OSWALD in
MEXICO
Seeks a Cuban Visa
Topic: Oswald in Mexico
A presentation given in Rio de Janeiro, August 1995.
By Arturo Rodriguez
(Former Cuban Security Agent)
The visit of Lee Harvey Oswald to the Cuban Consulate in Mexico, in the fall
of 1963, was the highlight of a project to blame Cuba for the assassination
of President Kennedy.
To understand the scheme of the plot, it will be necessary to look at Oswald's
past, his arrival in New Orleans in the spring of the same year, the activities
he carried out there which identified him with supporters of the Cuban Revolution,
the incidents with the Cuban exiles and the publicity given to this, his
encounter with two elements of the CIA in September in Dallas, the incident
with the Cuban exile, Silvia Odio, and finally his trip to Mexico and the
negotiations carried out in the Cuban and Soviet Consulates to obtain a visa
to allow him to travel to those countries.
In the investigation of Oswald's past, from the time he entered the U.S.
armed forces on Oct. 24, 1956, until his return from the Soviet Union on
June 2, 1962, it was evident that we were witnessing an intelligence agent,
who "deserted" with a very definite purpose, subordinated to a project, directed
by the CIA or other U.S. intelligence service. We believe it to be
that today, in light of the information known, shared by many, the reason
why we won't dwell on its reasoning. Nevertheless, we are at
your disposal to discuss our arguments at a convenient time.
In that way, we move to the analysis of the incidents that begin to unfold
from the time Oswald arrived in New Orleans in the second half of April 1963.
Immediately after his settlement in New Orleans, Oswald started to conduct
public activities that would tie him as an "ardent" sympathizer of the Cuban
Revolution. A review of all those activities, are known by all present
here, indicate:
1. Oswald and his manipulators, conscientiously documented his membership
in the Comite Pro Justo Trato a Cuba (Fair Play for Cuba Committee).
Letters to the president of this organization, and the editing and publishing
of pamphlets related to the defense of Cuba, were actions taken by Oswald
during this period. He also sent correspondence to the Communist Party,
to the newspaper of this organization, and finally to the Soviet Consulate,
where he expressed his wishes to return to the USSR.
The incident with the Cuban exiles, where apparently he tried to provoke
the group headed by Carlos Bringuier, and had a public confrontation with
them, when he (LHO) was caught handing out propaganda favoring Cuba were
all part of an "episode" concluded with the radio debate between Oswald and
Bringuier, where Oswald declared himself a Marxist and Castro sympathizer.
I believe we need not dwell on this topic, since it is evident that those
actions had one purpose, to document Oswald's pro Castro affiliation -
for later use.
As you will remember, this information was later manipulated by the press
after Kennedy's death.
2. According to the investigations of the colleague Gaeton Fonzi, Antonio
Veciana confessed that at the end of August or in early September of 1963,
while attending a meeting in Dallas with his case officer "Maurice Bishop".
When he arrived at the meeting place, he (MB) was talking with a young North
American man which he later recognized to be Oswald. Veciana added
that when he arrived, the meeting (with the young man) ended and the young
man left, and he stayed with Bishop to talk about his business.
(Note: this is not in the
transcript - but I had to read
this sentence several
times because Rodriguez keeps using
he he he he and it
is difficult to figure out which he,
he is referring to
---HE HELL! You should check it out
with the colleague
Gaeton!)
This meeting was very strange. No intelligence officer makes appointments
in the same place without a reason, with two agents of different operations.
There had to be a need for this.
Later, Veciana told Fonzi that Bishop asked him, after the Kennedy assassination,
to try to bribe a relative, Guillermo Ruiz, who worked as a diplomat at the
Mexican Cuban Embassy, to testify that Oswald was a Cuban agent.
However, around that time the theory of the lone assassin was established,
no one wanted, not even the CIA, to know any different.
Then, why did the three of them get together in Dallas in the Fall of 1963?
Was it by chance as explained by Veciana? We don't think so.
There was something planned there in which Veciana, Bishop and Oswald had
to participate in.
-It could have been the intent to recruit Ruiz's wife, a few days before
the Kennedy assassination. Maybe, the visit to Silvia Odio.
And thinking broadly, as a result of uncovered CIA operations, it could have
been a presentation among agents, one Veciana, who was infiltrated in an
apparent anti-Castro group El JURE, but in reality it was plotting against
Kennedy under orders from Cuba, and the other, Oswald, who was destined to
unmask the conspiracy, traveling to Cuba to meet with the "bosses" (of the
conspiracy).
Veciana was a friend of Silvia's father, they knew each other from Cuba and
Oswald was an experienced agent that had carried out a mission in Moscow.
This hypothesis could explain Oswald's visit to Odio and the explanation
of the two Latins about their affiliation and liking of Leon Oswald.
On our part, in 1973, we received information through two different sources,
close to Veciana, where it was affirmed that "Bishop" was a name given by
him to David Phillips. As it is known, Phillips was the boss of the
operative forces of the CIA, in charge of the Cuban case in Mexico City.
3. In June of 1963 Oswald applied for his U.S. passport, with intentions,
according to his letter to the corresponding agency, to travel to Western
Europe, the USSR, Finland and Poland, - which was approved the next day.
It is really strange that a renegade like Oswald be granted a passport so
quickly, and that the FBI, in charge of following all possible Moscow agents,
would have allowed it, since it is known that these applications are made
known to all intelligence organizations, especially in a case like this one.
4. Oswald tried to travel to Cuba from Mexico. On the 17th of
September he visited the Mexican consulate in New Orleans applying for a
tourist visa for 15 days to travel to that country - he gets it with no problems.
On the 26th of the same month, according to the Warren Commission, Oswald
boarded a bus in Houston, in route to Laredo at 2:35 a.m., arriving
in that city at approximately 1:20 p.m. He must have crossed the border
around noon on the 26th, arriving at the Aztec capital at 10:00 a.m. at which
time he registered at the Comercio Hotel.
The Cuban consulate in Mexico City was located on the lower floor of a building
whose top floor was occupied by the commercial office of the embassy.
A room on the lower floor was shared by both offices as a waiting room
or lobby.
Lee Harvey Oswald, arrived at the Cuban consulate on September 27, 1963.
Back then the office was represented by Eusebio Azcue Lopez who was in the
process of turning over his responsibilities as general consul to comrade
Alfredo Mirabal Diaz, who had been named to that post on July first of that
year, and the secretary Silvia Tirado de Duran, a Mexican national.
Comrade Azcue was 52 years old, Mirabal 40 and Mrs. Duran 26.
The Cuban consulate working hours were from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Monday
through Friday for the general public. Saturday was set aside for internal
matters -when necessary.
Statements given by witnesses Eusebio Azcue and Alfredo Mirabal and by the
Mexican Silvia Duran--known to all of you--allows us to establish the fact
that an individual identified as Lee Harvey Oswald visited the Cuban office
on three occasions.
Silvia Duran recalls these visits to be on the 27th, although Azcue considers
that the first two (visits) took place on that day which happened to have
been a Friday, and the third on Saturday the 28th. Mirabal's statements
are not so precise.
The chronology of the visits were known 15 years after the assassination.
While Mrs. Duran's statements collected in total during interrogations conducted
by the Mexican police, given to the CIA station there and later to the Warren
Commission, (outlined) the relation of Oswald's encounters and other important
data.
A brief review of these visits can be resumed in the following:
a. The people that personally take care and speak to him were secretary
Duran and the consul Azcue. Comrade Mirabal, who did not speak English,
is an eye witness of his presence on more than one occasion, at a distance
of approximately four meters.
b. Oswald applied for a visa to Cuba on his way to the USSR, expressing
his wish to travel on the 30th of September, staying in Havana from one to
two weeks.
c. He showed documents and said he belonged to the U.S. Communist party
and was secretary of the Fair Play for Cuba in New Orleans. He showed
a dubious passport - and as you can remember- he was issued a new one-stating
his residency to be the USSR from October 1959 to June 1962 and a marriage
certificate with a Soviet citizen.
d. Silvia Duran made up the form for his visa application adding to
it the photos given by the subject, which was signed in her presence.
This form included all documents presented by the subject for the purpose
of his application and was signed by Alfredo Mirabal (at the bottom of the
application) attesting to this.
e. The Cubans, under instructions in force at that time, told the applicant
that it was impossible to grant him a visa for the time he requested it for,
until the country of destination had granted it.
f. The situation of this subject was such, that Azcue as well as Duran
called the Soviet consulate to explain his case.
g. During the subject's visit to the Soviet consulate, it was explained
to him that requirements for granting a visa to that country took generally
two to three months, the reason why he would have to wait that long.
h. He returned to the Cuban consulate somewhat disturbed and tried
to force the visa granting, leading to an altercation between himself and
consul Azcue, for which he was ordered out of the office.
This altercation was in the presence of comrade Mirabal and Antonio Garcia
Lara, an official of the commercial office, who, at hearing the discussion
and thinking this might be a provocation, went downstairs to the consulate
office and was able to see the subject leaving.
Another witness to the visit was Guillermo Ruiz, in charge of the commercial
office, who at the time was going to his office, was intercepted by Azcue
who was arguing with a North American subject and asks him, since he spoke
good English, to explain to him again why he was denied the visa and the
reasons why. Ruiz did this and had a chance to look at the subject's
face for a few seconds at a short distance.
Since the moments after the Kennedy assassination, our embassy's personnel
in Mexico noticed, with the exception of Azcue who was back in Cuba, that
the accused assassin was the same person that had visited them in September.
Alfredo Mirabal informed his Ministry officially, Lara only commented about
it, given the small participation they had in the events and knowing of the
report made by Mirabal, an official superior to them.
On his part, Azcue in Cuba, did not recognize Oswald's photos published by
the press as the person who visited the Cuban Consulate in Mexico.
This contradiction between Azcue and Mirabal, were made evident in statements
given by both to the investigators of the Select Committee in 1978.
As for Mrs. Duran, she recognized Oswald from the first moment as the person
that she helped in the Cuban Consulate at the end of September 1963.
The investigations done by us show that the typewriter used to fill out the
questionnaire form of the subject said to be named Oswald, was the same one
as the one in Mrs. Duran's office, used to fill out other forms. The
photo was Oswald and if we note the Warren Commission's verdict, the signature
in the document was also his. There is one additional element.
The signature of comrade Mirabal, attesting to the data given by the applicant,
was his. There is no doubt.
An arithmetic addition of the testimonies tell us that four [persons] recognized
Oswald as the person that visited and requested a visa, and one and only
one, Azcue, did not recognized him. Other evidence already explained,
points out that it was Oswald and not someone else who visited the Consulate.
As such, we conclude that the subject that identified himself as Lee Harvey
Oswald, during a visit to the Consulate in the month of September of 1963,
to request a transit visa to Cuba, was indeed the same person, that after
the----was identified by the same names.
5. Nevertheless, these were not the only events that took place at
that time. Sometime after the Kennedy assassination, two witnesses, the Mexican
Elena Garro de Paz and the Nicaraguan Gilberto Alvarado Ugarte, alleged that
Silvia Duran was connected to Oswald during the visit. Garro even commented
that the consul Azcue, had said during a conversation held with the poet
Emilio Carballido, that "Kennedy had to be killed".
It seemed to us that those elements were in the works - in what we call in
the business - of an "active measure" -in other words, intentional and false
information geared to deceive or divert attention of an issue or objective.
Another incident to consider was the one occurring a few days before the
assassination. The intent to compromise the wife of comrade Guillermo
Ruiz, Hilda Veciana. According to her, walking towards the embassy,
she found a large roll of dollar bills in the middle of the sidewalk.
When she stopped, stunned by what she saw, a citizen that could have been
Mexican, approached her and said: "Lady, you have dropped your money, please
pick it up - it is yours". Meanwhile two other people approached her,
the reason why Hilda became scared. She ran towards the embassy, where
two comrades came out to help her, but of course, they found nothing.
We know that David Phillips was the boss of the operative forces of the CIA
in the Aztec capital (they are so dramatic- why can't they say Mexico City).
Also, the strange meeting in the first few days of September in Dallas with
Veciana and Oswald. It is not necessary to argue the tight bond with
the false "Cuban case", which he states in his own autobiography book.
Another essential fact, was that Phillips was an expert in psychological
warfare, in other words, in the fabrication of lies and half truths, something
which he admits to. (that he takes credit for lies etc.)
Other information came to aid us in understanding this plot. The Nicaraguan
Alvarado, turned out to be an agent of the Somosa intelligence and the Garro
information, who declined to testify to the Select Committee in 1978, verified
by, proceeding from a source, that-- (Darn - they beat around the bush) according
to declassified information by the CIA in 1993, -- was an official of the
U.S. embassy in Mexico and according to our records, a CIA official.
Mr. Charles Thomas, committed suicide in 1970.
According to what Phillips narrated in his book, already mentioned, the covering
(I think he means the masking device - conceal - pretext) of the Cuban
embassy at that time was total. Lets see what he says:
"The boss of the Cuban Section (he refers to when he arrived at the embassy,
before the N. del A events), was Wally, whom I had encountered for the first
time at the University of Chile, in Santiago. He had also been hired
by the CIA as an intelligence officer".
"Wally's task was to maintain total coverage of the Cuban embassy,
ideally to cover a hostile apparatus (installation) abroad with intelligence
means including: inside spies informing about their own government; able
to read correspondence to and from the embassy; able to listen to telephone
conversations; at least a microphone to transmit inside secrets; able to
obtain photographs of everyone working at the embassy and those who visited
and the access to trash disposal......it would be incorrect to say what was
Wally's total coverage of the Cuban embassy, when I arrived in Mexico in
1961, but it was pretty good..."
As known by those present here, -- having been informed by the Select Committee
-- the photographic post across from our embassy, located in the street Francisco
Marquez 149-1 Colonia Condesa, was operated by a Cuban, posing as a Colombian
named Augusto Cesar Rodriguez Gallegos, from where everyone entering and
leaving the diplomatic office was photographed.
Oswald visited at least three times the Cuban consulate and on one or two
occasions the soviet consulate, that was also "covered". However, after
the assassination none of the photos appeared and the one that did
was strange.
If the CIA obtained photos, information, telephone recordings, and microphone
recordings placed in the sofa of the Cuban consulate, years later uncovered,
- why did all this evidence disappear?
Reflecting on all of this we make the following hypothesis. Everything
was arranged to document Oswald's visit, therefore there was a plot to involve
Cuba in the assassination that was to later "unchain" the American
reply.
However, almost immediately after Oswald's arrest in Dallas, when the requests
for Oswald's Mexico material starts by the (principal center? meaning
an official agency) - incorrect information was given. Was it that
the arrest was not planned by those who plotted, threw out (did away with)
the well conceived plan to blame Cuba? The truth is that almost immediately
after Oswald's assassination, in the coarse and precipitated conditions known
to all, appeared the theory of the "lone assassin" and the "Cuban plot" took
second stage. What are the reasons? What are the motives?
These are essential questions that North American authorities should answer
to the public and once and for all make it clear about the assassination
of president John F. Kennedy.
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