Post by Rob Caprio on Dec 1, 2023 22:23:09 GMT -5
All portions are ©️ Robert Caprio 2006-2024
spartacus-educational.com/JFKduranS.jpg
The Warren Commission (WC) said Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) traveled to Mexico City in late September 1963 and stayed until early October 1963. While there he supposedly visited the Cuban Consulate and the Russian Embassy. The main witness for the Cuban Consulate visit was Silvia Duran, but she never described a man who looked like the LHO who was shot in Dallas, Texas.
This post will look more into this aspect of the case.
************************************************
As stated earlier in another post, Silvia Duran took over for Luisa Caldaron who died in a car accident the Mexican police called “strange” about a couple of months before this supposed visit by LHO. The main piece of evidence the WC and its current day defenders use is the fact LHO had Silvia Duran’s name in his address book, thus, he had to go. That is like saying if you have the name of a person in Washington, D.C. you had to go there to get it. This is silly. He could have been given the name or called and got it. It does NOT mean he went. Here is the page in his address book (Commission Exhibit (CE) 18).
CE 18: www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh16/pages/WH_Vol16_0039b.jpg
We can see it shows:
Quote on
Mexico city (sic);
Consulado de Cuba
Zamora Y F Marquez
11-28-47
Sylvia (sic) Duran
Quote off
This does not prove he went as the WC defenders claim since again, he could have called for this information, been given this information or someone could have written it in after it was seized following the assassination. IF this is the kind of evidence you have to rely on then you sure don’t have much of a case in my opinion.
Here is what she said before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) about the job she obtained at the Cuban Consulate in terms of duration. [Note: Her last name by 1978 was Tirado.]
CORNWELL - Approximately when was it that you first obtained the job?
TIRADO - the end of July or August, early August. I don't remember exactly.
CORNWELL - And for how long did you continue to work there?
TIRADO - Three or four months.
CORNWELL - How long after the assassination of President Kennedy did you work there?
TIRADO - Only two days.
So she started work there in early or mid-August following the death of Luisa Caldaron and then left TWO DAYS after President John F. Kennedy (JFK) was killed. Does this seem strange to you? It sure does to me. It seems she was put in place for something.
She would NOT describe a man who looked like LHO either. Here is what she told the HSCA about the man who came to the Consulate in terms of physical description.
LOPEZ - And did they ever ask you to describe Oswald?
TIRADO - Yes.
LOPEZ - Would you do me a favor and describe him for me now?
TIRADO - Yes.
LOPEZ - For example, let's start at the beginning. Was he tall, short?
TIRADO - Short.
LHO was NOT short and if you read an earlier post you would have seen LHO’s height ranged from 5’9 to 5’11. The United States Marine Corps (USMC) had him listed at 5’11 on many forms and this is NOT short. In fact Silvia Duran said the man was as tall as HER!
LOPEZ - Would you say he was taller than Gary?
TIRADO - No, I think just the same. He was about my size.
LOPEZ - About your height?
TIRADO - Yeah.
Her height was about 5’3” by the way. Here is what she said about LHO’s weight.
LOPEZ - Was he skinny?
TIRADO - Yes. Skinny.
LOPEZ - Could you estimate how much he weighed?
TIRADO - About your weight, more or less.
LOPEZ - About my weight. We already went over...
TIRADO - He has stronger shoulders, perhaps, than yours.
LOPEZ - Just for the record, my weight is 199 pounds. You told us before he had a suit on.
TIRADO - That I don't remember very well. I think he was wearing a jacket but what I can remember is that he was not wearing nice clothes, expensive clothing. He was cheap, perhaps.
LHO did NOT weight 199 pounds by the way. Here is what she said about the hair and eye colors.
CORNWELL - Okay. In sum, you identified a picture in the book as being as best as you can remember his face and hair. Was there anything about that which in your memory was different from the picture other than the fact that you do remember his eyes being blue or green and his hair being very light colored or blond but not as light as some of the other pictures look.
TIRADO - And he has not very much. He was, has few, poco pelo.
LOPEZ - He didn't have very much hair.
LOPEZ - I understand. If you bear with me just a few more minutes--his hair line, was it receding?
TIRADO - Yeah, yeah. Quite a bit.
CORNWELL - Lee Harvey Oswald. Now, many of the pictures in the book are not that clear, of course. When you saw him the first time in the book, you indicated that that looked like him except that as you recalled him, he had either blue or green eyes and blond hair. Correct?
TIRADO - Yes.
CORNWELL - When you say blond hair, what color is that? Is it very light?
TIRADO - Light.
LHO did NOT have BLOND hair and while some documents said he had blue eyes many others listed other colors for him. Aline Mosby who interviewed LHO in Moscow said he had BROWN eyes. While one can see LHO’s hair may have been thinning in front I would NOT say he had a major receding hairline or very little hair as she says. Clearly, this is NOT the LHO who was shot in Dallas, Texas, on November 24, 1963. Who was this person then?
She would claim it was LHO though, but we found out why later on. The CIA asked the Mexican police to detain her and do whatever was necessary to obtain a signed statement from her that LHO was the man who came to the Cuban Consulate in late September 1963. Here is her account of what happened to her.
CORNWELL - You were trying to kick them and keep them from taking you with them, right?
TIRADO - Yes, yes.
CORNWELL - Who were you going to call on the telephone?
TIRADO - The police. (Laughter.)
TIRADO - The police, the lawyer, I don't know. And when they took me out of the house and I was crying, "Call the police, call the police!" and they, he covered my mouth, and they took me to station wagon that was parked at the corner. There was a man there, but I didn't know him and I was quiet, and they say, "Don't cry. Scandalous woman." "Scandalous old woman, shut up. Because where we are going we will see what's going to happen to you." So, in that moment, I said quit.
CORNWELL - So you were taken to the police station.
TIRADO - No. It's not the police station. The office where the security, that was where the intelligence agencies were in. But I didn't know that because that building belongs to the State Social Security. Not the one I work for.
CORNWELL - Then?
TIRADO - For government employees.
Clearly these police officers were NOT acting on orders from their own police as they did NOT take her to the police station, but rather to where the “intelligence agencies” were. She was put through questioning with no lawyer being present and then released. She was accused of being LHO’s lover by them too.
CORNWELL - Did the officers from the Securidad Department ever suggest to you during the questioning that they had information that you and Oswald had been lovers?
TIRADO - Yes, and also that we were communists and that we were planning the Revolution and uh, a lot of false things.
The LHO of Dallas was NOT her type as she preferred blond, blue-eyed men according writer Jefferson Morley as he said this..."At least one Mexican source on the CIA payroll had told his case officer that ‘all that would have to be done to recruit Ms. Duran was to get a blonde, blue-eyed American in bed with her’."
She would tell others what had happened and even approached the Ambassador to have an investigation done into this police misconduct. Of course, this led to her being detained a second time.
CORNWELL - What happened after that?
TIRADO - Well, I told to the Ambassador all that happened during the questioning, and I told him also about the protest that we wanted to make and I asked him, "Don't do anything because we are trying to do something here, against these police." And after that, uh, Tuesday, I went to work and Wednesday morning when I was going to have breakfast the police came again, two agents, and they asked me, very polite, if I want to go with them, just to answer some questions. They wanted to know something. And, uh, it was unnecessary to take my car because they were going to take me and bring me back. So, I called uh, the Consulate. That's why I remember I already had the telephone and I said I'm coming in late because I'm going to the police station. okay don't worry, we wait for you. And they keep me two days and a half.
CORNWELL - And why did they tell you that they kept you this time?
TIRADO - Oh, to protect me.
CORNWELL - Did they tell you anything in any more detail? Was there a specific threat?
TIRADO - No. They were very rough this time. They were very angry with me, the man that I told you, that I kicked him in his balls. He was very angry, and they repeat the same questions, but they were more, how you say, how do you say anticipito?
CORNWELL - Were you afraid during the two periods they held you?
TIRADO - Yes. I don't know exactly what happened but I was uh, I was innocent. So I said, what am I doing here, no? And uh, the only thing that I have, I had the feeling that I was going to die and I said okay, if I'm going to die, I'm going to die, how you say it, with pride, my child will not be shamed. I remember I do anything that--I was very dramatic in those moments. So, sometimes I lost my temper. I never say no bad words or nothing. I cry sometimes, I shout and things like that but then I sat down again.
CORNWELL - As I understand it, they tried to scare you, is that correct?
TIRADO - Yes. The first time.
CORNWELL - Okay. Even though you were innocent of those charges, you had not conspired to kill the President and were not in the Communist Party.
TIRADO - Yes.
They were obviously trying to scare her by saying in so many words that if you don’t cooperate and say it was LHO at the Cuban Consulate we will say you were involved in the murder of JFK.
Senor Azcue would be asked about her arrest in his HSCA testimony.
Mr. DODD. Did you make any effort or are you aware of any effort that was made to also talk to either Sylvia Duran, Mr. Mirabal, anyone else that could possibly shed any light as to what actually happened in the consulate in Mexico, other than talking to yourself?
Senor AZCUE. Our colleague, Sylvia Duran, was arrested by the Mexican Government in order to obtain from her clarification or other types of statements from her. Regarding other possible investigations on the part of the Cuban Government, I am not aware of them, because I am not an intelligence agent of the Cuban Government. I provide the information I hold so that it might be processed or acted on.
Why else would she have been arrested if she was NOT involved in the murder of JFK? Obviously to make her state something she did NOT see. Eusebio Azcue would also say the man who came to the Cuban Consulate had blond hair.
Mr. CORNWELL. What color hair did the individual have to the best of your memory who visited the consulate?
Senor AZCUE. He was blond, dark blond.
Again, the Dallas LHO did NOT have blond hair. In an interview Fidel Castro did with the HSCA he said this about the Silvia Duran arrest.
CASTRO: …As far as I have understood, the Mexican lady who used to work at the Consulate was later the object of many pressures—even some kind of persecution.
Villa: She was arrested by the Mexican police with the purpose of finding out what he had said at the Consulate.
CASTRO: All that they said—it was assumed that they wanted her to say that also while at the Embassy he had made reference to killing Kennedy. So the Mexican police had the purpose of having the Mexican (Duran) declare that.
Villa: Exactly.
CASTRO: And who were the people interested in that? Who could be the people interested in that?
Villa: To us that is very clear.
CASTRO: But, that is something worth to be taken into account. Why would that lady become the object of that oppression? What do you know about this lady now?
Villa: She lives in Mexico at present. She used to work in the Consulate, and she was sympathetic of the Cuban revolution.
CASTRO: She, of course, has a very high meritand that after that, knowing how these things are, a person that did not enjoy the diplomatic immunity could have been coerced. She could have been blackmailed and she could have been submitted by fear, you know, in order to have her make a statement that would be against Cuba -- harmful to Cuba. So, it was a tremendous merit that this Mexican lady did behave the way she did because you know how the people are in some countries of the world. They take a helpless woman without any kind of protection and then she can be forced to say anything…
He says it all here. She could have said ANYTHING under that kind of pressure. Even that LHO came to the Consulate as claimed by the WC and CIA. A former assistant counsel for the WC would be intrigued by this arrest as W. David Slawson said this before the HSCA.
Mr. CORNWELL. Are there any other examples where the possibility of wanting to avoid sensitive areas of international relations, diplomatic relationships, prevented you from securing the kind of evidence that you would have liked or that you felt was necessary?
Mr. SLAWSON. There was one other area that may have involved that among other things. Sylvia Turada de Duran, who was the clerk at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, was taken into custody by the Mexican police very soon after the assassination and questioned, my recollection is, for about 3 days. All this happened before the Warren Commission was formed. We got a report from the Russian police and that report is in this memo, No. 22.
We would have liked to questioned her further. When I say we, members of the staff, Coleman and myself and Howard Willens thought it would be a good idea too. But when I talked to the CIA about it and later when we went down to Mexico City I remember talking to officials. I believe we even talked to the Mexican officials at the time, one of them being Echevarria who later became President. He was Minister of Security when we went down there. The upshot of all those conversations was that she had suffered a nervous breakdown, possibly because of the arrest and questioning, and that she was in hiding and only her husband knew where she was and he would not let her speak to anyone in connection with this.
Nevertheless, the CIA told me that they might be able to persuade her husband to permit us to question her, even including possibly flying her back to Washington. But it would be very difficult---well, Earl Warren decided not to follow up on that if she was not willing to come willingly. He did not want to apply pressure on her. Insofar as I understood his reasons for that, they were partly feeling that we ought not to put pressure on her, the American Government did not want to involve itself further at that point. But primarily he just felt he did not want to put severe pressure on an individual and I think he was ashamed that already interrogation had caused her to have a nervous breakdown. He did not want to get involved in anything remotely like torture.
This shows us the immense pressure she was put under OR the work of the CIA in lying to the WC regarding this matter. IF she was tortured than it shows the lengths some would go to in order to make it look LHO was there. IF the CIA flat-out lied about this then it shows the lengths they would go to get the WC to back off and accept their claim without checking it too closely. Either way, IF LHO was really there would all of this really be necessary?
If we look at this memorandum from the CIA station in Mexico City to the main CIA Director [John McCone] we will see she was NOT saying the man who came to the Consulate was the same as the man she saw on television.
CIA Record #104-10404-10189:
www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=3111&relPageId=2
On page two you will see the call for her arrest and that she be held “incommunicado” until she gives all the details regarding “Oswald.” The problem for her is she did NOT meet LHO as her description of the man she spoke with does NOT match him at all. The memorandum even says this, so how is she supposed to do this then?
This memorandum from the director of the CIA says it all in regard to their real motive.
www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=3110&relPageId=2
Her arrest, and what she said, was to be kept SECRET at all costs. Other information on this arrest can be found in these memorandums.
www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=3103&relPageId=2
www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=9028&relPageId=2
It is clear that the evidence taken by the HSCA sinks the WC’s conclusion regarding LHO visiting the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City as they claimed. True, they did NOT make this claim as the CIA did, but their total failure to check into this is unforgivable. The evidence shows us LHO never came to the Cuban Consulate or the Russian Embassy and probably was NOT in Mexico City at all. IF he was, then the real evidence has been kept from us that shows this to be true.
spartacus-educational.com/JFKduranS.jpg
The Warren Commission (WC) said Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) traveled to Mexico City in late September 1963 and stayed until early October 1963. While there he supposedly visited the Cuban Consulate and the Russian Embassy. The main witness for the Cuban Consulate visit was Silvia Duran, but she never described a man who looked like the LHO who was shot in Dallas, Texas.
This post will look more into this aspect of the case.
************************************************
As stated earlier in another post, Silvia Duran took over for Luisa Caldaron who died in a car accident the Mexican police called “strange” about a couple of months before this supposed visit by LHO. The main piece of evidence the WC and its current day defenders use is the fact LHO had Silvia Duran’s name in his address book, thus, he had to go. That is like saying if you have the name of a person in Washington, D.C. you had to go there to get it. This is silly. He could have been given the name or called and got it. It does NOT mean he went. Here is the page in his address book (Commission Exhibit (CE) 18).
CE 18: www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh16/pages/WH_Vol16_0039b.jpg
We can see it shows:
Quote on
Mexico city (sic);
Consulado de Cuba
Zamora Y F Marquez
11-28-47
Sylvia (sic) Duran
Quote off
This does not prove he went as the WC defenders claim since again, he could have called for this information, been given this information or someone could have written it in after it was seized following the assassination. IF this is the kind of evidence you have to rely on then you sure don’t have much of a case in my opinion.
Here is what she said before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) about the job she obtained at the Cuban Consulate in terms of duration. [Note: Her last name by 1978 was Tirado.]
CORNWELL - Approximately when was it that you first obtained the job?
TIRADO - the end of July or August, early August. I don't remember exactly.
CORNWELL - And for how long did you continue to work there?
TIRADO - Three or four months.
CORNWELL - How long after the assassination of President Kennedy did you work there?
TIRADO - Only two days.
So she started work there in early or mid-August following the death of Luisa Caldaron and then left TWO DAYS after President John F. Kennedy (JFK) was killed. Does this seem strange to you? It sure does to me. It seems she was put in place for something.
She would NOT describe a man who looked like LHO either. Here is what she told the HSCA about the man who came to the Consulate in terms of physical description.
LOPEZ - And did they ever ask you to describe Oswald?
TIRADO - Yes.
LOPEZ - Would you do me a favor and describe him for me now?
TIRADO - Yes.
LOPEZ - For example, let's start at the beginning. Was he tall, short?
TIRADO - Short.
LHO was NOT short and if you read an earlier post you would have seen LHO’s height ranged from 5’9 to 5’11. The United States Marine Corps (USMC) had him listed at 5’11 on many forms and this is NOT short. In fact Silvia Duran said the man was as tall as HER!
LOPEZ - Would you say he was taller than Gary?
TIRADO - No, I think just the same. He was about my size.
LOPEZ - About your height?
TIRADO - Yeah.
Her height was about 5’3” by the way. Here is what she said about LHO’s weight.
LOPEZ - Was he skinny?
TIRADO - Yes. Skinny.
LOPEZ - Could you estimate how much he weighed?
TIRADO - About your weight, more or less.
LOPEZ - About my weight. We already went over...
TIRADO - He has stronger shoulders, perhaps, than yours.
LOPEZ - Just for the record, my weight is 199 pounds. You told us before he had a suit on.
TIRADO - That I don't remember very well. I think he was wearing a jacket but what I can remember is that he was not wearing nice clothes, expensive clothing. He was cheap, perhaps.
LHO did NOT weight 199 pounds by the way. Here is what she said about the hair and eye colors.
CORNWELL - Okay. In sum, you identified a picture in the book as being as best as you can remember his face and hair. Was there anything about that which in your memory was different from the picture other than the fact that you do remember his eyes being blue or green and his hair being very light colored or blond but not as light as some of the other pictures look.
TIRADO - And he has not very much. He was, has few, poco pelo.
LOPEZ - He didn't have very much hair.
LOPEZ - I understand. If you bear with me just a few more minutes--his hair line, was it receding?
TIRADO - Yeah, yeah. Quite a bit.
CORNWELL - Lee Harvey Oswald. Now, many of the pictures in the book are not that clear, of course. When you saw him the first time in the book, you indicated that that looked like him except that as you recalled him, he had either blue or green eyes and blond hair. Correct?
TIRADO - Yes.
CORNWELL - When you say blond hair, what color is that? Is it very light?
TIRADO - Light.
LHO did NOT have BLOND hair and while some documents said he had blue eyes many others listed other colors for him. Aline Mosby who interviewed LHO in Moscow said he had BROWN eyes. While one can see LHO’s hair may have been thinning in front I would NOT say he had a major receding hairline or very little hair as she says. Clearly, this is NOT the LHO who was shot in Dallas, Texas, on November 24, 1963. Who was this person then?
She would claim it was LHO though, but we found out why later on. The CIA asked the Mexican police to detain her and do whatever was necessary to obtain a signed statement from her that LHO was the man who came to the Cuban Consulate in late September 1963. Here is her account of what happened to her.
CORNWELL - You were trying to kick them and keep them from taking you with them, right?
TIRADO - Yes, yes.
CORNWELL - Who were you going to call on the telephone?
TIRADO - The police. (Laughter.)
TIRADO - The police, the lawyer, I don't know. And when they took me out of the house and I was crying, "Call the police, call the police!" and they, he covered my mouth, and they took me to station wagon that was parked at the corner. There was a man there, but I didn't know him and I was quiet, and they say, "Don't cry. Scandalous woman." "Scandalous old woman, shut up. Because where we are going we will see what's going to happen to you." So, in that moment, I said quit.
CORNWELL - So you were taken to the police station.
TIRADO - No. It's not the police station. The office where the security, that was where the intelligence agencies were in. But I didn't know that because that building belongs to the State Social Security. Not the one I work for.
CORNWELL - Then?
TIRADO - For government employees.
Clearly these police officers were NOT acting on orders from their own police as they did NOT take her to the police station, but rather to where the “intelligence agencies” were. She was put through questioning with no lawyer being present and then released. She was accused of being LHO’s lover by them too.
CORNWELL - Did the officers from the Securidad Department ever suggest to you during the questioning that they had information that you and Oswald had been lovers?
TIRADO - Yes, and also that we were communists and that we were planning the Revolution and uh, a lot of false things.
The LHO of Dallas was NOT her type as she preferred blond, blue-eyed men according writer Jefferson Morley as he said this..."At least one Mexican source on the CIA payroll had told his case officer that ‘all that would have to be done to recruit Ms. Duran was to get a blonde, blue-eyed American in bed with her’."
She would tell others what had happened and even approached the Ambassador to have an investigation done into this police misconduct. Of course, this led to her being detained a second time.
CORNWELL - What happened after that?
TIRADO - Well, I told to the Ambassador all that happened during the questioning, and I told him also about the protest that we wanted to make and I asked him, "Don't do anything because we are trying to do something here, against these police." And after that, uh, Tuesday, I went to work and Wednesday morning when I was going to have breakfast the police came again, two agents, and they asked me, very polite, if I want to go with them, just to answer some questions. They wanted to know something. And, uh, it was unnecessary to take my car because they were going to take me and bring me back. So, I called uh, the Consulate. That's why I remember I already had the telephone and I said I'm coming in late because I'm going to the police station. okay don't worry, we wait for you. And they keep me two days and a half.
CORNWELL - And why did they tell you that they kept you this time?
TIRADO - Oh, to protect me.
CORNWELL - Did they tell you anything in any more detail? Was there a specific threat?
TIRADO - No. They were very rough this time. They were very angry with me, the man that I told you, that I kicked him in his balls. He was very angry, and they repeat the same questions, but they were more, how you say, how do you say anticipito?
CORNWELL - Were you afraid during the two periods they held you?
TIRADO - Yes. I don't know exactly what happened but I was uh, I was innocent. So I said, what am I doing here, no? And uh, the only thing that I have, I had the feeling that I was going to die and I said okay, if I'm going to die, I'm going to die, how you say it, with pride, my child will not be shamed. I remember I do anything that--I was very dramatic in those moments. So, sometimes I lost my temper. I never say no bad words or nothing. I cry sometimes, I shout and things like that but then I sat down again.
CORNWELL - As I understand it, they tried to scare you, is that correct?
TIRADO - Yes. The first time.
CORNWELL - Okay. Even though you were innocent of those charges, you had not conspired to kill the President and were not in the Communist Party.
TIRADO - Yes.
They were obviously trying to scare her by saying in so many words that if you don’t cooperate and say it was LHO at the Cuban Consulate we will say you were involved in the murder of JFK.
Senor Azcue would be asked about her arrest in his HSCA testimony.
Mr. DODD. Did you make any effort or are you aware of any effort that was made to also talk to either Sylvia Duran, Mr. Mirabal, anyone else that could possibly shed any light as to what actually happened in the consulate in Mexico, other than talking to yourself?
Senor AZCUE. Our colleague, Sylvia Duran, was arrested by the Mexican Government in order to obtain from her clarification or other types of statements from her. Regarding other possible investigations on the part of the Cuban Government, I am not aware of them, because I am not an intelligence agent of the Cuban Government. I provide the information I hold so that it might be processed or acted on.
Why else would she have been arrested if she was NOT involved in the murder of JFK? Obviously to make her state something she did NOT see. Eusebio Azcue would also say the man who came to the Cuban Consulate had blond hair.
Mr. CORNWELL. What color hair did the individual have to the best of your memory who visited the consulate?
Senor AZCUE. He was blond, dark blond.
Again, the Dallas LHO did NOT have blond hair. In an interview Fidel Castro did with the HSCA he said this about the Silvia Duran arrest.
CASTRO: …As far as I have understood, the Mexican lady who used to work at the Consulate was later the object of many pressures—even some kind of persecution.
Villa: She was arrested by the Mexican police with the purpose of finding out what he had said at the Consulate.
CASTRO: All that they said—it was assumed that they wanted her to say that also while at the Embassy he had made reference to killing Kennedy. So the Mexican police had the purpose of having the Mexican (Duran) declare that.
Villa: Exactly.
CASTRO: And who were the people interested in that? Who could be the people interested in that?
Villa: To us that is very clear.
CASTRO: But, that is something worth to be taken into account. Why would that lady become the object of that oppression? What do you know about this lady now?
Villa: She lives in Mexico at present. She used to work in the Consulate, and she was sympathetic of the Cuban revolution.
CASTRO: She, of course, has a very high meritand that after that, knowing how these things are, a person that did not enjoy the diplomatic immunity could have been coerced. She could have been blackmailed and she could have been submitted by fear, you know, in order to have her make a statement that would be against Cuba -- harmful to Cuba. So, it was a tremendous merit that this Mexican lady did behave the way she did because you know how the people are in some countries of the world. They take a helpless woman without any kind of protection and then she can be forced to say anything…
He says it all here. She could have said ANYTHING under that kind of pressure. Even that LHO came to the Consulate as claimed by the WC and CIA. A former assistant counsel for the WC would be intrigued by this arrest as W. David Slawson said this before the HSCA.
Mr. CORNWELL. Are there any other examples where the possibility of wanting to avoid sensitive areas of international relations, diplomatic relationships, prevented you from securing the kind of evidence that you would have liked or that you felt was necessary?
Mr. SLAWSON. There was one other area that may have involved that among other things. Sylvia Turada de Duran, who was the clerk at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, was taken into custody by the Mexican police very soon after the assassination and questioned, my recollection is, for about 3 days. All this happened before the Warren Commission was formed. We got a report from the Russian police and that report is in this memo, No. 22.
We would have liked to questioned her further. When I say we, members of the staff, Coleman and myself and Howard Willens thought it would be a good idea too. But when I talked to the CIA about it and later when we went down to Mexico City I remember talking to officials. I believe we even talked to the Mexican officials at the time, one of them being Echevarria who later became President. He was Minister of Security when we went down there. The upshot of all those conversations was that she had suffered a nervous breakdown, possibly because of the arrest and questioning, and that she was in hiding and only her husband knew where she was and he would not let her speak to anyone in connection with this.
Nevertheless, the CIA told me that they might be able to persuade her husband to permit us to question her, even including possibly flying her back to Washington. But it would be very difficult---well, Earl Warren decided not to follow up on that if she was not willing to come willingly. He did not want to apply pressure on her. Insofar as I understood his reasons for that, they were partly feeling that we ought not to put pressure on her, the American Government did not want to involve itself further at that point. But primarily he just felt he did not want to put severe pressure on an individual and I think he was ashamed that already interrogation had caused her to have a nervous breakdown. He did not want to get involved in anything remotely like torture.
This shows us the immense pressure she was put under OR the work of the CIA in lying to the WC regarding this matter. IF she was tortured than it shows the lengths some would go to in order to make it look LHO was there. IF the CIA flat-out lied about this then it shows the lengths they would go to get the WC to back off and accept their claim without checking it too closely. Either way, IF LHO was really there would all of this really be necessary?
If we look at this memorandum from the CIA station in Mexico City to the main CIA Director [John McCone] we will see she was NOT saying the man who came to the Consulate was the same as the man she saw on television.
CIA Record #104-10404-10189:
www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=3111&relPageId=2
On page two you will see the call for her arrest and that she be held “incommunicado” until she gives all the details regarding “Oswald.” The problem for her is she did NOT meet LHO as her description of the man she spoke with does NOT match him at all. The memorandum even says this, so how is she supposed to do this then?
This memorandum from the director of the CIA says it all in regard to their real motive.
www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=3110&relPageId=2
Her arrest, and what she said, was to be kept SECRET at all costs. Other information on this arrest can be found in these memorandums.
www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=3103&relPageId=2
www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=9028&relPageId=2
It is clear that the evidence taken by the HSCA sinks the WC’s conclusion regarding LHO visiting the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City as they claimed. True, they did NOT make this claim as the CIA did, but their total failure to check into this is unforgivable. The evidence shows us LHO never came to the Cuban Consulate or the Russian Embassy and probably was NOT in Mexico City at all. IF he was, then the real evidence has been kept from us that shows this to be true.