Why would the Soviets/KGB withhold info on Oswald's Mexico City impersonator?

[Steve M. Galbraith]

In KGB agent Oleg Nechiporenko's book, "Passport to Assassination", he quotes from a top secret memo sent by KGB chairman Vladimir Semichastny to Anastas Mikoyan, one of Khrushchev's top advisors. Nechiporenko was one of the three KGB agents who met Oswald at the Soviet Embassy. He said the KGB in Mexico City sent a memo to Moscow shortly after the assassination detailing the meeting with Oswald. The KGB was worried that they would be blamed for the assassination.

As you can see, nowhere is there any mention of an impostor. The KGB in Mexico City informed Moscow the man they met was indeed Oswald and not an impostor. Period. And the KGB and Politburo in Moscow forwarded this same information out. If they knew it was an impostor why would they tell their superiors it wasn't? Note as well that they mentioned Oswald saying he was being "harassed by the FBI."

[Jon Banks]

In KGB agent Oleg Nechiporenko's book, "Passport to Assassination", he quotes from a top secret memo sent by KGB chairman Vladimiar Semichastny to Anastas Mikoyan, one of Khrushchev's top advisors. Nechiporenko was one of the three KGB agents who met Oswald at the Soviet Embassy. He said the KGB in Mexico City sent a memo to Moscow shortly after the assassination detailing the meeting with Oswald. The KGB was terrified that they would be blamed for the assassination.

As you can see, nowhere is there any mention of an impostor. The KGB in Mexico City told Moscow the man they met was Oswald. Period. And the KGB and Politburo in Moscow gave the same information out. If they knew it was an impostor why would they tell their superiors it wasn't? Note as well that they mentioned Oswald saying he was being "harassed by the FBI."

The ‘Oswald was impersonated’ claims originated from the FBI and CIA interpretations of phone calls to the embassies, not his alleged in-person visit to the Soviet embassy. That he wasn’t photographed entering or leaving the Soviet or Cuban embassies beggars disbelief but I’ve always leaned towards the probability that Oswald visited Mexico City.

The CIA and FBI, not the Soviets, are responsible for the murkiness and unanswered questions surrounding Oswald’s visit to Mexico.

If I remember correctly, someone at the Cuban consulate described a man claiming to be Oswald who didn’t fit Oswald’s description.

Beyond that example, are you referring specifically to JFK assassination researchers who deny that the real Oswald visited Mexico City?

The consensus (I think) is that he was there in Mexico City but also that the phone calls where he was impersonated by someone were listened to after the Assassination and covered up by the CIA and FBI.

It seems like a strawman argument to claim that what the Soviets said about his visit proves that he wasn’t impersonated in phone calls. How would they have known that someone was impersonating Oswald in phone calls?

[Jon Banks]

Most people agree that a man calling himself Oswald visited Mexico City for a few days between the 27th of September and the 2nd of October. Most people agree that he went back and forth on the 27th between the Cuban consulate and the Soviet consulate - trying to get a visa to visit both countries and failing at both - with one last stab at the Soviet consulate on the 28th.

At the Cuban consulate, consul Eusebio Azcue insisted that the man he met was not Oswald. The other consul, Alfredo Mirabel, was equally insistent that the man was Oswald. This kind of sharp division makes it hard to determine if Oswald ever came to Mexico City. Jack Whitten, who was the CIA’s original investigator of the assassination, wrote in the days after 11/22 that “no source then at our disposal had ever actually seen Lee Oswald while he was in Mexico". That is remarkable, as the CIA’s sources inside the Cuban compound later told House Select Committee on Assassinations staffer Ed Lopez that the man who visited them was not Oswald.[ 111 ] For ease in writing this narrative, I will refer to the man at the center of this Mexico City narrative as Oswald, but I remain an agnostic as to whether he visited the Cuban consulate on the 27th, or even came to Mexico City. I’m convinced that he didn’t come to the Cuban consulate on the 28th. - Bill Simpich

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/State_Secret_Chapter3.html


 A fair analysis today, however, suggests that the real Oswald may indeed have visited the consulate at one stage on Friday, September 27, but that an impostor may have been involved at a later stage of the contacts with the consulate. A phone call from the Cuban consulate to the Soviet embassy on Saturday, September 28, in which Oswald was supposedly a participant, almost certainly involved an impostor. If that suspicion is correct, what was going on? - Anthony Summers, The Kennedy Conspiracy (1980)

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Anthony Summers from his book "Not in Your Lifetime" on the three KGB agents who say they met Oswald in Mexico City. He said he interviewed them separately in Moscow (they never defected). It's the same account that Nechiporenko gave in his book.

[Jon Banks]

So who lied?

The CIA? The Cubans? The Soviets? The Mexican intel operatives?

What really happened in Mexico City remains unresolved and requires further investigation before we can make any firm conclusions…

One person whom I suspect can answer some of these questions is Silvia Duran. I think she's still alive.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Most people agree that a man calling himself Oswald visited Mexico City for a few days between the 27th of September and the 2nd of October. Most people agree that he went back and forth on the 27th between the Cuban consulate and the Soviet consulate - trying to get a visa to visit both countries and failing at both - with one last stab at the Soviet consulate on the 28th.

At the Cuban consulate, consul Eusebio Azcue insisted that the man he met was not Oswald. The other consul, Alfredo Mirabel, was equally insistent that the man was Oswald. This kind of sharp division makes it hard to determine if Oswald ever came to Mexico City. Jack Whitten, who was the CIA’s original investigator of the assassination, wrote in the days after 11/22 that “no source then at our disposal had ever actually seen Lee Oswald while he was in Mexico". That is remarkable, as the CIA’s sources inside the Cuban compound later told House Select Committee on Assassinations staffer Ed Lopez that the man who visited them was not Oswald.[ 111 ] For ease in writing this narrative, I will refer to the man at the center of this Mexico City narrative as Oswald, but I remain an agnostic as to whether he visited the Cuban consulate on the 27th, or even came to Mexico City. I’m convinced that he didn’t come to the Cuban consulate on the 28th. - Bill Simpich

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/State_Secret_Chapter3.html


 A fair analysis today, however, suggests that the real Oswald may indeed have visited the consulate at one stage on Friday, September 27, but that an impostor may have been involved at a later stage of the contacts with the consulate. A phone call from the Cuban consulate to the Soviet embassy on Saturday, September 28, in which Oswald was supposedly a participant, almost certainly involved an impostor. If that suspicion is correct, what was going on? - Anthony Summers, The Kennedy Conspiracy (1980)

Jon, my original question/point was to address the claim that Oswald was impersonated at the Soviet Embassy, in fact that he never went to Mexico City at all. I think the evidence is persuasive that he did go there. Why would the Soviets cover up or withhold this impersonation? What would be the reason?

One of the claims refuting the three KGB agents who said it was Oswald is that they "defected" to the West and made their claims for financial or other reasons. In other words, they lied. The fact that they informed Moscow shortly after the assassination that the man they saw was Oswald - an erratic and unstable Oswald - disproves that claim.

As to the tapes/phone calls: As Rudd said in his cable, the tapes had been erased. There were none. Why would they be kept? We have the transcripts and there's nothing of importance to keep. Why keep these when the usual procedure was to erase them? This was 1963, the tapes were huge devices. I think Coleman and Slawson's accounts - which have been contradictory, e.g. Coleman said on one occasion he heard no tapes and on another he did, same with Slawson - that they heard tapes is wrong. 

As to Simpich and the Cuban consulate: Nowhere does Lopez mention in his report this CIA source's account. How would a CIA source know this? According to the Cubans there were only four people who were aware of the visit: Azcue, Duran, Mirabal and reportedly Teresa Proenza, the Cuban Cultural Attache who supposedly directed Oswald to Duran when he entered the consulate). Who else would know that some person identified himself as Oswald? Duran, who spent the most time with him, said it was Oswald (yes, she got his height wrong). The physical evidence - photos and signatures - are of Oswald's. He told the Soviets he went there. So we have Azcue saying it wasn't Oswald (he also said the photos were not of the man he met?) and all of this other evidence?

As to an impersonation: If one did occur on a phone call how does that show a conspiracy in the assassination? I don't see a connection.

In any case, I think Oswald did indeed go to the Soviet Embassy and meet the KGB agents. And according to Nechiporenko's account he mentioned visiting the Cuban consulate. Unless he was lying, that shows to me more evidence he did go there as well.

[Richard Smith]

Jon, my original question/point was to address the claim that Oswald was impersonated at the Soviet Embassy, in fact that he never went to Mexico City at all. I think the evidence is persuasive that he did go there. Why would the Soviets cover up or withhold this impersonation? What would be the reason?

One of the claims refuting the three KGB agents who said it was Oswald is that they "defected" to the West and made their claims for financial or other reasons. In other words, they lied. The fact that they informed Moscow shortly after the assassination that the man they saw was Oswald - an erratic and unstable Oswald - disproves that claim.

As to the tapes/phone calls: As Rudd said in his cable, the tapes had been erased. There were none. Why would they be kept? We have the transcripts and there's nothing of importance to keep. Why keep these when the usual procedure was to erase them? This was 1963, the tapes were huge devices. I think Coleman and Slawson's accounts - which have been contradictory, e.g. Coleman said on one occasion he heard no tapes and on another he did, same with Slawson - that they heard tapes is wrong. 

As to Simpich and the Cuban consulate: Nowhere does Lopez mention in his report this CIA source's account. How would a CIA source know this? According to the Cubans there were only four people who were aware of the visit: Azcue, Duran, Mirabal and reportedly Teresa Proenza, the Cuban Cultural Attache who supposedly directed Oswald to Duran when he entered the consulate). Who else would know that some person identified himself as Oswald?

As to an impersonation: If one did occur on a phone call how does that show a conspiracy in the assassination? I don't see a connection.

In any case, I think Oswald did indeed go to the Soviet Embassy and meet the KGB agents. And according to Nechiporenko's account he mentioned visiting the Cuban consulate. Unless he was lying, that shows to me more evidence he did go there as well.

Faking Oswald's presence in Mexico City would not have been necessary to frame him for the JFK assassination.  And risky if the Russians or Cubans had evidence to the contrary.  There were ample grounds for the fantasy conspirators to label him a political kook (if that was their intent) based on his defection to the USSR and ongoing nutty political involvement with Marxism following his return to the US.  There would have been no need to send Oswald or an Oswald double to Mexico City unless there was some intent to implicate Russia or Cuba into the plot as a pretext for war.  But what do the conspirators do according to our resident CTers?  The exact opposite to this undermining this explanation.  They immediately place all the blame on Oswald and cover up the involvement of anyone else including Russia or Cuba. 

The Cubans and/or Russians may have had grounds to be suspicious that Oswald was working for the CIA.  It's possible that they were understandably concerned following the assassination that his presence was part of a plot to start a war in Cuba.  For that reason, they might not have been entirely forthcoming about what Oswald told them.  Did he admit or imply his involvement in the Walker attempt to validate his credentials as a loyal Commie?  Or make some vow to do so?  It wouldn't surprise me.  Oswald's actions leading up to the Mexico City visit were directed at creating a resume of his credentials to impress the Cubans.  What better way to do that than admit or imply involvement in some risky act like assassinating a right winger like Walker?  The Cubans would have good reason not to admit that Oswald had told them he was willing to commit some violent act on behalf of the cause.  I think Oswald would have played every card with them and that was a strong one.