DRAFT OF REPORT OF OSWALD'S STAY IN MEXICO
Originator: CIA
From: WH3
To: DDP
Document date: 12/01/1963
Document type: PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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АЛЛАА

1104-10019-10022

2022 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992

UNCLASSIFIED

TERNAL

ONLY

14 200

ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET

CONFIR NTIAL

O SECRET

SUBJECT: (Optionial).

FROM:

John M. Whitten

WH 3

TO: (Offcer designation, room number, and

building)

1. DDP

ADDP

2.

C/CI

3.

C/cI/sI

4.

C/SR

5.

6.

i DATE.

RECEIVED

FORWARDEC

EXTENSION

5613

OFFICER'S

* INITIALS

NO.

DATE

COMMENTS Number each comme

to whom Drawa line: across column!

Tatter

from chon

Attached for your information,

comment, and correction axe 1s

the original, unexpurgated

version of the report on GPFLOOR

covering OSWALD's stay in Mexico

and including sumaries of the

telephone intercepts.. This may be

useful to your analysts who are

processing the rest of the

material and to the people prepar

ing the final report.

In writing

this up I have made certain

comments and indulged in a certain

amount of analysis, because the

naked facts seemed to call for it.

These thoughts are my own. Feel

free to make your own analysis.

If you have any corrections to

ke, please write, them

m on this

aft and return it to me.

11 return the draft to you if

u want it.

This report was written for

ternal use only and was not

eant to be used outside the

gency.

JMW

13.

14.

15.

FORM

3-62

610 USE PREVIOUS

EDITIONS

SECRET

CONFIDENTIAL

INTERNAL

USE ONLY

UNCLASSIFIED

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•

SIGNET

Discovery of OSWALD in Mexico City

On 1 October 1963, the CIA Mexico City Station intercepted a telephone

call Lee OSWALD made fron an unknown location in Mexico City to the Soviet

Embassy there, using his own name. Speaking broken Russian and using his true

name, OSWAID was talking to the Embassy guard, OBYEDKOV, who often answers the

phone. OSWALD said he had visited the Embassy the previous Saturday (28 September

1963) and spoken to a consul whose name he had forgotten, and who had promised to

send a telegram for him to Washington. He wanted to know if there were "anything

new." The guard said it the consul was dark it was (Valerly Vladimirovich)

KOSTIKOV. The guard checked with someone else and said that the message had gone

out but no answer had been received. He then hung up.

This piece of information was produced from a telephone tap center which

we operate jointly with the office of the President of Mexico. It is highly

secret and not known to Mexican security and law enforcement officials, who have

their own center. By 9 October, the OSWALD telephone conversation of 1 October

had been transcribed and a summary of it cabled to Washington.

SEGMET

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SEAT

VIL/

The cabled report was received in Washington on 9 October and checked

in our files, where it was immediately noted that the Lee OSWAID phoning the

Soviet Embassy In Mexico City was probably the Lee OSWALD who had defected to

the Soviet Union in 1959 and returned to the USA in 1962. On 10 October 1963,

the day after the report from Mexico City, CIA Headquarters sent out a cabled

report about Lee OSWALD's phone call to the Soviet Embassy; the report went to

the FBI, the Department of State (because OSWALD was a U.S. citizen), and to

the Navy Department (because he was a former Marine). The cabled report to these

agencies highlighted the liklihood that the Lee OSWALD mentioned was probably the

former defector. A copy of this same cable was delivered by hand to the.....

Immigration and Naturalization Service, with which we have no cable link. The

same day & long cable went out to Mexico City informing our Station of the

background of defector Lee OSWALD and asking for more information. Our Station

was instructed to pass its information on the phone call to the Mexico City offices

of the FBI, the Embassy, the Naval Attache, and the Immigration and Naturalization

Service. This was done.

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Our Mexico City Station very often produces information on U.s.

citizens contacting Soviet bloc embassies in Mexico City. Frequently the

information we get is extremely incriminating, and on one or two occasions we

have i even been able to apprehend and return to the USA American military

personnel who are attempting to defect. In all such cases, our Headquarters

desk requests and obtains the special permission of the Deputy Director for Plans

to pass the derogatory information on a U.S. citizen to other government agencies.

We were not informed of what action the FBI and other agencies may have taken at

that time based on our report. Later Investigation has confirmed all the details

of his trip, where he stayed, and what he did. To avoid crossing lines with the

FBI, our Mexico Station undertook no local Investigation of Its own. As we now

Know, OSWALD left Mexico on 3 October and was no longer there when our report

was put out.

Since this telephone tap operation 1s a joint one with the Mexican

Presidency, the Mexicans also had the 1 October Intercept on Lee OSWAID, but 1t

apparently slumbered in their files until the assassination took place.

8a01

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22 November 1963

As soon as the name of Lee OSWALD was mentioned in connection with the

assassination of President Kennedy on 22 November, CIA file checks were begun

and the Mexican station was asked by cable for more information on OSWALD.

Within a week, twenty-seven cabled reports had been sent to the White House, the

State Department, and the FBI.

CIA field stations provided many lists of Information during the week

al after the assassination. The Mexico City Station researched its telephone

taps very thoroughly and came up with several more conversations probably

Involving OSWALD, but not actually mentioning this name; these connected him

also to the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City. Several Mexicans were arrested

and questioned about his activities, giving a good picture of what he was really

up to. A host of fabricators,

some anonymous, bombarded overseas embassies

with spurious tips on the case, most of which we investigated. All of these were

soon discredited, but they are still coming in.

During this phase of our work, we served primarily in support of the FBI,

which was entrusted by the President with the major responsibility for the

Investigation. The Department of state phatographed its entire file on

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OSWALD and passed them to us, and the FBI gave us a copy of the soviet

Consular file on OSWAlD which had been publicly given by the Soviet Ambassador

to the Secretary of State. On Friday 6 December 1963, Deputy Attorney General

Katzenbach invited us to review the FBI's comprehensive report on the case to

make sure our sources were not jeopardized and that our information was correctly

quoted. We found the report highly interesting and no threat to our security, as

long as It was read only by the authorized Investigative bodies.

After the first few days, the CIA investigation of the case was handled

at Headquarters by a staff usually charged it with investigation and analysis of

the most important security cases, and by officers and analysts of our Western

Hemi sphere Division.

Reports from Mexico

As soon as our Mexico City Station realized that Lee OSWAID was the prime

suspect, It began re-screening all the written telephone transcripts in its

files a covering the Soviet Embassy for the pertinent period. The actual tapes

were also revlewed, but many of them had been erased after the normal two weeks

wait. Several calle believed to Involve OSWALD were discovered at and their

ate.

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contents cabled to Washington, where they were disseminated to the white

House, the State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

OSWALD's name was not actually mentioned in these additional calls, but

similarity of speech and various plain points of content link them to him. These

calls are summarized below in chronological order. They cover the period from

27 September 1963 to 3 October 1963, the whole span of OSWALD's visit to Mexico

City as later learned from travel records.

27 September - A man phones the Soviet Military Attache and says he

needs a visa to go to Odessa. Man answering says he should cell 15-60-55 and

ask for the Consul. Caller asks for the address, and 1t 1s given to him.

(There is no special reason for linking this call to SWALD.)

27 September, 4:05 PM - The Cuban Consulate phoned the Soviet Consulate.

Silvia Duran, Mexican national clerk of the Cuban Consulate talked to a Soviet

official, saying that a male American citizen was at the Cuban Consulate asking

for a transit visa to pass through Cuba on his way to the Soviet Union. She

wants to know to whom he talked in the Soviet Consulate and who told him he would

have no problem about it. If & Soviet visa 1s assured, the Cuban Consulate

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can grant him a transit visa and simply notify Cuban immigration authorities.

The Soviet first asks her to wait, and then she has to explain the whole thing

over again to another Soviet official, who takes her telephone number and

promises to call her back. Silvia DURAN concludes this call by telling the

Soviet she herself has moved and gives her new address for the Soviet Embassy

bulletin. He asks her to phone (Sergey Semenovich) KUKHARENKO (Second Secretary

who puts out the Bulletin) to give him the new address and he asks who the Cuban

Cultural Attache is. Silvia DURAN gives the Attache's name as Teresa PROENZA and

adds her telephone number.

27 September, 4:26 PM - A Soviet official calls Silvia DURAN back and

tells her that the "American" had been to see the Soviet's and shown them a

letter from the Soviet Consulate in Washington Indicating that he had been

waiting for visas for himself and his wile to go to the Soviet Union for a long

time, but that no answer had come from Washington, adding that the wait was

sometimes four or five months. The "American" had shown the Soviets a letter

showing he was a member. of an organization in lavor of Cuba and had claimed that

the Cubans could not give him a visa without a Russian visa. Silvia DURAN

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rejoins that they have the same problem; the "American" is still at the

Consulate; they cannot give him a transit visa unless he is assured of a Soviet

visa, even though he just wants to go to cuba to walt there for his Soviet visa

to be granted. He does not know anyone in Cuba. They end the conversation on

this note. SilvIa DURAN says that she will note this on his "card," and the

Soviet concludes by saying, "Besides he is not known." He excuses himself for

the inconvenience he has caused and Silvia DURAN says it is all right.

28 September - Silvia DURAN calls the Soviet Embassy from the Cuban

Consulate. She says that she has the American with her again. The Soviet

answering asks her to wait. When another Soviet tales up the phone, silvia puts

the American on. The American tries to talk Russian to the Soviet who answers

in English. The American asks him to speak Russian. The American says that he

had been in the Soviet Embassy and spoken with the Consul, and that they had

taken his address. The Soviet replies that he knows that. The American then

says, somewhat enigmatically: "I did not know it then. I went to the Cuban

Embassy to ask them for my address because they have it." The Soviet Invites him

to stop by again and give them the address, and the American agrees to do so.

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(In this conversation, the American was speaking hardly recognizable Russian.)

As far as our records show, OSWAlD did not phone the Soviet or Cuben

Embassies again until Tuesday, 1 October 1963. The intervening days were a

Sunday and a Monday. The contents of his later calls seem to show he did not

contact the Soviets on the those days.

1 October, 10:31 AM - A man calls the Soviet Military Attache in broken

Russian and says he had been at their place the previous Saturday (28 September)

and talked to their Consul. They had said they would send a telegram to Washington,

and he wanted to know if there were anything new. The Soviets ask him to call

another phone number and gives him 15-60-55, saying to ask for a Consul..

1 October, 10:45 AM - (This is the phone call in which OSWALD used his

true name and which was therefore cabled to Washington on 9 October 1963.)

Lee OSWALD called the Soviet Embassy and announced his own name, saying he had

visited them the previous Saturday and spoken with a Consul. They had said they

would send a telegram to Washington, and he wanted to know if there were anything

new.

He did not remember the name of the Consul. The Soviet, who was Embassy

guard OBYEDKOV replied: "KOSTIKOV; he is dark." OSWALD replied: "Yes, my

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name is OSWALD." The Soviet excused himself for a minute and then said they

hadn't received anything yet. OSWALD asked if they hadn't done anything and

the guard replied they had sent a request but that nothing had been received

as yet." OSWALD started to say: "And what..."

', but the Soviet hung up.

3 October 1963 - A man speaking broken Spanish at first and then English

phoned the Soviet Military Attache and asked about a visa. The Attache's office

referred him to the consulate, giving the number 15-60-55. The caller wrote it

down. The attache official shrugged off another question about whether the caller

could get a visa, and the conversation ended. (There is no special reason to

tle this in with OSWAID, who 1s now known to have re-entered the U.S. at Laredo the

same day.)

Since the operation through which we tap the Soviet Embassy phones in

Mexico City is managed jointly with the office of the President of Mexico, the

Information on Lee OSWALD also came to the attention of President LOPEZ Mateos

after 22 November. The next day, 23 November, he called it to the attention of

our Chief of Station, who was already working feverishly on the case. Similarly,

the Mexicans noticed the involvement of Cuban Consular employee Silvia DURAN, a

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Mexican national. Our Station suggested that she be arrested and interrogated

about OSWALD. The Mexican authorities had the same idea and she and her husband

were arrested on 23 November 1963, In the midst of a party at their home. All

the guests were soon released but Silvia and her husband were questioned and

released on 25 November 1963.

Silvia's husband, Horacio DURAN Nevarro, an industrial designer, said under

police interrogation that when OSWALD was named as the assassin of President

Kennedy, his wife had recognized the neme and recalled she had waited on OSWALD

when he came to apply for & Cuban transit visa; he remembered she had said is

she dealt with the Soviet Consulate as well to find out whether he had a Soviet

"...

visa. Horacio DURAN recalled his wife had said OSWALD became angry and she had to

call out the Cuban Consul, Fusebio AZCUE, to quiet him.

Silvia DURAN told the same story. She was a leftist sympathizer with

Cuba and had worked for the Mexican-Cuban Institute of Cultural Relations. She

recalled OSWAID well, described him accurately, related how he had wanted a Cuban

visa but could not get one without the assurance of a Soviet visa, and remembered

his tiff with the Consul. She admitted she had phoned the Soviet Embassy about him.

GEC:

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The sum total of the statements of Silvia DURAN and her husband was

to sout confirm that OSWALD was In Mexico to get a Cuban visa so he could wait

in Cuba for his Soviet visa. The Soviet Consular file passed • to the State

Department In Washington by the Soviet Embassy confirms & long exchange between

first, Mrs. Marina OSWALD, and later her husband, and the Soviet Consulate in

Washington about their requests for permission to return to the Soviet Union.

OSWALD was still writing to the Soviets in Washington about this as late as

9 Nov 1963.

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SCGNET

Cousuiete is lieshingion about thati raquesto for paralasion to returi to

the soutet UnlOTh. OSHAZD vas at1ll taltins to the derloto 1s liasidagton

about this es late as 9 fovenber 1963.

SSITIO DUMAI UNs arTeStaR BUSIA O1 27 lovenher and hala untti 29

Homamber.. the told ensonttally the sume story over acutt.

Hell-plaead soureen ulthia tha Ouban Inhndty 1n Marleo Gity stated

that uhen BLIVJa DURAll VNS TelORSOl ITON pOlice artent the firet time as

25 Hlovenber, tho uas galte piennnd with hersell, She tole har collenzure

the sens stery pot out abovo, sating enly that tha lertonn polzee had

entenel to extraatte her to the thsted states to contrant tee hevey

OSNAID, The resation vithln the Crben ntasary to the nors ol Presiient

Kennady's dusth us rombro, Do date, there 1e nox ensdtate intorenation ia

CIA Iiles uhloh vould apposr to lial Lee OSHALD ulta the Cuban zoveravent

or the cuban 1atalligance serviee.

The whole quention of uhether Les OSHALD had any socrst camection

uita tha Sorlets et lubena la Mextoo caanot jet de ansvered, but certela

porte of tha evidonce indloute to the soutirity, BllTLa DURlI ead the

I'i:

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soviet Consular officiala apolo of his as a man uith "no intento 1a Cula"

as the one band, end an a san not "sona" In the sertet Sabassy, on the

other, the very opensess of lie taits and the plane enlla spents desalast asy

secret rolo, Its tIdp to Mertoo vas not 14se18 a sucrot nety he traveled

aãar lio real sene or a close verteat of 1t, Lival openly 1a Nuclean

botels, and correspanted with the soviets through tha open ma125 abrat

It shen ho set baot to the la, lla trip to lexico nas apparently male

sacenazy because it was the sentent Caben aiploatle Installation vhere

1 perplexes aspeet er devitare trafstelang with the Catens an

Sovieta in Mextco City le hla surertion In his call of 28 septenter toat ha

did not tno lse address uhen be sas at tha sortet Consulato und cara to

the Cuban Connulate bronse they had 1t. It la bare to explata junt viet

ho want, bus 1t should be remembered that be was tallela; la tuntan, o

lanita, a ho could not mass, an that uten he case to lestoo ha vas in the

PrOCesE of norin, fran sey Orienas to JessE. la Msy not have manorised

his son addross 11 farad, thatever it vas, and say not bato been able to

22225

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lay hands on it when he was in the Soviet Consulate that day. Perhaps he

had earlier given the address to Silvia DURAN and wanted to look it up on her

card.

A particularly sinister aspect of OSWALD's dealings with the Soviets in

Mexico City arises from the liklihood that he met with Soviet Consul Valeriy

Vladimirovich KOSTIKOV. In his 1 October phone call to the Soviet Embassy, the

guard OBYNDKOV suggests that the Consul OSWALD had talked to was KOSTIKOV 1f he

was dark. OSWALD seems to agree with this, but the identification is very casual.

In bis 9 November letter to the Soviet Consulate In Washington, OSWALD gIves the

name of the man he dealt with as "KOSIIN," but there is no person of that exact

name in the Soviet Embassy In Mexico City. KOSTIKOV 1s accredited as & Consular

Attache and does actually do a lot of consular work, but he 1s known, on the

basis of his position, associates, work habits and operational intelligence

activity, to be a Soviet KGB officer, and there is reason to belleve, on the

basis of FBI information, that he works for Department 13 of the KGB, the

Department charged with sabotage and assassinations.

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Embassy guard Ivan Ivanovich OBYEDKOV 1s bimself believed to be a KGB

man from previous assignments as a bodyguard and surveillant. But unless some

direct evidence of Soviet complicity is discovered, It is most Ilkely that

OSWALD's dealing with KGB men OBYEDKOV and KOSTIKOV was nothing more than a grim

coincidence, a coincidence due in part to the Soviet habit of placing intelligence

men in the Embassies in positions where they receive a large portion of the

visitors and phone calls. All of the five consular officers in the Soviet Embassy

are known or suspected intelligence officers. Although it is not usual for &

KGB agent on a sensitive mission to have such overt contact with a Soviet

Embassy, top secret Soviet intelligence documents which set forth Military

Intelligence doctrine state that very important agents can be met in official

Installations using as cover for their presence there some sort of open

business. Thus, while it is unlikely that OSWALD's contacts with the Soviet

Embassy had a more sinister purpose, it cannot be excluded.

A..

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some insight on

Cuban attitude toward the art, of Silvia DURAN and

the involvement of the Cuban Consulate in the OSWALD case can be gained from two

intercepted phone calls made between Cuban President Osvaldo DORTICOS and Cuban

Ambassador to Mexico Joaquin HERNANDEZ Arnas On 26 Nov 1963, the day after Silvia

DURAN was released from her first arrest. At 09:40 AM that morning, President

DORTICOS phoned the Ambassador from Havana and asked him several questions about a

report which the Ambassador had sent in on the arrest of Silvia DURAN and the

Lee OSWALD case. The whole conversation is consistent with the theory that

OSWALD had with Consul AZCUE, and he says that Mexican police bruised Silvia

DURAN's arms a little shaking her to impress her with the importance of their

questions. They had asked her if she had been intimate with OSWALD and she had

denied it. President DORTICOS twice asked Ambassador

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HERANDA% soother the Mextoan police had asted SIlVia DUlAI questtoas

about "nonsy," and the frostallit apparently manted to koon thather the

Maxtoans thunght tbe Cubans had paid OSWALD DONNY. IBRIANIZ INstAted

the Headloens had not offered SIlvia DURAl monay, and DORIICOS ente

us trytag to put across lia polit. President DORTIODs Instructed

HERNANDEZ to keep on questionta, Silvia DURAl and to phase him back.

At 7:39 PM that evening Ambassador ISRAIDIZ, 118 cal1 Frasident

DORTICOS back, aying ha had questioned "that person" donin end she has

nothing now to add. President DORMICOS retura to the losue of thether

they

a statonaut that

Consulate had siven monry to the nant"that Ansrloah." But Ambasandor

MRADEZ persists la misunderstanding DORTICOS, ARAVeR 1E the resative,

and saye: "Absalutely nathing mas elren to her." DORIICOS seeMs to ElTe

up, and the convertation dies out after a few nors general renicks.

He do not know for sure what unde President DORTICOS press fOr Informa.

#1an about Cuban money passed to OsAls, but rumore vere ourtent in lexico

and eves, te understand, ln the USA, that OSWALD had returned fres Nextoo

?!

st.

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City with about $5,000. Perhaps DORIICOS was trying to learn whether the

Mexican police believed that the Cubans had financed OSWALD. In any event,

te the Cuban Government sent the Mexicans a stiff note of protest over the

arrest and detention of Silvia DURAN, but the Mexicans rejected the note.

At 1445 hours on 22 November, the Yugoslav Ambassador to Mexico, Gustav

VIAHOV telephoned and insisted on speaking to Soviet Ambassador to Mexico BAZAROV.

In a conversation concerning news of President Kennedy's assassination, VLAHOV

said, "I knew he was wounded even before the Americans."

Both then laughed.

t. ...

!:

Sara.

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