Did Oswald deny he went to Mexico City in his interrogation?

[Greg Doudna]

Did Oswald deny he went to Mexico City in his interrogation?

Oswald was interrogated by Captain Fritz with no stenographic notes or recording of Oswald's answers. In the first interrogation on Fri Nov 22 two FBI agents were present, Hosty and Bookhout. According to those agents' reports, a report of Fritz, Fritz and Hosty in their Warren Commission testimonies of 1964, and Hosty in his 1996 book Assignment: Oswald, Oswald, when asked, denied he had gone to Mexico City. 

This reported answer of Oswald to the Mexico City question, which contradicts information in a letter Oswald wrote to the Soviet embassy in D.C. that had been intercepted and was known to the FBI and Hosty, is commonly cited as one in a series of significant false answers Lee gave. The reported untruths of Oswald's answers in his interrogations have been considered an argument of consciousness of guilt on Oswald's part.

However on one of those claims, I was surprised to discover that Hosty in his Church Committee testimony in 1975 unambiguously and repeatedly testified that Lee Harvey Oswald did not deny he had been to Mexico City when asked in the interrogation of Fri Nov 22--the opposite of what is widely assumed. Hosty's testimony to the Church committee was extensive, the transcript running 153 pages, with the relevant pages with respect to Mexico City being pp. 25-45, available in full here: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1406#relPageId=5. Hosty presents the existence of Oswald's Mexico City trip as something Hosty was informed FBI wanted kept secret--secret from even Fritz and the Dallas Police Department--something whose very existence the FBI, on orders from the top, wanted covered up. Of course by the time of the Warren Commission and then the Church Committee, there was no denial or coverup of the existence of Oswald's Mexico City trip. But Hosty presents exactly that as operative at the earliest stage. 

Mr. Epstein. Do you have information about the Mexico City connection that you were not asked about [by the Warren Commission], and therefore didn't answer?

Mr. Hosty. The only thing that would have been pertinent at that time was when I was interviewing him after the assassination and he got highly agitated when I brought up Mexico City. And they didn't press that as much as they probably could have.

(. . .)

Mr. Epstein. And did you have information about his agitation or about that contact with him that went beyond what was in the statement that the Warren Commission had?

Mr. Hosty. No, sir. It would have been in the statement--

Comment: Here inexplicably, where interesting content related to Mexico City in the Church Committee Hosty testimony may have been, a full page, page 26, is . . . missing. One can only hope this was accidental, and that the missing page 26 (of these pages all of which are stamped "Top Secret") might one day come to light. Skipping from page 25 to page 27 . . .

[following one missing page] --Mexico City?

Mr. Epstein. Did you give Captain Fritz any details?

Mr. Hosty. No.

Mr. Epstein. What specifically happened? What did Fritz ask him?

Mr. Hosty. He didn't get a chance to ask him, when he heard me say that to Fritz he blew up, so to speak, and became agitated.

Mr. Epstein. And he said, how did you know about that to you?

Mr. Hosty. Yes.

Mr. Epstein. Did he say anything else?

Mr. Hosty. No.

Mr. Epstein. And what did you say?

Mr. Hosty. I didn't answer him, I didn't tell him how I knew about it.

Mr. Epstein. Did anyone else say anything? 

Mr. Hosty. No. Nobody else had any knowledge of that.

Comment: An Oswald response of "how did you know about that?" does not sound like a denial.

(. . .)

Senator Schweiker. The one [interrogation] that you were at, did they keep notes or a transcript?

Mr. Hosty. I took notes, but there was no transcript.

Senator Schweiker. Where are those notes?

Mr. Hosty. I destroyed them.

Comment: Hosty did not destroy them. Hosty's notes are available on the Mary Ferrell site.

(. . .)

Mr. Wallach. Do you recall what Oswald's answer was when he did calm down to the question of what he had been doing in Mexico City?

Mr. Hosty. He never answered it.

Mr. Wallach. He never answered it?

Mr. Hosty. No, sir.

Mr. Wallach. So he did not tell the interrogators whether or not he had been in Mexico City?

Mr. Hosty. Right.

Mr. Epstein. After you mentioned Mexico City to the police captain and he challenged you, and you said you didn't respond--

Mr. Hosty. I did not respond.

Mr. Epstein. He did not. And you did not respond?

Mr. Hosty. He asked me how I knew, and I did not respond.

Mr. Epstein. What happened then?

Mr. Hosty. Captain Fritz went on to another question.

Mr. Epstein. Was there a pause?

Mr. Hosty. A light pause. I think probably--here I am speculating--Captain Fritz went on to another question. I don't know why he didn't pursue it.

Mr. Epstein. Was Mexico City ever asked about again at that meeting?

Mr. Hosty. No, sir. This was toward the end of the interview, I might add.

Mr. Epstein. And it had been asked about earlier?

Mr. Hosty. No, sir.

Mr. Epstein. Did you know whether Oswald was ever asked about Mexico City?

Mr. Hosty. Not to my knowledge.

Comment: At this point Senator Schweiker perceives a contradiction in past claims that FBI had informed, or did not inform, the Dallas Police Department that it had information Oswald had gone to Mexico City.

Senator Schweiker. Why didn't you mention that you knew that he was in Mexico City?

Mr. Hosty. Because it was a highly sensitive technique--mention to whom, now?

Senator Schweiker. At the interrogation.

Mr. Hosty. I did.

Senator Schweiker. You did mention it to him?

Mr. Hosty. Yes, sir.

Senator Schweiker. You didn't mention it to some other component of the Dallas police?

Mr. Hosty. No, I didn't mention it to the police, other than at that interview. I did not tell the Dallas police other than the questioning.

Senator Schweiker. But you did mention it in the interview?

Mr. Hosty. Yes, sir.

Senator Schweiker. And you didn't do it at the other meeting because of the sensitivity of it, is that what you are telling me, or what?

Mr. Hosty. When I went to the police department I went in quite shortly after I got there for the interview. And then when I came out of the interview I received instructions from headquarters not to tell the police about that phase and other phases.

(. . .)

Mr. Epstein. And you were saying--and is this your understanding that the reason that you weren't to disseminate information about Mexico City was because it was sensitive?

Mr. Hosty. Right.

Mr. Epstein. Do you know whether that was the reason?

Mr. Hosty. No. I was told not to tell them anything about that.

Mr. Epstein. Were you told the reason you weren't to tell them anything about that was because it was sensitive?

Mr. Hosty. No.

Mr. Epstein. You were merely told not to tell them about Mexico City? 

Mr. Hosty. That is right.

Mr. Schweiker. I am a little confused here, because I had understood that you had told the Warren Commission when they asked you this same question that you didn't tell the police because Oswald was telling them.

Mr. Hosty. You mean about the Mexico City part, or about his general background?

Senator Schweiker. The Mexico City is what I am asking about.

Mr. Hosty. I don't think it was put quite that way. I think they asked me why I had not furnished them the information from our files to the police?

Senator Schweiker. You are saying it was on the whole thing?

Mr. Hosty. That is the way I understood the question, Senator.

Senator Hart of Colorado. This is a rather minor point, but it also relates to your testimony before Mr. Stern, your interview with Mr. Stern. Mr. McCloy was there, and there was a long discussion before this about Oswald's denial that he shot anybody. And then McCloy came back to the point about Mexico that we are discussing here. And he said: "I didn't hear you repeating your testimony that he denied ever having been in Mexico." You say: "Oh, yes, he was being questioned about his activities outside the US where he had been outside the US. He told Captain Fritz that he had only been in Mexico to visit at Tijuana on the border."

Mr. Hosty. That is correct.

Senator Hart: So he did say he had been to--

Mr. Hosty. Not to Mexico City, he said he had been to Tijuana.

(. . .)

Senator Schweiker. When the Warren Commission asked you why you didn't tell the Dallas police about Oswald's visit to Mexico, you said you didn't have to because Oswald himself was telling them. And the only thing he told them about was Tijuana, he did not in fact tell them about Mexico City.

(. . .)

Senator Schweiker. Mr. Stern asked you: "Did you tell Captain Fritz at this time any of the information you had about Oswald, about his trip to Mexico, for example? Mr. Hosty: No." You just said a moment ago that you in fact that interrogation that we are discussing here did tell Captain Fritz on that occasion.

Mr. Hosty. I told Captain Fritz to ask him that question, to ask him if he had been in Mexico City.

Senator Schweiker. But you did not tell Captain Fritz--are you saying now you did not tell Captain Fritz that you knew he had been to Mexico City?

Mr. Hosty. That is correct.

(. . .)

Mr. Epstein. What was sensitive about Mexico City?

Mr. Hosty. The sensitive thing would be the American capability of being able to determine who was in contact with the Soviets at the Soviet embassy.

Senator Hart. But somebody could have seen him in Mexico City. You could have admitted having the ability to find out that he was in Mexico City generally without revealing the source or method.

Mr. Hosty. Possibly. But they wanted to be careful just about discussing it in general.

(. . .)

Mr. Epstein. But as I understand it, what you were instructed by agent Shanklin and someone else in Dallas--

Mr. Hosty. Through someone else.

Mr. Epstein. --was not to reveal any information about Mexico City?

Mr. Hosty. Right.

(. . .)

Mr. Hosty. During the recess I had a chance to go over the record here. And I think I could probably straighten out the confusion that we are involved in here if I state something. When I was first sent to the Police Station on November 22, 1963, to interrogate Oswald I received my instructions from Gordon Shanklin, the Agent in Charge. He at that time placed no restrictions on what I could or couldn't tell the Police Department, and in fact told me to give them what we had. Following my interview of Lee Oswald, which was interrupted at approximately 4:04 p.m., I received instructions from one of the other agents at the Police Station who had not participated in the interview stating the office, meaning the Dallas office, had called, and told me certain restrictions were placed on what I could tell the Police, namely, the Mexico City connection. In a conversation at a later date, the exact date I can't recall, with Assistant Special Agent in Charge Kyle Clark, he told me that he was the one who had sent those instructions pursuant to his instruction from FBI Headquarters, from an unnamed FBI official.

This Church committee testimony of Hosty raises the possibility that Oswald did not deny he went to Mexico City, and that the reports of that Oswald denial may be in error, possibly related to an early impetus from FBI at the top level to cover up the existence of that trip of Oswald altogether. In that light, it has always seemed odd to me that the claims that Oswald denied he was in Mexico City were contradicted by Postal Inspector Harry Holmes in his Warren Commission testimony. Holmes testified that Oswald spoke openly of his Mexico City trip in the presence of all of his interrogators Sunday morning Nov 24 before he was shot dead. However none of the written reports of the Sun Nov 24 interrogation including that of Holmes refers to Oswald speaking of Mexico City. For that reason, and the alleged earlier denial of Oswald, Holmes' Warren Commission testimony on that has been widely concluded to be total fabrication.

Instead of Holmes' testimony regarding Oswald telling about his Mexico City trip being fabrication, it could instead be that it is the missing references to Oswald speaking of Mexico City in the written reports of Sunday Nov 24 that are amiss, perhaps reflecting that early impetus to conceal the existence of Oswald's Mexico City trip--no longer an issue at the time Holmes testified to the Warren Commission. Comments? Did Oswald deny to Fritz and co. that he had gone to Mexico City?

[Paul Brancato]

Great question. But given missing page, and very confusing and contradictory testimony, later writings etc how can we possibly know the answer? There is a black hole in my opinion where Oswald’s interrogation is concerned. No transcript? No recording? Seems deliberate

[Tom Gram]

According to Hosty, the FBI withheld information from the DPD due to source protection; but if Oswald admitted everything source protection wouldn't be an issue. With Fritz and co. plus Sorrels and Kelly sitting in on the seventh interrogation with Holmes, there would need to have been a mutually agreed upon cover-up of what Oswald said about MC by the FBI, SS and DPD.

Let’s say that Bookhout, the only FBI agent present, told everyone one in the room to shut up about MC due to national security concerns or something, and leave it out of their reports. One problem I have with this is that the SS knew about MC, and all of its implications, by the morning of Nov. 23 via the “Dear Mr. Rowley” report from the FBI. Kelly’s Nov. 29th report on the seventh interrogation was an internal SS document sent directly to Rowley, so I find it a bit hard to believe that he wouldn’t mention Oswald admitting to being in MC.

I also don’t know if Hosty’s recollection twelve years after the fact of Oswald saying “how did you know about that” is really that reliable. The information on Oswald getting agitated was mentioned by Fritz in his WC testimony, but Fritz said that Oswald denied being in Mexico City. Could it be that Hosty misremembered Oswald saying something like “who told you that?” and getting pissed because 1) it was a lie; and 2) he hated Hosty? Elmer Boyd’s testimony somewhat corroborates this idea:

Mr. BALL. What did Oswald say?
Mr. BOYD. He told him he hadn’t been to Mexico City.
Mr. BALL. What else?
Mr. BOYD. I don’t recall just exactly-I think that the words that he used when he was
talking to Mr. Hosty was that he had been out there and accosted his wife, I believe
that’s the words that he used and like I said, after he talked to him, he said he didn’t
appreciate him coming out there to his house.
Mr. BALL. What was it that Hosty said before Oswald got up and struck the desk with his
hand-what question did he ask?
Mr. BOYD. I don’t remember what the question was. I know it had something to do with-
let me see--I’m not sure if he was still talking to him about his wife or the trip to Mexico City.

Lastly, we know for a fact that Holmes committed perjury on other issues, so he isn’t exactly the most credible source. On the other hand, Holmes was a bit loose-lipped during his testimony, and let a few things slip that he shouldn’t have, so who knows? 

[Pamela Brown]

On 6/27/2022 at 1:48 PM, Tom Gram said:

According to Hosty, the FBI withheld information from the DPD due to source protection; but if Oswald admitted everything source protection wouldn't be an issue. With Fritz and co. plus Sorrels and Kelly sitting in on the seventh interrogation with Holmes, there would need to have been a mutually agreed upon cover-up of what Oswald said about MC by the FBI, SS and DPD.

Let’s say that Bookhout, the only FBI agent present, told everyone one in the room to shut up about MC due to national security concerns or something, and leave it out of their reports. One problem I have with this is that the SS knew about MC, and all of its implications, by the morning of Nov. 23 via the “Dear Mr. Rowley” report from the FBI. Kelly’s Nov. 29th report on the seventh interrogation was an internal SS document sent directly to Rowley, so I find it a bit hard to believe that he wouldn’t mention Oswald admitting to being in MC.

I also don’t know if Hosty’s recollection twelve years after the fact of Oswald saying “how did you know about that” is really that reliable. The information on Oswald getting agitated was mentioned by Fritz in his WC testimony, but Fritz said that Oswald denied being in Mexico City. Could it be that Hosty misremembered Oswald saying something like “who told you that?” and getting pissed because 1) it was a lie; and 2) he hated Hosty? Elmer Boyd’s testimony somewhat corroborates this idea:

Mr. BALL. What did Oswald say?
Mr. BOYD. He told him he hadn’t been to Mexico City.
Mr. BALL. What else?
Mr. BOYD. I don’t recall just exactly-I think that the words that he used when he was
talking to Mr. Hosty was that he had been out there and accosted his wife, I believe
that’s the words that he used and like I said, after he talked to him, he said he didn’t
appreciate him coming out there to his house.
Mr. BALL. What was it that Hosty said before Oswald got up and struck the desk with his
hand-what question did he ask?
Mr. BOYD. I don’t remember what the question was. I know it had something to do with-
let me see--I’m not sure if he was still talking to him about his wife or the trip to Mexico City.

Lastly, we know for a fact that Holmes committed perjury on other issues, so he isn’t exactly the most credible source. On the other hand, Holmes was a bit loose-lipped during his testimony, and let a few things slip that he shouldn’t have, so who knows? 

Mr. Hosty told me that it was when he asked Lee about the trip to Mexico City he blew up...

[Pamela Brown]

On 6/27/2022 at 8:39 AM, Paul Brancato said:

Great question. But given missing page, and very confusing and contradictory testimony, later writings etc how can we possibly know the answer? There is a black hole in my opinion where Oswald’s interrogation is concerned. No transcript? No recording? Seems deliberate

With all due respect, why wouldn't it be?

[Tom Gram]

2 hours ago, Pamela Brown said:

Mr. Hosty told me that it was when he asked Lee about the trip to Mexico City he blew up...

I’m sure Oswald did blow up, as the incident is corroborated by Fritz and Boyd. However, the circumstances of why he really got mad are not particularly clear. Boyd makes it sound like Oswald might have been mad about Hosty interviewing Marina, and that Oswald was already agitated. The Mexico City question could have just been the last straw.

All I’m saying is that Hosty’s belated recollection of Oswald saying “how did you know about that” is pretty flimsy, and that he could have misremembered a similar statement with a completely opposite meaning - like an incredulous “where did you hear that?!” or something. It also seems hard to believe that Oswald would deny being in Mexico City immediately after making such a statement. 

The alternative is an elaborate coverup of Oswald admitting his presence in Mexico City that carried over into perjury before the WC by every official present in Oswald’s interrogations except for Harry Holmes, the known perjurer. It’s an interesting theory, and there is some supporting evidence, but I’d need more than just Holmes’ word and Hosty’s twelve-year-old memory to really believe it. 

[Gene Kelly]

I recommend studying what cognitive psychology calls the “illusory truth effect” - where we legitimize lies by reiteration (see: “I Heard It Before, So It Must Be True” by Susana Martinez-Conde, October 5, 2019, Scientific American; and “Illusory Truth, Lies, and Political Propaganda” by Joe Pierre, January 22, 2020. Psychology Today). Commonly known by the phrase "if you repeat a lie enough, it becomes the truth", this tactic is commonly employed in political propaganda, marketing, cult brainwashing and notably on social media blogs (e.g., repetitive posts on threads).  This stems from the fact that we process repeated statements more fluently, and we mistake that feeling of fluency for a signal that the statement is true: 

• If repeated enough times, the information may be perceived to be true even if sources are not credible
• The illusory truth effect is very evident on subject matter people perceive themselves to know about
• The effect can happen even if someone had previous knowledge that the information was false

I sense that same tactic is being employed with this thread, similar to a number of threads that have appeared coincident with Max Good's film. We should beware of posts that have a suggestive (false) title ...  the headline alone is intended to cement a false idea in our minds (see “When Correcting a Lie, Don't Repeat It. Do This Instead” by Steve Rathje, July 23, 2018, in Psychology Today).  Rathje discusses experiments performed to examine the effects that incriminating innuendo delivered by media sources have on audience impressions (i.e., so-called fake news). The author's simple advice to counter this tactic and discredit lies - without repeating them and spreading them further - is to always lead with the truth. The facts should come first, so our minds will stop confusing “alternative facts” with real ones. 

[James DiEugenio]

As Greg Parker has noted:

From Fritz's interrogation report "Mr. Hosty also asked Oswald if he had been to Mexico City, which he denied." (WR p. 601)

From the joint Hosty-Bookhout report, "Oswald stated that he had never been in Mexico except to Tijuana on one occasion."  (WR p. 612)

The trip to Tijuana was while in the Marines.

The Kuchel Report from Secret Service also notes that Marina firmly denied on more than one occasion that Lee went to Mexico City while she was being detained by the Secret Service..

Gram is exactly right that the reason Oswald was agitated was over Hosty's treatment of his wife. (ibid, p. 601)

I for one, as well as Gene, am getting perturbed at GD's pompous and pretentious thread titles.  I mean, as anyone can see for God's sakes, this stuff is right in the Warren Report! Only someone who has an immense bias would insinuate that it was not, thereby trying to manipulate the reader.

Edited June 30, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Now, its JFK 201 about all the evidence that Oswald was not in Mexico City that has come out since.

The Lopez Report is devastating on this.  Which is why the CIA did not want it printed in the HSCA volumes.

But further, the two CIA spies in the Cuban embassy both said, not once, but twice, that LHO was not there.

In addition we have the CIA photo bank check which says words to the effect, no pic of Oswald.

The CIA did everything to find any trace that Oswald came down or went back.  I mean everything.  In desperation, they even checked all the airports they could find. No Oswald.

So what happened.  They turned over the inquiry to Minister of the Interior, Echeverria and his buddy Ochoa.  And what these guys did was criminal.  Talk about fraud.  Both Armstrong and David Josephs have exposed this trail of BS in depth.  Echeverria deliberately kept the WC guys away so he could create this travesty. He got his payoff. He became president of Mexico.

The weight of the evidence indicates Oswald told the truth. 

Edited June 30, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Steve Roe]

16 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Now, its JFK 201 about all the evidence that Oswald was not in Mexico City that has come out since.

The Lopez Report is devastating on this. 

The Lopez Report did conclude Oswald was in Mexico City in direct conflict with your statement "Oswald was not in Mexico City". 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=799#relPageId=256

There's lots of evidence that he was in Mexico City, you just choose to ignore it. 

[Paul Brancato]

1 hour ago, Steve Roe said:

The Lopez Report did conclude Oswald was in Mexico City in direct conflict with your statement "Oswald was not in Mexico City". 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=799#relPageId=256

There's lots of evidence that he was in Mexico City, you just choose to ignore it. 

Leaving your assessment of Jim, don’t you think there are good reasons to doubt that Oswald was there? Certainly there is no conclusive proof. Make no mistake, for the purpose of creating a patsy it was essential to believe he was. I am not familiar with your general take on things - do you think Oswald was the lone assassin? 

[James DiEugenio]

What the Lopez Report said was that there was no evidence that Oswald did the things he was supposed to do while there.

One of the most powerful parts of the report is when they lay out the camera coverage on both embassies.

They go into detail about this and its tedious but important.  Then after they do so, they ask: well where's the picture? (As I showed above, many years later the CIA declassified the photo bank check, which turned out negative.)

They then say, well the evidence would indicate Oswald spoke good Russian.  Then why does the guy on tape speak lousy Russian? They set up a whole chart for this demonstration.

What they do to Anne Goodpasture and her story about how she screwed up the Mystery Man photo as Oswald is so ridiculous that its painful to repeat. (This is one reason they wanted to indict her.). The excuse about the Kostikov cable taking 8 days to get to Langley is also ridiculous. (This is one reason they wanted to indict Phillips.)

If you ask them today, and I have seen them talk on this, neither Dan nor Ed says Oswald did any of the stuff the CIA says he was supposed to do.

Finally, Danny and Eddie made an error in accepting the official story about how Oswald got there and back.  They did not examine that trail as well as they should have.  Anyone can see that by reading the report.  Which, unfortunately, not enough people have done.  Other people have done this examination,  as I listed above.  And  that trail has been torn to shreds. Greg Parker has some good stuff coming on this.

Today, the whole story about Oswald in Mexico City is paper mache.

Repeat: the weight of the evidence is that Oswald told the truth on this.

I await for someone to pick up on the obvious corollary.

 

Edited July 1, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Let me make a minor correction.

Danny and Ed did not just want to indict Phillips and Goodpasture.

They actually wrote up bills of indictment for both.

That is how bad they were on Oswald in Mexico City.

[Pat Speer]

I'm with Greg on this one. That Oswald denied going to Mexico is accepted as a fact by CT's because they think it's harmful to their cause if Oswald went to Mexico, and accepted as a fact by LNs because it supports their chosen narrative that Oswald was a weaselly xxxx who killed the President.

But what if they're both wrong? 

The scenario outlined by Hosty, and Greg, makes total sense to me. Oswald asked Hosty how he knew he'd gone to Mexico, without ever confirming that he did in fact go. The witnesses in the room then saw this through the prism of Oswald's being a weaselly xxxx, and claimed he'd denied going to Mexico, when he'd done no such thing. This is why second hand reports and even notes, just aren't reliable. 

I should add as well that I have no problem with Oswald's going to Mexico. Many who've studied this case in detail have come to accept that Oswald was some sort of operative...taking orders from someone. It's not surprising then that he would be asked to go to Mexico.

This doesn't mean, however, that he attended the embassies on the days he supposedly attended, and made the phone cals he is reported to have made. It could very well be that the CIA's info about Oswald's visits came from human contacts (or bugs) within the Cuban consulate and Russian embassy, and that a cover story was made to hide this fact, and dummy up the record to indicate he'd been observed and recorded on the phone. (In such case, the photographs of "him" would not be of him, and the recordings of "him" would not be of him.)

[Tom Gram]

53 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

I'm with Greg on this one. That Oswald denied going to Mexico is accepted as a fact by CT's because they think it's harmful to their cause if Oswald went to Mexico, and accepted as a fact by LNs because it supports their chosen narrative that Oswald was a weaselly xxxx who killed the President.

But what if they're both wrong? 

The scenario outlined by Hosty, and Greg, makes total sense to me. Oswald asked Hosty how he knew he'd gone to Mexico, without ever confirming that he did in fact go. The witnesses in the room then saw this through the prism of Oswald's being a weaselly xxxx, and claimed he'd denied going to Mexico, when he'd done no such thing. This is why second hand reports and even notes, just aren't reliable. 

I should add as well that I have no problem with Oswald's going to Mexico. Many who've studied this case in detail have come to accept that Oswald was some sort of operative...taking orders from someone. It's not surprising then that he would be asked to go to Mexico.

This doesn't mean, however, that he attended the embassies on the days he supposedly attended, and made the phone cals he is reported to have made. It could very well be that the CIA's info about Oswald's visits came from human contacts (or bugs) within the Cuban consulate and Russian embassy, and that a cover story was made to hide this fact, and dummy up the record to indicate he'd been observed and recorded on the phone. (In such case, the photographs of "him" would not be of him, and the recordings of "him" would not be of him.)

 

I agree that the theory makes sense through the lens of national security coverup etc., but as someone who's pretty critical of human memory, I figured you'd be a little more skeptical of Hosty's twelve-year-old recollection of a generic phrase uttered by Oswald that has never been corroborated by anyone.

For what Hosty and Holmes claimed to be true, you have to have multiple falsified interrogation reports from multiple different agencies across multiple interrogations - including internal memos where there would be no logical reason for any dissembling. 

If we ignore Holmes and and only focus on the interrogation referred to by Hosty, does it not make more sense that Hosty misremembered something like "where did you hear that?!", Oswald subsequently denied being in MC, and that the relevant WC testimony was accurate? Remember that it was not just a couple reports and notes; Hosty, Fritz and Boyd all unequivocally testified that Oswald denied being in MC - then Hosty suddenly remembers an indirect admission in 1975. That's pretty weak sauce if you ask me. 

I think there is certainly reason to doubt it, but I have no problem with Oswald being in MC either. I just would need a heck of a lot more evidence to really buy into the idea that he admitted to it in his interrogations. 

Edited July 2, 2022 by Tom Gram