BACKGROUND MATERIAL RE TO OSWALD AND THE WARREN COMMISSION.
Agency: CIA
Originator: CIA
From: KNOCHE, E.H., ASST. TO DCI
To: BELIN, DAVE, EXDIR, COMM./CIA ACT.
Document date: 05/13/1975
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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1104-10054-10265]

APPROVO CORNELO

11951041

CIA HISIONCAL REMEW PROGRAM

CENTRAL, INTELLIG

OFFICE OF TILE DISCIOR

175÷6333

Ir. David W. Belin

Executive Director

Commission on CIA Activities

Within the United States

13 MAY 1975

Dear Mr. Belin:

I am attaching, per your request of 15 April,

sackground materials relating to certain questions

elating to Oswald and the Warren Commission.

Tab A is a classified Secret memorandum

ésponsive to your request.

Tab B is an unclassi-

jed version,

which you can use as you see fit

n whatever report you are preparing on the subject:

Additional details are available in the Office

if the Inspector General should you wish to pursue

his in greater depth.

Faithfully yours,

Ezekwoche

•E. H. Knoche

Assistant to the Director

Atfachment: a/s

croche:rrh: 5/13/75

tribution:

g - Mr. Belin w/att

OGC

.wo/att

IG

vo/att

Knoche Chrono wo/att

" Comm Correspondence

Belin Letter Request 15 April

Warren Commission

wo/att

w/att

03835

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SEC.:

12 May 1975

SUBJECT

Review of Agency Holdings Regarding Photograph of

Unidentified Individual in the Warren Commission

Report

REFERENCE: Memorandum from David W. Belin to E. Henry Knoche,

dated

15 April 1975

1. In accordance with reference request, we have examined

and summarized the record concerning a cropped photograph that was

considered by the Warren Commission in the course of its investi-

gation. The photograph (together with others of the same

individual) originated from an intelligence operation conducted

in October 1963 by the CIAland the Mexican security authorities.

2.

Under the

extraordinary press of effort to develop infor-

mation on the assassin and the assassination, copies of the photo-

graph were made available by CIA's Mexico Station Chief on the

afternoon of 22 November to the local FBI representative. Later

that day, assertedly on the decision of the Ambassador, copies

were conveyed by an FBI representative on a special U. S. Naval

Attache flight to the Dallas office of the FBI for possible use

in the ongoing investigation. One photograph, cropped by the

FBI, was shown to Mrs. Marguerite OSWALD (Lee Harvey OSWALD's

mother) in Dallas on the evening of 23 November 1963 by an FBI

agent.

3. The Warren Commission's report describes the sequence of

events that ultimately resulted in Mrs. Marguerite OSNALD's

allegation that she had been shown a cropped photo of Jack RUBY

the day before he murdered her son. A further complication

004645

C:79090-981

• 00. 11752

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SECRE

compounding

this erroneous conclusion was the

fact that, when

she had been shown a copy of the same photograph in her appearance

before the Commission, it had been cropped by the FBI in Washing-

ton in a slightly different manner.

4. Although in no way related to Lee Harvey OSWALD or his

stay in Mexico City from the morning of 27 September 1963 to the

morning of 2 October 1963, at least one set of photographs of the

unidentified man originated during OSWALD's stay there.

It is

important, therefore, to an understanding of the acquisition and

handling of the photographs by the Mexico Station to review what.

the Station ascertained and did with the information it developed

about OSWALD in Mexico City, together with Headquarters action on

that information.

5: From all credible evidence known to this time (none,

incidentally, added since the exhaustive work of the Warren Con-

mission), Lee Harvey OSWALD spent four (4) full days and two (2)

partial days - about 116 hours in all -- in Mexico City from about

10:00 a.m. 27 September 1963 to about 8:30 a.m. 2 October 1963.

His place of residence was a small commercial traveler hotel, not

frequented by "gringos" •- the Hotel Commercio -- where he was.

registered under alias. Exhaustive and detailed interviews and

interrogation by the Mexican authorities and the FBI after the

assassination established that, in the recollection of all hotel

personnel, he left and returned late each day of his stay.

6. Allowing for the fact of late arrival and early departure,

and assuming that he slept one-third of the time of his stay

(38 0r

39 hours), there remain some 78 hours of activity to be

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accounted for. Overall, CIA's information can account only for

very brief periods during 28, 29 September and 1 October. All

coverage by CIA during the entire period was technical. The

Station had no live source (living agent) coverage.

7. It should be noted that OSWALD was in no sense "under

investigation." None of the

facts of his defection and stay in

the USSR and return to the U. S., 1959 - 1962, were known to the

Mexico. Station or in its files before 10 October 1963. On that

date, the bare bones of his biography were forwarded by. Head-

quarters in response to a Station cabled report of 8 October

which had forwarded, on a routine basis, what appeared to be a

contact by an American for a visa to Cuba in transit to the USSR.

This was indicated and deduced from technically acquired infor-

mation on 1 October, which was the first and only occasion on that

visit in which OSWALD was recorded as identifying himself

(partially) by true name.

8. At no time during his stay in Mexico City did the CIA

acquire a photo of OSWALD. A careful review of all coverage --

technical as well. as photographic - was conducted by the Station

on 22 and 23 November 1963 after the assassination, including

materials back to August 1963. This confirmed that there was no

CIA photo coverage of OSWALD at any time during his

Mexico trip

or stay in Mexico City. Moreover, although it had made a cabled

request on 15 October, the Mexico Station had no photo of OSWALD

in its records, nor did it receive one from Headquarters -- which

did not have one either -- before 22 November 1963.

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9. It must be stressed that what technical information the

Station had was not (and normally is not) processed in "real

time." The means of acquisition and the volume of the infar-

mation preclude anything. but the spot reporting of items judged

to be of more than ordinary interest and, therefore, noted in

summary logs. Full texts of selected items require consultation

of the tape and either a full transcription or full translation

or both.

Photo coverage tends to become available in quantity

lots which requires scanning and selection on a rapid and

accelerated basis in four or five day "peaks." One of the

"triggers" that normally operates to focus and accelerate more

speedy review and reporting of this kind of raw intelligence is

the mention of a name. This was precisely what occurred in the

second of two conversations on l.October, during which the

speaker said he was "Lee OSWALD." It was this information

reported by the Station to Headquarters in its first indication

on OSWALD on 8 October 1963.

10. The Mexico Station did one more thing in its 8 October

report on Lee OSWALD based on the 1 October information: it

coupled the data with descriptive information it had acquired

from a sensitive source -- a photograph of a male individual,

apparently an American, who was observed entering an Embassy

on I October. The Station reported this detail on the 8th as

a matter of coincident fact. The Station did not assert or

suggest that the data led to any deduction that the photo was in

fact OSWALD of, indeed, was in any way related to OSWALD.

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3.

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11. One additional element of background must be

stipulated now as the final precondition to understanding the

relevance (or irrelevance) of the photo of the unknown

individual placed in

the chain of evidence on 23 November in

Dallas by the FBI agent: what was the totality of CIA Mexico's

coverage of OSWALD's activity as of the afternoon of the 23rd

when all available coverage had been checked?

12. The totality of Mexico Station coverage on or reasonably

inferable to be OSWALD consisted of five (5) voice intercepts.

Each of these items, including the text of the raw intercepts,

were read by, discussed with, and examined by Warren Commission

staffers, in Headquarters and at the Mexico Station during a stay

from 8-13 April 1964. All were made available promptly to

the FBI.

13. At about mid-day on 1 October, the camera registered

the entry into an Embassy of a white-shirted individual. In the

opinion of the Station, among all the persons photographed that

day, he appeared to be the only non-Latin and possibly American

who entered. On the chance that there could be an association

between the identification data derived. from the voice inter-

cept and the descriptive data derived from the photograph, the

Station

reported

the two elements as separate facts in its cable

to Headquarters on 8 October.

14. The Station's action was not unusual and really amounted

to an analytic "quantum leap," in terms of the primitive status

of the OSWALD identification. Many examples of a similar kind of

thing can be found in the day-to-day record of Station-Headquarters

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SE02...

• 15. On 22 November 1963 the Mexico Station cabled Head-

quarters

at 2229z time after learning of the arrest of Lee H.

OSWALD, age 24, possibly in connection with the assassination,

and referenced its carlier messages of 8-9 and 15 October and

Headquarters' reply of 10 October. The Station requested by:

"priority pouch a photo of OSWALD so that Station

can check all recent coverage for OSWALD. Forward-

ing soonest copies of only visitor on 1 October who

could be identical with OSWALD."

16. This obviously was for comparison at the Station

which had estimated the age of the unidentified male whose

photograph it had selected as having the "apparent age of 35."

17. The Station meanwhile had begun an exhaustive and

accelerated review of all its technical and

photographic intel-

ligence. A dispatch was prepared in accordance with the

indication given in the cable of 22 November. The dispatch

noted that photo coverage of the unidentified individual had

turned up on 4 and 15 October. The text of the 22 November 1963

pouched dispatch read:

"1. Attached are copies of the only photographs

obtained...on l October 1963 which appeared to be

an American. This same man visited (an] Embassy on

4 October 1963.

"2. Copies of these photographs were shown to the

U. S. Ambassador on 22 November 1963 and a

copy of

each of the two photographs was given to Chief FBI,.

Mexico, on that date. . . .

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SECT

"P. S. Photographs dated 15 October 1963 were

inserted after typing of dispatch. These were

taken as [the] person entered [an] Embassy."

18.

The "Unidentified Individual" remains to this day

unidentified. There is still no credible evidence, as far as

CIA is aware, that the individual in the photograph had any

connection with Lee Harvey OSWALD or the assassination

of

President Kennedy.

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