JJA Said "LHO" Dealt With Ruskie Triple-Agent in M.C.

[Thomas Graves]

In his top-secret June 19, 1975, Church Committee testimony, former chief of CIA counterintelligence James Angleton mentioned Ivan Obyedkov, the surprisingly well-paid Mexico City Soviet Embassy security guard who, according to the transcript of a CIA phone-tap on the Soviet Embassy, volunteered the radioactive name "Kostikov" over the phone to Lee Oswald (or to an impostor) in Mexico City on October 1,1963.

"Radioactive" because J. Edgar Hoover's beloved KGB triple agent "Fedora", in concert with a witting or unwitting undercover KGB officer at the U.N. and "Tumbleweed," a mysterious FBI double-agent from East Germany, had, about a year earlier, implicated Kostikov as a high-ranking officer in the KGB sabotage-and-assassination department known as Department 13 of the First Chief Directorate (FCD).

I'm speaking, of course, of Aleksey Kulak, Oleg Brykin, and Guenter Schulz, respectively.

It seems clear to me that, contrary to what many conspiracy theorists fervently believe, Oswald may have been telephonically impersonated in Mexico City by a Soviet, and in support of my theory I'd like to remind the reader that there's a scrap of paper in CIA files that states that the caller to the Soviet Embassy on 9/28/63 had difficulty making himself understood in both English and Russian. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=50273&relPageId=5 

I believe that the apparent incongruity of a Russian "Oswald" not being able to speak Russian very well can be explained by the impersonator's not realizing that Oswald was a fluent speaker of Russian, and had therefore intentionally spoken Russian poorly in his misguided attempt to imitate Oswald.

Angleton mentioned triple-agent Igor Obyedkov in his June 19, 1975, Church Committee testimony (at the very top of MFF page 16), but the stenographer/court reporter/transcriber mis-spelled his name as "Byetkov."  It's interesting to note that somebody who had access to this document wrote a "?" above the word "Byetkov" in the transcript; interesting in that it suggests that the name was mis-spelled and therefore unknown/unidentifiable to that reader.

Bill Simpich recently wrote in a FB Message to me that he agrees with my conclusion that this "Byetkov*?" must have been Obyedkov. In Chapter 5 of "State Secret," Simpich points out that Angleton talks about this triple-agent for about five consecutive pages in his February 9, 1976, Church Committee testimony, in which Angleton refers to "Byetkov*?" not by name, but as "the second hangnail".

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1434#relPageId=50&tab=page

But I digress.

My theory is that Khrushchev and/or Castro planned to have JFK killed (as to why, read page 391or so in chapter 10 of Mark Riebling's book "Wedge" -- linked below), and Obyedkov's superiors, knowing that the embassy phone that Obyedkov would be speaking to "Oswald" on was tapped by the CIA, and knowing that Valeriy Kostikov was already suspected by the CIA and FBI as being "Department 13," had Obyedkov plant a John Newman-like "WW III Virus" in Oswald's CIA file in order to force Armageddon-fearing CIA/FBI into covering up, after the assassination, any and all evidence of KGB and/or DGI involvement in it.

PS  As a footnote of sorts, it's interesting to note that Obyedkov's 48-page 201 file is very highly redacted, with several pages completely blank. I believe this fact tends to support Angleton's assertion that CIA had "doubled" Obyedkov.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=147718&search=201-779495#relPageId=1&tab=page

As promised, here's chapter 10 from "Wedge"--
https://archive.org/details/WedgeFromPearlHarborTo911HowTheSecretWarBetweenTheFBIAndCIAHasEndangeredNationalSecurity/page/n372

--  Tommy 

[Steve M. Galbraith]

I'm talking about Ivan Obyedkov, of course, the Mexico City Soviet Embassy security guard whom Oswald (or an Oswald impostor) spoke with over the phone on October 1, 1963, and who volunteered to Oswald the radioactive (Department 13 ?!) name "Kostikov".

Angleton mentioned him in his June 19, 1975, "top secret" Church Committee testimony (at the very top of MFF page 16), but the stenographer/court reporter/transcriber mis-spelled his name as "Byetkov".  It's interesting to note that somebody who had access to this top-secret document wrote a "?" above the word "Byetkov" in the transcript; interesting in that it suggests that the name was mis-spelled and therefore unknown/unidentifiable to that reader.

As Bill Simpich (who recently wrote in a FB Message to me that he agrees with my conclusion that this "Byetkov*?" must have been Obyedkov) points out in Chapters 5 and 6 of "State Secret," Angleton talks about this alleged triple-agent (i.e., in September-October, 1963, he was still secretly loyal to the Kremlin) in greater detail in his February 9, 1976, Church Committee testimony, in which Angleton refers to him not by name, but as "another hangnail".

My working theory is that ... gasp ... Khrushchev and/or Castro had JFK killed (as to why, read chapter 10 of Mark Riebling's book "Wedge" -- linked below), and Obyedkov, knowing that the embassy phone he was speaking to Oswald on was probably tapped by the CIA, and knowing that Valeriy Kostikov (number two KGB man at the embassy) was already suspected by the CIA and FBI as being "Department 13," planted a John Newman-like "WW III Virus" in Oswald's CIA file in order to force Armageddon-fearing CIA/FBI into covering up any and all evidence of KGB and/or DGI involvement in the assassination.

.......................................................................................

That's all for now.

I'll try to fill you in a little bit more, later.

Suffice it to say that Obyedkov's 48-page 201 file is very highly redacted, with several pages completely blank. 

--  Tommy 


Here's chapter 10 from "Wedge"--

https://archive.org/details/WedgeFromPearlHarborTo911HowTheSecretWarBetweenTheFBIAndCIAHasEndangeredNationalSecurity/page/n372

I find it difficult to believe that an embassy security guard in Mexico City would know that Khrushchev and Castro were plotting, indeed had plotted, to kill JFK. And that he knew on October 1 that one Lee Oswald would somehow be involved.  And furthermore that somehow placing Kostikov's name in CIA files would PREVENT retaliation by the US afterwards?

That's three remarkable ideas, it seems to me. And remember: Oswald did meet with Kostikov and the two other KGB agents/embassy officials.

Here's the exchange between LHO and this guard. This is the October 1 call made on a Monday.

Oswald: Hello, this is Lee Oswald. I was at your place last Saturday and talked to your Consul. They said they'd send a telegram to Washington and I wanted to ask you whether there was anything new, but I cannot remember the name of the Consul.
Obyedkov: Kostikov. He is dark?
Oswald: Yes. My name is Oswald.
Obyedkov: Just a minute. I'll find out. They say they have not received anything yet.
Oswald: Have they done anything?
Obyedkov: Yes, they say a request has been sent out, but nothing has been received yet.
Oswald: And what...
Obyedkov: (hangs up)

Added: Here's the CIA file on Obyedkov: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=157254&search=Ivan_Obyedkov#relPageId=1&tab=page

[Jerry Freeman]

My working theory is that Khrushchev and/or Castro had JFK killed..... 

By whom?

And Oswald did meet with Kostikov

Because Kostikov said so? Can we say disinformation? Maybe your 'working theory' doesn't really work.
 

Kostikov said Oswald "was very riled up and broke into hysterics at the mention of the FBI, crying and saying as he wept: ?I'm afraid they'll kill me. Let me in.'"
 He said Oswald pulled out a handgun, saying that he carried it for protection, and put it on the table in front of them, Nechiporenko quoted Kostikov as saying. Yatskov took the bullets out of the gun and put it in a drawer, he said.    https://www.rferl.org/a/us-ussr-kennedy-assassination-oswald-kgb-contact-mexico-assassinations-officer/28819941.html

  Right
 

[Thomas Graves]

I find it difficult to believe that an embassy security guard in Mexico City would know that Khrushchev and Castro were plotting, indeed had plotted, to kill JFK. And that he knew on October 1 that one Lee Oswald would somehow be involved.  And furthermore that somehow placing Kostikov's name in CIA files would PREVENT retaliation by the US afterwards?

That's three remarkable ideas, it seems to me. And remember: Oswald did meet with Kostikov and the two other KGB agents/embassy officials.

.....

Steve,

1) For what it's worth, before the assassination, the well-paid (for a Soviet Embassy security guard) Ivan Obyedkov was suspected by CIA of being a KGB officer.

2) Regardless, KGB has always had a reputation of being more compartmentalized and operating more on a "need to know" basis than the CIA, especially after 1959 when a "KGB within the KGB" was created in order to facilitate and implement a second type of KGB counterintelligence operation -- Strategic (aka Operational) Deceptions.

3) In my working theory, Obyedkov would have had no reason to know why he'd been told by his boss (probably Pavel Yatskov) to volunteer the name "Kostikov" to some (probably unknown to Obyedkov) KGB agent who would be calling him at such-and-such a time on 10/01/63, pretending to be one "Lee Oswald," an American who for the life of him couldn't seem to remember Russian names very well. I believe Obyedkov's bosses had him volunteer Kostikov's name to "Oswald" (rather than have "Oswald" "memorize" it) in order to add a touch of "authenticity" to the scripted conversation, and to add a touch of "factuality" and "verification" to it, as well.  As in, "I, being the security guard here, know all of the names, and not only that, but I remember your coming here last Saturday and meeting with Valiery Kostikov."

John M. Newman, author of Oswald and the CIA, believes that evil James Angleton forced a cover up by President Johnson (and perhaps the CIA and the FBI per se) of his (Angleton's) evil actions  (i.e., the assassination of JFK) by having a CIA operative/Oswald Impostor indirectly plant a World War Three Virus by eliciting from Oyedkov the name "Kostikov" in a CIA-tapped phone conversation.

I'm saying that the Kremlin, realizing there was little risk of being nuked due to the then-current working theory (lol) of Mutually Assured Destruction, and knowing that Kostikov was already (probably wrongly) suspected by CIA of being Department 13, could have killed JFK with impunity, and have manipulated CIA and FBI into covering up their evil deeds in a John-M.-Newman-kind-of-way, and maybe even have the whole thing end up looking as though it was JJA who had mastermind of the assassination!

...


Question:  How do we know Oswald met with Kostikov (or was even in Mexico City, for that matter)?

IIRC, the "meet and greet" with Kostikov thingy comes pretty much from KGB officer Nechiporenko.

After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, did KGB ever produce for us the cable(s) Nechiporenko and Yatskov and/or Kostikov supposedly sent to Moscow Center about this weirdo who (allegedly) came to their consulate on September 27 and 28, this "Lee Harvey Oswald"?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, Steve, but I don't think so.

-- Tommy 

[Steve M. Galbraith]

By whom? Because Kostikov said so? Can we say disinformation? Maybe your 'working theory' doesn't really work.
   Right
 

All three Soviet embassy officials/KGB senior agents said the man they met over two days was Oswald. It wasn't just Kostikov.

Oswald asked for a visa to return to the Soviet Union. Do you think an impostor would ask for a visa? The Soviets had photos of Oswald; any impostor asking for a visa would be immediately identified as not being the real Oswald.

And Oswald wrote a letter to the Soviet Embassy in the US discussing his visit.

Here are the agents being interviewed in 1992 for the PBS Frontline show "Who was Lee Harvey Oswald?" From left to right: Kostikov, Yatskov and Nechiporenko.

[Jerry Freeman]

The Soviets had photos of Oswald; 

Where are they?
 
 

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Steve,

1) For what it's worth, before the assassination, the well-paid (for a Soviet Embassy security guard) Ivan Obyedkov was suspected by CIA of being a KGB officer.

2) Regardless, KGB has always had a reputation of being more compartmentalized and operating on a "need to know" basis than the CIA, especially after 1959 when a "KGB within the KGB" was created in order to facilitate and implement a second type of KGB counterintelligence operation -- Strategic (aka Operational) Deceptions.

3) In my working theory, Obyedkov would have had no reason to know why he'd been told by his boss (probably Pavel Yatskov) to volunteer the name "Kostikov" to some (probably unknown to Obyedkov) KGB agent who would be calling him at such-and-such a time on 10/01/63, pretending to be one "Lee Oswald," an American who for the life of him couldn't seem to remember Russian names very well. I believe Obyedkov's bosses had him volunteer Kostikov's name to "Oswald" (rather than have "Oswald" "memorize" it) in order to add a touch of "authenticity" to the scripted conversation, and to add a touch of "factuality" and "verification" to it, as well.  As in, "I, being the security guard here, know all of the names, and not only that, but I remember your coming here last Saturday and meeting with Valiery Kostikov."

John M. Newman, author of Oswald and the CIA, believes that evil James Angleton forced a cover up by President Johnson (and perhaps the CIA and the FBI per se) of his (Angleton's) evil actions  (i.e., the assassination of JFK) by having a CIA operative/Oswald Impostor indirectly plant a World War Three Virus by eliciting from Oyedkov the name "Kostikov" in a CIA-tapped phone conversation.

I'm saying that the Kremlin, realizing there was little risk of being nuked due to the then-current working theory (lol) of Mutually Assured Destruction, and knowing that Kostikov was already (probably wrongly) suspected by CIA of being Department 13, could have killed JFK with impunity, and have manipulated CIA and FBI into covering up their evil deeds in a John-M.-Newman-kind-of-way, and maybe even have the whole thing end up looking as though it was JJA who had mastermind of the assassination!

...


Question:  How do we know Oswald met with Kostikov (or was even in Mexico City, for that matter)?

IIRC, the "meet and greet" with Kostikov thingy comes pretty much from KGB officer Nechiporenko.

After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, did KGB ever produce for us the cable(s) Nechiporenko and Yatskov and/or Kostikov supposedly sent to Moscow Center about this weirdo who (allegedly) came to their consulate on September 27 and 28, this "Lee Harvey Oswald"?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, Steve, but I don't think so.

-- Tommy 

Tommy: As you probably know, KGB officer Yuri Nosenko defected shortly after the assassination (January of '64) and said he was in charge of the KGB's monitoring of Oswald. He said that Oswald was never considered being used by the KGB - Oswald was considered too unstable and risky - and that he was monitored while in Minsk under suspicion he was a CIA agent. Additionally, the late Norman Mailer interviewed over a dozen KGB agents and saw a number of files on Oswald and none showed that the KGB used him for any intelligence purposes.

It's true that the Soviet KGB and the Belarus KGB have never released all of the files they had on Oswald. But Yeltsin gave some to Clinton in 1992 and there's other evidence that Oswald was considered an "oddball" by the KGB.

As to Soviet files on Oswald: here's an interesting piece by Max Holland on this material: https://www.washingtondecoded.com/.m/site/files/a_coldwar_odyssey.pdf

For me, there's frankly no evidence for your theory.

The CIA file on Obyedkov indicates he was just that: an Embassy guard although there were suspicions he was working for the KGB.

Obviously if one thinks this was all disinformation then there's nothing I can say to persuade them otherwise.

[Thomas Graves]

Tommy: As you probably know, KGB officer Yuri Nosenko defected shortly after the assassination (January of '64) and said he was in charge of the KGB's monitoring of Oswald. He said that Oswald was never considered being used by the KGB - Oswald was considered too unstable and risky - and that he was monitored while in Minsk under suspicion he was a CIA agent. Additionally, the late Norman Mailer interviewed over a dozen KGB agents and saw a number of files on Oswald and none showed that the KGB used him for any intelligence purposes.

It's true that the Soviet KGB and the Belarus KGB have never released all of the files they had on Oswald. But Yeltsin gave some to Clinton in 1992 and there's other evidence that Oswald was considered an "oddball" by the KGB.

As to Soviet files on Oswald: here's an interesting piece by Max Holland on this material: https://www.washingtondecoded.com/.m/site/files/a_coldwar_odyssey.pdf

For me, there's frankly no evidence for your theory.

The CIA file on Obyedkov indicates he was just that: an Embassy guard although there were suspicions he was working for the KGB.

Obviously if one thinks this was all disinformation then there's nothing I can say to persuade them otherwise.

Steve,

EDIT: Have you read the pertinent parts of Angleton's June 19, 1975 Church Committee testimony (in which he mentions  the name "Byetkov*?" at the very top of MFF's page 16) and his February 9, 1976 testimony in which he talks about triple-agent "Byetkov*?" / Obyedkov not by name but under the rubric of "the second hangnail" (the first being short, blond, very thin-faced, 35 year-old Nikolai Leonov)?

Regardless,  don't remember saying that the KGB definitely recruited Marine Corps radar operator Oswald while he was living in the USSR for two and one-half years (although I must admit that I rather fancy Ion Pacepa's assertions in that regard).

Regardless, if you believe Nosenko on anything, then it's obvious to me that you have neither read Tennent H. Bagley's 2007 book Spy Wars, nor watched John M. Newman's  two-part "Spy Wars" presentation from March of this year.

Question:  What are we to make of Angleton's assertion to the Church Committee that the Russian guy who volunteered the radioactive name "Kostikov" to Oswald (or, more likely, to an Oswald impostor) over a surely-known-by-him-to-be-tapped-by-the-CIA Soviet Embassy phone line on 10/01/63, Ivan Obyedkov, was not the double-agent that the CIA thought it had successfully recruited,  but a triple-agent, still loyal to the Kremlin?

(More to come, later ...)

But right now, directly from the Lieutenant Columbo "Oh, Just One More Thing" Department:

1) Do you really believe Aleksei Kulak (Fedora) was a true double-agent, i.e., secretly working for the FBI for 15 years?

2) Do you not believe that Obyedkov was (unsuccessfully) recruited as a double-agent by the CIA?  If so, why not?  Don't you think the enormous number of redactions in his file speaks to that?

--  Tommy 

Bagley's book:
https://archive.org/details/SpyWarsMolesMysteriesAndDeadlyGames/page/n3

Part I of Newman's presentation: