124-10073-10424 AGENCY INFORMATION AGENCY: FBI RECORD NUMBER: — 124-10073-10424 RECORD SERIES: MX AGENCY FILE NUMBER:  105-3702-1363A DOCUMENT INFORMATION ORIGINATOR: DOS FROM: TO: TITLE: DATE: . 00/00/0000 PAGES: 34 SUBJECT: SEE FBI 105-82555-5612 DOCUMENT. TYPE: PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT ORIGINAL CLASSIFICATION: Secret REVIEW _ DATE: 09/24/1997 STATUS Redact RESTRICTIONS: JFK Act 6 (1)(B) COMMENTS: HY 50953 Docld: 32144387 Page 1 NEW CLASSIFICATION: UPDATE DATE: 06/08/2001
HW 50953 DocId:32144387 SUBJECT: Investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald ‘in. Mexico 1. While serving as Political Officer in. the;U, jCity from 1964 to 1967, I became quite~ riendly. h j vight, Elena Garro de Paz. An intel gent, witty, 9a tspo wan 5 | I found her a very useful if sometimes biased source.of political’ gossip . ! and personal history on significant Méxican personalities, She introduced i my wife and me to many important people in Mexico. She was also.parti- cularly knowledgeable about agrarian affairs. A biographic report that I prepared on her on May 3, 1966 is attached (Tab A). 2. On one occasion, Miss Garro inadvertently mentioned to me that she had been at a party with Lee Harvey Oswald and two American companions - when Oswald was in Mexico just before the Kennedy assassination. The © party had been at the home of her cousin, Ruben Duran. ~ The memorandum of that conversation, dated December 10, 1965, is attached (Tab B). I had not read the Warren Report, but I assumed that if Oswald had been to such a party in Mexico, it would have been well known to the Embassy. fol 3. A few days later I was called to the office of Mr. Winston’ Scott, who headed the inbassy' sfPolitical Research Sectguik(CTA) Also present. was Mr. Nathan Ferris, t é Embassy's Legal Attache (FBI). They had noted with interest my December 10 memorandum of conversation. They pointed out that there had been a great many rumors about Oswald at the time of the assassination and that some could not be verified and others had proved false. They asked me, however, to try and get a-more detailed 7 replay of Miss Garro's story. Mr. Scott made clear that the FBI had"full | responsibility for any further investigations of the Oswald case! ae ‘5 fW I also knew Miss Garro to be something of a professional anti-communist “.. SA who tended to see a communist plot behind any untoward political event, a However, the episode about her being escorted into hiding‘ at an obscure N hotel intrigued me. Accordingly, I decided to report the matter in - & writing. I gave the memorandum of conversation limited distribution LQ within the Embassy, and did not send dny copies to Washington. . et 4, In a memorandum of conversation dated December 25, 1965 (Tab CY, I provided a much more detailed and accurate restatement of Miss.Garro's ..-. alleged encounter with Oswald and Subsequent developments: :.Certain “er in my original presentation were corrected. Miss Garro? gué edt date of the party at her cousin's house was’ in early Septémber. admitted that she had gone to the Embassy to report briefly“abé on an earlier occasion. Do re rereds utile
Loe te oe ye ar ae HYARR ERE STR SG ANT ASH Durans after the assassination about .a party which Oswald had reportedly attended, but that. the transeript of:the interrogation was entirely unsatisfactory by normal, investigatory.standards. Furthermore, the party inquired about was not. the. one at Ruben Duran's house, reported by. . Elena Garro, but at an entirely different place. This transcript may well be the source of Mr.*Ferris'. belief that Elena Garro's story | had been - > —-----aheeked out and found to, be. untrue. 10. It would appear that. whereas the FBI has discounted the Elena Garro allegations, the CIA is: still considerably disturbed by them. The CIA _....may not have pressed for further investigation, however, for a number of reasons: 1) considering the sensitive overlap and subtle competition between two intelligence collecting agencies, it had to yield to the FBI's clear jurisdiction; :,2) there are obvious complications in conducting , such an investigation in-a.foreign country; 3) there is close and . —--. . delicate relationship between the CIA Station Chief and | ; y Jens 4) some of the people i appéaring in é ena Garro scenario may well be agents of. the CIA. -. Under the circumstances it is. unlikely that any further investigation of this matter will ever take place unless it is ordered by a high official in. Washington. Mohs - is 11. If all the allegations in the attached memoranda were true, they would not, in themselves, prove that there was a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. However, if they were ever made public, those who have tried to discredit the Warren Report could have a field day in speculating about their implications. The credibility of the Warren Report would be damaged all the more if it were learned that these allegations were known and never adequately investigated by the competent: American authorities. 12. Reference is made - again to. the blographic report (Tab A) on Elena “Garro. She is hardly an ordinary or average person. Her strengths and me weaknesses become exaggerated precisely because she is not. It would ’ mo be easy and convenient to sweep this matter under the rug by claiming wwthat-Miss Garro is -an unreliable informant since she is emotional, opinionated, and "artistic." I have been affected at times by that temptation, myself. No American official, however, knows her better than ido. On the basis of the facts that I have presented, { believe that, on balance, the matter warrants further investigation. 13. Finally, the record should show that a ae of.a major American publication has at least some knowledge of this story. So -- . ' + Charles William Thomas HY 50953 Docld: 32144387 Page 3 Sogo ae epee duly: 25, 1969 Be ees Fa TNEIGES ALE AIA Gea rodeo an