104-10054-10430 SECRET 23 May 1975. ? SUBJECT 2 Review of Selected Items in the os Lee Harvey OSWALD File Regarding Allegations of the CASTRO Cuban Involvement in the .. , John F, KENNEDY Assassination — re 1. The attached review and summary was written at me the express request of Mr. David W. Belin as a follow-... _. up to Question 3 of his istter to the Agency of | a oo 15 April 1975. ce . a: . 2. The results = as : havea already told him - add... . nuance, not evidence, to what the Warren Commission and .. its staff had laid before them in 1964 on this subject. . fhe results of tha review are stipulated in paxagraph 8 of the Attachment. There-seemed to be no reason to... .. . . we : attach copies of the case reports fromthe file to this. ©... ..0 0 +: summary. These can be made available promptly, however, . ee on request. This summary-does not deal,with press, ..  . -  .-- . 4 magazine and books that dealt with the subject during Bo, the period after the assassination. . 3. My recommendation. is to do with. this. paper. as. we did with the earlier one. requested by Mr..Belin on. - the unidentified man: let him read the entire summary and then decide how much of it, if any, is pertinent SECRET. re | e__mpper e BYO2 >to! 61 of 212. OPY NO- i. —— 4 G39
14-00000 mo . dghReRES to his ang the Comntssion' @ needs ane then decide how much will ge into the Classified record. Raymond GC. wlen Attachment SECRE en ne a eo pS eee ween tom nee ee 62 i 212 PAGE =  GoPY NO- 50.
14-00000 Daniel HARKER. SECRET Review of Selected Items in the SUBJECT $ , Lee Harvey OSWALD File. Regarding Allega~ tions of CASTRO Cuban Involvement in the John F. KENNEDY Assassination REFERENCE ;: -Letter by David W. Belin to ; Mr. E. Henry Knoche, 15 April 1975, paragraph 3 (Regarding Public Statement by CASTRO, etc.), attached BACKGROUND Ll. on Saturday evening, 7 Septenber 1963, Fidel CASTRO appeared | at a Brazilian Embassy | reception in Havana; even. more unusual, CASTRO submitted to an informal interview by the Associated Press ~conzespongent, a one . an oe 2. HARKER's interview reached New York on Sunday, 8 September, and was in print throughout the country on Monday, 9 September. There can be no question from the facts surrounding ‘the CASTRO appearance, which had not been expected, and his agreement, to the interview, that this - asearrN TE event represented a more-than-ordinary attempt to get a message on the record in the United States. % SECRET PAGE 6 3 of COPY NO. 212 CEASE,
14-00000 eo | t , , 7 ee SECRET 3. CASTRO's statements to HARKER covered a range of topics but dealt principally with American political. leadership, in particular President KENNEDY, whom he ex- . eee SAR trramet ds coriated in extraordinaril i ion : ("... KENNEDY is é&cretine>" --. the BATISTA of his . times ... the most opportunistic American President of all time eee ")- 2 4. “The interview also contained an uncomplimentary . reference to Senator GOLDWATER and Cuban delay in signing ‘the Limited nuclear test ban. ‘There were differences in : the ‘replay by United States newspapers like the | | New York Times and Washington papers, with a result that : CASTRO'S. “message” was significantly modulated. 5. In New Orleans, where Lee Harvey OSWALD resided until the middle of September 1963, the HARKER story appeared in the principal morning paper, the Times-Picayune, on Monday, 9 S$ Seepage}, under a three-colunn head— line: "CASTRO Blasts Raids on Cuba. Says U.S. Leaders Imperiled by Aid to Rebels." The story followed under the HARKER by~-line: | "Havana (AP) - Prime Minister Fidel Castro said Saturday night: 'U.S. a | . ! leaders would be in danger if they helped . in any attempt to do away with leaders of Oe Cuba.’ SECRET - ae 64 - 9e212_ PAGE —v_ ‘cory NO. _____—
14-00000 crisis than: October's eee significance. ti SECRET . nee “Bitterly denouncing what he called recent U.S. prompted raids on Cuban terri- tory, Castro said: |} 'We are prepared to ight them and answer in kind. U.S. leaders should think that if they are aiding terror~ ist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe, ' © ... World affairs ... seemed to be entering a more peaceful climate a few days “ago, but now this trend has changed with attacks. “' The U. Ss. is always ready to negotiate and make promises which later it will not honor. This has happened to promises made during the October crisis. . They have been broken as can - be seen with new attacks. But I warn this is leading to a very - dangerous situation that | could lead ‘to a worse t ee. any reference to the ‘main. thrust of CASTRO's remarks. ® . Co SECRET | 6. The New York Times, in n its coverage on 9 September, used a UPI wire service report which omitted any reference to the warning and threat which gave the interview its real The Washington Post did an abbreviated re~ write (9 September, page A~7) which, similarly, omitted PAGE 6 .) COPY NO. ‘of mf
14-00000 i ¢ . oe o. * SECRET '~ (Phe Evening Star of Washington, D. C., printed_the HARKER story nearly in its entirety in the second section of the paper (9 September 1963, page B-4) and reworded the content of the HARKER interview, placing the emphasis on the po- | litical aspects - in particular, highlighting the GOLDWATER elements and burying CASTRO's warning to the United States leadership in the middle of the piece. 7. There is no evidence in the files on ; i assassination)that this CASTRO interview was considered in i | | following up leads or in dealings with the Warren Commission and its staff although Mexico Station specifically directed Headquarters attention after the Dallas killing. More important, the interview appears . : to have been forgotten in the contemporary political consid- | eration of relations with CASTRO's Cuba. There is no evidence oo! in the Agency records, either, that the Warren. Commission staff itself arf itself pursued the implication of the CASTRO interv: the implication of the CASTRO interview in “Gealing with the conspiracy hypothesis. There is no with the conspiracy hypothesis. There is no evidence in the files that anything along these lines was stated by any other Cuban leader beforé the assassination. | 8. The purpose of this review, undertaken at Mr. Belin's request, is to reconsider Lee Harvey OSWALD’s activity on the assumption that as an avid newspaper reader — which we know from testimony of Marina OSWALD and others - he read the CASTRO warning and threat as reported above. The results ® a 4 SECRET PAGE 9% - COPY NO- nn
14-00000 f & we SECRE T&T ~ “of the review, admittedly heavily using the 20---20 quality | | of hindsight, may be stipulated in | summary: “Ae There is no increment of credible ‘?- evidence, applying this phrase stfictly, of ° Soviet and/or Cuban political, intelligence or security service involvement in the as- sassination to what was developed and con- sidered by the Warren Commission and its staff. The Commission's finding that . Lee Harvey OSWALD was the killer of President KENNEDY and Officer TIPPIT and did them in alone and of his own determination stands. b. "Credible evidence" that would upset or significantly modify this judgement did (and does) not exist in Washington. But “es nn tne ener such evidence could exist in Moscow and/or Havana, whose voluntary. inputs to the Warren ° nr Commission - were minimal in quantity and | quality, designed to cover up any admissions of knowledge Of, or connection with, OSWALD which might be related directly or indirectly with the assassination. Therefore, the belief . : that there was Soviet and/or Cuban (KGB and/or DGI) connection with OSWALD will persist and ° vice gt oe COPY, NOe
14-00000 (ow SECRET ~~ . ‘—---—-grow until there has been a full disclosure _ by these governments of all elements of . OSWALD's handling and stay in the Soviet Union Warren Commission report should have left a wider “window" for this contingency. That, “indeed, was the opinion at the working level, particularly in the counterintelligehce com- ponent in‘the CIA in. 1964. “As was indicated by Mr. Helms in his testimony before the Warren Commission, CIA would continue to still open.* Ge In the absence of additional or new elements of "credible" evidence, there are “nuances” in the record that emerge as note- worthy, in the light of other conclusions. | These are reviewed and summarized below, item- by-item. : | . | a d. CASTRO's warning and threat of 7 September 1963 - if OSWALD did indeéd read . Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. KENNEDY. Hearings Before the President's Commission on the Assassination of President KENNEDY (Washington, 1964), hereafter cited as Hearings, Vol. V., pp. 120 =~ 129. See especially p. 124 -""Mr. Helms: ‘Yes. I would assume. the case could never be closed.'" | f | | | regard this aspect of the OSWALD case as oe a. | | | i ® . 6 SECRET copy FO enn
14-00000 SECRET it in New Orleans ~ must be considered of great significance in the light of the pathological evolution of OSWALD's passive/ aggressive makeup after his attempt to kill General WALKER early in April 1963 and his identification with Fidel CASTRO and the Cuban revolution which is directly trace- able as far back as his Marine Corps . service in El Toro, California. CASTRO's warning and threat, given to AP corres-— pondent HARKER, irrespective of whether there was any formal mandate, or even security service contact with’ OSWALD by the Cubans or the Russians - was an act of singular irresponsibility and under no ee : circumstances was excusable as retorsion for what the Cuban. emigres were doing during . - the summer of 1963. a | | | CUBAN CONTACT WITH LEE HARVEY OSWALD, ¢aANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA, EARLY 1959 @) 9. The testimony of Nelson DELGADO contains an assertion of germinal significance to any review of the background of . Lee Harvey OSWALD's feeling toward and relations with CASTRO! s Cuba. ‘DELGADO was probably the. closest peer group SECRET . ya 69 212. COPY NOe mere
14-00000 f ’ « : SECRET “member to QSWALD during his specialist training period at El Toro Marine Corps Base December 1958 — September 1959. The Warren Commission Report takes note of this: "OSWALD told ‘DELGADO that he was in touch with Cuban diplomatic officials in this country, which DELGADO at first took to be tone of his lies, but later 7 believed. bud | - 10. Actually DELGADO's testimony says a lot more of possible operational significance than a bY the to have been run down or developed by investigation. Thus ‘me A BE AA APIA IESE SE ESI a the record of the beginnin: OSHALD-5-ZeLASAOASRER.. with the Cubans starts witha questi n mark.. Ll. MWYhe period was one of transition in U.S. - Cuban relations after CASTRO's takeover. OSWALD, and DELGADO at the outset, were CASTRO supporters, OSWALD being particu- larly keen about how to get to the island. DELGADO testi- fied: 7 a | | . coo IL didn' t know what to tell him, sO_ I told him: the best thing that I know was to 2. : Report to the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. KENNEDY (Washington, 1964), hereafter cited as HEROES Pp. 687. 8 SECRET. COPY NO.
14-00000 you know. I didn't know what to answer him. ; r told’ him to see them. - eontact with them eee ¢ i« SECRET — get in touch with a Cuban Embassy, you know. But at that time that I told him this ~- we were on friendly terms with Cuba, you know, so this. wasn't no subversion or malintent, “After a while he told me he was in " .e- I seen this envelope in his foot- locker, wall-locker, and it was addressed to him, and they had an official seal on it, and as far as I could recollect that was mail from Los Angeles, and he was telling me:-there was a Cuban Consul. and just after he started receiving these letters ~ you see, he would never go out, but stay near the post all the time ... | , wee he had one visitor after he started receiving letters he had one visitor. It was aman, because I got the call from the MP guard shack, and they gave me a call that OSWALD had a visitor at the front gate. This man had to be a civilian, otherwise they would have let him in. So I had to find somebody to relieve OSWALD, who was on guard, to go down | | 9 | . ‘s ECRE 7 ‘pace [4 71 ot 212. COPY NO.
14-00000 gs SECRET oo there to visit with this fellow, and they spent ‘about an hour and a half, two hours, talking, I guess, and he came back. I don't know who the man was or what they talked about, but he looked nonchalant about the whole thing when he came back. He never. mentioned who he was, nothing. "Mr. LIEBELER: How long did he talk to. hin, do you remember? — = | | | "Mx. DELGADO : About an hour and half, two hours ... > "Mr. LIEBELER: You never asked OSWALD > who this fellow was that he talked to? "Mr, DELGADO : No. No ... "Mr, LIEBELER: Did you connect this visit _ that OSWALD had at that time with the Cuban Consulate? . "Mr. DELGADO : “XZ did; because I thought it funny for him to be receiving a caller at such a late date ~ time. Also, up to this, time he hardly ever received mail; in fact he seldom . received mail from home because I made it a policy, I used to pick up the mail for our unit and distribute it to the guys in there, and very . seldom did I ever see one for him. But every so often, after he started to get in contact with : 1. mo | 10 SECRET pace 12_ of 212
14-00000 ow a , 5 ECRET | | : : “~~ ~~ these Cuban people, he started getting letter pamphlets and newspapers ... | | " ... and he also started receiving letters, | you know, and no books, maybe pamphlets, you | know, little-like church, things we get from church, you know, but it wasn't a church. “Mr. LIEBELER: Were they written in. Spanish, any of them, do you know? "Mr. DELGADO : Not that I can recall, no. | i “Mr. LIEBELER: Did you have any reason to believe that these things came to OSWALD from the Cuban Consulate? — | "Mr. DELGADO: Well, I took it for granted | that they did after I seen the envelope, you | a ' know _ something like a Mexican eagle, with a big, impressive seal, you know. They had dif— ferent colors on it, red and white; almost | looked like our colors, you know. But Ican't | recall the seal. I just knew it was in Latin, = © ; United, something like that. I couldn't under- | | stand. It was Latin. a ne "Mr. LIEBELER: You don't know for sure . whether it was from the Cuban Consulate? . | 1l SECRET
14-00000 SECRET "Mr. DELGADO : No. But he had told me prior, just before I found that envelope in his wall locker, that he was receiving mail from them, and one time he offered to show it to me, but I wasn't much interested because at the time we had work to do, and I never did ask to see that papex again, you know. "Mr. LIEBELER: pid he tell you what his _ correspondence with the Cuban Consulate was | about? 2. oe, en | "Mx. DELGADO : No, he didn't. | 7 | "Mr, LIEBELER: Did he ever indicate to you | | that it had to do with the conversations that. | you hada about going over to Cuba? ; | "Mr. ‘DELGADO : No. . The only thing he .. | _. told me was that right aftex he had this con- | versation with the Cuban people was that he was - going to - once he got out of the service - he was going. to Switzerland ... "3 oe 12. OSWALD’ s application to. Albert Schweitzer. College, Churwalden, Switzerland, was dated 19 March 1959, and he was presumably to report there on 20 April 1960. Destined for discharge from the Marines on 7 December 1959, OSWALD 3 . Hearings, Volume VIII, pp. 241 - 243. | 12 @ ” SECRET - “space 14 _ of 212. COPY NO.
14-00000 oe to. . . od “A SECRET . accelerated his exit on grounds of family hardship in early September 1959. On 27 September 1999 he was issued a U. S. passport valid for travel ~ among other places to Cuba and the. USSR. He entered the Soviet Union from — Finland on 15 October. 1959. 13. DELGADO's testimony has the cast of ‘exredibility. Granting that, it is of basic importance to focus attention on the male visitor who contacted OSWALD at El Toro Camp and talked with him for between one and a half to two hours. The event was unique in DELGADO's recollections, and actually there is nothing like it - on the record - in everything else © we know about OSWALD's activity in the United States before or after his return to the United States. The record reflects no identification of the £1 Toro contact. DELGADO's presump- tion is that he was from the Cuban Consulate in Los Angeles. Assuming that, the questions, are: Who was it, and was . there reporting from Los Angeles to Washington and Havana that could, in effect, represent the opening of a Cuban file on oswaLp?* “PREDICTION” OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S DEMISE BY COMMUNIST PARTY CELL LEADER MORSE BENITEZ ZABOLA, 1962 14. Guatemala Station forwarded to Headquarters on 9 January 1964 a duplicate copy Of a raw report by a 4 U.S./Cuban diplomatic: and consular relations were severed on 3 ‘January 1961. | . - | . °° 43 SECRET . Le 75 oe 212 enn mal
14-00000 SECRET -penetration dated 5 January 1962 describing events at the yearly Communist Party cell meeting. The cell leader, Morse BENITEZ Zabola, said that the Communist Party in Guatamala should form a single new party; "We need not preoccupy ourselves over the politics of President KENNEDY because we know, according to prognostications, that he will die within the present year, 1962.", 15. This report apparently had been discounted when 4t was received and was not forwarded until the Station re-reviewed all of its material after the assassination. The file reflects no follow-up or formal dissemination of the report. ENIGMATIC THREATS ‘BY CUBAN THIRD SECRETARY IN THE BAOSE e 7 NOVEMBER 1963 ‘ . ° -16. RB sensitive (also ‘source, reporting after the KENNEDY assassination, indicated that at the Soviet reception on q November 1963, the Cuban Third Secretary, ; Ricardo Le SANTOS Pesa, discussed the recent refugee raids on Cuba and their implications with a host-country diplomat, coneluding with the admonition: " 4. Just wait and you~ will see what we can do. It will happen soon." Asked to be more specific what would happen soon, SANTOS replied: "Just wait, just wait." 17. These data were passed to the Warren Commission by memorandum, 31 March 1964. SANTOS was reported to have aA SECR ET
14-00000 SECRET oy “™ _ a history of medical instability and was summarily recalled from The Hague reportedly for reasons related to that fact in April 1966. INTERCEPTED CONVERSATION OF CUBAN EMBASSY EMPLOYEE, LUISA CALDERON, AFTERNOON OF 22 NOVEMBER 1963 . 18. At 1730 Mexico City) time, about five hours after the KENNEDY assassination, a Cuban Embassy employee named - , . "Luisa" received a telephone call in Spanish from an uniden- tified male outside. 19. The caller asked her if. she had heard the latest news. "Luisa" jokingly replied: "Yes, of course, I knew. it almost before KENNEDY ... Imagine, one, two, three and now; that makes three [she laughs], what barbarians! ooo” . - 4 ‘20. Both speakers agreed on the seriousness of the | assassination. "Luisa" also stated that. the party at Silvia DURAN's had been called off so it would not appear _ that they were celebrating the death of KENNEDY, nor would they have the party coincide with the burial. Finally she said she planned to move that night into the house of a doctor (a woman) friend. . 21. Latin hyperbole? Boastful ex post facto suggestion of foreknowledge? This is the only item in the intercept coverage of the Cubans and Soviets after the assassination that contains the suggestion of foreknowledge or expectation. 15 SECRET paoe TT of 21.2_ cory NO. _ cet
14-00000 ¢ SECRET. ? Ko is sharply highlighted by the following facts: a. "Luisa" was probably identi ith Luisa CALDERON, a cadre worker of the Cuban Directorate General of Intelligence (DGI). @turned to Cuba in 1964 and was reported te “to be working in DGI Headquarters. b The DGI element in Mexico City in the . fall of 1963 was headed by Alfredo MIRABEL Diaz who had arrived on 2 September 1963, formally ‘as the replacement of the Consul’ Eusebio AZCUE (departed 19 November 1963). The deputy DGI chief (and as of June 1964, MIRABEL's successor) was Manuel Engenio VEGA Perez. c. The "Silvia DURAN" named in Luisa's conversation was the receptionist, a Mexican national, who dealt with OSWALD during his known. visits on 27 and 28 September to the Cuban installation} in connection with a Cuban visa application for stay and/or transit. Silvia DURAN is the sole live witness on the record regarding OSWALD's activity in ‘Mexico City. ‘Her testimony, however, in its entirety was taken and presented, solely, by the ‘Mexican Governmental authorities. A direct © “16 . o- SECRET 22. The tenuous, enignmatic character of-the--conversation | | | ‘pace 78 o@12_ COPY NO.
14-00000 For example, VEGA would have handled the details of the SECRET "ye confrontation with her was requested by the Warren Commission staff but rejected by the ‘Mexican authorities. It is from Silvia DURAN 's statements that it was learned that OSWALD became engaged in a personal altercation on 27 September with Eusebio AZCUE. da. Manuel Engenio VEGA Perez, ‘alias Marcos, and his DGI assistant, | Rogelis RODRIGUEZ Lopez, were positively identified in February 1964 by two independent sources as engaged in the active development | ‘and facilitation of the training of Nicaraguan ‘agents for the purpose of assassinating General Annstasio SOMOZA. VEGA, it is estab- lished, was’ on post in Mexico City during OSWALD's stay there 27 September -~ 2 October . 1963. He left Mexico City on 3 November 1963 for Havana. It was reliably reported about VEGA that all individuals going to Cuba, legally or illegally, had to pass through him first. He took the biographical data and sent it to Cuba for name checking, a procedure which normally. took fifteen days. visa action and facilitation of the trip to Cuba via Mexico City from 28 December 1962 - 21 January 1963 that SECRET - COPY NO.