Mexico City

Oswald crossed into Mexico on 26 September and arrived in Mexico City about 10 a.m. the next day. At the Cuban consulate he asked for an in-transit visa to Cuba on the way to the Soviet Union. The Soviets told him a visa would take months. He argued with the Cuban consul, Eusebio Azcue, and left without either visa. [1][2]

The Cuban consulate employee who handled him, Silvia Duran, later gave a statement; her name and phone number were in his address book. [1][3]

The committee concluded that Oswald was in Mexico City and made these visits. Duran was certain it was him. Another consul, Alfredo Mirabal, saw him from about four metres away. The committee’s handwriting panel matched the signature on the visa application to Oswald. [2]

The CIA’s cable to headquarters on 9 October described the American who contacted the Soviet embassy as about 35, six feet tall, athletic and balding. Oswald was 23, slight and had hair. After the assassination the CIA gave the FBI a surveillance photo of this man, and the FBI showed it to Marguerite Oswald, who later said it was Jack Ruby. [1]

The committee found the man “clearly neither Oswald nor Ruby”. It concluded the CIA’s first identification was “a careless mistake”, not evidence of an impostor, and established that the photo was not even taken on a day Oswald visited the Soviet embassy. Nobody has ever identified him. [1]

On 23 November an FBI letterhead memorandum said FBI agents in Dallas who had listened to a CIA recording of the caller and looked at the photo concluded the man was not Oswald. This, the memo said, raised the possibility of an impostor. [1][2]

The committee checked. It found that no tape had been sent to Dallas. An FBI cable of 25 November said “no tapes were taken to Dallas”; only transcripts and the photo went. The committee concluded the agents had not heard any recording. [1]

Hoover told President Johnson on 23 November that the voice on the tape was not Oswald’s, according to the transcript of their call published by the Mary Ferrell Foundation. Whether any recording survived past late 1963 is still argued over. [3]

The committee did take the impostor claims seriously. Azcue testified that the man he dealt with was not the Oswald later shown in the news; he described a man of about 30, around 5 feet 6, with a long face. Duran, who was sure it was Oswald, also recalled a man of 5 feet 6 and 125 pounds with sparse blond hair, which did not match Oswald. But the committee found the weight of the evidence showed Oswald himself made the visits. [1]

Valeriy Kostikov was a Soviet consular officer and a KGB officer. Oswald met him, and later wrote to the Soviet embassy in Washington mentioning a “comrade Kostin”. [1][2][4]

The Senate’s Church committee reported that FBI experts believed Kostikov belonged to the KGB department responsible for assassination and sabotage. The teletype telling FBI headquarters about Oswald’s Mexico City contacts was still sitting on a supervisor’s desk, awaiting action, on 22 November. [1]

A 1982 CIA letter says Kostikov’s membership in that department could not be confirmed. [3]

The committee found the Mexico station told headquarters about Oswald’s Soviet embassy contact but never reported his visa request or his visits to the Cuban consulate before the assassination. [1]

The Church committee found the CIA kept details of its phone taps and photo surveillance from the Warren Commission, partly to protect its sources. [2]

The House committee found no evidence of any relationship between Oswald and the CIA. Its own investigation of the CIA’s Mexico record was overseen on the agency’s side by an officer whose background was hidden from it; see the Joannides file. [3]