JFK Assassination Files: CIA Has No Indication Oswald Was Connected to Cuba, Soviets

CIA Has No Indication Oswald Was Connected to Cuba, Soviets

Newly released documents from the CIA show that the agency did not think Lee Harvey Oswald was working on behalf of Cuba or the Soviet Union to assassinate President John F. Kennedy.

"The whole question of whether Lee Oswald had any secret connection with the Soviets or Cubans in Mexico cannot yet be answered, but certain parts of the evidence indicates to the contrary," one CIA report read.

The CIA found there is "no credible evidence" in their files that would appear to link Oswald with the Cuban government or the Cuban intelligence service.

Cuban consular employee Silvia Duran, who was interviewed by authorities, said she recognized Oswald after he was named Kennedy's assassin. She said Oswald went to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico to apply for a Cuban transit visa.

Duran also said she worked with the Soviet Consulate to find out whether Oswald had a Soviet visa. She confirmed that Oswald was in Mexico to get a Cuban visa so he could wait in Cuba for his Soviet visa.

"The reaction within the Cuban Embassy to the new of President Kennedy's death was sincere," the report stated.

The CIA also did not believe Oswald was a Soviet operative.

"Certainly if Oswald has been a Soviet agent in training for an assassination assignment or even for sabotage work, the Soviets would have stopped him from making open visits and phone calls to the Soviet's Embassy in Mexico after he tried it a couple of times," the document read.

While the Soviet's do make mistakes and are "insecure" in their methods, the CIA said their experience studying Soviet intelligence services at close range in Mexico shows the Soviets "do not persists in such glaring errors."

Would-Be Assassin Arrested 62 Years Ago Today

About three years before Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated former President John F. Kennedy in 1963, another man attempted to assassinate Kennedy before his presidential inauguration could take place.

The man, identified as Richard Paul Pavlick, was a postal worker on December 11, 1960 when he planned to assassinate the then-president elect by blowing up his postal service vehicle, according to The Smithsonian.

Kennedy was in Palm Beach, Florida with his family at the time. Pavlick did not intend on surviving the explosion.

Pavlick had planned to detonate the explosive material in his vehicle while he was parked near Kennedy, but when Pavlick noticed Kennedy's family was also vacationing with Kennedy in Florida, Pavlick decided to abandon the plan, according to The Smithsonian. Palm Beach police officers arrested Pavlick four days later based on a tip they had received from the U.S. Secret Service.

CIA Had 'Electric' Reaction to Oswald's Role

Agents with the CIA had an "electric" reaction to learning that Lee Harvey Oswald was the person responsible for the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, according to new documents released Thursday by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

Their reaction was noted in a report on the time Oswald spent in Mexico City in early October of 1963. The 23-page CIA report is part of the 12,879 documents that NARA released Thursday. The agency says more than 97 percent of the estimated 5 million pages officials have related to the assassination are now public.

The report, which was dated December 13, 1963, starts with the CIA saying agents intercepted a call between Oswald, who was in Mexico City at the time, and the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. A few days later, the CIA said it sent word about the call to the FBI, the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Navy. The report explains that immigration officials were also notified because Oswald had previously defected from the U.S.

The CIA said in its report that it was unaware at the time whether the agencies it alerted took any action in response to the news of Oswald's call to the Soviet Embassy.

The next section of the report jumps ahead to the day of the assassination.

"When word of the shooting of President Kennedy reached the offices of our operating divisions and staffs on the afternoon of Friday 22 November 1963, transistor radios were turned on everywhere to follow the tragedy," the report said. "When the name of Lee OSWALD was heard, the effect was electric."

Agents familiar with the call Oswald made weeks earlier in Mexico City sent messages to remind CIA officials of the October report, as did officials in Mexico City, the document says.

Over the next several days, the CIA's station in Mexico City reviewed telephone conversations it had previously intercepted and "came up with several more conversations probably involving OSWALD, but not actually mentioning this name," the report said. Those additional conversations "connected him also to the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City," it added.

Oswald's suspected role in those phone conversations was based on "similarity of speech and various plain points of content," the report said. The conversations involved discussions about an American trying to obtain Soviet and Cuban visas, according to call summaries included in the report.

CIA Intercepted 'Significant' Call Oswald Made in Mexico

One of the newly-released JFK assassination documents recounts how the CIA produced a "very significant" piece of information on Lee Harvey Oswald before Kennedy was killed.

The CIA station in Mexico City intercepted a phone call Lee Harvey Oswald made to the Soviet Union embassy in Mexico City on Oct. 1 1963.

According to the document, Oswald spoke in broken Russian and used his real name on the call. He said he visited the embassy and spoke to a consul the previous Saturday, Sept. 28, 1963. Oswald wanted to know if there was "anything new" regarding a telegram the consul promised to send for Oswald to Washington.

The guard on the other end of the call said the message went out but no answer had been received.

According to the document, this information was obtained by a "highly secret" telephone tap center the CIA operates jointly with the President of Mexico that is unknown to Mexican law enforcement officials.

This call was transcribed and reviewed by the CIA's Mexico City staff by Oct. 9 and sent to Washington.

"The name Lee Oswald meant nothing special to out Mexico City Station, but in their report they did judge him to be an American male," the document states.

Officials in Washington were able to confirm this was the same Lee Oswald who defected to the Soviet Union in 1959 and returned to the U.S. in 1962.

The next day, the CIA send the report of the call to the FBI, State Department and Navy Department, noting that Oswald was probably the same defector.

The Mexico City office also gave the CIA a photograph of what appeared to be an American man leaving the Soviet embassy on Oct. 1, 1963, the day Oswald was there. The photograph was "secretly" taken during "a very sensitive operation" canvasing the embassy.

While the CIA cabled the Navy Department to send a photo of Oswald from his Marine Corp days to compare, the photograph was not received by Nov. 22, 1963, the day Kennedy was killed. It turned out, however, the man photographed outside the embassy that day was not Oswald. According to the document, none of the photo observation points in Mexico City ever captured an identifiable picture of Oswald.

As of Dec. 13, 1963 when this document was written, the CIA did not know what actions the FBI or other agencies took after receiving this report. The CIA said it believes the FBI may have made local checks throughout Mexico to confirm whether Oswald was in Mexico City on Oct. 1. Later investigations did confirm the details of his trip, including what he did and where he stayed, before leaving on Oct. 3.

Two Attempts on JFK's Life Stopped in Chicago

President John F. Kennedy was the target of several assassination attempts during his time in office, ABC News found.

There were more than a half-dozen attempts of Kennedy's life, including two in Chicago, IL when he visited the city weeks before he will killed in Dallas, TX.

Retired Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden told WLS-TV that authorities in Tampa and Miami, FL uncovered a plan to kill the president just days before the attack in Dallas occurred.

"When that bullet struck the head of the president, it struck me too, because I saw it coming," Bolden said in 2007. He added that he had tried to warn his supervisors about the brewing assassination threats, including a pair of plots that targeted JFK in Chicago.

Kennedy was supposed to attend the Army-Air Force football game in Chicago on Nov. 23, 1963, but the trip was called off at the last minute due to two secret threats.

One was made by right-wing radical and Kennedy critic Thomas Vallee, who was arrested with an M1 rifle and 3,000 rounds of ammo. The other plot was exposed when a motel manager reported what she saw in a room rented by two Cuban nationals.

Bolden said the women found several automatic rifles with telescopic sight and an outline of Kennedy's planned route, "that would bring him past that building."

Today's Release to Include 12,879 Documents

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) said 12,879 documents will be included in the Thursday release of files pertaining to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy.

The documents will be available for the public to view on the NARA website, the agency said.

President Joe Biden said Thursday that about 70 percent of nearly 16,000 documents that were previously released with redactions "may now be released in full." Biden said it is "necessary" to continue postponing the full release of other documents, a decision that was made in collaboration with NARA and other U.S. government agencies.

NARA's entire collection of JFK assassination files contains about 5 million pages, most of which have been accessible to the public since the 1990s, according to a Thursday press release issued by the agency. With Thursday's release of files, "over 97% of records in the collection are now available," the agency said.

Biden Carves Path for All Files to be Publicly Released

President Joe Biden said his administration is working on a path for all classified information related to the JFK assassination to be publicly released, after he temporarily postponed the release of certain documents.

The president said that after agencies conduct their next review of the redacted information, they will prepare a plan for the eventual release of records to ensure that information "would continue to be disclosed over time as the identified harm associated with release of the information dissipates."

These "Transparency Plans" will detail the event-based or circumstance-based conditions that will allow for the public disclosure of currently postponed information by the National Declassification Center (NDC) at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

The NARA will review the plans to ensure "appropriate continued release of information" covered by the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.

Biden Postpones Disclosure of Some Files

President Joe Biden said he is releasing most, but not all, of the 16,000 records related to the John F. Kennedy assassination.

Upon review, Biden said more than 70 percent of the remaining records may now be released in full today, Dec. 15, 2022.

"This significant disclosure reflects my Administration's commitment to transparency and will provide the American public with greater insight and understanding of the Government's investigation into this tragic event in American history," he said in a memo Thursday afternoon.

Agencies and the National Archive did, however, identify a "limited" number of records that contain information that should continue to be classified.

Biden agrees with the Acting Archivists' recommendation to postpone the public disclosure of certain information until next year.

While he believes in transparency with the public, Biden said the need to protect against "identifiable harm" to military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement or the conduct of foreign relations outweighs the public's interest in the disclosure of such files.

That information will remain classified until June 30, 2023.

Agencies will have until May 1, 2023 to review the remaining redactions in the records and determine if they should be disclosed to the public. Continued postponement after that date will only happen if necessary to protect against harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement or the conduct of foreign relations.

This release comes after Biden temporarily postponed the release of certain documents in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden directed the completion of "an intensive 1-year review" of each remaining proposed redaction to ensure that the U.S. government "maximizes transparency by disclosing all information in records related to the assassination, except in cases when the strongest possible reasons counsel otherwise."

Records Agency to Post Files Soon

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) responded Thursday to queries on social media regarding when the latest batch of files pertaining to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy will be released.

One Twitter user asked Thursday morning if NARA had released any of the documents yet, noting the nearly six decades the American public has waited to view all of the information.

"Records will be posted online later this afternoon, Thursday, December 15," NARA tweeted in response. The agency then shared a link to its online President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection, which NARA said includes past document releases.

The agency shared the same response with a reporter who asked if the records release would happen Thursday as anticipated.

President Joe Biden approved the release of some documents last year and ordered NARA to review the files that remain inaccessible to the public before early September of this year, after which he said another data release would take place on December 15, 2022. While some documents may still be withheld or redacted, thousands of others are expected to be shared as part of the latest unveiling.

Files Reportedly Show Oswald's CIA Ties

Reporter Jefferson Morley said last week that documents show Lee Harvey Oswald was part of a CIA operation shortly before he assassinated former President John F. Kennedy.

Morley, who advocates for the release of files related to the assassination with the Mary Ferrell Foundation, said during a December 6 press conference in Washington, D.C. that he recently reviewed files related to the CIA operation. He gained access to the material after the nonprofit filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden and the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration in October. The lawsuit was part of their effort to unseal documents that have thus far been inaccessible to the public.

The operation in question was still classified, but Morley said it received approval from senior officials with the CIA about three months before Kennedy died. Oswald may have been used for intelligence, Morley said. He described Oswald's involvement in the operation as having "profound implications for the official story" of Kennedy's death.

"The CIA knew far more about the lone gunman than they are admitting even today," Morley said.

Former CIA Director Richard Helms said back in the 1970s that Oswald was "never used" by the agency, a comment that appears to contradict the content of the documents Morley said he reviewed.

There has been widespread speculation about Oswald's role as a lone shooter who is said to have carried out the 1963 assassination on his own. Many people who have followed the release of various JFK assassination files over the years are curious to find out if Thursday's document release will clarify what connections Oswald had, if any, to the CIA or other government agencies at the time of the killing.

Trump Kept Some Files Classified Over National Security Concerns

Former President Donald Trump delayed the release of classified government documents regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy during his time in the White House, citing national security concerns.

Two batches of files were released to the public during Trump's time in office; once in 2017 and once in 2018. This came as the 25-year deadline to release the documents set forth in 1992 ended. The law does, however, allow for extensions to be granted concerns, including national security.

In 2018, Trump further delayed the full release of the JFK assassination records until 2021, at the latest. He agreed with the CIA and FBI that the full release of the records could bring national security concerns.

"I agree with the Archivist's recommendation that the continued withholdings are necessary to protect against identifiable harm to national security, law enforcement, or foreign affairs that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure," Trump wrote in a memorandum released by the White House.

This comes as President Joe Biden is only expected to release about half of the remaining 16,000 files Thursday.

In 2018, Trump added that the need for the continued protection of the documents, "can only grow weaker with the passage of time."

A year earlier, Trump promised to release all of the files for reasons of "full disclosure, transparency and in order to put any and all conspiracy theories to rest."

Trump said he would keep names and addresses of living persons redacted. He then directed all agencies that requested redactions to reassess the reasons for keeping the files classified and said he would make a decision on those requestions within 180 days.

After he kept some files secret in the 2017 dump, Trump said he would release more of the documents.

"JFK Files are being carefully released," he tweeted. "In the end there will be great transparency. It is my hope to get just about everything to public!"

Biden Calls Release 'Critical' for Transparency

In a memorandum released in October 2021, President Joe Biden said the release of files related to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy is "critical" to governmental transparency.

In 1992, Congress passed the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act to order that all files related to his death be "eventually disclosed" to the public. Some documents that were previously withheld from the public have been released over the last several years, but there remain some files that are still inaccessible to the public.

Biden said in his memorandum last year that arguments in support of cloaking the files in secrecy have "only grown weaker" over time.

"It is therefore critical to ensure that the United States Government maximizes transparency, disclosing all information in records concerning the assassination, except when the strongest possible reasons counsel otherwise," Biden's memorandum said.

Some documents were released last year, but the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) told Biden officials needed more time to review the files due to impacts the coronavirus pandemic had on the agency. Biden then ordered a "more comprehensive release" take place one year later, on December 15, 2022.

Over the last year, NARA officials were told to continue reviewing the documents previously withheld from the public to determine which they could release. Other agencies that wanted to keep certain files under wraps or redact information contained within them could request to do so if continued protection of that information was argued to be "necessary to protect against an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure," according to the memorandum.

NARA was instructed to assess each continued protection request through early September of this year. NARA was able to approve or reject requested redactions, with the requesting agency then able to petition the president to consider keeping the files from the public if their request was not approved.

The "more comprehensive" set of files is expected to be released Thursday afternoon.

Lawyer Sues Biden, National Archives to Release All JFK Files

A New York lawyer filed a lawsuit in October asking President Joe Biden and the National Archives to release all 16,000 classified documents related to President John F. Kennedy's assassination.

Larry Schnapf told Newsy that his sources within the National Archives said there will be a "significant release," but that the CIA is still requesting a postponement.

"I don't think anyone thinks there's going to be a smoking gun that's released," he said. "That's going to answer the question about who killed the president. Because, you know, if there was a conspiracy, say, amongst rogue elements of the CIA, they would not have put anything in writing."

The National Archives is expected to only release about half of the remaining 16,000 classified documents.

U.S. Federal Judge John Tunheim, the former Chairman of the Assassination Records Review Board, wrote to Biden earlier this month asking he release all remaining redacted information in the records related to the assassination of President Kennedy.

"Please exercise your authority to bring transparency and finality to this ordeal," he wrote in a letter. "It is long-passed time to come clean and be able to tell Americans that nothing is being hidden from them and that they have access to the federal government's entire record of the JFK assassination."

The lawsuit was filed on Oct. 19 by the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a non-profit archive with the internet's largest collection of searchable JFK records.

According to a press release, Biden failed to implement the 1992 JFK Records Act by not releasing all of the documents. This has resulted in "confusion, gaps in the records, over-classification and outright denial of thousands of assassination-related files, five years after the law's deadline for full disclosure." the Mary Ferrell Foundation said.

Schnapf said he thinks the CIA may have hid evidence it had on the "operational interests" of Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the murder.

"At the very least, they were aware of him," he said. "And if, in fact, he was the alleged assassin, perhaps they could have, you know, stopped him."

The files on deceased CIA agent George Joannides, who served as a liaison to a special House committee in the 1970s that re-investigated Kennedy's murder, are of a particular interest to Schnapf. Joannides reportedly led spy operations to overthrow Cuba's Fidel Castro during the Kennedy administration, which led members of Congress to allege he had a blatant conflict of interest.

"There's a possibility that the CIA in particular may have had an interest in Oswald and that the reason that they held back records is because it would be embarrassing for them if that information came out," Schnapf said.

Over 70% of Voters Want Files Released, Poll

More than seven in 10 voters said they want all of the files related to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy released, according to a poll conducted last month in association with the Mary Ferrell Foundation.

The poll followed a lawsuit the nonprofit filed against President Joe Biden and the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration in October as part of a wider effort to get the documents released.

Pollsters asked respondents whether they believe Biden "should" release all of the remaining files related to the assassination "or postpone their release if the CIA or FBI ask him to do so." The poll's results said 71 percent of respondents said Biden "should release all of the withheld JFK assassination files" on Thursday. Biden declared in October 2021 that more files would be released on December 15, 2022.

Ten percent of respondents said they think Biden "should continue postponing" the release of the files, and another 19 percent did not share an opinion, according to the poll.

The survey was conducted among registered voters between November 14 and 22 in English and Spanish. Pollsters reported a 2.2 percent margin of error with a 95 percent confidence level in the results.

Files May Provide Context on Oswald Communist Ties

The Kennedy assassination has bred widespread conspiracy theories for decades, as people cast doubt on the government's official account of the killing.

While today's file dump may not provide any bombshells conspiracists may hope for, like a secret mob plot to kill the president or a murder carried out on orders of his Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson or the Pentagon to stall the U.S. pullout from Vietnam, it will likely clear up some lingering questions surrounding the president's death.

Not much about Kennedy's assassination is known. According to the 1964 Warren Commission report, the government's official recanting of the day's events, Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald after a series of shots were fired from the sixth-floor window at the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald was later killed by Jack Ruby, a mob-connected business owner, though there was no evidence Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign.

In 1975, the Rockefeller Commission found "no credible evidence of any CIA involvement" in Kennedy's death and an additional investigation four years later by the House Select Committee on Assassinations largely backed the Warren Commission but noted there is a "high probability that two gunmen fired at President Kennedy."

The latest document release could add some more context. For example, some believe the material could provide more information about a trip Oswald, a self-proclaimed Marxist, took to the Soviet Union in 1959, where he lived for for several years.

Oswald also visited the Cuban and Russian embassies in Mexico City just two months before Kennedy was killed. The reason for these visits are still unclear. There are documents that detail Oswald's ties to the Communist Party in Cuba and the Soviet Union.

The new files could also provide information on Oswald's potential motive for murdering Kennedy.

Jefferson Morley, a leading expert on the Kennedy assassination, spoke with Newsweek earlier this year. Morley believes there was evidence the CIA not only knew of Oswald prior to the shooting, but that Oswald had actually been involved in an official operation by the CIA, suggesting the agency's former director misled members of Congress in a 1975 hearing on the case.

Most credible experts do not believe there was a massive coverup of a secret government plot to kill the president. But the release of these files may shed some light on what the CIA and other official knew about Oswald at the time.

"Why would they want to hide that? Because it's embarrassing," Larry Schnapf, a professor of law at New York Law School who has led lawsuits into the JFK documents, told Newsweek earlier this month. "But embarrassment is specifically a term the JFK Records Act provides for. It says that embarrassment is not grounds for postponement."

National Archives to Release About 8,000 New Documents

The National Archives is expected to release about 8,000 documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy Thursday afternoon.

The previously-classified files will likely reveal background information on assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, including the so-called 201 "personality" file the CIA maintained. Portions of this 50,000-page profile, containing virtually everything the CIA learned about Oswald before and after the assassination, were made public years ago.

Officials involved in the negotiations among the White House, National Archives and the CIA told Politico that the document release today will be the most significant since 2017. The officials, however, said they do not expect the new information to include any "obvious bombshells" to please conspiracy theorists, but will still connect some of the dots about one of the most significant days in U.S. history.

The release today may also include information on the CIA's surveillance of Oswald's trip to Mexico City in September 1963, weeks before the assassination. It may also include details on the CIA veteran who led the 1970s House committee re-investigating the murder with a blatant conflict of interest involving work done to overthrow Cuba's Fidel Castro.