Dr. Latell squares the circle by relocating Oswald's threat from the Embassy (as Castro had told Childs) to the Consulate. The latter was the only place where defector AMMUG-1 guessed some Castro's intelligence officers were in contact with Oswald (CIA Memo dated 08 May 1964, HSCA Report, Volume IV, pages 167-70). They would have given him "plenty of propaganda and indoctrination" in his one-day visit and even dared to wind him up in such a way that "when he left the consulate and shouted his intent to kill Kennedy, it must have been as the war cry of a fully primed soldier for Fidel" (Castro's Secrets, 226 f).
Thus, the Oswald's outburst is simply exacerbated as an outcome of the Castro's General Directorate of Intelligence (DGI) tradecraft. This house of cards falls down since Castro emphasized that Oswald had made the "suspicious movement" of going for a visa to the Embassy, instead of the Consulate, and that he had uttered the threat "on his way out" from the Embassy, not from the Consulate.
Indeed, the outgoing and incoming Cuban consuls Eusebio Azcue and Alfredo Mirabal, testified before HSCA (Report, Volume III, pages 127-58 and 173-78, respectively) that they did not hear Oswald threatening Kennedy's life. Neither did the Mexican employee Duran, who was consistent about it in both her interview by HSCA (JFK Exhibit F-440A) and her interrogation by Mexican Police (NARA 1993-05-17-18.01.09.000020). The Lopez Report deciphers the mystery: the Consulate "was in a separate building from the Embassy" (pages 26 f).
The Cuban diplomatic compound in Mexico City was located at Francisco Marquez Street (Colonia Condesa) and had two main entrances: one to the Embassy, on the corner of Tacubaya Alley, and the other to the Consulate, on the corner of Zamora Street (pages 27 f). No wonder the CIA surveillance post (LIERODE) in a third-floor apartment across the street employed an agent at one window for photographing the visitors to the Embassy, while from another window a pulse camera covered those entering the Consulate.
Childs himself reasonably explained in his report to Hoover that "the Cuban Embassy people must have told Oswald something to the effect that they were sorry that they did not let Americans into Cuba because the U.S. government stopped Cubans from letting them in, and that is when Oswald shouted out the statement about killing President Kennedy."
It goes without saying that Oswald was told to apply anyway for a visa at the proper place: the Consulate. He must have entered the compound at the corner of Tacubaya Alley shortly after arriving in Mexico City on September 27, 1963, and surely didn't have to exit the compound for entering again at the corner of Zamora Street and being around 11:00 am before the Mexican employee Silvia Duran, who will attend him two more times the same day (Overview of Mexico City Photo Ops with Chronology, NARA 104-10413-10000, page 27).
The consular processing is undoubtedly established by the phone calls from the Cuban to the Soviet consulate and vice versa taped by the CIA this very Friday (NARA 104-10147-10323). On the contrary, Dr. Latell has not a shred of evidence of DGI officers indoctrinating and winding Oswald up for anything.
The HSCA Sound Judgment
The HSCA pursued the allegation of Castro foreknowledge because "the substance" of a story broke by late British journalist Comer Clark ("Fidel Castro Says He Knew of Oswald Threat to Kill JFK, " National Enquirer [London], October 15, 1967, pages 4-5) had been independently reported to the U.S. Government by a highly confidential and reliable source, who happened to be FBI informant Jack Childs. Clark reported that Castro had told him:
"Yes, I heard of Lee Harvey Oswald's plan to kill President Kennedy. It's possible I could have saved him. I might have been able to, but I didn't. I never believed the plan would be put into effect."
Castro would have explained that Oswald visited the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City twice and the last time "he said something like "Someone ought to shoot that President Kennedy'. Then Oswald said --and this was exactly how it was reported to me-- "May be I'll try to do it.' This was less than two months before the U.S. President was assassinated."
Before an HSCA panel, Castro branded Clark's story as "a lie from head to toe" (Report, Volume III, page 207). And it seemed implausible because Clark attributed it to an impromptu interview with Castro, surrounding by a cheering crowd, on a sidewalk at a pizzeria in Havana.
The alternative version that the story was provided to Clark by his assistant Nina Gadd gives a clue to diplomatic circles, because Gadd claimed that she obtained the information from a friend who was the foreign minister of a Central American country (Steve Dorill, "Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico: New Leads," Lobster, Issue 6, November 1984, page 16).
Unaware of the Childs report beyond the Hoover's summary to Rankin, the HSCA "did not believe that Oswald voice a threat to Cuban officials" and found the then unknown FBI reliable source "to be in error in this instance."
In fact, an "absent-minded" American trying to travel illegally to Cuba must have never passed through the Embassy reception. And his loudest shout "on his way out" could have barely heard by the receptionist, the security guard, and the officials eventually hanging around.
Whether it was also heard by CIA HUMINT or SIGINT at the very Cuban Embassy is quite a different kettle of fish, like LIEROD missing Oswald one time at Tacubaya Alley and five times at Zamora Street on September 27, 1963. What matters here and now is that the Cuban Embassy personnel in Mexico City were obliged to inform Castro just after Oswald made the news on November 22, 1963.
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