OA] ee , | = | Classification: Bey IY (This form is to be used for material veractes FOR MON FE from ClA—controlled documents.) Lee Harvey Oswald Was Not Associated As An Agent Or In Other . Capacity With The CIA In 1964, the cra advised the Warren Commission that the Agency never had a relationship of any kind with Lee . Harvey Oswald. 'Testifying before the Commission, John A. McCone, who-was then Director of Central Intelligence, indicated that Oswald “was not an agent, employee, or informant of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Agency never contacted him, interviewed him, talked with him, or solicited any reports or information from him, or communicated with him directly or in any other manner...Oswald was never associated or connected directly or indirectly in any way whatsoever with the Agency." _/ McCone's testimony was ; | | corroborated by Richard Mo. Helms, then the Agency's | Deputy Director for Plans and therefore the person directly all CIA responsible for/clandestine operations. _/ Once these assurances had been received, _/ the record reflects no 7 ae RETURN TO CIA Classification: ———___________ Background Use Onty Do Not Reproduce | Classified by derivation: | , i 1019Z-10 YI 3
Classification: (This form is to be used for material extracted from ClA—controlled documents.) further efforts by the Warren Commission to investigate this matter. The Committee sought to resolve the issue of Oswald's alleged association with the CIA by conducting an inquiry that went beyond the threshold level of obtaining statements from two of the Agency's most senior officials. Instead, a more analytical investigative approach was utilized. First, an effort was made to identify circumstances either f in Oswald's life or in the manner in which his case was handled by the CIA which were potentially suggestive of an intelligence association of -some kind. Then, an intensive f file review was undertaken which included both the CIA's 144-volume Oswald file and hundreds of others from the CIA, [ as well as the FBI, State Department, and the Department of ' befense. _/ Based upon these File reviews, a series of . Classification: | | Classified by derivation: _
Me LS SS EF A a ef Classification: (This form is to be used for material extracted from ClA—controlled documents.) interviews, depositions, and executive session hearings were conducted with both Agency and non-Agency witnesses. The contacts with present and former CIA personnel covered a broad range of individuals, including staff and division chiefs, clandestine case officers, area desk officers, research analysts, secretaries, and clerical assistants. In total, more than 125 persons, including at least 50 present and former CIA employees, were questioned regarding this issue. The results of this investigation confirmed the Warren Commission testimony given by Messrs. McCone and Helms. There was no indication in Oswald's CIA file suggestive in any way that he had ever had any contact with the Agency. Moreover, the Agency emptoyees who would have been in a position to know if Oswald had been associated with the CIA uy] y denied that he had been an agent or assitication:
Classification: (This form is to be used for material extracted from CiA—controlled documents.) or connected with the CIA in any other capacity. _/ Finally, taken in their entirety, the items of circumstantial evidence that the Committee had selected for investigation as possibly indicative of an intelligence association did not support the allegation that Oswald had an intelligence agency relationship of any kind. This finding, however, must be qualified because the same institutional characteristics, in terms of the Agency's extreme compartmentalization and the complexity of its enormous filing system, that are designed to preclude penetration by foreign powers have the simultaneous effect of making Congressional inquiry very difficult For example, f CIA personnel testified to the Committee that a review of f \ Agency files will not always indicate whether an individual | was affiliated with the Agency in any respect. Nor was , there always an independent means of verifying that all Classification: : | Classified by derivation: ]
Classification: (This form is to be used for material extracted from ClA—controlled documents.) SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 1. CIA Personnel in the Soviet Russia Division i . In addition to obtaining testimony from former directors John H. McCone and Richard M. Helms, the Committee interviewed individuals who were chiefs of the CIA's Soviet Russia division during 1959-1963.* These individuals categorically denied that Oswald had ever been associated in any capacity with the CIA. f the Committee interviewed To investigate this matter further, /the persons who had been chiefs and/or deputy chiefs during 1959-62 of the three units within the Soviet Russia division which were responsible respectively for clandestine activities, *The chief(s) of the Soviet Russia division from August 1962 to September 1963 was not interviewed by the Committee. Classification: ¢ J | Classified by derivation: iO sf wf ff ff
Classification: (This form is to be used for material extracted from ClA—controlled documents.) American legal travelers, and research in support of clandestine activities.* The heads of the clandestine that activity section stated during this period/the CIA had very few operatives in the Soviet Union and that Oswald was not one of them. Moreover, they stated that because of his obvious instability, Oswald would never have met the Agency's standards for use in the field.** The heads of the *The American legal Travelers unit used carefully selected American citizens traveling in the Soviet Union to assess the potential use of Soviet officials they had met for future intelligence work on behalf of the United States. For this unit, only the years 1959-61 were covered. However, since every American legal traveler who was involved in this program was recruited before Oswald's trip to the Soviet Union, the relevant year for Lee Harvey Oswald was 1959 because that is when he departed from the United States. **One officer acknowledges the remote possibility that an individual could have been run by someone as part of a “vest pocket" operation without other Agency officials knowing about it, but even this possibility, as it applies to Oswald, \ was negated by the statement of the deputy chief of the Soviet Russia clandestine activities section who commented that in 1963 he was involved in a review of every clandestine operation ever run in the Soviet Union, and that OsWald was not involved in any of these cases. Classification: 2. SS. Sa ©. oe SS ~~ SS ~~ SE lO. | Classified by derivation: a Daa Ma a ew MF.
Classification: é (This form is to be used for material extracted . f from ClA—controlled documents.) Soviet Russia division's American Legal Traveler program, which utilized Americans traveling in the Soviet Union as a means of obtaining information and identifying possible subjects for recruitment, informed the Committee that they met with each person involved in this activity and that Oswald was not one of them. These Agency officials also advised the Committee that only “clean-cut" college graduates were used in this program, and that Oswald did not meet this criteria. Finally, the Agency officers in charge of the Soviet Russia division's research section in support of clandestine activities indicated that, had Oswald been contacted by the Agency, their section would % probably have been informed, but that this, in fact, never occurred. Classification: | Classified by derivation: we ae I MI a a a MT aN
2 hs ene Classification: (This form is to be used for material extracted from ClA—controlled documents.) 2. CIA Personnel ial ‘A , . The Committee investigated the allegation of former CIA employee James Wilcott, who testified in executive session that shortly after the assassination of President : ; Kennedy he was advised by fellow employees at the CIA's i fE.. wed a ON “Tokyo Station'that Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA agent who ba. . ; had received financial disbursements under an assigned cryptonym. Wilcott explained that he had been employed by the CIA as a finance officer from 1957 until his resignetion from the Agency in 1966. In this capacity, he served as a , 4 - {~~ fiscal account assistant on the support staff atf [from June of 1960 to June 1964. Wilcott advised ant that, in addition to his regular responsibilities, he had served security duty on his off-hours,,in order to supplement his income. This additional job put him in contact with vw Classification: =— Ga “A “A “GEA. “Ga <9, . | Classified by derivation:
i | Classification: | (This form is to be used for material extracted ; ¢ from ClA—controlled documents.) “4 a {— : | = = other employees of the] _[vne would come by the office and engage in informal conversations regarding ( politics and their work. Wilcott told the Committee that on the day after President Kennedy's assassination. he was informed by a CIA case officer that Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA agent. Wilcott further testified that he was told that Oswald had been assigned a cryptonym and that Wilcott himself had ( unknowingly disbursed payments for Oswald's project using that cryptonym. Although Wilcott was unable to identify the specific case officers who had initially informed him of Oswald's Agency relationship, he named several employees an \ of the| with whom he believed he had subsequently yo Wilcott advised the Committee that after learning Classification: discussed the allegations. . : | Classified by derivation:
aT 47 £7 LF LT £7 LW 4 LF ~ Classification: : (This form is to be used for material extracted from CliA—controlled documents.) of the alleged Oswald connection to the CIA, he never oy 7 rechecked the ,disbursement records for evidence of the Oswald project. He explained that this was because at that time he viewed the information as mere shop talk and gave it little credence. Neither did he report the allegations to any formal investigative bodies following the assassination as he considered the information to be hearsay. In an attempt to investigate Wilcott's allegations concerning Lee Harvey Oswald's relationship with the CIA, the : Committee interviewed several present and former CIA employees who were selected on the basis of the position each had held with the CIA during the years 1954-1964. Among those persons interviewed were individuals whose responsibilities covered a broad spectrum of areas within the| \ ‘during this period, including the chief and deputy chief of ¢ Classification: | Classified by~defivation:
BG Classification: (This form is to be used for material extracted — ; 6 from CiA—controlled documents.) | station|as well as officers in finance, registry, the Soviet Branch and counterintelligence. _/ The Committee's investigation refuted Wilcott's allegation. 13 During the course of their employment in thf] Station,| none of these individuals interviewed had ever seen any documents or heard any information indicating that Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA agent.  / This allegation was not known to anyone until the time of publication of Warren Commission critical literature and the Garrison investigation in the late 1960's. / Some of the individuals, including : the chief of counterintelligence within the Soviet Russia \> prancf| _| expressed the belief that it was possible ‘ that Lee Harvey Oswald had been recruited by the KGB ; during his military tour of duty in Japan as the CIA's \3 : | had identified a KGB program aimed at recruiting Classification: = f | Classified by derivation: