General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy believed President Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy. [View all]happyslug
(14,779 posts)Several agencies failed to do they job when it came to the Assassination of JFK, mostly due to carelessness and that, while people TALKED about killing the President, it was rarely tried. Thus when a person actually did take a shot at a President (and succeeded) every agency involved went into CYA (Cover Your Ass) mode. And that includes the KGB (in addition to the FBI who had failed to check up on Oswald, even through he was on their Watch list, the Secret Service who failed to look over the route to make sure all the high rise buildings were "Secure" instead the night before they went to a "Go-Go Club", the local Dallas Police, for failing to make sure the route was safe, the CIA for they knew someone using Oswald name had gone to Mexico City etc).
As to the KGB, when Oswald was in the Soviet Union he had married the daughter of a KGB officer. Now, before you jump to a conclusion that this made Oswald a spy, the KGB was a combination of what in the US is the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security (including Immigration) and your State's State Police. Oswald's father in law appears to have been a low level equivalent to a State Police Officer.
On the other hand, when Oswald came back, his personal information was KNOWN to the KGB, and thus would have been useful to other spies the KGB sent to the USA. The KGB would have been careful NOT to use the ID to often (to avoid duplication between the agent and the real Oswald so that the FBI would catch on something was wrong) but used when needed to get an agent to and from Mexico. Mexico would have been ideal, Oswald, if he had a passport, had no intention of going to Mexico, Cuba maybe but not Mexico.
Thus the whole Oswald in Mexico City maybe just the use of the name Oswald by a Soviet Agent, who was in Mexico for other reasons (i.e. getting REAL intelligence on US intentions and getting that information back to Moscow). The agent may have used another name in the US, just used Oswald in Mexico to confuse anyone trailing him (by going via Texas the spy would have been close enough to the real Oswald to draw any tail from the agent to the real Oswald)
Worse, the person in Mexico City may have been an America who wanted to sell information to the Soviets, the Soviets gave him Oswald's name and information to confuse anyone tailing him from the US. Again Oswald being in Texas could draw any US counter intelligence operators to the real Oswald (especially if the American who was selling secrets made sure he went through the right city, i.e. Dallas before and after he did his visit to Mexico City).
If the above was the situation, when Kennedy was killed by Oswald, whoever was using his name in Mexico stopped using it for obvious reasons. The KGB also realized they were in the middle of a mine field, if this use of Oswald's name was found out by the Americas, all hell could break loose. Thus the KGB went into cover-up mode. The Agent who had used Oswald's name was withdrawn (if it was used by an American selling secrets, he was told to STOP using it and told that if he EVER said he did the KGB would kill him, no matter where he was and not matter what he was selling).
I suspect this worked with the admitted official cover-up, run by Robert Kennedy, to keep a lid an ANY facts that would indicate a Cuban or Soviet Involvement in the Kennedy Assassination. The KGB may have even told the CIA of they use of Oswald's name, once the KGB was confident the US was NOT looking to the Soviet Union or Cuba to blame the assassination on. Thus the whole Mexico City evidence became moot.
One last comment, the FBI had a spy high inside the people around the Politburo (The Central Committee of the Communist party that actually ran the Soviet Union). Those agents wanted nothing to do with the CIA and refused to deal with the CIA, even when the FBI asked them to do so. They may have told the FBI that the KGB was worried about being blamed for the KGB had used Oswald's name, Social Security Number, driver's license number etc for one of their spies. These FBI spies would have told the FBI and the FBI would then know that the Mexico City photos of Oswald had nothing to do with Oswald except the use of Oswald's name. This would NOT have come out right after the assassination, but a few months later when this was brought up to the Politburo, and then the FBI spies got that information to the FBI. The CIA would NOT have known of this, for the spies were FBI spies, but Hoover would have known and told the Warren Commission AND that it was from a Classified source (The Spies operated for the FBI for decades, they finally left the Soviet Union decades after the Assassination and by the time they "retired" they had forgotten about they report on JFK's assassination for it was probably just a one line concern, among what the considered more important information)
Just a comment that they are other explanations for those photos of Oswald in Mexico City NOT being Oswald, other then a cover-up of who assassinated JFK. In fact, knowing how people need IDs even in the 1960s, and that Oswald had to have given all the information one needed to get such IDs when he migrated to the Soviet Union, the Soviets had a REAL LIVE PERSON whose name they could use. The Soviets did NOT need to develop a person's ID as a native born American for one of their spies, they had it, in the name of Oswald. In many ways I would be surprised if the Soviet had NOT used Oswald's name in they spies service. Notice I did NOT say Oswald, but Oswald's NAME. The use of the name would have been so tempting to use, till JFK was killed. At that point it became a huge liability and the KGB went into CYA (Cover your Ass) mode. Thus I can NOT give much weight to those photos, there are other explanations for them, other then part of a conspiracy to cover-up who killed JFK.