1-110 | For instance, if I had been sent abroad under cover as - a private individual, leaving the office in McLean, going Ww abroad as a businessman or something like that, I would have become a staff agent and I.would still have a pseudonym. roe - 5 -We have what:.we call. principal agents abroad who work | 2 A for us full-time who have pseudonyms and others who have ~ | 7 | | | ¢ 7 i cryptonyms. When a man gets into something approaching an | S. 2 | employee relationship with. the U.S. government and has survivot- ns t | 3 3 | ship rights, pension rights, he usually gets.a pseudonym so | ~ iG | that he can sign papers, vouchers and so on. = 1] | Mr. Goldsmith. A pseudonym is distinguishable from an = yO . ! = a operational alias, is it not? @ = 13 | Mr. Scelso. It is different, but it is not distinguish = ts | able by looking at it. | = a Mr. Goldsmith. Understood. 2 i , = i ; . | & is | Mr. Scelso. It is different. = i | “a IF | Mr. Goldsmith. If the case officer has a pseudonym he Ps al uses for correspondence, that is not a name you would use as < 20 | Mr. Scelso. A case officer -- I used to use a different ; t . : i vem @) |} name with every agent I ran. OLS i . . ted 22 Mr. Goldsmith. How would you remember which name to | use? Mr. Scelso. I had a pretty good memory. I would look Ww tn an operational alias dealing with the agents? | | 1 | 3 t ; at the file. I might be. running twelve agents in the station. | : etPRET a 001892 Docld: 32277215 Page 112 - os
wn i = si o ~ } “ , t } wt i _ | ~ - | ¢ = 7 | ~ | a ~ i = ‘ N t i . at re) 7} . 1 NS a i = iG! ° ! Se tly a | =z i -_ 19 | ca La i = : - t = i = i fo ; o ri c : a \ = i = 4 a i>! ey _* i he 13 & 13 an | _ | = 19 | ~ < | oe =, | 5S 20 | : \ 21 | uM it it Docld: 32277215 Page 113 i I had no trouble remembering it. In later years I did when I ran into some of these people on the street. i I { 4 | name is Maurice Bishop? i 8 | used the name Maurice Bishop as an operational alias or a | pseudonym? ( | period, what. responsibilities, if any, did you. have, with | ' | regard to the CIA's investigation of the assassination? | | j " tion, Mr. Helms called a meeting of a lot of important people, | | including Angleton; the Chief of our Division, Mr. Karamessinag; jt think somebody from the Cuban show, and told them that I | | was in charge of the investigation and gave me broad powers | and so on. | “Mr. Goldsmith. Why did he pick you? my balliwick anyway and because he had known me for. years as a polygraph operator and as a man who had successfully inves- tigated a number of very, very big operations and security problems. 1-111 Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know any CIA case officer whose Mr. Scelso. I do not recall any such person. . Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know whether Dave Phillips ever | Mr. Scelso. I.do not know that.. Mr. Goldsmith. Turning now to the. post-assassination i i 1 Mr. Scelso. I think it was the day after the assassina- { j i Mr. Scelso. He picked me primarily because it. fell into i Mr. Goldsmith. When you say it fell into your balliwick | 001893 ALDERSON RESORTING COMESAY ; ,
eo wy 2 s ! ae] ~ i ~ | - a . | w oy Si | = ow 7 ad a a: Pod Loma) = t 2 | = i = 04 S Ss 4 = 32 | re | = , \ = 13 | = i = i S- ta yy ia i S re i Y too pa y = 3 = wn 7 . i Ps a = 13 = fond Cc oe \ 3 La ‘ APs sf o4 124 . Ren i gs? i a Z aa i i i i 4 ia | } | 21 i ; | if i ul 4 yt ‘| i Docld: 32277215 Page 114 i-11l2 anyway; for the record, what was that balliwick? Mr. Scelso. I had a Branch then that included Mexico, and the Central American countries and Panama. Because Oswald had been in Mexico, he gave it to me. Mr. Goldsmith. Oswald had also been to Soviet Russia. Mr. Scelso. That is right. Mr. Goldsmith. Any reason why that person was not chosen? . Mr. Scelso. Helms had a way of doing things like this, particularly in my case. I had investigated the disappearance of the Chief of the West German Security Service in 1964 and | I had investigated a number of other giant operations of absolutely critical importance for him over the years, and | had come up, you know, with the right answers. Mr. Goldsmith. What was Helms' attitude towards the man on which the investigation was to be conducted? Mr. Scelso. Helms wanted everything. done right that -- he did not give me any detailed instructions. : Mr. Goldsmith. Did you ever push you one way or another’ towards finding conspiracy or no conspiracy? Mr. Scelso. No. Mr. Goldsmith. Did he ever pressure you, in any way, ; to get the job done within certain time limitations? Mr. Scelso. No. ' What. happened was -- as I say, Angleton kept on seeing 001894 SEGRE ALS ERSON Secont" ING COMPSAY
1-113. i I : the FBI and he also saw members of the Warren Commission, which | | | > f i Was in direct violation of Helms' instructions. Helms . | if invite me to these meetings. I called this to Mr. Helms' an Hee to make him stop doing this. Angleton would ‘not | attention. | So I worked as fast as I could with the material that I had and prepared a summary report of the events in Mexico rer) | and other things we knew about. Oswald, which was, in light C. 20024 6202) S5u~2345 oe] oO n. | of later events, very sketchy. | | Then, after a number of weeks -- I think it was around | Christmas, but it may have been in mid-January, Nicholas Uns tH Tan , | 12 | Retzenbach notified us that the Bureau's report had. been | given to him and asked the Agency to send people over to read it. So Birch O'Neal and I went over and read it. and it con- tained vast amounts of information which we had not known. . REPORTERS BUTELDTNG, | Mr. Goldsmith. Why was Birch O'Neal still involved in ! : vj enter | : a Mr. Scelso. Birch O'Neal was still involved in it 3 = : 1 | pecaue the CI stafi was helping with the investigation. | 5 | It had answers, for example, to the letter intercepts | i : ; ! a that went various places. They were the repository of letter. | I oe? 2243 . e oN intercepts Mr. Goldsmith. You said that the EBI report. contained a 1 Mr. Scelso. That is right. Just a lot of vital information Ww LSTy ! | © 24 \ lot of information that you did not know about? | erpRe T 7 001895 F ALSERSON REPORTING COMPA DocId:32277215 Page 115 ; ALSERSON OR omen
i that they had not disseminated to us. Mr. Goldsmith. Could you give some examples of that? 3 | Mrs Scelso. Yes. | e : | _ Details of Oswald's political activity in the United : | z ¢ | States; the pro-Cuban activity; the fact. that he had shot at. | 3 5 General Walker; the fact that diaries and biographical sketches, g y | autobiographical sketches of himself had been found among his FS 2 effects; and so on. . 5 | And so, in just about everything, the Bureau had deluged, a is { = 0 | us with hundreds, if not. thousands, df reports of people giv- | : 7 ing fragmentary bits of information, you see, and kept us a i i = i2 busy tracing the names and researching it, and so on; but : : | © : 12 | these vital things had never been communicated to me. Maybe | ; ta they were communicated to Angleton, but not to me. ; : is | It so happened that my report, my initial report #- | = 1s | actually I wrote an initial report about two days after the : 4 7 | assassination, which Mr. Helms took to President Johnson, the : 18 gist of which was, as far as we could see, Oswald was the | z a assassin and there was no indication that we had. that there | é 7 were other participants in the assassination; and there was ms eae no indication, visible indication, that he was a Soviet or a ! Cuban agent, even. though the possibility could not be exclu- | ded. And my later. report was more comprehensive, but was obviously, completely irrelevant in view of all of this Bureau gnformation. PRET 001896 COMPANY Docld: 32277215 Page 116
1-115 Mr. Goldsmith. Was there a tension between the Agency and the Bureau by virtue of the Bureau having a much more \ ! | i i i { 4 if complete report than yours, and apparently not having given | you all. the information that had existed? | i | 2 ; | Mr. Scelso. I did not see any. I did not. see any 5 5 tension. : Everybody felt that this was the Bureau's case | S 7 | because they were in charge of watching over Oswald. That e f was their responsibility,i»not ours, and therefore we are not | ; 7 gging to harrass them, or anything like that. | . | : ‘| I personally felt a little put out when I discovered | S i g A that they had all of this information and had not. passed it | 2 2 | to me. Knowing the Bureau, I did not get upset about. this. i . i | © : 1 I was glad to have all of this information.and just at the : : - time that my report was. submitted, L had circulated it to : : |; | the important people, including Angleton, and a meeting was | = | calles and everybody was to discuss this case, discuss my 2 ; 7 | report. : z | I think that the day of the meeting, or the day before ! = ‘ , $ : 4 | the meeting, I had read the. Bureau's report in Katzenbach's | ¢ 1» | office and made a few notes and came back and said my report ! oy is irrelevant in view of all the added information, this thing | nos . ° = now takes on an entirely different dimension. Whereupon, | Helms -- Angleton started to criticize my report terribly.-- without pointing out any inaccuracies, it was so full of Tr aN ils AS ire) ia wrong things,. we could not possibly send it to the Bureau, and | : | SEGRE! Lo ‘ALRERSON REZORTING COMPANY Docld: 32277215 Page 117 ,
1-116 I just satuthere and I did not say a word. This was a typical | nN \ | | Angleton performance. I had invited him to comment on the wo report and he had withheld all of his comments until he got to ie the meeting whereupon Helms turned the operation, the investi- z 7 gation, over to Angleton's staff. 2 S| Meantime, I was up to my neck in Panama demonstrations : : and so on. i Mr. Goldsmith. Is the name Ann Egerton familiar to you? : : Mr. Scelso. Yes, it is. I've heard the name. : a Mr. Goldsmith. She was a woman who was a CIA analyst. Z 7 Mr. Scelso. Yes, sir, on Angleton's staff in Mexico. S 12 / Mr. Goldsmith. With Birth O'Neal? @ Z 12 Mr. Scelso. That is right. : is Mr. Goldsmith. She was the woman who opened up Oswald's : '¢ | 201 file. Did she have any involvement in the investigation = tof the assassination? 4 17 | Mr. Scelso. I suppose she did in Birch O'Neal's office, z \8 | probably Kept..the books for him and so on. i z a Mr. Goldsmith. Other than that, you have no information | = | about that? | | an Mr. Scelso. No. i POW “XS ) my Mr. Goldsmith. What. about Charlotte Bustos? What involvement did she have? Mr. Scelso. Charlotte Bustos supported me in handling: Ww dan all the details of the. investigation, running traces on all ne pn cy 01898. Docld: 32277215 Page 113 ALSERSON RESORT! MS COMBONY py ra
1-117 the people that came up, and keeping track of the files, and | so on. es co) 3 | Mr. Goldsmith. We have been told -- the Committee has sy been told by two different sources formerly with the Agency = 7 that shortly after the assassination Charlotte Bustos found a . 4 | photograph thought to be of Oswald. . Do you know whether, in E | fact, such a photo was found? e . Mr. Scelos. I do not’recall any such thing... : 7 Mr. Goldsmith. If she had found it, would you have : | been the person she would have shown it to? : | Mr. Scelos. Absolutely. 2 | Mr. Goldsmith. You never saw such a photograph? | Mr. Scelos. Not that I recall. You are reasonably sure that it is not the unknown man? Mr. Goldsmith. That is correct. I will qualify my REPORTELS BOTEDENG , Ve S ~ | as | \s | answer and -say I am not reasonably sure of anything. I am basing my question upon testimony we have received from other. | 7. Mk. Scelos. It is possible that. she found a photograph | JOA Te STRERT, RS ig) individuals. | || Of him, that. the ONI. may have sent later. I do not think | there was anyone in our files. I do not recall one being i found. 23 | Mr. Goldsmith. You said shortly after the assassination 23 ithe report, in substance, said Oswald did it alone and we have : j + Y 24 | you wrote a report that. was submitted to the Presidént and i if | 001899 Docld: 3232377215 Page 119 ALDERSON Ree HS COMPAR
1-118. nothing to indicate to the contrary. 5 2 Mr. Scelso. Yes. 3 Mr. Goldsmith. Do you think it was premature a point | to be issuing a report of that kind? | Z :| Mr. Scelso. No, because the President wanted it. He i i | : S| wanted a rundown on what we had and thought. The thing was 5 7 couched in such terms, we hedged. & 7 Mr. Goldsmith. is a copy of that report still available : 7 in Headquarters?| y : a | 1 = 1G | Mr. Scelso. It should be someplace. I gather that : a | the Church Committee did not find it either. It should have ! a i] . s 2 | been in Helms' files, or something.. ; Yd] = 1 Mr. Goldsmith. Is it uncommon for reports to get lost | 2 a at Headquarters? i : is | Mr. Scelso. Memoranda of this kind -- this was a = 1 memorandum, you see, about a page and a half, or two or : 4 "| three pages long. I. frequently had to write things like this | a to go to the White Houses Either J. C. King took them or | a | \ : 7 | Helms took them -- with my new electric typewriter. | S 20 | They wanted to know -- the President wanted something. . ! Koes Mr. Goldsmith. I understand. -- : re Is it common for things like that to get lost? tm ce] Mr. Scelso. Yes, it would be very uncommon. .I had a - file on the case, my own file in my own safe and it should HS AS ad ts be in there. And it should be in. Helms' files. 001900. Docld:32277215 Bage 120 ALDERSON RESCRT.
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