Doctid: 1-119 Mr. Goldsmith. That leads me right into another question ire that I was going to address to you. Specifically, whenever an agency employee writes a memorandum of some sort, or sends out +e | | pane would a copy of that memorandum or correspon- | = 5 dence go into his own file? | rs 7 Mr. Scelso. No. i S 2 “Mr. Goldsmith. Where would it go? | e & 3! Mr. Scelso.. It. depends on what. it was. If it is a : , | aispatch, you see, going to the field, it goes into a chrono- | : | file where everythingiis numbered, you see; a copy of each ! S 2 7 dispatch that goes out, and it also goes into the project file, = i = | And, if it was not associated with the project, it goes in : : 19 any number of subject files. If it were a personnel memoranduit 5 4 or a policy memorandum or liaison and general communications, | : a it would go in an appropriate file in the branch. | 7 Also, it would be filed and sent to Registry.. | = 7 Mr. Goldsmith. You mentioned earlier chat, for example, E a something might go into one of Mr. Helms’ files. : = t . - Mr. Scelso. Yes. ‘Helms kept files of memoranda which : : ‘0 | were addressed to him or went through him. : a | Mr. Goldsmith. It. must have been voluminous files. | £295 3 | Mr. Scelso. Sure. aN i 31 | Shese were things that were not routine Agency corres- Mr. Goldsmith. Did his files include correspondence, 001904 | \ + ; t : ae pondence. | } t t ' 32277215 Page 121 ALDERSON BESORTING COMPANY
at “ ti “pth ” Lt Rea ae, ied 1-120 copies of correspondence that he sent to other people? Mr. Scelso. I would think so. | 3 Mr. Goldsmith. You mentionéd.earlier that you had e 4 | maintained a file onoyour desk or in your safe, rather? | | Es 5 Mr. Scelso. Yes. | ' i . ! 3 ' Mr. Goldsmith. Where would that be today?. | S 7 | Mr. Scelso I have no idea S 7 Mr. Goldsmith. In other words, would you take that ~ Z 3 ! material with you, or did you leave it at the Agency? z | Mr. Scelso. I left it in the Branch. It probably was | : YW torn to pieces and everything that was duplicated was destroyed a i ~ 2 | and the unique memoranda was sent to Registry.when I left. e : tJ I did not take any files with me, except some personnel things; = “ that I had on myself. 7 | . Mr. Goldsmith. Was any consideration ever given by | = | you during your investigation, or after your investigation, | “ 7 | that Oswald may have been a CIA agent? : : | Mc. Scelso. Well, we immediately retraced him. We , mn i i = 7 traced him before; we retraced him. Then, for members of = the | 5 20 | Warren Commission in their presence, we retraced him again. | coe | Mr. Goldsmith. What do you mean by “retraced pim2" | \ 8) ay Mr. Scelso. This is a procedure whereby you go down to Central Registry and hand them a trace request with the 201 ' { i Ey, 4 aS hed td number on it and all his complete name and so on and date on him. They then, using their computers and so on, run through | eT | 001902 FORE Docld: 32277215 Page 122 ; ALDERSON RESORT ING COMPaY
ew a 4 wm a 3 ™ i a ; wt co) ~ mM t c for) 7 — ™N e a ood ™ . 5 aa Y a es + - {0 S g = 11 —_— det Dv < = re) be cS = = ’ a 43 = = ig a ce = S 1: =a iw gS = te = id n 7 = +9 = 16 na = 13 ~ e « S 29 coe Ol OLS” “eae ine a“ @ rae 2 iy ANY © *4 Docld: 32277215 a H 4 ak at t iT ch i} Page 123 ALSERSCN REFSCRTIN -he could see could see how it worked. . 1 1-121 the thing and get a machine run of all references to him. They did this in the presence of a Warren Commission man so Mr. Goldsmith. Was that done specifically using Oswald's name? Mr. Scelso. Oswald's name, that is right, to. show him i I exactly how we were abbe disgorge whatever we had on Oswald. Now, we knew right from the start. that Oswald had never been an agent of the Agency, as far as the records show, and | everybody concerned with it knew, or believed, that he had never been an agent of the Agency. i i 1 1 3 1 i Mr. Goldsmith. How did you know that? i i Mr. Scelso. Because all agents of the Agency are indicated in Registry, you see, under a eryptonym:or with i reference to another desk, with reference to a certain desk with an instruction, go to a certain desk and ask them. This is done with extremely sensitive cases and also done with security. suspects of great importance. Oswald did not. show | up in any such contracts. Mr. Goldsmith. Who checked that, did you? | u Mr. Scelso. Charlotte Bustos, and it. was later checked by the CI staff. | Mr. Goldsmith. Charlotte Bustos, was she on your state? Mr. Scelso. My branch.. : Mr. Goldsmith. Western. Hemisphere? 901903. COMPANY
1-122 Mr. Scelso. She was primarily the Mexican desk, although later she may have had branch-wide responsibilities. I do not m remember. ; 1 i ! 4 ti @ 4 | Mr. Goldsmith. To your knowledge, was Oswald ever an ; { . 1 2 7 agent of the CIA? | : 5 | Mr. Scelso. Never in any sense. | ; 7 : Mr. Goldsmith. If an agent has a 201 file and I would : : 7 like to indicate to you that I understand that the fact that | ; | there is a 201 file, that someone is not an agent ~-- if an ! : 19 agent has a 201 file, would the papers maintained in that file) 3 ty | be maintained there in chronological order? 3 al Mr. Scelso. I think the 201 file has a number of differ- YF 13 ent parts to it. There is biographic information, administra-'! 5 7 tive information and so on. : ai Mr. Goldsmith. Would each different part be maintained | E 7 in a different file? | = a Mr. Scelso. It is usually in the same folder. | - is . : 7 . Mr. Goldsmith. In the same folder. | = 3 | Mr. Scelso. Unless it is a giant file, then it may be ~ e. 2 | meta | ' | Mrs Goldsmith, As a general rule, would it be in chrono- logical order, so the first paper would come Erom the bottom, : the next one and the next one? Mr. Scelso. Yes... Mr. Goldsmith. If the file is not. in chronological order, i oe 24 de Docld:32277215 Page 124 SLOSSSON REPORTING COMPANY EPSET 001904
1-123. would that suggest that the file had been tampered with in ines any way? tn Mr. Scelso. It might have been reorganized, conceivably | when it was put together, you see, it may have been put together ta She z 5 | in disparate pieces of paper gathered from all around, and | & 6 | the person who put the file, created the file, out of hothing, | g | may have put them in some other order rather than chronological Sa order. 3 | Mr. Goldsmith. Are there any written criteria. or regula-: a i! = 10 tions covering the manner in which 201 files have to be main- : ir | tained? | | 7 | . 42 i Mr. Scelso. There may be, I do not know. You know, ® = 12 I never went to Central Registry»the entire time I was in | = 14 Washington, for eight years -- I did once. It was what we E is called a Registry tour, which was a one-week briefing on | 2 ig Registry and I never took it. | = 4 ; ” 7 Not. only that, after my initial training course of four : : 13 weeks -- it was a six-week course, but I came in two weeks ! an = 17 late -- in 1947, I never took a training course in my entire | = 29 | career; I am about the only officer that never did. Helms © | . | : vee 11 would never let me take time to take training courses. i . fy 2p / Mr. Goldsmith. Do you have any reason to believe that. ~m Ww Oswald may have been an FBI informant? ds Mr. Scelso. No. He was in touch -- the FBI was in Ww wry touch with him. You know that, of course. i Sah Eel 001905 Docld: 32277215 Page 125 ALD SRSON tw ed NG ad : 1 +
1-124 Mr. Goldsmith. Do you. have any reason to believe that Oswald may have been an agent of the Department of Defense Intelligence? Mr. Scelso. No. Es a Mr. Goldsmith. If he had been, would you have known - 7 about it? g 7 Mr. Scelso.: No, not necessarily. they could have < 2 | concealed it from us. Technically, under Presidential order, : 3 | they should have coordinated the operation with the Central : '9 | Intelligence Agency at some point, if Oswald was a source of : 1 | theirs overseas. But compliance with that Presidential . 12 directive was spotty.. |  ) : 13 : Mrs Goldsmith. Do you know a man by the name of John E 14 McVickar? = i E 13 Mr. Scelso. It does not. ring a bell. It barely rings | z | | = 14 a bell in the distance. : A a Mr. Goldsmith. You mentioned earlier that you just read the book, "Legend." In that book, a woman by the name of Priscilla Johnson is mentioned. She was a newspaper reporter who interviewed Oswald. when he was in Russian. Joa Vth STREET, oO | i t 4 ' } { ! | ; =~, a Do you have any reason to believe that Priscilla Oren | © ow 22 , Johnson MacMillan may have been an. Agency employee? | | 22 Mr. Scelso. I never heard it. The way things developed, Y 24 i a lot of things happened that I did not know or I did not find. pout | 001906 araARr Docld: 32277215 Page 126 ALOESSCN REPORTING COMPANY
1-125 ; : Mr. Goldsmith. For purposes of the record, I shoudd + : ask you, if possible please try to let me finish my questions, 3 4 because otherwise, the record will look as though I am asking ge a question and you are most of the time anticipating what I Ss am getting at, but you are answering me very quickly, so the | A . | record will look chopped up if you.do not let me finish my : 7 | question. | “ 2 What about a woman named Aileen Mosby, also. a. correspon- | a ‘| ' 5 | dent in. Moscow. Do you have any reason to believe that she | : 2 | would have been an employee of then Agency? | : Mr. Scelso. I had known nothing about it. | : a! Mr. Goldsmith. A newspaper correspondent called A. I. | © : x Korengold, the last name is Korengold. | : Mr. Scelso. No.. ; 7 Mr. Goldsmith. How about Goldberg, A. I. Goldberg? | : eo -Mr. Scelso. No. I might say that I did not know. I | : yt am pretty sure I never knew the names of any American journa- : : 13 | list that we might have used in Russia. Although I once did | : 1e | a survey of all of our journalist operations. Mr.. Goldsmith. You mentioned earlier that CIA's Moscow | station was run somewhat differently than other stations. : Mr. Scelso. Yes. Mr. Goldsmith. Could you summarize for us again why : and how it was run differently? Mr. Scelso.. Well, Soviet and satellite operations, in 001907 Docld: 32277215 Page 127
1-126 general were very, very highly compartmented. Successful recruitments of Soviet or satellite officials were handled with special cryptonyms and did not come to the attention of coe) ; . / 4 ! Other divisions or branches unless it were absolutely neces- | E | sary -- for instance, had they recruited somebody like that | 5 | in Mexico City, I would have known about the operation. | | S 7 | However, if a Soviet agent of ours had been transferred 3 | fron Paris to Mexico City, 1 might not have learned of it. : 5 | Bven when I was later Chief of Foreign Intelligence operations, : Te my purview did not include those successful Soviet and satel- | cS H . : : 1 : lite operations which were in being. Tt did include a survey | Z 7 | of our efforts to make such recruitments and stations all ! - © 2 13 around the world. | = 1A My authority did not cover the Moscow Station at any : : re time. That was entirely separate. I never was told who was | E 7 | there or what they were doing. : . m 7 Mr, Goldg@tith. You might normally know which Agency employ- z 13 ees were at another station. : = = . Mr. Scelso.:’ Yes, ~ Almést always I.could, find that = . ‘Mr. Goldsmith. Moscow? | cS | DSR | , | ee7 27 ; Mr. Scelso. Moscow was never discussed with any of the | | 73 | panels which I sat on, nor were there projects submitted to | | me for approval. | ) a3 | Mr. Goldsmith. Is it possible that the Moscow station OP ABE | «SEGRE Docld:32277215 Page 128 ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY 001908
Doctid: to be vs] = = pay = N i rs) : wt fo ~ “~ . Sc a 7 — = mn o 2 a N . a rz) y a * ~ tC S ~ GS = ty _ 14 B Lee = iol Va - cP = ~ ’ = 13 = = = 4 a = oe ~ iw > is = = _ a9 £ 18 wn = 19 ~ c - = 29 4 ay “4 ae se ‘yy 1-127 would have had a Chief of Station? Mr. Scelso. Yes, but I-doubt it. I would doubt it. I always thought that there was only one man in Moscow, and now there were probably more than one. Mr. Goldsmith. Why would there be relatively few people | assigned to the Moscow station? Mr. Scelso.: I don't know. It would be hard to get them; in. .It would be hard to find a seasoned officer --') there is no sense Sending annovice -- a seasoned officer who was not blown, as they say, whose cover had not been compromised. However, it appears that it did not make much. difference because some of the people they sent there must have been compromised. In general, the chiefs of the Soviet effort were extremely jealous of their prerogatives and found it much easier to cooperate without anybody critiquing their work. Mr. Goldsmith. Is it possible that, by virtue of the secrecy in which Soviet operations were run and specifically in secrecy with which the Moscow station tended to operate that Oswald may have been recruited as a CIA agentvand that no record would have been maintained of it? Mr. Scelso. A record would have been maintained of it. The Soviet Division had records, definitely, and they had to brief important people about the. operations, particularly the ¢ Director. But there were operations, for example, a number of i !  SESRET | | 32277215 Page 129 . ALGERSON RESORTING COMPARY.
DoctlId: ata Hoawka yg wim SS atic 3 1-128 operations in the clandestine sérvices that neither the DDO t nor the ADDO knew. | to Mr. Goldsmith. For example, here is a problem that Ww > | the Committee is confronted with. 2 | : 3 S| We recently introduced an employee who, as I mentioned | “A 7 earlier today, indicated that looking at his records, every | : 7 | indication on that record would be that.he had retired from : a I ene Agenéy in. the mid-50's when actually he had been with the | : 3 Agency throughout and had continued one way or the other, — : ire} | whether it was to be paid by the Agency or by the State bepartt : 1] ment, he was still working for the Agency.. There was no | = . : 2 | record of his Agency connection at Langley. | cc i = 12 | Mr. Scelso. He may say that, but I do not believe it z 14 is true. There would certainly be files on him in the opera- | : 1s | tional branches which were concerned with his work. He may | z Is have been purged from the normal personnel records, and so . 17 : on, but he would have been continued in operational files | a : 18 i which may have existed in only one file in the Branch where ! : 19 | he wastmanaged. ! f 20 | Mr. Goldsmith. So that. it is possible that the ! eee | personnel file would be purged in some manner, or. would be | OSS fa 22 ! written up ina manner to indicate that he was no longer with the Agency? And it is possible that there would be just > 7 one operational file which indicates. that, in fact, he was Ww Un still with the Agency and unless you knew this man's cryptonym Stones | 32277215 Page 130 ALNERSON REPORTING COMPAR
1-129 and went to that project file, you would never know. =| Mr. Scelso. Sure. Very probably yes. | Mr. Goldsmith. Is it possible, taking it a step further, that the person would not even have a personnel file? 2345 toy Mr. Scelso. You mean in the Office of Personnel? The na ee ee “ , . Office of Personnel has files on all staff members. : 7h Mrs Goldsmith. Yes. , . : . Mr. Scelso. His retirement file would have been taken | : : | out to a depo in Virginia. _He would have been still ina | : | card file, however, in Personnel. A-'card file would show that, : he is a former employee. | Anything is possible, whether Oswald was a CIA agent, : @ | i i ' but it certainly was concealed from me if he were. I will say | reo that Oswald was a person of a type who would never have been a recruited by the Agency to work behind the Iron Curtaainy or \g | anyplace else. Mr. Goldsmith. Why not? Oe Mr. Scelso. Because his personality and background | 4 fo | = ‘7 | completely disqualified him for clandestine work or for work | oo i ‘ eo 39 | asaan agent to carry out the instructions of the Agency. Mr. Goldsmith. Could you go into more detail? This is \ ! i | i really an important area, if you. would care to elaborate a bit. } | ay hext Mr. Scelso. When the Agency hires an agent, engages | someone to do our work and gives him a certain amount of training 4 ‘and places him under our guidance, whether we pay him or not f 001911 Docld: 32277215 Page 131
1-130 | i or whether he signs an agreement or not, he has to meet cer- | i : ' tain standards, he has to go through a security check, a ' t H } bis personality and his background and evaluate his. reliability } in If he gets more than $15,000 a year, if he got more i i | file check. And the Counterintelligence Staff has to examine | than $15,000, if the operation called for more than. $15,000 «ab branch. If he had been recruited in the Soviet Union, he 20024 (202) SS4-2945 ~“ { | . oo. a. | a year, back in those days it would have gone through my... i oO would not have gone through my Branch... pP.c, i . | Well, Oswald, by virtue of his background and so on, would miserably fail to meet our. minimum qualifications. VASUTHGTON, Oswald would have been debriefed had he walked in and volun- HUTLDENG, i RAP AUTE GS ff t { | teered information, you. see. However, he would not have been ; | | given any mission to perform. He might have been given instructions, you see, which t i ; : 4 i i i | would: tend to neutralize him and make him less of a. nuisance S.W. S 7 i and danger than he otherwise would be, like go away and do not | i : : | contact us anymore. STREET, Gs i ! i i ' z | Mr. Goldsmith. What about the flip side of all of this?’ é alte there any reason to think that Oswald was recruited by the | — va ! KGB? | Aho ii @ gx 22 Mr. Scelso. Indeed, he certainly must have been debriefed 23" by the KGB. I would think they would have debriefed him on. his military information. I do not think that the KGB would have recruited him to be their agent after he left Russia. | Docld: 32277215 ' Page 132 . ALDERSOMN REZORTING COMPANY
re be tn rex D.C. 20024 (202) $54-2345 ey rb ey Co) as GASHTHGTON , day W. REPORTERS BUTLDTNG, a Ss. ' Jn TT STREET, oO w in Docld: 32277215 Zs B* I he 1-131 Mr. Goldsmith. Why not? Mr. Scelso. Because they were intimately acquainted with his ways and his habits and his background and would not have regarded him as a reliable collaborator. Mr. Goldsmith. Unless both, in the case of the KGB or | ) CIA, as Epstein says in his book, Oswald's background is simply a legend, fictional. It does not accurately portray his true characteristics. | Mr. Scelso. If. Oswald, you mean, in his. teens had been briefed to act like an unreliable kdaok and build up. a legend | like that. However, the Russians are just as careful, or | more careful, about this kind of thing than we are and I just do not think -- Oswald's whole pattern of life was that of a very badly, emotionally unbalanced young man.. Mr. Goldsmith. Let's get into the area of the CIA's | investigation of the assassination in more detail. First, | can you tell us how the investigation was organized? r Mr. Scelso. Well, practically my whole Branch parti- i. i : cipated in the thing. We dropped aimost. everything, else and | 4 i I put a lot of my“officers to work on tracing names, analyzing | files. I We were flooded with cable traffic, with reports, suggestions, allegations from all over the world, and these things had to be checked out. We were checking out just , dozens and dozens of people all of the time. . eCPUrT 001913 weve | ALDERSON RESORTING COMPARY . . Page 133 -}
1-132 Mr. Goldsmith. Was the information routinely passed Mr. Scelso. Yes. Everything that appeared to be ta | | i | i 2 around to the FBI? | so relevant. A vast amount of fabrication came in. | = 5 Mr. Goldsmith. Was there any structure in the manner B : a 4 | in. which this was organized? You were the man in. charge. | S 7 | How were things organized below you? | o 7 Mr. Scelso. Well, I ran the whole thing-and I used my 3 3 | staff to help me. e i | ~ iil Mrs Goldsmith. How big was your staff? | - | | | | = lid Mr. Scelso. I had about 30 officers and about 30 cler- = i = 19 ical help. Not all of the officers do this, but a great many © = i27 | of them did. | = van Mr. Goldsmith. What instructions, if any, were given £ i ! ai | 1 one . . ‘ : ‘ ; : 5s is | to the field stations as to investigating the assassination? | = is | Mr. Scelso. The only station that was directly involved | a 7 was Mexico. The possible involvement of our Miami station did) & '@| not emerge, as I recall it, until we read the Bureau report = 7 and a few of Oswald's. pro-Castro activities in the. United | ¢ 30 | States. ! _=— nl Just. around this time I was relieved of responsibility | Ser ore) . . . . © ya 22 : for the investigation, so that -~- well, we cabled Nicaragua | 23! to find out about Ugarte. We were in correspondence with i @ a4 ! Melbourne and God knows what about reports which were coming | 4- : in from anonymous or published sources, and so on. .In those por 01944 iy : re h 35 SBS os amt s = TING COMES Docld: 32277215 Page 134 ALDESSON REFORTING VR tee
1-133 areas, they were all fabrications, bizarre fabrications. Mr. Goldsmith. Essentially, however, there was really os) only one field station actively involved in this? Mr. Scelso. Well, there was a certain amount of traffic | i | | | : that was Scandinavian about Oswald's trip. There. was corres- o | | + | 2 5 | pondence with the British about the possibility that he had | x: | Ss 7 : been. there -- I think he had been there-- and so on, traces | o 7 coming in from them. Pa $1 Mr. Goldsmith. Were the field stations specifically id if instructed to pursue this case in any manner, and pass along GASH MG TON , | | 1; | all leads? | 7 Mr. Scelso. Yes. | © 2 12 Mr. Goldsmith. Are you saying that, in fact, all of ! = i z | the stations are involved; or were instructed to participate | : is | in the investigation? | z 1s | Mr. Scelso. I do not know whether any general guidance “ 17 | went out to the whole world, ,butithe whole world was alerted to | : ai and the key stations were receiving tips on the. case, most 5 = ot which were phony. We did not send out any instructions | | ¢ | saying everybody participate in the investigation. of the | _—— 11 | Kennedy case. | @ iz 22 | Oswald's name was public knowledge, you see. It was 22 in all the newSpapers in the world. Mr. Goldsmith. Were the various field stations ordered \ | | | @ a4 i (Pause). i | H “WT aa ALDERSON REPORTING COMPSAY Docld:32277215 Page 135
2002" (202) S5n~-23n5 Cc. ph. HASUTNGTON, REPORTERS ROPEDENG, Wi S 3o0 7TU STREET, mw se ta a 9) _Docld:32277215 Page 136 cee ¢ 1-134 to contact their various sources for information of potential leads? | Mr. Scelso. I do not think they were. This kind of thing-.is routine, you see. Mr. Goldsmith. You:are saying they would have done it without being ordered to? . Mr. Scelso. Sure, they should. have. That was not the problem. .. The problem is. that they were sending in too much information, which was fabricated. Mr. Goldsmith. How was the information which came in from the field evaluated? Mr. Scelso. Traces were done on the people concerned. The. information was passed to the Warren Commission. and to the FBI and to whatever government agencies were concerned. It was evaluated by us, queries were sent out, comments, requests for follow-up. Actually, very little information came from anyplace -~- information that was worth anything. Mr. Goldsmith. With the exception of Mexico City? Mr. Scelso. Mexico City and Nicaragua and the Ugarte case, a few cables on that. That is about it. Mr. Goldsmith... There is also one from, as I recall it, other Scandinavian countries or Czechoslovakia involving a statement made by a Cuban Embassy officer. Do you recall that one? ocanr 901916 SLGHE] ALDERSON RESORTING CON Fahy
1-135 Mr. Scelso. Vaguely, yes. There was a vast amount of fabrication that came in. We were deluged with it. ; 3 | Mrs Goldsmith. Once a report came in, what steps would ® 4 | you go through to determine whether or not it was accurate? | : 5 | Mr... Scelso. We would trace the names first and we would | : 4 compare it with what we already knew about the case and with ! g 7 Oswald's movements, and so on. Then we had to use our : S & judgment. We passed along a lot of things that we knew were | | ; 3 untrue, just.on their face. | : 1¢ Mr. Goldsmith. When you say pass them along, what do | : I \ you mean? | 3 12 | Mr. Scelso. Pass them along to the FBI and. the Warren | eo : 12 Commission. | z id Mr. Goldsmith. With any evaluation as to their accuracy? : 13 Mr. Scelso. Usually with some. As I say, there was | 1s | a lot of traffic, but most of it was just weirdo stuff. A | a IF | particular one from Australia which tried to place the blame = 18 | on the Poles, I believe. = 19 Mr. Goldsmith. Getting back to the question of organizar = 20 tion, your staff. was not. the CI staff? ss coe 2h | Mr. Scelso. Now: | a © awd 22 i Mr. Goldsmith. -Your staff. was. Western :-Hemisphere? 234 Mr. Scelso.:..Just: the .geographical .staff;.yes.. : @ Z¢ : Mr.:Goldsmith. How did CI staff get involved in the | 2: | investigation?’ 001917 a at a i conte aay Docld: 32277215 Page 137
1-136 i Po o-.-- “Mr.Seelso. Finally, Helms turned the entire thing over to thams { | | | 3} Mr. Goldsmith. When was this? @ 4 Mr. Scelso. AS I recall, my recollection was that it - | | = i | was around Christmastime, but I think Mr. Rock said it was a 4 ) in January. I do not remember. You should be able to estab- } : ~ H \ < 7 | lish it.. ~ | = . . ; ; | x - Mr. Goldsmith. Did Helms tell you why the investigation | J 3 i was. being turned over to Angleton and his crew? 4 = 19 Mr. Scelso. No. The turnover was made in. this final | = _ | = 1 | meeting when I suggested that it be turned over because of | = It ! = 32 the Soviet angle that had now been discovered, the disclosure { { | about his biographic information=about. his stay in the Soviet | | 14 : Russia, which was obviously very important. Mr. Goldsmith. You knew that he had been in Soviet J REPORTERS BULLDING, 14 Russia before. = i ‘a 7 Mr. Scelso. That is true, but almost. no information | - | about what. he had done there. | = : a Now,. suddenly, here are biographical sketches, plus | = 2 | the Bureau's information from Marina Oswald which we had never | 2! had. | Mr. Goldsmith. According to Book 5 of the Senate Report, 72 ' the Agency tended to focus more on the Soviet aspect of the @ + i case than the Cuban aspect of the case. Is that an. accurate 23 | conclusion? 001918 Docld:32277215 Page 138 ALDERSON RESORT:
1-137 Mr. Scelso. I think after Angleton took it over, that i toa Mr. Goldsmith. In retrospect, was that the way in which, | was the case, yes. | t r 4 | the investigation should have been conducted? = 3 Mr. Scelso. I think both aspects were equally important, a 5. Had I known --cas you know, I did not know anything about S 7 the assassination plans of the CIA against Castro. This was x 3 | not disclosed to me. S 3 | Had I known that, my investigation would have been H Mr.°Goldsmith. In what way would it have been different’ UASITUGTON , | entirely different. ! | } } i | | | } { ? if Mr. Scelso. We would have gone down to principally | id 13 | our Miami station and had them kick off the full investigation, | As it was, they were getting all kinds of leads, but we would have beenputting much more emphasis in that direc- =... REPORTERS BUPEDTMG, .s \ 1é tion, particularly in our analysis of the case. ; | | | A rs! My present feeling about the case is that Oswald was a - | = 13 i genuine pro-Castro nut and he was excited about. what. he read = 13 ! in the papers about our attempts to knock off Castro. I, too, ; ¢ 30 | read these things in the paper and I thought, of course, that | i | a what Castro was referring to were the armed teams we were | @ &2/7 22) landing from time to time on the Cuban beaches. I did not know oN ye ° 22 | he might havesbeen talking about general attempts to kill © mente 901919 | | 24 him personally as distinguished from overthrowing his govern- i . COMPANY DocId: 32277215 Page 139 ALDERSON RESORT.
1-138 © The emphasis on the Soviet Union particularly came after, t ( iw) Nosenko came out -- when did he come out? 3 Mr. Goldsmith. “March of '64. 4 Mr. Scelso. Within a couple-of months after I turned { : | § | the case over. | | Mr. Goldsmith. Was there any resentment on your part | : 7 | towards having to turn the case over to Angleton? o : Mr. Scelso. No. There was a resentment towards Angle- nu d 3 ton, which was chronic, but I was rather blunt, in view of : 19 the vast. amount of documentation that the Bureau had produced | : Wy | and the vast amount of information, the great amount of | 12 written material on Oswald's stay in Russia which the Soviet YF 2 12 Division was. qualified to judge and analyze. I was. not at ! z 14 all up-to-date on conditions in Soviet Russia, and they were - : 1s plus the statements of Marine Oswald, and so on. This thing | : 13 was entirely out of my depth. Plus the fact that I did have ‘ 17 | a Division Branch of six red-hot countries. - ! | : 7 In January '64'came the big uprisings and demonstrations : 19 | in Panama. Although Helms had relieved me of the:responsibil- ¢ 29 | ity for all of that, he had not given it to anybody else. | ews an | Mr. Goldsmith... Is it true that, at some point, Winn | Won Scott attempted to have you removed from your position? ; Mr. Scelso. Possibly, I never heard. Mr. Goldsmith. For that reason, you actually had some- what negative feelings towards Mr. Scott? 901920 Docld:32277215 Page 140 ALRERSON REPORT
BeuHRS | 1-139 Mr. Scelso. I never had negative feelings to Scott, ioe) no. I still admire Scott as a great nonconformist and a very ee | | | 1 | fine and decent guy. I know he worked his staff so hard that | | a lot of them hated them, and he could not have gotten me E 5 relieved anyway. There is nothing he could have said. Fs 7 If you will excuse my saying so, when I did. try to get S 5 | out of the Divisionaa couple of years later, I had a heck of ! é ie time getting out. | | = | | Mr. Goldsmith. Yet Mr. Scott,. despite his concern for | ‘ | = 1¢ competence and high performance, apparently did not dismiss | : 7 any of his. photosurveillance people after the assassiation? g 7 Mr. Scelso. That is correct. But, you see, photo- - © = 4 | surveillance is. a highly controversial thing. The value of ! = i = tA | photosurveillance is a thing that a lot of people. argue about. n i : 5 | It is something that you have to have. It costs a lot in | : a effort and money and it really does not produce anything : ~- | a. ir | sensational, in most cases. ; a | Mr. Goldsmith. In this case, it produced our mystery : a it. | = vy man. < 20 | Mr. Scelso. Yes. We have photosurveillance a lot of ca 2! | places. What it produced was real; good photos: of the | : ‘. intelligence officers who worked in and out of the Embassy, which were very valuable for our surveillance teams. They could then recognize the people under all circumstances and | 001921. never really produce very much else. BSary, A Ts. aed ts Docld:32277215 Page 141 ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY
DoctId: w to ke wa = 5 loa! cs m™ t w : wa fe) ~ OS ‘ cS mm 7 ~ ~ Ps a a N . a 3 Y Fl S g x i oy a = * = 12 <5 = - .4 a te = = ta on = = is a ia ia) = te {o a; x = 18 “a = 13 ~ Cc e 29 qT —~ ent ard fe oo wm an (yt se 23 a a? noes ee he | Agency in 1970, were any of these surveillance operations in ; 1-140 I remember occasions in Latin American where we had photo-surveillance of secret -hideouts of terrorist groups and photographed all the terrorists who went in and out, at close | range, and this was very valuable and we were able to identify a Lot of terrorists. I remember sending a report, with | pictures, to President Johnson -- even to President Kennedy. | But photo-surveillance, the performance of the Mexico | City support apparatus, as we call surveillance, photo-surveil+ ; | } i t lance, phone taps and so forth, was unequalled.in the world. There is nothing. like it anyplace else in the world. | Of course, it is just. like the intelligence business -- it. is a real dicey thing. Mr. Goldsmith. When did you leave your position as head of Western Hemisphere-3? Mr. Scelso. I left it in 1955. I reliquished the Mexican desk in 1964, that was made a separate branch, and I retained Central America and got the entire Caribbean thrown in, except for Cuba. ~ Mr..Goldsmith. At the time that you actually: left the Mexico City that. you knew about, from 1963 and '64 stillin | effect? Mr. Scelso. Yes. I think all of them were. I used to | review them every year; in my later capacity I reviewed all of those things worldwide. 001922 SECRET 32277215 Page 142 ALDESSON REPORTING COMPANY -
de oe) they ia ou sa 9) ann 7 STREME, SoH. REPOWEERS BUTLDING, VASHTHGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) S5u-23n5 ‘ \ Xs Es 1-141 “Mr. Goldsmith. Is the Mexico City's station's operations one of the most sensitive of all of the stations at the agency? Mr. Scelso. ”. It was then. That is; the variety and number of telephone taps, surveillance teams, photo operations. and other: technical operations is exposed by Agee in his book. That exceeds anyplace else that we had in the world ! by a lot. There is no other station in the world. that has | ! | that good operations. : | Then came Caracas. That got to be real good.. Nothing | like it in Europe. | Mr. Goldsmith. I would like to draw your attention to a | cable which, unfortunately, I do not have with me. The cable | is referred to.in Book 5 of the Senate report, written by ‘ | Thomas Karamessinas to the Mexico City station in which he indicated and:said the arrest of Sylvia Deran would. jeepordize U.S. freedom of action. | Do -you remember that cable? ! Mr. Scelso. Yess * oo | Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know why it was sent? Mr. Scelso. At that time, we were not sure that Oswald might not have been a Cuban agent, aiid the arrest of a foreign consular person was quite a serious matter under | international‘law. Although Sylvia Duran was a Mexican citizen, I believe, i nevertheless, I did not think -- Karamessinas may not have . 001923 Ses ae] 132277215 Page 143 ALRSEASON MESORTING mS any
1-142 t Mr. Goldsmith. “!cubella. i jeer that..at the time, and simply felt that this breach of : 4 international law, violation of her immunity, might have | i 3 made it awkward for the United States, if we wanted to let out | 4 | a roar of outrage if we discovered that Castro had been behind | 2 5 | the assassination. e . In other words, Karamessinas feared that this whole thing S si might be laid at the United Staes' doorstep. In retrospect, ! a a | he did not have to worry so much. ; | | Mr. Goldsmith. What knowledge, if any, did you have of ! 19 the AMLASH operation at the time of the assassination of the | ° ! . S 7 President? 3 E n Mr. Scelso. What is that? | | BUTED Dey ! | | Mr. Scelso. None. t 1 ! i t { = rs | Mr. Goldsmith. When was the first time that that came | Zo to your attention? cee TT | a | ir. Scelso. During the Senate’interrogation of me. - | 2 ie Mr. Goldsmith. You learned about it for the first time = ‘3 | while you were testifying? ; x. i ‘ ¢ os . Mr. Scelso. Yes. They were leading around to it bya |} | 31 | million différent questions. I did not know what they were Be i ; ; ® 227 377 | a@viving at. I had never heard of the. operation before and I | oN { | 27 | did not know of any of these attempts to assassinate Castro. | © - 2a ; Mr. Goldsmith. Do. you know why you were not informed: 23 | about them | | 001924 ne eres 2 Lo 3 it BS Docld: 32277215 Page 144 ALSERSON REPCRTIN Me ALY
1-143 Mr. Scelso. Well, I was not informed about them before td the assassination because I had no need to know, and Cuban or operations were highly compartmented, very securely handled. Mr. Goldsmith. Who was head of Cuban operations? roa 1 I also investigated the case where a Berlin girl, an i . | | 4 3 | Mr. Scelso. As I learned during that hearing. -- they 2° 8 | refreshed my memory -- it was Mr. Fitzgerald. | ~ | ~ : Mr. Goldsmith. What about William Harvey? | : | l. © a -Mr. Scelso. Harvey, I don't know whether. Harvey -- I “ ; | go | think he was Chief later or earlier. I don't remember. Later, = i¢ | I think. I know both of these gentlemen very well. | S So i i = tt Mr. Goldsmith. What was Mr. Harvey like? .. = i i “a i! H = 2 Mr. Scelso. Well, he is dead now. Harvey was a really | ie i = : ‘ @ = 12 | hard-boiled, unsubtle, ruthless guy who was, in my: opinion, | = i = i4 } a very dangerous man. I had run-ins with him several times. | PS i = i . , £ i535 % I also had to investigate one of his big cases and although 9 it . , z , 7 = 1s 4 1 was always on friendly terms with him -- we never. slugged a i7 | it out. with each other -- he never liked me and Inever liked a y : = i3 it him. | 219 Mr. Goldsmith. What types of cases did you investigate?! _—— | | , o "| Mr. Scelso.. I investigated cases of the apprehension ‘ . t ew 7?! | of satellite intelligence officers when he was the Chief of 6 aw -- | the Berlin base, and when I feared that we had. exceeded our 5) 4 : ye ** | authority in arrestingythese people, it turned out that we @ *" | really had not. i q cept ae 901925 SeGeet | Docld:32277215 Page 145 ALOESSON REPORTING COMPANY
ye o> aw tna QQ 2002% (202) S5H-2345 Cc. h. VAST UNGTON, URE GCThIes BUTE DENG, 8. 3nN Fru STREET, Docld: 32277215 1-144 agent of ours, turned on us and photographed a lot of people in the station from a cardboard box in the basket of a bicycle, . i This turned out to be a real problem. I had to investigate | that. -Then I investigated a famous communications intelligence case that Harvey was mixed up in when he was the Chief of | the Communications Intelligence, the Deciphering Staff, and | so on. This turned out to be one of the biggest hoaxes in | our history. ~ So Mr. Goldsmith.» What. happened there? Mr. Scelso. For a number of years, the Agency had been | running a source in Austria who was to procure for us the Soviet. codes, and so on, Soviet intelligence, say for instance, ; | f And I, as a polygraph operator, had to polygraph this guy a | couple of times. By that time, we had spent a fortune on the operation and they have never been able to crack this guy. He was interrogated at length. He was on drugs, on hypnosis, under the polygraph by the Blue Bird team and he beat them cold. | And then they gave him to me to interrogate for the second time and I cracked him and made him admit that it was a hoax, | which made them all look bad... : mG | Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know whether Mr. Harvey had any * | negative feelings towards the Kennedys? Mr. Scelso...:. I only heard that he was sore at Bobby ao dn oe Aon ; ALDESSON REZORTING COMPANY Page 146
Doctid: 1-145 . Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy fired him because Harvey was a three- martini lunch man -- not because of the expense involved. Harvey became -- Mr. Goldsmith. Firéd him from what position? ia Mr. Scelso. Relieved him as Chief of the Cuban Opera- 5 oa ¢ tions. Mr. Goldsmith. | Sent to where? a Mr. Scelso. Ido not remember... I do not know what 20024 (202) S5H-2345 ao | happened. to him. Maybe he went to Rome. N.C. Oo Qa Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know whether Harvey was running GASHTHG TON , » Mr. Scelso. I did not know at that: time. I. just heard th n | any operations outside the ordinary course of business? about this assassin he had on the payrolls and so on. To me, knowing nothing except that the man was a criminal, the assassin that he had on the payroll, and Harvey's nature, all REPORTERS BULL DEN I can say -- I would like to say first, among officers of , Ss. PTH STREET, my grade -- and I was a super-grade, and I had as broad a view as anybody of agency operations,-- the thought of our engaging’ I | in assassinations as distinguished from guerrilla: warfare or Wah wo Co) 19 | coup. d'etats, and SO on, setting out by stealth and surprise : to kill an important foreign person was abhorrent to the | standards of the clandestine service and the fact that the | way -- you know, what the response © was in the Lumumba | case. They refused to carry out the order, but they were guilty of conspiracy to commit homicide. i eps : CEG oeT Pe 7 ALOESSON REPORTING COMPANY 32277215 Page 147 eciaiaeed ~ ene 901927
1-146 I think they ought to chisle that in the marble walls @ . 2 | an McLean instead of some of the other stuff that they had. | 3 | in discussions of assassinations which would always come out i @ 4 | because the Russians were doing it all the time and had | 3 5 departments for doing it. We were constantly catching their : il 2 ‘| agents who had assassinated=people where these people would | g : turn themselves in. The consensus of officers, including the | ~ | x a | creates cynics, was that we would never do anything like | = | : | J | that, as. indeed we did not, as far as I know. Z 10 | The very thought of Helms entrusting Harvey to hire a | Z | criminal to have the capacity to kill somebody violates ! 2 | every operational. precept, every bit of operational - experience, © : 12 every ethical consideration. And the fact that he chose : 2 ia \ Harvey -- Harvey could keep a secret, you see. Harvey could : bg : 7 keep a secret. This was one way to make sure that nobody z 13 ever found out about it. ! 4 17 | I just cannot understand Helms doing this? | : " Mr. Goldsmith. Did you ever talk to him about it? : = 19 | Mr. Scelso. No. I did not even know anything about | = | = ra | it until I had been retired for some years and I was back here! | paw 2! in '76. I had been retired for six years and I found it out | awd 72} and I have never seen Helms since then, fortunately. (Pause) Mr. Goldsmith. You mentioned earlier that there was 4 i Meeting on November 23rd involving a. lot of higher-ups. fo | | | 001928 , _—_ SERRET Docld: 32277215 Page 148 ALDERSON RESORT NG ee SMe an Ww da Y
1-147 Mr.oiScelso. I think it was November 23rd. Mr. Goldsmith. Roughly that time period? Mr. Scelso. Yes. to) " . Mr. Goldsmith. That someone from Cuban operations was | + | z : there? . - | é 7 Mr. Scelso.. I believe that. I was asked that by the | g 7| Senate Committee and I believe that somebody from Cuban opera~, x | tions was there. I do not know who it was. It could have | ; | been Mr. Fitzgerald if. he was in town, or one of his staff. | : 19 | Mrs Goldsmith. What was Mr. Harvey's reaction after = | : : the assassination? ! | S | Mr. Scelso. I had no contact with him about it. | @ : 4 | Mr... Goldsmith. When was the last time you saw the man? | z 2 | Mr. Scelso. I saw him in Berlin in 1967 on a temporary | : a duty. I may have seen him when he got back from Rome. I may | E 7 have seen him in the halls. He cracked up in Rome. . i7 | Mr. Goldsmith. In what way? : ‘a | Mr. Scelso. He became practically paranoid, turned on : : 2 | officers, threatened to have them ruined. One of his : e 20 | very. best officers came home and was going to join myy staff 21 | and told me the whole story. I do not remember the man's | Sr { fer. He could not stand Harvey anymore and asked for a @ Ha) 22 | name. An outstanding operations officer who asked for a trans> NY i . | } t | | transfer. When Harvey refused to give him one, he said he i was going to give him a bad fitness report and have him fired | SECRET 001929 Docld:32277215 Page 149
tn tb Qa 20024 (202) S5-23945 ~“ p.c. We WASHINGTON, S.U. REPORTERS BUTELDING, STREPT, oo 390 7TH eo — re) on wv A ~> a s e@ © as 73 ae Docld: 32277215 1-148 and so on. Later on, Desmond Fitzgerald came out on the TDY and | | | | heard some of these stories and relieved Harvey. Harvey went | completely -- which happens inthe Agency. The strain is | tremendous. But Harvey, in. my opinion, the whole thought of Helms' appointing Harvey, the very thought of using a former | criminal. for anything, let alone to assassinate people or to be on a standby basis to assassinate people -- here Helms cannot turn around, you see, after establishing standards and | training officers and maintaining standards in the conduct of operations and low rating people for deviating from certain principles, and so on, he cannot turn around, just because he is the DCI, and appoint a thug like Harvey to hire some criminal to commit assassinations. The best thing you can say was he was a buffoon for doing it, or perhaps he never intended to use it and just | would be able to say that he had the capacity. That is the kind of interpretation I can put on it. a thug. Mr. Scelso. I do not like to speak that way of him, but Harvey -- | { Mr. Goldsmith. You just characterized Mr. Harvey as | | } | i Mr. Goldsmith.. Mr. Harvey is the central figure in the ° i Committee's concern here. I would like you to be as candid as you can be. Page 150 i 1 : Cue |
1-149 i i Mr. Scelso. Harvey was not the kind of personality ir) who appeals to me.and I certainly was not the kind of personality { that appeals to him. I have wondered -- I wonder if the cn \ + | government has ever looked into the possibility that Harvey = 5 did not knock of Giancomo. He lived in the same area, when | 2 cH | he was retired. He was a great one with guns. a | ~ "| I read it in the newspaper. I was overseas and I said + 1 e 8 to myself, I wondered if they look into Bill Harvey. So a Mc. Goldsmith. This question may come to you out of Q it ! = 10 | right field, but do you have any reason to believe that Mr. ! 5 i = Tt | Harvey himself may have been involved in the President's : G ' ‘ % ar | assasSination? ! © & is i Mr. Scelso. I do not. have any reason to believe it. - is Harvey was a great gun fanatic. I remember going to a meeting | = : ! = 1! out at Walt Whitman High School where the gun law was being =. en ETS | debated and a whole bunch of red-necked riflemen from Baltimore a County and Arundel County, Baltimore City, were there, packing: s 18 | the place and haranguing and threatening the speakers, and so a yo | ~ { = 9 | on. Aid Harvey came in. < .| 5 2 | I said, Bill, what are you doing in this bunch, crazy | | —_ 2! punch? And he looked at me. He was wearing some kind of a SSK r WR tie pin that was in the shape of a gun. i Mr. Goldsmith. How’ does a guy like Mr. Harvey get this high up in the Agency? + ! Mr. Scelso. Harvey was an experienced FBI man who had OEeeET N0493 ALSERSON we COMPANY u : i | Docld: 32277215 Page 151
im 3 | 1-150 we worked on Soviet operations in the United States during World iw , War IL and had lectured on them at the FBI academy. He had a fantastic memory. He is, I say, a man without sentiment, considerable stamina, great determination, high-skilled.. Bre t z § | Surrounded himselfwwherever he was with a group of people | é é : compatible. with his personality .and worked very purposefully : il S | towards certain ends. | o ' He dug the Berlin Tunnel, you.see. Too bad the russians ; $ knew about it. the whole time, as we know now. : tg | Harvey was also, earlier in his career when he was in | Z iy the Agency was on the CI staff. He was the head of the CIA | z 4 | staff and was palsy-walsy with Burgess, McLean and Philby and | @ : 12 they were great drinkers together and carousers together and ! z 1 Burgess or McLean, or both of them, you know, were queers | n ; ; ! 3 1§ and Harvey was not queer. He wassout of it, not queer. | g 7 They were all kinds of nasty scenes. Burgess or McLean : r 7 drawing pornographic pictures of Harvey's wife during a party, | 2 i - z ay and so on. Harvey was inclined to disclose too many things | = a4 to the British, which may have cost-us the Popoff operation. | = | Mr. Goldsmith. Harvey instructed his wife that after | met his own death. his wife should burn all of his papers. Do | ez 22 | you have any idea what would be in those papers that Mr. tm es ! Harvey would be so interested to conceal? vo Mr. Scelso. He was too young to have assassinated q Ww das McKinley and Lincoln. It could have been anything. i SECRET _ - = 001932 Docld: 32277215 Page 1452 }
1-151 His wife, by the way, I always thought was a very fine person. She was a remarkable woman. I am probably doing Harvey an injustice, but I think Harvey was a man who did great damage to the Agency. . soeioe me recast. z § I told the Senate Committee -- I went out of my way 5 | to tell them in my emphasis that assassinations and things | E ; | Like that are something really abhorrent.to all the rank and | a | | 3 | file of Agency officers. It is unthinkable.. | ; : I told them of the case where we refused to carry out : 1G such an order, in the case of the Dominican crisis. You might | : 1 have read that in my testimony. ! Z 2 | Mr. Goldsmith. I believe you indicated to the Senate that \ 3 ro there_was:a.feeling.in: the CIAsthat the: FBI may -have' been derelict | in-its-handling ofithe Oswald case prior to the:assassination. : 1$ cos. Mr.’ Seelso. Yes. REPORTERS RUCELBING, i it 14 | Mr. Goldsmith.<.What reason do you have? = i a an Mr. Scelso.... They asked me why we ran an investiga- | = 13 : tion at all, I think, and I said there was a feeling that = | | | a ! = 13 | perhaps the Bureau would not be completely. objective in its é 20 | conduct of the investigation. 41 Mr.. Goldsmith... Why not? | Loa Mr. Scelso.*.. Becausé they had: been watching Oswald So > »} . | and had not watched him closely enough. I do not say this 4 in a way of anything critical for the Bureau, because they have ery, / 22 # an inhuman workload. 7 001933 O fang we a SLDOERASON REPORTING COMPANY Doclda: 32277215 Page 153 3
Plas q Ww te SF Eb ae: | 1-152 ©.think my suspicion was borne out, in view of the destroyed note, which is a red flag. Also, I think, in retro-| spect, since I testified before the Senate Committee, I think uw | { | | r 4 | that the Secret Service was derelict. They did not follow € 2 | their own operational standards. ~ { . ! 5 5 | The Chief of the White Hosue detailed Jerry Beame, who | S 7 | I know from the Presidential trips, to Central America, was ! z 3 | not on the Dallas trip. The Secret Service did not follow its| i nan standard operating procedure in making sure that every apart- ment in every office, every floor of every building on the | 8) parade route, that there was a selected man of confidence who WASHINGTON, would be charged with the responsibility of seeing that no rn vy --« nd © = 12 | One not known to him was in that office or apartment or on E ‘ | a floor of that building, and that nobody did anything but - | : al wave flags, possibly throw confetti. ! S a -- That is standard operating procedure and was not done. : = 17 | To me, reading about some of the scandals that are : E a coming out of the White House and reading some of the things ! : 13 | that a terribly overworked Secret Service had to do, like ¢ | smuggling giris up and down the back steps -- if indeed that | —- a1 be true -- you can imagine how this would affect. the morale : | o£ these people. Here are men who are supposed to kill them- | 31 | selves and work themselves to death in the service of protec | ! | ting the President, which they do, and then have to, do things ho das like that. They cannot possibly keep their motivation up 001934 woes ORE SS50ON ESORTING comeasit Docld:32277215 Page 154. os:
300 TI STREET, So. REPORTERS BUTEDUNG, MASHTHOTON, DLC, 20024 (202) SS"-2345 ©) a Doctid: \ BSW v Ha , ‘ JA “a td ew Be a ra oo wy 7 g Lo gs “iat a [See ya: fos wes 1-153 under these circumstances.. Mr. Goldsmith. That is an interesting point. Mr. Scelso. They did not do what they teach, and what we teach. We trained a lot of bodyguards too, the business of having somebody on every floor, and so on. Lee Harvey Oswald certainly did not qualify as the look- out on that floor. I would like to add something to my remarks about Harvey. Mr. Goldsmith. Please do. Mr. Scelso. Tf said some unkind things about Harvey, because I was really shocked when I read that Helms had appointed him to create this assassination capability. To me, this is an absolutely shocking and abhorrent thing and I am sure it must have outraged all the other case officers in the Agency. Mr.. Goldsmith. Do you think Mr. Helms was acting prop- erly when he failed to tell the Warren Commission about the assassination plots? | Mr. Scelso. No.: I think that was a morally highly reprehensible act, which he cannot possibly justify under his oath of office, or any other standard of professional public service. | Mr. Goldsmith. To your knowledge, is there any othen information that Helms may have withheld from the Warren 32277215 Page 155 a 3
Ww a ® 5 i . > . a 3 NN t rr) , ow fe] a “ : S ” N / -— PS 3 = ™ GF e = 10 S G = 1 rena { A <n. S ~ = ta Ls = 16 id i) > =z 42 1c => - = 18 in = 19 ~ c c 39 o 4 2 Se 2 a a7} an Nina - e* Docld: 32277215 1-154 | | Commission pertaining to the assassination? | | Mr. Scelso. Nothing that I can recall. : Mr. Goldsmith. With regard ~- | Mr... Scelso. Incidentally, I think that Helms withheld : the information because he realized it would have cost him his | | job and would have precipitated a crisis for the Agency, which | | could have had very adverse effects on the Agency. would think. .Is that a possibility? ‘Mr. Scelso. I think that the outrage, or even more, the | | | | { i | | | Mr. Goldsmith. -. As well as an international crisis, I | | | | | | | { have been more than drowned out by the grief over Kennedy's | | | | laughter. that would have accompanied that disclosure would | . death, because, after all, really, these assassination attempts on Castro were largely ludicrous -- but no less reprehensible. | l Mr. Goldsmith. With regard to the surveillance operations in Mexico City, I think the record is clear that the Agency | was not forthcoming, at least initially, astto the nature of | those surveillance operations, given the fact that a picture | of someone whom they thought to be Oswald had been taken. ! Is there any way that you can explain that? | Mr. Scelso. How do you mean. that? | ! Mr. Goldsmith. Specifically, the Agency did not inform the Warren Commission until sometime in late February or | March that a picture had been taken. of someone in. Mexico City whom, at that time, they believed to be Oswald. The first 00 | SECRET 1936 * ALDSRSON REZORTING COMPANY Page 156 m
1-155! time the Warren Commission found out about that photograph "> was when Marguerite Oswald testified before the Commission © | | 3 and made reference to the photograph that had been shown to ) 4 her. 2 5 | Mr. Scelso. That would be a dereliction that. could be 5 6 laid squarely at my doorstep, and I cannot believe that the | g 7 we Commission did not know that. Did it really say that? = 3 | The Bureau had the picture. It was in the Bureau's report. : 3 | I Just can't believe that. ! : io | Of course, we knew at that time that the man was not | : I | Oswald and had nothing to do with it. It might have been | $ 2 considered of minor importance. : © z 13 Mr. Goldsmith. Why do we not take a brief recess here? = i , Es ta | I will see if I can find my chronology and I can go the E 1g | exact facts with you and you might. be able to comment upon : a them. ee | . 4 7 | (A brief recess was taken.) | g 7 | Mr. Goldsmith. Let me reads to you a portion of a : . 19 | chronology that was prepared by our staff. © | = e 20 | November 24, 1963: CIA. prepares a summary of relevant | ; vee 2! information on Oswald. Summary states that first information | a | ! @ va 32 6n Oswald came from Mexico City Station on October 9th. It | 23 says that the Mexico mystery man photo was found in a search | ! | @ 24 of Mexico Station files.. | i Oswald then went to Mexico 9-27, probably by car. It. | EAE! 001937 Docld: 322772915 Page 157 ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY . may
Joo VT STRENT, Sof. REPORTERS BULLBING, WASETHCTON, D.C. 20024 (202) S$8n-2945 DoctId: “=a i Ses 1-156 sets forth Oswald's visits to the'Soviet Union and Cuba and Mexico City. aw There is no mention of the 10-10 cable description or se | | . | a name discrepancy. I see no indication that this document da | was ever sent to the Warren Commission or that they were ever made aware of it.. 7 | Mr. Scelso. What was the date of that? | | a | Mr. Goldsmith. November 24th, 1963. ( 3 Mr. .Scelso... That. was the one that I wrote that went | "g to the White House, I think. | Mr.. Goldsmith ..Then, on February 10th, 1964, Marguerite Oswald testified about the photograph but was not shown the photograph for identification ff purposes -- Howard Willin, ~< toa staff counsel for the Warren Commission, spoke to Thomas Karamessinas about the photograph... ta On the llth, the FBI delivered a crop copy of the photo-; it graph to the Warren Commission after receiving a call from the Warren Commission about it, and, zat that time, the Warren | 19 Commission drafted a letter concerning this photograph. | | } OE PDE" 001938 ten of BR Sue ALSEZERSCON REPORTING COMPARY 29 Mr. Scelso. That was March, you. say? | | at Mr. Goldsmith. We are now into February. The letter f SNE i . ; tas raw 22 i requested an explanation of circumstances, the tainting and 4 \ ) 23 | the identity of the Mexico mystery man photograph. 24 | Then, on.March. 5th, there is’a CIA internal memo....° I Zi ‘ would like-to indicate to you that I know that this quotation 32977215 Page 158
1-157 | ij I am about to read to you is somewhat out of context. We have a problem here for your determination. to t | Io - "Staff. officer does not desire to respond directly to | | paragraph 2 of the letter which may levy foreign material | 2 | which had gotten into the hands of the Secret Service on 5 5 | 23 November. Unless you feel otherwise, staff officer would | . i 5 7 | prefer to wait out the. Commission on the matter covered 6 sy paragraph two." | Z The remainder of the memorandum goes on to say, however , | : ze the press will get together and give them an oral briefing 2 nl and the substance of this pertains to the photograph, which | : o) : is why this Committee is so concerned about this photograph. : © 2 3 On March 16,1964, the Warren Commission requests a copy’ ta of the 10-10 cable from the CIA so, as you can see, the Warren Pai it 1 = is Commission is having trouble putting together this photograph | z 1s with the cable--and there is the absence of completely forth- i . 7 right communication from the CIA. | wl u : = 1 | On March 24th, the CIA ‘reveals the link between the : 5 _ . 9 | Mexico mystery man photograph and Mexico City. The 10-10 : ¢ x0 | cable is provided. | a, n It. goes on to say here, however, that even here the | Agency does not make the connection between the photograph and : the cable explicit. So we have a situation. here where it appears that the Agency was not competely forthcoming with the information. My! eg heed ' | 1939 AL moses ] ZOMPARLY : Docld:32277215 Page 159 ALDERSON REPORTING COMPAL
a Boy 1-158 question is why? Mr. Scelso. We did not initially disclose to the Warren ! : 4 | Commission all of our technical operations. In other words, | i © ; we did not initially disclose to them that we had photo- | z 5 surveillance because the November photo we had was not of - | covata. Therefore, it did not mean anything, you see? | S >| Mr. Goldsmith. There were a lot of other possibilities S : | that the Commission may have wanted to pursue. For example, | : 7 | St turned out that this was not a photograph of Oswald, but 7 : ig | at is possible that the person whose picture was taken was at | 2 7 the Soviet Embassy and identified himself as Oswald. In other | Z 2 | words, perhaps he was an Oswald imposter. - I © 2 12 | So the Agency was making a unilateral decision that this = i . 2 1s | was not relevant to the Warren Commission. = a Mr. Scelso. Right. We were not authorized, at first, | | 8 reveal all of our technical operations. : . | Mr. Goldsmith. What kind of arrangement did you have : an oe Warren Commission as to the information that would | a E 7 | Pe given to them? : ¢ 20 | Mr. Scelso. Weiwere going to give them intelligence | eT ow. which derived from all of our sources, including | © ga? 22 | technical sources, including the telephone intercept and the 22! information gotten from the interrogation of Sylvia Duran, ) 2 | for example, which dorresponded almost exactly with the i . _— , information from the telephone ‘intercepts. | . ALD EZRSON RESORTING COMPANY Docld: 32277215 Page 160 °
Ww 3 i ! i 4 ; w | z 3 N™ + ! | wa $ i A N iH 2 7] : | 1 eS ail fom ~ ‘| = i ™ YW th . a + o 7 i i i = : | raat ij : ! pc i we oe y < , = a Z il a tee 2 it “ is i us roy - J ~ ba z: A = “of = { c 4 4 = 2) i ; art Pee al a b ae a wm ae yo 23 t t | { i | i n t i i fs € weed tr, ih = 2 Bye, 1-159 © Mr. Goldsmith. You were aware that this photograph was not being provided to the Warren Commission? Mr. Scelso. I probably:=was, but I do not remember. I am surprised to find that it was not passed. : For example, the Senate Committee asked me why we had not told the Warren Commission -- the Warren Commission claimed | that we did not tell them that we had telephone taps, When | I remember discussing this detail with their lawyers -- not | with the Commission itself, but the lawyers that they had i working for them. Mr. Goldsmith. Where did you have this discussion? Mr. Scelso. In their offices. Mr. Goldsmith. Did you go into all of the details of the nature of the taps? Mr. Scelso. I said we had telephone taps on the Soviet and Cuban embassies and we intercepted Mr. Oswald's telephone | calls and told them what the nature of it was and said this is completely covered, the same material, by Sylvia buran's interrogation, you see, which confirms the content. of these telephone calls.. | So they said then we do not have to put the telephone 7 calls on the record.. We want to protect our source. Mr. Goldsmith. I understand the need to protect the | source. (Pause) 001944 | ee a SF WHE DocId:32277215 Page 161 ALOERSON REPORTING COMPANY
at via om ees 2 1-160 At the same time, it seems, though, that the Commission ined was not being given all of the relevant information. On what basis did the Agency determine that the person on the line actually was Oswald? -, H = 7 ‘Mr. Scelso. The fact that he said he was Oswald. . That 5 6 is about all. | S 7] I do not know whether Sylvia Duran identified pictures : - | e 3 of him or not. I do not remember. | ~ | co Mr. Goldsmith. Let me read to you another section of : "9 our chronology from March 26, 1964 -- and this is Mr. Coleman, | : 1 | one of. the senior counsel from the Commission. | z 14 "I hope that the complete answer will give us the | - @ z. 13 additional information that we requested. I hope that para- = i 2 ta graph 4 of the memorandum of 3-24-64 sent to Mr. Raikin by £ il = 1g : the CIA +s-net-the-answeér is not the answer that the CIA | E 1s | intendsi'to give us as to this inquiry." | a | Mr.. Scelso. That, of course, was after my regime. | : a Mr. Goldsmith. Yes, I understand that. In other words ,| : 13 | you are getting the picture here that the Commission is ! | t 20 concerned that they are not receiving this photograph. | | I am not sure I have a satisfactory answer as to why ' } not. v . : i } Mr. Scelso. To give them the photograph and explain it | j to them would have been to compromise their photosurveillance, Ww tan and I suppose they did not want to do that at that time. I. do: | GEPNET | 001942 | L Ra 0 2 Docld: 32277215 Page 162 ALOQERSON REPSCRIING Come ARLY
1-161 i not know why that was resolved that way in my regime. I presume we thought it was irrelevant. Mr. Goldsmith. Was the position taken by the CIA that e) ‘ 1 1 if something was going to compromise a sensitive source-or ss = 5 method,. information would not be turned over to the Commission? - | Mr. Scelso. If it had been something vital, really | g 7 | relevant to the investigation, clearly relevant to say, your ! a i & 3 position that this might have been a man impersonating oswald, | ; $ : of course, is.a pretty far-out chance. Of course, any of the | . "9 people who went in and out could have been impersonating i = g 1 Oswald, not just the man in that photograph. | = i! ; | < 13 ! Mr. Goldsmith. The point is anuavenue of .investigation © Z 13 | was opened to the Warren Commission. that was not pursued. 3 : ia | Mr. Scelso. It should have been given to them, I : 1g grant you that. We could have done it just as well at the i z 12 | outset. as later, but the problem was, we were feeling our way | = 7 into our relations with the Warren Commission and wondering | z 13 whether divulging this to them might not unnecessarily compro-| : 19 | mise forever our capability. | : 20 | Mr. Goldsmith. Did President Johnson instruct the agency 4 ! to provide the Commission with all information pertaining to. ce 22. | the assassination? a ! i t } qi Mr. Scelso. Yes, but we are supposed to do this anyway,: | i i but we still. protect our sources. Pe) wry Mr. Goldsmith. This situation was really different from,’ ! ad hen OS . Docld: 32277215 Page 163 ALDERSON RESORTING COMPANY
Doctid: af Bac “3 meee Crs Ben ation hh, RS st k wo De | 1-162 the typical situation where the Agency is trying to protect its sources and methods from the legislative branch, for io) example. But here, you have the Warren Commission was more ae ws | closely aligned to the Executive Branch. that the picture did not look like Oswald, they would have ” < Mr. Scelso. What we were worrying about was protecting 2 ; | thera from public disclosure, you see. The minute you start S 5 | giving information to other agencies and. so on, you have to z a make sure that it is going to people that will keep it secure. ; 7 Of course, all that has flown out of the window in | : t9 : recent years, as you know ~~ as I hear at the Agency and as | 2 7 : I. know from Europe, it has caused the Agency terrible damage | z - which is going to take decades. to make good, wnfortunately. ! z 13 I certainly do not level that charge at either the Senate : 5 dl or the House Committee. It was inconceivable to us that some-| Sd i - | one would have been impersonating Oswald -- for what purpose, | E | you-see? 7 7 | = 7 Mr. Goldsmith. There certainly were a lot. of reasons | a why someone might want to impersonate Oswald. Oswald could ! ° | have been the patsy he claimed to be; someone may. have just ! : oo been setting him up. ; : Certainly, if the Warren Commission had received a cable. pal zy | Bhat reported Oswald's contact and then also reported that ! 8 picture had been taken and the Warren Commission had seen | looked into the imposter theory. At the very least, they would ho tan SEpee: 001944 32277215 Page 164 ALOERSON REFORT!
1a 4 ” > EY a P) MN t ve) ‘ [ow fe] ~ ™ Lao] > “A f —_ ~ fond 2 cad fol « &S ra) ra font -~ 19 S *5 = WY re oboe a “ = m4 te % a ote = = ta pas ts at i) D 5-4, = tS = n \7 SO S$ 13 wn = 319 ~ ag = 70 21 2S 22 SF pas 22 ON iy ds > ee Docld: 32277215 1-163 have done that. I am not saying -- perhaps they did anyway. But recent books have been written about the second Oswald theory and all sorts of imposter theories. Had the Commission been given! the information promptly, they might have pursued that avenue more thoroughly. Mr. Scelso.. But there was no nefarious reason for our | | | | ! not giving it to them. It was simply that we did not consider it vitally relevant and we wanted to protect our source. + Mr. Goldsmith. Again, 'to your knowledge, did anyone at the Agency. evér discuss, to your knowledge, withholding of information from the Warren Commission? oo Mr. Scelso. Only in the context that we did not initially divulge to them our operational methods in all cases. | Mr. Goldsmith. Were there any other examples besides the one I just referred to with the photograph that you can think of? Mr. Scelso. Not that I know of. Nothing... As a matter of fact, we were sure to give them everything when we thought we could do that without revealing how, exactlyy we got the information we did. So, for instance, in the case of the telephone taps, we relied on the interrogations of Sylvia Duran. We said the same thing, but then we told them about the telephone taps. Mr.. Goldsmith. Once Angleton and his staff took over eeetT 001945 Page 165 ALDERSON wi itin MP ANY
1-164 the investigation, did you have any involvement at all? nw Mr. Scelso. From time to time Ray Rocca would call me up and I would go down and see them and we would discuss certain te) | t i e 4 | aspects of the case. Particulary when Garrison, in New Orleans = 3 | started his fandango. Rocca could not believe that there had | ~ . . 5 é not been any information in the initial reports about Clay | S 7 | Shaw and all of the other oddballs whom Garrison dragged in & a3 | the case. | ; 5 : Mr. Goldsmith. To your knowledge, did the CIA monitor | : 19 closely the Garrison investigationvof the Kennedy assassina- | E i : 7 tion. . | - | 2 3 Mr. Scelso. Rocca paid attention to it. ! - | | © : i Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know-.why he did? 5 ta Mr. Scelso. Well, there were angles where Garrison was ” | : 1s | trying to involve the Agency, were there not? Of course, a | : 14 lot of people were trying to involve the Agency at that time. | = TF Mr. Goldsmith... Do you know whether Clay Shaw was a CIA : : la agent? | ! . 15 : Mr. Scelso. I never checked his name during my period | : 20 because his name aid not come up in that era, but not to | a 1 | my knowledge. — : Mr. Goldsmith. Did Rocca ever give you the impression i that Garrison's investigation was touching upon Agency sources; i ©@ 24 | assets, employees? i : i 1 25 § Mr. Scelso.. No, he never told me that, or indicated 4 a ee Sa ; - ) Geos 3 6001946 a Qs! ie 40 2 hee 2 Docld:32277215 Page 166 ALDESSCON REZORTING COMPARLY ;
1-165 that.. Mr. Goldsmith. Did he ever indicate to you that the j ‘ | i | \ wy Agency might have been infiltrating the Garrison investigation7 Mr. Scelso:: No. I£ he had known it, he would not have } t t ( an 5 : told me. é ‘| Mr: Goldsmith. So other than occasional meetings with | 3 7 Rocea ~~ : 7 Mr. Scelso. I do not think that there were any other | : 9 : occasions. My main contact -- it could have been that people | : 19 asked me things from time to time. I do not remember... | = HI : = nl Mr. Goldsmith. ‘Other than that, once Angleton took | $ 2 ) over, you and your staff were essentially out of the investi- | y z #3 | gation? | = } . i Zot Mr. Scelso. Yes. We continued to see traffic that. came 3 1g | in from: Mexico, but Rocca had the action on those things. | g ig | Mr. Goldsmith. Do you recall when your investigative | 7 efforts were discontinued? : : "| Mr. Scelso. Not clearly. I thought it was around | = | = 12 | Christmas when we -- when I saw the Katzenback report, and : € 20 | Roccassays he thinks it was mid-January. He could be right, | a a because the Panama riots were already going on when I was Y ra 22 ! with the Agency and they did not happen until the 4th of January. Mr. Goldsmith. Ddo* you have any criticisms of the manner in which the Agency conducted its investigation? | SHORTING COMPANY Docld: 32277215 Page 167 ALDSRSON
1-166 Mr. Scelso. Well, I think we could have done better. | | Mr. Goldsmith. In what ways? 3 | Mr. Scelso. We could have circulated to all stations fr 44 and asked them to follow up all leads. I do not think it. was | E 7 reallyunecessary in a case like that, but we could have done. | el 5 that. | 2 7] We could have put the Miami station onto the case, ! e 3 | which we did anyway, later on. | : Mr. Goldsmith. — What was your specific reason. for not : : 10 putting them on inethe first place? ! g 1 Mr. Scelso.:...0Oswald's involvement with the pro-Castro | z 2) movement in the United States was not at all surface to us ! t | in the first weeks of the investigation. | | KUPLDING , ha Mr. Goldsmith. Is there anything else that you would ji y 1 have done differently? REPORTERS \ | i 14 Mr. Scelso. Well, if Helms had disclosed the Cuban . 4 7 assassination plots, we would have gone at that hot and heavy. E a We would have queried the agent about it in great detail. I ! : 7 would have had him polygraphed by the best operatives security : 20 | had to see if he had a double-agent;.informing Castro about | ; a1 | our poison pen things, and so on. | ¢ ste fo on ~ wa 22 af aA I would have had all our Cuban sources queried about. i Mr. Goldsmith. Getting into another area briefly -- we | } t | Ww ta may come back to this question of the investigation in a little 001948 Docld:32277215 Page 168 ALDERSON RESORTING COMPANY.
Doctid: 20024 €202) S$5%-2345 N.c, WASHINGTON, REPORTERS BUTEDENG, We, Ss. 300 7TH STREET, w +> in C3) .s) 32277215 Page 169 . ALOSRSON Ped 1-167 while. Getting back to another area, briefly, what is your assessment of Mr. Angleton? | Mr. Scelso. Mr. Angleton, as an operations officer in the Agency, I have been acquainted with for many years, having | pélygraphed some of his greatest agents in the past, much to | his grief. And I find Mr. Angleton to be an extremely compli-" cated individual, very highly motivated. I do not, in any way, question his ethiés or morals or anything like that, but whose view and understanding of - nature and what makes people do things and the dynanics of intelligence operations, I find to be bizarre. I find that Mr. Angleton's appreciation of intelligence situations to be | colored by a sense of dread of foreign conspiracies, and an | over-suspiciousness. | : ~N Mr. Goldsmith. Yet, Mr. Angleton did not find any conspiracy in the Oswald case. © : Mr. Scelso. At first, until Nosenko came along ~-.whichi I only know from the book -- unless the book is a hoax too. Mr..Goldsmith. A hoax by whom? Mr. Scelso. I mean Epstein maybe fabricated the book. | But according to the book, which I read last week-end, Angle~ ton was very concerned about the Nlosenko aspect. Mr. Goldsmith. Not necessarily from the perspective of Nosenko being surface to the United States for the purpose of concealing Oswald's links to the KGB. Angleton's. fundamental | apenr  9ntg4g
Oa! 1-168 | concern was Nosenko might have been designed to infiltrate | 2 the American intelligence community to protect other KGB : zi agents, and that this Oswald connection was just a convenient | 4 ) way to get him in. : { . ! : a I did not get an impression that Angleton ever came down Bg and saidi that there was a conspiracy. | : 7) Mr. Goldsmith. you know what Angleton really. said, and | = F \ : 2 i do not.. | 5 4 33 | Mr. Gcelso. No, this is -- I am giving you my impres- | : Le | sion of the book. I read it very. hurriedly... & 7m ' have. investigated: a. few cases. which Angleton was | $ 1 involved-ttsd and I have found his understanding of human | © : 1 nature, and..so:on,. his evaluation of people, to be a very. | : ta | Precarious thing. _ i; | : 1s | “Mr. Goldsmith. Do you have. any..reason to. believe that | 2 1s 1 Angleton might have had ties to organized crime? eee a af Mr. Scelso. Yes. | z a I have heard that he did operational -- | = . Mr. Goldsmith. Through whom? = 29 ‘Mr. Scelso. Back when I was a Branch Chief. The | xo" Department of Justice, Mr. Hunley, who was working against organized crime, asked people from the Agency to come over , esy i XN , t and asked us if we coulid find out the true names of holders i) aw of numbered bank accounts in Panama. because the Mafia was t Ww un i depositing money there, cash money skimmed off the top in SECRET . 01950 ; py: KLOSRSON REPORTING COMeaRY DoclId: 32277215 Page 170 ALOIR SV iY i 3 t |
1-169 4 ; | Las Vegas. And we were, indeed, in an excellent position to | do this and told them so, whereupon, Mr. Angleton vetoed it and said that is the Bureau's business. { | If the Bureau has to request us to do that -- not | { | = 5 Hunley. Unless the Bureau requests us to. do it, we are not é 4 going to do it, so we did not do it. And I told J.C. King S y | this and he smiled a foxy smile and said well, he said, that's, - | & 3 | angtevon'e excuse. The real reason is that Angleton himself | ; 3 : has ties to the Mafia and he would not want to double cross : 16 them, or something like that. - y S : 7 | Mr. Goldsmith. Was Mr. King able to be more specific? | Z 2 Mr. Scelso. I did not ask him any more. | : @ 2 13 Mr. Goldsmith.. Do you have more specific information | 5 rs linking Angleton into the Mafia, into organized crime? : = a Mr. Scelso. I do believe that I have heard that Angle- | 2 i = “4g ton was one of those several people in the Agency who were | . 7 trying to use the Mafia in Cuban operations. | - z ; Mr. Goldsmith. How about Angleton's connection with the : 1g i FBI? What kind of relationship did he have with them? ! = é 20 | Mr. Scelso. Well, he was very close to the FBI, had a | = | very fine working relationship with them which was of great ey @ eas 22 | help to us over many, many years. He was extremely protective : of the FBI, would not allow any criticism of them or any kind 24 | of rivalry, and so on. . Very careful to protect their interests. { fu Mry. Goldsmith. I believe we discussed this next question. 001954 Docld:32277215 Page 171 — ok
, 2a. an ar rs 3 ty As kd nea 3 1-170 | j a bit this morning. I would just like to go into somewhat more detail again.. ( I think you testified that Helms asked you to investigat +> ta | rd , | some of Angleton's activities. What would the reason for that | | | Mr. Scelso. Helms, or Karamessinas? e | | | have been and could you give us some examples? | _ | | | Way back before Angleton was Chief of the CI staff, he | | was head of the Israeli desk and he had an agent in Italy; qa 20024 (202) S$5%-23945 B.C... oO a quintuple, double agent; a man who was working for us against five different foreign intelligence services, one of Angleton's Fos) great operations, and it got to be so hairy that nobody could | t ! WASHINGTON, make heads or tails of it. | - ; : io - So I was back on leave and was instructed to palygraph i this man who had been polygrapned unsuccessfully by the Office! | | |-of Security. So I polygraphed the man and got. him to make a REPORTERS BUELDENG, W. S. <I \ | | series of damning admissions.:In the structure, in this | | | pentagon structure, Angleton was. supposedly guiding this man, | STRERT, os | like the man fishing for trout, as someone characterized, Jon Vr here and having reactions coming out there, and so on. l i | ! 1 4 i H | against these other services, inserting questions and stimuli. t And all. of this was done-with the.most carefully. measured doses of stimulus, arafty analysis, sort of. billiard- like richochet... and so on. And the upshot of the: thing 1 was -- I got the man very sensitive. I polygraphed him for five days and the upshot of it was that his singular success ase ) SEGRE j 001952 ALDESSON REPORTING COMEAAY Docld: 32277215. Page 172
1-171 in working against all of these other services was due to the fact that he had disclosed to them that he was working for the Central Intelligence Agency, which was not part of se | | Angleton's formula. Es = And then the human judgment thing -~ then our Agency : 6 psychologist tested this man, who was the-heir.of-a wealth. & 7 | Midwestern family who had come to Western Europe to study and S . 6 g | had cultivated the company of all kinds of obscure artists | J $ | and poets and talking about nothing but these people, dropping| : 19 names right and left, and making you feel like an ignoramus | = 2 1 because you never heardoof them. ! $ 2 The psychological testing of this man showed that he | ry : 3 was a man of very low intelligence, way below average intelli-: 2 ta gence, who had early on realized that he really could not ! : s make it -- he was a homosexual among other things -- and | i] r | - 1s | therefore started cultivating knowledge and acquiring knowledge ‘ "| of fringe groups in the art field, so he could fool peole : ig | -into thinking hé was an intellectual, and he had fooled his i an | = : way all the way through the University of Minnesota. This ~ = ¢ 20 is the way he had gotten a degree, and so on. . | eee a Mr. Goldsmith. Were you ever asked to investigate any | SE | | pe’ 2 i of Mr. Angleton's investigations pertaining to the Kennedy assassination? Mr. Scelso. No. I do not want to give you the idea that I think poorly of Angleton, because I really do not know | pO 001953 Gael h : Fa se Doclda: 32277215 Page 173 3 ans ESORTIN:
Doctid: 1-172 what he did. He must have done a lot of good things. His staff turned out absolutely outstanding analytical work. It ow a gence, Counterintelligence did better than it had ever done is true that, under his term.as the Chief of Counterintelli- 3 5 before. — . - | : 4 Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know whether Angleton's staff | g J would have had access to electronic surveillance equipment? 3S 7 Mr. Scelso. In Washington? | : a Mr. Goldsmith. For use sjust about anywhere. : | Mr..Scelso. I am sure they would have. | g 1 | Mr. Goldsmith. How closely is that type of equipment 3 12 | monitored by the Agency to make sure that it is being properly! q 13 used? | : 4 Mr. Scelso. Well, I do not know how they would monitor | = | E rs Angleton, if he used it. I do not know of any case where he | = 4 | = ts ever did. But he certainly could have gotten it, just. like | ‘ 17 | any Division could get-it for use in Washington in safe | : 13 houses, or things like that. : é ! . H 2 3 | | And .you tell him what you want to use it. for. Of : S 29 ) course, you. might be able to go and use it for something | | aj completely different. OL Mr. Goldsmith. Do you recall ever coming across a Sts ve i 22 | report in December of '63 indicating that thésCIA agent | J | may have had contact with Oswald in Cuba? w Lory Mr. Scelso.. I seem to vaguely recall a report alleging ! Secne! _ 001954 2 ALOESSON REZSORTING COMPANY 32277215 Page 174 ‘
eee ae Ss w be tf 2 Be 8 1-173 that. Mr. Goldsmith. Do you recall how that allegation was 2 resolved? oS Mr. Scelso. I do not recall, but I think that it was | 5 proved to be factually untrue. That is a very vague recol- 5 4 lection. Dozens of peophe were claiming that they had seen : 5 ? Oswald here, there and everywhere in all kinds of conspiratorial ~ 2  ctccunseances, from the North Pole to the Congo. = i _ a Mr. Goldsmith. Did you know Mr. Papich of the FBI? : 7 . ‘Mr. Scelso. ©: Slightly... -.05. os» : 2 | : a ‘> Mr. Goldsmith. Did. you have any type of working | S 13 relationship with him? | a | @ : 12 Mr... Scelso. On occasion, I sat in on conférences with 3 a Hl him and other people on the CIA staff, other than Angleton. | 2 i a Mr. Goldsmith. Did you ever discuss the Kennedy case | 2 i g 14 with Mr. Papich? | a in Mr. Scelso. Casually and on certain details now and | : 12 again. Yes, we did indeed. Birch O'Neal and I. ! = | - 7 Mr. Goldsmith. This is all in the post-assassination ! < 20 period? | | —- HS Mr. Scelso. Yes. When they levied certain réequirements| “oF ral on us -- they used to like that term, levying requirements... ana Then that=meant that the guillotine was going to drop if a : . 24 i did not do it. i Zs i Mr. Goldsmith. In general, did you comply with the OL 001955 ALDERSOM RESORTING COMESAY | Doclda: 32277215 Page 175 — : 3
Doctid: 20024 (202) S54-2345 Cc. dD. VLASHTLUCTON , PEPORTERS BUTEDENG, mn be to ay da oO ree) “I © Prd € Rs Shy ie Ba te he 1-174 request. for information? | | | Mr. Scelso. Yes. Sometimes reluctantly, because I had | a lot else to do. | Mr. Goldsmith. Did you always comply with the FBI's requests for information? | H Mr. Scelso. I think so, yes. .This particular request 1 |. : . * : | was for a transcription, an analysis of the intercepted telephone call to the President of Mexico, or something . | with their Ambassador -- President of Cuba -- with their | Ambassador to Mexico. | I took my time analyzing that. In other words, that | was something that they could have analyzed just as well them- selves.. Mr.. Goldsmith. Did the CIA have any penetration agents in the Cuban Embassy in 1963? Mr. Scelso. I do not think so. Mr.. Goldsmith. In what way, if any, did you attempt to Mr. Scelso. We had audio operations. I do not think j find out what their reaction was? | FY ‘ they were working at that time. We installed a number of microphones.. Mr. Goldsmith... Did you get any indications at all as the Kennedy assassination? } { " to what the reaction of the Cuban government was at all to j | Mr. Scelso. From this intercepted telephone call. | 001956 orp ) BE qT ALDERSON absaetakee COMP ARY 32277215 Page 176 . 2
@ | i ld i =z RG o ~ | ~ } 1 4 a 4 w $ ~ } ~ ' i famed 7: ~ ‘ il it = Hl] it sg ail Se woo = tt ~ iH uh Gc Fl é | = 104 S 4 = ty ia . ' = ij an i “ : . lo ' Lond 4 z it | = Hi = 4 = i = rad f - +204 = fw oot > FH a 47 = 19 | s | o c oo OSS R” asi Mz sp 34 Nw as wo tn ‘ Mr. Goldsmith. What was the nature of their reaction? Duran. cerned? Mr. Scelso. Mr. Goldsmith. President of Cuba in being asked about having given Oswald money? Mr. Scelso. Yes, I think there Was.. Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know whether that particular Mr. Goldsmith. Be boy I gathered it was just genuine outrage. issue was ever pursued? Mr...Scelso. interrogated. Mr. Goldsmith. The fact have been concernéd about Duran's having given -- Mr. Scelso. that Oswald had gotten a lot of money from the Cubans to do in Mexico City felt that the President's concern was that Well, she was asked that when she was That is because stories to that effect, Mr. Scelso. One wag outrage of the arrest of Sylvia More than outrage, were they also con- . Was there not a concern voiced by the the conversation over whether Duran was that the President of Cuba may the assassinations in the yellow press in Mexico.. Mr. Goldsmith. Let me refresh your memory a bit more. It is difficult to do that without the transcripts here. My recollection of the transcript is that the Ambassador 1-175 which appeared in Mexican newspapers and the radio alleging | | j i the Americans were driving Duran to make a statement of some OMPAAY 001957.
1-176 1 | In fact, what the Cuban's. President concern was that | no, the Americans were asking Duran about having received money from Oswald, this kind of thing, and he seemed to be | concerned about that -- the inference being that if he were ¢ 2 , ; 2 > | concerned about that, maybe there was a basis for his being 2 66 | concerned. about it, because the Cubans may havebeen involved. | =~ — | & ‘| Mr. Scélso. Yes, and I think that our knowledge at the | = | 2 & time was that he had heard this when it had been reported on | - 9 the newspapers and radios, so they assumed that they would s i La | | | = be asking Sylvia Duran. = ne Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know whether Sylvia Duran was = 2 | Beaten or tortured by the Mexican police? © a 13 Mr. Scelso.. No. I do not think she was either beaten | = 2 He =~ 8 | or tortured. She was really pushed around a little bit. She | = ! | = i { z ts had bruises. on her arm -- probably grabbed by the arm like | * S| that, you know, pushed into an office. Some people bruise | = i a4 easily. & 43 i. Mr. Goldsmith. Was any American official involved in : = 9 | the interrogation of Duran? < a 29 | \ \ } . coe 1 Mr. Goldsmith. How about the interrogation of Ugarte? | SS" Mr. Scelso.. He was polygraphed by one of your operators, t bh as Mr. Goldsmith. Prior to that time? i os | | | | Mr. Scelso. I believe not.. } | } | Mr. Scelso.. His interrogation, I think, was done at that ~ in ; time by a very senior Mexican police officer. 901958 : nO PH ALDESSON eet NG COMeakiy Docld: 32277215 Page 175 ot
ae iss: ay Tar a fs sy safely a Bay. fhieay, 1-177 Mr. Goldsmith. Is it true that the Mexican police officials were known for their brutality? Mr. Scelso. Yes. es) Mr. Goldsmith. Therefore, really, if a person giving a oe 5 | statement to the Mexican police, as a statement might be given | 5 6 under stress, the statement might not necessarily be a reliable S 7 | and accurate one? | ! é i Mr. Scelso. That is possible, sure. | ‘ a. Mr. Goldsmith. What I am getting at here is that t ugarte! : 1g retraction of his statement may not have been freely given. | = : : ny Mr. Scelso. Indeed. But he retracted his retraction, | +2 | as you know, after he got out and said it is true anyway. | r 2 : 13 Mr. Goldsmith. Did you ever study the results offhis | Z ta | polygraph? | . | z i ; is | Mr. Scelso. No. Security does not show these things. : : | Mr. Goldsmith. Do you have any reason to believe that : ‘ In | his original story was an accurate one? | - iH : ia | 7 Mr. Scelso. I am convinced it was a fabrication. | é | = a Mr. Goldsmith.. Could you give us the reasons. why? ! e 20 | Mr. scelso. Well, it had all the earmarks of fabrica- | ves " tion: the red-headed Negro, the whohe atmosphere of people | we 22 talking about this in public, in*the courtyard of the Embassy, and so on, was unrealistic. The fact that he did not report this at the time it happened, but only after the assassina- 23! tion, typical of fabricators. | | 001958 eau GRE nen REP ORTING § ew Docld: 32277215 Page 179 a}
1-178 In other words, after he had heard of this incident, he - he : : | didn't go to his case officer and tell them that. He told | I. . | them that a number of weeks later, after the assassination. roe in The money sum that he mentioned was.:the money. sum which | - , | . | | had been mentioned on the radio in Mexico before then..i1,The . ‘ | FBI established that Oswald had not been in Mexico on that ~~ | | | day, but in New Orleans. Mr. Goldsmith. Did you ever look into the story or a “O allegation made by a man named Gautorez to the fact, that he | ) 19 had seen Oswald with an official from the Cuban Embassy and 7 ; that Oswald and the Cuban got into a light-colored Renault +3 vehicle and drove away. The car may have been subsequently © 14 linked to Mr. Duran, Sylvia's husband. ta | Mr. Scelso. I vaguely remember something like that. | 15 I do not know how it was resolved. | i 14 | Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know whether Jack Ruby had any : a connections to organized crime? : 13 i Mr. Scelso. I do not know that. I have read in books | | | " that he did.. I have no knowledge of that. \ Mr. Goldsmith. I will ask this question again. You filed Joo 7 STRENT, Sot. REPQTESS MUELDING, WASHTHGTON, N.C, 20024 (202) 55n~2505 29 a1 t two reports, did you not? | 27 20 | Mr. Scelso. Yes.. wo, : : i Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know where they would be today? Be Mr. Scelso. No.. Mr. Goldsmith. Those reports would not have been destroyed? 001960, S508 n ALSERS Sean a MPARLY Docld: 32277215 Page 160 }
1-179 Ww i Mr. Scelso. No, they should not have been. It may have | | been that my files were turned over to the CI staff as an aid | to Rocca to help his investigation. a | 4 Mr. Goldsmith. Did you go over Oswald"s itinerary in | Z 5 the Soviet Union? | 4 é Mr. Scelso. Only superficially, because we did not know | cs 7 a good deal. | 2 | x. 2 Mr. Goldsmith. Do you think it would have been unusual | 5 9 for Oswald to:-obtain a visa to enter into the Soviet Union | z 10 within 48 hours of applying for it? | = yj | Mr. Scelso. I have no knowledge of how long it took to S 12 : get Soviet visas in those days. | @ : 12 | Mr. Goldsmith. Assuming that it took, on the average, ! : id about a week to get a Soviet visa, would it have been unusual | : is for Oswald? | z is | _ Mr. Scelso. Yes. . : ‘4 i7 Mr. Goldsmith. Did you ever examine that particular | - z 13 issue? i he = 19 | Mr. Scelso. I do not think that I knew at that time how. ~ \ : . i = 29 long it had taken him to get a visa. I do not think that we | vane @| had that precise information. i @ yaw 22 Mr. Goldsmith. Did you know that by the end of December, ij 23 the manner in which Oswald had travelled from =the United ® 24 States to the Soviet Union? | 23 i Mr. Scelso....... We know something about it. We knew how: 8 ALSERSON RESORTING COMPARY Docld: 32277215 Page 181
1-180 he got to England. Mr. Goldsmith. From England to Moscow, apparently, Ww there is no commercial flight that would have delivered Oswald -- 4 | not from England to Moscow, England to Helsinki -- no commercial = ¢ | £light that would have delivered him there at the time. stated | To | ; ms 7 on his passport or his travel papers? | an | e 5 | Mr. Scelso. I do not think we went into that. We do a & | not have information on it. You see, at that time,. the Bureau ~ S had passed.us. next to no information. ~ 10 | Mr. Goldsmith. This would have been of an overseas = nl nature that would have fallen more.in the scope of the CIA? | Eo Mr. SGelso. Right.  ) é 13 Mr. Goldsmith.. Do you know whether Oswald travelled by | = i . \ = | ; = ot i means of a noncommercial flight from England to Helsinki? 5 16 | Mr. Scelso. I have no ideas. We were not really going | = 4 heavily into Oswald's past at that time. We were working only: a IF on the present leads, the fresh leads. « | : ; Se yay. Mr.. Goldsmith. That might have pertained to a Soviet = | an He = 15 | connection of some kind, I think. | é 20 | Mr. Scelso. It would have been. . a Mr. Goldsmith. The manner in which, a a very young man, | “27 21 | he was able to get into the Soviet Union so easily.. There was: 23 | a cable that was sent from Headquarters to the Mexico city station in December of .'63 which stated that the CIA's investigation was. dictated, to a certain extent, by the facts ALDERSON REPORTING COMPAALY Docld: 32277215 Page 182 os
1-181 | of Oswald's life, as reported in another Headquarters cable to the Mexico City station. Do you recall sending a cable like that? ta | Mr. Scelso. No. i | 3 / Mr. Goldsmith. In what way would the Agency's investi- e 3 gation have been -- | S | Mr. Scelso. I think they are referring to his packgroung e las a defector and his stay in Soviet Russia. | 7. Mr. Goldsmith, In the event the Committee has any | : Te further questions to ask of you, Mr. Scelso, what. would be | ¢ al the best. way to address those questions to you? | = = 7 Mr. Scelso. Well, you can send them to me in writing @ : 4 through the station in Vienna, if you want to. | 5 7 Mr. Goldsmith. Is that a satisfactory way to handle : ss it for you? | : 7 Mr. Scelso. ves. I was. not exactly happy::the way they i S | contacted me, by simply calling me up from the Embassy. I E ia not have done that. | = | z 3 | . I will send you the answers in writing. JI cannot imagine ¢ | that you would have any reason to call me back here again. a1 | Mr. Goldsmith. As I mentioned to you earlier, part of ea | e fa? 2 i our problem is that we only realized very recently that your | { | participation in this case went beyond the cable traffic that 24 i we initially reviewed, but that you also handled. the investi- Se) gation, at least initially. 001963 at. Par G sof - Docld: 32277215 Page 143 2
1-182 @f course,. we did not know that, because from reading > Book 5 you are not mentioned in there specifically, so we thought it would have been another Western Hemisphere Branch | t @ 4 Officer. | case. Galyapin was a Soviet intelligence officer who defected = 3! Mr. .Scelso. Yes. | a | . : 5 I would like to tell you something which might help you | E a evaluate Nosenko, something in the psychology of defectors, a < | = g | sort of parallel case. ; 7 Mr. Goldsmith. Please do.. : : ‘a | Mr. Scelso. Do you remember the Soviet defector, : z 7 Galyapin? He has been interrogated at some time in this | = i | to Vienna in the spring of 1964. He was a security officer WIERING, rar S.W. REPORTERS 3 responsible for the security and loyalty of Soviet officials in Vienna, and he got fed up and defected... ary A couple of months after he defected, the Chief of:the West German Security Service disappearediinto East Berlin under ~t ¢ very mysterious circumstances. This was a gigantic flop. Galyapin had previously in Moscow been the Deputy Chief of the German Desk of the KGB and could have been expected to 390 VTH STREP, d ~ — > ~~ oO 2 “3 know of Otto Young were, as many people alleged, a Soviet toe ess ; : j2/ 12 1: agent. © woo | | On the day that Otto Young's disappearance hit the newspapers in Washington, Galyapin was living in a safe house | t 23 | in Georgetown and he picked up the telephone -- he read the i 001964 ay i i ALSESSON RESORTING COMPAAY Docld: 32277215 Page 144
tau. Be, fed ea YEU “aaa 1-183 | newspapers carefully which told who Otto Young was and what his background was and what his job was, and Galyapin very 4a thoughtfully picked up the telephone, telephoned his case officer, turned on the reflecting pool where we then were and da $a SS en cee ae : said, this man Young whose picture is in the paper, I have ~ | . - ‘| read the article and I just wanted to tell you, he was not S | one of ours. In fact, I have never heard of him. : | Then we had Galyapin interrogated in detail: at this ; | point and the upshot was that he had never heard of Otto : 19 | Young or any man like that who was the head of the German g 7 Security and so on. Ascomplete blank. He volunteered this _ il 2 a because he knew it was important to us. @ 14 | A year and a half later he wrote an article for Life | = a Magazine, and he has written books, this story that Otto : | Young, who was well-known as a member of the German Resistance) te ! against Hitler -- in fact, played a key role in it -- had = 7 actually been a Gestapo stool pigeon and that the Russians E a after the war had captured Gestapo records proving this and, 2 | vases these records, blackmailed Young into working for them. : 0 | 7 And he told this and a lot of people believed this. __ " Complete fabrication. In the first place, there was no cay a4 indication in Young's background that he had ever been a Soviet agent, really, and Galyapin's initial. reaction, a perfectly spontaneous reaction, was he never heard.:of the | a / guy. __ SECRET 001965 Sp a REPORTING COMPANY . Docld: 32277215 Page 1385 : 2 i