Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy four, just months after the Watergate scandal
Speaker 1: ended with Richard Nixon's resignation, another man who for decades
Speaker 1: had also helped shape America's place in the world was
Speaker 1: quietly dismissed from his job. William Colby, who was then
Speaker 1: the head of the CIA, fired spymaster James Jesus Angleton.
Speaker 2: Colby made the decision after a front page expose in
Speaker 2: The New York Times revealed that Angleton was running a
Speaker 2: massive domestic spying program. The CIA was spying on ten
Speaker 2: thousand Americans involved in the anti war movement and other
Speaker 2: dissident groups.
Speaker 1: Colby had been trying to get rid of Angleton for years,
Speaker 1: but Angleton was a bit of a legend. He was
Speaker 1: the head of counterintelligence for the CIA, and for better
Speaker 1: or for worse, he was one of the agency's founding fathers.
Speaker 1: Journalists who are hoping to be the next Woodward and
Speaker 1: Bernstein were all over this story. They wanted to know why.
Speaker 1: The buzz around Angleton's firing prompted the formation of a
Speaker 1: special Senate committee headed up by Idaho Senator Frank Church,
Speaker 1: and for the first time in the CIA's history, their
Speaker 1: dirty laundry was about to be exposed.
Speaker 2: The Church Committee published its final report in April of
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six. It revealed a trove of secret abuses
Speaker 2: at the hands of the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the IRS.
Speaker 2: Before and after the Cold War. These agencies were involved
Speaker 2: in global assassination conspiracies, infiltrating news programs, and conducting mind
Speaker 2: control experiments through programs like mk Ultra. The Committee's revelations
Speaker 2: shocked Americans.
Speaker 1: We'll get into all of that over the next few episodes,
Speaker 1: but for now, what's important understand is that in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, James Jesus Angleton had control over a network
Speaker 1: of spies, informants, and double agents that reached into the
Speaker 1: farthest corners of the globe, and the events that would
Speaker 1: be the cause of his dismissal were just getting underway.
Speaker 2: This is who killed JFK. Sixty years later, What can
Speaker 2: we uncover about the greatest murder mystery in American history?
Speaker 2: And why does it still matter today? I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Solidad O'Brien.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the counterintelligence world of James Jesus Angleton, a
Speaker 1: world he referred to as the wilderness of mirrors.
Speaker 2: The term wilderness of mirrors points to the tactic of
Speaker 2: deception and disinformation that both the CIA and the KGB
Speaker 2: used against each other during the Cold War.
Speaker 1: It's a world where it's virtually impossible to tell what
Speaker 1: his reality and what is merely a reflection of reality,
Speaker 1: and our journey into the wilderness starts with Lee Harvey Oswald.
Speaker 1: So let's recap. Oswald was a disenchanted young man who
Speaker 1: found himself in the psychological study run by a doctor
Speaker 1: with connections to the CIA. At age seventeen, he enlisted
Speaker 1: in the Marines and was shipped to Japan, where he
Speaker 1: received a security clearance to work as a radar operator
Speaker 1: on U two spyplanes. Upon returning to the United States,
Speaker 1: he spent time at a base in California and another
Speaker 1: base in Nagshead, North Carolina, which focused on special operations. Then,
Speaker 1: after learning Russian, he defected to the Soviet Union. Two
Speaker 1: years later, he returned to the United States with his
Speaker 1: Russian wife and baby, and was welcomed back with open arms.
Speaker 1: He was never questioned why.
Speaker 2: Well Oswald didn't actually renown his US citizenship when he
Speaker 2: was in Russia, even though he tried at the embassy,
Speaker 2: So maybe they didn't take him all that seriously. Maybe
Speaker 2: they saw him and thought, eh, that guy. You know,
Speaker 2: he's all bark and no bite. There's this philosophical theory
Speaker 2: I know, you know, called Ockham's razor, right, that says
Speaker 2: the simplest answer is often the correct one. So if
Speaker 2: you apply that here, what if he's just a communist sympathizer.
Speaker 2: What if he just defected, He just came back to
Speaker 2: the US and sort of slipped under the radar.
Speaker 1: It's possible, but don't forget. We are at the height
Speaker 1: of the Cold War. The fear of nuclear annihilation is
Speaker 1: hanging over our heads. Now. If you are willing to
Speaker 1: enter that wilderness of mirrors with me, by the time
Speaker 1: we exit, I think things will become clear. But I
Speaker 1: have to warn you. Before things become clear, they will
Speaker 1: become confusing. And in fact, confusion is the point. So
Speaker 1: why don't we try to embrace the confusion and step
Speaker 1: into the wilderness of mirrors. During World War II, America
Speaker 1: had an intelligence gathering agency called the OSS the Office
Speaker 1: of Strategic Services. The information that they were able to
Speaker 1: gather help us win the war. The OSS was officially
Speaker 1: disbanded nineteen forty five, but certain factions of their work continued.
Speaker 1: America's biggest enemy at the time was the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: and for years they had been honing their skills of
Speaker 1: covert intelligence operations, so in an effort to play catchup,
Speaker 1: the OSS was revamped into a full blown intelligence gathering
Speaker 1: agency in nineteen forty seven. It was called the CIA.
Speaker 1: In the wake of its creation, President Harry Truman drafted
Speaker 1: Directive ten slash two, which was a top secret memo
Speaker 1: that gave the CIA the green light to engage in
Speaker 1: different forms of warfare, including propaganda, sabotage, and deadly covert
Speaker 1: operations against anyone it deemed quote hostile to the United States.
Speaker 1: I think of the ten slash two memo as marching
Speaker 1: orders into the dark arts of spycraft. And to protect
Speaker 1: the president, the CIA developed a practice called plausible deniability.
Speaker 1: If the President wasn't told about a particular secret plan,
Speaker 1: then he could plausibly deny having anything to do with it.
Speaker 1: Plausible deniability empowered the CIA to act without presidential approval.
Speaker 1: They would carry out missions with no awareness outside the agency.
Speaker 1: Accountability was intentionally clouded. Solidad Could you read this from me?
Speaker 2: The better you lied, and the more you betrayed, the
Speaker 2: more likely you would be promoted. I did things that
Speaker 2: in looking back on my life, I regret, but I
Speaker 2: was part of it and I loved in it.
Speaker 1: That is a quote from James Angleton. Now, if you
Speaker 1: visualize a creepy secret agent from the fifties and sixties,
Speaker 1: you will see Angleton.
Speaker 2: I can confirm that pictures of him show a lanky
Speaker 2: guy with thick glasses, hollow cheekbones, and translucent looking skin.
Speaker 1: Angleton could do virtually anything he wanted under the name
Speaker 1: of protecting America.
Speaker 3: He was the Chief of Counterintelligence, so he was in
Speaker 3: charge of defending the CIA. But that position required him
Speaker 3: enabled him to do anything, and so there was no
Speaker 3: check on his power whatsoever.
Speaker 2: That's our old friend. Jefferson Morley, creator of jfkfax dot Org.
Speaker 2: Morley wrote the book on Angleton called The Ghost. Why
Speaker 2: do you call the book the Ghost?
Speaker 3: Because he was this invisible presence in the US government
Speaker 3: that nobody could see. I mean, I think President Kennedy
Speaker 3: knew who Jim Angleton was, but not many people in
Speaker 3: the US government knew what Angleton did.
Speaker 2: Describe him, he was very.
Speaker 3: Charismatic, intellectually. He had been an English major at Yale
Speaker 3: with a literary bent.
Speaker 1: He was known as the Poet's spy. His friend, the
Speaker 1: poet E. E. Cummings, said the following about Angleton, quote,
Speaker 1: what a miracle of momentous complexity is the poet?
Speaker 3: He was the spy. As intellectual, he was a very
Speaker 3: creative thinker. People who knew him in his prime were
Speaker 3: very impressed and regarded him as really something of a genius.
Speaker 3: Camera intelligence has been described as organized paranoia. To catch spies,
Speaker 3: you have to be very suspicious of everybody.
Speaker 1: He referred to his work as the wilderness of mirrors,
Speaker 1: a phrase that he borrowed from TS. Eliot. There was information, disinformation,
Speaker 1: secret agents, and double agents, anything to deceive the enemy,
Speaker 1: hide the CIA's tracks, and create confusion. Confusion was his
Speaker 1: weapon of choice, and that confusion came into play when
Speaker 1: Oswald returned to the United States. Oswald, his Soviet wife Marina,
Speaker 1: and their infant child June. They land on the docks
Speaker 1: of Hoboken, New Jersey, on June thirteenth, nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 1: There they're met by a man named spaz Rakin Racn
Speaker 1: was a representative of the Traveler's Aid Society. Now I
Speaker 1: want you to take a look at this through the
Speaker 1: lens of James Angleton. Okay, spas Racan was not only
Speaker 1: a representative of the Traveler's Aid Society, he was also
Speaker 1: an official of the Anti Bolshevik Nations, a group with
Speaker 1: deep ties to US intelligence, a fact that was totally
Speaker 1: ignored by the Warrant Commission. Now understand that the Traveler's
Speaker 1: Aid Society wasn't there to massage Oswald's feet after his
Speaker 1: long trip. It was an anti communist organization that had
Speaker 1: direct ties to the CIA.
Speaker 2: Oh, so he's pretty much welcome backed by the CIA.
Speaker 1: Right and again, if you look at this through Angleton's eyes,
Speaker 1: Reken is the perfect person to meet Oswald in order
Speaker 1: to make sure that his re entry into America goes smoothly.
Speaker 1: Rakean was somebody they could trust and couldn't be tied
Speaker 1: directly back to them. So Recn helps the Oswalds get
Speaker 1: through customs and immigration, then sends them on their way
Speaker 1: to Fort Worth, Texas. In Fort Worth, Oswald meets a
Speaker 1: man named George de Moorenshield. Now I'm guessing that name
Speaker 1: doesn't ring any bells.
Speaker 2: This is the first time you're hearing the name George
Speaker 2: de Moornshield. He's key when we consider the movements of
Speaker 2: Lee Harvey Oswald on his return to the United States.
Speaker 3: George de Moornscheld was a Russian speaker who worked for
Speaker 3: oil companies looking for petroleum all over the world.
Speaker 2: That's Jefferson Morley again.
Speaker 3: And so in nineteen sixty two he was living in
Speaker 3: Dallas and he heard of this man who had returned
Speaker 3: from the Soviet Union, Lee Harvey Oswald. So they become
Speaker 3: good friends.
Speaker 1: Don't you think it's odd that a wealthy, worldly, aerodype
Speaker 1: and much older man would become good friends with Lee
Speaker 1: Harvey Oswald.
Speaker 2: De Moornshield told the journalist Edward Epstein, quote, somebody gave
Speaker 2: me Lee's address, and one afternoon I drove to Fort Worth,
Speaker 2: about thirty miles from Dallas.
Speaker 4: De Moorinshield told Epstein that a CIA operative J. Walton
Speaker 4: Moore was the person who gave him the address of
Speaker 4: Lee Harvey Oswald and suggested that he meet him, that
Speaker 4: he would be doing the CIA a favor.
Speaker 2: De Moornshield told Epstein that J. Walton Moore asked him
Speaker 2: to find out about Oswald's time in the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: And for essentially babysitting, Oswald de Moornshield was awarded a
Speaker 1: mineral contract from the Haitian government for three hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: De Moornshield told Epstein that he assumed this was because
Speaker 2: of the help De Moornshield had given to the CIA.
Speaker 1: When you think of people who work for the CIA,
Speaker 1: you think of people who work directly with the agency.
Speaker 1: But it's not that simple. There are also people who are,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better term, CIA adjacent. They're assets,
Speaker 1: and these assets will do favors for the CIA, and
Speaker 1: sometimes they expect favors in return.
Speaker 2: So that would describe George de Moornshield, Yeah, right.
Speaker 1: And as part of his babysitting duties, De Moorinshield introduces
Speaker 1: the Oswalts to a friend of his. This is a
Speaker 1: woman named Ruth Paine, who was supposedly interested in learning Russian.
Speaker 2: Hmm, that's convenient. Dick Russell interviewed Ruth Payne in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 4: The way that you first met the Oswalts was at
Speaker 4: that party.
Speaker 5: It was at private party.
Speaker 4: What was it about the Oswalts that you liked?
Speaker 5: I was especially interested in Marina who's native in Russian,
Speaker 5: and I didn't really talk to her much that evening,
Speaker 5: but I did get the ads and visit it then
Speaker 5: at their apartment in.
Speaker 4: Nowas it's important to know who Ruth pain is. Her
Speaker 4: sister was a CIA operative, although that was hidden and
Speaker 4: then denied for decades. Her father was employed by the
Speaker 4: United States Agency for International Development.
Speaker 2: For decades, there's been suspicion that the US Agency for
Speaker 2: International Development was a Cold War policy tool created in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty one to implement CIA operations around the world.
Speaker 4: Ruth Payne's husband and other family members had intelligence connections
Speaker 4: as well. In nineteen sixty seven, when the District Attorney
Speaker 4: for New Orleans, Jim Garrison, tried a case that questioned
Speaker 4: the Warren Commission's findings, he tried to get the Pains
Speaker 4: tax returns and he was told they were classified. Another
Speaker 4: little tidbit, Ruth's best friend, Mary Bancroft, was Alan Dulles's mistress.
Speaker 1: Because of her friendship with the Oswalts, Ruth Payne was
Speaker 1: a key witness for the Warren Commission. In her testimony,
Speaker 1: she was asked by Alan Dulles what she suspected Oswald's
Speaker 1: motive might have been. She said that she always felt
Speaker 1: that Oswald saw himself as a small person and that
Speaker 1: he wanted to be greater and to be noticed. George
Speaker 1: de Moornshield also testified to the Warren Commission and left
Speaker 1: out many of the key details that he would share
Speaker 1: later on in his life, details that may have caused
Speaker 1: severe damage to the lone Gunman case that the Warren
Speaker 1: Commission was trying to build.
Speaker 4: And during the time of his testimony and I w
Speaker 4: miss saw De Moorenshield having private lunches with Alan Dulles.
Speaker 2: It's like Alan Dulles is everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yes, he was controlling the flow of information in and
Speaker 1: out of the Warren Commission. So it should come as
Speaker 1: no surprise that the Warren Report went out of its
Speaker 1: way to conclude that the Moornshield had no connection to
Speaker 1: the CIA. But three years later, in nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison interviewed De Moornshield and
Speaker 1: discovered that not only was he connected to the CIA,
Speaker 1: he was hired by them to look after Oswald, and
Speaker 1: after talking with Garrison, De Moornshield started to change his
Speaker 1: public stance.
Speaker 3: What's interesting about de Moornschield is that he testified to
Speaker 3: the Warren Commission and really was influential in depicting Oswald
Speaker 3: as a man who could have killed President Kennedy. De
Speaker 3: Morenschild came to regret that later in life, and he
Speaker 3: believed that he was mistaken and that Oswald did not.
Speaker 1: Kill the President. Demornschild wrote about that in his book,
Speaker 1: which was titled Lee Harvey Oswald As I Knew Him.
Speaker 2: It's one of the first books written by someone who
Speaker 2: had a personal relationship with Oswald.
Speaker 1: After the book was published, De Mornshield started talking to
Speaker 1: the press.
Speaker 4: I interviewed George de Mornshield twice in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 4: and I remember he said, of course, we know it
Speaker 4: was a vast conspiracy, and his wife tried to shut
Speaker 4: him up, and then he stood up started walking around
Speaker 4: the room, saying, it's defiling a corpse. It's defiling a corpse.
Speaker 4: Oswald had nothing to do with it. It was remarkable
Speaker 4: to see him like this. He was really upset. He
Speaker 4: was revealing something huge, and I wasn't the only person.
Speaker 1: He said that too.
Speaker 3: He was talking to Edward Epstein, a journalist who had
Speaker 3: written about the Kennedy assassination.
Speaker 2: That's Jefferson Morley.
Speaker 3: Again, de morn Schild said that he was quite certain
Speaker 3: Oswald did not kill the president and that he was
Speaker 3: indeed what he said, he was a patsy.
Speaker 1: He also said, quote, I would never have contacted Oswald
Speaker 1: in a million years if Moore had not sanctioned it.
Speaker 2: That's j Walton Moore, his CIA contact.
Speaker 1: Right. He said he wouldn't have reached out to befriend
Speaker 1: Oswald unless he was instructed to. Epstein's interview with demorn
Speaker 1: Shield happened fourteen years after Kennedy's assassination, and it was
Speaker 1: the final interview that demorn Shield would ever give.
Speaker 2: So let's set the stage because with all of these
Speaker 2: moving parts, it gets very confusing.
Speaker 1: Okay. So the first few months of nineteen sixty three
Speaker 1: are very tough for Oswald.
Speaker 3: So he returns from the Soviet Union, he gets job,
Speaker 3: he loses a job, having trouble with his wife, and
Speaker 3: in April nineteen sixty three, he leaves Dallas and he
Speaker 3: decides to go to New Orleans, where he had grown up.
Speaker 1: In New Orleans, he gets a job at a place
Speaker 1: called the Riley Coffee Company.
Speaker 4: Which is owned by William Riley, a supporter of CIA
Speaker 4: efforts against Castro. Documents show us that Riley had a
Speaker 4: relationship with the CIA for years.
Speaker 1: So we're seeing the same pattern, the same kind of
Speaker 1: thing we saw with Demor and Shield. In Dallas. Oswald
Speaker 1: is secretly introduced to another CIA connected guy whose Riley
Speaker 1: Coffee company is located right next to the local FBI, CIA, Naval, Intelligence,
Speaker 1: and Secret Service offices. And it's here in New Orleans
Speaker 1: where Oswald is about to get sheep dipped.
Speaker 2: Sheep DiPT What does that mean?
Speaker 1: Sheep DiPT is a term of art in the intelligence
Speaker 1: world that means coding someone to give them CIA operative status.
Speaker 1: It's a tactic of deception. It gives the appearance that
Speaker 1: a person is some one other than who he really is.
Speaker 2: So how would that even work?
Speaker 1: By using assets of the agency to build a narrative
Speaker 1: around that person, you're carefully led into a new identity
Speaker 1: and it's all documented. You yourself, may not know where
Speaker 1: this new identity will lead, but when it's finished, you'll
Speaker 1: have the bona fides of someone to appear completely legitimate.
Speaker 1: And the plan for Oswald in New Orleans was to
Speaker 1: sheep dip him in order to make him look like
Speaker 1: he was a pro Castro communist.
Speaker 2: Couldn't he just be a pro Castro communist.
Speaker 1: If you think that the poet spy has succeeded.
Speaker 2: The poet spy. If you'll remember, is James Jesus Angleton,
Speaker 2: head of CIA Counterintelligence, and the Wilderness of Mirrors were in.
Speaker 2: It's the world he created.
Speaker 1: We know. Angleton's tactics employ CIA adjacent people, asset s
Speaker 1: that have enough distance from the agency that they can
Speaker 1: deny knowing them. Then send these people to look after
Speaker 1: someone the agency is interested in, pick them up at
Speaker 1: the airport, help them get a job, to manipulate this
Speaker 1: person they're interested in without being traced back to what end.
Speaker 1: Angleton was obsessed with Cuba. He wanted to take down Castro,
Speaker 1: and this was not in line with the president's agenda.
Speaker 2: After the Cuban missile crisis, if you remember, Kennedy realized
Speaker 2: taking a hard line against Cuba could lead to an
Speaker 2: all out nuclear war, so he started back channel communications
Speaker 2: with Khrushchev and Castro to find a packed peace.
Speaker 4: But Angleton didn't see that as an obstacle. He said,
Speaker 4: and I am quoting here, it is inconceivable that a
Speaker 4: secret intelligence arm of the government has to comply with
Speaker 4: all the overt orders of the government. He thought it
Speaker 4: completely fair game that the CIA, the secret intelligence armor
Speaker 4: of them the United States, could have their own set
Speaker 4: of rules and directives.
Speaker 1: So, while Kennedy was trying to forge a path to peace,
Speaker 1: the CIA was conducting major anti Castro operations out of
Speaker 1: New Orleans and Miami. They sent boats to harassed Cuban ships.
Speaker 1: They ran guns to exile groups. They even had training
Speaker 1: camps where they were helping the exiles prepare to mount
Speaker 1: another invasion. Bill Harvey, the CIA agent who had been
Speaker 1: demoted and sent to Rome after the Cuban missile crisis,
Speaker 1: played a big part in all of this.
Speaker 4: Bill Harvey created and led something called ZR Rifle. This
Speaker 4: was a CIA program designed to assassinate foreign leaders.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be until the nineteen eighties that we learned
Speaker 2: how the CIA had a hand in overthrowing governments in
Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties and sixties, including Iran, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala,
Speaker 2: the Congo. This often inclined gluted the assassination of the
Speaker 2: leader in charge. This is some of the dirty laundry
Speaker 2: we mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: The CIA wanted to use that same force in an
Speaker 1: attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro, and Bill Harvey was at
Speaker 1: the head of it. To understand Harvey's stance toward Cuba,
Speaker 1: read a segment of this seventeen page memo that he
Speaker 1: sent to Dick Helms, who was running covert operations for
Speaker 1: the CIA at the time.
Speaker 2: It goes quote the assurance of no invasion and no
Speaker 2: support of invasion will in effect constitute giving Castro and
Speaker 2: his regime a certain degree of sanctuary.
Speaker 1: His belief was that every day that passed that we
Speaker 1: didn't try to invade Cuba would make Castro grow stronger. Essentially,
Speaker 1: he's saying, if you're not trying to kill him, you're
Speaker 1: emboldening him. And in many people's minds, the one emboldening
Speaker 1: him the most was President Kennedy.
Speaker 2: A declassified document reveals that Bill Harvey sent his memo
Speaker 2: to the head of the CIA in November nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 4: Six months later, in May of nineteen sixty three, Angleton
Speaker 4: published a twenty seven page paper of his own on
Speaker 4: the topic of Cuba.
Speaker 2: This was just about seven months before the assassination of
Speaker 2: President Kennedy and within weeks of Oswald's decision to move
Speaker 2: to New Orleans.
Speaker 4: Engleton's paper was called Cuban Control and Action Capabilities. And
Speaker 4: it's important to understand who received this paper. The Pentagon,
Speaker 4: the CIA, the NSSA, the intelligence chiefs of the State Department, Army, Navy,
Speaker 4: and Air Force, and the Justice Department.
Speaker 1: And guess who didn't receive this paper.
Speaker 2: The President Bingo.
Speaker 4: Angleton didn't send it to the White House, to his
Speaker 4: National Security Council, or to the president's brother, Attorney General
Speaker 4: Robert Kennedy. And there's one thing that becomes particularly interesting
Speaker 4: in hindsight.
Speaker 3: The fair Play for Cuba Committee, The fair Play for
Speaker 3: Cuba Committee is.
Speaker 1: The fair Play for Cuban Committee.
Speaker 2: If you're taking notes, put a big red circle around
Speaker 2: the fair Play for Cuba Committee.
Speaker 1: The fair Play for Cuba Committee was a real organization.
Speaker 1: They had chapters around the country with hundreds of members.
Speaker 1: Their goal was to provide grassroots support for Cuba in America.
Speaker 4: In Angleton's eyes, members of the fair Play for Cuba
Speaker 4: Committee were pro castro agents in the United States. This
Speaker 4: is exactly what Angleton spent his career trying to protect
Speaker 4: America against and so in order to better understand the
Speaker 4: organization and hopefully stop them, he needed information, and Oswald.
Speaker 1: Was about to be sent right into the thick of it.
Speaker 1: Oswald arrived in New Orleans at almost the exact time
Speaker 1: that Angleton sent out his Cuban paper. And one of
Speaker 1: the first things that Oswald does is form a local
Speaker 1: chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. And guess
Speaker 1: how many members there were in this chapter one hundred
Speaker 1: You're close one just one, just Oswald, nobody else.
Speaker 6: Oswald's behavior with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee is
Speaker 6: kind of strange. In his time in New Orleans, he
Speaker 6: doesn't spend any time with people who support Gastro.
Speaker 1: This is Oswald being sheep dipped. A narrative is being
Speaker 1: created around him.
Speaker 2: And what does Oswald know at this point?
Speaker 1: Probably very little. I mean, he knows he's connected to
Speaker 1: an intelligence community for some purpose. But I would bet
Speaker 1: anything that if Lee Harvey Oswald were alive today and
Speaker 1: you asked him that at that moment, what did he
Speaker 1: think he was part of? I don't think he would
Speaker 1: even know.
Speaker 4: After he started his chapter of the Fair Play for
Speaker 4: Cuba Committee, Oswald visited a man named Carlos spring Gear,
Speaker 4: who ran an anti Castro group called the Cuban Student Directorate.
Speaker 4: Memos have served the show this group was organized and
Speaker 4: funded by the CIA.
Speaker 2: What did Oswald want with him?
Speaker 4: Oswald told Carlos Springier that he was an ex marine
Speaker 4: who despised communism and was willing to help train Cuban exiles.
Speaker 2: So wait a minute, Oswald is starting the pro Castro
Speaker 2: fair Play for Cuba Committee and at the same time
Speaker 2: he's offering help in training anti Castro exiles. Didn't you
Speaker 2: say the New Orleans branch of the fair Play for
Speaker 2: Cuba Committee was funded by the CIA?
Speaker 1: I did, But remember, so was Carlos Bringier's student group.
Speaker 1: And his group was not only funded by the CIA,
Speaker 1: it was run by George Joanedes. Remember him. Joann Edes
Speaker 1: was the former CIA agent who sabotaged the investigation led
Speaker 1: by the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
Speaker 4: After meeting with Brgier, Oswald goes to a very anti
Speaker 4: Castro area of New Orleans and starts handing out leaflets
Speaker 4: for the fair Play for Cuba Committee.
Speaker 1: There are photos of this. In some of those photos
Speaker 1: you can actually see a known CIA operative in the background.
Speaker 1: Here's a guy who's standing on a street corner in
Speaker 1: New Orleans handing out leaflets for the fair Play for
Speaker 1: Cuba Committee, And who's filming that? And why is that
Speaker 1: even being filmed. If you want the public to know
Speaker 1: something about something, you have to create some kind of
Speaker 1: event that would make news. So while handing out these
Speaker 1: pro Castro leaflets.
Speaker 3: Four members of the Cuban Student Director confronted him, grabbed
Speaker 3: his pamphlets, threw him in the air, started shouting at him,
Speaker 3: and was about to be a fight, and two cops
Speaker 3: came in and arrested them all.
Speaker 1: The local radio station WDSU jumped all over it.
Speaker 2: The reporter, a guy named William Kurt Stuckey from WDSU,
Speaker 2: named the fair Play for Cuba Committee in his report
Speaker 2: and named Lee Harvey Oswald. So what would be the
Speaker 2: implication of that.
Speaker 1: They're staging this? How else would the public know that
Speaker 1: Oswald was pro castro unless it was picked up by
Speaker 1: the press. It had to be documented.
Speaker 4: Oswald was getting sheep dipped as a pro Castro agent,
Speaker 4: and at the same time, the fair Play for Cuba
Speaker 4: Committee was being made to look weak.
Speaker 6: Oswald and the Cubans are all arrested, they're taken into
Speaker 6: the police station. Oswald the first thing he does is
Speaker 6: ask for an FBI age. Why would a leftist supporter
Speaker 6: of Fidel Castro ask to see an FBI.
Speaker 1: Agent Because it was all theater and Oswald was in
Speaker 1: the lead role.
Speaker 2: To this day, the CIA denies their connection to Oswald
Speaker 2: despite everything we know, some of which we've covered so
Speaker 2: far in this series. They claim to have had very
Speaker 2: minimal awareness of Oswald and no direct connection. In June
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, Peter Baker of The New York Times
Speaker 2: published a story revealing new details about the CIA and
Speaker 2: their relationship with Oswald. The story covered a CIA memo
Speaker 2: from June of nineteen sixty two that summarized the contents
Speaker 2: of a letter between Lee Harvey Oswald and his mother.
Speaker 1: This letter was intercepted and read by the CIA when
Speaker 1: it was originally sent. So right there we have another
Speaker 1: piece of documentation of the fact that the CIA was
Speaker 1: fully aware and tracking Lee Harvey Oswald.
Speaker 2: Now, apparently the existence of this CIA memo wasn't news
Speaker 2: assassination researchers have known that this memo existed for decades.
Speaker 2: The news that the New York Times was breaking in
Speaker 2: their story was about the author of this memo, which
Speaker 2: strikes me as odd that it was more important to
Speaker 2: the CIA to hide the identity of the person who
Speaker 2: wrote the memo than the existence of the memo itself.
Speaker 2: But now that we have a basic understanding of the
Speaker 2: wilderness of mirrors and the fact that thing in this
Speaker 2: world are often not what they seem, I wanted to
Speaker 2: talk to someone that could help me understand what the
Speaker 2: CIA was up to and the significance of the name
Speaker 2: that The Times uncovered. So we asked Jefferson Morley to
Speaker 2: join us once again. So, jeff who was the CIA
Speaker 2: agent who was reading Oswald's mail and who was he
Speaker 2: sending these summaries to?
Speaker 3: Ruben e.
Speaker 6: Fhron was a CIA analyst and translator. He's worked for
Speaker 6: the CIA for since nineteen fifty five. He was in
Speaker 6: charge of reading the mail of people who were picked
Speaker 6: by James Angleton. So Angleton had a list of about
Speaker 6: two hundred people whose mail he opened, copied, filed, and
Speaker 6: Oswald was one of those people, starting from the week
Speaker 6: he went to the Soviet Union in nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 2: So it was known that mister Efron's role was to
Speaker 2: surveil the mail of people that Angleton had on this
Speaker 2: select list. What is about this memo that stands out?
Speaker 6: The time story showed that not only was the CIA
Speaker 6: reading Oswald's mail while he was in the Soviet Union.
Speaker 6: When Oswald comes home, Ephron writes a memo which he
Speaker 6: sends to his boss, which says, missus editor in CI
Speaker 6: SIG will be interested.
Speaker 2: CI SIG is the Counterintelligence Special Investigations Group.
Speaker 4: CI SIG was so secret that almost nobody in the
Speaker 4: CIA other than Dulles Angleton and the people that worked
Speaker 4: in SIGG knew it even existed.
Speaker 6: The fact that Oswald's file is controlled at that highest
Speaker 6: level of the CIA is extremely noteworthy. So what the
Speaker 6: time story shows is that not only were they reading
Speaker 6: his mail, but after he returned to the United States,
Speaker 6: they were paying close attention to.
Speaker 2: Him, and that they would be the poet's spy.
Speaker 1: Angleton knew all about Oswald, and if you start to
Speaker 1: connect the dots, when Angleton needed someone in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: three to play a role in his efforts to take
Speaker 1: down Castro, he taps someone he knows, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Speaker 2: Next episode on Who Killed JFK, we meet Richard K.
Speaker 2: S Nakel, also known as the Man who Knew too Much.
Speaker 1: By sure accident.
Speaker 7: He's struggled on the fact that there was an assassination here.
Speaker 7: Good plan, and then it is preliminary hearing and he says, well,
Speaker 7: I'm glad you caught me. He says, I really don't
Speaker 7: want to be in Dallas, and I says, well, what
Speaker 7: do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: And he says, you'll want to know.
Speaker 2: Who killed JFK is hosted by Rob Reiner and me
Speaker 2: solid At O'Brien and Our executive producers are Rob Reiner,
Speaker 2: Michelle Reiner, Matt George, Jason English, David Hoffman, and me
Speaker 2: Soldad O'Brien. Our writer is David Hoffman, with research by
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