Army Intelligence analyst Newman was wrong, and Oswald was, as Jon Tidd says, just an Odd Duck who attracted the attention of U.S. Intelligence. But just it just amazes me how this "Odd Duck" had been an aviation electronics operator in the Marine Corps and had been stationed at a place that the U-2 operated out of, and was able to get into Russia on a moment's notice and had enough money to stay at one of the most expensive hotels in Helsinki for a few days and buy a couple hundred dollars worth of Intourist Coupons or travel vouchers to Russia or whatever they were called, to boot, and that he just happened to show up in Moscow a few hours after Colonel Popov was arrested (and about the time that look-alike Robert Webster resurfaced), etc.

I guess as far as any potential interest the KGB might have been reasonably expected to have in Oswald, he might just as well have been a defecting Marine Corps Reserves dishwasher, especially in regard to whether or not he could help the CIA (maybe with just an itsy-bitsy bit of help from the ONI false defector program?) to determine whether or not what the drunken Russian general allegedly told Popov was true -- that the Russians already knew absolutely everything there was to possibly know about the U-2.

Well, if you are correct that the KGB wasn't interested in the slightest in Oswald's knowledge of the U-2 (and the devices used to monitor and protect it), then maybe Angleton was right, and there was a mole. And maybe the confirmation of that fact (due to the lack of interest in Oswald displayed by the KGB) made it worthwhile, in retrospect, for the CIA or the ONI or whomever to have sent Oswald to Russia in the first place.

Respectfully yours,

--Tommy

Edited January 22, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Robert Mady]

Of course he was.

Was able to obtain a high level security clearance.

Worked for the CIA when he was in the armed forces on a top secret program.

'Defected' to Russia on an intelligence mission.

Returned to the U.S. without repercussions.

Was able to return with a Russian bride without a problem from Russia or US.

Went to work for a defense contractor that required security clearance.

Appears he worked on top secret photographs during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Went to N.O. and worked under Guy Bannister who worked for intelligence community, to promote a communistic identity.

Associated with David Ferrie and Shaw, CIA assets.

Was handled by GEORGE DE MOHRENSCHILDT, a man known to have associations with intelligence networks.

Lived with a family connected with intelligence community that also had connections with operation paperclip.

Should there be any doubt?

[Thomas Graves]

Tommy, I honestly don't recall.....someone needs to do the research and see if the cable did happen....and if there was any further communication between State and Navy while Oswald was in those first days in Russia. If the cable did happen then the embassy was doing its job. I don't know if the embassy personnel have any legal right to arrest anyone, although the embassy is legally US territory they would need to call on the Legate (normally and FBI officer) and pursue that. Interesting points but I surely don't know (or at least remember those details from Moscow). I can tell you after doing some research that none of that happened at all when Nagell did the same thing at the US embassy in Mexico City.

[emphasis added by T.

Of course they did, Larry. My god, didn't you see The Bourne Identity ?

(Just kidding. That scene was filmed in Prague, by the way, as was the scene where he's sleeping on a park bench in the snow. The water visible in the background is the Vlatava River, not the Zurichsee.

I know that bench in the park called "Kampa" well, having sat on it (in the summertime) with my first Czech girlfriend about eight years before they made the movie. Ironically, the Czech Police asked me for my papers while I was sitting there. Must have heard me speaking English or terrible, hardly recognizable Czech...)

But seriously, as Newman or Simpich point out, "Defecting is not illegal, but committing espionage is." Or words to that effect. I would think that the U.S. consul could have the marine guards arrest (or "detain"), inside the Embassy or Consulate, any American citizen whom the consul had good reason to suspect was going to commit espionage against the U.S.

You know, before that person could walk out the door and get away.

If Oswald was a real defector (or even if he was a false defector), fear of being arrested for threatening espionage against the U.S. might have been the main reason he didn't return to the Embassy to fill out the Renunciation of Citizenship forms.

--Tommy

Edited January 22, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Larry Hancock]

Tommy, I don't intend any offense but this thread illustrates why I find these discussions so frustrating - I'll elaborate just as a way of showing why I don't participate more.

"I guess former Army Intelligence analyst Newman was wrong, and Oswald was, as Jon Tidd says, just an Odd Duck who attracted the attention of U.S. Intelligence. But just it just amazes me how this "Odd Duck" had been an aviation electronics operator in the Marine Corps and had been stationed at a place that the U-2 operated out of, and was able to get into Russia on a moment's notice and had enough money to stay at one of the most expensive hotels in Helsinki for a few days and buy a couple hundred dollars worth of Intourist Coupons or travel vouchers to Russia or whatever they were called, to boot, and that he just happened to show up in Moscow a few hours after Colonel Popov was arrested (and about the time that look-alike Robert Webster resurfaced), etc. I guess as far as any potential interest the KGB might have been reasonably expected to have in Oswald, he might just as well have been a defecting Marine Corps Reserves dishwasher, especially in regard to whether or not he could help the CIA (maybe with just an itsy-bitsy bit of help from the ONI false defector program?) to determine whether or not what the drunken Russian general allegedly told Popov was true -- that the Russians already knew absolutely everything there was to possibly know about the U-2.

.....The issue I responded to was the old saw about Oswald having special knowledge of the U2 and offering it. I tried to clarify that point and referenced some fine books...I have done that before and I bet nobody will stand up and say they read the references I gave. Beyond that, I stated that the Soviets might well have been interested in Oswald's information on radar sets and access corridors on the West Coast - but that would be Soviet military intelligence. Following the end of the Cold War and prior to the new one now starting, the Russians releases a trove of KGB and other intel records covering their interest and surveillance of Oswald....has anyone here studied those in detail?

Actually in terms of an intel role for Oswald, I did not disparage that. I suggested that Oswald may well have collected info for ONI in Japan, come to the attention of the CIA via his interest in the Soviet embassy there and actually have been guided into an open source intelligence program centered on foreign studies....has anyone read Evica's extensive work on that or Greg Parker's studies of the actual programs and how they worked...which was very covertly and quite well. I also said that Oswald might well have been re-targeted in a knee jerk fashion due to the Webster incident...Bill Simpich covers that in detail, did anyone go study that again?

"But seriously, as Newman or Simpich point out, "Defecting is not illegal, but committing espionage is." Or words to that effect. I would think that the U.S. consul could have the marine guards arrest (or "detain"), inside the Embassy or Consulate, any American citizen whom the consul had good reason to suspect was going to commit espionage against the U.S."

....a very interesting point, so who is going to call or write the State Department and pursue the question of what their legal authority is and how they would respond if someone walked into the embassy, said they were going to try to become a foreign nation citizen and offer security information to that nation. Its a good question so how about some research on it.

What I find frustrating is that there is a real lack of homework on these subjects and posts, its really easy to throw up dialog based on books and internet searches but of course nothing ever gets resolved that way.

Which is fine but why I think having a dialog area separate from real research on the forum is a great idea. As I said I don't mean to offend but its also why I tend not to spend less and less time posting on forums.

[Paul Brancato]

Robert - I agree with you, and don't feel that I need to educate myself ad infinitum on the intricacies in order to understand that Oswald was part of an intelligence operation. Does it really matter what it was, or who it was for when he defected? It might matter later in NO and MC. Odd duck is not the way to look at it. He looked like a duck, smelled like a duck, acted like a duck.

Schotz and Salandria were right - the research community has swallowed the koolaid. We may not know how things happened, and like everyone else here I would like to see a clearly lit path leading to who gave what orders when and who and where were the hit men. But we know who didnt do it, and yet we spend lifetimes trying to figure him out.

[Robert Mady]

Paul, I was chuckling while reading your reply, because I had thought about revising my post to include; a comment about like a duck "He looked like a duck, smelled like a duck, acted like a duck."

I also agree with you, it would be best to have a perfectly clear understanding of OSWALD, but because of the nature of the crime he is associated with, we can be sure that the trail has been obscured to the point of being useless to discern the true facts, specially now 51+ years later.

It is easy to see that instead of focusing on the culprits the majority of researchers time and efforts have been devoted to unraveling the enigma of OSWALD, he was the 'patsy' and is still a major diversion from uncovering the truth.

[Robert Mady]

This is how insane the OSWALD question is: Please take note

1) The WC must have had the authority and power to determine the exact level of security OSWALD had been granted in order to work for CIA and ultra secret U2 projects. -> The WC did not, they questioned some co-workers about their levels of security, which means nothing.

2) The WC could have determined when the Intelligence Community revoked OSWALD security clearances -> The WC did not determine this. Was it prior to leaving the military, when he claimed to defect to Russia, when he came back home, after he left JCS, when he went to NO and professed to be a Marxist, prior to the assassination, after the assassination or was it ever revoked?

3) To work for Jaggars - Chiles - Stovall a CIA contractor, John Judge claimed, required approval from a number of intelligence agencies -> The WC never determined how OSWALD could have obtained a job with this contractor or which agencies approved OSWALD to work at JCS after returning from Russia.

4) John Judge claimed OSWALD appears to have worked on Cuban Missile Crisis photos (bringing work to advertising agency that not so coincidentally HESTER worked for) -> ?

5) Where and when did OSWALD acquire the craft of photography?

It is clear the WC wanted no part in determining the truth about OSWALD.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Robert Mady

[Paul Brancato]

Jon's original question is 'Was Oswald an intelligence agent'. I think the fact that we still don't know, and by that I mean don't have the smoking gun memo, speaks loudly. None of the intelligence agencies were straight with the WC, or the HSCA, or even with each other or within each branch. So perhaps Jon, your question is not the best one to ask, despite the obvious popularity of this thread. It should not have been left to researchers to wonder whether he was or wasn't. The lies and secrecy surrounding Oswald, his lifelong intersections with intelligence operations and operatives, and his capture and execution, were enough to convince Schotz, Salandria and many others that he was an intelligence agent or asset. (I am glad at least that we haven't been parsing definitions on this thread).

So I would ask a few questions:

Why are we still wondering if Oswald was an agent, or an asset, of an intelligence agency? What does our confusion tell us?

Would the answer to these questions, or to Jon's original question, help us understand the assassination of JFK?

[Robert Mady]

Does anyone find it amazing that a man claimed to defect to Russia was concerned about having his discharge from the military revised to be 'honorable'.

How could a man that professed to trade secrets with Americas nemesis making him a self-professed traitor, expect to be granted an 'honorable discharged'. He could because OSWALD had not dishonored the oaths he took.

Semper Fi, that is the inscription on the Marine Corp ring he displayed to the press when he was paraded thru the police station, from Marine Corp website "Semper Fidelis distinguishes the Marine Corps bond from any other. It goes beyond teamwork—it is a brotherhood that can always be counted on." Semper Fi - ALWAYS FAITHFUL

OSWALD didn't lie to us, the government did.

I am a patsy

I was on the steps eating lunch

I was in the lunch room drinking a coke when a cop confronted me

The backyard photographs are fake

I don't own a rifle

I don't own a revolver

I didn't shoot anyone

I heard three rifle shots they all came from the monument area (ok, I made that up, but I have no doubt he told FRITZ this)

Edited January 22, 2015 by Robert Mady

[Jon G. Tidd]

Here's why it's important to know whether Oswald was an intelligence agent.

If he was, he was working for an intelligence service. Performing some task(s). That intelligence service, say ONI or CIA, may or may not have had a hand in killing JFK. It would surely, however, in either case want to conceal its relationship with Oswald, even today. And if this is true, that Oswald was working for ONI or CIA, it's necessary for the citizens of this country to know the full nature of that work, to determine whether either of those agencies set up Oswald to take the blame for the assassination. In which case we've absolutely got to see the Oswald reports and files CIA still conceals as well as any such ONI reports and files. Absolutely. None of this is a distraction.

If Oswald was not working as an agent for some intelligence service, our need to see the concealed reports and files on Oswald is perhaps much less. If the reports and files would provide a clue to who set Oswald up, then it would be important to see them. If the reports and files simply revealed Oswald was being monitored, they might not help much to further an understanding of the assassination.

Many believe Oswald was acting as agent for the CIA, FBI, ONI or some other body. Such a belief makes Oswald and the concealed reports and files centrally important. Oswald is hardly a distraction. On the other hand if one believes Oswald was merely an odd duck, then he does become a distraction of sorts.

If one assumes Oswald was the agent of some intelligence service, one must address this question: did the person(s) controlling him set him up to take the fall for the JFK assassination? The question cannot be avoided. It is a screaming, red-flashing-light question. The question does not arise if Oswald was not such an agent.

I believe it's possible to make an informed judgment as to whether Oswald was at some time or times working as an agent for some intelligence service. If one judges he was, one is led down one path of inquiry. If one judges he wasn't, one is led down another path.

[Paul Trejo]

...P.D. Scott seems to think that ONI and Marine G-2 documents suggest that the ONI and Marine Corps collaborated before Oswald applied for a "hardship discharge" (or whatever it was called -- to take care of his "injured" - at - work mother) to ensure ahead of time that he would be granted that discharge. That is, if I'm understanding what he says...

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/S%20Disk/Scott%20Peter%20Dale/Item%2002.pdf

--Tommy

Well, Tommy, thanks for contributing this piece by Peter Dale Scott that speaks about Oswald and the alleged Russian connection.

Paul B. asked me to look at it, and I did, and I'm not moved by the arguments therein.

Like most folks here, I've examined the Oswald literature for many years -- yet I, for one, can't bring myself to believe that Oswald was a full-fledged Intelligence Officer.

Lee Harvey Oswald was a wannabe. He really, really WANTED to be a full-fledged Intelligence Officer. That appears to have been his life's dream.

Oswald made himself available to the Intelligence community at every opportunity, evidently -- and sometimes far too much -- like letting people get ahold of his birth certificate, and so on.

Oswald wanted it too much -- and that's probably the main reason he was never hired by any Intelligence Agency.

Yes -- there is plenty of evidence that Oswald was trying to break into the Intelligence business. No -- there isn't nearly enough evidence that he actually made the grade.

Yes, the CIA even thought of interviewing him at one time. No, they never hired him.

Lee Harvey Oswald lived in dire poverty -- and that was hardly a "front." The main problem with Oswald was that he was head-strong (like most men in their early 20's) and did things his own way.

I suspect that Oswald left Russia before he was advised to do so -- he had a new wife and started a family, and he never gave up his American Citizenship, and he wanted to COME HOME. He did.

Yet after he did, his Marine Discharge status was reduced. That's hardly the result of following ORDERS.

There is some evidence that Oswald didn't like being controlled so much -- he wanted more freedom. But that's too expensive for an Intelligence Officer. Oswald was ambitious -- maybe too ambitious.

The evidence shows that Oswald lived as just one more part-time "flunky" of the CIA and other Intelligence Agencies -- not unlike Gerry Patrick Hemming, Frank Sturgis, Johnny Roselli, David Ferrie and many other street people who have at some point confessed to participation in the JFK murder.

Harder evidence is what I seek -- but from Peter Dale Scott I generally find innuendo and rumors and connections as loose as so-called "deep structures". No -- I want harder evidence.

I might add here, Tommy, that I still appreciate your excellent riddle -- if Oswald was an Intelligence Agent, then how did he become a PATSY?

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited January 22, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Thomas Graves]

This is how insane the OSWALD question is: Please take note

1) The WC must have had the authority and power to determine the exact level of security OSWALD had been granted in order to work for CIA and ultra secret U2 projects. -> The WC did not, they questioned some co-workers about their levels of security, which means nothing.

2) The WC could have determined when the Intelligence Community revoked OSWALD security clearances -> The WC did not determine this. Was it prior to leaving the military, when he claimed to defect to Russia, when he came back home, after he left JCS, when he went to NO and professed to be a Marxist, prior to the assassination, after the assassination or was it ever revoked?

3) To work for Jaggars - Chiles - Stovall a CIA contractor, John Judge claimed, required approval from a number of intelligence agencies -> The WC never determined how OSWALD could have obtained a job with this contractor or which agencies approved OSWALD to work at JCS after returning from Russia.

4) John Judge claimed OSWALD appears to have worked on Cuban Missile Crisis photos (bringing work to advertising agency that not so coincidentally HESTER worked for) -> ?

5) Where and when did OSWALD acquire the craft of photography?

It is clear the WC wanted no part in determining the truth about OSWALD.

Robert,

Regarding #1, The WC took testimony from Lieut. John E. Donovan, Oswald's superior officer in 1959 at MCAS El Toro (actually at a base called LTA Santa Ana, about 5 miles from MCAS El Toro). When asked what kind of security clearance Oswald had, he said that he must have had at least a "secret" clearance because that was the minimum required of everyone who worked in the radar center.

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=36&relPageId=306

Donovan himself had had a "secret" clearance at LTA Santa Ana in 1959, but the HSCA later found that four of Oswald's co-workers in Japan and California, including Nelson Delgado, had only "confidential" clearances. See footnote #182.

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=69700

The problem is I don't know if the HSCA only looked at the records of those four guys, or if they looked at more than that and found that some of Oswald's co-workers had higher clearances than "confidential".

Personally, it's hard for me to accept the fact that at least some of the marines working with radar and the U-2 had only "confidential" clearances, but maybe that was the case and Lieut. Donovan didn't realize it.

--Tommy

Edited January 22, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Jon G. Tidd]

Robert Mady, you write:

"Does anyone find it amazing that a man claimed to defect to Russia was concerned about having his discharge from the military revised to be 'honorable'."

If Oswald was a "regular guy" who was also an odd duck, why wouldn't he seek to have his discharge made honorable?

I believe you are correct when you write, "He could because OSWALD had not dishonored the oaths he took." I believe you are correct not because Oswald was in the service of ONI or CIA but because Oswald had nothing to trade to KGB that KGB wanted.

[Thomas Graves]

Robert Mady, you write:

"Does anyone find it amazing that a man claimed to defect to Russia was concerned about having his discharge from the military revised to be 'honorable'."

If Oswald was a "regular guy" who was also an odd duck, why wouldn't he seek to have his discharge made honorable?

I believe you are correct when you write, "He could because OSWALD had not dishonored the oaths he took." I believe you are correct not because Oswald was in the service of ONI or CIA but because Oswald had nothing to trade to KGB that KGB wanted.

Jon,

I guess what you're saying is that Oswald's offering (or maybe just threatening?) to commit military espionage, but not actually being "taken up" on it by the Russians, was not in itself a case Oswald's dishonoring the Marine Corps Oath.

But it's a moot point in a way because the Marine Corps decided to discharge Oswald not because of the espionage threat, but because they thought, incorrectly, that he had renounced his citizenship.

(The "funny" thing is that they thought he had renounced his citizenship only because Marguerite Oswald told FBI agent Fain that she had read a newspaper article which led her to believe that.)

It's also interesting that the Marine Corps decided to give Oswald a "undesirable" discharge rather than a more severe "dishonorable" discharge.

--Tommy

Edited January 23, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Robert Mady]

Thomas, the way I understand this, OSWALD was released from duty because his mother had a problem with her nose.

The discharge designation had nothing to do with his 'defection' to Russia.