Oswald and U.S. Intelligence

by Christopher Sharrett

1. Oswald had relatives who had worked for the CIA.
   
   
2. Oswald had top secret security clearances while in the Marines, and was at one point stationed at Marine Air Control in the Atsugi Base in Japan. This was a top secret base, from which the CIA launched U-2 flights and performed other covert activities. For example, Oswald’s unit was involved in a “top-secret” project, “Operation Strongback,” a preparation for a coup against the government of Indonesia.
   
   
3. Oswald was later assigned to El Toro Air Station in California with security clearance to work on radar.
   
   
4. Oswald was assigned to study Russian at the special U.S. School of Languages at Monterey, a school which is used to train people selected to do work for the U.S. government.
   
   
5. While at El Toro, Oswald began expressing very openly pro-Russian and pro-communist views. Such expression did not trigger any concern on the part of his Marine superiors, and in no way affected his security clearances.
   
   
6. Oswald obtained a hardship discharge from the Marines within a week of applying for it. The reason given for the application turned out to be false.
   
   
7. Oswald had no visible means of income for his trip to Russia, part of which could not have occurred by commercial transport because of its timing, but could have been accomplished by U.S. military transport.
   
   
8. On defecting to the Soviet Union, Oswald claimed that he intended to give away classified radar information to the Soviets.
   
   
9. No damage assessment was ever undertaken by U.S. intelligence services of the classified information Oswald was supposedly giving to the Russians.
   
   
10. Two and a half years after “defecting” to the Soviet Union, Oswald applied to return to the United States. At the time of Oswald’s application, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow cabled the State Department about his request. Portions of the cable having to do with Oswald’s identity were classified. On receiving his request the State Department ruled that for technical reasons, Oswald’s relinquishing of his U.S. citizenship had not occurred. His return to the U.S. was approved and his travel and moving expenses for returning to the U.S. were funded by the U.S. government. Upon his return, Oswald was greeted not by police officials but by a representative of Traveler’s Aid, who was also a prominent official of an ultra-rightist organization that enjoyed intelligence support.
    
    
11. His Russian-born wife was exempted from usual immigration quotas and the usual waiting period.
    
    
12. Our intelligence agencies never debriefed Oswald with regard to secrets he supposedly passed to the Russians.
    
    
13. No “Look-out Card” was ever filled out on Oswald, a standard procedure for a person who would have been considered a security risk, if his defection was legitimate. Although in the early 1960s the FBI published over a million names of potential subversives, Oswald’s name wasn’t included. Yet Oswald was sufficiently known to our intelligence sources that on June 3, 1960, J. Edgar Hoover wrote a memorandum to the State Department about the fact that someone other than Oswald was using his name as an alias.
    
    
14. On his return to the U.S., Oswald created a public persona for himself as a leftist agitator, but in reality associated with a circle of people who are exclusively anti-communist, right wing activists closely linked to the FBI, the CIA, and U.S. Naval Intelligence, including David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, Guy Banister, George de Mohrenschildt, and Jack Ruby.
    
    
15. In New Orleans Oswald set up his own Fair Play For Cuba Committee without the authorization of the national headquarters of the organization which was based in New York City. Oswald was the only member of his committee and he used as an address the post office box of anti-Castro Cubans in New Orleans. Although he was ostensibly broke, he spent money on FPCC fliers and handbills, one batch of which lists the New Orleans FPCC office as located at 544 Camp Street, the headquarters of New Orleans anti-Castro, right-wing activism in the center of that city’s U.S. government intelligence complex. Although broke, Oswald hired two men to help him distribute his handbills.
    
    
16. In New Orleans, In 1963, Oswald was granted a passport within twenty-four hours of its being requested.
    
    
17. In Texas, he and his family were befriended by members of a right-wing Russian emigré community. The husband of the family with which he lived had a security clearance at Bell Helicopter. His security clearance was not adversely affected by his close association with Oswald.
    
    
18. While some of Oswald’s letters and other writings suggest a subliterate person, other writings, especially letters to leftist groups, suggest a sophisticated, literate person. Either Oswald’s illiteracy was a pose or someone wrote letters for him.
    
    
19. Oswald was regularly monitored by federal agents. When arrested, Oswald had the name, address, and phone number of an FBI agent in his possession. George de Mohrenschildt, Oswald’s closest associate in Dallas, had ties to the CIA, and J. Walton Moore, a CIA agent, asked de Mohrenschildt to stay in contact with Oswald.
    
    
20. Both the FBI and Army Intelligence knew that Oswald used aliases. Army Intelligence in Texas knew Oswald’s aliases and previous addresses, although the Pentagon “routinely” destroyed its files on Oswald. Dallas police officials told the Warren Commission that Oswald was an informant for both the FBI and CIA, information that the Commission termed a “dirty little rumor.” Dallas officials years later retracted the information.

Sources of Information on Oswald

Garrison, Jim. A Heritage of Stone. New York: G.P. Putnam, 1970.

Meagher, Sylvia. Accessories After the Fact: The Warren Commission, the Authorities and the Report. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1967, pp. 210-19, 327-46.
[2007 in print edition
Complete book in multiple formats at Internet Archive.]

Melanson, Philip H. Spy Saga: Lee Harvey Oswald and U.S. Intelligence. New York: Praeger, 1990.
[First 100 pages of a draft mirroring the published form in local copy on ratical]

Scott, Peter Dale. Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

Scott, Peter Dale. The Dallas Conspiracy. Unpublished manuscript, 1970.

Weisberg, Harold. Oswald in New Orleans: Case for Conspiracy with the CIA. New York: Canyon Books, 1967.
[2007 in print edition]