Debating The McCrone-Rowley Memorandum

CIA Director John McCone allegedly wrote to Secret Service Chief James Rowley a memorandum which documented Lee Harvey Oswald's association with the CIA and his final standing with the agency at the time of his death. Much debate on the internet ensued from the circulation of this memo, with a majority opinion concluding that it was a forgery. Much less attention was paid to the substance of the correspondence which would shed further light on its value and authenticity.

The March 3, 1964 memo summarizes its knowledge of Oswald thusly: CIA began training subject in 1957 for Soviet assignments under cover of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Initial training involved aerial reconnaissance of mainland China, followed by training at Camp Peary from September 8 - October 17, 1958. He was deployed on a few "relatively minor" assignments before being infiltrated into the USSR in 1959. The DCI states that it would not be "advantageous" to divulge the purpose of the assignment, but that he would provide it if asked by Rowley.

McCone next states that during the Soviet assignment, Oswald became unreliable and expendable. The DCI then speculates that a surgery on April 1, 1961 in Minsk Hospital resulted in Oswald's instability, evidenced in part by his marriage to Marina Prusakova, his primary concern being that Oswald might be a sleeper agent.

After returning to the US, Oswald was assigned to New Orleans where he performed minor assignments under the direction of Guy Banister.

We have condensed the interpretation of the memo to focus on the salient points it raises.

Our judgment of the memo is that its tone is a tad too folksy or pedestrian to be from the DCI - at least veteran CIA officials - lacking the archness, terseness, and jargon commonly associated with such documents. On the other hand, that is somewhat beside the point. Does the memo contain any truth?

The most important element of this correspondence is the evaluation of Oswald's reliability. And on that note, one could easily imagine James Angleton becoming as nervous as a cat in a sauna when he found out that Oswald had married Marina. Was he a double agent? Had he been flipped? We shall see that is precisely how the counter-intelligence chief acted - the one who was convicted of perjury and mail fraud.

At this point we have 2 options regarding his marriage to Marina: 1. he married her for romantic reasons 2. he married her as part of an assignment. We lean toward option 1 because of the adverse treatment he received from the Department of Navy, such as his less than honorable discharge which downgraded his hardship discharge of September 1959.

But the downgrade is very telling for it reveals that Oswald was still in the Navy working for ONI as this memo indicates. A discharge is final unless one is still in the service. Apparently Oswald wandered off the reservation whose retribution was a highly adverse USN action and one which the Marine appealed in vain.

Another extraordinary evidence proving that Oswald worked for CIA was the 201 file opened on him in December 1960 by Ann Egerter who worked for Angleton. Not only does the 201 file prove that Oswald worked for CIA [edit: the 201 does NOT prove that one is an agency employee], but that proof is reinforced by the investigation by the CIA's Special Investigation Group which Egerter confirmed in sworn testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations was only applicable to employees of the agency.

With these 2 adverse actions against Oswald, it was only a matter of time before the CIA "burned" him wherein he was murdered for "national security." Thus the sum and substance of the memo were in fact corroborated by facts - specifically personnel and security actions which led to his framing as the patsy.

It will be fruitless to debate the memo on documentary grounds for it cannot be found in the National Archive, though telltale signs prove that hundreds of pages have been removed from the related files - meaning that the original may in fact be waiting for discovery. It is quite interesting that this memo, which first appeared in 1980, was light years ahead of the conventional and alternative histories.

Reference
Ben Holmes, Credible Evidence that Oswald Worked for the CIA, conspiracyjfkforum.com, June 2, 2016

Walt Brown, McCone to Rowley: Oswald Was One of Our Boys, manuscriptservice.com, October 2004

Copyright 2019 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.

Dr Kurian's Interview of Harvey Oswald

Dr Milton Kurian interviewed Harvey Oswald in March 27, 1953 at the request of probation officer John Carro. Malcolm Blunt and Bill Drenas interviewed Dr Kurian May 23, 1998. We summarize this brief - half hour - interview containing a number of fascinating recollections by Dr Kurian.

Milton Kurian was a medical doctor who practiced for 60 years, the first 10 years of his career dealing with children; the remainder with adults. He practiced psychiatry in private and public sectors, including the military and the New York City children's court as a consultant psychiatrist where he encountered our subject. This author found the interviewee to be very lucid and coherent while being deliberate to construct his recollections and assessments about Oswald.

The day of Kurian's interview of Oswald coincided with his last day as a psychiatrist for the court, the latter of whom was in the custody of the case officer for truancy. Oswald was held in detention at the Youth House for 2 weeks in Manhattan for the said delinquency.

Kurian conducted the impromptu 45-60 minute interview as a favor for a colleague. He was interrupted from moving by a secretary who asked if he had time to meet the probation officer to discuss Oswald. Kurian said that Carro was having difficulty preparing his report on Oswald for the court, but wanted to help him organized his profile for his court case, largely as a favor for a colleague. The unscheduled visit gave Kurian no time to prepare for the interview in his usual fashion - as he responded when asked by the interviewer if Oswald had an accent. To that question Kurian replied that he did not notice.

Kurian found Oswald to be quite paranoid, giving as an example Oswald's entrance into his office in which he put one foot across the threshold, then stopping to scan the room to see if it was safe to proceed. Kurian described Oswald as rather thin, short, and "in knickers." When pressed for more details, Kurian thought that Oswald was about 4' 8".

Oswald described himself as the third and youngest of his siblings with John Pic and Robert perhaps being the assumed siblings, although it is not entirely certain that this is the case.

Oswald was very composed or reserved during the interview, something which Kurian thought was uncharacteristic of children that age, which in Oswald's case was 13. Oswald told Kurian that his siblings were harsh or cruel to him, which contributed to Oswald's anger. The doctor learned - presumably from Carl - that Oswald's mother had been married 5 times, and spent only 7 years in matrimony. Oswald stated that he had no recollection of his father, and that there were no father figures in his life, though there were a number of step fathers.

Oswald stated that he had little interest in school in large part because his family moved constantly and thus had no opportunity to develop ties or friendships. Consequently he learned to entertain himself. He reported that his brothers would attend his classes in his stead which created considerable confusion among classmates and teachers.

When asked about his overall impressions of Oswald, Kurian admitted that Oswald was the most disturbed child he had encountered up to that time, although he acknowledged seeing worse cases subsequently. The doctor further described Oswald as an abandoned child who did not have the opportunity to develop normally, a young man who harbored much anger, frustration, and distrust - someone who needed additional assessment for specific therapy.

One of the interviewers asked Kurian to assess Oswald's IQ in general terms, but he declined to comment as he said that testing was handled by others. However, John Armstrong cites psychologist Irving Sokolow's finding that Oswald had an IQ of 118.

After the assassination, Kurian contacted the FBI to relate that he had interviewed Oswald, but the FBI showed no interest. This disinterest surprised him because he recalled advising the probation officer that Oswald could be homicidal, especially against authority figures. In similar fashion, the Warren Commission studiously avoided him when it received his consolation letter to Mrs. Kennedy. Blunt and his partner in 1998 were the first to interview Kurian at all.

In a similar vein, when Kurian called John Carro after the assassination, Carl claimed no recollection of him although he used verbatim in his report some of the advice given to him by the psychiatrist.

One of the more interesting passages in the interview was Kurian's discussion of Oswald's name. He asked the lad his preferred name which he recalled as Harvey, which incidentally he reflexively used in referring to Oswald before his interviewers raised the question. Of even greater interest was the doctor's observation that Oswald had 3 names which he subsequently learned could be a significant factor in the psychological development of some people.

In closing Kurian recalled the extreme security surrounding Franklin Roosevelt when he spoke at Kurian's graduation from Howard University - all in contrast to the highly delinquent security attending Kennedy in Dallas.

This interview of Kurian is significant in many ways, not the least of which is that no one bothered to interview him before 1998. Some will contend that Kurian largely substantiates the Lone Nut theory but this is hardly the case. The fact that both the FBI and the Warren Commission shunned Kurian when he could have provided ammunition for their baroque theories means that there is much more to the story than their fraudulent work admits.

On a smaller note, Kurian's recollection of Oswald's preference for Harvey accords well with John Armstrong's research, and directly contradicts Judyth Vary Baker's treatment of the same subject in Me and Lee.

Reference
Dr Milton Kurian by Malcolm Blunt, Bill Drenas and John Armstrong May 23 1998, YouTube, Lone Gunman, May 8, 2019

Copyright 2019 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.