Oswald File
CIA records as of 11/21/63
A recent release of CIA files revealed that the spy organization had a 181 page dossier on Lee Oswald as of November 21, 1963. This file contained material from five federal agencies with the earliest material dated 1959 and at least 35 agents had worked on the file.
It was revealed that Reuben Efron had been monitoring Oswald's mail since the summer of 1962. No friend of establishment embarrassing revelations, the New York Times even reported: A spy reporting to top men at the CIA was reading the mail of Kennedy’s reputed killer in the summer of 1962.
In all of the material there was no mention of Oswald being an deranged loner, lunatic or dangerous psychopath. In fact, the CIA's Special Investigations Group – the mole and leak hunters – had 17 entries in his file with five from the the three months preceding the assassination. Oswald was not a source of concern to the spy group, but they knew all about him from where he went to school to previous address, including his time in Russia. They probably knew his shoe size and bank balance as well.
Interestingly John McCone, the CIA director who succeeded Allen Dulles, told the Warren Commission that he knew nothing about this. He testified:
The Agency never contacted him, interviewed him, talked with him, or received or solicited any reports or information from him, or communicated with him directly, or in any other manner. The Agency never furnished him with any funds or money or compensated him directly or indirectly in any fashion and Lee Harvey Oswald was never associated or connected directly or indirectly in any way whatsoever with the Agency.
One could say he was protecting the organization from either the embarrassment of dropping the ball or from exposure of the complicity in the event. In any case he maintained the time honored CIA tradition of keeping the truth from the public.
Among the 35 who were listed as receiving this information were heads of various divisions and Jane Roman who revealed that the fabled Mexico City trip where Oswald was supposedly making connections for an escape to the Soviet Union never happened.
It was revealed that Reuben Efron had been monitoring Oswald's mail since the summer of 1962. No friend of establishment embarrassing revelations, the New York Times even reported: A spy reporting to top men at the CIA was reading the mail of Kennedy’s reputed killer in the summer of 1962.
In all of the material there was no mention of Oswald being an deranged loner, lunatic or dangerous psychopath. In fact, the CIA's Special Investigations Group – the mole and leak hunters – had 17 entries in his file with five from the the three months preceding the assassination. Oswald was not a source of concern to the spy group, but they knew all about him from where he went to school to previous address, including his time in Russia. They probably knew his shoe size and bank balance as well.
Interestingly John McCone, the CIA director who succeeded Allen Dulles, told the Warren Commission that he knew nothing about this. He testified:
The Agency never contacted him, interviewed him, talked with him, or received or solicited any reports or information from him, or communicated with him directly, or in any other manner. The Agency never furnished him with any funds or money or compensated him directly or indirectly in any fashion and Lee Harvey Oswald was never associated or connected directly or indirectly in any way whatsoever with the Agency.
One could say he was protecting the organization from either the embarrassment of dropping the ball or from exposure of the complicity in the event. In any case he maintained the time honored CIA tradition of keeping the truth from the public.
Among the 35 who were listed as receiving this information were heads of various divisions and Jane Roman who revealed that the fabled Mexico City trip where Oswald was supposedly making connections for an escape to the Soviet Union never happened.