Date:08/12/93 Page:1 JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM IDENTIFICATION FORM . AGENCY INFORMATION Peleased under the John . Eennedy AGENCY : WC Lssassination Records RECORD NUMBER : 179-40001-10168 ollection Act of 1992 (44 USC 2107 Nate). RECORDS SERIES : ase#:NW 55355 Date: 25: INTERNAL FILES 1-24-2017 AGENCY FILE NUMBER ee we DOCUMENT INFORMATION ORIGINATOR : WC FROM : SLAWSON, W. DAVID TO : RECORD TITLE DATE : 04/22/64 PAGES : 68 SUBJECTS : WARREN COMMISSION, TRIP TO MEXICO DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT CLASSIFICATION : U RESTRICTIONS : REFERRED CURRENT STATUS : P DATE OF LAST REVIEW : / / OPENING CRITERIA COMMENTS : P. 1-68; BOX C02 [R] - ITEM IS RESTRICTED HW 55355 Docld:32209609 Page 1
HW 55355 "SUBJECT: ‘Trip to Mexico caty | with the Mexican law enforcement authorities immediately after | a . .. .CIAHAS.NO.OBJECTION.TO ... aes P.. ” 6z. i ee sae eneee etn ey [~ Ea eo” | MEMORANDUM. FOR RECORD April 22, 1964 FROM: "We David Slawson On Wednesday, April 8, 1964- Mr. Howard P. Wiliens, Mr. William T. Coleman, Jr., and Mr. W. David Slawson, all on ~ the staff of the Commission, flew-from Washington, D. C. to. Mexico City. Mr. Coleman returned on Sunday, April 12 and ~ Mr. Slawson and Mr. Willens returned on an airplane leaving Mexico City at about 3:20, Monday afternoon, April 13. ‘This memorandum will briefly summarize this trip plus some of the. meetings held in preparation for it. TUESDAY - APRIL 7 10:20 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Willens, Coleman and Slawson met with Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs Thomas Mann, Mr. ‘Thomas Ehrlich of the Office of the Legal Adviser for the State Department, and: two aides to Mm. Mann in Mr. Mann's | ‘office at about 10:20. a.m. Assistant Secretary Mann was : Ambassador to Mexico at the time of the assassination and personally directed the investigatory: effort. and our relations. the newS8of the President's death reached Mexico City. A copy DoclIda: 322096809 Page 2?
eee ee ne Rem eee HW 55355 “GARSON - yu Sb i 7 ae | RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT a 4° : : AS SANITIZED et 3° e kind of ruthless action, either through some hope of gaining from it or simply as revenge. The Ambassador added that not . “even the allegations of Alvarado or other rumors which may have been current in Mexico. City to the effect that money had been given to Oswald were really the cause of his suspicions, since the Alvarado allegations were not made until a day or so later, but that the fact that Oswald had visited the Cuban and Russian Embassies in Mexico City shortly before the assassination, which he had learned from his security officers at the Embassy, pilus what he believed about Castro's character, seemed sufficient to him to raise the gravest. suspicions. Latex,;—he-poineed-out,_ when-he~hed-a..chance to listen. to..the-Derticos-Armas, Pes Ambassador Mann knew of no contacts by Oswald with anyone in Mexico City other than his visits to the Cuban and Soviet Embassies and his staying at the Hotel del Comercio. henever anyone ‘left or ta atjleast. gfuring the normal visiting hour on Monday through Friday, » luring the Gaytamemnen pictures could be taken without DoclId: 3272709809 Page 3
et a Te ee ee eee ae eee ee ne see a tee oe meen rt eet: 2 cecrmenin rayne cemennen, fon oem a cerns nee nRRRCY A prea Manne a eminem mm emenn Stewart eS at Nemes eee sere HW 55355 CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO ~_DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR ad 4 RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT 34 AS SANITIZED CEs oer view of the facts known to him and his assistants at the time and in view of the extreme seriousness of the occurrence. 3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. am of the CIA At 3: 30 in the afternoon Mr. -. came to the Commission offices and conferred there with "Slawson, Willens and Coleman. This conference grew out of a. suggestion made by Mr. Richard Helms of the CIA about two | weeks previous, in which he. had mentioned that it would be a , | good idea if a representative of his agency met with those persons from the ‘Commission who planned to go to Mexico just before they left, in order to insure that the -CIA could properly advise us of any last-minute arrangements and properly alert its people in Mexico of our arrival. We aisecased whether we would’ journey to Mexico officially and openly or completely incognito, and Whi - offered. to. make arrangements to get us into Mexico completely - unnoticed if we desired to do so. We told him that we did not want to try to keep the trip entirely secret. "We would do our best to avoid any kind of newspaper publicity or public annduneements. We intended to introduce ourselves at the 7 DocId: 32209809 Page 4.
‘.comments on -how best to achieve our goals. ‘His. reply ‘in every NO OBJECTION TO a RAEN aN gf eee RELEASE OF THIS DOCUM! nS SANTED bt ? a Se Embassy -and to Mexican officials as what we in fact were, representatives of the Commission. me ete. eS ‘salad that dealing with. wa Winston ‘Scott, } niet or Nerico, we ould bevworkthe, witn,one ‘of the tor foreign opefataves: in thetz” entire’ organization. ‘He said: once we. arrived in Mexico, in general terms, and. asked for. his * ra Ys CA a Pe nt instance was that we- should deal. on the spot with emewete.. GES thought that our proposed journey was a very good 4dea. He repeated what Mr. Helms of the CIA had said a while ago, that there is ‘no substitute for the "case. officer" being ' - the spot." HW 55355 WEDNESDAY -. APRIL 8 8:15 a.m. to 7200 p.m. Our plane was scheduled to leave Washington from Dulles Airport at 9 30 in the morning and accordingly all three | of us met at the. Washington Air Terminal in.the Albert Pick. ‘Motel at about 8: 215 and | gater. arrived at the Airport at about. DoclId:3272709809 Page 5
EL og AS SANT OE THIS DOCUMENT: LO Ge 4 (bP 24 . “nection with the assassination. He said that he felt that.if. a Nr a ee ee ee era ee rie See as ener “ mene lrg Deeepersress renee es rad : his expert opinion was that no foreign conspiracy arising out . of or connected with the territory of Mexico existed in cori- “such had existed, although perhaps they would not have solved it by this time, ‘they at least would have some firm indication HW 55355 that. it was in existence, which indications were in fact _lacking. We asked Anderson how many different allegations of ' conspiracy had been received by his office and he replied, six. These’ were: “the Gutierrez allegation, the Alvarado allegation, the Diaz. Verson allegation, the Nartino-RoJa allegation, the | letter from Victor Cohen, and the allegation concerning. the - Stanford University student. Mr. Slawson commented that in his opinion only the first three allegations mentioned even seemed serious and that, after analysis, the only one that still seemed serious was Gutierrez'. Anderson readily agreed. . iM, ; CE pp! : Ax. After lunch the three of us went to. ‘'s office, and were there introduced ie ae PDE apc conference was begun by giving us a complete narrative of the” CIA's activities in connection with Lee Harvey 3:20 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. oo Oswald, beginning in September 1963 when they first picked up information that Oswald had appeared at the Russian and Cuban 21 DoclId: 322096809 Page 6
21 TT eT AT EN ee tof aR CAEN OS NA: SRR RTC REL OARS a Geant ee meee SSS oteme eee son me vow Omen Oe CONTR we meee” CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR 4 ) RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT, 14 aa AS SANITIZED OF ser “Embassies. tienSaatt stated at the ‘beginning of his: narrative that he intended to make a complete disclosure of all facts, “including the sources of his information, and that he under= - stood that all three of us had been cleared for ‘Top Secret. and that we would not disclose beyond the confines’ of the Commission and its immediate. staff the information we obtained through him. without. first clearing ; it with his superiors in. Washington. We agreed to this. Mr Scots narrative of course took a rather long time to. complete, and we Anterrupted at. many. points with specific questions. Duning.-the~coursé*6r“the™ fiaprattve—wenwera—— - _ Shown. the. actual ~tremeertpoes “pius-s of -ehinthe. | 72 narrative disclosed that the CIA's action immedi- ately, after the assassination consisted basically of alerting all its confidential sources of information throughout Mexico to immediately channel all information into their headquarters, and of compiling as complete dossiers as possible on Oswald and everyone else throughout Mexico “who at that time the CIA knew ° had had some contact with Oswaid. ‘This meant especially _ Silvia Duran, who because she had previously been having an 22° HW 55355 Docld:32209809 Page ?f
__----SUAHAS NO OBJECTION Co fe ee, | BEELASOFICATIN AND/OR oA a — AS SANITIZED UMENT © otf \ - WO 6+ ® 4 i emis! s might be available” See 6 said they wey nde. He . that photograpng’e coverage was limite poy an ' mee daylight le hours, \Decause fe Kich wes of course as of ' the question nce ef > ci ess had | from the primary responsibility with Gutierrez. Gutierrez! Story gh be-wor Lo have seen mien tow. up on the an ‘of some. of * theay/ toes that it ayia nothing new, } oa fotgzraphs covered attile more: than the eng ance itself, WW 55355 DoclId: 32209609 Page 8
—— a A eee 2 eee ee eng SE A RS oe ee ee DEGLASSIFICATON oye o- | RELEASE OFTHIS DOCUMENT a4 Ll BE 9c? In answer to our question, their professional opinions that there probably was not a . foreign conspiracy connected with Mexico involving the assassination of the President. They, like Anderson, felt that had there been such a conspiracy they would at least by ‘this time have had some firm indications of its existence. be asked a meeting with Secretary C28. (we Echevarria;for all three of us at the earliest possible time. We wanted . es there, if possible, both as a y and because interpreter previous personal acqu ntance ; with the Secretary would facilitate our dealings. @eees tele- phoned Anderson and confirmed this request. We then reentered our discussion of the assassination in general, as it related to Mexico. . It appeared that the CIA in Washington had not forwarded certain material developed elsewhere to » even though these materials might have reasonably related to the Mexican investigations. For example, the contents of the letter which Oswald wrote to the Russian Embassy after he returned to the United States, describing 4 certain aspects of his trip, had never been disclosed to shove ‘or his staff. We showed them the contents of this letter at ® this meeting. HW 55355 Docld:32209809 Page 9
~DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR ee : co RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT, AS SANITIZED, BG ) (CY sePeIN VY li tame, but that . it not be permitted to: hold up ‘the: information at this: stage. “then in septem z-October 1963 and metiatery ol -assagsination. Scot and ell that no - swale was in Mexico. Cit “ising ‘bs : : po — Oswald's, attempt to “oe a visa wadhagonanny | communicated to “poathtea out coke all’ ‘his office aid with codkt wstertap was. a to pena thé back to the National Security “Agenc\ 4 in ith ‘form in which at obtained them. ‘They felt . that . he codes oreflcing might ‘be possible, however, and shoulé B : “FRIDAY = APRIL 10  -9:00.a.m, to 9:45 a.m. . _ Coleman, Wi2iens: and Slawson appeared at the FBI offices at 9: OO a. m.,. ag we had agreed to do the previous 7 evening, and there’ met Rolfe Larson. The plan had been that we * HW 55355 Docld:32209509 Page 10
CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT f) Ce ser iy 4 Y ASSANITIZED {(o-) 4 + accurately identifying documentary material, by number or other code, and advised him to see that the number of hands “through which a document was passed was kept to a minimum ‘and > that each document was. kept in the custody of a reliable person at all times. Larson gave the impression of readily understanding all this and he of course agreed to our sugges- tions. F 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. te '" ‘ 9 By pre-arrangement we met at 3:30 with Whrevenr@eeki.. With him again was his assistant, i The occasion for yA meeting was to /give.us-+ 6 -go-through.al1 the Sigg carefully and to use tke as a basis for reconstructing Oswald's activitsés insofar as they touched - upon the Cuban and Soviet’Embassies. This showed QM and comment. Th agreed in evepy respect th our conclusions. - - _ . I will not go into gre detail here ecause these conclusions ; beet “ *; da, and we then tt the result our work, for their will Of course by Oswald's a opera's spxcesvs wer ‘follows:* ncorporated ip’ our narrative report on Vities in Mexicp$ but in ouctbje the conclusions oa On Friday, a | = Time se en ae a : 10:00°’a.m. f FigottfRo ja bus 2 phawrencn ced abe eet ree
CIA HAS NO OBJECTION T0 DECLASSIFICATIONAND/OR =, pe] 4 RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT) SE 7 _ ASSANITIZED . 7 QD . Ur eevris . Oswald telephored Russian’. 7 Embassy, to get or aS to ~ Odessa." af Oswald visits Cubé n Consulate. - . Oswald visits so em Consulate. ff : : Oswald visi the Cuban’ _ ?still, which Consulate d during | this . visit Sineludes the period one 705 to 4:26 in. tke jafternoon - | sf, september 28:. iTime . | , 7 son Some time includ- i ing ll: 51 a.m. ff i i 4 ¥ nate 7a Oswald telephones. the Russian. ' Embassy and is told %o call - - the Russian Consulate\ instead. Oswald calls ene. Sovie pS A Consulate. HE a hung up on. ve fo of We then iscussed eng | porticos-atias aa ext “examined the in some detail. wee ask Mr.. ‘Scott for njeé HW 55355 DocId: 32209809 Page 12
fe ie eee anel: ohne Ce ROR ene 8 Mee ome, en Sn ne ee 20 ae ae oetnen eet Manan ne CIAHAS NO OBJECTION TO 7 DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR . : RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT - {9-2 _S-E-G-R-E-P AS SANITIZED (Ys 7 4 14 4 Cb) | | received in Mexico ‘and in Washington from the CIA. All ‘of us realized that any decisions arrived at. this afternoon ‘could | be tentative only, “since the final decision would have to. be. ~ made at the higher echelons of. both the. CIA and the Commission. -Slawson. put out the suggestion that the Commission might’ publish a narrative containing all the detail obtainable from’ | Silvia Duran's statements and-from the "open" investigations Mexico, supplemented to some extent. through the CIA's carried on by FBI agents and Mexican police agents throughout by the information obtained eV CS an . far informants. ‘thts supplement, chowever, WoUTe now-pe"In-aevaTTs- " rather, “for -exampie;~ “tb wouke- use-phrases. dike "in" ‘the’ atter——-- a “noon” {i place” of “#05 "p.m." ay ee no absolute” ‘quetes~would _. _be_ used Oey tre SUDETENCE or conversations would be giver The sources for. this narrative would be stated to be Silvia ‘Duran’ 3 interrogation, the "open" Anvestigations: and "other. confidential sources considered reliable by the Commission and _ the federal intelligence agencies involved." Mr. Scott's ‘reply _ to this suggestion was that ‘he thought it would be acceptable | to the CIA, He said that although it involved a certain amount of compromise of his security arrangements, the compromise: was | acceptable-when balanced against the importance of the oceasion. ‘AW 55355 DoclId: 322709809 Page 13 aes eenneseernn abe ne apm A ss eng te eee ee ees tem
A ee ere RR ne ete SE RNS Ae! oss ee ee ec ANE Adam Ah mello _CIAHAS NO OBJECTION TO ; DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR td) y RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT. g AS SANITIZED / see! 4 iWtelligence the. existence~of this partes aE Sy CIA. His reply, vis that they probab1y assumpd its ; fe ~e istence anyway," “(rt shou a be noted’ ‘that the sroposay put: \ 2 e r rward would“disclose nothing as tof the existence of boy PI otographye observations. Nor, y believe, would At Aisctose - ra f apything’ that would permit: enemy intelligence to: digtover who b ‘located.. Pe, A's informants are in.M fico or. where. they a We then briefly - discussed the statement of Silvia - Duran which we had read earlier din the day in ‘the FBI offices. The CIA’ had not yet seen ‘this statement. “. 5: 30 a to 6:00 The three of us 1 then returned to Clarke Anderson's office. Anderson gave us a report on his meeting with Ibanez. ‘He told us that Ibanez: and. he’ had discussed our making arrange- ments to see Silvia “Duran. The outcome. of the. discussion was _ that: Ibanez: himself was very agreeable but said. that he would 7 have to clear it with his ‘superior, Echevarria. © 6:00 5 .m. to 6:30 We rethrned to. room 510 and on the way. there were handed a copy of ‘the formal -request to the. Mexican Government for its complete report on the assassination. cA copy is - 48 re Hw 55355 DocId: 322709309 Page 14
_ GIAHAS NO OBJECTIO DECLASSIFICATION ANDIUA RELEAS , iS SAUD Ber oer 14 ALA), Ca) trying to follow up. For the last month or two, however, Betty Mora had been extremely sick and so this whole line of f ‘ investigation was temporarily stymied. For several years Betty Mora has not been in good health, and in Anderson's opinion she is not a reliable person anyway, so he did not feel that her assertions would ever amount to much.* He promised us a report on. them, however, notwithstanding his feeling that they were not to be accorded a great deal of weight. Finally, we posed the question to, Anderson whether he knew of anything further, important or unimportant, which . we as representatives of the President's Commission ought to be told. After some thinking and after asking Larson whether he had anything along these lines and receiving a negative response, Anderson replied that he believed he had given us_ everything he knew. . . f . 4 : . We then briefly dropped into the CIA's office again} pa hee ne ) y that the examination of the reels of photographs pertéinipg to the time rez' visits t¢ the Cuba Embassyetiag the regufts were nefativer”No shto- the puStographs apt nosférsong ere showp “dese iptions giver - Gutierrgé or pH migh been Gutigs ez himself. (I will note hépeEhat wa ve a , . 58 a —P0-?—_5-E-6 2-5-2 HW 55355 DBocld:32209809 Page 15
CIA HAS NO OBJECTION 10 | DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR | ° ~~ oe RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT ASSANITCED f 3 ger 1444 ACH) % i / not ask the CIA to have these photographs g#splaygd directly obeen th¢ easiest way. the CJA then asked Seevt—and RB the same question we any further information a of had asked Anderson about there we should be given. H was to | the same effect as Anderson's. 59 HW 55355 DocId: 32209809 Page 16
~_ GIAHAS NO OBJECTION T0 DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR RELEASE OF THIS D AS SANITIZED CUNENT pa tY 4u-) s - —2—0—?P—_ 586} taxicab from his hotel to the neighborhood of the , Cuban and Russian Embassies and return, but that he almost certainly walked back and forth between the be two embassies once he was in that neighborhood) ; 8. Various telephone calls (In this connection I told ‘ Larson that it would be sufficient for our purposes if the FBI were to furnish us with the cost of a single local call, since we were probably in a better position to figure out how many telephone calls Oswald made than was the FBI); and 9. Purchase of six picture postcards. © wihese=he=mei Mr. Willens(’ two of us held a very brief discussion with Mr. Clarke Anderson in his office. Mr. Willens told Anderson that he, Willens, and Slawson and Coleman as well had been very . favorably impressed with the high quality of the FBI officers we had met in Mexico City and with ‘the manner in which they were carrying . out their work in connection with the assassination. It was apparent, | however, that except for the "Alvarado" investigation, which so far - as we could observe had been very thoroughly handled, high-quality - 6h - a HW 55355 Docld:32209809 Page 17