2 May 1975 MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Chief, Operations Staff SUBJECT -:. Review of Agency Holdings regarding _ Photograph of Unidentified [Individual °.- 'in Mexico City published by the an ‘Warren Commission . REFERENCE . : Letter dated 15 April 1975 by ee Mr. David W. Belin, Executive Director of the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, to ee Mr. E. Henry Knoche (copy attached to accompanying report) 1. This is further to, and in completion of, my inter’m memorandum of a few weeks ago. a 2. ‘The attachment is a detailed review in narrative, chronological order - together with appropriate comment- -ary - of our extensive holdings on thé OSWALD case that have a bearing on the matter of photographs taken by Mexico City Station on/l, (44;and 45. October 1963 of an - Unidentified Individual. As a consequence of a combina- tion of analytical error, misjudgement and under the stress of an urgent desire to contribute to the develop- - ment of the investigation of the assassination, a cropped version of one of the photographs: of the Unidentified Individual was introduced into the chain of evidence in the OSWALD case’ on 23 November 1963 by an FBI representative in Dallas. The successive vicissi- tudes which have now made this event a cause celebre — right down to the present moment are detailed in the narrative. oO ry , , SE T a og Loyaroerer sy eo Mee HW 53320 Docld:32392819 Page 2
~ consideration should be given now to "whether or not the ‘decision. The narrative-interpretive summary has been 3. The attached report is not intended to be an answer .to the Fensterwald/O' Toole article which Mr. Belin attaches to his memorandum. (I have prepared a paragraph- by-paragraph refutation and comment on that article, . which I believe is more appropriately handled by a sepa- mt oT phe es rate memorandum to Mr. Belin, and I will: prepare this as ‘*-"' nen a memorandum if that is desired.) ER Cg BERD eat | 4. The point of the referenced memorandum is that “ Ce geet entire matter can be fully disclosed at ‘this time."- This gllelt submission is designed to make it possible for you,..the IG and others whom you may desire to consult to make this . put together in such a way that it discloses no cyptonyms, pseudonyms or other CIA jargon. However, its contents qo — well beyond what has been released to the public thus far 4 wl in the Warren Commission documentation. This point must be borne in mind in making a decision on Mr. Belin's =»... | question. To remove any question in anybody's mind about our good faith in this matter, the narrative is backed up. by copies of actual documentation from our files. It seems to me necessary, in reply to Mr. Belin, that he. or his representative review the documentation that backs up the narrative. The documentation has not been keyed into the narrative presentation, but it follows the chronologi- cal order of presentation from 9 October into the latest oo, developments in the matter, and there is an overali index 4. ES. to facilitate reference to individual items. [NB: There ee be is only one copy of this collection; this is it.] per ay , ” we eH ras 5. As noted above, one of the photographs taken in “477, | | Mexico City on 4 October 1963 was introduced into the ye bey Warren Commission public record. However, it was intro- 9 /Ué07A- duced into that record in two cropped versions. The ope” Warren Commission and its staff were made fully aware in #*" 77, the course of their inguiry at Headquarters and in- pe el Mexico City of the origins of the photograph, the fact ty Lg that we had additional photographs of the same individual ofiet taken at different times in Mexico City and on the basis of full knowledge of these facts reached their own con-- clusions regarding the irrelevance of the photograph to. . OSWALD and the assassination. HW 53320 an eo 6. In fact, we actually hold twelve different photo-| graphs of the Unidentified Individual. Each of these ave? _ reproduced in the collected documentation backing up the . narrative report (see Items 25 - 27). Chief, LA Division, DoclId: 323927819 Page 3
HW 53320 Docld:32392619 Page 4 had indicated in writing to Chief, CIOPS, that he has no objection for Mr. Belin ‘to do whatever is desired with these photographs at this time. It should be noted that - Mr.’Fensterwald in 1971 ~- 1972 was actually shown, by Mr. Houston during a visit to the Agency, two of the twelve photographs, other than the one already published in the Warren Commission report. (It is these two that he has published in The New York Review of Books article which Mr. Belin attaches to his memorandum.) 7. It seems to me that whoever makes a decision on whether the entire matter can be fully disclosed at this time should. bear in mind that a subsidiary decision must ~ also be made, i.e., whether to crop or otherwise fuzz up. -the background of the photographs or, alternatively, to publish the entire run of the photographs for the first time without taking out the background. Obviously, none | of these questions apply to the passage of this material to Mr. Belin and the Rockefeller Commission itself. I think. they should see the entire documentation as it) -stands. Perhaps after that, the question of what. could be discussed and the question of “how?" and "how much?" could be taken up with Mr. Belin himself. My personal recommendation is that the more we can say about this > Matter in a fully open and final manner, the better off -we will be as an Agency. But it is my understanding “that there are still sensitive aspects deriving from the fact that the operation which produced the photographs was jointly rin with Mexican liaison and as a consequence . publication at this time would create additional problems at that level in Mexico. Also, it should be noted that . the Ambassador, according to Win Scott's memorandum to . J.C. King on 22 November 1963 (see Item 8 in the backup documentation), allegedly played a direct role in the decision to put the photographs into the hands of the FBI in Dallas laterally from the Field. As far as I know, there has not. been anything published about this aspect at any time in the past nor have we had any discussions with the State Department about that aspect of the matter. Raymond G. Rocca Attachments: — as stated