Reply #101: Here's a guy the CIA told the Warren Commission was OSWALD...

[Octafish]

...of course, the guy just SAID he was Oswald
to the Soviet embassy employees and the CIA, listening in on the bugged phone line.
You see, he really was just PRETENDING to be Oswald.
And the reports of the time are that the man made a big stink at the Soviet embassy,
trying to make contact with a KGB officer known for his wet work.
This was a couple of months before the assassination.



Now why would the CIA lie about this?
Could it be part of a, um, plan
to make Oswald out to be some kind of violent Communist lone nut?

The Framing of Oswald

"The CIA advised that on October 1, 1963, an extremely sensitive source had reported that an individual identified himself as Lee Oswald, who contacted the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City inquiring as to any messages. Special Agents of this Bureau, who have conversed with Oswald in Dallas, Texas, have observed photographs of the individual referred to above, and have listened to a recording of his voice. These special agents are of the opinion that the above-referred-to individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald."

The paragraph shown above comes from an FBI memo sent to both the White House and the Secret Service on November 23, 1963, the day after President Kennedy's assassination. It was a follow-up to a phone call at 10:01 AM, in which Director Hoover informed Lyndon Johnson of the same fact. Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of Kennedy held in police custody in Dallas, had been impersonated in phone calls to the Soviet Embassy in Mexio City.

The fact that Oswald was impersonated less than two months prior to the Dallas shooting was obviously important news. What made the revelation even more stunning was that, in one such call, "Oswald" referred to a previous meeting with a Soviet official named Kostikov. Valeriy Kostikov was well-known to the CIA and FBI as a KGB agent operating out of the Embassy under official cover. But, far more ominously, the FBI's "Tumbleweed" informant had previously tipped off the U.S. that Kostikov was a member of the KGB's "Department 13," involved in sabotage and assassinations.

An otherwise inexplicable impersonation episode takes on an entirely new meaning in this light. The calls from the Oswald impersonator made it appear that Oswald was a hired killer, hired by the Soviet Union no less. This was a prescription for World War III.

Perhaps the perfect plan was foiled by the fact that Oswald was captured, allowing the FBI to interrogate him and compare his voice to the tapes of these tapped phone calls, which were apparently flown up from the CIA's Mexico City Station on the evening of November 22. In any case, what should have been a hot lead to sophisticated conspirators was instead quickly buried—by November 25, FBI memos made no more mention of tapes, only transcripts. The CIA has maintained to this day that the tapes were routinely recycled prior to the assassination, and no tapes were ever sent. But the evidence that the tapes did exist and were listened to is now overwhelming, and includes several FBI memos, a call from Hoover to LBJ which appears to have been suspiciously erased, and even the word of two Warren Commission staffers who say they listened to the tapes during their visit to Mexico City in April 1964!

Back in November 1963, with the knowledge that it wasn't Oswald in these calls to the Soviet Embassy tightly held, and with witnesses coming forward to claim seeing Oswald take money to kill Kennedy from Cuban operatives, a coverup went into high gear. Lyndon Johnson used the fear of nuclear war, bandying about the figure "40 million Americans" who would die in a nuclear exchange. Even though he knew of the impersonation, Johnson used this false scare to press men like Richard Russell and Earl Warren onto a President's Commission which another Commissioner, John J. McCloy, said was to "settle the dust."

CONTINUED...

http://www.history-matters.com/frameup.htm

Those interested in a scholarly analysis might enjoy John Newman's analysis:

http://www.jfklancer.com/backes/newman/newman_1.html

Personally, alcibiades_mystery, I'd prefer discussing the parties who've benefitted the most from President Kennedy's assassination.
To me, it's pretty clear that there was a conspiracy.