Agency: HSCA
Originator: HSCA
Document date: 6/3/78
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

## Page 1

180-10110-10122

JFK Assassination System

Identification Form

Agency Information

Date:

10/21/20

AGENCY: HSCA

RECORD NUMBER :

180-10110-10122

RECORD SERIES :

SECURITY CLASSIFIED FILES

AGENCY FILE NUMBER: 152-JFK

Document Information

ORIGINATOR: HSCA

FROM:

TO :

TITLE:

DATE: 06/03/1978

PAGES:

6

SUBJECTS :

CIA, ADMINISTRATION

DOCUMENT TYPE: SUMMARY

CLASSIFICATION: Unclassified

RESTRICTIONS: 1A

CURRENT STATUS : Redact

DATE OF LAST REVIEW:

01/01/2003

OPENING CRITERIA :

COMMENTS :

Box 5.

v9.1

HH 50955

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KENNEDY

SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS

000038

Name Robert Lambernard

Address Mexico

Date

6/3/78

Time 11:00 am

Place Hotel Maria Isabel, Mexico City

Interview:

Mr. Zambernardi was interviewed by HSCA Staff members Dan :

Hardway, Gary Cornwell and Harold Leap. He was shown the CIA omnibus

release letter and stated that he understood it to release him from

any secrecy agreement that he may have signed during the course of his

employment with the CIA.

Mr. Zambernardi stated that he was first assigned to Mexico

City in 1959 as a technician with State Department cover. He stated that

during his tenure

in Mexico City he worked inside the U.S. Embassy..

He worked as a general technician and was available to work on any.

operation that had need of a technician. He did state that he worked

in the Embassy as a photographic lab technician. He retired in 1964

or 1965 and his duties were the same through the whole period that he

was in Mexico City.

Mr. Zambernardi stated that he was aware that the CIA station

photographic

was running/surveillance operations aimed at the Soviet and Cuban

diplomatic compounds in Mexico City.. He said that he was directly

involved with the photographic surveillance of the Cuban compound and

that he had at least migimal contact, indirectly, with the Soviet surveillance.

Interviewer Signature

You Mon

dus

Typed Signature.

dan

hardway

Date transcribed

BY:

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Form

: #4-A

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000039

PAGE TWO.

Mr. Zambernardi. said that he had set up

the surveillance cameras

in

the photographic base which covered the Cuban compound.

He was

only consulted once regarding the Soviet compound surveillance.

He was not sure when this occured but at one time he took angles of

the front gate of the Soviet

embassy.

Mr. Zambernardi said that for a short while after the operation

was set up he had been responsible for liaison with the agents who

manned the base, a Cuban exile and his mother who actually lived in

the apartment. After the agents' training was completed and the

base was running smoothly Zambernardi no longer had any responsibility

for picking up the production from the photo base. After this time

his only contact with the base concerned technical matters. He stated

that the liaison function would have been assumed by the case officer

who was responsible for the operation. His memory was vague about

who the case officer was but thought that it was either Jack INU or

Tom Haslet.

Mr. Zambernardi said that the base tried to get full daylight

coverage of the target. but that it was very difficult to do so. He stated

that both. the Cuban exile, and the Cuban exile's mother, who manned the

base were trained to run the surveillance. He stated that at the incep-

tion of the operation that the agents covered the Embassy entrance with

a manually operated camera. He could not remember exactly what kind of

camera had been used but thought that it had been an Exacta or a Leica.

He stated that it would not contradict his memory if the camera was a

Pentax. The camera was set up on a tripod and was equiped with a balscope.

At this time the agents were trying to cover both gates with the emphasis

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000040

PAGE THREE

on the Embassy gate. It was difficult to provide continuous coverage of

one gate, let alone two. In an attempt to cover both gates and to get

more complete coverage, an impulse camera was installed in the base.

The impulse camera was set up to cover the Consulate entrance.

The

agents continued to cover the Embassy entrance with the manual camera.

Mr. Zambernardi

was almost positive that the impulse camera was installed

six months after. the base was

set up. He remembers this because he

set up the camera and was certain that it occured not too long after he

set up the base. Mr. Zambernardi could not remember whether the impulse

and manual cameras were in the same room but thought that they were in

seperate rooms.

He was certain that they were in the same apartment.

The Cuban exile agent was trained in maintenance and basic servicing

of the impulse camera. Mr. Zambernardi said that we could accurately

ascertain the time that the impulse camera was installed by checking

the monthly reports that he routinely filed with headquarters.

Mr. Zambernardi stated that the agents who operated the manual

camera kept a log of people entering and leaving the Embassy. He said

that the impulse camera had a built in clock and the time was registered

on each picture taken. He said that each picture taken by this camera

had a clock pictured in one corner of the photograph and that this clock

depicted the time that the photograph was taken. This would be on each

negative produced by the camera.

Mr. Zambernardi said that the time that the impulse camera was

installed could also be ascertained by checking the shipping manifests

which should still be on record. He said that the impulse camera oper-

ated from a triggering device attatched

,to a spotting scope.

The camera

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000011

PAGE FOUR.

photo

ppo.

gorl

was triggered by changes in light intensity. The spotting scope was

trained on a very narrow area

of the door latch of the Cuban Consulate

entrance.

The camera itself covered a much broader field than the

spotting scope.

The camera was set up so as to make sure that a person

triggering the camera by passing between the spotting scope and its

target

would be pictured from

the waist up. Mr. Zambernardi stated

that the camera was finicky and that there was a lot of false triggering.

Mr. Zambernardi stated that the operator serviced his own

cameras, and developed the film and made contact prints in the base.

Mr. Zambernardi stated

that the objective of the operation

was to get identifiable

photographs of all visitors to the compound.

Mr. Zambernardi stated that the operation was generally

He said that the impulse camera was usually reliable and

provided good daylight hour coverage with some minor interruptions

for weak batteries, etc. He said that the manual coverage was usually

good but that one had to take into account human error when considering

the manual coverage.

He pointed out that it was hard for a person to

maintain constant attention in such a sedentary job. Mr. Zambernardi

was sure that the impulse camera provided constant daylight coverage

because he set it up.

Mr. Zambernardi was never involved, to his knowledge, in

any of the wiretap operations. He does remember that he did do some

delivery work.: He remembers that he did make deliveries to a Russian

translator but that this duty only lasted a couple of months. He said

that he never asked what he was delivering. He pointed out the

CIA's compartmentation of knowledge and said that if he had needed to

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000042

PAGE FIVE.

know someone would have told him and, otherwise, he just accepted that

it was none of his business.

He does not recall anyone at the station

that used the name "Rudy".

Mr. Zambernardi said that he often printed photographs in his

lab in the Embassy.

Mr. Zambernardi stated that Winn Scott was satisfied with

the Cuban compound photographic

surveillance.as far as he knows. Scott

never complained to him about it.

Scott was meticulous and had a great

interest in technical operations.

Mr. Zambernardi said that Ann Goodpasture reviewed all of the

surveillance photographs and

appeared to be Scott's "right hand man"

in some respects bu not necessarily overall.

Mr. Zambernardi recognized the name Tom Keenan as being someone

who was in the station in Mexico but he said that he never worked with

him. He said that the one thing he remembers is that Keenan was always

erasing tapes;

that he had

a machine in the Embassy for this purpose

and that Keenan was always doing it.

Mr. Zambernardi stated that the name. Lee Harvey Oswald did not

come to his attention prior to 22 November 1963.

He said that it was not unusual, during the short time that

he worked delivering tapes to the Tarasoffs, that he would be requested

to deliver a message to the Tarasoffs to give priority to a particulari

tape.

Mr. Zambernardi said that he has no knowledge of the means of

coordination between the photo and wiretap bases but thinks that there

must have been some method of communication on the basis of logic.

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PAGE SIX.

Mr. Zambernardi stated that his monthly reports were

routinely dispatched to Headquarters.

Mr. Zambernardi said that he does not know if a photo.of

Oswald was ever taden in Mexico City and that no one has ever discussed

it with him. He does remember that he did make some blow-ups after

(right after) the assassination but that they were handled as routine

and he made no special note of them. He said that he often made

30 or 40 blowups a week.

Mr. Zambernardi said

that the only way it was possible for

the photo operations to miss ten shots at Oswald was:

1) if he visited after dark;

2) his visits were on a Saturday or Sunday (He was not certain but thought

that there may have been

Saturday morning coverage.);

3) if the case officer had given the agents the day he visited off; and

4) the impulse camera was not working.

Mr. Zambernardi stated that he believed that all the cameras

involved in

surveillance of the Soviet compound were manual cameras.

Mr. Zambernardi said that Ann Goodpasture was definately

not the case officer for the Cuban photo operation. He was not sure

of who it was. When the name Robert Shaw was mentioned to him he said

that he could have been the CO but that he just was not sure.

Mr. Zambernardi said that his psydonym was Gregory D. Parnuth.

000019

43

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