Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK by John Newman Read Free Book Online Page A

Oswald." As it happened, the CI/LI Office had no quick answer for Papich, and would not get back to him until midweek. Meanwhile, back at FBI headquarters, at 3:32 P.M., the Reddy memo wound up in the office of Alan Belmont. Belmont, like Tolsen and De Loach, was an assistant director to Hoover, and head of the Bureau's Intelligence Division. (Belmont will probably long be remembered for his 1953 internal memo in which he argued that existence of the Mafia in the U.S. was "doubtful."22)

    At some point on November 2, there was contact between the FBI and the Office of Naval Intelligence about the Oswald defection. J. M. Barron of ONI authored a memo on Oswald that same day and directed that it be transmitted "by hand" to Mr. Wells at the FBI.21 Barron's memo begins by noting Saturday's Mosby UPI story and then stating that ONI files "contain no record" of Oswald. Two days later, a subordinate of Belmont's, W. A. Brannigan, wrote, "On 11/2/59, it was determined through Liaison with the Navy Department that the files of ONI contained no record of the subject [Oswald]."" On the other hand, Barron observed that Oswald's file at Marine Corps Headquarters did have information,21 including the fact that his address upon entering the Marine Corps was 4936 Collinswood Street, Fort Worth, Texas. Handwriting, now faint, on Reddy's memo appears to say "4936 Collinswood St. Fort Worth, Texas,"26 information not available at the FBI (at that time) except from the Barron ONI memo or from Marine headquarters by telephone.
    Barron's ONI memo ended with the comment "No action contemplated by this office."27 The Reddy memo on Monday, November 2 appeared headed toward the same dead end. Reddy's original memo was returned again to De Loach at 4:58 P.M., and then traveled yet again back to Belmont, at 6:31 P.M. At the bottom of this popular memo, Reddy entered this notation: "ACTION: None. For Information."
    Someone, however, possibly Belmont, was not finished with Reddy's memo. The next morning, Reddy's memo was on its way again, this time to the FBI's Counterintelligence Branch. More specifically, it went to the Espionage Section in that Branch. Before proceeding to Counterintelligence, however, it is safe to say that Aline Mosby's little fragment of a story, along with Reddy's unspectacular and rather empty memo, had made the rounds of the entire upper echelon of the FBI. The more sinister and classified part of the Oswald story-that he had offered to give the Soviets radar secrets and "something of special interest"-was still inside the State Department, and would remain classified until after the Kennedy assassination. It was, however, about to wind its way through the most sensitive elements of the American intelligence community.

    Washington: Tuesday, November 3
    By Tuesday morning, November 3, counterintelligence officers in both the CIA and FBI were examining the Oswald defection. Their interest had been sparked almost entirely by the few words Aline Mosby had pried from Oswald's lips at the door to his hotel room in the Moscow Metropole. No one in the FBI or CIA yet knew the darker details of Oswald's Halloween performance in the American Embassy in Moscow. No one in the FBI, CIA, or Navy Department yet knew that Snyder's classified cable alerting Washington to this part of the Oswald story was still trapped somewhere on a State Department desk in Foggy Bottom. No one in official Washington outside the State Department was yet aware that the "confidential" aspect of Snyder's cable was a piece of news so startling that any newspaper would properly have led with it: Ex-marine Lee Harvey Oswald intended to turn over classified material to the Soviet Union.
    At four minutes past noon on November 3, a teletype at the Navy Department in the Pentagon began to print out a troublesome message from Moscow. The words "Attention invited to AMEMB Moscow dispatches 234 DTD 2 November and 224 DTD 26 October" began the cable from the U.S. naval attache