Pedro Gutierrez Valencia Allegation

The story of Gilberto Alvarado Ugarte, the Nicaraguan who claimed to have seen Oswald take money to kill Kennedy in the Cuban Embassy, reached the Warren Commission. Another similar story, this one featuring Oswald taking money outside the Cuban Embassy, also reached the Commission and was of concern to them. This latter allegation was provided by a man named Pedro Gutierrez Valencia.

On 2 Dec 1963, Gutierrez wrote a letter to President Johnson. In this letter and in subsequent FBI interviews conducted in February 1964, Gutierrez told the following story. He claimed that as part of his work as a credit examiner, he had visited the Cuban Embassy on 1 Oct 1963. Outside the Embassy, he had bumped into a Cuban man who was counting out money to an American, and he overheard a heated discussion in which the words "Castro" and "Kennedy" were used. The two men then got into a car together and drove off. After Kennedy's assassination, Gutierrez recognized the American as Lee Harvey Oswald.

During the February 1964 investigation, Gutierrez was found to be a credible person, but aspects of his story failed corroboration. Surveillance photos had failed to pick up Gutierrez during the time period in question. Further, Gutierrez failed to pick Oswald correctly from a photo spread.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations investigated this story, and interviewed Gutierrez. In a tape recording of what appears to be someone reading an English translation of the 1978 Gutierrez HSCA interview (this tape is at the National Archives), Gutierrez retracted much of his story. He claimed that there was no Cuban walking with Oswald, no heated discussion of Kennedy, no counting out of money.

Regarding his 1964 FBI interviews, Gutierrez in 1978 said that "they spoke broken Spanish, and I spoke broken English." This hardly accounts for the dramatic change in story 14 years later.