LHO was in Mexico City

[Benjamin Cole]

I contend LHO was in fact in Mexico City in September 1963.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/oswald/

The above is a PBS Frontline documentary, first aired in 1993. Go to about 1:10 mark. 

The three KGB agents, who worked in MC in September 1963, on camera, and on record, attest to PBS they met the real LHO at the embassy.  Kostikov is among the three attesting to LHO's visit to MC. The trio have little doubt about the meeting, thanks to LHO's erratic behavior. Like LHO wanted to make an impression. Sounds like LHO. 

Perhaps the three KGB'ers were bribed to say they met the real LHO, as some suggest. But that is a slippery road, to suggest some witnesses were bribed. Where do we stop with this sort of analysis? We all want to cherry-pick witnesses. 

My explanation is that the CIA wanted LHO to meet Kostikov, and they intrigued Kostikov into the meeting. Why else would the Soviet Embassy receive LHO on a Saturday? 

There are other witnesses to LHO's presence in Mexico and MC, including hotel workers, and bus riders. Can we dismiss all witnesses? 

LHO was also likely impersonated in MC. LHO can be in MC and also impersonated---the two thoughts are not mutually exclusive. In fact, likely LHO was shadowed, even possibly impersonated by a KGB'er or CIA'er at the Cuban embassy. There was a ton of Spy vs. Spy stuff going on. Spy agencies like to create false leads and confusion, for the simple sake of creating false leads and confusion. 

LHO's Mexico bus-trip paperwork is perhaps sketchy. Perhaps fabricated. Or perhaps just 1963-era paperwork for a Mexico bus company. I suspect LHO got a ride in a car or airplane.

Of course, in the immediate aftermath of the JFKA, the CIA tried to leverage his presence there to hype the commie angle. See David Atlee Phillips and also the DRE. 

That angle, it turns out, was also effective in ending a true investigation into the JFKA, due the what John Newman calls the WWIII virus. It looked like the KGB may have had a hand in the JFKA, which could mean WWIII, thanks to a barely controllable Joint Chiefs of Staff. And so the WC and establishment went with the "leftie, but loner-loser angle" on LHO. Blame LBJ too. 

From 11/23, the State Dep't was "finding no evidence" of Russian or even foreign collusion in the JFKA. 

In fact, I am not sure what happened in the JFKA, except that a lone gunman, armed with a single-shot bolt-action rifle, could not have shot Connally at Z-295 and then JFK at Z-313, which I believe the Z film shows. I suspect elements of the CIA-Miami Station had a role in the JFKA.

How high up from there? Who knows? 

It would be nice if the JFK Records were released. 

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Benjamin Cole

[Stu Wexler]

I tend to think Oswald was in Mexico City. That there was an impersonation operation but by phone. The problem with the Soviet Embassy story is that three different people told the same plot but with each narrator as the "main" character. In other words, each said they were the person that Oswald broke down to. They are:

Oleg Nechiporenkon (the one everyone knows)

Nikolai Leonov: https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-05-04/the-legacy-of-nikolai-leonov-the-kremlins-man-in-the-americas.html

A KGB General (discussed at a Lancer Conference by a reporter who lived in Russia but whose name I forget)

Stu

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Stu Wexler said:

I tend to think Oswald was in Mexico City. That there was an impersonation operation but by phone. The problem with the Soviet Embassy story is that three different people told the same plot but with each narrator as the "main" character. In other words, each said they were the person that Oswald broke down to. They are:

Oleg Nechiporenkon (the one everyone knows)

Nikolai Leonov: https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-05-04/the-legacy-of-nikolai-leonov-the-kremlins-man-in-the-americas.html

A KGB General (discussed at a Lancer Conference by a reporter who lived in Russia but whose name I forget)

Stu

My understanding is the mainline narrative always was that LHO met Kostikov (a KGB'er in charge of KGB wetwork in the Western hemisphere), and two sidekicks, in the Embassy on that Saturday. This might be the one time the official narrative is actually true---as that meeting was intended to happen. 

But thanks for your comments and open-minded response. I will research more the people you mention. If I learn something, and expand my understanding of that event, all good. 

[Michael Crane]

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

thanks to LHO's erratic behavior.

Just like at the car dealership & the rifle range.

Imposter IMO.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Michael Crane

[Stu Wexler]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

My understanding is the mainline narrative always was that LHO met Kostikov (a KGB'er in charge of KGB wetwork in the Western hemisphere), and two sidekicks, in the Embassy on that Saturday. This might be the one time the official narrative is actually true---as that meeting was intended to happen. 

But thanks for your comments and open-minded response. I will research more the people you mention. If I learn something, and expand my understanding of that event, all good. 

Kostikov is one element of the story. But the secondary element is that LHO broke down when he wasn't getting his way, brandished a pistol, and insisted that the FBI was out to get him. He had to be talked down. Three different people placed themselves as the antagonist in that story (other than LHO.)  

[Sandy Larsen]

48 minutes ago, Stu Wexler said:

Kostikov is one element of the story. But the secondary element is that LHO broke down when he wasn't getting his way, brandished a pistol, and insisted that the FBI was out to get him. He had to be talked down. Three different people placed themselves as the antagonist in that story (other than LHO.)  

 

Yeah, it's a fake story that Kostikov adopted to make money after the collapse of the Soviet Union. That's what I believe. (I'll bet he was surprised when he learned that he supposedly met with LHO.)

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

17 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Yeah, it's a fake story that Kostikov adopted to make money after the collapse of the Soviet Union. That's what I believe. (I'll bet he was surprised when he learned that he supposedly met with LHO.)

 

 

Sandy--

Your comments are welcome here.

But the meeting between Kostikov was recorded in CIA memos long before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Indeed, nearly contemporaneously. 

Indeed, the Kostikov-LHO meeting is cited for the whole "WWIII virus" by John Newman. 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

54 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

But the meeting between Kostikov was recorded in CIA memos long before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Indeed, nearly contemporaneously.

 

Yes, the same CIA that said LHO visited Silvia Duran in the Cuban Consulate, even though he didn't.

The same CIA that paid Gilberto Alvarado to say that he saw LHO get paid a $6500 down payment to kill Kennedy, also in the Cuban Consulate. The same CIA that paid Elena Garro to say that she saw Oswald at a party with Silvia Duran and Cuban officials. The same CIA that instructed agent June Cobb to corroborate Elena's story.

 

[Benjamin Cole]

1 minute ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Yes, the same CIA that said LHO visited Silvia Duran in the Cuban Consulate, even though he didn't.

The same CIA that paid Gilberto Alvarado to say that he saw LHO get paid a $6500 down payment to kill Kennedy, also in the Cuban Consulate. The same CIA that paid Elena Garro to say that she saw Oswald at a party with Silvia Duran and Cuban officials. The same CIA that instructed agent June Cobb to corroborate Elena's story.

 

I tend to agree that the CIA fabricated/elaborated on LHO adventures in MC. Yes, the CIA and DRE almost immediately tried to blame Cuba-Russia-commies for the JFKA. 

Then...that Russia-Cuba chatter almost immediately stopped. 

However, the CIA PR skullduggery does not refute LHO being in MC, as witnessed by the three KGB agents, and noted in the 11/23/63 CIA memo, and as seen by bus riders and hotel staff.  

BTW, the CIA doc I show in another post, as far as I can tell, was classified until 1976. That doesn't seem like a "made-for PR" document. 

Well, each to his own. We are on different pages on LHO's adventure in MC. So it goes. 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

Even John Newman doesn't believe Oswald visited Kostikov. He knows (as we all do, except for you) that the "Oswald" who called the Russian Embassy was an imposter.

In this article, John Newman writes:

...CIA intercepts showed that someone impersonated Oswald in phone calls made to the Soviet embassy and the Cuban consulate and linked Oswald to a known KGB assassin — Valery Kostikov — whom the CIA and FBI had been following for over a year.

 

[Benjamin Cole]

35 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Even John Newman doesn't believe Oswald visited Kostikov. He knows (as we all do, except for you) that the "Oswald" who called the Russian Embassy was an imposter.

In this article, John Newman writes:

...CIA intercepts showed that someone impersonated Oswald in phone calls made to the Soviet embassy and the Cuban consulate and linked Oswald to a known KGB assassin — Valery Kostikov — whom the CIA and FBI had been following for over a year.

 

Yes, Newman believed the LHO was impersonated in phone calls. But that the real LHO did visit Kostikov. 

The CIA memo of 11/23/63 also reports the Kostikov-LHO meeting. 

Well, each to his own.

[Benjamin Cole]

http://22november1963.org.uk/a-little-incident-in-mexico-city

Another well-written, footnoted article on the LHO MC visit. They say LHO was in MC and also impersonated. 

 

[Gerry Down]

7 hours ago, Stu Wexler said:

I tend to think Oswald was in Mexico City. That there was an impersonation operation but by phone. The problem with the Soviet Embassy story is that three different people told the same plot but with each narrator as the "main" character. In other words, each said they were the person that Oswald broke down to. They are:

Oleg Nechiporenkon (the one everyone knows)

Nikolai Leonov: https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-05-04/the-legacy-of-nikolai-leonov-the-kremlins-man-in-the-americas.html

A KGB General (discussed at a Lancer Conference by a reporter who lived in Russia but whose name I forget)

Stu

I thought the 3 people Oswald met inside the soviet embassy were:

• Oleg Nechiporenko
• Pavel Yatskov
• Valery Kostikov

So where does Nikolai Leonov come into this?

[Benjamin Cole]

38 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

I thought the 3 people Oswald met inside the soviet embassy were:

• Oleg Nechiporenko
• Pavel Yatskov
• Valery Kostikov

So where does Nikolai Leonov come into this?

Good question. It seems little doubt LHO was there, but perhaps more than three people saw him. 

[Stu Wexler]

Read the article I posted.  It appears in other places as well.  For instance, here is a footnote from Jon Lee Anderson's well-regarded biography of Che:

"In November of 1962, with his habitual knack of meeting historic personalities on the even of momentous events, Leonov came face-to-face with Lee Harvey Oswald.  Oswald had arrived at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City and asked to speak to an official.  According to Leonov, he was called out to deal with him.  But when he saw that Oswald was both armed and agitated, Leonov decided he was "psychotic and dangerous," and says he quickly called other embassy personnel to help remove him from the premises.  Leonov says he was stunned when, soon afterward, he recognized  him as the man who had been arrested in Dallas, accused of murdering the American president. In a conversation about the various JFK assassiantion theories, Leonov dismissed the notion that Oswald might have acted on KGB orders, citing the "psychotic" behavior he had witnessed firsthand, and said that, theoretically speaking- even if the KGB had wanted to kill JFK- it would never have used someone so unbalanced and difficult to control."

Leonov basically said he was the person who experienced what Nechiporenko experienced. Larry Hancock or Jim D can remind me, but an American reporter who befriended a Russian general spoke af Lancer. Not Leonov. This Russian general said he (the Russian general) was the one who dealt with a "psychotic" Oswald at the embassy in Mexico City. The reporter did not realize this but I caught it right away and even confronted him about it when a bunch of researchers met with said reporter right after his meeting.