"Neila rns ‘4 1 ' lem (This form is to be used for materia! extracted from ClA—controlled documents.) . Jf Telephone Taps elt Mr. Helms offered testimony regarding the CIA's reticence to inform the Warren Commission, at least during. the initial stage of the Commission' s work, of the CIA’ s[telephonic and] photo surveillance’ operations in Mexico City. The reason for the .sensitivity of these [telephone tagSf-and pBurveillance was not only becya @se it was sensitive from. the. Agency's ‘standpoint, but the[ telephone - “taps weref> vg of —landJ therefore, if this had become public } eee aee, it would have caused very bad feelings between[Mexicd}iand the United States, and that was the reason. (Exec. Sess. Test. of Richard Helms, 8/9/78, pp. 51-52) TheCIA's Afnwillingness to inform the Warren oa o Commi, Lo . Kr . ae - ° rail * * 1on x nee rly staGes of its“investigation . a ied the -dbove-déscribed surveillénce operdticns is a gource,Or copcern to titis Committee. tts a a a a indjcative Of an. Agéncy poLicy designed to skew a a ae a . KG its favor ,the form and substance of informati@p > : on the aaa, aa the Warren “ CLowetso, CommiSsion. (HSCA cic tees 5/6/78, p- 158) i SH ght well have : 7 a hampered the Commission's ability to-proceed in O50547 ' | Classified by derivation: SOG FOF EF OF ak Te , . : ‘~~ 4 Is el EN ele oe Ban . . pe SSI ISA yisn: ~ a te ,
Classification: . : {Thi f terigl extracted & its inves digas Bite} Buwer® ates? fnemetces Soi. it. - . rl trom Cla contr ocumerits As noted previously, on January 31, 1964, the CIA provided the Warren Commission with a NERD. memorandum that chronicled Lee Harvey Oswald's Mexico City visit during September 26, 1963 = seh she; ot € (CIA Doc. FOIA 509-803 1/31/64 aire ny ease, oe October 3, 19637. ‘That- -‘memorand not mentions,= mtd pane iim rae 7 9L£ cope that Oswald's various conversations. with the. Cuban’ Lo £2 KiCo. and Soviet Embassy /Consulates had been{ tappea ‘and 4 aey the Agericy' Ss Mexico City Sta ~~ subsequently transcribed’ Furthermore, that memo- randum did not mention that the CIA had[tapped and] transcribed conversations between Cuban Embassy oo employee Sylvia Duran and Soviet officials at the Soviet mone/eeesiae si ation mad 0 of | pptete the conversations betwee an ‘Sident Dérticos. £ 7 dn Ambassado to Mexico Armas- Which the CIA’ y #1sof taza and} eratSorined ‘J | _ € oP Ve sea, | = On February vr eo Helms appeared before rhe ¥ Conmission and bkety discussed the memorandum of * é January 31, 1964. (CIA Doc. FOIA #498-204, 1/29 7% , e ° . ¥ DIR 97829) On February 10, 1964, J. Lee Rankin wrote Helms in regard to the CIA memorandum of January 31. & (JFK Doc. No. 3872) A review of Rankin's letter 4 £ Classification: “EERE QBBG48 Classified by derivation: _ \ »,
(This form is to be used for material extracted from ClA—controlled documents.) we ~~ ‘indicates that as of his writing, the Warren J 4 Commission had no substantive knowledge of[ene h are (1 trot eg [telephonic survei llancd]fSpetatiion or the production i.e.,] the tapes and ‘transcripts ( from that operation. | “UR NGAP NU Rankin inquired in the February 10, 1964 letter whether Oswald's direct communication with employees O°. of the Soviet Embassy (as stated in Paragraph 1 eetiie & ol of January 32 memorandum) had been facilitated by usc. Seppe S »utelephone or, “interview. Manifestly, had “the ware,” Commission been. informed of the[ telephonic surveillance] operation and- its success inftapping] Oswald this inquiry by Rankin would not have been oe. made. _ Raymond Rocca's testimony tends to support this conclusion. It was Rocca's recollection that between the time. period of January 1964 --April 1964, Warren Commission's representatives had visited the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia and had tm e been shown various transcripts resulting fro the to an [era s ‘telephénic surveillance “operations in Mexico City. (HSCA Class. Depo. of Raymond Rocca, 7/17/78, p- 89) However, Mr. Rocca did not personally make Classification: \, SD “URAL NEAR, “San. NERNRL. NB.
Classification: ee Sake Py seg (This form is to be used for material extracted from ClA—controlled documents.) this material available to Commission representa- tives and was not able to state under oath precisely the point in time at which the Warren Commission first learned of these operations. (Ibid.) On February 19, 1964 the on responded to CoD 884,Fo As. SIS-FasH4 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 Xnowl During the period of March ~ April 1964, David Slawson drafted a series of memoranda which among other issues concerned Warren Commission KrfQw—- » ledge of and access to the production material derived from the (cra 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 rE tad ie a ers Classification: Classified by derivation: edge cf CIA Telephonic surveitlance} 000650 A “EE. NUH, NP. SES RA HA A, NBH ns, Oana we hp ne, “Be | bh
Classification: - oc st maser 2 and Willedbigiamnisctoobe syed Sescuate"dloPtis'*derephonic from CiA—controlled documents.) surveillance] materials until April 9, —1964~ On one Slawson and Willens: aaa Nin Scott, \ the CIA's Chief “of Station in Mexico \ City, who provided them with ‘various. transcripts: and translations derived Crvnlesp-seteshone ‘te ps} i of the Cuban and Soviet Embassy/ “AR (Slawson Memorandum of. April 22, 1964, Subject: Trip to \Mexico City P 22) a ae Prior t6 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 aid maintain telephonic surveillance]o£ the Cuban a aS Embassy/Consulate, » (Slawson memorandum, March 12, 1964, Subj: meeting with CIA representatives) .. ; Slawson's memorandum of March 12 reveals that. the Warren d Commission had learned that the CIA possessed trdm » ¢ »; S scripts of conversations between the Cuban Ambassador Vet eee 4 a yl to Mexico, _Armas, and the Cuban President Dortico The Pe 2 Dorticos~Armas conversations, requested by the Warren ; hg a aA h hadbeen Bummal aod atx » % CIA ‘6 Jannscg Al meee er LTA 3 COREL CATS swat 's se a. four SOF 8 po . ; €@ m1 GO, Cap ne a = _ ( Classification: E “KK Slaten, won kel sc esea SATS Camnitttt 90905 oo Ske, ck Re BR EKONL aK ar@ oO ind edt “dokettsd by derivation: o€ CIA Suc yti Maneto Sarath on LAME a tky proba