this material available to Commission representa- tives and was not able to state under oath precisely the point in time at which the Warren L- Commission first learned of these operations. (Ibid.) On February 19, 1964 the CIA responded to Rankin's inquiry of February 10. The Agency response did indicate that Oswald had phoned the Soviet Consulate and was also interviewed at the Consulate. However, the Agency neither revealed the source of this information in its response to ‘the Commission nor indicated that this source would be revealed by other means (e.g. by oral \’ briefing). (Ibid.) Warren Commission Knowledge cf CIA Telephonic Surveillance | buring the period of March - April 1964, David Slawson drafted a series of memoranda which among other issues concerned Warren Commission know- ledge of and access to the production material derived from the CIA telephonic surveillance operations in Mexico City. A review of these memoranda tends to support the Committee's belief that the Warren Commission, through Mssrs. Slawson, Coleman, and 00050
and Willens did not obtain access to CIA telephonic | surveillance materials until April 9, 1964. On that date, Coleman, Slawson and Willens met with Win Scott, the CIA's Chief of Station in Mexico City, who provided them with various transcripts and translations derived from CIA telephone taps of the Cuban and Soviet Embassy/Consulates. (Slawson Memorandum of April 22, 1964, Subject: Trip to Mexico City pa2) | | Prior to April 9,it appears doubtful that the Commission had been given even partial access to the referenced material. Nevertheless, by March 12, 1964, the record indicates that the Warren | Commission had at least become aware that the CIA did maintain telephonic surveillance of the Cuban Embassy /Consulate. (Slawson memorandun, March 12, | 1964, Subj: meeting with CIA representatives) . Slawson's memorandum of March 12 reveals that the Warren Commission had learned that the CIA possessed tran-~ scripts of conversations between the Cuban Ambassador to Mexico, Armas, and the Cuban President borticos. The Dorticos~-Armas conversations, requested by the Warren 000654
CIA HAS NOO, carrey ; EOF THis DOCUENT aky +heMacckta Commission representatives at meeting .: with CIA officials, including Richard Helms,. concerned Silvia Duran's arrest and interrogation by the Mexican Federal Police. (Slawson Memorandum of April 22, 1964, pp. 3, 19, 45-46) Helms responded to the Commission's request for access, stating that he would attempt to arrange for the Warren Commission's representatives to review this material. (Slawson Memorandum of March 12, 1964, p. 6) Another Slawson memorandum, dated March 25, 1964 concerned Oswald's trip to Mexico. In that memo Slawson wrote that the tentative conclusions he had reached concerning Oswald's Mexico trip, were derived from CIA memoranda of January 31, 1964 ané February 19, 1964, (Slawson Memorandum of March 25, 1964, p. 20) and, in addition, a Mexican federal olice summary of interrogations#éondu ted shortl ———"Z oe . Gg re ene BER aA nek its beens 0, ard mean Es after the assassination! with — a oy a 7 “4 Slawson wrote: ane A large part of it (the summary report) is simply a summation of what the Mexican police learned when they interrogated Mrs. Silvia Duran, an employee of the Cuban | Consulate in Mexico City, and.is there- - fore only as accurate as Mrs. Duran's testimony to the police. (Ibid.)
These comments indicate that Slawson placed qualified reliance upon the Mexican police summary. Moreover, there is no indication that Slawson had been provided the Duran telephonic intercept tran- scripts. In fact, by virtue of Slawson's comments concerning the Mexican police report, it would appear that the Warren Commission, as of March 25, had been provided little substantive information pertaining to Silvia Duran. As Slawson reveals, the Commission had been. forced to rely upon the two memoranda that did not make reference to the surveil- lance operations, and a summary report issued by the Mexican Federal Police. Thus, the Agency had 7. at ae B for over three months , @xposing aatuek “apkara bys: AS - the surveillance operations tc theA review of the concerned Warren Conmission staff members. As was stated in the CIA cable of December 20, 1964 to its Mexico City Station: Our present plan in passing information to the Warren Commission is to eliminate " mention of telephone taps, in order to protect your continuing operations. Will rely instead on statements of Silvia Duran and on contents of Soviet consular file which Soviets gave ODACID here. (CIA Doc. FOIA #420-757, Dec. 20, 1964, CIA p. 2144, DIR 90466)
“(Slawson Memorandum of April 21, 1964, Subj: Intercept s “from Soviet and Cuban Embassies in Mexico, p. 2) pret Bie The Committee's belief that Slawson had + telepheare Nested not been given access to the Duran‘transcripts is further supported by reference to his memorandum of March 27, 1964 (CD 692) wherein he states his conclusion that Oswald had visited the Cuban Embassy on three occasions. (Ibid, p. 2) This again conclusion, he wrote,was based upon an analysis of Silvia. Duran's testimony before the Mexican police. This memorandum bears no indication that he had reviewed any of the Duran transcripts. Furthermore, had Slawson been given access to these transcripts, certainly their substance would have been incorporated into his analysis and accordingly noted for this. "purpose. His analysis would have reflected the fact “ of his review either by its corroboration or criticism of the above cited Mexican police summary report. Logically, access to the CIA's telephonic surveillance production would have clarified some ambiguities. For example, on September 27, at 4205 p.m. nena eh i Se. cee Coa ko TBE ane oe 900654
-Silvia Duran telephoned the Soviet Embassy, and stated that an American was presently at the Cuban Embassy requesting an in-transit visit to Cuba. This American was later determined by CIA analysts to be Oswald. Again on September 28, at 11:51 a.m. Duran telephoned the Soviet Consulate stating that an American, subsequently identified by CIA analysts as Oswald was at the Cuban Embassy. ' (Ibid. p. 4) | Corr oboraking Oswald's visits Pottea Cran Frbass, Had this’ informatiorbeen made available to Slawson, his calculations of Oswald's activities in Mexico City would have been more firmly established than they were as*of March 27, 1964. The record supports the Committee's finding that as of April 2, 1964 the Warren Commission had still not been given access to the SO ea AS ATEETACC CRSA. aitngn me 'series of telephonic intercepts. .. Py memorandum of that date by Coleman and Slawson, ' posed one question to the CIA and made two-requestsfor information from the Agency. (Slawson - Coleman Memorandum of April 2, 1964, Subj: Questions Raised by the Ambassador Mann File) “Coleman and Slawson wrote: 1) What is the information source referred to in the November 28 telegram that et ge
Oswald intended to settle down in Odessa; 2) We would like to see copies of the transcripts of the intercepts, translated if possible, in all cases where the intercepts refer to the assassination or related subjects; | 3) We would especially like to see the intercept in which the allegation that. money was passed at the Cuban Embassy is discussed (Ibid.) | d The question initially posed by (Item X) in. the above-referenced memorandum of April 2 concerns the CIA telephonic intercept of September 27, 1963 at 10:37 a.m. (Slawson Memorandum of April 21, 1964, p. 1) Obviously, if Slawson found it necessary to request the source of the information, he had not as yet been provided access to the original material by the CTIA. Item Number Two of the above listing tends to show that the Commission had not been giveng access to the intercepts concerning the assassination. 000658.
Item number three of the above listing reveals that the intercept of the Dorticos-Armas | conversation of Novenber 22, 1964, in which the “passing of mohies was discussed had not as of April 2 been provided to the Commission. The commission had specifically requested the Dorticos-Armas transcripts at a4 March 12, 1964 meeting between Commission representatives and Agency representatives. (Slawson memorandum, March 12, 1964, Subj: Conference with CIA on March 12, 1964) | On April 3, 1964, Coleman and Slawson expressed their concern for receiving complete access to all materials relevant to Oswald's Mexico City trip: . The most probable final result of the “entire investigation of Oswald's activities in Mexico is a conclusion that he went there for the purpose of trying to reach Cuba and that no bribes, conspiracies, etc. took place. \ -.-.-in order to make such a judgment (that all reasonable lines of investigation that night have uncovered other motivations or g00Gu7
CIA HAS HO OSLES TION TO DECA AROIOR LEA MENT meng 45G wes RELEASE OF TS Gots. possible conspiracies have been followed through with negative results), we must become familiar with the details of what both the American and Mexican investi- gatory agencies there have done. This means reading their reports, after trans- lation, if necessary, and in some cases talking with the investigators themselves. (Slawson and Coleman Memorandum, April 13, 1964, Subj: Additional lines of Investigation in Mexico Which May Prove Worthwhile, p. 1l.) Manifestly, Coleman's and Slawson's desire for a thorough investigation had been .. ~~. i by the CIA's concern lest its sources and methods, => however relevant to the Commission's investigation, be exposed. ‘Considering the gravity and signi- ficance of the Warren Commission's investigation the \ Agency's witholding of materiai from the Commission staff was clearly improper. Q00G58
1964 On April 8, David Slawson, Howard Willens, and William Coleman flew to Mexico City, Mexico to meet with the representatives of che State Department, FBI, CIA, and the Government of Mexico. (Slawson Memorandum, April 22, 1964, Subj: Trip to Mexico City, p. 1) Prior to their departure, they met with Thomas Mann, the U.S. Ambassador £0. Mexico during Oswald's visit to Mexico! City and at the time of President Kennedy's assassination. (Ibid, ) Ambassador Mann told the Warren Commission representa- tives that the CIA's Mexico City Station was actively engaged in photosurveillance operations against the Soviet and Cuban Embassy/Corisulates (Ipid., p. 3) | Upon the group's arrival in Mexico City, they were’ met by U.S. Ambassador Freeman, Claire Boonstra of the State Department, Clarke Anderson of the FBI, and Winston Scott of the CIA (Ibid. pp. 9-10) That same day, during a meeting between the Commission representatives and Win Scott, Scott made available to the group actual transcripts of the. CIA's telephonic surveillance operations accompan..ed with , ; cots ee toe Englisn translations of the transcripts. mn addition,
| ae ecTORTO. a BS NO OMECTOR . | CV ASSIFIGATION ANEIOR | RELEASE OF THO SOCUMENT he provided the group with reels of photographs for the time period covered by Oswald's visit that had resulted from photosurveillance of the Cuban and Soviet Embassy entrances7David Slawson wrote: "...Mr. Scott 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 understood 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 obtain- ed through him without first clearing it with his superiors in Washington. We agreed to this." (Ibid.) ——_ Mr. Scott described to the Commission repre- Oo AX Ce ctl sentatives the CIA's course of action jo ei ‘following the assassination, indicating that his staff immediately began to compile dossiers on Oswald, Duran, and everyone else throughout Mexico whom the CIA knew had had some contact with Oswald (Ibid.) Scott revealed that all known Cuban and Russian ‘exneteceteaneneeeteeeREEERETESSEERE , -intelligence agents had “ qurckly | been put under surveillance following the assassination. Slawson \ ; oe concluded "Scott's narrative plus the material we were shown disclosed immediately how incorrect our previous information had been on Oswald's contacts with the Soviet and Messream Embassies. Apparently the Curhayn 009060
distortions and omissions to which our information had been subjected had entered some place in Washington, because the CIA information that we were shown by Scott was unambiguous on almost all the crucial- points. We had previously planned to show Scott, Slawson's reconstruction of Oswald's probable activities at the embassies to get Scott's Opinion, but once we saw how badly distorted _our information was we realized that this would be useless. Therefore, instead, we” decided to take as close notes as possible from the original source materials at some later time during our visit." (Ibid, p.. 24)* ee Pf nt ho arabian, LRAT hide ON Set wR A separate Slawson memoraridum of April 21, 1964 records the results of the notetaking from original source materials that he did following Scott's disclosures. ‘These notes dealt exclusively with ‘the telephonic intercepts pertaining to the Duran and Oswald conver-— sations for the period Sept. 27 - Oct. 1, 1963. (Slawson Memorandum, April 21, 1964 Subj: Intercepts from the Soviet and Cuban Embassies in Mexico City. - meareeae, tee am eed ae TELE ee UNA END RES REIN gy de i BSE RARE SET BRS ARONA Ae TE Bh A OR Ns Mee Sg It is evident from Slawson's record that the Agency's denial of original source materials, in this case the telephonic surveillance intercepts, seriously impaired the Commission's ability to draw. accurately A reasoned conclusions regarding Oswald's sojourn in Mexico City. It meant that as of April 10, 1964, «
~ 40 - CIA HAS HO OSIECTION TO DECLASSIFICATION ANDIOR RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT “nearing the halfway point of the Warren Commission investigation, the Commission was forced to retrace the factual path by which it had structured Oswald's activities in Mexico City. It further revealed that the Agency had provided ambiguous information. too the Commission when, in fact (en_almest—all—the Seuciai_points") significantly more precise materials could have been made available for analysis, bythe Commisston. (Tbid,) Thus, the. Agency's early policy of not providing. the Commission with vitally relevant information derived from certain sensitive sources and methods had seriously undermined the investigation and possibly foreclosed lines of investigation e.g., Cuban “involvement, that might have been more seriously ‘considered had this material been expeditiously provided. | Mexico Crh, S takion Phe pesucver tance ard ha Mexico City Mystery Man On November 23, 1963, FBI Special Agent Odum showed Marguerite Oswald a photograph of a man bearing no physical resemblance to her son (Warren
/commission Report p. 364) This photograph had been supplied to the FBI on November 22 by the CIA's Mexico City Station after Agency representatives — had searched their files in an effort to locate bid. information on Oswald. (CIA Doc. DDP4-1555, 3/25/64, Warren Commission Doc. 67)7-;This photograph, which was one . open eter vo ina series | resulting from the CIA's photosurveillance 2 Rt, we ay operations against the Soviet _and Cuban Bmbassy/Consulates, ae anaes gs “na tee mena ame vag ‘ Prior to the assassination, , had been linked by enw, vate eee ee etn rect ne cores eens the Mexico City Station to Lee Harvey Oswald. (Ibid.) Richard Helms, in a sworn affidavit before the Warren . Commission, stated that the photograph shown to Marguerite Oswald had been taken on October 4, 1963 in Mexico City and mistakenly linked at that time to Oswald. (Warren Commission Affidavit of Richard Helms i. wa 8/7/64, Vol. XT, pp. 469-470), E> 60 wissen he Het Loe eh ot eee EYL weed wes eet ee Seot a, G42 On Pevelary ‘To; 1964, Marguerite Oswald testified before the Warren Commission and recounted the cir- cumstances under which she was shown the photograph. AWarren Commission Report Vol Lpls3)Mrs. Oswald testified ‘that she believed this photograph to have been of Jack ~” Ruby (bray 7 Warren Commisivn Reet p aed 900653
Thereafter, on February 12, 1964, J. Lee Rankin wrote to Thomas Karramesines, Assistant DDP requesting both the identity of the individual depicted in the photograph and an explanation of the circumstances by which this photograph was obtained by the Central Intelligence Agency. (Letter of J. Lee Rankin, Feb. 12, 1964, JFK Doc. #3872) On that same day, in a separate letter, Rankin wrote to DCI McCone regarding materials | that: the CIA had disseminated since November 22, 1963 to the Secret Service but not to the Warren Commission. Rankin requested copies of these materials which. included three CIA cables. The cables concerned the photograph subsequently shown by the FBI to Oswald' s mother of the individual originally identified by the Mexico City Station as Lee Harvey Oswald. (Letter of J. Lee Rankin Feb. 12, 1964, JFK Doc. #3872) \ * Among the materials disseminated by the ‘CIA to the Secret Service was a November 26 dissemination. (CIA Doc DIR 85177, 11/26/64) That cable concerned i o0e664
the Dorticos-Armas conversations and disclosed the existence of CIA telephonic surveillance operations in Mexico City at the oe ove). assassination ; . oe Ue and Oswald's earlier visit S$ a result the CIA. was. ‘reluctant to make the material disseminated to the Secret Service available to the Warren Commission for in so doing the Agency would have necessarily exposed its telephonic surveillance operationsto the Commission. | John Scelso testified regarding the circumstances — surrounding the eventual explanation given to the Commission recounting the origign of the photograph in _— question. Scelso stated: "We did not initially disclose to the Warren Commission all of our technical. operations. In other words, we did not -initially disclose to them that we had photosurveillance because the November photo we had (of MMM) was not of Oswald. Therefore it did not mean anything, you £ see?" se temeiner. [ HSCA class, Dep? © Tole Scelse ane la? , aye Mr. Goldsmith: ---SO the Agency was making a unilateral decision that this was not relevant to the Warren Commission. “amie Scelso: Right, we were not authorized, at first, to reveal all our technical operations. (BSGieGhee6+—bepor-cftohn—-Seetseo-Sftb67787 4 “ m wt sn ibid In summary the records shows that , By February 12, 1964 the Warren Commission had inadvertantly requested access to telephonic surveillance production, a cause for concern within the Revered caver toe
c orn! Classification: 1 . . (This form is to be used for material extracted from ClA—controlled documents.) -57- had repeated contact with Oswald while he was in Mexico City, was arrested and questioned by the Mexican police on two separate occasions. (CIA Doc. DIR 84950, 11/23/63, CIA Doc. DIR 85471, 11/27/63) During her second interrogation, Duran was questioned regarding her association with Calderon. There is no indication in the reinterrogation report accounting for the questioning of Duran about Calderon. (CIA Doc. DDP4-0940, 2/21/64) The information regarding Duran's interrogation was passed to the Warren Commission on February 21, 1964, more than two months after Calderon had returned to Cuba. (Ibid.) Information was reported to the CIA during May 1964, from a Cuban defector, tying Luisa Calderon to the Cuban Intelligence apparatus. The defector, AMMUG-1, was himself a Cuban Intelligence Officer who supplied valuable and highly reliable information to the CIA regarding Cuban Intelligence operations. (CIA Doc., Memorandum of Joseph Langosch to Chief, Office of Security, 6/23/64) Calderon's £ Classification: segrot @80678 i Classified by derivation: wie | Cc. Berk