FBI airtel on Lee Harvey Oswald 11/19/63

[Matt Allison]

This went to the DC, Dallas, and New Orleans field offices, as well as HQ. Info originated from Mexi legat the previous day, 11/18/63, and lays out Oswald's letter to Soviet Embassy in DC that mentions MC trip and visit with "Kostin". 

How info about Oswald's letter made it from the Soviet Embassy in DC to Mexico City is probably an interesting story.

But the other thing is that one would think this would've been enough to get Oswald flagged for security risk re: JFK's trip 3 days later.

Perhaps this was what Jesse Curry was referencing when he said the FBI knew Oswald was in Dallas and the later claim that Oswald had interacted with "subversives".

https://ncisahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/OSWALD-Lee-H-FBI-Source-reporting-on-Oswalds-contact-with-Soviets-in-Mexico-City-and-Washngton-OCT-181963.pdf

[Matt Cloud]

5 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

This went to the DC, Dallas, and New Orleans field offices, as well as HQ. Info originated from Mexi legat the previous day, 11/18/63, and lays out Oswald's letter to Soviet Embassy in DC that mentions MC trip and visit with "Kostin". 

How info about Oswald's letter made it from the Soviet Embassy in DC to Mexico City is probably an interesting story.

But the other thing is that one would think this would've been enough to get Oswald flagged for security risk re: JFK's trip 3 days later.

Perhaps this was what Jesse Curry was referencing when he said the FBI knew Oswald was in Dallas and the later claim that Oswald had interacted with "subversives".

https://ncisahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/OSWALD-Lee-H-FBI-Source-reporting-on-Oswalds-contact-with-Soviets-in-Mexico-City-and-Washngton-OCT-181963.pdf

It certainly is an interesting story.  That's an understatement.  

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 suspect, as do many others, that the letter is a forgery. But I don't necessarily agree that it was a forgery by C.I.A.  

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.”

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, is another question, 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.”  

[Jonathan Cohen]

One would construe this as further support for the real life Oswald actually being in Mexico City, no?

[Matt Cloud]

43 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

One would construe this as further support for the real life Oswald actually being in Mexico City, no?

"One" might.  But another "one" might not.

[Jonathan Cohen]

8 minutes ago, Matt Cloud said:

"One" might.  But another "one" might not.

What specifically about Matt Allison's post would support the notion that Oswald was impersonated there, or furthermore, not even physically present?

[Matt Cloud]

1 minute ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

What specifically about Matt Allison's post would support the notion that Oswald was impersonated there, or furthermore, not even physically present?

My understanding of the circumstances is not constrained by the specific limitations of that post.

[Bill Simpich]

This letter was designed to cement Oswald's ties to the USSR and Cuba prior to the assassination of JFK. The FBI found the letter was written on Ruth Paine's typewriter.

I used to think it was a forgery - but now I think the typed letter was not a forgery. You can find my detailed analysis at chapter 12 of my book The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend.  Here's my short analysis:

Besides cementing Oswald's ties to the USSR and Cuba, it's a handy way to poke these Communist adversaries and maybe even the FBI. 

Notice its date - November 9. Oswald expresses pleasure at Consul Eusebio Azcue's replacement as consul at the Cuban consulate in Mexico City. The Mexico City tapes indicated that Azcue had evicted a man calling himself "Lee Oswald" from the consulate two months earlier.

The replacement of Azcue had been planned since early September, before Oswald's arrival into Mexico City. The reference to Azcue's replacement in the letter indicates that the writer had deep knowledge into Cuban affairs.

Who knew that Azcue was about to be replaced? The people with access to the telephone taps and hidden microphones in the Cuban consulate -- Bill Harvey at Staff D, and David Phillips and other CIA officials at the Mexico City station.   The CIA does share some of its information with the FBI.

The FBI offered the opinion that Oswald's source had to be a Cuban consulate informant, a KGB member, or the CIA itself.   Most likely, it was a contact of the FBI (such as Jim Hosty) or even Silvia Duran at the Cuban consulate who tipped off Oswald about Azcue's replacement.  

version 1
("Oswald's rough draft")

version 2
("Ruth's" copy)

version 3
(2nd copy)

On another front, according to the letter, since Oswald wasn't able to get a Cuban visa, he was forced to take up "our business" with "Comrade Kostin" in Mexico City. This is clearly a reference to Valeriy Kostikov, who FBI chief Clarence Kelley claimed was "the officer-in-charge for Western Hemisphere terrorist activities -- including and especially assassination." However, the CIA and FBI in mid-1963 concluded that there was no evidence that Kostikov had anything to do with any assassination unit. The imaginary spectre of Kostikov leading a KGB-driven plot is raised once again.

Oswald did meet Kostikov at the Soviet consulate on September 28 - it was the most substantive conversation he ever had with the Soviets in Mexico, even though his request for an instant visa was turned down that day.

Also note that the letter points out that Oswald did not use his "real name" when he went to Mexico City. Oswald used the name Harvey Oswald Lee. The authorities initially insisted that it was just an error involving a comma, as his visa states "Lee, Harvey Oswald", but by late December 1963 even CIA officer John Whitten thought that it was deliberately caused by Oswald...

I think the evidence points away from this letter as a forgery - and I'll tell you where it leads me...Oswald wanted Ruth Paine, the FBI and the Soviets to believe that he was involved in espionage.

Oswald figured the FBI might intercept the letter - and that Ruth would tell Hosty the next time he came to visit that she had found Oswald's letter lying on her desk and made a copy of it.  Hosty had visited Ruth's household twice in early November and there was reason to believe that he might return again.  As it turned out, Hosty's next visit to Ruth Paine was the day after the assassination!

Oswald went to Hosty's office and left a threatening note during the days after the letter was mailed! The note was unsealed and partially visible to the receptionist.  Oswald wanted everybody to know the gist of what he had written.  That's why he left a copy of his letter on Ruth's desk, knowing that she would find it.

Oswald badly needed his military benefits. The G.I. Bill of that era could provide him and his family with the means to buy a home and the good life that goes with it. He was as poor as a man can be. Somehow, it got in his head. It might have been with the help of somebody.

If Oswald was seen as an espionage asset - it just might be the best way to get his benefits back.

For the same reasons, that's why Oswald was lurking around the interior of the building during the final thirty minutes before 12:30 pm on 11/22.  He was probably the most politically-engaged person in the building - and he was the only person I know who was not angling for a prolonged period for a good viewing spot to see the motorcade.   I think Oswald was looking, once again, for his contact.   

An hour later, at 1:30 pm, Oswald was looking yet again for his contact.  This time, it was at the Texas Theatre.

 

Edited June 11 by Bill Simpich

[Matt Cloud]

41 minutes ago, Bill Simpich said:

This letter was designed to cement Oswald's ties to the USSR and Cuba prior to the assassination of JFK. The FBI found the letter was written on Ruth Paine's typewriter.

I used to think it was a forgery - but now I think the typed letter was not a forgery. You can find my detailed analysis at chapter 12 of my book The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend.  Here's my short analysis:

Besides cementing Oswald's ties to the USSR and Cuba, it's a handy way to poke these Communist adversaries and maybe even the FBI. 

Notice its date - November 9. Oswald expresses pleasure at Consul Eusebio Azcue's replacement as consul at the Cuban consulate in Mexico City. The Mexico City tapes indicated that Azcue had evicted a man calling himself "Lee Oswald" from the consulate two months earlier.

The replacement of Azcue had been planned since early September, before Oswald's arrival into Mexico City. The reference to Azcue's replacement in the letter indicates that the writer had deep knowledge into Cuban affairs.

Who knew that Azcue was about to be replaced? The people with access to the telephone taps and hidden microphones in the Cuban consulate -- Bill Harvey at Staff D, and David Phillips and other CIA officials at the Mexico City station.   The CIA does share some of its information with the FBI.

The FBI offered the opinion that Oswald's source had to be a Cuban consulate informant, a KGB member, or the CIA itself.   Most likely, it was a contact of the FBI (such as Jim Hosty) or even Silvia Duran at the Cuban consulate who tipped off Oswald about Azcue's replacement.  

version 1
("Oswald's rough draft")

version 2
("Ruth's" copy)

version 3
(2nd copy)

On another front, according to the letter, since Oswald wasn't able to get a Cuban visa, he was forced to take up "our business" with "Comrade Kostin" in Mexico City. This is clearly a reference to Valeriy Kostikov, who FBI chief Clarence Kelley claimed was "the officer-in-charge for Western Hemisphere terrorist activities -- including and especially assassination." However, the CIA and FBI in mid-1963 concluded that there was no evidence that Kostikov had anything to do with any assassination unit. The imaginary spectre of Kostikov leading a KGB-driven plot is raised once again.

Oswald did meet Kostikov at the Soviet consulate on September 28 - it was the most substantive conversation he ever had with the Soviets in Mexico, even though his request for an instant visa was turned down that day.

Also note that the letter points out that Oswald did not use his "real name" when he went to Mexico City. Oswald used the name Harvey Oswald Lee. The authorities initially insisted that it was just an error involving a comma, as his visa states "Lee, Harvey Oswald", but by late December 1963 even CIA officer John Whitten thought that it was deliberately caused by Oswald...

I think the evidence points away from this letter as a forgery - and I'll tell you where it leads me...Oswald wanted Ruth Paine, the FBI and the Soviets to believe that he was involved in espionage.

Oswald figured the FBI might intercept the letter - and that Ruth would tell Hosty the next time he came to visit that she had found Oswald's letter lying on her desk and made a copy of it.  Hosty had visited Ruth's household twice in early November and there was reason to believe that he might return again.  As it turned out, Hosty's next visit to Ruth Paine was the day after the assassination!

Oswald went to Hosty's office and left a threatening note during the days after the letter was mailed! The note was unsealed and partially visible to the receptionist.  Oswald wanted everybody to know the gist of what he had written.  That's why he left a copy of his letter on Ruth's desk, knowing that she would find it.

Oswald badly needed his military benefits. The G.I. Bill of that era could provide him and his family with the means to buy a home and the good life that goes with it. He was as poor as a man can be. Somehow, it got in his head. It might have been with the help of somebody.

If Oswald was seen as an espionage asset - it just might be the best way to get his benefits back.

For the same reasons, that's why Oswald was lurking around the interior of the building during the final thirty minutes before 12:30 pm on 11/22.  He was probably the most politically-engaged person in the building - and he was the only person I know who was not angling for a prolonged period for a good viewing spot to see the motorcade.   I think Oswald was looking, once again, for his contact.   

An hour later, at 1:30 pm, Oswald was looking yet again for his contact.  This time, it was at the Texas Theatre.

 

There is another side to this story, Bill.  What do the Soviet documents indicate?  

Well, the Soviets’ internal cables to Amb. Dobrynin immediately after the assassination — but not released until 1998 (?) — state unequivocally that the CIA’s mail-opening program is, in the parlance, “blown.”  

The Kremlin instructs Dobrynin to be sure to say to his counterpart Secretary of State Rusk that the “Kostin letter,” dated November 9, 1963, was not received until November 17, even though the Soviets, according to their internal communications, already had it in their possession on the 9th.*  November 17 happens to be the exact date that now declassified CIA documents indicate the HTLINGUAL program intercepted and opened the Kostin letter.

These facts — first, the Kremlin’s instructions to state to the U.S. that the letter was received on the 17th and, second, the Kremlin’s statement in its internal cables that it already knows of the mail-opening program — indicate that HTLINGUAL is note merely blown (that’s the fact of the Kremlin’s knowledge) but that a mole with operational access to the day-to-day workings of the HTLINGUAL program has tipped-off the Soviets on this matter specifically (that’s the fact the Kremlin knows they must say the letter was received on the 17th).  

More.  By including the Azcue timing problem — implicating that Oswald had information as to the Cuban consulate’s replacement having occurred before it in fact did occur — whoever wrote the letter gave the Soviets the upper-hand.  Including the Azcue “error” gave the Soviets the opportunity to threaten the U.S. — as Dobrynin was specifically instructed to do, impliedly — with a public disclosure of the mail-opening program, which would humiliate the C.I.A. at very least, most especially Angleton’s counter-intelligence department, should the U.S. go ahead with making an issue of the forgery possibility.  As it happened, in the event, the Warren Commission indeed dropped the enquiry altogether.

 

 

[Bill Simpich]

Matt, I'm puzzled by two things.  

One is that HTLINGUAL memos are foreign correspondence, not domestic.  Yes the Russian consulate could be construed as foreign, but it's still on domestic soil.

The other is that there is an asterisk next to your statement that the Soviets had Oswald's correspondence on November 9, but no citation.  This is obviously a very big deal because it would prove not only that the Oswald letter was sent on November 9 but that it never went in the US mail. 

Could you please provide your citation about what the Soviets said about November 9?   Again, this sounds like a very big deal.

 

[Jonathan Cohen]

Bill, thanks for the detailed post. Can one then safely conclude that you believe the one and only, real life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald was indeed in Mexico City in September 1963?

[Bill Simpich]

Jonathan, I wrote my book State Secret to try to solve the question about whether Lee Oswald was impersonated in Mexico City. 

I believe we have sufficient evidence to conclude Oswald was impersonated on the telephone - I don't feel that we have enough information to conclude whether or not Oswald was impersonated in person.   The CIA specializes in keeping people guessing on questions like this.

Edited June 11 by Bill Simpich

[Matt Cloud]

15 minutes ago, Bill Simpich said:

Matt, I'm puzzled by two things.  

One is that HTLINGUAL memos are foreign correspondence, not domestic.  Yes the Russian consulate could be construed as foreign, but it's still on domestic soil.

The other is that there is an asterisk next to your statement that the Soviets had Oswald's correspondence on November 9, but no citation.  This is obviously a very big deal because it would prove not only that the Oswald letter was sent on November 9 but that it never went in the US mail. 

Could you please provide your citation about what the Soviets said about November 9?   Again, this sounds like a very big deal.

 

Bill -- you've written about it, or I should say more precisely around it, recently, as in earlier this year.  I distinctly recall a post somewhere by you addressing the subject of the Soviet cables, albeit not these particularities.  In any case, the cables released by Yeltsin, if that's what you are asking for, are here: 

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/other/yeltsin/html/Yeltsin_0028a.htm

and more generally:

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/other/yeltsin/contents.htm

As to HTLingual applying to what you perceive as only non-domestic US mail I would say that's a good point, but I would presume that since the grounds of the Soviet Embassy here in DC are considered Soviet soil, domestic mail addressed to the Soviet embassy would fall within HTLingual's coverage. 

 

As to the asterisk, sorry, that is the result of an incomplete cut-and-paste by me.  The asterisk links to the following additional speculation by me:

 

*The question of how the Soviets could have received already the Kostin letter on the 9th when that was only the day on which it was mailed is a good one.  Some have commented here that this seeming incongruity establishes that the Soviets must be in error within their own internal communications, that they must then have received the Kostin letter at some other, later date, but before the 17th.  This is premature as a conclusion for the simple fact -- nay, simple possibility -- that the letter may have been authored/forged inside the embassy itself [Bill -- you say it was in fact typed on Paine's typewriter; okay], some time prior to the 9th.  Or it could have been authored/forged by the mysterious mole and/or his associates, again, sometime before the 9th and a copy, perhaps hand-delivered (!) and walked right over, was given to the Soviet Embassy in Washington and then another copy, the “original,” mailed from whatever post-office region it was in fact mailed from and it was that copy, the original let’s say, which was intercepted on the 17th, with the Soviet embassy having a copy from the forgers already, all along, throughout the period of the letter’s existence.  

 

P.S. Please hit reply" to my post when/if you do, so that I can see that you have in fact replied.  Thanks.  

Edited June 11 by Matt Cloud

[Matt Cloud]

21 minutes ago, Matt Cloud said:

Bill -- you've written about it, or I should say more precisely around it, recently, as in earlier this year.  I distinctly recall a post somewhere by you addressing the subject of the Soviet cables, albeit not these particularities.  In any case, the cables released by Yeltsin, if that's what you are asking for, are here: 

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/other/yeltsin/html/Yeltsin_0028a.htm

and more generally:

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/other/yeltsin/contents.htm

As to HTLingual applying to what you perceive as only non-domestic US mail I would say that's a good point, but I would presume that since the grounds of the Soviet Embassy here in DC are considered Soviet soil, domestic mail addressed to the Soviet embassy would fall within HTLingual's coverage. 

 

As to the asterisk, sorry, that is the result of an incomplete cut-and-paste by me.  The asterisk links to the following additional speculation by me:

 

*The question of how the Soviets could have received already the Kostin letter on the 9th when that was only the day on which it was mailed is a good one.  Some have commented here that this seeming incongruity establishes that the Soviets must be in error within their own internal communications, that they must then have received the Kostin letter at some other, later date, but before the 17th.  This is premature as a conclusion for the simple fact -- nay, simple possibility -- that the letter may have been authored/forged inside the embassy itself [Bill -- you say it was in fact typed on Paine's typewriter; okay], some time prior to the 9th.  Or it could have been authored/forged by the mysterious mole and/or his associates, again, sometime before the 9th and a copy, perhaps hand-delivered (!) and walked right over, was given to the Soviet Embassy in Washington and then another copy, the “original,” mailed from whatever post-office region it was in fact mailed from and it was that copy, the original let’s say, which was intercepted on the 17th, with the Soviet embassy having a copy from the forgers already, all along, throughout the period of the letter’s existence.  

 

P.S. Please hit reply" to my post when/if you do, so that I can see that you have in fact replied.  Thanks.  

And to clarify, Bill, what I recall you as having written was not a post here at this forum but on a blog site somewhere, the Kennedys and King site perhaps?    I may have you confused with someone else, but I recall it being you.

[Matt Allison]

5 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

One would construe this as further support for the real life Oswald actually being in Mexico City, no?

Perhaps. I'm honestly not sure what to make of it.

It obviously isn't surprising that the letter was intercepted and read, and since info about a MC trip was mentioned, maybe that's why Mexi was informed?

But then the routing back to the FBI is just goofy, IMO.  I don't get it, and I would think or hope there must be other documentation that explains what is happening here.

[Matt Cloud]

4 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Perhaps. I'm honestly not sure what to make of it.

It obviously isn't surprising that the letter was intercepted and read, and since info about a MC trip was mentioned, maybe that's why Mexi was informed?

But then the routing back to the FBI is just goofy, IMO.  I don't get it, and I would think or hope there must be other documentation that explains what is happening here.

One would hope, yes.  Alas, you've strolled into the Hall of Mirrors.

 

The informant may well be "FEDORA."

Fedora was the codename for Aleksey Kulak (1923^[1]–1983^[2]), a KGB-agent who infiltrated the United Nations during the Cold War. One afternoon in March 1962, Kulak walked into the FBI's NYC field office in broad daylight and offered his services. Kulak told his American handlers there was a KGB mole working at the FBI, leading to a decades-long mole hunt that seriously disrupted the agency. Although the FBI's official position for a few years in the late 1970s and early 1980s was that Fedora had been Kremlin-loyal all along, that position was reversed to its original one in the mid-1980s, and Fedora is now said by the Bureau to have been spying faithfully for the FBI from when he "walked in" in March 1962 until he returned to Moscow for good in 1977.

 

See here: