Newly declassified documents shed additional light on the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) surveillance of Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of JFK.
Newly declassified documents related to John F. Kennedy’s assassination shed additional light on the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) surveillance of Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin, in the weeks leading up to JFK’s death.
Documents reveal that the CIA tapped the phones at Cuban and Soviet diplomatic facilities in Mexico City, according to journalist Steven Portnoy. Oswald traveled there multiple times to meet with officials just weeks prior to the assassination. It was previously known that the CIA was aware of Oswald’s travels — a fact they withheld from the Warren Commission — but details about CIA wiretapping were classified until Tuesday.
“The docs dropped last night add more specifics about the CIA’s operations, namely in Mexico City, where Oswald met with Cuban and Soviet Officials in Sept. 1963,” he said. “These docs reveal how the CIA tapped phones of the Cuban and Soviet diplomatic facilities, information that had been classified until now.”
Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963.
Oswald lived in the USSR from October 1959 to June 1962. Soviet spies, however, did not want him in the country permanently, particularly after his suicide attempt, according to a previously released CIA document. His trips to the embassy in Mexico City were allegedly to try to obtain a visa to return to the USSR, documents show.
