Collection of Assorted Newspaper and Magazine Clippings: Jfk Assassination, Conspiracy Theories, Etc

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

that was made is not recorded in any

assay the document. However, records

in the Commission tells a Mexican

newsman reporter tried to interview

her in April 1954. Her husband would

not admit the man to speak with her,

saving him a nervous breakdown following her interrogation

by the Mexican authorities and had

been prohibited by her physician

from discussing the Oswald matter

further. If this report is correct,

the interrogation of Silvia Duran may

have been a more emotional interview

than one would conclude from the

report forwarded by the Mexican police. The report gives the impression

that the police were routinely collecting

information about Oswald's Mexican trip

for the American authorities. One question that arises is whether Duran's statement was given voluntarily, and, if not, whether her identification of Oswald as the visitor to the embassy is valid.

The Warren Commission may have omitted a full exploration of this question because it had collateral evidence of Oswald's visit to the Cuban Embassy. There were, for example, Oswald's application for a Cuban visa, bearing his photograph and signature. and a letter reportedly written by Oswald to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, referring to his visit to the Cuban Embassy. The address book found among Oswald's possessions, moreover, contained Duran's name and telephone number. But the only credible eyewitness testimony that Oswald in fact visited the embassy is the statement of Silvia Duran.

When viewed in the light of the recently disclosed evidence suggesting that someone might have visited the embassy impersonating Oswald, the Commission's failure to settle completely the question of the three misidentified photos seems extraordinary. It is probable that the CIA did in fact supply an explanation of the photographs that was enough to satisfy the Commission at the time. If so, that explanation remains a part of the classified Warren Commission documents not available to the public

Raymond Rose (who, until his recent resignation, was the Agency's action officer for all post-Watten Report queries about the matter) told one of the authors that the CIA could not identify the mystery man. If this is so, we may wonder how the Agency could have offered a satisfactory explanation of the incident to the Com-

bringing on this matter the decision of the conclusion that Oswald really visited the city in which he must remain in some doubt that even if he did, the question whether someone was nevertheless trying to impress him remains a crucial one

If someone posing as Oswald visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies in the early autumn of 1963, what implications might be drawn from this discovery? One obvious interpretation is that someone sought to counterfeit a fresh connection between the man who was soon to become the accused presidential assassin and the governments of those two communist countries. But it is not necessary to speculate further. If someone were trying to impersonate Oswald eight weeks before the assassination, the Warren Commission's theory of a lone assassin, unconnected with any conspiracy, is seriously undermined and the case should be reopened.

There could be, of course, an innocent explanation of how the CIA came to misidentify the mystery man as Lee Harvey Oswald: Oswald may actually have visited the Cuban and Soviet embassies. If this were the case, then somewhere in the CIA's files there should be photographs of the real Lee Harvey Oswald departing from the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City. If those photographs exist, their publication would help to settle the question. If they don't, the CIA should now explain why not. In either case, it should also disclose what it knows about the man it wrongly identified as Oswald on two separate occasions. It should explain why it believes that this man was not impersonating Oswald. All these matters should be clarified both by the CIA itself and by the congressional committees that are about to investigate its activities.