The 4 Possibilities Of The Origin of LHOs CIA Debrief

[Gerry Down]

According to the below document, Office of Operations (Domestic Contacts Division) officer Donald Deselyna first got a debrief report on LHO in "July or August 1962":

LINK: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2022/180-10110-10145.pdf

This was before GDM ever met LHO which was in Sept 1962. I'm not sure if Deselyna continued to get contact reports on the Minsk radio factory after the date of "July or August 1962" or not which might then include info GDM was providing after Sept 1962. 

If Deselyna has his dates right, it would mean LHO gave someone detailed info on the Minsk radio factory before he ever met GDM. And that this info originated from New York in some way. As per this section of the above document:

It would appear that Oswald gave the info to Richard Schneider (possibly in return for aiding the Oswalds reentry back into the U.S.) or gave the info to Frederick J. Wiedersheim, the immigration officer who met the Oswalds upon their arrival into the U.S. which was detailed on page 773 of the WCR:

If Deselynas account that the debrief originated from New York in some way is correct, this would appear to rule out Peter Gregorys viewing of the Oswald manuscript in June 1962 as the source of the debrief that landed on Deselynas desk. However this section of the above HSCA document calls that into question:

In other words, the Office of Operations (Domestic Contacts Division) may have disguised the origin of the debrief as coming from New York to hide the real origin of he debrief - their Dallas source - Peter Gregory. 

This therefore appears to leave 4 possibilities as to the source of the debrief that Deselyna saw in July or August 1962:

1. Richard Schneider (by way of an interview at the U.S. embassy in Moscow)
2. Frederick J. Wiedersheim (by way of the interview with the Oswalds in New York)
3. Peter Gregory (by way of his interaction with Oswald in June 1962 in Dallas and the known fact that Oswald told his typist Mrs Bates that he had shown his manuscript to Gregory. Gregory likely being a contact of J. Walton Moore by way of Gregorys involvement in the oil industry) 
4. Mrs Bates (by way of her typing up Oswalds manuscript)

Let's break down each one of these possibilities:

• #1: One would imagine that if Richard Schneider was to have got the info from Oswald in return for facilitating the Oswalds return to the U.S., that he would have got the info off Oswald well before July or August 1962. The possibility exists however that Richard Schneider did get the info well before this but the debrief was only shown to Deselyna in July or August 1962 to conceal the fact the debrief originated at the U.S. embassy in Moscow some months earlier.
• #2: This would appear to be the least likely as it would appear Oswald would have no reason to share detailed info on the Minsk radio factory with Frederick J. Wiedersheim, someone he did not know.
• #3: This is a strong possibility. The Cassassin document detailed the consideration before LHOs return of the laying on of interviews. This would appear to indicate a deliberate planning ahead of time to get info from Oswald on the Minsk radio factory. J. Walton Moore appeared to get some indication of this as he first discussed LHO with GDM in late 1961, that an Oswald guy was planning on returning to the U.S. This would appear to indicate J. Walton Moore was to spearhead the debrief on LHO. While J. Walton Moore might have intended on using GDM to get the debrief off LHO, its possible that Peter Gregory inadvertently beat GDM to it when LHO showed Peter Gregory the manuscript and Gregory then of his own accord gave a copy to Moore whom Gregory thought might be interested in the kind of intel contained in the manuscript. 
• #4: Mrs Bates seemed unusually interested in the manuscript and offered to type up the rest of it for free to Oswald. 

Of these 4, which do you think it the most likely? Or perhaps you have an alternative possibility in mind. 

[Larry Hancock]

First off I think this might be a bit excessive in thinking of getting information from Oswald in terms of a structured "debrief" - or somehow suggesting that the Minsk radio factory had been a specific target of intelligence collection or had some strategic value other than a factory that did do military work in one section (as most all of them did).  The factory and actually everything about how Oswald had been handled in the Soviet Union would all have been of interest as part of domestic intelligence collection from a US citizen coming back from overseas.  

Its long been rumored that someone from the Agency did meet and talk with Oswald in NYC,  very probably under a cover - but Oswald did not pass on the notes he had smuggled back then, he took them all to Dallas and compiled notes and experience and diary into a partial manuscript (it might have been much longer if he had not run out of money).   Did Gregory encourage him to do that...maybe, could Gregory have suggested that he do that if he was a source for DO but that would have been off on the timing because Oswald contacted the stenographer on June 18 and did not contact Gregory until June 26.   If I'm right on those dates then Oswald might have been following up on a conversation in New York and immediately moved to put his material together almost as soon as he got to Fort Worth. 

Best guess, somebody contacted him under cover in New York and at least relayed some minimal information from him on his time in Russia....Oswald had hoped he would be approached by the press but was not, as far as we know, but he was very willing to talk and had even prepared notes for himself to do that while he was on the ship coming back.  

[Benjamin Cole]

10 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

First off I think this might be a bit excessive in thinking of getting information from Oswald in terms of a structured "debrief" - or somehow suggesting that the Minsk radio factory had been a specific target of intelligence collection or had some strategic value other than a factory that did do military work in one section (as most all of them did).  The factory and actually everything about how Oswald had been handled in the Soviet Union would all have been of interest as part of domestic intelligence collection from a US citizen coming back from overseas.  

Its long been rumored that someone from the Agency did meet and talk with Oswald in NYC,  very probably under a cover - but Oswald did not pass on the notes he had smuggled back then, he took them all to Dallas and compiled notes and experience and diary into a partial manuscript (it might have been much longer if he had not run out of money).   Did Gregory encourage him to do that...maybe, could Gregory have suggested that he do that if he was a source for DO but that would have been off on the timing because Oswald contacted the stenographer on June 18 and did not contact Gregory until June 26.   If I'm right on those dates then Oswald might have been following up on a conversation in New York and immediately moved to put his material together almost as soon as he got to Fort Worth. 

Best guess, somebody contacted him under cover in New York and at least relayed some minimal information from him on his time in Russia....Oswald had hoped he would be approached by the press but was not, as far as we know, but he was very willing to talk and had even prepared notes for himself to do that while he was on the ship coming back.  

LH_

Is it reasonable to suspect Peter Gregory as, at least, a CIA asset? 

I realize that is a fuzzy term, and could include anyone from a 1) source receiving regular stipends and even running "errands," to 2) someone who is happy to answer questions to help fight Russia. 

Just askin'.

 

[Larry Hancock]

It think it would be reasonable to at least consider a Russian speaker doing international business (he was a consulting petroleum engineer) as a potential "CIA" source (door number 2 in your post),  in this case especially one who volunteered to teach Russian classes for a local library (not all that typical in 1963 Fort Worth/Dallas but where Oswald came across him). 

Frankly I would have expected the FBI to have been more likely to have recruited him as a source given how well networked he appears to have been in the Russian expat community.

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

9 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

It think it would be reasonable to at least consider a Russian speaker doing international business (he was a consulting petroleum engineer) as a potential "CIA" source (door number 2 in your post),  in this case especially one who volunteered to teach Russian classes for a local library (not all that typical in 1963 Fort Worth/Dallas but where Oswald came across him). 

Frankly I would have expected the FBI to have been more likely to have recruited him as a source given how well networked he appears to have been in the Russian expat community.

 

 

Yes, I am compiling a list of CIA assets in Dallas area c. 1963.

I guess my purpose is to show the CIA had perhaps thousands of assets domestically (if Cuban exiles are counted) and so if LHO was such an asset, that would not be so unusual. 

That is, the CIA domestic assets c. 1963 were not an extremely vetted group.  There was "war on" in the minds of CIA and related agencies. 

[Gerry Down]

11 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

First off I think this might be a bit excessive in thinking of getting information from Oswald in terms of a structured "debrief" - or somehow suggesting that the Minsk radio factory had been a specific target of intelligence collection or had some strategic value other than a factory that did do military work in one section (as most all of them did).  The factory and actually everything about how Oswald had been handled in the Soviet Union would all have been of interest as part of domestic intelligence collection from a US citizen coming back from overseas.  

Its long been rumored that someone from the Agency did meet and talk with Oswald in NYC,  very probably under a cover - but Oswald did not pass on the notes he had smuggled back then, he took them all to Dallas and compiled notes and experience and diary into a partial manuscript (it might have been much longer if he had not run out of money).   Did Gregory encourage him to do that...maybe, could Gregory have suggested that he do that if he was a source for DO but that would have been off on the timing because Oswald contacted the stenographer on June 18 and did not contact Gregory until June 26.   If I'm right on those dates then Oswald might have been following up on a conversation in New York and immediately moved to put his material together almost as soon as he got to Fort Worth. 

Best guess, somebody contacted him under cover in New York and at least relayed some minimal information from him on his time in Russia....Oswald had hoped he would be approached by the press but was not, as far as we know, but he was very willing to talk and had even prepared notes for himself to do that while he was on the ship coming back.  

I think this is probably the best and cleanest explanation for what happened. Some unidentified person in New York, possibly the INS officer, got info from Oswald on his time in Russia which then formed the basis for the contact report that Deselyna saw. 

It's not much use speculating about Peter Gregory and Mrs Bates when they can be bypassed entirely as having in any way contributed to the contact report Deselyna saw. The same goes for Richard Schneider, though I have read somewhere (don't have the exact source handy) that Oswald at one stage offered Schneider Intel to help facilitate his exit from the USSR. I remember thinking that Oswald offered the Russians military secrets to get into Russia, and then offered the US secrets about the soviets to get out of the USSR, made Oswald one untrustworthy so and so. I guess the more detailed that contact report Deselyna saw, the more likely it is that perhaps Schneider is the source. But as we are likely never to be told Schneider was the source, the best and cleanest explanation that we are forced to use is that some unidentified person in New York covertly got info from Oswald and passed it on to the CIA.

Moore may well have been operating entirely separate from all this. Field Stations, of their own volition, could initiate contact with someone of interest such as LHO. Gdm told Epstein that the reason Moore gave him for getting him to approach GDM was that LHO was not cooperating with the fbi. From this, Moores gameplan when LHO was coming back may have been to see what the fbi got out of him. And if the fbi failed in this respect, to then get gdm to do it. I think Moore was going to get the oil deal for gdm anyway, so might as well make gdm work a little for it. Moore may have been doing all this if his own volition or maybe with some proding from Langley on foot of the initial contact report they had got on LHO by way of New York. Though Moore was showing interest in LHO as early as way back as late 1961 when he first mentioned LHO to gdm. Therefore the delay in getting gdm to approach LHO may simply be as a result of Moore waiting to see what info the fbi got from LHO.

I presume those Fain reports on Oswald were transmitted to the CIA. Been a while since I looked at the CIA file on LHO, but I presume those fbi reports are in there and so Moore would have access to them.