Philip Shenon focuses major parts of his book on the WC on Charles Thomas' concerns that the government didn't fully look into allegations that Oswald was seen with Cuban officials when he went to Mexico City. Thomas was convinced that Oswald did indeed go there, that Oswald wasn't impersonated, but didn't think what he did there wasn't looked into adequately. But Thomas admitted that even if the reports were true, e.g, the so-called "Twist Party" where Oswald was allegedly seen with Cuban officials, it didn't indicate there was a conspiracy.
As he (Thomas) said in a memo in 1969 to then Secretary of State William Rogers, "Even if all of the allegations in the attached memo are true, they would not, in themselves, prove there was a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy." But he said that if the allegations were revealed to the public that "those who have tried to discredit the Warren Commission would have a field day in speculating about their implications."
For what it's worth, I think Oswald did attend that party - Silvia Duran lied about it - and probably did meet with either Cuban officials or pro-Cuban people who may have helped fuel his anti-JFK views regarding Cuba. But connecting those conversations with the events in Dallas two months later is a reach.
Dear Steven,
It's pretty widely accepted by John Newman, et al., that Oswald was impersonated over the phone in Mexico City on 9/28/63 and on 10/02/63 by ... gasp ... the evil, evil, evil CIA.
I agree that Oswald was impersonated over the phone in Mexico City, but by the CIA???
If so, how then are we to explain the fact that the "Oswald" Sylvia Duran claimed, during her right-after-the-assassination interrogations by the Mexican Police, to have dealt with on 9/27/63 was "short" (Duran was 5' 3.5" -- Leonov was 5' 7" -- Oswald was 5' 9.5") and "blond"?
And the fact that she elaborated on that a bit in her 1978 HSCA testimony when she said he was "blue or green-eyed, skinny, and blond-
haired"?
And then, of course, there's Eusebio Azcue's HSCA description of "Oswald," which leaves no doubt that he's fingering skinny, 35 year-old, blond-haired, suit-wearing, very thin-faced KGB colonel Nikolai Leonov -- for having provided Duran and himself, either directly or through a DGI surrogate, with instructions and a passport-sized photo (or two) of sweater-vest-wearing Oswald that was taken of Oswald while he was still in the USSR ...
Edit: And that the Soviet Embassy "security guard" who "volunteered" the KGB-made-radioactive name "Kostikov" to the playing-along, over-the-phone Oswald impostor on 10/02/63 was no e other than triple-agent (i.e., still loyal to the Kremlin) Ivan Obyedkov?
-- MWT