A SECRET AGENT? DID OSWALD BUILD UP ODDBALL IMAGE TO FOOL FBI?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600160035-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 18, 1999
• Sequence Number: 35
• Publication Date: April 17, 1964
• Content Type: NSPR

FOIAb3b
Sanitized - Approved For
PALO ALTO TIMES
Once back on American soi
in mid-1962, Lee Harvey'Oswal
began drifting about from plat
to place and job to job, trailin
an image of a rabblerouser an
unreformed Marxist.
After a fling at passing ou
"Fair Play for Cuba" literatut;
on New Orleans street corners
he finally settled down in Dal
las.
Texas School Book Depository,,
Views- of a security expert'
Edward Ellis Smut i, former
rmy, State Department and
cntral Intelligen ;c Agency
CIA) security-intelligence of-
leer, believes accused assas
in Lee Harvey Oswald was
when he shot President John
F. Kennedy.
In the last of a series of ea-
elusive articles in t o d a y' s
Times, Smith speculates o n
Oswald's espionage assign-
ment after returning to the
United States from Russia.
CPYRGHT
trained Soviet agent,, al-
hough not acting on orders
Smith, who is not lacking in
and rented a room in town;; knowledge of undercover work,
commuting to the suburbs onl believes Oswald's assignment
weekends to visit his wife and 'was routine and that it proved
child, extremely frustrating tr him.
G ?. as home after 21/2 Oswald was in a hurry He de-
w
years Russia. How he man-J manded action.
aged hip international travels so Smith has little doubt, either,
easily, returning home with a'that Oswald was mentally tut
Russian bride, has _ opened the balanced, probably a scliizoid
CPYRGHT
a mail order rifle was romj
NO
PROSECUTION-
I
Chicago.
All these things he did, ac-k
In order to operate w zliout
cording , to Smith but the Jus-
detection, Oswald had to nave
tice D iartment, he aded by
a "cover." According to Smith!
Atty Gan. ,Robert F. Kennedy,
that "cover" or "legend build
not prosecute
die
lags" as the Russians call it, be-;
Smith
further . ames
the
an to take shape before he{
FBI w
, satisfied 6h
:ras
left the Soviet Union.
,.
..
some kind of
"nut w:,
a
It began to take shape when'
not warn:nt a 2 -rrrh
gates to a'flood of speculation personality - a type not unusu-(Oswald wrote letters to 'tis . he was
Howeve
by Edward Ellis Smith. al in undercover work. {mother, to a conservative `i'ex- , much like p.
port
Smith, 42, of 1849 Webster Oswald went to lianas, near as senator and to the secretary; . to an FBi r. .
rolee
Palo Alto, is a former U.S. ;e- the center of many space and of the Navy, expressing dis month,: for an inL~';,
six
curity-intelligence officer with defense installations, perhaps to satisfaction with life in the So- the name of a i,
carried
F131 agent in the Army, State De "service a dead drop," Smith viet Union and a desire to agent in his n o t t::
partment and Central Intclli- believes. A "dead drop" is a turn to the place of his birth. Smith recalls.
gence Agency. place - sometimes a rock, a But once he arrived, Oswald; Time wore on and Osw?id
his career, he has spent hook on a crowded public libra- immediately began 9 giving the came more and mist
scL:urlty officer of the Ameri-;j:. p, in the defense and space in-!was part of his "cbver," Smith, long time. He began
can Embassy in Moscow. stallations forwarded informa-believes norcd. He had to do son
TRAINED AGENT }tion to the "dead drop" sere-~ Oswald must have corn. on-i about it.
Smith has concluded from the iced by Oswald. He In turn der FBI scrutiny on his rc,urn Smith says it is not en
kmown facts of Oswald's life pa .d it on elsewhere, Snlithon mid-1962, Smith assumes. It; for undercover agents to w
from 1959 to 1963 that the ac-'spc: lies: Is possible Oswald was subject impatient.
curer' .ssassin of President John FALSE,NAME to federal prosecution for using "When Oswald's impatien
F ,nedy was a trained Soviet Fie "observes Oswald main-'a pretext to get out of the Ma-loot the best of him, he dash d`
ag. tain,:d a posts` face box in Dal- tines in 1959, for passing mili-r'off to Mexico City. Soviet agen~s.
He noes not believe, 'however, to -,der thh'?alia5, "A. Hidell tart' information to the Russlans-lare taught never to contact Rus-'
that the dastardly act was coin- IL k is to'''n: Hidell" and thatiand for claiming he had never'sian embassies or consulates inf
muted on orders of the gem- very same odst offltce W th' sworn allegiance to tinottiet?k?h, ountry In which they~,are
alit > a. ti*Heri #io ell 1il r
=or n pa&SPQ M.- W, rr