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 B

in Moscow, Captain John Janet Munsen. The dispatches Munsen referred to concerned the defections of Lee Harvey Oswald and Robert Edward Webster, another ex-navy man. Webster had defected in Moscow while working for an American company, the Rand Development Corporation, on July 11, 1959. Dispatch 234 on Oswald was in a diplomatic pouch in an aircraft somewhere between Moscow and Washington and would not arrive at the State Department until Thursday, November 5. Munsen's cable, therefore, was alerting the navy to ask for it as soon as it arrived. Munsen concluded: "OSWALD STATED HE WAS [A] RADAR OPERATOR IN MARCORPS AND HAS OFFERED TO FURNISH SOVIETS INFO HE POSSESSES ON US RADAR."28

    At 3:37 P.M., the FBI Reddy memo was date-stamped into the Espionage Section of the FBI's Counterintelligence Branch.2B By this time, it is virtually certain that Wells had delivered Barron's brief ONI memo on Oswald's headquarters Marine Corps file, and that it was now attached to the Reddy memo along with the Mosby UPI story. The Navy Liaison cable from Moscow was still in the Pentagon and would not arrive at the FBI until the next day, and there was still no word from the CIA's Counterintelligence Liaison on what, if anything, they knew about Oswald.
    It was at this point, late on Wednesday afternoon, November 6, 1959, that the official paper trail in Washington on Lee Harvey Oswald took on a completely different character. At this moment the classified cables out of Moscow-Snyder's to the State Department and Munsen's to the Navy Department-began to wind their way into the espionage and counterintelligence worlds of the FBI and CIA.
    At 6:40 P.M., FBI Assistant Director Belmont got his first look at what was to become the fourth item in the FBI file on Lee Harvey Oswald: the confidential Snyder cable from Moscow.30 To be sure, this cable, like most cables, was brief. It mentioned Oswald's appearance at the embassy to defect, his arrogant and aggressive attitude, and his recent discharge from the Marine Corps. Then came the bottom line: It told of Oswald's stated intention to give military secrets to the Soviet Union. Snyder closed by asking the State Department for permission to delay allowing Oswald's formal renunciation until word was received on what action the Soviets were prepared to take.31
    That evening, someone in the FBI who read the Snyder cable took his pen and made double hash marks in both margins next to the words "SAYS HAS OFFERED SOVIETS ANY INFORMATION HE HAS ACQUIRED AS ENLISTED RADAR OPERATOR." Someone, probably the same individual, then underlined those same words." Meanwhile, across the Potomac River in the CIA, someone was reading a copy of the Snyder cable there too. The CIA reader focused on precisely the same words as the anony mous FBI reader. On the extant CIA copy of the Snyder cable are handwritten markings. These markings circle the words "LEE HARVEY OSWALD" and underline the words "SAYS HAS OFFERED SOVIETS ANY INFORMATION HE HAS ACQUIRED AS ENLISTED RADAR OPERATOR."

    The State Department almost certainly sent Snyder's cable to the CIA at the same time they sent it to the FBI. Today, the exact date of the cable's entry to the CIA still cannot be confirmed, and is a matter that deserves close attention. The Agency itself cannot account for the details of its receipt and handling of Snyder's cable." In 1964 the Warren Commission asked then-CIA Director Richard Helms to account for a number of crucial Oswald documents. Helms could not explain when the Agency had received several of the 1959-1960 files on Oswald. Incredible though it may seem in view of the amount of press coverage of Oswald's defection, the beginning of the Oswald file in the CIA is the story of a hidden file inside a black hole. It was a file so sensitive that almost no one in the Agency knew of its existence.
    The "Black Hole" in Oswald's CIA Files
    "The Commission would appreciate a letter or memorandum from the Central Intelligence Agency,"