JFK & the Unspeakable: Why He Died & Why It Matters (34 page)

[
128
]. Memorandum from FBI Liaison to Liaison Section Chief, September, 18, 1963; cited by Church Committee,
Investigation of the Assassination of President John F.
Kennedy
, p. 65.

[
129
]. The FBI memorandum continued: “CIA is also giving some thought to planting deceptive information which might embarrass the [Fair Play for Cuba] Committee in areas where it does have some support.

“Pursuant to a discussion with the Liaison Agent, [censored name of a middle level CIA official working on anti-Castro propaganda] advised that his Agency will not take action without first consulting with the Bureau, bearing in mind that we wish to make certain the CIA activity will not jeopardize any Bureau investigation.” Ibid. This assurance of CIA cooperation with the FBI in what turned out to be a Mexico City subplot of President Kennedy’s assassination was, as J. Edgar Hoover would soon learn, without any foundation.

[
130
]. Summers,
Not in Your Lifetime
, p. 263.

[
131
].
Lopez Report
, p. 192.

[
132
]. Ibid., p. 194.

[
133
]. Summers,
Not in Your Lifetime
, p. 264.

[
134
].
Lopez Report
, p. 194.

[
135
]. Nechiporenko,
Passport,
p. 67.

[
136
]. Ibid., p. 70.

[
137
]. Ibid.

[
138
]. Ibid., p. 77.

[
139
]. Ibid., p. 81.

[
140
]. Silvia Duran to the Mexican Police, November 23, 1963, in Newman,
Oswald and the CIA,
p. 407
;
Silvia Duran’s HSCA testimony, HSCA, vol. III, pp. 30-31, 49-51, cited in Newman,
Oswald and the CIA
, pp. 409-12; Silvia Duran to author Anthony Summers, January 31, 1995, in Newman,
Oswald and the CIA
, p. 368.

[
141
]. Nechiporenko, remarks in a special interview with American researchers at the 1993 Assassination Symposium on John Kennedy, in Newman,
Oswald and the CIA
, p. 368.

[
142
]. CIA 201-289248; JFK 104-10004-10257. For legibility I have added paragraph indentations to the CIA’s run-on transcript.

[
143
]. Newman, “Mexico City—A New Analysis.”

[
144
]. Michael R. Beschloss, editor,
Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-64
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), p. 22.

[
145
]. Commission Exhibit 15,
WCH
, vol. 16, p. 33.

[
146
]. Beschloss,
Taking Charge
, p. 23.

[
147
]. Emphasis added. A copy of the FBI memorandum with Hoover’s written comment on it is on p. 5 of John Newman’s article, “Oswald, the CIA and Mexico City: Fingerprints of Conspiracy,”
Probe
(September-October 1999).

[
148
]. The CIA also claimed in retrospect that its surveillance cameras had failed to photograph Oswald on any of his five trips to the Cuban and Soviet Embassies. HSCA investigators were blocked by the CIA from access to its surveillance photos (
Lopez Report
, pp. 90-91). Yet even CIA witnesses were skeptical of the agency’s claim: “CIA officers who were in Mexico in 1963 and their Headquarters counterparts generally agreed that it would have been unlikely for the photosurveillance operations to have missed ten opportunities to have photographed Oswald” (ibid., p. 91).

Also arguing against the CIA’s claim was its surveillance cameras’ success in taking pictures at the Soviet Embassy in October 1963 of the mystery man who was not Oswald, yet who corresponded to the October 8 CIA cable’s wrong description of Oswald as “apparent age 35, athletic build, circa 6 feet, receding hairline, balding top.” Freedom of Information lawsuits have forced the CIA to surrender twelve photographs of this man. These photos provide further evidence of an Oswald impostor. The CIA has never identified the man. Bernard Fensterwald, Jr.,
Coincidence or Conspiracy?
(New York: Zebra Books, 1977), p. 400.

[
149
]. CIA 201-289248; JFK 104-10015-10124. See also
Lopez Report
, p. 164, with reference to MEXI 7023, November 23, 1963, para. 2.

[
150
]. CIA 201-289248; JFK 104-11015-10082. See also
Lopez Report
, p. 164, with reference to MEXI 7054, November 24, 1963, para. 3.

[
151
].
Lopez Report
, pp. 164, 183-84.

[
152
]. Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, “Memorandum for Mr. Moyers,” November 25, 1963; in E. Martin Schotz,
History
Will Not Absolve Us: Orwellian Control, Public Denial and the Murder of President Kennedy
(Brookline, Mass.: Kurtz, Ulmer & DeLucia, 1996), p. 188. Also
Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Hearings before the HSCA,
vol. 3, pp. 566-67.

[
153
]. Ibid., p. 189.

[
154
]. Beschloss,
Taking Charge
, p. 72 (emphasis in original).

[
155
]. Ibid., pp. 67, 69.

[
156
]. Attwood’s Memorandum to Chase,
FRUS
,
1961-1963,
vol. XI, p. 882.

[
157
]. Ibid.

[
158
]. Ibid.

[
159
]. Ibid.

[
160
]. Ibid.

[
161
]. “Memorandum from William Attwood to Gordon Chase of the National Security Council Staff,” November 22, 1963,
FRUS
,
1961-1963,
vol. XI, p. 892.

[
162
]. Ibid., pp. 892-93.

[
163
]. Ibid., p. 893.

[
164
]. Ibid.

[
165
]. Attwood,
Twilight Struggle
, p. 262.

[
166
]. Daniel, “Unofficial Envoy,” p. 17.

[
167
]. Ibid., pp. 17-18.

[
168
]. Ibid., pp. 18-19 (emphasis in original).

[
169
]. Ibid., p. 19.

[
170
]. Ibid.

[
171
]. Ibid., p. 20; Jean Daniel, “When Castro Heard the News,”
New Republic
(December 7, 1963), p. 7.

[
172
]. Daniel, “When Castro Heard the News,” p. 7.

[
173
]. Ibid.

[
174
]. Ibid.

[
175
]. Ibid.

[
176
]. Ibid.

[
177
]. Beschloss,
Twilight Struggle
, p. 263.

[
178
]. Ibid.

[
179
]. Memorandum from Gordon Chase of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy), November 25, 1963,
FRUS
,
1961-1963,
vol. XI, p. 890.

[
180
]. Ibid.

[
181
]. Ibid.

[
182
]. Attwood,
Twilight Struggle
, p. 263.

[
183
]. Ibid.

[
184
]. Kornbluh, “JFK and Castro,” p. 97 (emphasis in original). These are the paragraphs that are numbered 3, 4, and 6 in the six-paragraph Castro memorandum. Of the other paragraphs, 1 asks Howard to assure Johnson of Castro’s desire that he win the presidential election (against a presumably more conservative opponent), adding the ironic comment: “if there is anything I can do to add to his majority (aside from retiring from politics), I shall be happy to cooperate.” Paragraph 2 is Castro’s offer to cancel a Cuban act of retaliation to any “necessary” act of hostility by the president while seeking election, a paragraph I am about to quote. Paragraph 5 cautions Johnson that “he should not interpret my conciliatory attitude, my desire for discussions, as a sign of weakness. Such an interpretation would be a serious miscalculation . . .” Ibid.