History Matters - The Framing of Oswald

"The CIA advised that on October 1, 1963, an extremely sensitive source had reported that an individual identified himself as Lee Oswald, who contacted the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City inquiring as to any messages. Special Agents of this Bureau, who have conversed with Oswald in Dallas, Texas, have observed photographs of the individual referred to above, and have listened to a recording of his voice. These special agents are of the opinion that the above-referred-to individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald."

The paragraph shown above comes from an FBI memo sent to both the White House and the Secret Service on November 23, 1963, the day after President Kennedy's assassination. It was a follow-up to a phone call at 10:01 AM, in which Director Hoover informed Lyndon Johnson of the same fact. Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of Kennedy held in police custody in Dallas, had been impersonated in phone calls to the Soviet Embassy in Mexio City.

The fact that Oswald was impersonated less than two months prior to the Dallas shooting was obviously important news. What made the revelation even more stunning was that, in one such call, "Oswald" referred to a previous meeting with a Soviet official named Kostikov. Valeriy Kostikov was well-known to the CIA and FBI as a KGB agent operating out of the Embassy under official cover. But, far more ominously, the FBI's "Tumbleweed" informant had previously tipped off the U.S. that Kostikov was a member of the KGB's "Department 13," involved in sabotage and assassinations.

An otherwise inexplicable impersonation episode takes on an entirely new meaning in this light. The calls from the Oswald impersonator made it appear that Oswald was a hired killer, hired by the Soviet Union no less. This was a prescription for World War III.

Perhaps the perfect plan was foiled by the fact that Oswald was captured, allowing the FBI to interrogate him and compare his voice to the tapes of these tapped phone calls, which were apparently flown up from the CIA's Mexico City Station on the evening of November 22. In any case, what should have been a hot lead to sophisticated conspirators was instead quickly buried—by November 25, FBI memos made no more mention of tapes, only transcripts. The CIA has maintained to this day that the tapes were routinely recycled prior to the assassination, and no tapes were ever sent. But the evidence that the tapes did exist and were listened to is now overwhelming, and includes several FBI memos, a call from Hoover to LBJ which appears to have been suspiciously erased, and even the word of two Warren Commission staffers who say they listened to the tapes during their visit to Mexico City in April 1964!

Back in November 1963, with the knowledge that it wasn't Oswald in these calls to the Soviet Embassy tightly held, and with witnesses coming forward to claim seeing Oswald take money to kill Kennedy from Cuban operatives, a coverup went into high gear. Lyndon Johnson used the fear of nuclear war, bandying about the figure "40 million Americans" who would die in a nuclear exchange. Even though he knew of the impersonation, Johnson used this false scare to press men like Richard Russell and Earl Warren onto a President's Commission which another Commissioner, John J. McCloy, said was to "settle the dust."

The Mexico City story, which involves far more than the telephone tapes and remains truly mysterious in many ways, is not the only element in the setup of Oswald. Whether he was part of a murder conspiracy or just a "patsy," Oswald was set up for the role as lone gunman. Several incidents prior to the assassination painted him as a "Red" assassin, including his test-drive at a car dealership in Dallas and an episode at a shooting range. In both cases, the Warren Commission showed that Oswald could not have been present, and thus dismissed the claims. They should have instead asked, who was there pretending to be Oswald?

The frameup also included the planting of Commission Exhibit 399, the "magic" bullet which matched Oswald's rifle, and the laydown of that junky weapon and matching shells near the so-called "sniper's nest" in the Book Depository. While the pre-assassination Oswald setup events are the most interessting, because they are inherently part of the assassination plot, post-assassination coverup activities also served to frame Oswald for the murder, and to hide his connections to the intelligence community. Essays in this topic area include discussion of the circumstantial evidence that ballistics evidence was tampered with in order to support the lone gunman answer. And the medical coverup writings on this site abound with examples of such manipulation.

But the most important setup was the incriminating connection to a planted Communist conspiracy. This episode is important because it helps explain why men like Earl Warren might engage in a coverup. It also narrows the field of potential conspirators considerably. In 1963 these intelligence activities were kept under extremely tight wraps. So who knew that the Embassy phone lines were tapped? Who knew that Kostikov was involved in assassinations and that this fact was known to the U.S.? Who knew that this phony Red connection would scare the government into a coverup?

Rex Bradford
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