si EJL First Draft Page 14 where they would be safe, for a few days. Elena said she trusted and believed Calvillo because he was a known undercover agent for the Gobernacion. He was also a friend of Noe Palomares and Gustavo Diaz Ordaz. Calivillo also told Elena and her daughter that Silvia Duran had been arrested. Duran's arrest was not public information at the time. Elena could not remember the name of the hotel so she took Thomas to the section of Mexico City where she thought it’ was. They found the hotel. It was the Vermont Hotel, Calle Vermont 29. Elena said that she assumed that Calvillo had registered them as relatives or friends. They stayed at the hotel until the following Friday, Nov. 30, 1963 hardly leaving their rooms. While they were at the hotel they saw the photos of Oswald and realized that he had been the man at Ruben Duran's party. When Calvillo visited them at the hotel Elena told him that she wanted to report it to the American Embassy. Calvillo dissuaded her by stating that the American Embassy was full of Communists. When Elena returned to her home, guards were posted outside. After she returned home Elena saw her sister, Deba Guerrera. Deba had also come to the same conclusion ‘ independently of Elena. Deba was "terrified." Approximately
%. EJL First Draft ° -. cote Page 15 two months after the assassination two "communists" had visited Deba and threatened her never to reveal that she had been to a party with Oswald. Deba, consequently, would not accompany Elena to the American Embassy to tell her story. | Elena said that a few days after the assassination . Emilio Carballido took the Duran's to Jalapa, Veracruz and "kept them out of the way until the initial shock of the assassination wore off." Elena also said that shortly after the assassination an American named June Cobb spent several days in her house. Ms. Cobb had been sent to Elena by a mutual friend, Eunice Odio. Eunice Odio was a Costa Rican who had been Vasquez Amaral's mistress when Amaral was with the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1965 Ms. Cobb and Ms. Odio were roommates. While Ms. Cobb was at Elena's house she expressed an interest in the Kennedy assassination. Deba got drunk one night and told Ms. Cobb the entire story. Ms. Cobb wanted them to go to the American authorities. Claiming to be a CIA agent, Cobb advised against going to the American Embassy. She suggested that Elena and Deba go to Texas to tell their story. When her suggestion was rejected, Cobb said that she would arrange a meeting with the CIA Station Chief. The meeting did not occur because Ms. Cobb was asked to
EJL First Draft Page 16 leave the Garro house; evidently because she kicked Elena's cat. Ruben Duran visited Elena around the end of January, 1964. He was worried that Oswald's visit to his home might be discovered and that he might lose his Mexican citizenship. Ruben told Elena that it had been Silvia who had gotten him involved with Oswald. Rube added that he was not really a communist and had opposed the assassination. Elena said that she had told her story to Noe Palomares of the Gobernacion about six months after the assassination. He advised against going to the American Embassy and told her that if she did anything at all she should merely write an anonymous letter. Elena stated that it was "common knowledge" that Silvia had been Oswald's mistress. When asked who could verify the allegation she could only remember one person who had told her this. That person was Victor Rico Galan, a “pro-Castro journalist." During these conversations Elena also said that she “understood" that Oswald had been in Mexico more than once. (IBID. ) On the first page of Thomas' December 25 1965 memorandum of conversation Winston Scott wrote "Shouldn't we send to Headquarters?" Someone responded "Of course." (IBID.)
EJL First Draft Page 17 Charles Thomas wrote July 25, 1969 that “he got no reaction from Nathan Ferris. and Winston Scott" regarding his memorandum of December 25, 1965. (State Department: Letter from Charles Thomas to William Rogers, Secretary of State, July 25, 1969). Thomas wrote that Deputy Chief of Mission, Clarence Boonstra (State Dept.) who was in charge of Affairs at the time of the John F. Kennedy assassination and subsequent Oswald investigation told him that Oswald had not been in Mexico on the date given for the party. Boonstra also stated that the informant had changed her story. Thomas further wrote that even when he reiterated that Elena had not changed her story but that rather she had now given a more accurate account, so Boonstra stated that the date was wrong and dismissed the whole affair. (IBID. p. 2) The Legat's office in Mexico City replied that Thomas' office had been advised by memoranda dated December 27, 1965 and February 23, 1966 that since Elena Garro's allegations had previously been investigated without substantiation, no further action was being taken concerning her recent repetition of those allegations. The Legat's Office concluded that either the Counselor for Political Affairs did not route the memoranda to Charles Thomas or that. Thomas did not recall them. (FBI Report, 9/30/69, pp. 3-4, JFK Document No. )
EJL Field Report Page 18 Subsequent to December 25, 1965, Thomas wrote in the Dec. 25, 1965 memo that Elena had found her calendar and had reconstructed the date of the party as late September not early September. When Thomas went to Ferris' office and informed him, Ferris replied that Elena had given the late September date when she had originally reported her story at the American Embassy. However, Mr. Ferris explained that someone who had been at the party had stated that there were no Americans there. Mr. Ferris did not reveal that Ario Alejandro Lavagnini Stenius Ferris had provided this information. Mr. Ferris suggested that it was not necessary for Thomas to pursue the matter since he considered the Oswald case closed and had heard all the rumors before. (IBID.) The Legal Attache, Mr. Ferris wrote in his September 30 memorandum--that he did not tell Mr. Thomas that someone else who was at the party had stated that there were no Americans there. (FBI Report, 9/30/69, p. 4 JFK No. ) Mr. Ferris also wrote that he had told Thomas that it would not be necessary for him to pursue the matter any further since Elena's story had been heard before and investigated without being substantiated. He wrote that he told Thomas that Elena's story was considered a closed issue not that the Oswald case was closed. (IBID.) That there had been no Americans at the party puzzled
EJL First Draft Page 19 Thomas. He had assumed that Elena could have clearly been mistaken about the identity of the Americans she saw there, but never doubted that she had seen some Americans. Thomas wrote that he had never discussed the Oswald case with Ms. Guerrero de Galvan but that her grown son had told him that he was convinced that his mother had seen Lee Harvey Oswald. (State Department: Letter from Charles Thomas to William Rogers, Secretary of State, July 25, 1969). On December 27, 1965 the Legal Attache wrote a memo to the Ambassador regarding Elena. (Memo to the Ambassador from the Legal Attache, 12/27/65, CIA #578; WX-7241 Entry #429, p. 94, CIA #721.) This is one of the memos the Legal Attache refers to in the Sept. 30, 1969 memo. It reported that Elena and her daughter were inter- viewed on 17 and 24 November 1964. The memo said that they furnished information similar to that in Thomas' 12/10/65 memo. The Legat memo goes on to say “Inquiries conducted at that time, (November '64) however, failed to substantiate the allegations made by Mrs. Garro de Paz and her daughter. In view of the fact that Mrs. Garro de Paz' allegations have been previously checked out without substantiation, no further action is being taken concerning her recent repetition of those allegations." (IBID.) Win Scott wrote a note to Anne Goodpasture on this