Subject: Hola, Senor Jerry...
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 18:22:22 GMT
From: bishopm@my-deja.com
Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy.
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk

Jerry:

Let me begin by again extending thanks for the temperate tone of your
most recent post.  It is appreciated.  At the risk of being highly
presumptuous, can I urge you to employ the same tone with others here?
I think you'll find that doing so will present your case, and you
personally, in a far more salutory light.

And your viewpoint DOES deserve consideration.  It's obvious you've
done an extraordinary amount of homework on the subject, for somebody
who professes no personal background.  I will be blunt: it was my
initial impression that the point of your posts was to whitewash the
deficiencies of MC station back in the day, for a VERY personal reason
[i.e. you were stationed there and are using this forum to seek redress
for what you consider an unfair characterization of the station and its
personnel.]

To me, at least, this would at least account for both the vehemence
with which you state your case, and the intolerance you have previously
displayed toward those who dissent from your point of view.  You have
also demonstrated a rather astounding access to data which has escaped
the average citizen, which would lead one to entertain the notion that
if you have no personal intelligence background, you are being fed data
by those who do.

Moreover, you perhaps inadvertently fed additional fuel to my
suspicions by noting: "In reality an intelligence officer learns his
craft on-the-job, on a one-to-one basis. It can't be taught in
school."  Too true, Jerry.  But if so, how can you presume to know
PRECISELY what protocols obtained in MC station back in the day
WITHOUT "on-the-job" learning, or access to those who did receive such
an education?  From having "acquainted yourself with the documentary
record?"  Seems unlikely somehow.

However, you have simultaneously posited a number of conjectural
details which would indicate you were NOT personally acquainted with
the fashion in which a typical station is run [even allowing for
certain unique characteristics determined by the man, invariably a man,
who ran that station.]  It seemed to me that you were either: someone
with some foreign service background who hid that background behind
professed ignorance, or were genuinely ignorant but being "fed."  I
have not entirely disabused myself of that suspicion, but I do presume
that additional correspondence will provide me a conclusive
determination as to whether or not that supposition is faulty.

In an initial post to you, I apparently did you the disservice of
calling you "intelligent" and claiming you were possessed of "talents,"
which - for reasons still beyond me - you took to be an insult.  Can I
restate those claims without giving you cause for offense?  This is NOT
facetious, but a sincere acknowledgement of the time, energy and effort
you have invested.  I noticed in a posting elsewhere you bemoaned being
considered "a complete idiot" (or words to that effect) by other
posters here.  Please rest assured that I, at least, do not share that
belief.

Let me also warn that in the text below, I will skip over the parts
we've already exhausted - without noting snippage - and trust that by
announcing my intention to do so I am not violating any netiquette.  In
the event that I am, my apologies in advance.

You wrote [and hereinafter all text in "quotes" will be yours, unless
otherwise noted]:

"My own view is that Win Scott was a hard taskmaster and *if* he didn't
demand the above be done, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. But,
I reiterate that we don't know exactly what was done.  And I don't know
that this conversation was heard *real-time* at the listening post and
the info phoned in to the Station. So, if handled in the usual fashion
they would have got the resuma or transcript in perhaps 3 working
days."

Scott's manuscript suggests that the first call was noted as it
transpired and appropriate actions were taken instantly.  I understand
that you disagree with Scott's manuscript, a point to which I shall
return, where appropriate below.

"One problem, which I'm sure you noted, was that the Consulate
personnel are talking *about* somebody who *is not there.* Thus, there
is no point in dispatching a LIEMBRACE team."

Both intercepts attributed to the Cuban consulate - 9/27 and 9/28 -
would have made mobilizing LIEMBRACE semi-redundant.  In each case, it
was announced or implied that Oswald was either on his way to SovEmb or
leaving CubCon, making it somewhat unlikely that LIEMBRACE would
intercept him on his way there.  Of course the possibility of tailing
him upon his EXIT from SovEmb exists, but even I concede that would
have been suspicious response, disproportionate to the catalyst
involved.

"But, the bottom line is that we simply do not know how this was
handled EXCEPT that it was not associated with Lee Oswald until after
the assassination."

That's been the prevailing supposition.  I don't know it to be [un]
true, but I have ample reason to doubt it.

"First off, Win Scott's ms. is not an historical document and shouldn't
be confused with one. Secondly, Dave Phillips testified that he was not
informed of any attempts to recruit Duran - ie, not ever."

I'll get back to Scott below.  Two points about Phillips, however.  The
fact that he claimed to be out of the loop DOESN'T make it impossible,
though it IS unlikely.  But, more to the point, Phillips' word is not
to be trusted, as has been amply demonstrated by his own conflicting
versions of various events.  Oddly, I mean that in the most benign
sense, for it was a huge portion of his role to BE duplicitous,
deceptive, oily and disingenuous.  The fact that he said
something/anything under oath means nothing.  To wit, Allen Dulles'
contention to the Commission that a good agent would never tell the
truth, not even under oath.  In that context, I must admit Phillips
WAS "good."

> It seemed as though Phillips acknowledged whatever was contained in
> Scott's manuscript must be true, before switching gears and expressing
> doubts that Duran had ever been pitched, "because the station could
>not identify her weaknesses." At this point, Phillips was read what
>the Lopez Report called "reporting on file" [precise document
>undisclosed,though it must have originated prior to Oswald's visit in
>order to make any sense], and was forced to relent. Phillips ended up
>admitting, in the words of the Lopez Report, "…it did indeed sound as
>if the Station had targeted Ms. Duran for recruitment, that the
>Station's interest had been substantial, and that the weaknesses and
>means had been identified."

"I think that if she had been targeted that Phillips would have known
about it - no?"

Presumably, but not necessarily.  As you have pointed out yourself,
Phillips' other duties rendered him absent at various times.  It is
conceivable - albeit unlikely - that such a notion was discussed in his
absence and, since it wasn't acted upon, the paperwork might reflect
such a discussion during Phillips' absence, without Phillips being made
aware at a later date of said discussion having transpired.

"And nobody else at the Station knew about it either - have a look at
Alan White's testimony, as well as Dave Phillip's deputy's."

I agree that the testimony in this regard was by and large uniform.  I
am less willing than you to accept that all persons told the truth,
however, or were necessarily in a position to do so.  If one entertains
that somebody within MC station MAY [let me stress the conjectural
qualifier] have been running an off-the-books vestpocket operation, we
can have no assurance that all parties who so testified were in a
position to make such sweeping blanket statements.  One can only
testify to subjects about which one has personal knowledge.  In the
milieu we're discussing here, any number of players may have been
excluded from a VERY tight inner sanctum without knowing of that
exclusion.  I don't contend that this WAS the case; only that it be
considered.  Given the paranoia that obtained inside MC station at the
time, created by a number of relatively high-level leaks which led to a
joint Agency-Bureau-MIG operation to locate the source for same, I
think we're wise to at least entertain this possibility.

"Therefore, I tend to think that she was not targeted, for the
following reasons. She began work at the Consulate in mid-August, the
protege of Theresa Proenza. Within a bit more than a month, Oswald
walzed into her life, she was arrested, etc. I think she'd be too 'hot'
to pitch after all that."

Well, Jerry, I'd tend to agree that brutalizing a woman during
interrogation is NOT the best way to approach her recruitment, no
matter how much it might get her attenton.  But, again,
whatever "reporting on file" Lopez used to turn Phillips' head
presumably stemmed from a time prior to Oswald's arrival, or it would
have made no sense in the context in which it was offered.  What we can
say is that neither you nor I can rationally debate the significance of
a document we have thus far been precluded from reading, nor the
inferences we might draw from it.  All I can assume, based upon
Phillips' own testimony, is that he couldn't extemporize a rationale
for the "reporting on file," or his purported ignorance of it.

But then, Lopez's own characterization of the prior "reporting on file"
may provide a clue why Phillips felt compelled to deny knowledge of
same.  Recall that the contents of this "reporting on file" indicated
Duran could be sexually compromised:  "...all that would have to be
done to recruit Ms. Duran was to get a blonde, blue-eyed American in
bed with her."  How odd to note, then, that this is precisely the
description of "Oswald" given to HSCA by Duran and Azcue, a skinny, 30-
ish dark BLONDE "Oswald."  But rather than accept that the appearance
of a blonde "Oswald" indicated the execution of the self-same
recruitment plan described by the "reporting on file," we are asked to
accept instead that both Cuban consular staffers were incorrect in
observing Oswald's physical characteristics.  Somehow, in the minds of
Azcue and Duran, the brown-eyed brunette Oswald morphed into a blonde,
whom Duran recalled had either blue or green eyes.  Did somebody order
up a "blonde, blue-eyed American" to compromise Duran and give him the
name "Oswald?"  The prior "reporting on file" would at least suggest
the possibility.  But then, Phillips could hardly acknowledge THAT,
could he?

I'm also glad you mentioned Cuban consulate Cultural or Press Attache
[depending on which Agency documents you credit as correct] Teresa
Proenza.  You are correct in putting she and Duran in a close orbit,
for it was on Proenza's recommendation that Mexican national Duran was
hired.  However, since she left the consulate in 1962, she couldn't
have been responsible for Duran being hired "...at the Consulate in mid-
August..." as you have suggested.

"And, again, Dave Phillips, the Chief of the Cuban Section would have
known if she had been." [pitched]

I agree he should have known such a fact.  If Phillips claimed he was
unaware, you seem prepared to take him at his word.  I am not.

"I'm not certain how long she remained at the Consulate - do you know?"

1964.

 "Yet, I acknowledge that she might have been pitched. I just don't
know. It's not clear - even to this day."

Please don't misunderstand.  I'm not suggesting that Duran WAS pitched,
let alone agreed.  [Though SA Larry Keenan claimed to have been advised
by Clark Anderson that "Silvia Duran was possibly a source of
information for the Agency or the Bureau."  How Anderson could conclude
that Duran was "possibly" a Bureau asset without HIS knowing it is
beyond my ken.]  All I'm suggesting, based upon Phillips' own
acquiescence before HSCA, is that such recruitment was at least
CONSIDERED.  It defies common sense to suppose Agency personnel had
divined the "weaknesses and means" for turning her, yet then said "Nah,
let's no even consider it."  Now, WHY MC station demurred from pursuing
such a pitch is open to serious discussion, for any number of
inferences might be drawn from such a strange reluctance to forge ahead.

Conversely, if Clark Anderson was at least half correct, as per Keenan,
perhaps Duran had not just been pitched, but already drafted into
rotation by MC station.  Wouldn't THAT put an entirely different spin
on everything we have been told is true?  While I wouldn't put too much
credence in so vague a second-hand revelation, nor should the
possibility be wholly discounted, for it COULD make a certain crude
sense out of events which otherwise remain puzzling.

One of these is why MC station knew of Duran's sexual relatonship with
Carlos Lechuga no later than 1962, yet failed to make hay out of that
fact when it provided the most leverage to turn Duran, and the greatest
potential embarrassment to Lechuga himself.  This is PRECISELY the kind
of datum for which the Agency scours, to force an in-place turnabout or
an embarrassed resignation by the target.  Yet in this instance we are
expected to believe MC station made no use of its knowledge.  I would
suggest that this is an unrealistic view, for the knowledge of a
Lechuga-Duran relationship would have proved far too providential and
potent for MC station to have held it in abeyance.  We must also
consider, obviously, the notion that the information WAS used, but in a
way that hasn't yet been revealed.  [Did MC station use it in a
heretofore undisclosed attempt to turn LECHUGA?]

More germane still, let's not forget that Lechuga was one of the
diplomatic conduits used to transmit John Kennedy's olive-branch
feelers to Castro, and Fidel's responses back to Kennedy.  I am
positive that CIA had many OTHER means of knowing this, but somebody in
Duran's position was well-placed to know and relate the same
information to MC station, assuming she had been turned, or even
targeted for pumping by a 'friendly' inside the consulate.  Again, it
is not demonstrable, but must be considered.

> Phillips' odd denial of awareness then is mirrored by your own odd
> denial of awareness now.

"You think it's 'odd' and so did Lopez. Maybe she wasn't recruited,
tho. Surely she wasn't before the assassination. Phillips had only
begun his new assignment after his return from extended TDY on Oct 9,
1963."

Actually, Jerry, I think it odd for the very same reason YOU do.  How
likely is it that such a project was even considered without Phillips'
full cognizance and participation in the process?  You and I BOTH think
that unlikely, and yet whatever "reporting on file" forced Phillips to
pull a 1-80 before HSCA suggests either that the pitch WAS considered
(whether made or not) and Phillips lied about it, or it was considered
without his knowledge.  If we both agree the latter is HIGHLY unlikely,
we can only presume the former to be probable.  But that suggests
Phillips lied under oath, a contention that I think causes you some
disquiet.  (Which I DON'T share.)

> Moreover, whatever you think the station didn't know about Duran prior
> to Oswald's visit was apparently soon thereafter rectified. On
> 11/23/63, in asking for Duran's arrest, detention and interrogation,
>MC station provided the Mexicans with Duran's home and work address,
>her home and work phone numbers, her automobile licence plate number,
>along with the addresses of both Duran's mother and brother. When
>taken alongside the foregoing "reporting on file," this seems to be a
fairly
> detailed synopsis of critical data, if you're arguing that MC station
> had no compelling reason to interest itself in Duran, her sex
>partners, her potential weaknesses, etc.

"Let me observe that it would be routine to have info like this on all
the embassy employees. I did not know they had all that data, tho. What
is your source?"

Lopez Report, page 185/NARA- CIA document 64-552

"No, I'm merely observing that Duran was new at her job and only in
place for some 5 weeks before Oswald came onto the scene. This is at a
time when Dave Phillips is/has been away on assignment."

No, Duran was hired in 1959 at the recommendation of Teresa Proenza,
who was herself later jailed as the result of a CIA provocation in
which she was one of three Cuban nationals falsely implicated by MC
station as traitors to Cuba.  Consequently, unless Phillips had
been "away on assignment" for longer than four years, there is no basis
for denying him knowledge of same.

"Then, after the assassination and the arrest, I don't think she'd be a
likely target. I acknowledge I could be wrong.  Again, how long did she
stay after the assassination?

Then, the Chief of Cuban Operations does not know of Duran being
approached ... perhaps you're doubting Phillips?"

There's no "perhaps" about it, my chum.

> I'm also intrigued by your professed ignorance of Duran's longevity at
> the Cuban consulate. No, Jerry; Duran HADN'T "…recently begun her
>job - I think it some 4-5 weeks previously." In point of fact, she
> commenced work there in 1959 and left in 1964. For a man so
>intimately acquainted with the inner workings of MC station, its
protocols and targets of interest, your >lack of data on Duran smacks
of you being disingenuous, but I will accept that your ignorance is
>genuine.

"Thank you for your generosity.  I'll have to check my sources. What
are yours?"

NARA - CIA document 1125-1129B

> You responded:
>
> "I don't know what the Station's full response to the 9/27 intercepts
> consisted of. Win Scott may have had plans very similar to what you
> have suggested. I agree with you that it would be of interest. But, I
> don't know what he planned or did - or didn't plan or do. Do you?"
>
> Jerry, we need not indulge in retroactive telepathic exercises.
>Again, Win Scott's own manuscript disclosed: that the "Oswald" affair
was far from routine ["…Oswald >became a person of great interest to us
during this 27 September to 2 October period."]; that the station's
>interest was instant ["…Oswald, having just arrived in Mexico City,
made his first contact with the >Soviet Embassy in Mexico…"]; and that
> appropriate measures WERE taken ["…we at first thought that Lee Harvey
> Oswald might be a dangerous potential defector from the USA to the
> Soviet Union… so we kept a special watch on him and his activities."]

"The problem is that Scott's manuscript is not historical, not
accurate.

In fact, it is refuted by every officer from MC who testified. Ann
Goodpasture was the first to explicitly point out its errors. Finally,
she and Alan White annotated a copy of the relevant chapter. You can
find it online on Clint Bradford's Attention To Detail site."

I am intimately acquainted with the marginalia of Mr. White and Ms.
Goodpasture.  And while it is true that testimony from MC station
personnel generally dismissed Scott's literary effort as inaccurate, we
must consider two conflicting possibilities.

The first is that Scott himself invented and confabulated, for the
presumed purpose of conferring his book with a more senationalistic
saleability.  I think not.  A far MORE plausible rationale, if one is
in the market for same, would be that John Barron, presumed publisher
for Scott's work, required that it contain a strongly virulent anti-
Communistic content.  This would have been particularly important to
Barron if, through the employment of a nom de plume, Barron couldn't
promote the book by trading upon Win Scott's resume, or have him grant
publicity interviews.

Nothing could fill that bill better than a flat-out accusation that the
Soviets and Cubans killed the late US president.  In either case,
however, we must dismiss Scott as a greedy or paid liar, a dismissal I
think does him a disservice.  I grant that embellishment is the
artist's licence, even in works of alleged non-fiction, but it is
another thing entirely to make statements so sweepingly declarative as
Scott's without ANYTHING to back them up.  I doubt Scott would have
stooped that low.  [Besides, by all accounts, he wasn't exactly hurting
for money at time of death.]

On the other hand, we have a group of his former employees dispensing
what was by then a conventional wisdom.  That alone doesn't make it, or
them, wrong.  However, each of those former employees was faced with a
stark choice.  They could admit - to the extent their knowledge let
them know the truth - that certain practices DID seem a bit odd, even
at the time; that certain incongruities were evident in the paper
trail; that aside from missing photographs - which they claimed SHOULD
have been there - and tape recordings, there were missing transcripts
and missing cables to and from Langley; that MC station's interest
in "Oswald" was extraordinary on the one hand, dismissive on the other;
that portions of the Warren Commission's cursory treatment of MC events
were just plain WRONG.  Toward what end would they freely make such
admissions?  For the sake of Win Scott's literary career?  Not bloody
likely.  At that juncture, anything said contrary to the Warren
Commission's conclusions would only invite FURTHER scrutiny, and hadn't
the Commission's characterization already been uncharitable enough?

Or they could have cleaved toward the Commission's conclusions,
averring that they had done all that was usual, all that was necessary,
all they could with the limited resources available.  Resources
stretched so thin that camera coverage of foreign installations was
either arbitrarily sporadic, or even non-existent.   So thin that tape
recordings of a potential defector were marked "urgent" but
nevertheless recycled before they could be properly analyzed.   And,
well, yes there were some apparent incongruities in the paper trail,
but there must have been some mundane explanation, and it was all so
long ago... memories fade.

And even then, some among MC station's staff did break ranks on
ostensibly minor, but potentially significant details.  There WAS a
missing "lengthy" intercept.  There WAS an expidite placed on a
particular portion of a tape recording, followed by a studied
disinterest in the subject reflected in the paper trail.  There WAS a
gap where true photos of "Oswald" should have existed.  There WAS
evidence that MC station knew all about the Cuban consulate fandango
BEFORE the assassination, a fact undisclosed to the Commission, yet
borne out by a number of subsequent documents written by Agency
personnel themselves.  And there WAS the faint whiff of MC station
foreknowledge that Oswald would arrive in Mexico City.   And there
still WAS the inadequately resolved matter of the photographic "mix-
up," in which MC station forwarded to Dallas, as the genuine article, a
photograph it knew six weeks earlier was of the wrong man.  And there
WAS the small matter of whether or not Dallas Bureau agents heard tape
recordings of "Oswald" weeks after their putative destruction, and
whether Coleman and Slawson heard the same eight or so months later.

What's more, Phillips is not the only one suspected of perjury.  You
KNOW how hard Lopez tried to make his case.  Part of his frustration
was the result of wholly natural reticence on the part of seasoned
players to disclose anything substantive to someone they viewed with a
mixture of fear and contempt.   No good could come of it, from their
point of view.  Germane to our discussion is the content of the 9/28
intercept, and the extent of the prevarication Lopez encountered in
plumbing the issue.  Lopez himself recounted the Agency employee who
averred that HSCA "...had no need to know all those other details."
Hardly an indication of full disclosure, is it, Jerry?

The optics of this are not good, Jerry.  In a key respect, EACH of the
personnel broke ranks from the circled wagons, each time giving
confirmation to contrary data supplied by others.  You say that Scott's
manuscript is a gross distortion of what actually transpired.  I do not
hold it to be infallible, literal truth.  I think the truth lies closer
to the middle between the two extremes.  Because elements of Scott's
manuscript disclose precisely what other personnel DID aver under
oath.  Because elements of Scott's manuscript were publicly confirmed
by Phillips.  Because Scott's manuscript is FAR closer to the realistic
functions of a station than the fiction served up by the Commission and
its acolytes, and SHOULD be.

What's more, author Dick Russell appears to have located former MC
staffers who maintained that Scott DID possess both photos of
the 'real' Oswald in MC, and a recording of his voice.  Say what you
will about Russell's methodology or personal bias, had he been given to
invention from whole cloth, he would have done better than merely
citing sources who refused to be identified.  On the contrary, Russell
went to the effort of locating and interviewing Thomas Mann, who did
NOT strike Russell as being "slightly mad," per your characterization.

You may choose to mock Scott and Thomas Mann as "slightly mad" old Cold
Warriors, given to imagining a Soviet devil behind each event.  I have
never shared their world-view and think it simplistic.  But I do not
doubt their fervour in holding those beliefs, or that they reached
their conclusions about Oswald based upon something FAR more
substantial than hidebound anti-Communism alone.  I think the evidence
which led them to their respective conclusions DID exist, but was made
to evaporate for very obvious reasons.

"Beyond that, you may not know that there was a showdown between Lopez
and the CIA. Based on the ms. Lopez persuaded Stokes that CIA was
withholding photos of Oswald. I have the letter he sent. DCI Stansfield
Turner, certainly the very opposite of an Agency loyalist, wrote a
stinging reply which explicitly claims and proves that the ms. is not
an historical document."

Admiral Turner was a decent man, by all accounts.  He undertook the
continuing evisceration of the Agency's action faction with a
remarkable elan.  But, unfortunately, having been employed elsewhere in
the pertinent period, and having no acknowledged prior Agency
employment, the Admiral was ill-placed to have personal knowledge of
the events to which he testified.  Admiral Turner relayed what he had
been told by underlings, nothing more.  He certainly spoke the truth,
as he knew it, but he only knew what he'd been told.

"Indeed, all the the claims you quote are certainly and demonstrably
false. Oswald was NOT a person of "great interest". His name alone was
known by late on 1 October and he departed MC at 7:30 the following
morning.

It's one of numerous perspectives left possible by documentary gaps
where hard evidence should be.

> How about this HSCA testimony from
> translator/transcriber Mr. T., which echoes PRECISELY the protocols
> Scott himself had previously posited, but which were no doubt unknown
> to him since he hadn't read a copy of the manuscript:

> "We got a request from the station to see if we can pick up the name
of this person because sometimes we had a so-called "defector" from the
> United States that wanted to go to Russia and we had to keep an eye on
> them. Not I – the Station. Consequently, they were very hot about
the whole thing."

"I take that to begin by referencing followup action to the 9/27 call --
 ie, 'see if we can pick up the name of this person'. I believe he then
conflates that memory with recollections from after the assassination
when indeed Oswald became "a person of great interest." That's
when 'they were very hot' etc.

Remember, all this had happened 15 years in the past when Tarasoff -
whom I have interviewed - testified."

> Again, this suggests that merely taking note of a name and forwarding
a
> single cable to Langley was substantially LESS than the minimal
> requirements, and WASN'T what happened at all. Mr. T.'s recollection
> reflects a fervent contemporaneous interest in Oswald. Why display so
> avid an interest, only to make NO attempt to locate the "dangerous
> potential defector" who so concerned Scott himself? The anomaly is
> self-evident.

"There was no 'fervid' interest until after the assassination.

Oswald's 10/1 call was intercepted. At that time the Station had no
information whatsoever on Oswald. Thus, the 10/8 cable to Headquarters.
Something that was routine and 'not important but necessary'.

So, you've started with a semi-fictional ms. and added to it your own
spin on Tarasoff. But, I've spoken with the man -- as well as read his
complete testimony. Frankly, I doubt that you've done that."

You're free to doubt what you like, Jerry, but in this instance you'd
be incorrect.  It becomes increasingly apparent that you think Scott
and Mr. T. and Phillips [and not doubt others] are correct on the
things you welcome, incorrect - fraudulently so, in Scott's case - on
the things you dislike.  I think it generally unwise to impeach one's
own witnesses this way.

Re: Kostikov & Department 13:

> Yes, but MY GOD, that changed with tremendous speed, didn't it? Are
> you not the SLIGHTEST bit interested in how this fact was SO
> conspicuous by its absence from the documentary record PRIOR to
> 11/22/63, yet materialized as if by immaculate conception on 11/23/63,
> at CIA's own instigation?

"This is covered in Barbara Mannel's testimony. Or you can just tell me
how it "materialized" ..."

>The sudden emergence of this little nugget
> put a WHOLE OTHER spin on previously innocuous events, Jerry. While
> this detail in and of itself does NOT prove CIA conspiracy to murder
> the President, conspirators could have done NO BETTER than to float
> this "fact" so soon after the President's murder.

"What the information about Kostikov leads to is suspicion that
Oswald's trip to MC was not to get a visa but to get final instructions
from a control agent to return to the US and kill Kennedy."

Thank you.  Precisely correct.

"This direction was something so hot - as well as utterly unproveable -
that it led to the shutting down of the investigation - with directions
coming down from LBJ. This was the curtain raiser to the "WWIII
scenario". You do know that Scott had to pull officers in from
investigating the case by telling them that they'd be sent home and
fired?"

Yes.  So much for a thorough and comprehensive investigation.

"This began very shortly after the assassination when Gilberto Alvarez
walzed into the American Embassy and told his horror story to Amb Mann.

All the conspiracy theories entertained by people who knew how things
work involved Oswald being an agent of the Soviets or the Cubans. Tom
Mann told Slawson and Coleman that he "knew in [his] guts" that the
Cubans had killed Kennedy.

Do you think the Ambassador was part of some plot, Maurice?"

No, a victim of one.  He responded appropriately to what he THOUGHT was
true, based solely upon what he was told by Scott, Phillips, Alvarado,
et al.

> The subsequent emergence of other such details spells out an even more
> diabolical attempt to tie Oswald to Department 13.

I know of no such attempt(s).

Recall, if you
> will, the November 9 letter from Oswald to the SovEmb in DC, in which
> Oswald 'mistakes' Kostikov for 'Comrade Kostin.' Soon after the
> assassination, CIA likewise magically discerned that 'Kostin' was
> Kostikov's Department 13 code name.

"Show me some evidence of that. What I know about it was that such a
claim was made - by one person - and immediately refuted & retracted.
Indeed, we don't know *to this day* whether Kostikov was or wasn't
in 'wet affairs' and frankly it doesn't matter."

One person?  Refuted and retracted?  Have you seen the following:

AGENCY INFORMATION
AGENCY : CIA
RECORD NUMBER : 104-10004-10258
RECORDS SERIES : JFK
AGENCY FILE NUMBER : 201-289248

DOCUMENT INFORMATION
ORIGINATOR : CIA
FROM : ACTING CHIEF, SR DIVISION
TO : ASSISTANT DEPUTY DIRECTOR, PLANS
TITLE : CONTACT OF LEE OSWALD WITH A MEMBER OF SOVIET KGB ASSASSINATION
DEPARTMENT.
DATE : 11/23/1963
PAGES : 4
DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT
SUBJECTS : KGB CONTACTS; KOSTIKOV, VALER; OSWALD, LEE; ASSAS.
CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
RESTRICTIONS : 1B
CURRENT STATUS : RELEASED WITH DELETIONS
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 06/15/1993
COMMENTS : OSW10:V10B 1993.06.15.16:15:12:650000:

I can find no qualifiers or tentative language in unredacted portions
of this document.  I don't recall McCone employing the words "ONE of
our guys THINKS...." at any point in his presently-known contacts with
the Commission.

As for: "Indeed, we don't know *to this day* whether Kostikov was or
wasn't in 'wet affairs' and frankly it doesn't matter."

It may not matter to those who TODAY know it to have been a false
assertion, but it WASN'T characterized as false when presented for the
Commisison's consumption on 11/23/63.  I agree the contention WAS
demonstrably false, even at the time, yet that didn't stop the Agency
from relaying it to the Commission as accurate.  If we take your point
that it was an easily impeached fabrication or misinference, why did
the Commission receive it AT ALL?

"Kostikov met and dealt with Oswald as a consular official dealing with
consular matters.  Kostikov being KGB does not matter a whit unless you
think the Soviets hired Oswald to kill Kennedy."

Or somebody wished to have it appear that way.

"Even then when suspicions were aroused that was seen as highly
unlikely and at best a slim possibility. Indeed it remains "a slim
possibility." Of course, to Win Scott and Tom Mann it was much more.
And it led to both of them going slightly mad."

Casting these aspersions against people you selectively cite for
confirmation of your viewpoint is one thing.  Casting them in lieu of
any evidence for same is an unwarranted slur.  Can you provide ONE
person who knew them and made such an allegation at ANY time?  Or is
this retroactive psychoanalytic 'remote viewing' on your part?

>Now, I ask you Jerry, how does a
> lone nut gunman know more about the code names used by enemy
> assassination specialists than the Agency itself did?

"He didn't. Oswald recalled the name - but spelled it phonetically.
Oswald wasn't a good speller."

Strangely, he had no problems whatsoever in the Spanish-language
spelling of foreign Embassy and consular data and personnel in Mexico.
You say you've recently seen Oswald's notebook?  Then surely you
noticed that his dyslexia was highly selective.  In his native tongue,
English, he made multiple silly errors.  Yet when jotting down a whole
page of data in Spanish, a language he didn't speak. he made not a
SINGLE error.  Why, it's almost as though someone recited it for him,
or had him copy it from a slip of paper provided by someone who spoke
Spanish.  Imagine that.

"I can't refute the theory that Oswald was hired by the Soviets. That's
the thing about such theories - you never know and never can prove.
That's why the investigation was shut down: there was a huge downside -
WWIII - and no upside - you never could know.

But, I consider it highly unlikely, taken in the total context of the
assassination."

It is patently obvious that the Soviets were far too schooled in
realpolitik to undertake the assassination, (and stood to gain nothing -
 but lose much - from dealing with Johnson rather than Kennedy) let
alone have it executed on their behalf by an untested nebish such as
OSWALD.  Less easily escaped is the notion that somebody apparently
wished to have the Soviets and Cubans bear the blame for the
assassination, which is a whole OTHER kettle of fish, entirely.  Was
the ex post facto introduction of Department 13 and the Minsk
assassination school an attempt to provide Oswald with 'hitman' bona
fides otherwise non-existent?

> This was compounded even further by the subsequent disclosure that
> Department 13 gave its operatives a two year training. In MINSK!
> Another one of those magically-timed details of which the Agency was
> wholly ignorant until the revelation could only assume the most
> incendiary implications.

"I'd like to see you prove that one, Maurice."

Seek out the following, Jerry:

AGENCY INFORMATION
AGENCY : SSCIA
RECORD NUMBER : 157-10007-10240

DOCUMENT INFORMATION
ORIGINATOR : CIA
FROM : [No From]
TO : IDEN 20 - GP FLOOR
TITLE : PHONE MESSAGE OR ROUTING SLIP
DATE : 00/00/1963
PAGES : 1
DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL
DOCUMENT SUBJECTS : CHRETIEN, PAUL PHONE CALL ON 12-17-63(?); RE:SOVIET
INTELLIGENCE SCHOOL IN MINSK
CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL
CURRENT STATUS : OPEN
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 08/04/1994

"Again, you quote from the ms. *sigh* The Station didn't know that
Oswald was a defector until 10/10 when Hqs told them so."

But you have a problem, Jerry.   Mr. T. testified:  "We got a request
from the station to see if we can pick up the name of this person
because sometimes we had a so-called "defector" from the United States
that wanted to go to Russia and we had to keep an eye on them. Not I –
the Station. Consequently, they were very hot about the whole thing."

Now, either:

1) the station told Mr. T. that Oswald was a suspected defector ten
days BEFORE it learned such a thing, meaning the station knew much more
than it could have, earlier in the day than previously acknowledged;

2) or, MC station assumed that ANY Anglo dealing with the Soviets MIGHT
be a potential defector, in which case it should have shown far greater
interest in Oswald than was evident from the week-long delay in
advising Langley of the 10/1 intercept;

3) or, that Mr. T. was mistaken in this, but you would again be
impeaching your own witness by proving such a supposition to be fact.

>What's more, one of Duran's closer colleagues
> inside the consulate was Luis Alberu, a man who passed MUCH data on to
> MC station. Being a regular recipient of such data presupposes
>regular contact with the supplier of same, a contention made
verifiable by the volume of data he >provided in the pertinent period,
and
>subsequently, after a lengthy absence when Alberu was posted
elsewhere.

"I don't know how often there was contact. Obviously there are risks
associated with contact. I don't know how he passed his info or to
whom. Do you?"

If sanitization of the documents is intended to preclude us even
knowing his name, is it not a bit unrealistic to expect me to advise
you whom he met with?  And if I did have such classified information,
which OBVIOUSLY could ONLY be obtained from my own MC or Langely
experience, would I REALLY reveal it HERE?  Nice try, Jerry.  <g>

> Sorry, Jerry. While it IS true that SOMEBODY later ID'ed the female
> caller as Duran, it WASN'T done by Mr. T. Nor have we been told who
> made the ID, or when; only that it transpired at an undetermined
> "later." But then, it couldn't have been TOO much later, for the
>tapes were soon thereafter routinely recycled, weren't they?

"Every two weeks, give or take.

I'll have to check my notes. I could swear that Boris Tarasoff told me
that he had no trouble recognizing the voice of Sylvia Duran ...

But, you sound definite on that ... so, what's your source? Why are
they so closely held? <g>"

Sorry, Jerry.  Old habits die hard.  In the 9/27 intercept, the
transcriber noted the Soviet who called Duran was "unidentified" [no
confirmation of Kostikov] but that "...the person answering the phone
is Silvia Duran."  One would think that made it simple for the same
translator to identify the same voice on an intercept captured the
following day.  Yet this was NOT the case.  For "later" ID, see Oswald
box 15b, folder 56, CIA transcript. 9/28/63

As for the pointlessness - the idiotic incoherence on the topic of an
address - of the 9/28 phone call, you noted:

"That was the *pretext* of the call. I think Oswald was desperate in
the extreme and said that as an excuse to keep in touch. Recall he'd
just had the door shut very firmly by the Soviets -- by Kostikov, et
al.
They didn't want him. He begged but they stiffened and withdrew."

>Even if one accepts
> that Oswald was not a uniquely gifted person, just how stupid must one
> be to not know one's own address, to count upon the Cubans to give it
> to him? How would the Cubans have known his address, if not from
> Oswald himself?

"We don't know. He was probably just 'buying time with this' ... trying
desperately to maintain contact. But, he may have been referring to a
Texas address that was on his visa application.

I personally think that he hoped for further contact but thought that
it might have to be mailed to him. And he had left no address with the
Soviets. You did know that, right?"

Yes, I'm aware of that odd omission.  You would ask us to believe that
Oswald was desperate to make his way to the Soviet Union via Cuba, yet
fail to provide an address in support of the application, in fact
DIDN'T even KNOW his OWN address?  Or that the application was never
even completed, let alone submitted?  Were you the Soviet answering the
phone on 9/28, would this nonsensical "pretext" regarding an address
have sufficed as an "excuse to keep in touch?"

What's more, the request for THREE travel visas raises THREE
interrelated incongruities.  You apparently accept that Oswald wanted
to take Marina and June back to the USSR.  Even Marina fails to offer
confirmation for that supposition.

More germane still, Oswald's most recent previous correspondence with
the SovEmb in DC made no mention of that.  To the contrary, Oswald
forwarded MARINA's visa request, and enclosed a letter specifying that
he wanted HIS request to be considered "SEPARATELY."  Why the change in
Mexico City, Jerry?

But most damning of all, a single defect which calls into question the
integrity of ALL the "Oswald" contacts with SovEmb in this regard, is
that Oswald asked the Cuban consular staff for only ONE travel visa,
FOR HIMSELF ALONE.  Not ONE mention to the Cubans of wishing to take
his family with him; yet that was the goal attributed to Oswald by
Scott AND Nechiporenko.  Care to address THAT anomaly, Jerry?  SOMEBODY
screwed the pooch, Jerry, BIG TIME.

Jerry, are YOU aware that there were TWO visa applications filled out
in Oswald's name at the Cuban consulate?  Are YOU aware that one of
these bears a signature close to Oswald's, while the other was clearly
a forgery, not so much "close" to Oswald's as it was to the numerous
spurious 'practice' LHO signatures upon the copy of Oswald's Social
Security card found among Richard Nagell's effects?  Are you aware that
this second, obviously fraudulent visa applicaton bore an official
Cuban consulate stamp, but was incongruously date-stamped "10 October
1963?"  That point in time made NO sense in the Oswald chronology, for
he'd already been gone a week., but WAS the very date on which MC
station ostensibly first learned about the 'real' Oswald.  Care to
explain that?  Any idea from whence a forged but stamped visa
application might have originated?

> Assuming Mr. T. was correct in his characterization of the caller's
> linguistic skills on 9/28, Oswald spoke in horrible, barely
> decipherable Russian.

"In _Passport_ it's descried that he was so stressed in extremis that
he couldn't even speak Russian and they switched to English. Recall
that?"

I do.  And the only thing stranger than your acceptance of a 30 year
old, late-arriving memory, is your acceptance of ANYTHING from KGB.   I
admire your flexibility, if not your consistency.  If the Soviets
were/are not to be trusted, why accept anything said by a life-long KGB
careerist?  If you find them a credible source, what do you make of
Nechiporenko's claim that "...the call could not have gone through
because the switchboard was closed....[on Saturdays]?"  Care to
additionally impeach your own witnesses?

What's more, aside from poor Russian, apparently Oswald may not have
been terribly proficient in English either.  A hand-written addendum to
NARA 104-10095-10001, PDS 62-197 states, albeit tentatively, what was
purportedly told third-hand to the unidentified writer, presumably
originating with a DFS basehouse staffer: "The Mexican [redacted]
(according to [redacted], outside Staff Agent) said caller (who called
himself Oswald) had difficulty making himself understood both (as I
recall) in English and in Russian."

I will leave open the possibility that this referred to a lack of
English fluency on the part of the call's recipient, rather
than "Oswald" himself.  However, in either case, it raises the issue of
which call was being discussed.  There WAS no English spoken in the
9/28 or 10/1 intercepts.  There WAS English spoken, exclusively, in
the "missing" transcipt described by Mrs. T., the contents of which
were consonant with details provided by Scott and Phillips.  Yet you
claim this "missing" transcript was the result of Mrs. T.'s
mistake.

>This was the polar opposite of what the
> Commission itself was told by all the Russian speaking witnesses who
> had encountered the 'real' Oswald.

"Sorry, I have to disagree with that. DeMohrenschild said his
pronunciation was poor - and regional - and his grammar was bad. And he
commended Oswald for his perseverance and interest in the language."

Jerry, I would urge you to refresh your memory in this regard:

Mr. Jenner.
Did you speak in Russian or English?
Mr. De Mohrenschildt.
In English at first, and then he switched to Russian.
Mr. Jenner.
What was your impression of his command of Russian?
Mr. De Mohrenschildt.
Well, he spoke fluent Russian, but with a foreign accent, and made
mistakes, grammatical mistakes, but had remarkable fluency in Russian.
Mr. Jenner.
It was remarkable?
Mr. De Mohrenschildt.
Remarkable--for a fellow of his background and education, it is
remarkable how fast he learned it. But he loved the language. He loved
to speak it. He preferred to speak Russian than English any time. He
always would switch from English to Russian.

How does one simultaneously have "poor" pronunciation AND "remarkable
fluency," Jerry?  With the Baron, Oswald "always would switch from
English to Russian," yet with Nechiporenko and Kostikov, he did the
reverse, because of "nerves."

I must close for now, Jerry, sadly leaving other issues from our prior
correspondence unaddressed.  In the meantime, I hope this provides
additional food for thought, more grist for the mill.

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