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Witten's report on Oswald in Mexico just released


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Hi George,

I've based my statement that he was denied on the document in Commission Exhibit 2564.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1141#relPageId=846&tab=page

The next page is a translation explaining what he had been told several times in Mexico, "let us know when the USSR will have him for a visit and then he can swing through Cuba."

 

The reason why I accept the Cuban documents is because I cannot seriously entertain the possibility that Castro wanted Kennedy dead.  Therefore I don't see the documents as "covering their tracks" of any kind.  

 

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Brendan

The Cuban government never denied Oswald's visa. The decision to approve or disapprove Oswald's in transit visa to Cuba was in the hands of the Russian government. So Castro did not need to cover his tracks, they were covered by CE 2564.

It's "no skin off Castro nose" if the US government decides to alter documents sent by the Cuban government to the US government on the Kennedy assassination. Why would it be important to the Cuban government whose photo is on Oswald's application? If push comes to shove Castro can always fall back on CE 2564.

Therefore your question to David Jacobs re Why would the Cuban government accept CIA alteration of evidence from the Cuban government has been answered. In this case, it really doesn't matter.

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11 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

We have only one person, Sylvia Duran, who said that the American at the Cuban consulate was the Oswald seen in the news. But she later said that the guy wasn't Oswald.

Following are excerpts of Duran's HSCA testimony:

CORNWELL - And who do you think that is?
TIRADO - Oswald.
CORNWELL - Lee Harvey Oswald. Now, many of the pictures in the book are not that clear, of course. When you saw him the first time in the book, you indicated that that looked like him except that as you recalled him, he had either blue or green eyes and blond hair. Correct?
TIRADO - Yes.
CORNWELL - When you say blond hair, what color is that? Is it very light?
TIRADO - Light.

Duran has always said the man at the consulate was blond and had green or blue eyes. Azcue said the same about the hair. Oswald, of course had brown hair. His eyes were gray. Though granted, gray eyes can look a little blue when viewed in contrast with skin tone.

Duran first made the connection between Oswald, the man killed by Ruby, and the guy she helped at the consulate BEFORE she'd even seen a picture of Oswald! She recognized him by his story... having lived in Russia and married a Russian there:

CORNWELL - All right. You had a birthday party planned that night. Is that correct?
TIRADO - Yes.
CORNWELL - During the day, prior to the birthday party, had you received or heard as part of the news broadcast the name Lee Harvey Oswald?
TIRADO - No, only in the afternoon.
CORNWELL - In the afternoon, after lunch?
TIRADO - Yes. ....CORNWELL - And at that time, had you heard his name?
TIRADO - His name?
CORNWELL - His name, seen his picture, or both?
TIRADO - No, no. The picture was in the newspapers the next day.
CORNWELL - Okay. So you only thought that you might have recalled the name. Is that correct?
TIRADO - No, not the name, but when they say Lee Harvey Oswald, married to the Russian woman and he live in Russia, and things like that.

Duran did say the guy she helped was the Oswald in the newspaper. But that was AFTER she'd already made that connection:

CORNWELL - Then, the next morning you saw a newspaper.
TIRADO - Yes.
CORNWELL - Were you sure at that time that that was the man?
TIRADO - Yes.

And yet her description of the guy didn't quite match Oswald. Besides the blond hair and blue/green eyes, she said:

LOPEZ - For example, let's start at the beginning. Was he tall, short?
TIRADO - Short.
LOPEZ - Short. Could you stand up for a minute, Gary?(Laughter.) Would you say he was as tall as Gary?
TIRADO - Yeah, more or less.
LOPEZ - Would you say he was taller than Gary?
TIRADO - No, I think just the same. He was about my size.
LOPEZ - About your height?
TIRADO - Yeah.
LOPEZ - Okay. And what's your height?
TIRADO - 160. I think 160 or 162.

LOPEZ - Was he skinny?
TIRADO - Yes. Skinny.

So she said the guy was short, about 5 ft 3 inches. Oswald, of course, was about 5 ft 9 inches.

Anthony Summers interviewed Silvia Duran on a number of occasions. She told him that it never occurred to her in 1963 that the Dallas Oswald and the Oswald at the Consulate might have been different people. In his book Not in Your Lifetime Summers wrote, "The brief news footage of Oswald being shot had not led her to think the victim was other than the man she had encountered."

But after showing Duran a film of a longer interview of Oswald, made in New Orleans in 1959, she said she "was not sure if it was Oswald or not... the man in the film is not like the man I saw here in Mexico City... . The man on this film speaks strongly and carries himself with confidence.  The man who came to my office in Mexico City was small and weak and spoke in a trembling voice."

That there was no motive for Summers to sway Duran's opinion is demonstrated by the fact that Summers took the position that Oswald was indeed the man who visited the consulate, in spite of what Duran and Azcue said. He based his opinion on the visa application signatures and the photos.

I disagree with Summers and agree with David Josephs. I think there clearly was was no Oswald at the Cuban consulate.

Sandy,

The following is my opinion.

Your text here neglects the context of the HSCA testimony of Sylvia Duran (Tirado) in 1978 that you are citing above -- a full 15 years after the JFK Assassination.

Your text also neglects, in my opinion, the typical Mexican attitude toward the treatment of the JFK Assassination by the USA culture.

By the time of this testimony, Sylvia Duran had been beaten multiple times by the Mexican Police, and threatened many more times.  Keep that in mind, please.  It's not USA culture.

Also, by 1978, the Mexican culture was sick and tired of the failure of the JFK investigation, and they really hated any idea that Mexico would be blamed for this USA fiasco.   (American tourism is their bread and butter.)

Sylvia Duran was not under pressure by the HSCA -- they had no teeth.  They could not hold Sylvia for perjury.  She was on the witness stand by the courtesy of the Mexican Government.

Sylvia was under pressure from the Mexican Government.  Her task, in my opinion, was to distance Mexico as far as possible from Lee Harvey Oswald.

The tone of her answers above is dry and cautious.  She is being watched from behind a curtain, so to speak.

David Lifton is right on this point.  Sylvia's first testimony in 1963 was her best testimony.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited by Paul Trejo
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George, I don't follow your logic with regards to the existing documents.

 

The WC received photos of Cuban documents.  If they then altered these photographs and published them, wouldn't Castro/Cuba jump at the opportunity to embarrass the United States and their sham investigation.  I'm truly baffled by the suggestion that it "really doesn't matter" to the Cuban Gov't whether their documents were forged or falsified as depicted in the Warren Report volumes.  

 

And the idea that Cuba actually did grant Oswald a Visa is ludicrous.  

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4 minutes ago, Brendan Boucher said:

George, I don't follow your logic with regards to the existing documents.

The WC received photos of Cuban documents.  If they then altered these photographs and published them, wouldn't Castro/Cuba jump at the opportunity to embarrass the United States and their sham investigation.  I'm truly baffled by the suggestion that it "really doesn't matter" to the Cuban Gov't whether their documents were forged or falsified as depicted in the Warren Report volumes.  

And the idea that Cuba actually did grant Oswald a Visa is ludicrous.  

Brendan,

For what it's worth, I agree with your logic here.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

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1 hour ago, Brendan Boucher said:

George, I don't follow your logic with regards to the existing documents.

 

The WC received photos of Cuban documents.  If they then altered these photographs and published them, wouldn't Castro/Cuba jump at the opportunity to embarrass the United States and their sham investigation.  I'm truly baffled by the suggestion that it "really doesn't matter" to the Cuban Gov't whether their documents were forged or falsified as depicted in the Warren Report volumes.  

 

And the idea that Cuba actually did grant Oswald a Visa is ludicrous.  

Consider the source Branden...  no disrespect to George...  I did an initial draft and Jim D helped edit and finish it adding a few touches of his own..

https://statick2k-5f2f.kxcdn.com/images/pdf/JudythBaker-DJ.pdf   I examine the evidence presented thru Fetzer of the connection...  Like Mexico City... the evidence to corroborate is, well... see for yourself.

the laying of the assassination - initially - at Castro's feet served at least 2 purposes...  1) the JCS wanted to blow Cuba off the map and this would be their excuse...  and 2) to shut-off any meaningful investigation into who did what...  the players involved were core "sources and means" in the kill Castro campaigns...

Cuba says - To WHO Branden - that it was not Oswald or that the CIA switched the photos...  It's 1964 - who you gonna believe, the US government or Castro?

I truly think you give Oswald too much power within the context of the times...  On very real possibility is that this was a mole-hunt against Cuban intelligence within Mexico City...
Simpich shows how Harvey and Whitten would have loved to turn Azcue, Duran or Duran's mentor...  her name escapes me.

and finally, KOSTIKOV... while working down there, was also used as a poison pill which would become more important on the 22nd.  When the WC realized the text of a speech from Castro about assassination retaliation only weeks prior, they connected it to the stories of Mexico City and IMO realized that it very well could have been a Castro hit... but what to do?

As a related tangent I have to ask you...

Do you think the RUSSIAN files are something we should trust for accuracy and truth about the times and situation?  RUSSIAN KGB controlled files?
How would that be in reverse...  Khrushchev is killed... the CIA has files... you think the USSR would not look upon that info with some skepticism?

Finally, after JFK's death there were much bigger issues...  in reality the ridding the Western Hemisphere of Castro took backseat to shifting the illegal drug business from France to Indo China and the USA...  and may in fact be the real reason for the assassination...  billions of "black" money would be lost if JFK got his way in Vietnam... even more in defense spending should the Cold war slow down... between 1963 and today we see that regardless of global situation, the US spends a boatload on Military... we won the Cold War - maybe, yet forgot about ideology and power vacuums...  we choose to partner with criminals and are surprised when things go south....

and Finally Branden, when Paul is agreeing with you, it's time to re-examine your POV.  :P

 

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Brendan

I believe Mrs Baker is refering to approval by the Russian embassy for a visa to Russia. Technically that would allow an intransit visa to Cuba. To say that is ludicrous does not reflect on Mrs Baker but it does reflect on your prejudice toward Mrs Baker. All the facts surrounding this issue are unknown so how can we condemn Mrs Baker?

One of the theories that make the rounds in the MSM every now and then is Castro killed Kennedy in revenge for Kennedy's attempts to kill Castro. Or Castro used Oswald to kill Kennedy because Kennedy was trying to kill him. Eventhough Castro would not want to see Kennedy removed from office I would think Castro would still distance himself from Oswald. Granting Oswald a visa to Cuba would not be a distancing measure.

And because all the facts have not come to light, we cannot preclude the possibility of CIA alteration of Cuban documents. It was you who said we should not preclude the possibility of Oswald to MC, so therefore I ask the same consideration with regard to CIA alteration of Cuban documents.

  

 

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I base my opinions on common sense in this matter and am not casting aspersions on anyone.  Nobody was being granted travel to/through/or around Cuba when taking the course of action exhibited by the individual who frequented the Cuban and Russian embassies on 9/27/1963.  I say "individual" because I can allow for a scenario where Oswald was impersonated from the get-go in Mexico.

 

However, I'm not ready to go down the rabbit hole where the CIA has the chutzpah and the means to falsify foreign documents from a government who happens to be an avowed adversary, whose original copies they have no control over, and who would then "play along" again in 1978  (and to this present day) when they produced a different page/copy of the same document package.    

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Brendan

What about the chutzpah to wipe out the president? If they had the chutzpah to blow a hole in Kennedy's head don't you think forging documents is nothing to the CIA?

You are entitled to your opinion and I respect it.

Thanks for the polite discussion.

Edited by George Sawtelle
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32 minutes ago, David Boylan said:

David,

Many thanks for keeping us up to date with these four recent releases.

The following is my opinion:

FBI DOCUMENT 124-10003-10386.  Torenza Proenza claimed that Oswald went to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City to obtain a visa to go to Russia.  That makes no sense at all, obviously.  Yet that fact is explained by the fact that Torenza Prenza also admitted that she spoke no English, so she turned Oswald over to the English-speaking clerk (e.g. Sylvia Duran) immediately.  Her opinion is therefore worthless.

FBI DOCUMENT 124-10003-10407. Elizabeth Mora refused to speak about the Oswald case with anyone.  Her opinion is therefore worthless

FBI DOCUMENT 124-10003-10420. Charles Small, jewelry store owner in Mexico City,  was asked if he knew Oswald, because Kurt Odenheim said "he bet that SMALL knew him."  SMALL admitted he was out of the country during the dates in question, but "he was sure that OSWALD must have been in his store."  His opinion is worthless.

FBI DOCUMENT 124-10003-10462.  This document consists of a log of FBI activity with regard to Mexico City following the killing of JFK.  It is therefore worthless with regard to tracking Lee Harvey Oswald in September/October 1963.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited by Paul Trejo
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1 hour ago, Brendan Boucher said:

I base my opinions on common sense in this matter and am not casting aspersions on anyone. 

Nobody was being granted travel to/through/or around Cuba when taking the course of action exhibited by the individual who frequented the Cuban and Russian embassies on 9/27/1963. 

I say "individual" because I can allow for a scenario where Oswald was impersonated from the get-go in Mexico...   

Brendan,

I agree with you 100% on this issue.   The following is my opinion.

According to Marina Oswald's WC testimony (and I personally believe every word she spoke while under oath, which is obviously different from her statements in panic when she was first arrested by the FBI and denied everything) Lee Harvey Oswald went to Mexico City to get into Cuba, Cuba and only Cuba.

Marina said this repeatedly.  She emphasized it.  She wanted to ensure that everybody knew this.  Marina said that she knew Oswald well enough to be absolutely certain of this fact.  She knew because he spoke about it for WEEKS, and even spoke to her at length about hijacking an airplane to Cuba -- as stupid as that sounded to her (and to us today).

In my reading, Oswald's visit to the Soviet Embassy was an AFTERTHOUGHT.  He did not plan to go there.  The ONLY reason that Lee Harvey Oswald went to the Soviet Embassy was because the Cuban Consulate (Sylvia Duran) turned down flat Oswald's request for an instant Visa to Cuba.

Lee Harvey Oswald visited the Mexico City Cuba Consulate early on Friday 27 September 1963, and demanded a Visa to Cuba TODAY.  RIGHT NOW.  He had been preparing for WEEKS for this moment.  But they said, no.  This is a standard process.

No!   These STUPID Cuban clerks were holding up his plans (and Guy Banister's plans)!   Don't you know that I had a street fight with Gusanos in New Orleans, fighting for the cause?  Look at these newspaper clippings!

Sylvia Duran -- as politely as she could -- told Oswald that he needed a SPONSOR inside Cuba to vouch for him, if he needed an INSTANT Visa to Cuba.

Lee Harvey Oswald showed Sylvia his Fake FPCC Resume obtained from New Orleans newspaper clippings, vouching for his claim that he was an FPCC Officer.  Everybody knows that FPCC Officers got INSTANT passage to Cuba!  

Well, that may be so, but all the names of FPCC Officers are also on a "bouncers list" on the Cuban Consulate clerk's desk.   Oswald's name wasn't on the "bouncer's list."  (How could it?  Oswald was a FAKE FPCC Officer.)

Sylvia Duran asked if Oswald had any OTHER Sponsors.   "Well, how about the Soviet Government?"   Sylvia Duran admitted that if the Soviets would vouch for Oswald, that he could probably get an INSTANT Visa to Cuba -- or at least speed up the paperwork significantly.

So -- Lee Harvey Oswald said words to the effect of -- "I'm going directly to the Soviet Embassy, lady, and then you'll see who has real clout around here!"   And he stormed out.

Minutes later, Lee Harvey Oswald went into the Soviet Embassy, and made a damn fool of himself.  He visited numerous times -- he wept.  He produced a loaded pistol (which they took from him, removed the bullets, and gave back to him).  He demanded a Visa to Russia, so that he could get his Visa to Cuba. 

As politely as they could -- after HOURS of wasting time with Lee Harvey Oswald -- they told him that there was a standard procedure for this -- and if he had really wanted a Visa to Russia, he would have started a long time ago, and not be foolish, demanding a Visa immediately.  Oswald tried every trick in his book, but the Soviet Consuls were not buying a word of it.  Nechiporenko (1993) wrote later that he and Kostikov agreed that Oswald was "psychotic."

Hours later, Oswald returned to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, wearing a big smile, and exclaimed, "They approved my Russia Visa!   You can approve my Cuba Visa now!"

Sylvia Duran, bored with Oswald by now, telephoned the Soviet Embassy, and asked if they had approved anything at all for Lee Harvey Oswald.   "Of course not," was the reply.

"Sorry, Mr. Oswald, no dice," she probably remarked.  At this point, Oswald threw a temper tantrum, at which time Eusebio Azcue, the manager, came over and told Oswald that his behavior was actually detrimental to the cause -- and escorted him out.

That was that.

So much for the nonsense theories about a Russian Visa.  The Russian clerks said that Oswald was "psychotic."  The Cuba clerks said Oswald was "detrimental" to their cause.

Oswald made a damn fool of himself in Mexico City.   Any so-called CIA or FBI documents that fail to mention these facts about Oswald's Mexico City adventure, are worthless.

The foregoing has been my opinion, based on my objective reading of the Marina Oswald's WC testimony (1964), Nechiporenko (1993) and the Hardway-Lopez Report (2003).

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited by Paul Trejo
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1 hour ago, Brendan Boucher said:

I base my opinions on common sense in this matter

And therein lies the rub....

The Alice in Wonderland - thru the looking glass world of intelligence and counter-intelligence does not follow the rules of common sense.

In this world black is white, left is right and right is wrong....

1 hour ago, Brendan Boucher said:

However, I'm not ready to go down the rabbit hole where the CIA has the chutzpah and the means to falsify foreign documents from a government who happens to be an avowed adversary, whose original copies they have no control over, and who would then "play along" again in 1978  (and to this present day) when they produced a different page/copy of the same document package.

Then Branden, I suggest you do a little digging into history...  While on a micro level the CIA could be inept on the world stage, in the macro and in the 50's and 60's - nobody messed with the USA other than a handful of world intelligence agencies...  The KGB by far was the greatest enemy yet the intelligence services of Europe and parts of Central and South America.  Not even to mention the FBI's intelligence presence with the SIS and ongoing "legat" personnel, the ONI and it's ongoing activities and the MIA/MID who had their share of agents in the field.

The leverages held over each country were much more important than the smaller details like this...  the details of the Missile crisis are not nearly as important as the desire USSR outcome...  remove the missiles from Turkey.  Keeping Cuba safe from the US was, I believe, non-sequitur - an agreement was not going to keep them safe from the US if the US wanted to do something...  it didn't...  the US quickly found a much more fertile "war" in which to get involved with the side benefit of it being thousands of miles away and one of the most fertile drug territory on earth...

Who would believe Castro blaming the JFK assassination on the CIA due in part to the Mexico City charade?  

Sometimes the greatest intelligence oversight is NOT admitting you have or know anything... when in reality, Castro did know an amazing amount about the inner workings of the Kennedy administration...  and for good reason...  his spies had infiltrated at the invitation of the White House and the CIA...

Sides have little to do with things at this level... it's all about who holds the greatest leverage over the others... and whether that leverage is authentic of from a double-agent...

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21 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

Craig,

Please clarify your time-line for the CIA monitoring of Lee Harvey Oswald.

I'm using Bill Simpich (2014) as the core of my MC CT.

Of course the CIA watched everyone at the MC Embassy compound, very closely.  The CIA knew about Oswald since 1959.  

But it was the alleged meeting with KGB assassin Kostikov that drove Angleton crazy.

Also the fact that David Atlee Phillips drafted CIA memos about Oswald after the top secret CIA Mole Hunt was already in progress, is strong evidence that Phillips was among the CIA high-command in those days.

Whitten wasn't.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Hello Paul, sorry for the delay. I began to write a response to your query last night, but it got late, (I start my day at 3 a.m.).

There are two aspects to this Paul... the paper trail and the monitoring. 

The CIA's first official notification of Oswald's defection came in the form of a telephone call on Monday, November 1, 1959 from FBI CIA liaison officer Sam Papich to Associate Deputy Director of Operations for Counterintelligence (ADDOCI), James Angleton. Why Papich would choose Angleton's direct office line is another subject of some controversy, but we may certainly assume that the monitoring began immediately thereafter.  

During the Warren Commission's investigation the CIA had maintained that it was unable to pinpoint the date(s) of their receipt of the many Oswald memorandums being digested by the various agencies that would have a "need to know" in the first week following Oswald's defection. 

We now know that U.S. consular Richard Snyder's second, lengthier memo on Oswald, that arrived at the Sate Department on November 6, was at the CIA by Friday, November 13.  Although the document's cover sheet is missing, it does include a documents list which was parenthetically dated, "[Received in CIA on 13 Nov 59]". In the upper right hand corner of the document is written "'O'Neal". The chief of CI/SIG at that time was James Angleton's boss Birch D. O'Neal.

Paul - if there are any dates or documents that you have a particular interest in I will do my best to provide you with any available info I have.

Regards,

Craig C.

     

   

Edited by Craig Carvalho
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On ‎16‎.‎11‎.‎2017 at 9:04 PM, Craig Carvalho said:

It also explains why Win Scott's "official" cable to CIA HQ regarding Oswald in Mexico City fails to mention Oswald's visit to the Cuban consulate, an oversight that Scott's close colleague, David Atlee Phillips could not explain to the HSCA. Oddly enough it was Phillips who drafted it. 

 

Craig,

so the Soviets all positively identified Oswald as the man who'd visited them. The Cubans did NOT. They say a short blond man came to see them. An impostor calls the Soviet embassy supposedly from the Cuban Consulate.The CIA lies about what they know about Oswald being at the Cuban Consulate. So obviously some sort of intelligence operation was going here. Its target was the Cuban Embassy and it involved an impostor. So is it not possible that the "real" Oswald was at the Soviet embassy but NOT at the Cuban embassy? It may not seem to make much sense, but that's what the evidence appears to suggest.

However I think we will never wholly understand the "Mexican mystery" surrounding Oswald if we do not take into account all the other strange events that took place at about the time of Oswald's alleged visit, such as

- the disappearance of Alexander Rorke in late September 1963 while running guns from Mexico to Cuba. Rorke and Frank Sturgis had been involved in secret plots against Cuba's government. --> https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/03/marita-lorenz-fidel-castro-conspiracy-theories

- the presence of Albert Osborne on the bus Oswald allegedly took and his attempts to obfuscate this fact. Osborne may have had advance knowledge of the assassination --> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5022789/UK-reporter-got-tip-25-minutes-JFK-assassination.html

- the big heroin deal foiled by Mexican Police in October 1963. Lucien Rivard, the man behind it, had managed to escape Castro's prison with the help of no other than Jack Ruby. --> http://dimanchematin.com/la-verite-toutes-les-verites-sur-lucien-rivard/

 

Edited by Mathias Baumann
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