11/23/63
J. Edgar Hoover: I just wanted to let you know of a development which I think is very important in connection with this case -
this man in Dallas (Lee Harvey Oswald). We, of course, charged him with the murder of the President. The evidence that they
have at the present time is not very, very strong. We have just discovered the place where the gun was purchased and the shipment
of the gun from Chicago to Dallas, to a post office box in Dallas, to a man - no, to a woman by the name of "A. Hidell."... We
had it flown up last night, and our laboratory here is making an examination of it.
Lyndon B. Johnson: Yes, I told the Secret Service to see that that got taken care of.
J. Edgar Hoover: That's right. We have the gun and we have the bullet. There was only one full bullet that was found. That was on
the stretcher that the President was on. It apparently had fallen out when they massaged his heart, and we have that one. We have
what we call slivers, which are not very valuable in the identification. As soon as we finish the testing of the gun for fingerprints
... we will then be able to test the one bullet we have with the gun. But the important thing is that this gun was bought in Chicago
on a money order. Cost twenty-one dollars, and it seems almost impossible to think that for twenty-one dollars you could kill the
President of the United States.
Lyndon B. Johnson: Have you established any more about the visit to the Soviet embassy in Mexico in September?
J. Edgar Hoover: No, that's one angle that's very confusing, for this reason - we have up here the tape and
the photograph of the man who was at the Soviet embassy, using Oswald's name. That picture and the tape do not correspond
to this man's voice, nor to his appearance. In other words, it appears that there is a second person who was at the
Soviet embassy down there. We do have a copy of a letter which was written by Oswald to the Soviet embassy here in
Washington, inquiring as well as complaining about the harassment of his wife and the questioning of his wife by the FBI.
Now, of course, that letter information - we process all mail that goes to the Soviet embassy. It's a very secret operation.
No mail is delivered to the embassy without being examined and opened by us, so that we know what they receive... The case,
as it stands now, isn't strong enough to be able to get a conviction... Now if we can identify this man who was at the...
Soviet embassy in Mexico City... This man Oswald has still denied everything. He doesn't know anything about anything, but
the gun thing, of course, is a definite trend.
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11/29/63
Lyndon B. Johnson: That there is no connection between he and Ruby that you can detect now. And whether he was connected with the
Cuban operation with money, you're trying to...
J. Edgar Hoover: That's what we're trying to nail down now, because he was strongly pro-Castro, he was strongly anti-American, and
he had been in correspondence, which we have, with the Soviet embassy here in Washington and with the American Civil Liberties Union
and with this Committee for Fair Play to Cuba... None of those letters, however, dealt with any indication of violence or contemplated
assassination. They were dealing with the matter of a visa for his wife to go back to Russia. Now there is one angle to this thing that
I'm hopeful to get some word on today This woman, his wife, had been very hostile. She would not cooperate, speaks... Russian only. She
did say to us yesterday down there that if we could give her assurance that she would be allowed to remain in this country, she might
cooperate. I told our agents down there to give her that assurance... and I sent a Russian-speaking agent into Dallas last night to
interview her.... Whether she knows anything or talks anything, I, of course, don't know and won't know till -
