WEBVTT - The Patsy 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:14.160 On October twenty first, nineteen fifty nine, four years before 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.960 the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, an next marine 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:21.919 by the name of Lee Harvey Oswald sat alone in 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:25.600 a hotel room in Moscow, the heart of the Soviet Union, 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:30.240 just weeks shy of his twentieth birthday, Oswald was attempting 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:34.160 to renounce his American citizenship and defect to the Soviet Union. 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:37.519 After a few days of waiting, he finally received a 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.640 letter informing him that his request had been denied. A 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.639 Soviet official was on the way to escort him out 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.680 of the country. Disturbed by the news, Oswald made a decision. 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:53.159 He walked into the bathroom ran himself a bath. As 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.200 steam filled the room, he got into the tub, grabbed 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:01.560 a razor, and proceeded to carefully cut into his wrist. 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:07.600 As the bathwater turned red, Oswald closed his eyes and waited. 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:13.680 This is who killed jfk Sixty years later? What can 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.959 we uncover about the greatest murder mystery in American history? 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:21.559 And why does it still matter today? I'm your host, 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:22.640 Solidad O'Brien. 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:29.160 In the last episode, we heard about how the Warren 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:32.800 Commission had manipulated evidence in order to prove that Lee 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:36.480 Harvey Oswald was the lone gun since they claimed that 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:40.080 only three shots were fired from behind and one had missed. 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:44.440 That left two shots. The third shot was the fatal 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.840 shot to the President's head. The second shot came to 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:51.640 be known as the single bullet theory. The Warren Commission 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:56.200 claimed that this magic bullet entered the President's back, went 0:01:56.440 --> 0:02:00.840 up and out his throat, then hit Connolly in his armpit, 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:05.400 then his ribs, then his wrist, and then his thigh. 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:08.800 The majority of the Parkland doctors who tended to Kennedy 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:13.400 contradicted this. They said that the President's wounds were a 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:17.200 result of shots that came from the front, which clearly 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:21.639 points to shooters in locations other than the sixth floor 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.160 of the Texas school Book Depository, and that would mean 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.560 that whatever Lee Harvey Oswald was doing that day, he 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:29.800 wasn't doing it alone. 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:34.920 Regardless, the record shows that on September twenty fourth, nineteen 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:39.799 sixty four, the Warren Commission presented their evidence and formally 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:44.800 named Lee Harvey Oswald the lone Gunman, which is the 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.480 story that persists today right. 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:52.200 The Commission painted Oswald as a loaner a mentally ill 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:57.080 Soviet empathizer, an ex marine with an agenda. Even before 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:00.840 the Warren Commission report was released, the public was fed 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:05.440 a steady diet of press stories about Oswald the deranged 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:06.240 lone gunman. 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:11.040 Less than forty eight hours after the shooting, Dallas District 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:15.160 Attorney Henry Wade boasted that he had quote sent men 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:18.399 to the electric chair with less evidence. He went even 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:23.079 further to say the following about Oswald quote, I would 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.200 say that without any doubt, he is the killer. There 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:28.880 is no question that he was the killer of President Kennedy. 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.760 And then on December tenth, less than three weeks after 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.840 the murder, the New York Times headline read quote Oswald 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:40.000 assassin beyond a doubt, FBI concludes. 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.280 And here's where I think it's important to dig into 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:48.440 this historic moment. The only other murder of a president 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:52.280 that carries a similar historic weight is the murder of 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:56.680 President Lincoln, almost one hundred years earlier. But with Lincoln, 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.960 there were no TV cameras covering moment to moment updates 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.160 like there were in the Kennedy assassination. There were no 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.120 kids like Rob Reiner who were sent home from school 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:09.640 and then sat glued to their TVs to watch the 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:15.240 whole thing unfold. The public wanted answers, and in that vacuum, 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:17.120 a story began to unfold. 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:21.640 And it wasn't until years later, after a great deal 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:26.760 of investigating, that a much different story would unfold. And 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:30.640 that story starts with the words of Lee Harvey. 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:35.560 Oswell, I'm just a pat of President. I'm just a patsy. 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:38.640 A patsy is a guy who takes the fall for 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:43.320 somebody else's scheme, a person who's manipulated into a position 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:45.679 that ultimately leaves them powerless. 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:47.480 If you don't. 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:52.120 Learn who Lee Harvey Oswell really was, there's no way 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.040 you can understand what happened on that day. 0:04:55.480 --> 0:05:00.360 I'd like to understand more about who Oswald was, his child, 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.360 what motivated him, But kind of like I guess I'm 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.560 asking for pop psych one oh one on Oswald. 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:10.559 Oswald grew up in a broken home. 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:11.960 That's Dick Russell. 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.040 He never knew his father, who had died before he 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:19.440 was born in nineteen thirty nine. His mother, Marguerite, placed 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.800 him at a very young age in New Orleans with 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.400 his two older brothers, and so he spent time in 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:27.359 Foster care when he was very young. 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:31.520 Did he stay in New Orleans his entire childhood? 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:34.400 He ends up kind of bouncing around with his mother 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.120 between various places, and when he's thirteen years old, they 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:40.839 moved to New York City. Well, according to the official 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.120 Warren Commission record, he stayed away from school and there 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:46.039 were truancy charges that came. 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:47.360 Up against him. 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:50.520 So in the spring of nineteen fifty three he was 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.200 remanded to a place called the Youth House in New 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:57.480 York for psychiatric observation, and the chief psychiatrist there was 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.000 a man who would later testify before the Warren Committed. 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.279 His name was doctor Renatus Hartogs. 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.560 Hello, doctor Harthogs. Yeah, oh, yes, this is Dick Russell. 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.720 I'm the writer who called you the other day. So 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:14.320 tell me what's on your mind. Okay, I'm as I said. 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:15.839 Doing some research. 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.400 Into the Warrant Commission, a Heartthog said Oswald had a cold, 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:23.719 detached outer attitude and viewed his life in sort of 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.360 a non participating fashion. He had a vivid fantasy life 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:31.960 and turning around topics of omnipotence and power. So Heartog 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.760 said he had diagnosed the teenage Oswald as a kid 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:41.960 with personality pattern disturbance, schizoid features, and passive aggressive tendencies. 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:47.400 Hearthogs testified that Oswald's psyche was so abnormal that he 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:51.080 wanted to continue to examine them, and he did so. 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.919 He placed the teenage Oswald in a three week study. 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:59.200 And here you have the beginning of a narrative that 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:00.359 starts to develop. 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:05.040 But that narrative, and really everything we hear from Heartthogs 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.360 has to be understood through the lens of who Heartthogs 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.840 actually was. So let's look deeper into his past and 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:13.400 the people he associated with. 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:18.400 Today's my eighty sixth birthday. So today is I'm an 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:22.400 happy birthday. I'm an old man. So see, I'd also 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.400 heard that you didn't you work in the fifties with 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:30.920 doctor Malletts. Doctor who Sidney Malletts. No, I didn't know 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:33.320 the name. 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:34.440 Sounds familiar to me. 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:40.000 But he worked at Columbia Presbyterian. Oh no, no, really not. 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:46.320 Okay, all right, what Heartogs was telling me was not true. 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.120 Sydney Malletts, who was a professor of psychology at the time, 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.200 was under contract for the CIA, and evidence shows that 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:58.520 Hertogs worked closely with doctor Malletts on a hypnosis program 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.320 that was highly classified. Our dogs would tell the Commission 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:06.920 that he found Oswald's personality so intriguing that he chose 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:08.680 him for a seminar subject. 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:10.760 What do you mean by the. 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.640 CIA was working with troubled kids, finding troubled kids in 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:18.440 various places and grooming them in different ways, and they 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:20.720 would track them over the years to see if at 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:24.520 some point they might be useful. Not too long before 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.880 he died, I had a long interview with Sidney Gottlieb, 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.559 who ran the CIA's Technical Services Division from the early 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:35.200 fifties into the nineteen seventies. He told me about how 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:39.400 the government experimented with LSD after it was introduced to 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:41.520 the States in nineteen forty eight, so. 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.920 It's factly nothing known about it at this time. We 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.560 decided a group of people and myself that we needed 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.040 simply to find out a lot about this material in 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:56.800 a hurry, and that's what led. 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:01.480 Kalpa Mkultra is a code name for an illegal human 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:06.360 experimentation program designed by the CIA. The goal was to 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:10.040 find a way to control the human mind, and they 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.440 were experimenting also with so called brainwashing. 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:18.160 So it's like most government programs. It took off and 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.800 it got going, you know, and then it was hard 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:22.320 to stop it. 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.960 They gave LSD to the subjects without their consent, along 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:32.280 with electroshocks, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.840 and other forms of torture. I ushed to muse a 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.559 lot about boy, this is the only place you can 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:42.280 do illegal things. Lee on in a way? Is this great? 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.360 And you got the whole blessings of this puncil gufflement? 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:49.560 So are you saying you think Lee Harvey Oswald might 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:53.680 have been part of the MK ultra program. 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.840 There's no way to know for certain, but it seems 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:00.240 this was the backdrop against which Oswald and other young 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:01.480 people were cultivated. 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.880 What we know for sure is that Oswald had a 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:09.719 troubled past, and after being studied by doctor Hartogs, at 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:13.600 age sixteen, he tried to enlist in the Marines. He 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:17.280 wanted to serve his country. He was turned down, and 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:19.840 then the next year he tried again and this time 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:20.560 he got in. 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:22.360 Where's he sent? 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:26.520 First September of nineteen fifty seven, He's assigned to the 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:30.600 Atsugi Naval Air Base just outside Tokyo. In the years 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:34.520 after World War Two, Japan became ground zero for Cold 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:38.120 War espionage, and at Sugi was the American base in 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:42.120 the area. It was a hotbed of activity. There were 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.760 a number of intelligence groups operating out of Tokyo, including 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:49.800 the CIA and a group known as Field Operations Intelligence 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:54.160 or FOI. I'll get into FOI later. At Sugi is 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:58.440 where U two spyplanes were stationed to fly secret missions 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:03.280 over the Soviet Union. Oswald became a radar operator and 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:05.560 would certainly have been privy to the fact that these 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.480 U two planes were flying out of Atsugi and going 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:10.400 on these missions. 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.360 Yeah, and even though he's just a radar operator, you know, 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:17.520 kind of a low level guy. Oswald is hanging out 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.200 at a place called the Queen Bee, which is one 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:24.440 of the most expensive exclusive nightclubs in Tokyo. 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.880 Oswald was earning less than eighty five dollars a month 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.280 and take home pay. And typically you'd go to the 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:33.520 Queen Bee and it would cost you sixty five to 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:36.800 one hundred dollars for the night. Oswald he didn't have 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:38.959 any of the money to do that. I mean, it 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.800 was it was basically a night spot that catered to pilots, 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.040 including the U two officers, not marine privates. 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.760 So you have this young marine who didn't finish high school, 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:53.720 this odd ball loaner, hanging out at an exclusive officers club. 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:55.360 What is he doing there? 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:57.520 What was he doing there? 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:00.480 Well, one night, he's having a good time. I'm he's 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:04.240 spending time with a beautiful Japanese woman when he is 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:09.600 spotted by an intelligence officer named Richard case Nagel, someone 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:11.320 that we're going to hear a lot. 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:12.960 About throughout the podcast. 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:17.160 I interviewed Nagel throughout the nineteen seventies, eighties, and nineties, 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:19.600 and I eventually wrote a book about him called The 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:22.400 Man Who Knew Too Much For Now. All you need 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.280 to know is that in the late fifties he was 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:29.520 working for an intelligence group called Field Operations Intelligence, operating 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.560 out of Tokyo. Nagel told me that both he and 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:35.760 Oswald later became part of an operation that tried to 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:40.120 convince a Soviet colonel named Nikolai Erashkin to defect to 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:43.960 the United States. It was an intelligence priority to try 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.120 to get high level Soviets to defect, and Oswald was 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:51.920 part of this. Were they successful, No, But Oswald was 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:54.160 doing more than just trying to meet women at the 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:58.240 Queen Bee. His odd tenure in the Marines was just 0:12:58.360 --> 0:12:59.120 getting started. 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.439 After a SUGI, didn't he go back to the United 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:03.920 States for a little while. 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:09.120 He goes home shortly before Christmas on nineteen fifty eight, 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:12.240 and he spends a month's leave with his mother and 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:15.840 then he reports to Marine Air Control Squadron number nine 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:19.360 in Santa Ana, California. The Marines who served with him 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:24.160 there said that they often called him Comrade Oswaldkovich because 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:27.880 he would you start talking about the wonders of Karl Marx. 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:31.680 Another Marine who was stationed with him by named David Bucknell, 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:33.560 said that Oswald told him he was going to be 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:36.480 discharged and he was going to Russia to go to 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:38.680 work on an assignment for American intelligence. 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.080 And then there's Tosh Plumley. 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:45.800 Tosh Plumley worked for the US Army and Military Intelligence 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:49.480 in the nineteen fifties. In the sixties he became a 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.720 CIA operative. He was a mercenary pilot. 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:57.439 Nineteen fifty nine was the beginning of NIXA at North Carolina. 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:04.160 That was propaganda training operations, illusionary warfare training, and the 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:08.520 object there was training us to take over communication sites 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:10.640 and a spread propaganda. 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:12.600 Was that the first time you met Oswald. 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:15.320 Yeah, that's when I first run into Lee. 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:19.560 And at that point you knew that you were an 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:20.920 operative for the CIA. 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:23.640 I knew I was in special ops, but I wasn't 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:28.080 sure I knew something something funny was going on. Of course, 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:30.560 in those days, you got to take into account that 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.280 we figured whatever the government told us and whatever military 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:36.360 told us, and whatever was printed in the media was 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:37.320 gospel truth. 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:39.040 Was Oswald part of that. 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.120 I was under the impression that Lee he was an 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:46.040 operative and he was being trained for a specific operation. 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:48.440 I was under the impression at that point that this man, 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:52.400 this kid that I met my age, was part of 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:57.120 the old original recruitment of young teenagers getting in trouble. 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.560 Now, it wasn't only Plumbley who said this, Victor Marquetti, 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:04.160 who was a CIA official who then wrote a very 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:07.240 well known book in the nineteen seventies that exposed a 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:08.880 lot of things as CIA didn't want out. 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.800 The book is called The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence. 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.280 It refers to itself as quote the first book the 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:20.080 US government ever went to court to censor before publication. 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.240 The program in North Carolina was designed to leave the 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:28.880 impression that these young, troubled men had become Communist sympathizers 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:33.240 to make them appear to be disenchanted with the American system. 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:37.480 Marquetti's book alleges that in nineteen fifty nine, the US 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:40.840 was struggling to get information out of the Soviet Union, 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.840 so they ran this operation out of Nag's head on 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:46.440 about forty young men. 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:51.400 The CIA was trying to gain an advantage against the Soviets. 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.000 They wanted to have a group of young men under 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:56.800 their control to be thought of as read so they 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:00.040 cultivated these young men to look like legitimate commune and 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.800 as sympathizers for potential use in covert operations. 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:06.200 And Lee Harvey Oswald was. 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:10.320 There primarily he was recruited I think at that point 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:14.520 in time to be a defector, disgruntled person to go 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:19.880 to Russia. And I think that you too, assignment was 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.400 a cover in order to get him into Russia. 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:26.480 So two different people who knew him and the Marines 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.800 say the same thing that Oswald was preparing to defect 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:34.800 to the USSR as a fake defector. So how exactly 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:38.320 does the U two assignment factor into that? 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:39.400 Well? 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:43.080 Having information about the United States top secret spy plane 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:48.080 establishes him as a potential high value asset to the KGB. 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.000 Now you combine that with the fact that he's learning Russian, 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:56.680 he's preaching Mars, and he appears to be unhappy with America. 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.960 Oswald then requests a dependency discharge to take care of 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:03.880 his mother, where they grant the discharge to him three 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:05.800 months ahead of when he's scheduled to be released from 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:08.720 the Marines. And what does he do on the day 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:11.600 he's discharged from the Marines. Does he go to take 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:15.119 care of his mother. No, he picks up a new passport. 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:31.720 So he's about to go to Russia, yes, ma'am. 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:36.360 On September tenth, nineteen fifty nine, Oswald sails from New 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.640 Orleans to London and then he catches a flight from 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:43.879 London to Helsinki, Finland. After waiting five days for his 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:48.440 passport to arrive, he takes a train from Finland to Moscow. 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.840 When Oswald leaves the US, he's got a bank account 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:55.119 that has a little more than two hundred dollars and 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.399 the trip is going to cost at least fifteen hundred dollars. 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:03.879 So is the assumption here that US intelligence is actually 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:05.680 secretly footing the bill. 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.960 Not only footing the bill, but guiding him on where 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.440 to go, how to cross the border, and he. 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:15.760 Seemed to know exactly what route to take. 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:20.240 According to people like David Talbot, all of this starts 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:21.840 to paint a clear picture. 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.320 He was inserted, I believe as a spy. He was 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:29.840 a false de factor. There's actual proof that Oswald was 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:30.240 a spy. 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:34.040 You were told by people in the Tokyo station that 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.240 Oswald had been sent to Russia on a CIA mission. 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:41.600 When I first heard this, I didn't really believe it, 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:46.480 uh huh, And then I started getting curious. 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:51.960 Nineteen seventy six, I interviewed CIA officer James Wilcott at 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.200 the time Oswald was there. He worked in the finance 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:59.119 department of the CIA stationed in Tokyo. He issued checks 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.359 to secret agents, although they were all listed under code 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:06.240 names under oath. He told the House Select Committee on 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:09.959 Assassinations that he was aware that Oswald was a paid 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:11.440 agent for the CIA. 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:16.800 I paid out fun for Oswald over some period of 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:22.400 time for the Oshald project, and the story I got 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:25.800 was that he was sent to the Soviet Union as 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:26.760 a double agent. 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.359 So there are marines saying Oswald told them he was 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:33.359 going to be a fake defector and now a CIA accountant, 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:37.879 saying he actually paid Oswald if Oswald was employed by 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:41.960 the CIA, something they denied for decades. How was that 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:43.600 not headline news? 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:49.359 The New York Time really really distorted and wanted my 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.960 testimony that I gave before the House Cooler Committee. 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:57.520 The New York Times says that there are quote several 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:02.280 discrepancies in the recollections of mister Wilcott. It describes Wilcott 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.240 as quote support staff, a low level worker. It says 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:09.400 he cracked Oswald's code name as a result of hearsay 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:14.040 at the agency months after the assassination. It is a 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:15.159 brutal write up. 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:20.760 The CIA immediately denied Wilcott's accusation, and after his testimony, 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:25.520 Wilcott was put under surveillance and harassed. His tires were slashed, 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:28.720 sugar was poured into his gas tank. He got a 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:32.919 new job, and then his new employer fired him because 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:36.639 even he was getting harassed, all to discredit him. 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:39.639 The CIA has been doing this kind of stuff for years. 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:43.520 People like James Angleton made their way up the CIA 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:49.240 organizational chart by mastering the art of disinformation, So discrediting 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:53.119 Wilcott was just another flavor of the same manipulation that 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:54.320 they used on Oswald. 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:57.280 He was just when he excited, he was a fancy. 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:03.520 What's Oswald's first move when he gets to Russia. 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.960 He goes into the American embassy and he throws down 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.159 his passport and he says, I want to dissolve my 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:14.560 American citizenship. So he's directed to a man named Richard Snyder, 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:18.399 who is a consular official in the embassy who used 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:19.360 to work for the CIA. 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:23.520 Snyder testified to the Warren Commission that something was off 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:24.440 about Oswald. 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:28.840 Oswald Hans Snyder a note affirming that his allegiances to 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:30.920 the Union of Soviet Socialist republics. 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:35.639 Then Oswald makes this very public proclamation that he wanted 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:39.359 to defect and that he had top secret information about 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:41.840 the U two spy plane to offer to the Soviets, 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:44.960 And Snyder says, and this is a quote he would 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:48.280 make available to the Soviet Union, such knowledge as he 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:50.760 had acquired while in the Marine Corps. 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:52.480 Concerning his specialty. 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:56.560 Snyder said that quote this was part of a scene 0:21:56.640 --> 0:21:59.760 he had rehearsed before coming into the embassy. It was 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:03.080 a pre planned speech. And it wasn't just Snyder who 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:06.000 thought it was weird. There was another official there named 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:09.840 John McVicker who testified to the Warren Commission that he 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:13.480 thought Oswald was following a pattern of behavior in which 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:16.600 he had been tutored by a person or person's unknown. 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:18.680 This is a pivotal moment. 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:22.359 One of the first things the American public was told 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:26.399 about Oswald after the assassination was that he was an 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:30.000 ex marine that had defected to the Soviet Union. It 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:34.120 was a huge part of the narrative. The Warren Commission 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:37.480 said that Oswald defected to the Soviet Union because he 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:40.760 was a troubled young man. They never reported the fact 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:44.480 that the CIA had a program to cultivate fake defectors. 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:48.920 This wasn't known until the Church Committee revealed it in 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:49.920 the mid seventies. 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:52.960 So you have two competing narratives. 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:57.800 One Oswald was interested in becoming a Soviet citizen, was 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:01.080 willing to betray America and become I'm a trader, Or 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:04.879 two he was instructed by the CIA as part of 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:06.320 an intelligence operation. 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:11.280 I want to know how the embassy officials Snyder and 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:14.280 nick Vicker respond to Oswald. 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:19.360 Snyder tries to talk Oswald out of renouncing a citizenship, 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:23.720 and then he sends a confidential telegram to the State Department, 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:25.560 which is forwarded to the CIA. 0:23:26.080 --> 0:23:30.240 You see, Oswald knows that US intelligence is going to 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:34.520 be made aware if he starts offering secrets and speaking 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:36.200 out loud like this to the Soviets. 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:37.320 He's putting on a show. 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:43.320 Those reports reached Engleton's office in early November nineteen fifty nine. 0:23:43.680 --> 0:23:48.240 That's Jefferson Morley again, creator of jfkfax dot Org. 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:52.800 Angleton opens the CIA's first file in Oswald. He was 0:23:53.000 --> 0:23:57.160 of interest to the highest counterintelligence officer in the CIA 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:00.640 for four years before President Kent he was killed. 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:04.680 Did they track all of his movements during that period? Yes, 0:24:04.800 --> 0:24:05.120