Oswald's Tale (79 page)

5

Mexico

The bus on which Oswald was traveling from Laredo to Mexico City arrived, we can remind the reader, at 10:00
A.M.
on Friday, September 27, 1963, and Oswald, carrying his duffle bag and a small hand bag with all his valuable papers, looked into the rates at a number of hotels before settling on the Hotel del Comercio, which cost, room with bath, $1.28 a day.

Then he went over to the Cuban Embassy. There is every reason to believe he was confident the Cubans would give him a visa, since he had certainly established his credentials as a supporter of Castro. He had newspaper clippings to show his arrest, he had the stationery of the FPCC chapter he had formed in New Orleans, receipts for the money he had spent on pamphlets to distribute, and if any Castro supporters had heard him on the radio with Bill Stuckey, he would obtain the advantage of having his claims confirmed by other parties.

The first person he met at the Cuban Embassy was a woman named Silvia Duran, who spoke English. She listened to Oswald for a full fifteen minutes. Posner gives a good description based on the testimony of the Consul, Eusebio Azcue, before the HSCA:

. . . [Oswald] proceeded to tell her he was going to the USSR but that on the way he wanted a transit visa to stop in Cuba, for at least two weeks. He then began placing documents on her desk, each accompanied with a short explanation . . . [and said] that he wanted to leave by September 30, only three days later . . . Duran, an admitted Marxist, took a liking to Oswald . . . [and she] called on Eusebio Azcue to see if he might expedite the process for the young American.
¹

Azcue told him that he could not rush matters since he had to get authorization from the Cuban government in Havana. Moreover, Oswald would have to fill out an application and obtain five passport-size photographs. When Lee came back from that errand and completed his application, he learned that the best way to expedite his visa was to obtain permission at the Russian Embassy to visit the USSR.

Oswald was visibly upset at the hurdles looming before him and began to protest. As a friend of Cuba, he ought to be able to obtain a visa immediately. Azcue replied that he could be given a fifteen-day permission for visiting Cuba, but only after obtaining a Soviet visa. Or he could go through the normal channels, which would take several weeks in Mexico. Oswald replied that he did not have several weeks, and soon they were in a dispute that grew so loud that another official, Alfredo Mirabel Diaz, came out of his office to witness it.

Oswald then took off for the first of his two visits to the Soviet Embassy, which, conveniently, was no more than a couple of blocks away. For years, these two visits to the Russians have been a source of confusion or of obfuscation: The CIA kept a camera watch in a building across from the entry gate to the Soviet compound, yet CIA files have never produced a picture of Oswald entering or leaving the gate. The unadmitted likelihood is that the CIA certainly did have surveillance photos of Oswald entering the Russian Embassy and they were lifted from the Agency file after the assassination; indeed, this is to be expected if Oswald had attracted CIA attention after the Walker affair.

In any event, we can now be all but certain that it was Oswald who did visit the Russian Embassy and spoke there to three KGB agents who were doubling as consular officials. One of them, Oleg Nechiporenko, has written a book,
Passport to Assassination,
which tells of the two meetings in considerable detail.

Oswald arrived at the Soviet Embassy gate at twelve-thirty that afternoon, and waited in the reception area until one of the consulate employees, Valery Vladimirovich Kostikov, came out, listened to his request for a visa, glanced at the man’s papers, and heard him say “that he was under constant surveillance in the United States by the FBI and . . . wanted to return to the USSR.”
²

Kostikov had a meeting to take care of, and this fellow was hardly a run-of-the-mill subject. His visit was obviously going to take time. So, Kostikov called his colleague Oleg Maximovich Nechiporenko to the phone.

Listen, some gringo is here, Kostikov said . . . He’s asking for a visa to the Soviet Union. Supposedly he already lived there, married one of our girls. They live in the States, but the FBI is harassing them. Come over here and get to the bottom of this. It seems to be more in your line of work. I’m in a hurry.
³

Nechiporenko then adds:

As I approached the small building that housed the consular division, I saw a stranger, apparently twenty-five to twenty-seven years old, standing on the steps and leaning against the doorpost . . . He seemed to be looking beyond me, absorbed in his thoughts, and did not even react as I approached him. He was clad in a light jacket, a sport shirt with an unbuttoned collar, and either gray or brown slacks that were wrinkled. I greeted the stranger with a nod. He responded in kind.
⁴

Kostikov, who shared an office with Nechiporenko, made the introductions and left. Oswald and Oleg were now in the same room, and the American, being invited to sit down, did so and began to talk in a state of considerable agitation. He looked exhausted.

Once again, Oswald took out his papers, complained about the FBI, and said he had come to Mexico to obtain visas to two countries—Cuba, to visit, and then the USSR, for a permanent return.

I silently cursed Valery for “transferring” him to me and decided that it was time to bring this meeting to a close. I had more important items in my agenda. I explained to Oswald that, in accordance with our rules, all matters dealing with travel to the USSR were handled by our embassies or consulates in the country in which a person lived. As far as his case was concerned, we could make an exception and give him the necessary papers to fill out, which we would then send on to Moscow, but the answer would still be sent to his permanent residence, and it would take, at the very least, four months.

Oswald listened intently to my explanation, but it was clear from his gestures and the expression on his face that he was disappointed and growing increasingly annoyed. When I had finished speaking, he slowly leaned forward and, barely able to restrain himself, practically shouted in my face, “This won’t do for me! This is not my case! For me, it’s all going to end in tragedy!”

I shrugged my shoulders and stood up, signaling the end of our meeting. Oswald’s hands shook as he put the documents back into his jacket. I led Oswald through the reception area and showed him the way out of the compound. He departed, obviously dissatisfied with the results of our talk. He appeared to be extremely agitated. This was how Oswald’s first visit to our embassy in Mexico ended.
⁵

Later that day, however, Nechiporenko began to think about the American who had come by that morning in such a state of tension about the FBI.

What guided us most of all—and I do not think I am mistaken in assuming it was the same for all intelligence services—in working with such foreigners was the principle of “fifty-fifty.” This meant that the probability of obtaining a source of good, possibly even valuable, information was equal to the probability that the source was a “plant,” that is, a trap set by the enemy with unpredictable consequences.

As I thought about that day’s visitor and weighed the criteria of one “fifty” against another, I came to the conclusion that he fit neither category, meaning that he did not have any interest for us . . . It was perfectly clear that our internal counterintelligence back home had already studied him. Now that he was under FBI surveillance, let him be their headache, I thought.
⁶

In the evening, Nechiporenko, relaxing with Kostikov at a Mexican cantina, was told by him of a call from Silvia Duran. Oswald had gone back to see the Cubans and told them that the Soviets had promised him a visa, so Silvia Duran was interested in checking. Kostikov had corrected her impression. Now, for a little while, over their mugs of beer, they discussed Oswald. Being young themselves and in fine shape physically, they found it agreeable to debate whether the man was schizoid in personality or merely neurotic.

It is probably fair to say that the physical appearance of Kostikov and Nechiporenko was Mexican. They had been serving in Mexico City long enough to have grown full mustaches, and both men were dark. Perhaps they had cultivated their appearance. It is an advantage for an intelligence officer to look like a native, and to some degree they may even have begun to think like Mexicans—which will have its bearing on an extraordinary episode that takes place the following morning, Saturday, when Oswald returns to the Soviet Embassy.

Kostikov, Nechiporenko, and their immediate superior, Yatskov, were stars of the Soviet diplomats’ volleyball team. A “serious match” was scheduled for that same Saturday morning against a team composed of military intelligence personnel—GRU.
⁷

It is one of the ironies surrounding Oswald’s trip to Mexico that on this important day in his life, when he reenters the Soviet Embassy to attempt to convince these Soviet officials that he should, given his qualifications, be granted a quick visa, their minds are elsewhere. His presence in their office only serves to make them late for the game.

Pavel Yatskov, who was first to arrive at his desk that Saturday morning, was relieved when Kostikov joined him inasmuch as the stranger who had just come in for an interview was speaking in English—which Yatskov barely understood. Kostikov would later describe the scene to Nechiporenko. It is worth following at some length:

I flung open the door to the first office, and there I saw Pavel sitting at his desk, and at the attached desk to his right, his back to the window, was the American who visited us the previous day. He was disheveled, rumpled, and unshaven. He had the look of someone who was hounded and he was much more anxious than the day before. I greeted him, and he nodded in response. Pavel also seemed tense. He turned to me and said, “Listen, help me out. I don’t fully understand what it is he wants.” . . . At this point, Oswald, on his own initiative . . . reported that he had . . . traveled to the Soviet Union as a tourist, where he had remained for political reasons, and had lived for a while in Belorussia, where he married a Russian and returned to the United States. He even dropped some hints that he had supposedly carried out a secret mission. He announced that he was a Communist and a member of an organization that defended Cuba. Pavel interrupted his monologue and said, since he had been in the Soviet Union, lived and worked there, that he could probably explain himself in Russian and looked at him disapprovingly. Without answering, he switched over to broken Russian, in which the rest of the conversation was conducted . . .

While telling his story, Oswald again, as he had the day before, tried to support it by showing various documents . . . [and] repeated his desire to quickly obtain a visa to the USSR . . . He said he was motivated by the fact that it was very difficult for him to live in the United States, that he was constantly under surveillance, even persecuted, and that his personal life was being invaded and his wife and neighbors interrogated. He lost his job because the FBI had been around his place of employment asking questions. In recounting all this, he continually expressed concern for his life.

In his words, he dreamed of returning to his former job in the Soviet Union and living quietly there with his family. He spoke with noticeable warmth about his wife and child.

Throughout his story, Oswald was extremely agitated and clearly nervous, especially whenever he mentioned the FBI, but he suddenly became hysterical, began to sob, and through his tears cried, “I am afraid . . . they’ll kill me. Let me in!” Repeating over and over that he was being persecuted and that he was being followed even here in Mexico, he stuck his right hand into the left pocket of his jacket and pulled out a revolver, saying, “See? This is what I must now carry to protect my life,” and placed the revolver on the desk where we were sitting opposite one another.

I was dumbfounded, and looked at Pavel, who had turned slightly pale but then quickly said to me, “Here, give me that piece.” I took the revolver from the table and handed it to Pavel. Oswald, sobbing, wiped away the tears. He did not respond to my movements. Pavel, who had grabbed the revolver, opened the chamber, shook the bullets into his hand, and put them in a desk drawer. He then handed the revolver to me, and I put it back on the desk. Oswald continued to sob, then pulled himself together and seemed indifferent to what we had done with his weapon. Pavel poured Oswald a glass of water and handed it to him. Oswald took a sip and placed the glass in front of him.
⁸

At this point, Oleg Nechiporenko, suited up in shorts for volleyball, knocked on the door to summon the others and then opened it to come in. They were already late for the game.

But now, of course, there was no question of that. Not with the revolver on the table. Nechiporenko closed the door again. Afterward, Yatskov would tell Nechiporenko: