Disinformation in Oswald's CIA File - For molehunt purposes or for Oswald patsification purposes?

[Matt Cloud]

2 minutes ago, Michael Kalin said:

Matt, not likely this complicated topic will receive the careful analysis you contemplate from pontificators who refuse to study the source material.

Yet malice never was his aim;
He lashed the vice, but spared the name;
No individual could resent
Where thousands equally were meant.

It's on the record, all the same.  Here and elsewhere, and will, in due time, not far from now, be disclosed.  Thank  you, however.

[Michael Kalin]

2 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

It's on the record, all the same.  Here and elsewhere, and will, in due time, not far from now, be disclosed.  Thank  you, however.

You're welcome. Sorry but I'm probably going to drop out of this thread. Not for lack of interest, but I have a bad feeling about incurring a major misconduct penalty for lèse-majesté.

BTW been meaning to tell you I cannot locate the McMahon links you referenced a few weeks ago. I neither have a Twitter account nor participate in any form of social media.

In the meantime Bagley's Spy Wars held me spellbound.

[Matt Cloud]

57 minutes ago, Michael Kalin said:

You're welcome. Sorry but I'm probably going to drop out of this thread. Not for lack of interest, but I have a bad feeling about incurring a major misconduct penalty for lèse-majesté.

BTW been meaning to tell you I cannot locate the McMahon links you referenced a few weeks ago. I neither have a Twitter account nor participate in any form of social media.

In the meantime Bagley's Spy Wars held me spellbound.

Understood.  

That's a shame about not seeing those links because it's essential.  Excuse me, "We believe its essential."  

Note however you don't need a twiter / x account to view the content there.  You should be able to view the links in a desktop browser most ably.  See https://tweetdelete.net/resources/browse-twitter-without-an-account-easy-access-outside-x/#:~:text=All you have to do,a restriction on viewing content.  DM me if further issue persists, and if you are so inclined to go over the material that way.

If I wasn't out of file upload space I would drop them in where where appropriate and I know there are ways around that but it's kind of a pain when I've already done it on twitter.

Remember however that the materials are available elsewhere on the internet -- they don't originate on my twitter account.  I can provide non social media links that will be more comprehensive in any case. 

If there is any specific question to get things started just shoot and maybe we can overcome that hurdle that way.  I suggest we do that over at the thread which Sandy set up all for me after a complaint not appreciating some of the info I posted on the anonymous call to the tippits of connecticut thread.  Link below, "Matt Cloud's compilation ..."

We should be able to have a little more fun over there.

Meanwhile, since you bring up Bagley and Spy Wars, let me direct your attention to p. 236 of the 2007 edition where Bagley writes,

"This startling indication of the penetration of the CIA staff ... deserves investigation."

If you wanted to use that as a starting off point I think it would be useful.  Cheers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 16 by Matt Cloud

[Sandy Larsen]

On 4/15/2024 at 4:21 PM, Matt Cloud said:

With above in mind, here are some details, now, regarding the “Mexico City shenanigans” as you put it.

One of the as yet unexplained details is the origin of the story of Oswald going to the Soviet Consulate in the first place.  The claim first appeared in public, in print, in the Mexican newspaper Excelsior on November 25, and picked up on that day by U.S. wire service U.P.I.

According to U.P.I., dateline November 25, 1963:

“The newspaper Excelsior said today Lee Harvey Oswald spent several days in Mexico City in late September, calling on consulates of the Soviet Union and Cuba.

…

Excelsior said the Cuban consulate told Oswald it could not issue the visa without talking to the United States government  and that would take 10 or 12 days.  [Oswald had evidently been there on September 27, 1963.]  The paper said Oswald left the office in a huff and slammed the door as he went.

The next day [presumably September 28] he appeared at the office of the soviet consul and asked for a visa directly to the Soviet Union.

[Excelsior] said Oswald supported his argument for the visa by saying his wife was a soviet citizen, that he was a Communist, and that he had lived in Russia for three years. 

Told of Long Wait

The soviet consul told him the normal time to process such a request would be about three months.  Oswald again left in a huff, [Excelsior] said.

[Excelsior] said there was no indication Oswald talked to any important officials of the soviet or Cuban embassies, other than the respective consuls.”

Now, certainly one question that immediately pops out after reading this report is where the newspaper Excelsior got its information.  The Excelsior was a worker cooperative, anti-imperialist, and not presumably an organ of the CIA.  So how did they get their information?  Would CIA leak to Excelsior and thus betray the secret (their “sources & methods”) that they had taps on the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City?  That’s a question, to you.

Another unexplained detail involves the letter that Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly wrote to the Soviets on November 9, 1963, and reprinted in the Warren Commission as CE 15.  In the letter, Oswald writes,

“… the Cuban consulate [sic] was guilty of a gross breach of regulations, I am glad he has since been replaced.”

Evidently indeed, the Cuban consul, Eusebio Azcue, was replaced, as Oswald had noted in his November 9 letter.  The problem is Azcue was not replaced until November 18, more than a week after Oswald’s letter.

This date problem in the Oswald letter to the Soviets raises a few possibilities:

1. Oswald had a very good source in U.S. intel, who kept an eye on Mexico City comings and goings, after Oswald’s return to the U.S.;

2. Oswald had a very good source in Soviet and/or Cuban intel, who kept an eye on Mexico City comings and goings, after Oswald’s return to the U.S.; or

3. The letter is a forgery, written to put more Oswald-Soviet connections out there for investigators after the assassination, albeit with the Azcue timing problem in plain sight.

I expect you, Sandy, will agree with scenario number 3, that the letter is a forgery.  I would agree.  But I expect further you will say the forgery was by C.I.A.  And there is a problem.  

First, according to Richard Helms, in a letter to Lee Rankin of the Warren Commission dated February 2, 1964, Helms states:

“We do not know who might have told Oswald that Azcue or any other Cuban had been or was to be replaced, but we speculate that Silvia Duran or some Soviet official might have mentioned it if Oswald complained about Azcue’s altercations with him.”

This would be the Sylvia Duran that had described Oswald “as a blonde.”

In 1967, columnists Robert S. Allen and Paul Scott, who had been targets of RFK’s “Mockingbird Operation,” the wiretapping of various journalists in the early ‘60s who seemed to be getting unusually good information, wrote:

“After receiving this reply from the CIA [Helms], the Warren Commission’s staff made no further inquiry on the Azcue reference, but centered their probe on the circumstances under which the letter was prepared and later discovered.”

And now I hear you Sandy saying “but of course Helms said that; He’s one of the plotters!”  I hear you.  I hear you.  But you’re not out of the woods.  The problem grows deeper you see.  Because in the late 1990s Boris Yeltsin of Russia presented to Bill Clinton some Soviet documents related to their monitoring of the Oswald situation.  

One document in that collection is a cable written shortly after the assassination on November 22, 1963, from Moscow to the Soviet ambassador in Washington.  In it, the Kremlin instructs ambassador Dobrynin to share with Secretary of State Rusk photocopies of correspondence between their embassy and Oswald but he specifically adds: 

“When sending the photocopies, say that the letter of November 9 [discussed above] was not received by the embassy until November 18, obviously it had been held up somewhere.”

Later in the cable, the point is more explicit: 

“The U.S. authorities are aware of this final correspondence, since it was conducted through official mail.”

See https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/other/yeltsin/html/Yeltsin_0091a.htm

This is hugely significant.  It indicates a couple of things.  One is that the Soviets knew of problems with the timing of the Azcue letter.  Second, it instructs Dobrynin to tell Rusk, impliedly, that the Soviets also knew of the U.S. mail-opening program, run then by William J Cotter.  (William J. Cotter, btw, who ran the mail-opening program, was the brother-in-law of John N. McMahon, who in 1962-63, back even in 1959, was an executive in the Agency’s COMOR operations — that has to do with overhead surveillance matters including the U-2 and CORONA satellite programs.  His sister, William Cotter's wife, Virginia Alicia Cotter nee McMahon, died young, in her 40s, in 1962.  She had been a VENONA codebreaker, BTW, in the 1940s, and is buried in Arlington.)  

How the Soviets knew any of these details, Sandy, is a another question put to you along with the suggestion that the Soviets’ knowledge of these activities points yet again in the direction of a mole, or at very least a U.S. KGB interlocutor, who was keeping them abreast.  This supports the view that what is being targeted here — again by someone or someones, CIA, KGB, a mix of both? — is Angleton’s counterintelligence efforts, his “mole-hunt.”  

 

Matt,

I intend on replying to this post of yours. At the moment I am not feeling up to it. (Health issues.)

 

[Sandy Larsen]

12 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

And it's not obvious he was a spy working for U.S. intelligence, no matter how many times you repeat that claim.

 

FWIW, I agree with Jim that it is obvious Oswald worked for U.S. intelligence. Most likely the CIA.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

7 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

Matt, not likely this complicated topic will receive the careful analysis you contemplate from pontificators who refuse to study the source material.

 

"pontificators who refuse to study the source material"  =  "people who disagree with me and won't tolerate my smart-ass remarks"

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

You're welcome. Sorry but I'm probably going to drop out of this thread. Not for lack of interest, but I have a bad feeling about incurring a major misconduct penalty for lèse-majesté.

 

Mocking an Administrator is not wise. Even if it is minor and carries just a few warning points.

 

[Michael Kalin]

On 4/16/2024 at 6:35 PM, Matt Cloud said:

Meanwhile, since you bring up Bagley and Spy Wars, let me direct your attention to p. 236 of the 2007 edition where Bagley writes,

"This startling indication of the penetration of the CIA staff ... deserves investigation."

If you wanted to use that as a starting off point I think it would be useful.  Cheers.

That's precisely the passage that made me realize I had not reckoned with the labyrinthine nature of the Mexico City context.

Meanwhile a definition to set things straight: Pontificate means to speak or write and give your opinion about something as if you knew everything about it and as if only your opinion was correct.

[Michael Kalin]

For those inclined to research this spooky subject, here's a link to Bagley's Spy Wars - Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games --
https://dn790003.ca.archive.org/0/items/SpyWarsMolesMysteriesAndDeadlyGames/Spy Wars - Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games.pdf

It's a cure for the belief that Captain Nosenko was a bonafide defector.

[Matt Cloud]

3 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

For those inclined to research this spooky subject, here's a link to Bagley's Spy Wars - Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games --
https://dn790003.ca.archive.org/0/items/SpyWarsMolesMysteriesAndDeadlyGames/Spy Wars - Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games.pdf

It's a cure for the belief that Captain Nosenko was a bonafide defector.

To quote Bill Safire's Lewis Carroll-like wordplay (New York Times, Jan. 22, 1979), let us go through a glass, darkly:

 

"Beware the Family Jewels, my son

The leaks that spring, the tips from SMERSH --

Taste not Nosenko's Plant, and shun

The myriad Seymourhersh!

 

Gotitzen to the Bagley man

Go find who serves another skipper;

Promotion lies with those who can

Win one for the Double Dipper.

 

But high in Langley's ranks he stands,

The Jabbermole, untouched is he --

Kampiles' heel, a friend of Stan's

He snuckles in his glee.

 

'Board Brillig did the bearish spies

Snatch Paisley's prints before he blabbed;

All flimsy were the alibis

While the mole laughs, ungrabbed."

 

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80B01554R003300280025-3.pdf

[Sandy Larsen]

On 4/15/2024 at 4:21 PM, Matt Cloud said:

One of the as yet unexplained details is the origin of the story of Oswald going to the Soviet Consulate in the first place.  The claim first appeared in public, in print, in the Mexican newspaper Excelsior on November 25, and picked up on that day by U.S. wire service U.P.I.

According to U.P.I., dateline November 25, 1963:

“The newspaper Excelsior said today Lee Harvey Oswald spent several days in Mexico City in late September, calling on consulates of the Soviet Union and Cuba.

…

Excelsior said the Cuban consulate told Oswald it could not issue the visa without talking to the United States government  and that would take 10 or 12 days.  [Oswald had evidently been there on September 27, 1963.]  The paper said Oswald left the office in a huff and slammed the door as he went.

The next day [presumably September 28] he appeared at the office of the soviet consul and asked for a visa directly to the Soviet Union.

[Excelsior] said Oswald supported his argument for the visa by saying his wife was a soviet citizen, that he was a Communist, and that he had lived in Russia for three years. 

Told of Long Wait

The soviet consul told him the normal time to process such a request would be about three months.  Oswald again left in a huff, [Excelsior] said.

[Excelsior] said there was no indication Oswald talked to any important officials of the soviet or Cuban embassies, other than the respective consuls.”

Now, certainly one question that immediately pops out after reading this report is where the newspaper Excelsior got its information.  The Excelsior was a worker cooperative, anti-imperialist, and not presumably an organ of the CIA.  So how did they get their information?  Would CIA leak to Excelsior and thus betray the secret (their “sources & methods”) that they had taps on the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City?  That’s a question, to you.

 

The only evidence we have of "Oswald" visiting the Soviet Embassy, that I am aware of, is the phone call made by an Oswald impersonator On October 1, 1963. That is the only call where the name "Lee Oswald" was given. In the call, the Oswald impersonator spoke in broken Russian to the embassy guard, saying that he had visited with an officer there on September 28. The guard suggested that the officer he had visited was Valeriy Kostikov.

If a person actually did visit Soviet Embassy that day, I believe it was probably an imposter, just like the "Oswald" that visited the Cuban Consulate was an imposter.

As for how the Excelsior newspaper got the information so quickly about the so-called Oswald visits, I suppose they could have gotten it from the Mexican police. After all, the Mexican police did hold Silvia Duran and a number of her friends for questioning, and did actually beat her, likely because she wouldn't admit to the charges made against her by Elena Garro, who was being held in "protective custody" at the time in a hotel. Garro's story painted Oswald as being a friend of Duran's and associating with her friends.

So the story the Mexican Police got from Duran was the innocent/real one (according to their understanding), where Oswald was there to get a transit visa. (Not to negotiate an assassination deal with the Cubans and Russians.)

 

On 4/15/2024 at 4:21 PM, Matt Cloud said:

Another unexplained detail involves the letter that Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly wrote to the Soviets on November 9, 1963, and reprinted in the Warren Commission as CE 15.  In the letter, Oswald writes,

“… the Cuban consulate [sic] was guilty of a gross breach of regulations, I am glad he has since been replaced.”

Evidently indeed, the Cuban consul, Eusebio Azcue, was replaced, as Oswald had noted in his November 9 letter.  The problem is Azcue was not replaced until November 18, more than a week after Oswald’s letter.

This date problem in the Oswald letter to the Soviets raises a few possibilities:

1. Oswald had a very good source in U.S. intel, who kept an eye on Mexico City comings and goings, after Oswald’s return to the U.S.;

2. Oswald had a very good source in Soviet and/or Cuban intel, who kept an eye on Mexico City comings and goings, after Oswald’s return to the U.S.; or

3. The letter is a forgery, written to put more Oswald-Soviet connections out there for investigators after the assassination, albeit with the Azcue timing problem in plain sight.

On 4/15/2024 at 4:21 PM, Matt Cloud said:

I expect you, Sandy, will agree with scenario number 3, that the letter is a forgery.  I would agree. 

 

Yes, I believe the Kostin letter was planted by the CIA in order to strengthen the evidence that Oswald had (supposedly) contracted with the Cubans and Soviets to have Kennedy killed. (Allegations made by Gilberto Alvarado.)

As for the comment in the letter about Azcue being replaced:

The CIA must have known about Azcue's replacement, or planned replacement. We don't really know if there was a timing issue as to the date of Azcue leaving, because when the Kostin letter said, "I am glad he has since been replaced," for all we know the CIA writer of the letter could have meant more specifically that the DECISION for his replacement had been made, and that soon the actual replacement will take place.

Or it could be that the CIA writer of that letter simply made a mistake... he might have merely assumed that the replacement had taken place prior to his writing of the letter.

 

On 4/15/2024 at 4:21 PM, Matt Cloud said:

But I expect further you will say the forgery was by C.I.A.  And there is a problem. 

On 4/15/2024 at 4:21 PM, Matt Cloud said:

First, according to Richard Helms, in a letter to Lee Rankin of the Warren Commission dated February 2, 1964, Helms states:

“We do not know who might have told Oswald that Azcue or any other Cuban had been or was to be replaced, but we speculate that Silvia Duran or some Soviet official might have mentioned it if Oswald complained about Azcue’s altercations with him.”

This would be the Sylvia Duran that had described Oswald “as a blonde.”

In 1967, columnists Robert S. Allen and Paul Scott, who had been targets of RFK’s “Mockingbird Operation,” the wiretapping of various journalists in the early ‘60s who seemed to be getting unusually good information, wrote:

“After receiving this reply from the CIA [Helms], the Warren Commission’s staff made no further inquiry on the Azcue reference, but centered their probe on the circumstances under which the letter was prepared and later discovered.”

On 4/15/2024 at 4:21 PM, Matt Cloud said:

And now I hear you Sandy saying “but of course Helms said that; He’s one of the plotters!”  I hear you.  I hear you. 

 

Actually, I've never thought that Helms was one of the plotter. Though I suppose he might  have been.

But even if he wasn't, I don't understand how what he said would contradict my beliefs as I've stated them here. Maybe you can explain.

 

On 4/15/2024 at 4:21 PM, Matt Cloud said:

But you’re not out of the woods.  The problem grows deeper you see.  Because in the late 1990s Boris Yeltsin of Russia presented to Bill Clinton some Soviet documents related to their monitoring of the Oswald situation.  

One document in that collection is a cable written shortly after the assassination on November 22, 1963, from Moscow to the Soviet ambassador in Washington.  In it, the Kremlin instructs ambassador Dobrynin to share with Secretary of State Rusk photocopies of correspondence between their embassy and Oswald but he specifically adds: 

“When sending the photocopies, say that the letter of November 9 [discussed above] was not received by the embassy until November 18, obviously it had been held up somewhere.”

Later in the cable, the point is more explicit: 

“The U.S. authorities are aware of this final correspondence, since it was conducted through official mail.”

See https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/other/yeltsin/html/Yeltsin_0091a.htm

This is hugely significant.  It indicates a couple of things.  One is that the Soviets knew of problems with the timing of the Azcue letter.  Second, it instructs Dobrynin to tell Rusk, impliedly, that the Soviets also knew of the U.S. mail-opening program, run then by William J Cotter.

 

First, Matt, I don't know if the following statement:

“When sending the photocopies, say that the letter of November 9 [discussed above] was not received by the embassy until November 18, obviously it had been held up somewhere.”

has anything to do with the Azcue replacement timing issue. The two dates, Nov. 9 and Nov. 18, might just be coincidences.

Even if that sentence does relate to the Azcue timing issue, I don't see how the instruction of that sentence, given to Ambassador Dobrynin,  supposedly resolves the timing issue in the Americans' eyes. Especially in light of the fact that the U.S. knew precisely the date of the letter and the date the Soviets received it, a fact that apparently the Russians were aware of (since they knew of the U.S. mail intercept program).

 

On 4/15/2024 at 4:21 PM, Matt Cloud said:

How the Soviets knew any of these details, Sandy, ...

 

What details? The Azcue replacement timing issue dates?

The CIA knew that Azcue was going to be replaced. So why wouldn't the Soviets have not also known that?

With the Azcue replacement date in hand, and the Kostin letter in hand, the Soviets had all the details that you've pointed out. No mole needed to get it for them.

 

On 4/15/2024 at 4:21 PM, Matt Cloud said:

... is a another question put to you along with the suggestion that the Soviets’ knowledge of these activities points yet again in the direction of a mole, or at very least a U.S. KGB interlocutor, who was keeping them abreast.  This supports the view that what is being targeted here — again by someone or someones, CIA, KGB, a mix of both? — is Angleton’s counterintelligence efforts, his “mole-hunt.”  

 

[Matt Cloud]

22 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

As for how the Excelsior newspaper got the information so quickly about the so-called Oswald visits, I suppose they could have gotten it from the Mexican police. After all, the Mexican police did hold Silvia Duran and a number of her friends for questioning, and did actually beat her, likely because she wouldn't admit to the charges made against her by Elena Garro, who was being held in "protective custody" at the time in a hotel. Garro's story painted Oswald as being a friend of Duran's and associating with her friends.

So the story the Mexican Police got from Duran was the innocent/real one (according to their understanding), where Oswald was there to get a transit visa. (Not to negotiate an assassination deal with the Cubans and Russians.)

 

 

 

Well, Duran was apparently arrested at CIA instructions sent on the 23rd along with instructions that she be held incommunicado.  The leak to the paper would seem to violate that second instruction.  But it is a possibility that information obtained during her interrogation could have been a source for the goings-on inside the Cuban embassy -- albeit a very fast turnaround to get it into the paper on the 25th -- but that doesn't account for the paper's information as to the goings-on inside the Soviet embassy.  

[Matt Cloud]

32 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Yes, I believe the Kostin letter was planted by the CIA in order to strengthen the evidence that Oswald had (supposedly) contracted with the Cubans and Soviets to have Kennedy killed. (Allegations made by Gilberto Alvarado.)

As for the comment in the letter about Azcue being replaced:

The CIA must have known about Azcue's replacement, or planned replacement. We don't really know if there was a timing issue as to the date of Azcue leaving, because when the Kostin letter said, "I am glad he has since been replaced," for all we know the CIA writer of the letter could have meant more specifically that the DECISION for his replacement had been made, and that soon the actual replacement will take place.

Or it could be that the CIA writer of that letter simply made a mistake... he might have merely assumed that the replacement had taken place prior to his writing of the letter.

 

 

You write "The CIA must have known about Azcue's replacement, or planned replacement."  That IS the issue I raised.  Simply stating that you have reached a conclusion as to the question is non-responsive, without explanation as to how you can justify that conclusion.  

 

And whether Azcue was in fact replaced or whether merely the decision to replace had been made, you have not answered the question as to how the author of the letter, whoever that might have been, knew either of those scenarios.  

 

[Matt Cloud]

38 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Actually, I've never thought that Helms was one of the plotter. Though I suppose he might  have been.

But even if he wasn't, I don't understand how what he said would contradict my beliefs as I've stated them here. Maybe you can explain.

 

 

Helms says he doesn't know how Oswald learned of the Azcue replacement.  You believe Oswald's knowledge of Azcue's replacement is irrelevant because Oswald didn't write the letter in the first place.  I agree.  Helms' statement provides no information either way as to the outstanding question: how did the author of the letter know about Azcue's replacement?  You simply say the CIA "must have known.".  You can only get to the "must" if you assume CIA wrote the letter.  Nothing you've written establishes that.  It is merely an assumption.  

[Matt Cloud]

45 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

First, Matt, I don't know if the following statement:

“When sending the photocopies, say that the letter of November 9 [discussed above] was not received by the embassy until November 18, obviously it had been held up somewhere.”

has anything to do with the Azcue replacement timing issue. The two dates, Nov. 9 and Nov. 18, might just be coincidences.

Even if that sentence does relate to the Azcue timing issue, I don't see how the instruction of that sentence, given to Ambassador Dobrynin,  supposedly resolves the timing issue in the Americans' eyes. Especially in light of the fact that the U.S. knew precisely the date of the letter and the date the Soviets received it, a fact that apparently the Russians were aware of (since they knew of the U.S. mail intercept program).

 

 

 

 

The instructions to Dobrynin indicate that the Kremlin is aware of some issue with regard to the timing of the letter.  The Soviets apparently don't want to say they received the letter when they in did (the 9th evidently) and for some reason feel the need to state to the U.S. that it was received on a later date (the 18th).  Why?  

The instructions don't resolve the timing issue, whether "in the Americans' eyes" or other.  Indeed they perpetuate it.  More however, what the instructions do is inform the Americans that there counter-intelligence program is blown -- that it's useless.  How did the Soviets learn of the mail-opening program?  How did they know to tell the U.S. that there could be delays in its delivery?  That is the question.