CIA Intelligence in Paris

Although recently declassified documents about the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy do not appear to contain any shocking revelations, they do confirm that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) more or less concealed what it knew.

128 CIA agents in Paris

More than 60 years later, the assassination that shocked America continues to fuel the wildest conspiracy theories. If some were hoping for revelations after President Donald Trump declassified 64,000 documents in the JFK Files, they will be disappointed. At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence to support the official conclusion of the Warren Commission, commissioned by President Lyndon Johnson, that Lee Harvey Oswald, a self-proclaimed Marxist, acted alone in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

But the documents, which experts and historians are sifting through with the help of artificial intelligence, are not without value. They demonstrate the extent of CIA spying abroad, under diplomatic cover, notably at the US Embassy in Paris, and JFK’s distrust of an agency he considered dismantling. The documents also confirm that the CIA closely monitored Lee Harvey Oswald’s activities for years, including a controversial trip to Mexico two months before his crime.

One of the newly declassified documents reveals that there were 128 CIA intelligence officers in Paris. Photo: Le Point

The “Schlesinger Memorandum” is one of the most anticipated documents. The majority of the pages in the “Schlesinger Memorandum” that have been processed reveal that, two months after the failure of the Bay of Pigs Operation, President Kennedy instructed his advisor Arthur Schlesinger to work on the possibility of reorganizing the CIA.

The 16-page memo, filed in June 1961, was particularly harsh. Schlesinger called the CIA a “state within a state.” According to a declassified portion, the agency had 3,700 undercover agents at the time, roughly the same number as the State Department overseas. Moreover, nearly half of the agents (1,500) posed as diplomats.

Schlesinger cites 128 CIA agents occupying the “top floor” of the US Embassy in Paris, “a fact well known to the local population.” The US agents “tried to monopolize communications with certain French political figures,” specifically mentioning “President of the National Assembly” Jacques Chaban-Delmas, who had met Kennedy in Washington a few months earlier.

Furthermore, at the US Embassy in Paris, a CIA agent handed a poisoned pen to Rolando Cubela, a Cuban recruited by Washington to assassinate Fidel Castro, but he ultimately did not carry out the act.

President Kennedy and French National Assembly President Jacques Chaban-Delmas in Washington, March 10, 1961. Photo: White House

The “Schlesinger Memo” reveals why JFK considered restructuring the CIA to the point of disbanding it, says Jefferson Morley, a former Washington Post reporter who now publishes JFK Facts on Substack. Because, Schlesinger said, the CIA was “infringing” on the traditional role of the State Department, and thus on the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy. Kennedy believed the CIA was trying to impose its views on him during the Bay of Pigs invasion and was looking for a solution. Ultimately, JFK decided not to attack the agency, but the memo marked the beginning of his distrust of the CIA.

Lee Harvey Oswald's Mysterious Trip to Mexico

During the Warren Commission hearings, CIA officials downplayed two things: What they knew about Lee Harvey Oswald and the extent of the agency's plans to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

The CIA began tracking the former Marine when he attempted to defect to the Soviet Union in 1959, and continued to monitor him when he returned to the United States, married a Soviet woman, and fathered a child, in 1962.

When Oswald arrived in Mexico in late September 1963, his purpose, as he explained to his wife, was to request a visa from the Cuban and Soviet embassies allowing him to defect to Cuba, but was denied.

It was well known that the CIA spied on the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico. The new documents provide details of eavesdropping techniques, such as the use of chemicals that are only visible under ultraviolet light to mark telephones.

According to journalist Jefferson Morley, the surveillance of Lee Harvey Oswald was carried out by James Angleton, head of the CIA's counterintelligence division. A week before Kennedy's death, Angleton had a 180-page dossier on Oswald on his desk that the CIA had long hidden.

A hearing is scheduled to be held in the US Congress on April 1 and there are still 20,000 documents that need to be declassified soon.

PHUONG LINH (according to Le Point)

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Source: https://baodaknong.vn/nhung-bi-mat-cuoi-cung-cua-ho-so-jfk-tinh-bao-cia-o-paris-246854.html