Larry Hancock: Bill Simpich, Intrigue In Mexico City

[Alan Dale]

Intrigue in Mexico City
http://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/mexico-city-intrique-part-1/

My friend Bill Simpich is my guru when it comes to ongoing study of the spy games which went on in Mexico City in the early 60’s.  Bill’s work illustrates how much can still be done with diligent study of the records available online.  It takes real slogging to piece it together, but when things jell, you start learning things shed a whole new light on what was going on when Lee Oswald arrived in Mexico.   Bill has been good enough to share some of the subjects he’s researching at the moment and providing document links to go with them. If you see something that interests you, feel free to join in the work….

MEXICO CITY INTRIGUE   Part 1

September 26:  A blond American entered the Cuban Consulate, before the next-day visits by the man
calling himself Oswald.

A blond American  was "sent to the Cuban Consulate (apparently by the CIA) and the following note is
from September 26, 1963 – at 1:30 pm.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=26067&relPageId=4

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=55179&relPageId=10

The HSCA circulated his photo for comment and was struck by the CIA transcriber’s remark that the
man had been “sent to the Consulate.”  This raises the possibility that the blond man’s visit may
have been a preliminary to Lee Oswald’s appearance the following day.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=26067&relPageId=2
 
After years of inquiry, a number of researchers have concluded that this blond man may have been an
apparent CIA asset named Claude Capehart.

Capehart is portrayed as an employee for private business contractors on
government classified projects.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=3611&relPageId=131

Curiously, an 11/20/63 bio data entry and a name check were requested on Capehart, who was at the
time working for Reynolds Electrical Engineering company.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=14179&relPageId=2

http://www.jenforum.com/capehart/messages/155.html

Then, a CIA  name check was requested on Capehart on 11/26/63!

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=14178&relPageId=2

Judge David Minier brought an FOIA suit to the Ninth Circuit as a private
 citizen to try to resolve the Capehart mystery, after Capehart died a few
 hours before his scheduled interview with Minier.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=222330

Gerry Hemming claimed that Capehart was also known as George Damon, but there is no corroboration
of that…

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4472&st=15

Capehart is described as 6'1", 220 pounds, born  in
Oklahoma

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=14179&relPageId=2

Damon is described as 6' 1, 185 pounds, born in New
Jersey

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=89755&relPageId=14

Curiously, "Damon" had quite a reputation as an impersonator; Capehart worked for an
engineering company while Damon reportedly worked in the dredging business.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=89757&relPageId=3

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=89755&relPageId=5

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=89755&relPageId=5
 
When Whitten (initially assigned as the CIA’s lead man in the JFK assassination) reported that
the "Oswald" at the Cuban Consulate was described as a blond, florid and short man, he lost the
assignment – he was replaced by James Angleton.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=50149&relPageId=13

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=50149&relPageId=2

On Friday, September 27, 1963 a man calling himself Oswald visited
 secretary Sylvia Duran on three separate occasions.  He insisted that he
 needed a visa to get to Cuba by Monday, September 30, before his 15-day
 visa expired.  In fact, there is no rush.  Such a visa would not expire
 until 15 days after one's entry into Mexico. The man called Oswald entered
 Mexico on September 26.  There was no rush, no crisis. 
 
After Oswald showed Duran that he was a card-carrying member of both the FPCC and the CPUSA,
 Duran couldn't understand why he hadn't made prior arrangements with the
 CPUSA - that was the way it was done.  The consul Eusebio Azcue had never
 seen a card from the CPUSA at all.  And this one was brand new.

Duran and Azcue both described Oswald as blond, florid, and
short.  Oscar Contreras, a student at the nearby university, gave a similar
description of Oswald.
 
 From then on, the CIA concentrated on how to massage that information and
 render it harmless.
 
Someone wanted to make sure that Oswald was tied tightly to
the Cubans, and felt more secure doing the job themselves.  The use of an
impersonator would make it possible to use that information as a bit of
extortion to chill the Agency from investigating its own actions in a
direction where they did not know where it would lead.

[Alan Dale]

More Mexico City Intrigue

This continues Bill's studies of some of the spy games going on in Mexico City,
as you begin to read you also begin to wonder if things were not getting so complex
that different American intelligence participants were beginning to confuse each
other?

As background for the following discussion, a bit of background on the Mexico City
stations telephone tap operations is in order. Audio intelligence was always a key
goal for the station and although there were a variety of “targets”, the Russian and
Cuban embassy/consulates were primary targets.  Initially the main tap program, LIFEAT,
used a number of “outside” taps, at points adjacent to target locations. Some 23 lines
were monitored from 7 separate intercept points; individual monitoring, taping and some
transcription was performed at those sites.

Circa 1959, a much more sophisticated, centralized tap operation was added (LIENVOY) – some
30 lines were tapped of centralized telephone switching equipment and eventually one center
would contain 30 tape recorders, monitors, etc  (more on issues and problems with LIENVOY
in a follow-up post).  However, the station history is clear that LIENVOY was complemented by
LIFEAT and both were continued.  Of some importance is that the two tapping efforts, using
different technology, were conducted separately and with independent personnel – raising an
interesting question of how many taps and tapes really would have been in existence for calls
to and from the Russian and Soviet embassies in November 1963……

Any strong intelligence tie found between Oswald and the CIA
in Mexico City after the assassination could have resulted in the
dismantling of the CIA and formation of a new agency.  Most
investigators, no matter how stalwart, are uneasy about conducting an
investigation that might seriously injure the investigating agency’s future
and the careers of its employees.

September 28:  A CIA agent's name pops up on the LIENVOY transcript
about the supposed telephone call by Oswald and Duran to the Soviet consulate
 
The surviving transcript of the tape of this day states that
Oswald and Duran called the Soviet consulate and made arrangements for
Oswald to come by -  Later, Sylvia Duran was adamant that she did not see "Oswald"
at the Cuban consulate on that day. The Soviets say that Oswald did not make that
call, nor did he visit after that time.  It appears that the phone call was a hoax.

There is a stunning bit of information on the transcript that has been overlooked. "Duran" makes
a side-comment in Spanish about how "they installed a telephone for Aparicio and take down the
 number as 14-12-99…”

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=1192514

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=1141138

.
When CIA HQ asked about the phone number, Mexico City Station Chief Winston Scott said
"get Dave > (Phillips) to give details," and responded that "141299 is the phone
number for Raul Aparicio Nogales, a cultural attaché of Embassy. Doubt any connection
GPFLOOR (Oswald) as Aparicio was on sick leave during significant period."

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=33326&relPageId=2

In reality, Aparicio was reported by the CIA to have been at the Cuban consulate for
more than an hour during the morning of September 26, so he doesn't seem to be sick on that day. 
He left the consulate with Theresa Proenza, another cultural attaché that he worked with
on a regular basis.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=55179&relPageId=9

Raul Aparicio was harder to locate during the month of November.  An initial
Message from JMWAVE to CIA HQ recounts how an agent known as AMKNOB-1 followed JMWAVE directions
and sent a cable with a follow-up letter to "Raul" on 11/7/63.  He waited for a response for
fifteen days.  And AMKNOB-1 himself, a State Dept. employee, was being targeted by the Cuban
intelligence. CIA HQ warned JMWAVE about the Cuban intelligence effort on Nov.21.
On November 22, JMWAVE responded with a cable about his being targeted.
 
On November 22, AMKNOB-1 telephoned the Cuban consulate, and reached Sylvia
Duran.  "Sylvia denied knowing Raul Aparacio "  Three days later, AMKNOB-1 finally
received a cable from Apracio, saying that the horrible assassination
redoubled his strength to "fight red crime”? 
 
…….what sort of “red crime” would a cultural attaché at the Cuban consulate be referring to?  And why?

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=54805&relPageId=2
 http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=392335,

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=53251&relPageId=64.
 http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=54805&relPageId=2

A second message on these contact came from JMWAVE a week later, subtly changing the story
based on "full  info".  "A-1 still waiting on contact with CIS CO (Cuban intelligence service case
officer)… 
 
“A-1 said when A-1 called (Cuban) embassy not ref
("not ref" means "not the previously referenced message"), sec (secretary)
asked whether A-1 wanted to talk to Raul Aparicio, cultural attache at
embassy. A-1 said no and terminated the connection.  A-1 continues wait
 contact."

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=3056&relPageId=2

If that seems confusing, we find a handwritten added to the initial message claimed
that "Raul" is "Raul Pereira".   There is a waiter identified as "Paul Pereira"  at the Cuban
 embassy on November 8.  But then there's also a "Raul Pereira Vasquez" >
 tentatively id'd as AMKNOB-1's case officer.  Is he different from Raul Aparicio? 
 
Are we supposed to believe that Sylvia Duran got two calls...she told one stranger that she
 didn't know Raul Aparicio (a Cuban consulate cultural attaché) and then volunteered to a
stranger the opportunity to talk to Raul Pereira or Paul Pereira, the waiter?   Do we believe a
 CIA asset was contacting Paul, the Cuban embassy waiter, because he wanted to fight red crime? 

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=376919
 https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=491968
 https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=510336

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=510336.

On December 3, what appears to be a bugging device was placed in the
 Cuban embassy by the CIA.  "Target is office Raul Aparicio.  Cuban
cultural attaché who recently underwent surgery and not yet returned
 work."   So suddenly the CIA is  listening not to Aparicio? But instead are they really
listening to someone else who is  using his office - possibly his colleague Proenza, who was
being harassed  by the CIA during this period.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=405245

But it’s clear Aparicio was something more than simply a cultural attache. Aparicio
also served as the "security officer" to  a Cuban intelligence agent AMMUG-1, Vladmir Lahera,
who defected to the US in April 1964 - one of  the most valuable defectors ever obtained by the
CIA.  Furthermore, Aparicio was the alias of Daniel Flores, CI/SAS.
 
 Flores helped handle AMMUG-1 affairs after his defection.  Flores
had only recently joined the Agency, going undercover inside the Cuban embassy as “Raul Aparicio.”

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt_2003/html/LopezRpt_0405a.htm

http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt_2003/html/LopezRpt_0287a.htm

 https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=22340&relPageId=2

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.d's
?mode=searchResult&absPageId=409494>,

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=49246&relPageId=5

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=394601

…… See the reference to AMMUG-1 at bottom right of the document.  Also note
 the "source" saw Pereira in Mexico on March 1964; the claim that the source
 left the Cuban intelligence service on the *date* of "April 1961" is
 blurry and thus suspect - compare this blurry "1961" to this better copy
 but now even more suspect.  This is an actual case of document alteration:

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=398113

…..Even more importantly, this document strongly suggests that the source was actually AMMUG-1
and the date 1964 was an alteration of an original date which would have been 1961

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=590380

Here's another AMMUG debriefing document that shows the source actually working with  Cuban
intelligence up to 1964

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=588560

I can find no more about Pereira but for a LIENVOY taped call from
 "Pereyra" to Sylvia Duran one year later - did he ever really exist?  Or
was his identity attached to Aparicio's in order to blur the entire story?
 
Whoever imitated Sylvia Duran on the Oswald phone call had access to
some highly prized - and compartmentalized - information.  Information that
even CIA station head Win Scott did not share (on the record) with his own Headquarters. Information
 such as the fact that an impersonator, using Aparicio's name during the call, would ensure that
 the Agency would back off investigating "Aparicio" because it would raise questions which might
take them in an unknown and possibly uncomfortable direction….

[Alan Dale]

Who’s Listening to Who?

Bill Simpich is back with the third installment of his research on spy games in Mexico City, as background for anyone who had not read the previous post audio intelligence was always a key goal for the station.  Initially the main tap program, LIFEAT, used a number of “outside” taps, at points adjacent to target locations. Some 23 lines were monitored from 7 separate intercept points; individual monitoring, taping and some transcription was performed at those sites. Circa 1959, a much more sophisticated, centralized tap operation was added (LIENVOY) – some  30 lines were tapped of centralized telephone switching equipment and eventually one center  would contain 30 tape recorders, monitors, etc  (more on issues and problems with LIENVOY in a follow-up post). The station history is clear that LIENVOY was complemented by LIFEAT and both were continued. In the following, Bill discusses some significant issues involved with operating the advanced LIENVOY system:

The CIA was stuck working with the Mexican DFS in operating the LIENVOY wiretap system, while the FBI also had access to LIENVOY from Mexican government sources.
It simply wasn’t secure.

During 1963, the CIA had a real problem with their sophisticated wiretap system in Mexico City known as LIENVOY.  The problem was that they were relying on the DFS (Mexico’s federal security police), who were the worst kind of political police. The FBI also had access to it from Mexican government sources.  It simply wasn’t secure.

This personality brief is attached to the LIENVOY monthly report dated October 8, 1963.[1] I believe Goodpasture wrote it.

The DFS (Mexico’s federal security police) are described as follows:

“The principal functions of this security unit are to:
(1) Provide a plain-clothed security detail for the President;
(2) Maintain an extensive telephone tap activity on both the Rightist and Leftist political opposition forces;
(3) Perform investigations and arrests of primarily political offenses.
The unit’s agents are largely poorly trained, insecure, and unreliable.
Their professional characteristics are best described as being dishonest, cruel, and abusive.
The position, at this moment, of Manuel RANGEL Escamilla as director general of DFS is precarious.”
Goodpasture wrote a history that describes the section of DFS working with the CIA in Mexico City as a “hip-pocket group run out of the Mexican Ministry of Government.[2]  This Ministry was principally occupied with political investigations and the control of foreigners.  Its employees were cruel and corrupt."

Peter Dale Scott points out that this situation provides a “strong clue that conspirators to frame Oswald…existed within the (telephone) intercept process, either in the CIA or (as I will suggest) within the DFS (the Mexican federal police).”[3]  Scott points out that the reason why LIENVOY was considered so incredibly sensitive may have been because it was insecure.

Former CIA agent Philip Agee revealed that LIENVOY was “joint telephone-tapping operations between Mexico City station and Mexican security service.”  Agee also states that “the station provides the equipment, technical assistance, couriers and transcribers, while the Mexicans make the connections in the exchanges and maintain the listening posts.” (Philip Agee, Inside the Company:  CIA Diary, pp. 532, 613).

In other words, those working in the “intercept center” as “tap center monitors” are actually DFS employees.[4]
Agee’s observations are supported by several sources. Goodpasture, describing herself as the station case officer, reported that ten Mexican employees in the listening post prepared the daily transcripts and the resuma (a summary of the transcripts).[5]

Richard Helms’s testimony indicated that the telephone taps in Mexico City were being run in conjunction with the DFS.[6]
Furthermore, the FBI also had access to this LIENVOY telephone tap information, apparently from Mexican government sources.[7] 

Here’s a chart of how LIENVOY was run at the end
of 1964.[8] Note that second-in-command of LIENVOY, right under chief Win Scott, was “Robert B. Riggs”, the alias for Anne Goodpasture.[9]

After the telephone tap information and Soviet photo info was obtained by Goodpasture, Soviet data was provided to Frank Estancona and Tom Keenan, while Cuban data went to John Brady.[10]
 
[1] https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=53528&relPageId=8
 
[2] http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=45912&relPageId=164
 
[3] http://www.history-matters.com/pds/DP3_Overview.htm#_ftnref42
 
[4] http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=34021&relPageId=4
 
[5] Station case officer…ten Mexican employees in the listening post… http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=234609
 
[6] http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=4273&relPageId=37
 
[7]http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=249&relPageId=293
 
[8]http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=27323&relPageId=13
 
[9] http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=535051
 
[10] http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=240020

[Alan Dale]

Thanks for that, Alan.  I have always been impressed by Bill Simpich's work.

I believe that the Mexico City affair is key to understanding the planning for the assassination.  I remain unconvinced whether or not Oswald was actually in MC in the first place, but accept that whatever the reality of the situation he was (also) impersonated there.  I'm still trying to get my head around WHY he was impersonated.

More Mexico City Intrigue

Any strong intelligence tie found between Oswald and the CIA in Mexico City after the assassination could have resulted in the dismantling of the CIA and formation of a new agency.  Most investigators, no matter how stalwart, are uneasy about conducting an investigation that might seriously injure the investigating agency’s future and the careers of its employees.

Please expound on your own understanding of these two statements.

Hi ech,

Good to see you.

Lee Harvey Oswald may have been a part of a false defector program run by the ONI or CIA which engaged a broad range of counterespionage activities. By December of 1960, a desk officer working in the Special Investigations Group of James J. Angleton's counterintelligence division named Ann Egerter opened an SIG 201 file on "Lee Henry Oswald."  Ms. Egerter was called before the HSCA and testified that SIG 201 files are opened on CIA agents or assets in connection to a counter espionage investigation. This testimony is the source of SIG (Special Investigations Group) being referred to as, “the office that spied on spies.” (Check Bill Simpich). SIG 201 files pertain to an internal investigation into one of the CIA’s own people.

But before we get too excited, allow me to insert something which I posted on Jeff Morley's site, jfkfacts.org:

The complexities of the issues one confronts by examining the theory that Oswald was involved with the CIA are not easily summarized in a confined space. My suggestion is that any person interested in studying this aspect of our mutual interest should begin by questioning what they think they know about what it means to be involved with the CIA.

As succinctly as I’m able: A human resource such as a military subject who had been selected for special training in counterespionage and/or counterintelligence could be utilized by the CIA and other intelligence organizations without ever being fully aware of the agency to which any particular operation or action was affiliated. It would take a long time and many hours of reading to be able to address the many ways that intelligence assets are acquired and utilized. In the case of human resources, many are actively engaged without ever being on salary. A low level and innately disposable military figure such as Oswald may have no idea about the “Big Picture.” But there are other kinds of assets who live their careers as part of the fabric of the National Security State. It’s not impossible that we’re confronted with something such as that regarding the “handling” of LHO.

There is an indisputable fact about which knowledgeable researchers may no longer disagree: Executives at the highest level of CIA were involved with Oswald prior to the assassination. The extent to which he understood that fact is subject to debate. My personal opinion is that he did not.

Robert K. Tanenbaum was chosen by Richard Sprague to be the House Select Committee’s first Deputy Counsel in charge of the congressional investigation of President Kennedy’s murder. After the failure of that body to aggressively pursue any conclusion beyond the easily palatable “mafia did it,” Mr. Tanenbaum wrote a national bestselling novel called “Corruption of Blood.”

http://www.amazon.com/Corruption-Blood-Robert-K-Tanenbaum/dp/0451181964/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338401763&sr=1-1

Using the mask of a fictional construct Mr. Tanenbaum wrote the following: “…every intelligence agency is plagued by volunteers–individuals who wish to become spies. Virtually all of them are useless for real intelligence work, unstable, maniacal, lazy, or criminal types for the most part, but some of them can be used as pigeons, that is, as false members of a spy network who can distract the attention of counterintelligence operatives, and can be betrayed to them with misleading or damaging information in their heads. Lists are kept of such potential pigeons at foreign CIA stations… a marine spouting Marxist propaganda at a top-secret radar base could not have escaped those who keep them.”
Whatever Oswald was — an Agent Provocateur, a dangle, an informant, a pigeon — we must always consider the possibility that he was used in these ways without fully understanding who he was serving, which agency, or anything beyond the narrow focus of his frequently uninspiring assignment. It seems plausible to me that he was marked for special training in intelligence work early on during Marine training, and then recognized as being temperamentally unsuited for the kind of glamorous assignments to which he may have aspired.

Not to suggest that someone couldn’t find some way of using a low-level, innately disposable asset. I believe someone did.

I would also want to emphasize the importance of "What Jane Roman Said" to John Newman and Jeff Morley about "...a keen interest, held very close, on a need-to-know basis."  <-----  Six weeks before the assassination.

So what we have, at a minimum, are indisputable documented facts proving that executives at the highest level of CIA had an operational interest in Oswald prior to Dallas.

Imagine if that news was made public in the immediate aftermath of the assassination.

With regard to the comment about "most investigators" being uneasy about conducting an investigation that might seriously injure the investigating agency’s future and the careers of its employees, consider the fate of so many whistle blowers. In the case of the CIA as it existed at the peak of the Cold War, consider the fate of Mexico City Station Chief Winston Scott. My personal opinion is that he was murdered.

None of this even begins to scratch the surface.

I always wish to encourage all to read Dr. John Newman (with whom I may get to speak some time in May), Bill Simpich (who is a member of this forum and may be heard in our Conversation which I have posted), and Jeff Morley, whose "Our Man In Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA" is one of our essentials.

I hope this helps. Thanks for participating.

 

[Alan Dale]

Yes, I follow most of that.  Oswald could have been involved in any number of simultaneous, overlapping cases in Mexico (if he was ever there).  He would probably not have been aware of all of them.  This would be standard intelligence chicanery, as I understand it.  Compartmentalisation, plausible denial, etc..

But why was he IMPERSONATED in MC?  And by whom (edit - I mean on whose behalf)?

I have been presuming that some of the planners were intelligence insiders and they would have known that:

IF they succeeded in (a) incriminating a CIA/ONI/other operative in some dodgy deals related to Cuba
AND (b) setting up that same operative as a "patsy"
THEN this would in some way hinder any future investigation into the assassination.

But I would like your take on those two questions.

I'm going to write a more detailed response to these important questions. Gimme a couple of days.

In the meantime, please do listen to my JFK LANCER: Conversations episode which features Bill Simpich as our guest.

Some one or some small group within CIA who had access to and intimate familiarity with concurrent authorized operations in Mexico City (which I am convinced included at least one mole hunt using the Oswald identities as bait), and had access to descriptions of LHO which were known to be false (and are more closely identifiable with a file subject names Robert Webster), are implicated in the unraveling of these elements as viewed through a post-assassination prism.

It's not impossible that we are, indeed, living through an era of discovery.