Not in Your Lifetime: The Defining Book on the J.F.K. Assassination (50 page)

142
     Taiwan to Atsugi: HSCA Report, p. 220 (citing Department of Defense letter, 6/22/78); Folsom DE I.3; see also “From Dallas to
Watergate” by Peter Dale Scott,
Ramparts
, November 1973; (Rhodes) quoted by Epstein in
Legend
,
op. cit.
, p. 81.

Medical record: IX.603; VIII.313–; XIX.601.

Doctor/“line of duty”: int. Dr. Paul Deranian, 1979.

143
     “Secret” clearance?: VIII.298 (Donovan); VIII.232 (Delgado); HSCA Report, p. 219 (HSCA); XI.84 (Thornley).

144
     Marine report on clearance: XXIII.796 (Director of Personnel’s report).

Oswald bank account: XXII.180.

Note 1
: Doubt also surrounds how Oswald managed to cover the considerable expenses he was to incur at times in the years to come.

Report on Moscow trip: Report, p. 690.

Date stamps: XVIII.162.

145
     Direct flight: XXVI.32.

Note 2
: The UK/Finland travel anomaly over the years led to speculation that Oswald traveled from London to Helsinki by military aircraft. That seems unlikely, not least because military involvement would have made nonsense of the cover of an otherwise civilian trip. The House Assassinations Committee, after intensive research, declared itself “unable to determine the circumstances regarding Oswald’s trip from London to Helsinki.” Though the anomaly has never been resolved by official investigation, one independent researcher has surmised that Oswald could have reached Helsinki by commercial airplane—in the time available—by a zigzag route. (“unable”: HSCA Report, p. 211; researcher: “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” by Chris Mills, article in
Dallas ’63
, British journal)

Torni/Kurki: Report, p. 690.

Note 3
: After the assassination, Oswald’s mother, Marguerite, would declare her belief that her son had been “an intelligence agent of the U.S. government.” Though Mrs. Oswald frequently overdramatized, her claim that Oswald was involved with American intelligence does not stand entirely alone.

In 1978, a former CIA finance officer who had once served in Tokyo, James
Wilcott, would testify to the Assassinations Committee that he had been told by a CIA colleague that Oswald had been “recruited from the military for the express purpose of becoming a double-agent assignment [
sic
] to the USSR.” Wilcott alleged that the colleague told him the cryptonym,” or code designation, assigned to Oswald. The CIA, Wilcott asserted, had had some kind of special “handle” on Oswald, perhaps because it was known that he had “murdered someone or committed some serious crime.” Though the Assassinations Committee staff found Wilcott’s story inconsistent, and though his evident antipathy toward the CIA harmed his credibility, the gist of his claim about an Oswald link to a murder or crime perhaps cannot be entirely ruled out. A Marines guard, Martin Shrand, did die in suspicious circumstances—shot dead with his own weapon—on the same base as Oswald in the Philippines. Though the death was eventually ruled to have been accidental, one marine—D. P. Camerata—was to refer to having heard “a rumor to the effect that Oswald had been in some way responsible for the death.” On the other hand, former Marines officer Jack Swike—who has been cited in the notes to the previous chapter—wrote in his 2008 book that Oswald was not in the vicinity when Schrand was shot. (Marguerite Oswald: XXVI.40; and
A Citizen’s Dissent
by Mark Lane, p. 9 [see Bibliography]; Wilcott:
New York Times
, March 27, 1978;
Clandestine America
, II.3; HSCA Report, p. 198–; Schrand: Report p. 664; VIII.316; VJ.II.281; XXV.864; Epstein,
Legend
,
op. cit.
, p. 75; “rumor”: VIII.316, statement of D. P. Camerata, & see also HSCA XI.542; Swike: www://themissingchapter.com/leeharveyoswald1.html.)

McCone/Helms: V.120.

Assurances to HSCA: HSCA Report, p. 198.

146
     Helms and Castro plots:
Sen. Int. Cttee. Assassination Plots
:, pp. 101, 103.

Senator Morgan exchange: Sen. Int. Cttee.,
Performance of Intelligence Agencies
, p. 70.

“Untidy world”: HSCA IV.172.

Helms conviction:
New York Times
, November 25, 1977.

147
     “honorable men”: Richard Helms, “Global Intelligence and the Democratic Society,” speech to American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 14, 1971, cited in “Richard Helms: The Intelligence Professional Personified, by David Robarge of CIA history staff, www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publication/csi-st.

Angleton: FBI memorandum, Sullivan to Belmont, May 13, 1964.

Angleton/Dulles: Sen. Int. Cttee.,
Performance of Intelligence Agencies
, p. 69.

Dulles coaching officers: Murphy to DDP, CIA document 657–831, April 13, 1964, www.maryferrell.org.

148
     “201” file: CIA Information Coordinator letter to the author, February 15, 1979, and to James Tague, August 18 1977; int. John Newman, 1995.

“201” defined: HSCA Report, p. 200, and independent sources.

“201” opening: CIA document 1187-136, Chief Counterintelligence Staff to Executive Assistant to Deputy Director of Plans (later styled Operations), September 18, 1975 (somewhat mangled, it seems, in HSCA Report, p. 200–); int. John Newman, 1995.

149
     Snyder: (according to CIA and Snyder) HSCA Report p. 214–; see also CIA document 609-786 (p. 2), which says Snyder joined CIA in 1949 and “apparently resigned” in 1950;
Who’s Who in the CIA
, published by Julius Mader, Berlin; 1968 (leftist publication); and see John Newman,
op. cit.
, References.

Hallett: int. by Robbyn Swan, 1994.

“Would not always”: HSCA Report, p. 197.

Harvey notes: released to the Assassinations Committee, 1978; see HSCA Report, p. 204.

150
Note 4
: The extract is from Harvey’s files on “ZR/RIFLE,” a CIA draft plan for “a capability to perform assassinations.” Though the files included proof of
CIA links with professional assassins, there is no evidence that the material has any relevance to the Kennedy assassination. (Harvey notes released to the Assassinations Committee, 1978 & HSCA Report, p. 204).

Dulles/Boggs exchange: Warren Commission Executive Session, January 27, 1964.

HSCA & Military intelligence possibility: HSCA Report, p. 224.

151
     Navy reaction: VIII.298, testimony of Lieutenant Donovan.

Note 5
: The Assassinations Committee received information suggesting that the Marine Corps took a hitherto unknown interest in Oswald after the President’s death. The Committee was informed by former Marines navigator Larry Huff that—in December 1963 and early 1964—he took part in transport operations involving a team of military CID investigators. Huff, who retained personal logs for the period, said the group of about a dozen investigators were flown to Japan, en route to the Atsugi base where Oswald had once served. Huff said he learned from his passengers that the purpose was to investigate Oswald’s activities at Atsugi. When he picked the group up to take them back to base later, they told him something of their investigation and gave him sight of their report, which was, Huff said, marked “Secret—For Marine Corps Eyes Only.” It contained a psychological evaluation of Oswald that concluded the alleged killer “was incapable of committing the assassination alone.” Huff also believed that a similar military team had been dispatched to Dallas. The Committee could find no trace of the supposed report. Late in its research, however, the Committee obtained confirmation from another crew member that the flights to and from Japan had taken place. The Committee left the matter unresolved. (HSCA XI.541).

“Damage assessment” and defections/Fox:

Epstein,
Legend
,
op. cit.
, pp. 102, 366.

Rash of defectors: HSCA XII.437–; and correspondence between Hugh Cumming
, op cit.

Director of Intelligence at State Department, and Richard Bissell (CIA Deputy Director for Plans), October–November 1960, and attachments.

Note 6
: The Rand employee was Robert Webster, a plastics expert who defected after working at an American exhibition in Moscow. He had been employed by the Rand Development Corporation, an entity purportedly separate from the better known CIA-funded Rand Corporation.

There are parallels between the Soviet odysseys of Webster and Oswald.Webster told U.S. officials of his intention to defect less than two weeks before Oswald did the same. Webster, also a former U.S. Navy man, had a relationship with a Soviet woman thought to have been linked to the KGB. The Soviet wife Oswald married was also suspected of having intelligence connections. Webster left the USSR, apparently disillusioned, a fortnight before Oswald.

There are CIA and FBI files, meanwhile, on another American, Marvin Kantor, who was in Russia at the same time as Oswald. Kantor spent time in 1958 and 1959 in Minsk, where Oswald also lived while in the Soviet Union. One of Kantor’s friends there, he said later, had been a young man named Igor (LNU), son of a Soviet army general. When Oswald was in Minsk, he, too, had a friend—Pavel Golovachev—whose father was a Soviet army general. Years later, reportedly, it emerged that he had been a KGB informant. (Webster: see sources for “defectors,” above; Rand: Canfield & Weberman,
op. cit.
, p. 24–; author’s consultation Peter Dale Scott and Scott’s unpublished ms., “The Dallas Conspiracy,” 11.11, CD 5.259, McMillan,
op. cit.
, p. 107; Kantor: Memo to Director, March 2, 1965, CIA Segregated collection, Reel 44, Folder J, CIA document 1004-400. Golovachev is mentioned in Oswald’s “Historic Diary”).

152
     Otepka: Otepka interview, 1971, reported in Fensterwald/Ewing,
op. cit.
, p. 230.

10. Mischief from Moscow

153
     “A Communist”: Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. XVII.

Oswald reading disability (expert opinion): XXVI.812–.

“Historic Diary” excerpt: XVI.94; XXIV.333.

154
Note 1
: The Warren
Commission concluded that Oswald wrote the “Diary” but did not start writing until he arrived in Minsk (Report, p. 691). E. J. Epstein (
Legend
), citing handwriting analysis and other factors, concluded that the “Diary,” was put together after the dates described. HSCA experts’ conclusions, XII.236. Marina Oswald said in 1978 (XII.391) that Oswald would write several days in a row or sometimes skip for a week or so.

indicating deception: XII.452.

Note 2
: As this edition went to press, the author learned of—but was unable to give full attention to—a lengthy study of Oswald’s Soviet period by Canadian author Peter Vronsky. It is evidently the result of much research and original interviewing. (Vronsky, “Lee Harvey Oswald in Russia” website).

Hospital records: XVIII.450.

Shirokova: int., Moscow, 1993.

Note 3
:
In the “Historic Diary,” Oswald wrote of an “elderly American” at the hospital who was distrustful of Oswald for being evasive about why he was in Moscow. Though the FBI was able to check this reference—because in those days so very few Americans passed through Moscow—the only older American who had then been at the hospital was certain he had not encountered Oswald, or any other American. (“Elderly American”: “Historic Diary” entry for October 26, 1959; CIA document 1168-432-5 and related documents. As to the Soviet hospital record as released, the Assassinations Committee noted that the signatures of Soviet officials on documents concerning Oswald were all illegible. One of the hospital documents related to Oswald’s “suicide attempt” is dated April 25, 1953 (HSCA XII.451–, 494).

Psychiatrist recalled: int. Dr. Lydia Ivanova Mikhailina, Moscow, 1993 & her later considered commentary on file.

155
Intourist guides: Report, p. 260.

Other defector: Epstein,
Legend
,
op. cit.
, p. 295.

Note 4
: Oswald was interviewed in his hotel room on November 16, 1959, by an American reporter (Report, p. 696), and at the end of November, the U.S. Embassy informed the State Department (Report, p. 750) that he had left the hotel “within the last few days.” According to the Soviet record, as presented to the Warren Commission (XVIII.404), Oswald was in Moscow until January 4. Oswald may have been taken somewhere else before being moved to Minsk. In his own notes about his stay in Russia, he says he started work in Minsk in June 1960. This would dovetail with a report by a Soviet citizen who walked into the British Embassy in Moscow after the assassination. The citizen (whose name the author withholds) told British and U.S. diplomats that in April–May 1960 he saw Oswald, under KGB control, in the city of Gorky. He also alleged that he knew Marina Oswald to be attached to the KGB. Other, wilder claims by this individual threw doubt on his credibility. But there might be some truth to the Gorky aspect of the story. It has been reported that there was a KGB spy school in Gorky, notably by George Carpozi, the author of
Red Spies in Washington
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968, p. 12), who stated: “Most prospective intelligence agents are sent to the notorious Marx-Engels Institute in Gorky.” (For Soviet citizen’s report, see XXVI.735–; CD 1378; CD 1443; for Oswald’s time of starting work in Minsk, see XVI.287.)

“after a certain time”: XVI.121.

156
     Minsk/ “living big”: “Historic
Diary,” XVI.99 & photographs of life in Russia recovered after assassination.

Marina sketch: I.84; XXII.740.

Meetings at dances: XVI.102; “Historic Diary” entries, March 1961.

Subsequent courtship and marriage: Report, p. 703; (proposal) XXII.750; XVIII.604; HSCA XII.354.