Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK (6 page)

Mosby's UPI ticker became the second item in Oswald's FBI file numbered 105-82555, and the Reddy memo became the third document.16 The honor of being the first item in the Oswald FBI file was reserved for a document that was not about Oswald. It was the Corpus Christi Times article (mentioned in Chapter One) of October 13, 1959." Whoever put it in Oswald's file may have sardonically thought that such an article, with its title "Goodbye," and its broadside attack against Americans who defected to the Soviet Union, was the most fitting capstone for Oswald's headquarters file anyway. The first part of Oswald's file number-the "105" serialwas used exclusively for files on "Foreign Counterintelligence Matters." 18

At 10:36 A.M., the assistant director for Crime Records, Cartha "Deke" De Loach, began reading about the Halloween defection in Moscow. De Loach had far more experience working in the FBI bureaucracy than Tolsen, who was purely a creature of Hoover's. DeLoach, who would shortly become Lyndon Johnson's favorite man in the FBI, had previously worked in the group that handled liaison with the CIA and Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). Such liaison duties were sensitive given Hoover's suspicion of other intelligence agencies.

The FBI man who handled liaison with the CIA in November 1959 was Sam Papich. At some point during the workday on that Monday, someone at the FBI notified Papich about the Bureau's interest in the Oswald defection. If the date-time stamps on the back of Reddy's memo are an indicator, DeLoach was probably the person in FBI headquarters who had the memo most of the day and who, therefore, either contacted Papich or gave the order to do so-perhaps to Alan Belmont.19 Papich liked Belmont and disliked DeLoach, especially with respect to their views on CIA-FBI liaison on surveillance matters.20 Extant CIA and FBI records indicate that Sam Papich telephoned just one CIA element that Monday, and it was not the Office of Security, the Records Integration Division, the Contacts Division, or the Soviet Russia Division. He phoned someone on the liaison staff of the CIA counterintelligence czar, James Jesus Angleton.

"Mr. Papich would like to know about this ex-marine who recently defected in the U.S.S.R.," wrote someone in Angleton's Counterintelligence Liaison (CI/LI) Office-probably Jane Roman, whose handwritten initials often appear on CIA cover sheets for documents concerning Lee Harvey Oswald." As it happened, the CI/LI Office had no quick answer for Papich, and would not get back to him until midweek. Meanwhile, back at FBI headquarters, at 3:32 P.M., the Reddy memo wound up in the office of Alan Belmont. Belmont, like Tolsen and De Loach, was an assistant director to Hoover, and head of the Bureau's Intelligence Division. (Belmont will probably long be remembered for his 1953 internal memo in which he argued that existence of the Mafia in the U.S. was "doubtful."22)

At some point on November 2, there was contact between the FBI and the Office of Naval Intelligence about the Oswald defection. J. M. Barron of ONI authored a memo on Oswald that same day and directed that it be transmitted "by hand" to Mr. Wells at the FBI.21 Barron's memo begins by noting Saturday's Mosby UPI story and then stating that ONI files "contain no record" of Oswald. Two days later, a subordinate of Belmont's, W. A. Brannigan, wrote, "On 11/2/59, it was determined through Liaison with the Navy Department that the files of ONI contained no record of the subject [Oswald]."" On the other hand, Barron observed that Oswald's file at Marine Corps Headquarters did have information,21 including the fact that his address upon entering the Marine Corps was 4936 Collinswood Street, Fort Worth, Texas. Handwriting, now faint, on Reddy's memo appears to say "4936 Collinswood St. Fort Worth, Texas,"26 information not available at the FBI (at that time) except from the Barron ONI memo or from Marine headquarters by telephone.

Barron's ONI memo ended with the comment "No action contemplated by this office."27 The Reddy memo on Monday, November 2 appeared headed toward the same dead end. Reddy's original memo was returned again to De Loach at 4:58 P.M., and then traveled yet again back to Belmont, at 6:31 P.M. At the bottom of this popular memo, Reddy entered this notation: "ACTION: None. For Information."

Someone, however, possibly Belmont, was not finished with Reddy's memo. The next morning, Reddy's memo was on its way again, this time to the FBI's Counterintelligence Branch. More specifically, it went to the Espionage Section in that Branch. Before proceeding to Counterintelligence, however, it is safe to say that Aline Mosby's little fragment of a story, along with Reddy's unspectacular and rather empty memo, had made the rounds of the entire upper echelon of the FBI. The more sinister and classified part of the Oswald story-that he had offered to give the Soviets radar secrets and "something of special interest"-was still inside the State Department, and would remain classified until after the Kennedy assassination. It was, however, about to wind its way through the most sensitive elements of the American intelligence community.

Washington: Tuesday, November 3

By Tuesday morning, November 3, counterintelligence officers in both the CIA and FBI were examining the Oswald defection. Their interest had been sparked almost entirely by the few words Aline Mosby had pried from Oswald's lips at the door to his hotel room in the Moscow Metropole. No one in the FBI or CIA yet knew the darker details of Oswald's Halloween performance in the American Embassy in Moscow. No one in the FBI, CIA, or Navy Department yet knew that Snyder's classified cable alerting Washington to this part of the Oswald story was still trapped somewhere on a State Department desk in Foggy Bottom. No one in official Washington outside the State Department was yet aware that the "confidential" aspect of Snyder's cable was a piece of news so startling that any newspaper would properly have led with it: Ex-marine Lee Harvey Oswald intended to turn over classified material to the Soviet Union.

At four minutes past noon on November 3, a teletype at the Navy Department in the Pentagon began to print out a troublesome message from Moscow. The words "Attention invited to AMEMB Moscow dispatches 234 DTD 2 November and 224 DTD 26 October" began the cable from the U.S. naval attache in Moscow, Captain John Janet Munsen. The dispatches Munsen referred to concerned the defections of Lee Harvey Oswald and Robert Edward Webster, another ex-navy man. Webster had defected in Moscow while working for an American company, the Rand Development Corporation, on July 11, 1959. Dispatch 234 on Oswald was in a diplomatic pouch in an aircraft somewhere between Moscow and Washington and would not arrive at the State Department until Thursday, November 5. Munsen's cable, therefore, was alerting the navy to ask for it as soon as it arrived. Munsen concluded: "OSWALD STATED HE WAS [A] RADAR OPERATOR IN MARCORPS AND HAS OFFERED TO FURNISH SOVIETS INFO HE POSSESSES ON US RADAR."28

At 3:37 P.M., the FBI Reddy memo was date-stamped into the Espionage Section of the FBI's Counterintelligence Branch.2B By this time, it is virtually certain that Wells had delivered Barron's brief ONI memo on Oswald's headquarters Marine Corps file, and that it was now attached to the Reddy memo along with the Mosby UPI story. The Navy Liaison cable from Moscow was still in the Pentagon and would not arrive at the FBI until the next day, and there was still no word from the CIA's Counterintelligence Liaison on what, if anything, they knew about Oswald.

It was at this point, late on Wednesday afternoon, November 6, 1959, that the official paper trail in Washington on Lee Harvey Oswald took on a completely different character. At this moment the classified cables out of Moscow-Snyder's to the State Department and Munsen's to the Navy Department-began to wind their way into the espionage and counterintelligence worlds of the FBI and CIA.

At 6:40 P.M., FBI Assistant Director Belmont got his first look at what was to become the fourth item in the FBI file on Lee Harvey Oswald: the confidential Snyder cable from Moscow.30 To be sure, this cable, like most cables, was brief. It mentioned Oswald's appearance at the embassy to defect, his arrogant and aggressive attitude, and his recent discharge from the Marine Corps. Then came the bottom line: It told of Oswald's stated intention to give military secrets to the Soviet Union. Snyder closed by asking the State Department for permission to delay allowing Oswald's formal renunciation until word was received on what action the Soviets were prepared to take.31

That evening, someone in the FBI who read the Snyder cable took his pen and made double hash marks in both margins next to the words "SAYS HAS OFFERED SOVIETS ANY INFORMATION HE HAS ACQUIRED AS ENLISTED RADAR OPERATOR." Someone, probably the same individual, then underlined those same words." Meanwhile, across the Potomac River in the CIA, someone was reading a copy of the Snyder cable there too. The CIA reader focused on precisely the same words as the anony mous FBI reader. On the extant CIA copy of the Snyder cable are handwritten markings. These markings circle the words "LEE HARVEY OSWALD" and underline the words "SAYS HAS OFFERED SOVIETS ANY INFORMATION HE HAS ACQUIRED AS ENLISTED RADAR OPERATOR."

The State Department almost certainly sent Snyder's cable to the CIA at the same time they sent it to the FBI. Today, the exact date of the cable's entry to the CIA still cannot be confirmed, and is a matter that deserves close attention. The Agency itself cannot account for the details of its receipt and handling of Snyder's cable." In 1964 the Warren Commission asked then-CIA Director Richard Helms to account for a number of crucial Oswald documents. Helms could not explain when the Agency had received several of the 1959-1960 files on Oswald. Incredible though it may seem in view of the amount of press coverage of Oswald's defection, the beginning of the Oswald file in the CIA is the story of a hidden file inside a black hole. It was a file so sensitive that almost no one in the Agency knew of its existence.

The "Black Hole" in Oswald's CIA Files

"The Commission would appreciate a letter or memorandum from the Central Intelligence Agency," wrote Warren Commission chief counsel J. Lee Rankin to CIA Director Helms in 1964, "acknowledging that it received the following communications from the Department of State." Rankin listed several communications, including Snyder's cable 1304 of October 31. Helms replied that the date of receipt "cannot be determined," but that this cable was in the CIA's possession four years later.34 That the CIA had no idea when it received one of the most important documents pertaining to Lee Harvey Oswald seems incredible. Yet the fact is that after the Kennedy assassination, the CIA was unable to find out when and to whom these first State Department cables on Oswald were sent in the Agency.

At the time of Oswald's defection, however, someone in the CIA did have those Oswald documents. Since the 1992 passage of the JFK Records Act, a public law mandating the release of all assassination-related records, Oswald's CIA files at the time of his defec tion have been coming to light, as well as later Agency reviews of Oswald's records for official investigations of the JFK assassination. In two lists of files on Oswald that the CIA prepared in response to the HSCA in 1978 and released to the public in 1993, one gives no date of receipt for the Snyder cable at all, while the other acknowledges only that it was in the Agency's possession by February 20, 1964.35 By 1978, then, the CIA could not even confirm Helms's inadequate 1964 answer that the Agency had possessed it by the time Kennedy was assassinated. In other words, instead of straightening out what was obviously an embarrassing problem for the CIA in 1964, the Agency has let the problem of its first paperwork on Oswald fester over time. Even the most casual observer would be justified in wondering whether the CIA is wholly incompetent in its paperwork or whether dark secrets remain about Oswald's CIA file.

On November 4, the Navy Department sent a copy of the November 3 Moscow Naval Attache cable to both the FBI and the CIA.36 Again, this cable, like Snyder's cable 1304, contained the disturbing news about Oswald's stated intent to give up radar secrets. And again, this confidential cable, like Snyder's, also disappeared into the CIA black hole on Oswald, and did not show up again until after the assassination. It is therefore not surprising that the CIA element originally contacted by the FBI's liaison, Sam Papich-the counterintelligence staff liaison element-replied two days later that they had no information on Oswald."

The FBI had already heard from the ONI that it was contemplating no action when the negative trace-spy jargon for having no information-on Oswald from the CIA came in.38 Perhaps this combination seemed justification enough to shut off the alarm bell in the Bureau that Mosby's story had set off the previous Saturday. On November 4, W. A. Brannigan wrote a memo to Belmont, noting the ONI decision not to act and also arguing, "Since subject's defection is known to Department of the Navy, and since subject apparently has no knowledge of any strategic information which would be of benefit to the Soviets, it does not appear that any action is warranted by the Bureau in this matter."39 Brannigan recommended, however, that "a stop be placed against the [finger]prints to prevent subject's [Oswald's] entering the U.S. under any name." Brannigan advised that the FBI's Espionage Section stay on the lookout for Oswald's reentry to the U.S. Brannigan's recommendation was ap proved, possibly by Belmont, and on November 4 the FBI issued a "FLASH" against Oswald's fingerprints, asking that "Any information or inquiry received [please] notify Espionage Section, Div 5, Bu[reau]."40

Brannigan's analysis of the navy's position-that Oswald knew nothing important and therefore no action was necessary-was flawed. The fact that ONI had decided against action did not mean that such a decision had been made at the chief of Naval Operations level. Similarly, the CIA Counterintelligence Liaison section's claim that they knew nothing about Oswald did not necessarily mean that this was true for the CIA as a whole. In fact, the wording of Brannigan's memo seems to invite questions. His contention that Oswald "apparently has no knowledge of any strategic information" still leaves open the possibility he might have had other useful information. Moreover, the word "apparently" did not foreclose the possibility that Oswald might have indeed possessed strategic information of value to the Soviets.