Why would the Soviets/KGB withhold info on Oswald's Mexico City impersonator?

[Steve M. Galbraith]

If, as is alleged, Lee Oswald was impersonated when he allegedly went to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City in late September of 1963 then why did the Soviets and KGB not announce this impersonation after the assassination or for the next 35-40 years afterwards? Why would they withhold that critical fact?

To put it differently: If a fake Oswald goes to the Embassy in Mexico City, meets with KGB officials over two days, and then the officials who met this impostor learn after the assassination - when Oswald's photo is shown in the newspapers/press - that the man claiming to be Oswald was not him then why not inform the world? The KGB agents in the Embassy who realized the man they met was an impostor would have informed Moscow/KGB headquarters of this charade. Wouldn't the Soviets then announce this?

The Soviets actively blamed the CIA for the murder of JFK. Why not include this impersonation as part of that story? But they didn't. Why not? It's illogical to me that they wouldn't reveal this, that they would keep it quiet. They want to embarrass the CIA and the US. This is one way to do it. And, in this case, it's supposedly true: he was impersonated.

We can ask this same question of the Cubans. If Oswald was impersonated at the consulate too, then why not expose this supposed CIA impersonation? It's a Cold War. They're going to attack the US with everything they have.

[Martin Weidmann]

If, as is alleged, Lee Oswald was impersonated when he allegedly went to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City in late September of 1963, then why did the Soviets and KGB not announce this impersonation after the assassination or for the next 35-40 years afterwards? Why would they withhold that critical fact?

To put it differently: If a fake Oswald goes to the Embassy in Mexico City, meets with KGB officials over two days, and then the officials who met this impostor learn after the assassination - when Oswald's photo is shown in the newspapers/press - that the man claiming to be Oswald was not him then why not inform the world? The KGB agents in the Embassy who realized the man they met was an impostor would have informed Moscow/KGB headquarters of this charade. Wouldn't the Soviets then announce this?

The Soviets actively blamed the CIA for the murder of JFK. Why not include this impersonation as part of that story? But they didn't. Why not? It is illogical to me that they wouldn't reveal this; they want to embarrass the CIA and the US. This is one way to do it.

We can ask this same question of the Cubans. If Oswald was impersonated at the consulate too, then why not expose this supposed CIA impersonation. It's a Cold War. They're going to attack the US with everything they have.

If, as is alleged, Lee Oswald was impersonated when he allegedly went to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City in late September of 1963, then why did the Soviets and KGB not announce this impersonation after the assassination or for the next 35-40 years afterwards? Why would they withhold that critical fact?

How would they know it was an impersonator and, if they knew, why would they even talk to him?

Why would they withhold that critical fact?

Why would the KGB reveal anything about their intelligence operations, when the CIA is lying to the investigators and to this day are still withholding information?

The KGB agents in the Embassy who realized the man they met was an impostor would have informed Moscow/KGB headquarters of this charade. Wouldn't the Soviets then announce this?

I doubt it. Why would they announce it? Nobody accused the Soviet Union of being involved.

We can ask this same question of the Cubans. If Oswald was impersonated at the consulate too, then why not expose this supposed CIA impersonation. It's a Cold War. They're going to attack the US with everything they have.

Don't you think that somehow being seen as being involved is the last thing Castro would want? You really don't understand how this game of international politics is played, do you now?

Can you see the headlines; "Cubans denied involvement but talked to Oswald before the JFK murder"

[Jon Banks]

Steve, is this what you're referring to? It doesn't imply that someone other than Oswald showed up in person at the Soviet embassy. The records show that he may have been impersonated in one or more phone calls:

Frontline: Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City

...intelligence documents released in 1999 establish that, after Oswald failed to get the visas, CIA intercepts showed that someone impersonated Oswald in phone calls made to the Soviet embassy and the Cuban consulate and linked Oswald to a known KGB assassin — Valery Kostikov — whom the CIA and FBI had been following for over a year.1

The news of this impersonation and the link to Kostikov, learned within hours of President Kennedy’s assassination, electrified top government and intelligence officials and dominated their discussion in the immediate weeks following the assassination. It also became during the next 40 years one of the CIA’s most closely guarded secrets on the Oswald case.

After President Kennedy’s assassination, documents show that the Agency created two more false stories in connection with Oswald’s Mexico City visit. The first cover story was that the CIA’s tapes of the phone calls had been erased before the assassination. The second cover story was that the CIA did not realize Oswald had visited the Cuban consulate until they looked into the matter after the assassination.

Whether these cables were inserted or altered after the fact no longer matters. They constitute the extant record and are not true. Ms. Goodpasture’s erasure cables are contradicted by her own 1995 deposition to the Assassination Records Review Board in which she stated she thought a tape dub had been hand-carried to the Texas border the night of the assassination,8 and that a copy of the tape was made at the CIA telephone tap center.9 She added that she was sure a copy of the tape would have been sent up to Washington as soon as it had been made. 10

Newly released internal CIA documents from the weeks following the assassination reveal that another copy of the October 1 intercept was found at that time,11 and that “the actual tapes” were reviewed.12 Furthermore, the Assassination Records Review Board also verified that in 1964 two Warren Commission attorneys, Coleman and Slawson, had traveled to the Mexico City station and listened to the tapes.13 There is no mention of this in either the Warren Commission’s 26 volumes or its final report.

Meanwhile, for the CIA’s erasure story to work, the FBI had to cooperate. FBI headquarters in Washington was still asking on the Monday after the assassination for the CIA tapes that had been sent from Mexico City to Dallas early Saturday.14

The FBI office in Mexico City provided the cover on the Monday afternoon after the assassination, sending a cable to headquarters saying that the tapes had been destroyed.15 When FBI Director Hoover learned of this lie, he was not amused. Eighteen days after the assassination, he censured, demoted or transferred everyone in the FBI that had been touched by the Mexico City story. Hoover was still fuming about it in January 1964, when his subordinates sent him a memo on illegal CIA operations in the US which stated that the CIA had promised to keep the Bureau informed. Hoover pulled out his pen and, in his characteristic large, thick handwriting scrawled, “OK, but I hope you are not being taken in. I can’t forget CIA withholding the French espionage activities in USA nor the false story re Oswald’s trip in Mexico City only to mention two of their instances of double dealing.” 16

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/oswald-the-cia-and-mexico-city/

[Michael T. Griffith]

Oh my goodness! Seriously? I take it you've never read the Lopez Report? I take it you're unaware of the new evidence and research on Oswald's activities in Mexico City? It is just amazing that you guys are so many years behind the information curve and keep repeating myths that were debunked years ago, some of them literally decades ago.

Let's start with the fact that we now know that J. Edgar Hoover advised LBJ that the American on the tape recording sent by the CIA from Mexico City was not Oswald. FBI agents listened to the tape and concluded the voice on it was not Oswald's. Surely you aren't going to tell me that you believe the later CIA fairy tale that they "sent the wrong tape"?

The CIA also claimed it had pictures that showed Oswald outside the Soviet Embassy, but when the pictures subsequently came to light, it was clear the man in them bore no resemblance to Oswald.

Let's consider the scenario that WC apologists would have us believe: The President of the United States had just been assassinated. Shortly thereafter, the CIA was asked to assist the Warren Commission in its investigation. The CIA then claimed it had photographic and audio evidence that Oswald, the alleged assassin, phoned and visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City. A short while later, the Agency said that while at the Soviet Embassy, Oswald spoke with Valery Kostikov, a KGB expert in sabotage and assassination. However, the CIA, in the most important investigation of the century, somehow gave the FBI the wrong photos and the wrong tape, even though voice intercepts are carefully catalogued, and even though Oswald's picture was in nearly every newspaper in the civilized world within hours of the assassination. Gosh, really? Really? You actually believe that? 

It should be pointed out that the CIA never actually showed the pictures to the Warren
Commission--they surfaced years later and are clearly not of Oswald. On January 24, 1964, the
CIA told the Warren Commission that Oswald had met with Valery Kostikov at the Soviet
Embassy. The Agency said Kostikov was a KGB agent involved in assassination and sabotage.
The Commission was so frightened by this information that it decided to simply take the CIA's
word about Oswald's Mexico City activities. FBI agents examined the pictures and listened to the
tape and knew they were not of Oswald, but the FBI did not inform the Commission of this
fact.

In the mid-1990s, new information bearing on this issue came from files released by the Assassination Records Review Board. Among the released files was the transcript of the 11/23/63 telephone conversation between J. Edgar Hoover and LBJ in which Hoover advised LBJ that the American on the tape and in the pictures was not Oswald. Here's the exchange from the transcript:

JOHNSON. Have you established any more about the [Oswald] visit to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico in September?

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.

Bullseye. Yes, there was a "second person" who was at the Soviet Embassy, and, as Hoover explained, he was not the real Lee Harvey Oswald.

And then there's the very strange delay in the CIA cable about the alleged Oswald conversation with Kostikov. Let's use some common sense, shall we? If the real Oswald had actually talked with Kostikov, there is no way on this planet that it would have taken seven days for the cable about this conversation to get to the CIA. Give me a break. If this event had actually occurred, that cable would have been sent at flash precedence; at a minimum, it would have been at the CIA within 24 hours.

[Mitch Todd]

[...]
Let's start with the fact that we now know that J. Edgar Hoover advised LBJ that the American on the tape recording sent by the CIA from Mexico City was not Oswald. FBI agents listened to the tape and concluded the voice on it was not Oswald's. Surely you aren't going to tell me that you believe the later CIA fairy tale that they "sent the wrong tape"?

Everyone of the FBI agents who actually handled the Cuban/Soviet Embassy materials sent by the CIA have said that they received no tapes from Win Scott's station. Only transcripts and photos. This number includes Hosty and the other SAs in Dallas, and Eldon Rudd, who carried the materials from Mexico City to Dallas. The FBI legation in Mexico City had to send a cable back to Washington, telling FBI HQ that the CIA did not provide any tapes to the FBI. The agents said then, and have always maintained, that they were not given any tapes of Oswald's conversations.

The notion that the FBI team in Dallas had listened to tapes starts with a memo from Belmont generated in the wee hours of Nov 23. This 'information' quickly spread up the chain to Hoover, not that it needed to go far. But Hoover and Belmont were no closer than 1200 miles away from the MXC materials at the time.

So there are two views of this. One comes from the guys who actually handled the materials. The other originated with some HQ types who were hundreds of miles away from the activity in question. You don't need to be a rocket surgeon to figure out which view is the better case. 


 

[John Iacoletti]

You don't need to be a rocket surgeon to figure out which view is the better case.

The one you like better?

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Everyone of the FBI agents who actually handled the Cuban/Soviet Embassy materials sent by the CIA have said that they received no tapes from Win Scott's station. Only transcripts and photos. This number includes Hosty and the other SAs in Dallas, and Eldon Rudd, who carried the materials from Mexico City to Dallas. The FBI legation in Mexico City had to send a cable back to Washington, telling FBI HQ that the CIA did not provide any tapes to the FBI. The agents said then, and have always maintained, that they were not given any tapes of Oswald's conversations.

The notion that the FBI team in Dallas had listened to tapes starts with a memo from Belmont generated in the wee hours of Nov 23. This 'information' quickly spread up the chain to Hoover, not that it needed to go far. But Hoover and Belmont were no closer than 1200 miles away from the MXC materials at the time.

So there are two views of this. One comes from the guys who actually handled the materials. The other originated with some HQ types who were hundreds of miles away from the activity in question. You don't need to be a rocket surgeon to figure out which view is the better case.

Correct. To reiterate: The evidence is overwhelming that no tapes were sent to Dallas. Each of the FBI/SA agents in Dallas were asked by the HSCA about any tapes and each said they were none. They were simply shown transcripts of calls - no tapes - and photos. Hoover was given bad/incorrect information (not for the first in this event); information that was corrected with a later cable.

Eldon Rudd was the FBI agent sent to Mexico City to retrieve the materials. In a cable sent to FBI headquarters he said that:

"With regard to the tapes referred to herein, CIA has advised that those tapes have been erased and are not available for review." Not available.

Rudd's cable can be read here: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/fbi/105-3702/124-10230-10430/html/124-10230-10430_0002a.htm

In any case, this is a separate question to the one I raised about Oswald being impersonated in the visits to the Soviet Embassy.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

And to flesh this out a bit, this is from the HSCA's "Lopez Report", the investigation into the alleged visits by Oswald to Mexico City.

Conclusion: "While the majority of evidence tends to indicate that this individual was indeed Lee Harvey Oswald, the possibility that someone else used Lee Harvey Oswald's name during this time in contacts with the Soviet and Cuban Consulates cannot be absolutely dismissed." (screen cap below)

The "possibility" that "during this time" "someone else used his name" cannot be "absolutely dismissed." But the majority of evidence "tends to indicate" it was Oswald. So, evidence indicates he was indeed in MC but "during his time" someone else possibly used his name. Using his name is not, of course, showing up and impersonating him in person.



The Lopez report can be read here: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/contents/hsca/contents_hsca_lopezrpt_2003.htm