CIA Cryptographically Verified

1975 CIA Memo Reveals the Truth Behind Sylvia Duran, the Mystery Embassy Photo, and a Fabricated Tip

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Frequently Asked Questions

No. This 1975 CIA memo confirms the photo was taken after Oswald had already left Mexico City and was not him, though it was mistakenly rushed to the FBI and later shown to Oswald's wife and mother with the background cropped to conceal its actual location.

Alvarado, a Nicaraguan citizen who claimed to have seen Oswald receive money from a Cuban official at the embassy, was found after lengthy interrogation and a polygraph test to have fabricated the entire story.

Public-Interest Summary

A 31 July 1975 CIA memorandum responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, reviewing Lee Harvey Oswald's 201 personality file and disclosing, for internal purposes, the real story behind three of the most debated pieces of Oswald-Mexico-City evidence. It confirms Sylvia Duran, the Cuban Embassy employee who assisted Oswald's visa attempt, was identified through CIA mail-intercept and telephone-tap operations before her arrest and interrogation by Mexican authorities. It reveals that the famous surveillance photograph of an unidentified man outside the Soviet Embassy — mistakenly rushed to the FBI as a possible Oswald photo — was in fact taken after Oswald had already left Mexico, and was shown to Oswald's wife and mother with the background deliberately cropped to hide its true location. And it confirms Nicaraguan citizen Gilberto Alvarado's sensational claim to have witnessed Oswald receiving money from a Cuban official was, after polygraph testing, determined to be entirely fabricated. This is one of the single most important documents in the archive for understanding the CIA's actual internal knowledge of the Mexico City evidence at the heart of Warren Commission and later HSCA investigations.

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Extracted Entities

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Gilberto Alvarado Ugarte Lee Harvey Oswald Sylvia Duran Mexico City 31 July 1975

People Organizations Locations Amounts

Provenance

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10012-10055.pdf

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Cold War Intelligence & Tradecraft Files

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