Stories of Communist Conspiracy in Mexico City

In the wake of the JFK assassination, stories of Communist conspiracy abounded in Mexico City, most of them harkening back to Oswald's visit there several weeks earlier. The allegations generally centered around the idea that Cuban officials in Mexico City had conspired with Oswald in the murder of Kennedy.

Sylvia Duran's Interrogation - Discusses the arrest and re-arrest by Mexican officials of Sylvia Duran, the woman who handled Oswald's visa request.

Gilberto Alvarado Allegation - Tells the story of the man who said he saw Oswald take $6500 in the Cuban Embassy to kill Kennedy.

Elena Garro de Paz Allegation - Examines the story of Mexican writer Elena Garro de Paz, who said she saw Lee Oswald at a "twist party" at Sylvia Duran's house.

Pedro Gutierrez Valencia Allegation - Tells the story of a man who claimed to see Oswald take money outside the Cuban Embassy.

Luisa Calderon Foreknowledge Allegation - Examines the idea that Cuban Embassy employee Luisa Calderon expressed "foreknowledge" of JFK's death in a taped phone call.

Other stories include a report of a delayed Cubana airlines flight on November 22 with a mysterious passenger who rode in the cockpit, the strange travels of Gilberto Policarpo Lopez, and hijacker Antulio Ramirez Ortiz' allegations of having seen an Osvaldo-Kennedy file in Cuban intelligence files. Ramirez's story appears in the 2006 German documentary Rendezvous with Death by Wilfried Huismann and Gus Russo, which posits a Cuban conspiracy to kill JFK.

An additional related story is the allegation that Lee Oswald threatened the life of Kennedy while in the Cuban Embassy. This was reported to the Warren Commission (CD 1359) from the FBI Operation SOLO, a high-level penetration of the Communist Party USA by Morris and Jack Childs. The source of the story was no less than Fidel Castro himself, who reportedly told it to Jack Childs. Childs reported a spontaneous threat, not an offer to kill Kennedy as some accounts have alleged.

The Warren Commission heard some but not all of these allegations, and it and the HSCA ultimately dismissed them all with some uneasiness. From the records we now have, it is not at all clear that these stories can all be dismissed as mistakes or "provocations." It appears that there may be a deeper truth, still obscured, regarding the events in Mexico City.

Do these stories then point toward Cuban complicity in the assassination? That is one interpretation put on them. Many more observers regard these events as now-cold leads to a pre-assassination plan to blame JFK's murder on Cuba. If so, then this question arises: who would have sufficient knowledge and control of the CIA's information flow to manage such an effort?