Oswald's Last Letter Puzzled FBI

[Douglas Caddy]

[Douglas Caddy]

Someone posted this on Facebook today. It is easier to read by clicking on the article.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Douglas Caddy

[Benjamin Cole]

7 hours ago, Douglas Caddy said:

I have been a bystander on the Ruth Paine debates.

But...who copies a letter written by somebody else and keeps a record?

Paine says she copied the Oswald letter?

Who does such a thing? 

 

 

 

[Pamela Brown]

10 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I have been a bystander on the Ruth Paine debates.

But...who copies a letter written by somebody else and keeps a record?

Paine says she copied the Oswald letter?

Who does such a thing? 

 

 

 

Someone whose job it was to make sure Lee Oswald was nailed..

[Benjamin Cole]

46 minutes ago, Pamela Brown said:

Someone whose job it was to make sure Lee Oswald was nailed..

As I said, I have been on the sidelines regarding Ruth Paine. 

But can you imagine? Copying the letter of a house guest? 

Even reading someone's private correspondence is considered uncivil. 

Ruth Paine could be the busy body of all time. Or a handler of a type. 

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Pamela Brown said:

12 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Who does such a thing?

Someone whose job it was to make sure Lee Oswald was nailed

 

Yep. What she said.

 

[David Boylan]

How did Oswald know about Azcue's pending transfer back to Havana? I'd speculate that is either #2 (CIA) or as my friend Larry Hancock suggests, Sylvia Duran. A good case can be made for #2. The CIA lied to the FBI about when they knew about Azcue's pending transfer. There was long time effort to recruit Azcue as an asset. How do you get close enough to Azcue to recruit him? The CIA opted to use a longtime friend of Azcue that just happened to be a CIA that was a member of the "Stay Behind" network in Cuba that was setup by David Morales and run Tony Sforza and Emilio Rodriguez. The friend was Jose Casas (AMOT-106). During Casas' August 9th meeting Azcue told Casas that he "would be departing for Cuba PCS with his wife and 2 daughters." Winston Scott, Mexico City COS, then pressured Casas' case officer Tony Sforza to try and get Casas back to Mexico City again in September to try one more shot at recruiting Azcue as either an asset in place in Havana or have him defect before his scheduled recall date of October 4, 1963.

Casas also "witness and American male, with a small boy" at the consulate. The Mexican secretary (Sylvia Duran) "stated to (Casas) that the American was a stupid fool for wanting to take his son to the "Cuban hell."  Casas also noted that Azcue and Duran were very familiar with each other. 🙂

Notice item D last sentence "that the main concern of the GOC (Government of Cuba) is the Project that is headed by Manuel ARTIME." 

I think it's amazing that the GOC knew of Project AMWORLD as early as August 1963.

[David Boylan]

AMKNOB-1 also knew Azcue was being replaced as of August 12th. All of these dispatches went to HQs SAS. So you have JMWAVE, SAS, and Mexico City station all aware that Azcue was leaving.

Great work by Bill Simpich pulling this all together.

Known as "the Swiss" (201-335958), Piero Fedeli Medici. Had some close relationship with Guillermo Ruiz (201-335938 and 201-735296). Ruiz was a Cuban intelligence officer and married to the cousin of Antonio Veicana/AMSHALE-1. AMKNOB-1 was an asset of Win Scott in Mexico City during 1963. By 1966, the CIA called him a double agent. In an attempt to get consul Eusebio Azcue to defect, the "Swiss" passed on useful information to CIA informant LITAMIL-3 in September 1963. Ruiz fled to Cuba on 11/22/63. Two weeks later, AMKNOB-1 returned to the scene and communicated with Cuban consulate employees Silvia Duran and Raul Aparicio.

9/10/63 cable DIR 67341 (ref MEXI 6077) from C/SAS/CI/OPS to Mexico City JMWAVE: "P" on lower right may indicate review by C/OPS Will Potocki. C/SAS/CI/OPS Richard Tansing originated the memo. Tansing had used extension 6471 in the past - shown in 104-10506-10015. The message to Scott: "HQS wishes CASAS make ref pitch if he available for travel Mexi. Otherwise, LITAMIL-3 can make pitch. HQS objective is recruitment in place and not defection, request MEXI plan ops (in) this regard. HQS contacting CASAS and will advise MEXI availability soonest." CASAS appears to be Jose Antonio Casas. This post the next day shows the problem was that Casas' boss wouldn't let him off work: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=63961&relPageId=3 See 104-10163-10010: cable MEXI 6142 from Mexico City to Director: Win Scott advocates for "a compartmented one-two punch" by LITAMIL-3 and CASAS. Both these men and Azcue are described as having a "long time close personal relationship" "Tansing I" is written on the front of the document. See 104-10163-10260: On 9/19/63, LITMAIL-3 makes the defection pitch to Azcue. Azcue declines... See 104-10163-10256: On 9/21/63, AMKNOB-1 is apparently "debriefed" on Azcue, Sinobas, and other Cuban figures. Don't know who is the debriefer, LITAMIL-3? See 104-10181-10298: On 9/23/63, AMTIKI-1 gets a letter from his friend Nicolas Hernandez Perez saying that Ruiz is with the Cuban G-2 organization and on a mission to penetrate counterrevolutionary forces. Marginalia shows that Ruiz is 201-735296.

 

Fabian Escalante, JFK: The Cuban Files, pp. 130-132

9/27/63: Guillermo Ruiz was the translator in the conversation between Azcue and Oswald. He told Fabian Escalante that although he was not an expert in physiognomy, it was his opinion that the Oswald he saw on Mexican television was the one he saw in the consulate that day. Antonio Garcia Lara saw Oswald as he was leaving, and he had the same impression as Ruiz. Both of them disagreed with Azcue. Also see 180-10147-10240, p 83: "At the time, there were newspaper reports Veciana said that 'Bishop' tried to persuade him to travel to Mexico to propose to his relative Guillermo Ruiz, a high-ranking officer in Castro's intelligence service stationed in Mexico City at the Cuban embassy, that "he would pay Ruiz a large amount of money to publicly say that it was him and his wife who had met with Oswald."" Veciana, however, was never successful in contacting Ruiz and when he mentioned it to Bishop a couple of months later, Bishop told him to forget it."

[Jonathan Cohen]

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Yep. What she said.

 

Absolute nonsense. Ruth is on record as to why she copied the letter, and her reasons for doing so are perfectly legitimate without having to accuse of her of being a government spy. 

[David Boylan]

So, Oswald drops in during the end of the effort to recruit Azcue. Meets with Azcue and Duran and the CIA lies to the FBI about when they learned of Azcue transfer to Havana? Was this the CIA/Mexico City shenanigans that Hoover was referring to? Did certain members of JMWAVE piggyback on the existing op to recruit Azcue ensuring a coverup? What was the real reason for Tony Sforza (Azcue's case officer) meeting with David Phillips on 11/22 in Mexico City?

[David Josephs]

4 hours ago, David Boylan said:

How did Oswald know about Azcue's pending transfer back to Havana?

David...  what makes you sure the letter refers to AZCUE?

"the Cuban consulate was guilty of a gross breach of regulations, I am glad he has since been replaced."

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP10M00666R000503450006-9.pdf

Page 4 states that AZCUE was scheduled to leave in October but did not until Nov 18th.

Couple things about this letter...  First, the internal letter's date is 1 week after the envelope's postmark.  That's easily shown not to be a "12" but just a "2".

"Has been replaced" sounds to me as if someone was told something about the October planned leaving but never passed along an update.

"he has since been replaced" seems to me like an event in the past - and since both dates are before AZCUE actually left, the letter offers incorrect info.

AZCUE did not breach any regulations... did he?  And anyone "not prepared" at the Cuban consulate should have nothing to do with a breach of regs - which regs? - but with whatever it was Oswald was supposed to have gotten from the Soviet consulate. 

Could that have meant a call to AZCUE and he was supposed to do something?   again, a "breach of regs" ???

What do you think is being referred to here and why does it automatically mean the letter is talking about AZCUE ?

[David Boylan]

1 hour ago, David Josephs said:

David...  what makes you sure the letter refers to AZCUE?

"the Cuban consulate was guilty of a gross breach of regulations, I am glad he has since been replaced."

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP10M00666R000503450006-9.pdf

Page 4 states that AZCUE was scheduled to leave in October but did not until Nov 18th.

Couple things about this letter...  First, the internal letter's date is 1 week after the envelope's postmark.  That's easily shown not to be a "12" but just a "2".

"Has been replaced" sounds to me as if someone was told something about the October planned leaving but never passed along an update.

"he has since been replaced" seems to me like an event in the past - and since both dates are before AZCUE actually left, the letter offers incorrect info.

AZCUE did not breach any regulations... did he?  And anyone "not prepared" at the Cuban consulate should have nothing to do with a breach of regs - which regs? - but with whatever it was Oswald was supposed to have gotten from the Soviet consulate. 

Could that have meant a call to AZCUE and he was supposed to do something?   again, a "breach of regs" ???

What do you think is being referred to here and why does it automatically mean the letter is talking about AZCUE ?

 David, the author of the letter, whomever you believe it was, was told of the Oct 4th recall date of Azcue and did not learn of the delay of his true return of Nov 18th. It is that simple. As far as breach of regulations, I have no idea what the author meant. Maybe he felt he wasn't being treated fairly by Azcue and believed Azcue should have given him his visa without having to visit and get approval from the Soviet Embassy.

Whom do you believe the author was referring to "that has since been replaced"?

Edited September 26, 2023 by David Boylan

[Scotty Moore]

4 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Absolute nonsense. Ruth is on record as to why she copied the letter, and her reasons for doing so are perfectly legitimate without having to accuse of her of being a government spy. 

Hi Jonathan

Apologies for being uneducated on this but what reason did she give?

[Gerry Down]

16 minutes ago, Scotty Moore said:

Hi Jonathan

Apologies for being uneducated on this but what reason did she give?

I believe she gave a copy of the letter to her FBI contact before the JFK assassination. Cant remember who that contact was. It wasn't Hosty. Looks like she was trying to get LHO in trouble. Marina had told Ruth that Oswald had been in Houston looking for work. Maybe Ruth was hoping that upon receipt of her copy of the letter being handed over to the FBI, the FBI would call to the house and inform Marina that LHO had been in Mexico City which would cause a fight between Marina and LHO. What Ruth didn't know though was that Marina knew full well LHO had been to Mexico City and that Marina had been lying to her when she had told her LHO had been in Houston looking for work. 

[Gerry Down]

7 hours ago, David Boylan said:

How did Oswald know about Azcue's pending transfer back to Havana? I'd speculate that is either #2 (CIA) or as my friend Larry Hancock suggests, Sylvia Duran. A good case can be made for #2. The CIA lied to the FBI about when they knew about Azcue's pending transfer.

I didn't realize the CIA lied to the FBI about when they knew of Azcues impending transfer. I presume this lie occurred after the JFK assassination?

It would appear not to be #3 anyway (the KGB). I deduce this by the fact LHO did not seem to know Kostikovs correct name. One would imagine if Oswald was in bed with the KGB, he would have known Kostikovs proper name.