Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK Read Free

reputations of others. For these people we feel sympathetic, but they are far from alone. Their sacrifice will be added to the suffering of the hundreds of others who have been drawn into the vortex of this case. What the country gains from full disclosure, however, is incomparably greater. In order for the Act to work, there can be no compromise on the fundamental requirement: the whole truth.
    In opening all the files related to the Kennedy assassination Americans should seek not to destroy the government or the intelligence agencies but to reform them. In the course of researching this work, I have learned about the people who work in CIA operations. Most of the men and women who have served the Agency in the past and do so today are decent, honorable Americans. When laying out the Agency's mistakes, we should not lose sight of the integrity with which most served. If I have been critical in the pages that follow, it was not with malice.
    The CIA has had its bad apples, and has made mistakes-sometimes terrible ones. All large bureaucracies have such problems, but the secrecy that protects intelligence organizations from external threats is itself the main obstacle to healthy change and reform. I know a former Agency employee whose conscience so troubled him about something secret he had learned that he resigned. Today he is a respected officer in another large intelligence organization, where he does superb intelligence work. I also know a man-who became famous for his analytic skills and accomplishments-who left the Defense Intelligence Agency because of principled dissent. He took a lower-paying position with the CIA. Today he teaches ethics in intelligence work.
    The thread that ties these two Americans together is that neither was willing to live a lie. That one joined the CIA and one left the CIA to escape that fate seems noteworthy. Both felt compelled to leave their organizations, but neither opted out of the system. They continued to work for their country. We have the same responsibility, and opportunity.
    April 19, 1995

     

Introduction
    The thesis of this work holds that the CIA had a keen operational interest in Lee Harvey Oswald from the day he defected to the Soviet Union in 1959 until the day he was murdered in the basement of the Dallas city jail. From this thesis flow two conclusions: first, that the Agency used sensitive sources and methods to acquire intelligence on Oswald. Secondly, whether witting or not, Oswald became involved in CIA operations.
    The scope of this project is as follows: We will follow the trails in Oswald's CIA, FBI, DOD, Navy, Army, and American Embassy files from the time of his defection up to the assassination; and we will follow segments of his files from the State Department, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and selected Navy and FBI field offices. This work also seeks to address that part of American Cuban policy and covert operations that are either fundamentally or reasonably relevant to the Oswald who emerges in these files. We will not address the assassination of President Kennedy. We will not discuss Dealey Plaza. This book is content to explore the subject of Oswald and the CIA without regard to who is right and who is wrong in the larger debate about the Kennedy assassination.'
    We will employ a two-track methodology. On one line we will tell the story through a chronological arrangement of evidence and findings. There are self-imposed limitations on this track: First, we will not attempt to describe Lee Harvey Oswald "the man," but concern ourselves instead with Oswald "the file"-the subject of records maintained by intelligence agencies. On the other line we will develop continuity in several historical areas. These areas emerge and clarify through the disclosure of what the government knew about Oswald.

    Oswald's was a ponderous case from the beginning. This book is about the people and organizations who had access to and contributed to Oswald's