Did The Mexico City Station Hide Oswald's Cuban Consulate Visits From The Home Office?

[Richard Bertolino]

In his Chapter 5 at the MFF site, Bill Simpich states his guiding question:

 

"Before JFK was killed, why did the Mexico City station hide all the evidence of the Oswald visit to the Cuban consulate from CIA Headquarters, while admitting the visits to the Soviet consulate?

Or, to put it another way, why did Headquarters hide Oswald’s return to the United States and subsequent history as a pro-Castro activist from the Mexico City station?

In other words, why was everything that might lead to a connection between Oswald and Cuba suppressed from the record before the assassination?"

 

Is this really true? Did CIA MC hide this from headquarters? According to our transcripts, Oswald did not even mention his own name until his last call on October 1. This call came from a tap on the Soviet line, so how would CIA Mexico City know where Oswald was calling from or that he was the same man who had been referred to earlier at the Cuban consulate? Did headquarters really hide anything from MC? Why would they bother to notify Mexico City that Oswald had returned to the US or of his pro-Castro activities?

[Gerry Down]

2 hours ago, Richard Bertolino said:

why did Headquarters hide Oswald’s return to the United States

Not sure I understand this. As far as I know, CIA hq did inform the Mexico City station that LHO had defected to the USSR and it had a maturing effect on him.

How would the CIA know it had a maturing effect on him unless they knew he had returned from there.

[Richard Bertolino]

Just now, Gerry Down said:

Not sure I understand this. As far as I know, CIA hq did inform the Mexico City station that LHO had defected to the USSR and it had a maturing effect on him.

How would the CIA know it had a maturing effect on him unless they knew he had returned from there.

The fact that they did not tell Mexico City doesn't necessarily mean that they hid the information. Did they tell the Paris office? Did they hide the information from the Paris office? Why would Mexico City need to know anything about Oswald being in the US?

[Sandy Larsen]

On 4/25/2024 at 4:07 AM, Richard Bertolino said:

Before JFK was killed, why did the Mexico City station hide all the evidence of the Oswald visit to the Cuban consulate from CIA Headquarters, while admitting the visits to the Soviet consulate?

 

You are right.

The name Lee Oswald was mentioned in just one telephone call. So the embassy/consulate surveillance crews were aware of only what was said in that one call. And what he said was that he had been to the Soviet Embassy earlier and had spoken to someone there.

The person making that call did not say a thing about the Cuban Consulate.

Therefore, the only thing the telephone surveillance crews knew was that "Oswald" had been to the Soviet Embassy.

 

[Richard Bertolino]

17 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

You are right.

The name Lee Oswald was mentioned in just one telephone call. So the embassy/consulate surveillance crews were aware of only what was said in that one call. And what he said was that he had been to the Soviet Embassy earlier and had spoken to someone there.

The person making that call did not say a thing about the Cuban Consulate.

Therefore, the only thing the telephone surveillance crews knew was that "Oswald" had been to the Soviet Embassy.

 

There was an investigation involving Boris Tarasoff identifying that caller with an earlier caller, but I don't know when the Mexico City station knew that the callers had been identified as the same person. I don't know whether that was before or after the assassination. But even if that had been known before the assassination, it seems to me that the big news would be that this US citizen had been talking to the Soviets, and maybe that would be all that would be reported to Langley. Anybody talking to the Soviets could be involved with the Cubans, too, and I think any CIA analyst would understand that. I don't have my head around all of the issues raised by Simpich. I might not be smart enough to understand it all. But this seems to me to be a manufactured problem. It does not seem clear at all that Oswald's Cuban interests were being hidden in CIA communications.

[Sandy Larsen]

5 minutes ago, Richard Bertolino said:

But this seems to me to be a manufactured problem.

 

I think that all this mole stuff regarding Oswald is manufactured.

 

[Richard Bertolino]

Just now, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I think that all this mole stuff regarding Oswald is manufactured.

 

I think so, too. I don't think Oswald was sent to the Soviet Union as part of a mole hunt, even if some very respectable researches disagree. I think Oswald was spying for the Soviets before he went to the Soviet Union.

[Sandy Larsen]

8 minutes ago, Richard Bertolino said:

I think so, too. I don't think Oswald was sent to the Soviet Union as part of a mole hunt, even if some very respectable researches disagree. I think Oswald was spying for the Soviets before he went to the Soviet Union.

 

Spying for the Soviets?

That's odd. I think he was spying ON the Soviets when he was living there.

I think Oswald was working for the CIA. And that's how the plotters were able to get him working in the right building at the right time to perform his unwitting duty as patsy.

 

[Richard Bertolino]

1 minute ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Spying for the Soviets?

That's odd. I think he was spying ON the Soviets when he was living there.

I think Oswald was working for the CIA. And that's how the plotters were able to get him working in the right building at the right time to perform his unwitting duty as patsy.

 

I think Oswald was working for the Soviets, and that's why the plotters were cool with setting him up and murdering him. He was just a dirty Red.

[Gerry Down]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

You are right.

The name Lee Oswald was mentioned in just one telephone call. So the embassy/consulate surveillance crews were aware of only what was said in that one call. And what he said was that he had been to the Soviet Embassy earlier and had spoken to someone there.

The person making that call did not say a thing about the Cuban Consulate.

Therefore, the only thing the telephone surveillance crews knew was that "Oswald" had been to the Soviet Embassy.

 

The below Nov 23rd 1963 document says the person doing the transcribing knew that the person who phoned the soviet embassy on Oct 1st speaking broken russian was the same person who had phoned the soviet embassy on Sept 28th from the cuban embassy speaking broken russian.

Therefore the transcriptionist knew Oswald had been to the cuban embassy.

Now, when the transcriptionist knew this is not clear. Did they know this at the time they made the transcription or is this something they figured out on Nov 23rd when listening back to the audio tape (an audio tape that was supposed to have been destroyed)?

LINK: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=44666#relPageId=4

[Richard Bertolino]

25 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

The below Nov 23rd 1963 document says the person doing the transcribing knew that the person who phoned the soviet embassy on Oct 1st speaking broken russian was the same person who had phoned the soviet embassy on Sept 28th from the cuban embassy speaking broken russian.

Therefore the transcriptionist knew Oswald had been to the cuban embassy.

Now, when the transcriptionist knew this is not clear. Did they know this at the time they made the transcription or is this something they figured out on Nov 23rd when listening back to the audio tape (an audio tape that was supposed to have been destroyed)?

LINK: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=44666#relPageId=4

Douglas Feinglass is Boris Tarasoff, and the present tense is used as if Tarasoff had just recently been asked.

[Sandy Larsen]

20 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

The below Nov 23rd 1963 document says the person doing the transcribing knew that the person who phoned the soviet embassy on Oct 1st speaking broken russian was the same person who had phoned the soviet embassy on Sept 28th from the cuban embassy speaking broken russian.

Therefore the transcriptionist knew Oswald had been to the cuban embassy.

Now, when the transcriptionist knew this is not clear. Did they know this at the time they made the transcription or is this something they figured out on Nov 23rd when listening back to the audio tape (an audio tape that was supposed to have been destroyed)?

LINK: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=44666#relPageId=4

 

Okay, but that doesn't tell us anything relevant to the topic of this thread. Because it is dated after the assassination.

 

On October 9, the clandestine telephone intercept teams reported that Lee Oswald had visited the Russian Embassy at the end of September. But they didn't say a word about  him visiting the Cuban Consulate. The question is, why?

The answer is because the person talking on the phone only used the name Oswald in one call. And that was a a call to the Soviet Embassy. In the call, "Oswald" said that he had been to the Soviet Embassy earlier.

That's how the telephone intercept team knew that Oswald had been to the Soviet Embassy. But there was no way of knowing he had also been to the Cuban Consulate.

 

[Gerry Down]

Do we know what is the first CIA document which states/realizes that Oswald had been to cuban consulate and CIA hq realize "Oh crap, Oswald was at the cuban consulate too in Mexico City"?

The above document i linked to above gives no appearance of surprise that Oswald had been to the cuban consulate too, and that he had actually made a phonecall from there to the soviet embassy on the Saturday.

On the Friday, after Oswald had come back from the soviet embassy to the cuban embassy, Silvia Duran phoned the soviet embassy to discuss the guy she had just sent over to them. This would appear to set up quiet a history of this guy Oswald going back and forth from the cuban to the soviet embassy for the telephone surveillance crew. 

[Sandy Larsen]

38 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

Now, when the transcriptionist knew this is not clear. Did they know this at the time they made the transcription or is this something they figured out on Nov 23rd when listening back to the audio tape (an audio tape that was supposed to have been destroyed)?

 

Oops, I should have read more carefully. You do see the problem. Well, then, my prior post is for other people reading the thread.

 

[Richard Bertolino]

There is this page from 1976, HSCA, about their chats with the Tarasoffs. Tarasoff says elsewhere in this document that he was never asked about the Oswald conversations again. The clear sense is, without it being explicit, that the Mexico City office DID know the identity of the 1st caller before the assassination. Presumably this would mean that they knew in early October that Oswald had been at the Cuban consulate. But the transcripts we have don't quite match up to the memories of the Tarasoffs.