The KGB Impersonated Oswald in Mexico to Connect Castro to the Assassination

[Steve M. Galbraith]

I don't know the significance of supposing that Oswald's visits to the embassy/consulate (or to Mexico) was faked. But I think that the speculation persists, in part, because the CIA was photographing people upon exit and entrance, yet failed (apparently, supposedly) to photograph Oswald.

Yet they did photograph this other person, whoever he is, and attempted to associate the photos with Oswald. It is an oddity.

When you're looking for evidence of a conspiracy or a cover-up, or to disprove the same, you have to probe such oddities. (Because, to the extent that a cover-up is successful, all that will be left are such apparent incongruities; the actual evidence is meant to be suppressed -- that's what it means to cover-up.) Why was this man's photo identified as Oswald? Why weren't there photos of the real man? There are claims that Oswald's phone conversations were recorded, so what became of the recordings?

Anthony Summers (who may or may not be reliable) quotes an FBI report as stating, re: Oswald's visit to the Soviet Embassy, "Special agents of this Bureau, who have conversed with Oswald in Dallas, Texas, have observed photographs of the individual referred to above and have listened to a recording of his voice. These Special Agents are of the opinion that the above-referred-to individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald." And then he goes on to quote J. Edgar Hoover in conversation with President Johnson, saying, "That picture and the tape do not correspond to this man's voice, nor to his appearance. In other words, it appears there was a second person who was at the Soviet Embassy down there."

There could be any number of reasons for these "oddities," including innocent error, but surely it's worthwhile to question them? I don't know that Kennedy was killed as a result of a conspiracy, though I highly suspect that he was; I don't know what role Oswald played, before, during or after the assassination. I do know that the CIA specifically got into all sorts of monkey business throughout the sixties and beyond. Their behavior with respect to Oswald's visit to Mexico is suspect at least, whatever it means for broader questions about the assassination, and I think it's worth investigating for that reason alone.

Tyler: Let me narrow this issue down by asking one question.

Allegedly, this man below impersonated Oswald. Now, the Soviets who said they met someone who identified himself as Oswald all said the man below was NOT the man they met. They said this man below was a different man and was NOT the man who identified himself as Oswald. But let's set that aside for a second.



Now, the Cubans - more accurately the Cuban secretary/office worker Sylvia Duran - said the man who identified himself as Lee Oswald and who requested a transit visa gave the below photo for the application.



Duran said she looked at the photo (actually it was four photos since she had to make copies of the application) and made sure it was the same man who gave them to her.

This is from her HSCA testimony:

CORNWELL - Correct?... Did you look at the photos when he brought them back, careful about to be sure that it was the same man who was standing in front of you?
DURAN/TIRADO - Yes.
CORNWELL - And what did you do at that time?
DURAN/TIRADO - I filled out application.

So the question is: Do you believe it makes sense that the man pictured above at the top gave the second photo to the Cubans and Duran didn't notice it was two different men? Do you think a person impersonating Oswald in the photo above would then give a photo of the actual Oswald for his application? Isn't it obvious that it's two different men?

And just to add: the FBI agents in Dallas all testified that they heard no tapes of any voices or phone calls. Hoover was mistaken in thinking so. There were no tapes played for them.

Eldon Rudd was the FBI agent who was given the material (photographs, transcripts but not tapes) from the CIA in Mexico City and flew with it to Dallas to be given to the agents there for review. He wrote a memo on the morning of November 23 about what he had.

In it he wrote: "With regard to the tapes... the CIA has advised that tapes have been erased and are not available for review." So no tapes were sent to Dallas - and none were heard - although there is a long controversy on whether there were tapes or whether they were erased prior to the assassination.

The entire memo is here:  https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/fbi/105-3702/124-10230-10430/html/124-10230-10430_0002a.htm

[Jerry Freeman]

So the question is: Do you believe it makes sense that the man pictured above at the top gave the second photo to the Cubans and Duran didn't notice it was two different men? 

Another question that is never really answered....Why make out an application for a visa to a country that is expressly prohibited to visit?
See page 4--- https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1139#relPageId=851
I've seen one response that people still flew to Cuba all the time anyway...a nifty reply that has no discernible foundation.

February 8, 1963: Shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy prohibits travel to Cuba and makes financial and commercial transactions with Cubans illegal for U.S. citizens.

[Tyler Powell]

Tyler: Let me narrow this issue down by asking one question.

Hi, Steve. I'll be responding to both of your posts here, in summary. If there's a specific point I don't address from either, feel free to bring it back to my attention.

So the question is: Do you believe it makes sense that the man pictured above at the top gave the second photo to the Cubans and Duran didn't notice it was two different men? Do you think a person impersonating Oswald in the photo above would then give a photo of the actual Oswald for his application? Isn't it obvious that it's two different men?

It is obvious to me that it's two different men. It doesn't make strict sense to me that Duran (or whomever) would not notice; but then, people do make these sorts of mistakes. The stakes were hardly comparable, but in college I used someone else's ID for various purposes; I looked not remotely like the picture on the ID apart from some very basic qualities, like hair color, skin tone -- and people purported (and were required) to check me against the photo, to establish my identity, yet I was never once caught out.

It's clear at least, and I think we would both agree, that "mistakes" were made by someone, somewhere. Perhaps some of how we regard these mistakes or evidence or arguments depends on our wider context of belief. If you believed, as I do, that Oswald was likely working for intelligence in some capacity, at some point prior to Mexico, then perhaps that would change your perception; if you believed, as I do, that the CIA was (and perhaps is) utterly untrustworthy and inscrutable, then perhaps that would change it further; and if you believed, as I do, that some kind of plot was likely already underway, then what might appear to be simple screw-ups or miscommunications on behalf of the CIA, etc., would perhaps take on a completely different character.

Given the context of my beliefs, I find it easier to believe further that something strange went on in Mexico City -- something outside of the official narrative, whether that involved a "double" or not (and "doubles" have been used elsewhere in the history of espionage; it isn't conceptually out of bounds, asinine though it may seem) -- and that Duran (or whomever else) was mistaken in her recollection, or otherwise at fault, than to believe that the CIA somehow failed to get a photo of the real Oswald, despite their surveillance, and matched a picture of someone else to Oswald's name, and destroyed whatever taped conversations, and Hoover "mistakenly" advised the President that his agents had listened to such recordings and found that they did not match Oswald's voice. That's one hell of a mistake on Hoover's part, for instance, given how important such a point was (and remains). For me, it's clear which way Occam's razor cuts.

[Anthony Frank]

The Warren Commission told the CIA that no government agency could “fill in the very large gaps still existing in Lee Harvey Oswald’s visit to Mexico.” The Commission also stated “there were many days during which we knew nothing about his whereabouts” and “the evenings of his entire trip were unaccounted for.”

Further, the Warren Commission stated the “registry” at the hotel where Oswald allegedly stayed “showed the name of Oswald,” but the hotel clerk “completely denies any other memory of Oswald’s being at the hotel . . . . All the subordinate hotel personnel, such as cleaning ladies, etc., likewise deny any memory of Oswald.”

A CIA document from December 1963 addresses Oswald’s alleged time in Mexico, stating, “No source then at our disposal had ever actually seen Lee Oswald while he was in Mexico.”

Oswald was not in Mexico.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Another question that is never really answered....Why make out an application for a visa to a country that is expressly prohibited to visit?
See page 4--- https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1139#relPageId=851
I've seen one response that people still flew to Cuba all the time anyway...a nifty reply that has no discernible foundation.

It wasn't a visa; it was a transit visa. He told the Cubans - Duran - that he was headed to the Soviet Union to live and that on the way there he wanted to transit or go through Havana. He wasn't going to return to the US. This is why the Cubans needed to see his Soviet visa; to prove that he wasn't lying about going to the USSR. And it's why he then went to the Soviet Embassy in search of one. If he was just getting a visa to Cuba he didn't need to show a Soviet visa.

From Duran's testimony:
TIRADO - Well, that he needed to, he said that a transit visa so that he needs a visa to the country that he was going, from, if it was a Socialist country, the visa was given, as soon as he gets the other visa, and uh...
CORNWELL - When he first asked about the requirements for a visa, did he tell you that his objective was to go to cuba or to another country?
TIRADO - To the Soviet Union.

His plan was to defect, leave the US and live in Cuba. How he was going to persuade the Cuban officials to let him stay there is a mystery; probably claim that he was being politically persecuted by the "notorious FBI", the phrase he used when he talked with the Soviets. But he lied about wanting to go to the USSR (he had no visa for the country; how was he going to get there?). Marina said that he told her that she could - somehow - get herself to Cuba and meet him there. In other words, he was abandoning her on her own. Swell guy.

From her testimony:
Mr. RANKIN. Did he tell you why he wanted to go to Mexico City?
Mrs. OSWALD. From Mexico City he wanted to go to Cuba--perhaps through the Russian Embassy in Mexico somehow he would be able to get to Cuba.
Mr. RANKIN. Did he say anything about going to Russia by way of Cuba?
Mrs. OSWALD. I know that he said that in the embassy. But he only said so. I know that he had no intention of going to Russia then.
Mr. RANKIN. How do you know that?
Mrs. OSWALD. He told me. I know Lee fairly well--well enough from that point of view.
Mr. RANKIN. Did he tell you that he was going to Cuba and send you on to Russia?
Mrs. OSWALD. No, he proposed that after he got to Cuba, that I would go there, too, somehow.

You think Oswald was worried about violating American laws against visiting Cuba? He was leaving the US - defecting - to live in another country; what was going to happen to him legally if he was in Cuba? He didn't give a damned about US laws since he was, again, turning his back on the country.

There were regular flights leaving from Mexico City to Cuba and vice versa. Mexico had normal relations with the Castro government; hence the establishment of the Cuban Embassy and consulate. This method, the flights, was how people in the Cuban consulate got from Cuba to Mexico. And then went back.

Question: Why would an impostor ask for a transit visa? If they gave him one then what was he going to do?

This "Oswald was impersonated" theory makes no sense to me on any level. Not the way this supposed impersonator acted. He gave the Cubans an actual photo of Oswald. Why would an impostor do that? And he behaved like an erratic unstable person. For what purpose? This supposed impostor was lucky the Cubans or Soviets didn't have the police arrest him.

[Tom Scully]

Tyler: Let me narrow this issue down by asking one question.

-snip-

And just to add: the FBI agents in Dallas all testified that they heard no tapes of any voices or phone calls. Hoover was mistaken in thinking so. There were no tapes played for them.

Eldon Rudd was the FBI agent who was given the material (photographs, transcripts but not tapes) from the CIA in Mexico City and flew with it to Dallas to be given to the agents there for review. He wrote a memo on the morning of November 23 about what he had.

In it he wrote: "With regard to the tapes... the CIA has advised that tapes have been erased and are not available for review." So no tapes were sent to Dallas - and none were heard - although there is a long controversy on whether there were tapes or whether they were erased prior to the assassination.

The entire memo is here:  https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/fbi/105-3702/124-10230-10430/html/124-10230-10430_0002a.htm

Eldon Rudd, LOL !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldon_Rudd
....A staunch anticommunist, Rudd was a tireless supporter of US anticommunist efforts in Central and South America, and he was the last American to visit with Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, who was killed by Sandinista forces.

During the 1980 presidential election, Rudd, with help from FBI colleagues with access to security officials at the White House, allegedly obtained debate preparation documents prepared for President Jimmy Carter for his election debates against Republican nominee Ronald Reagan and provided the so-called "Carter debate papers" to the Reagan presidential campaign in the Debategate scandal.

[Tyler Powell]

This "Oswald was impersonated" theory makes no sense to me on any level. Not the way this supposed impersonator acted. He gave the Cubans an actual photo of Oswald. Why would an impostor do that? And he behaved like an erratic unstable person. For what purpose? This supposed impostor was lucky the Cubans or Soviets didn't have the police arrest him.

It doesn't make much sense to me, either. But the supposed failure (or string of failures) of our intelligence likewise makes no sense to me. I find this happens a lot, with respect to the Kennedy assassination: I find that I'm presented with two or more options, none of which makes sense to me, none of which explains in full what we're given as evidence. And as I've referred to earlier, I do not trust the CIA a bit. (I'm sure you're familiar with the kinds of things the CIA was up to, in and around this time frame, so perhaps you understand my mistrust.)

As a possible explanation for the questions you've raised, an actual photo of Oswald might be supplied if it were believed that this event might be scrutinized later. Consider, for instance, that you yourself are relying upon it right now to help establish that the real Oswald was there. And erratic behavior might serve a purpose of being noticed. I've heard it suggested that Oswald's FPCC activities in New Orleans, for instance, were meant to draw attention, to be memorable, such that people could say, "yes, Oswald was certainly here; he really loves Cuba." Maybe something like that was intended in Mexico? Or are those at cross-purposes?

I don't know. I don't have a specific theory to push, or any explanation I find wholly satisfactory, and I'm not wedded to the "double" angle. It seems ridiculous to me on its face, only not so ridiculous as the notion that "no tapes were sent to Dallas - and none were heard" was mistook by Hoover, and perhaps others, as "Special agents of this Bureau [...] have listened to a recording of his voice. These Special Agents are of the opinion that the above-referred-to individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald." Supposing such a "mistake" makes an imposter Oswald seem reasonable by comparison.

Frankly, it sounds like something you might hear during a Stalin-era show trial, or out of an Orwell novel, and though I've only begun to converse with you, I already am of the opinion that you also understand how unreasonable it is. So they lied. That much seems clear to me. But why?

As I say, I don't think the only alternative is some imposter Oswald. It's possible that there is some other explanation; some other reason the CIA and/or federal agents would lie, during or after the fact. I trust that there are explanations consonant with both the idea of a conspiracy and with Oswald as the lone gunman. But if we're serious about trying to understand Oswald and his activities, insofar as it might shed light on the assassination, I think such oddities must be recognized, admitted and explored.

[Tom Scully]

It doesn't make much sense to me, either. But the supposed failure (or string of failures) of our intelligence likewise makes no sense to me. I find this happens a lot, with respect to the Kennedy assassination: I find that I'm presented with two or more options, none of which makes sense to me, none of which explains in full what we're given as evidence. And as I've referred to earlier, I do not trust the CIA a bit. (I'm sure you're familiar with the kinds of things the CIA was up to, in and around this time frame, so perhaps you understand my mistrust.)

As a possible explanation for the questions you've raised, an actual photo of Oswald might be supplied if it were believed that this event might be scrutinized later. Consider, for instance, that you yourself are relying upon it right now to help establish that the real Oswald was there. And erratic behavior might serve a purpose of being noticed. I've heard it suggested that Oswald's FPCC activities in New Orleans, for instance, were meant to draw attention, to be memorable, such that people could say, "yes, Oswald was certainly here; he really loves Cuba." Maybe something like that was intended in Mexico? Or are those at cross-purposes?

I don't know. I don't have a specific theory to push, or any explanation I find wholly satisfactory, and I'm not wedded to the "double" angle. It seems ridiculous to me on its face, only not so ridiculous as the notion that "no tapes were sent to Dallas - and none were heard" was mistook by Hoover, and perhaps others, as "Special agents of this Bureau [...] have listened to a recording of his voice. These Special Agents are of the opinion that the above-referred-to individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald." Supposing such a "mistake" makes an imposter Oswald seem reasonable by comparison.

Frankly, it sounds like something you might hear during a Stalin-era show trial, or out of an Orwell novel, and though I've only begun to converse with you, I already am of the opinion that you also understand how unreasonable it is. So they lied. That much seems clear to me. But why?

As I say, I don't think the only alternative is some imposter Oswald. It's possible that there is some other explanation; some other reason the CIA and/or federal agents would lie, during or after the fact. I trust that there are explanations consonant with both the idea of a conspiracy and with Oswald as the lone gunman. But if we're serious about trying to understand Oswald and his activities, insofar as it might shed light on the assassination, I think such oddities must be recognized, admitted and explored.

An example of an "Oswald was in Mexico, "paint brush"". This allegedly independent businessman happened to have the same address as JMWAVE before it was relocated to the Miami Univ. campus.

How would an former oil company executive have any idea of what people "connected with" Oswald would look like?

Mebbee this guy Barnes did not get the message? IOW, mudd's Sovs and their boy Lee had it all covered
and had no need for this ESSO exec. to make such a nonsensical notification to the FBI? And, how could
Barnes possibly notice (and later recall) anyone on September 26 as connected with Oswald, unless?

The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations Against Cuba, ...
https://books.google.com/books?id=PFYLAAAAYAAJ
Don Bohning - 2005 - ‎Snippet view - ‎More editions
6 While JMWAVE was by far the biggest, it was not the first CIA presence in Miami. ... Gleichauf opened an overt CIA office at 299 Alhambra Circle, a well- known, east-west street in Coral Gables, an upscale area abutting Miami on the south, ...

https://www.maryferrell.org/php/jfkdb.php?field=subjects&value=LHO%2C+POST-RP%2C+SIGHTING%2C+LAREDO%2C+TX%2C+NUEVO+LAREDO%2C+MX

Barnes's given name was misreported in this 1960 articles, but it is the same guy who "tipped" the FBI
ten days after the JFK Assassination.:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=72011&search=winifred_and+barnes#relPageId=4


Entry into Mexico on September 26, 1963, at Nuevo Laredo...
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11075&relPageId=5
....371 Winfred Barnes...
AND...
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=59595&relPageId=33
....371. Winfred Barnes... 372.,,,,Bowen...

Winfred Barnes's CIA file proves a relationship with that agency but omits 1963 activities.:
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/104-10215-10128.pdf