EXECUTIVE SESSION

---

TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1978:

---

U.S. House of Representatives,

Subcommittee on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy of the Select Committee on Assassinations,

Washington, D.C.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 4:40 p.m. in room 3370, House Annex No. 2, 2nd and D Streets, S.W.

Present: Michael Goldsmith and Dan Hardway.

---

Mr. Goldsmith. Miss Reporter, would you please swear in the witness?

The Reporter. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony which you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. Shaw. I do.
TESTIMONY OF ROBERT T. SHAW

Mr. Goldsmith. Would you state your name and address for the record?

Mr. Shaw. Robert T. Shaw, 3715 Acosta Road, Fairfax, Virginia, 22031.

Mr. Goldsmith. What is your present occupation, Mr. Shaw?

Mr. Shaw. I am undercover with the Department of State, but my actual occupation is Inspector, Office of the Inspector General, Central Intelligence Agency.

Mr. Goldsmith. Mr. Shaw, I handed you earlier a copy of a letter from the Acting Director of the Central Intelligence, Mr. Carlucci, to the Chairman of this Committee. It corresponds to JFK Exhibit No. 94 in the Committee's hearing record.

Have you had a chance to read that letter?

Mr. Shaw. I read it just now.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you understand it?

Mr. Shaw. I understand it.

Mr. Goldsmith. I also would like to hand you the Committee's rules and resolutions and ask you at this time to read Rule No. 4 to yourself.

(Pause)

Mr. Shaw. I read it over.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you understand that?
Mr. Shaw. I understand it.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you understand that you have a right to counsel?

Mr. Shaw. Yes.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you waive that right to counsel?

Mr. Shaw. I do not need counsel.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you understand that, under the Committee rules, that you have a right to receive a copy of the statement you are going to give us at this deposition?

Mr. Shaw. I should hope so, to check it for accuracy.

Mr. Goldsmith. However, by virtue of the arrangement that the Committee has worked out with the Central Intelligence Agency, we have been asked to request of Agency employees that they waive their right to receive a copy of the deposition for their own retention. By that, I mean we would certainly be willing to grant you access to the deposition, to correct it in any way necessary, but the Agency has requested that we ask you to waive your right to receive an actual copy of the deposition.

Mr. Shaw. I have no problem with that.

Mr. Goldsmith. Thank you.

For the record, I would like to say that the Committee's mandate is to investigate the assassination of the President. The scope of the mandate includes who killed the President, was there a conspiracy? We are also required to evaluate
the performance of the investigative agencies, specifically
the FBI and the CIA and to evaluate the work of the Warren
Commission.

Do you understand that as well?

Mr. Shaw. Yes.

Mr. Goldsmith. Prior to coming here today, have you
discussed what your testimony is going to be with any CIA
employee?

Mr. Shaw. I have not, except to tell them that I was
going to tell the truth when I got over here.

Mr. Goldsmith. In terms of discussing the substance of
your testimony?

Mr. Shaw. None whatever.

Mr. Goldsmith. Have you discussed with any CIA employee,
past or present, who either has been interviewed by the
Committee or has given a statement under oath to the Committee,
what questions were asked of him or her?

Mr. Shaw. I have not.

Mr. Goldsmith. Are you here today voluntarily and
without subpoena?

Mr. Shaw. Yes.

Mr. Goldsmith. Mr. Shaw, how long have you been working
under State Department cover?

Mr. Shaw. Since approximately the date I came aboard,
because I was promptly sent to the Department of State for
training. That would be March, 1948.

Mr. Goldsmith. Would your State Department file, if reviewed by a member of this Committee, indicate that you were actually a CIA employee?

Mr. Shaw. I have no idea.

Mr. Goldsmith. You do not understand how the cover arrangement would work between the Agency and the Department of State?

Mr. Shaw. I have never had anything to do with the setting up of such cover. It would well be that there might be some sort of an indicator or flag, or something in that file that would indicate to a person who knew the ropes that I was not bona fide.

Mr. Goldsmith. Would there be a personnel file on you at the Central Intelligence Agency?

Mr. Shaw. Yes.

Mr. Goldsmith. As a matter of procedure, in terms of how you get paid, do you get paid by the Department of State?

Mr. Shaw. No. I am under, at the present time, nominal state cover. I actually, as far as the Department of State is concerned, resigned over there in 1973, I believe. At the present time, I am paid by the Agency.

Mr. Goldsmith. When you were working under cover, were you being paid by State at that time?

Mr. Shaw. Yes, I was.
Mr. Goldsmith. Are you familiar at all with the literature that has been generated by the assassination of the President and the work done by the Warren Commission?

Mr. Shaw. Very little. I just noticed that green book there a minute ago. I have never read that thing.

Mr. Goldsmith. Book 5, for the record, of the Senate Committee Report.

Mr. Shaw. I have seen copies of the Warren Commission Report in various places around the government, but I never read it.

Mr. Goldsmith. When you were working with the State Department in other than a nominal capacity, what was your title?

Mr. Shaw. My last title was Special Assistant to the Ambassador and First Secretary of Embassy, Honduras.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did you ever work as a consular officer?

Mr. Shaw. Yes, I did.

Mr. Goldsmith. When you worked as a consular officer, were you required to fulfill both responsibilities as a consular officer and as a CIA employee?

Mr. Shaw. To a certain extent.

For example, I have never issued a visa. I have issued a passport for another consular officer who accepted the application and I would be on the road in northwestern Mexico and issued the passport to the American citizen concerned.
I have done a modicum of what we call protection and welfare work. This would usually involve being again on the road, stopping in, for example, in a prison to see if there was an American citizen there, to find out what the story was, why he was there, how he was being treated and that sort of thing, and relay that information to the consular when I got back.

Actually, I have not done much consular work. I used the cover on several occasions, but was never emersed into the role to the point where it interfered with my Agency activity.

Mr. Goldsmith. Normally when somebody is acting under State Department cover, is the person required to hold down two jobs at the same time?

Mr. Shaw. It depends on the location of the person. As I understand it, people we have, for example, in the Iron Curtain countries, or the countries of Eastern Europe, do hold down virtually 100 percent full-time State Department, Foreign Service jobs. Some of the people that I have run into in my work as an Inspector for the Office of the Inspector General, notably in the Mid-Eastern countries, have spent much more time on their cover work than I did.

I think that it has to do basically with the permissiveness, or lack thereof, of the operational environment that you are in. In Mexico, it was not necessary to spend much
time, at least not for me, on cover duties.

Mr. Goldsmith. How long have you been working for the
Office of the Inspector General?

Mr. Shaw. Since August of 1976.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did you have any responsibility in the
writing of the 1977 Inspector General Report pertaining to
the CIA's handling of the investigation of the Kennedy
assassination?

Mr. Shaw. None whatever.

Mr. Goldsmith. Has anyone ever interviewed you before
pertaining to the Mexico City situation as far as it pertained
to Oswald?

Mr. Shaw. Yes. It was about that time of '76, some-
body interviewed me in the CIA Headquarters building, and I
think it was a Senate Committee, but I am not sure. They had
some files.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did you give your testimony under oath
at that time?

Mr. Shaw. No, not that I remember.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did any CIA person ever interview you
concerning Lee Harvey Oswald's activities in Mexico City and
the operations of the Mexico City station?

Mr. Shaw. I would have to qualify that. We discussed
the subject, of course, in Mexico City at the time of the
assassination, or immediately after the assassination.
But I cannot recall that I was ever called in anywhere and asked for my account of what transpired after the assassination.

Mr. Goldsmith. Headquarters never asked you to come in and give a description, for example, of Oswald's activities, to your knowledge, in Mexico City in 1963?

Mr. Shaw. No. I would not have known anything about Oswald's activities anyway.

Mr. Goldsmith. Are you familiar with the photograph that was taken in 1963 that was reportedly linked to Oswald and which subsequently turned out not to be a picture of Oswald?

Mr. Shaw. I am familiar with a photograph that was identified by people at the station in Mexico City as possibly being an American-appearing person. I do not know that it was every considered to be Oswald.

I think, if I remember correctly, what they were doing—

Mr. Goldsmith. We will get into that. My question is, did anybody from Headquarters ever ask you about that particular photograph or the circumstances surrounding it?

Mr. Shaw. Negative.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did anybody from Headquarters ever ask you to give a statement or report as to the manner in which the surveillance operation in Mexico City were undertaken in 1963?
Mr. Shaw. No.

Mr. Goldsmith. Where were you serving in 1963?

Mr. Shaw. From about the middle of April, I was serving in Mexico City in our station.

Mr. Goldsmith. How long did you stay in Mexico City?

Mr. Shaw. I stayed there until September of 1966.

Mr. Goldsmith. Who was the Station Chief in Mexico City?

Mr. Shaw. Winston Scott.

Mr. Goldsmith. Would you give us your assessment of his competence?

Mr. Shaw. Competence. It is difficult, because I was not looking from on high. He was a brilliant man. He was reputed to have a doctorate in mathematics. He had an uncanny ability to remember numbers and he carried in his head the file numbers of what we called P-files in Mexico City. P stood, I think, for personality. A P number usually was four digits or so, maybe five digits.

And he carried all these numbers in his head and he could mark something for such and such a file in black ink -- he always wrote in black ink -- putting the number down. He had a very good memory for numbers.

Winn and I were friendly. We were not close. We were not on the same level at all.

I considered him to be, from my standpoint, a competent,
effective, Chief of Station.

Mr. Goldsmith. What type of file-keeping system did he have in effect, without asking you to describe it in detail? By that, my question is directed towards his thoroughness and comprehensiveness.

Mr. Shaw. I would say that he probably had one of the most -- let me see -- complete file systems in being in the Agency. I think that he, my personal opinion is that he went overboard, and we had so much stuff back in our files, it was hard to believe the amount of paper we had in there.

His tendency was not to rely on cross-indexing. If you have a document, this piece of paper means something to you and you want to keep it and it has 15 names on it, he was quite capable of setting up 15 files for the same piece of paper. And we had a tremendous file room.

I often wondered if we needed that much paper. It was very thorough. I am not a technician as far as managing files, but I do know that the people who worked in the file room were kept very, very busy.

Mr. Goldsmith. Who were Mr. Scott's chief deputies?

Let me rephrase the question. Upon which individuals did he tend to rely the most?

Mr. Shaw. He had one Deputy who was Allen White. As far as reliance on other people, I would say he relied very heavily on Annie Goodpasture -- not in any way in a command
function, but as a Girl Friday.

He also seemed to think rather highly of a former one-time FBI agent named George Monroe.

Mr. Goldsmith. What about David Phillips?

Mr. Shaw. Yes. Dave Phillips ran the what we called the CA side of the shop, covert action, mostly propaganda. I came to Mexico City with the understanding that I was going to head up the Cuban shop. Very soon after I arrived there, Dave Phillips was tapped -- it was while we were still in the old Embassy building.

He was tapped and named the new Cuban Office Chief.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did that happen in October '63?

Mr. Shaw. I don't know. I do not remember. But it was not too long after I was there, and I was asked, I think by Dave; I don't remember -- if I had any objections to continuing to serve in Cuba.

I liked Dave, I respected him. I did not feel that I was being hurt, hurt careerwise, to step back and I was very interested in Cuban operations, so I did willingly, let us say, relinquish command, if you want to, of Cuban Ops and I served Dave as one more officer.

Later on, after Dave left, a year or two later, I once again took over the Cuban Ops group.

Mr. Goldsmith. You were in charge of Cuban Operations at the beginning. Then Phillips took it over at some point and
then, after Phillips left, you went back to that position?

Mr Shaw. That is right.

Mr. Goldsmith. Our review of Agency records indicates that Phillips would have assumed that position on October of '63. Would that be consistent with your recollection?

Mr. Shaw. My recollection would have been, had you not told me this based on your review of the files, that it took place earlier than October, but I do not know. I really do not know.

Mr. Goldsmith. My questions are going to be confined, unless I indicate to the contrary, to the period up to the end of 1963. So, from the time of your arrival in Mexico City until the end of 1963, prior to the time that Mr. Phillips assumed the position of Cuban operations --

Mr. Shaw. Chief.

Mr. Goldsmith. Chief would be the word, and you had those responsibilities, what did those responsibilities include?

Mr. Shaw. Since it was not ratified to me upon my arrival that I was, indeed, Chief of Cuban Ops, I simply considered myself to be one more case officer working against the Cuban target. Our basic interest was in effecting penetrations of the Cuban government.

What we wanted most of all were effective penetrations of the Cuban Embassy, the Cuban Intelligence Service, and some possible line-in to their communications set-up.
Mr. Goldsmith. In 1963, did you manage to place any penetration agents in the Cuban Embassy or consulate?

Mr. Shaw. Did I?

Mr. Goldsmith. Did the station?

Mr. Shaw. There were two. I did not place either one, and I think they both pre-dated 1963.

Mr. Goldsmith. Were those two penetration agents within the Cuban consulate or Embassy at the time of the President's assassination?

Mr. Shaw. Yes. One was in the consulate -- LITAMIL-7 was the cryptonym. L-I-T-A-M-I-L-7. And the other one was in the Embassy -- L-I-T-A-M-I-L-9.

Mr. Goldsmith. What information did these people give you after the assassination pertaining to the possible involvement of the Cuban government?

Mr. Shaw. I did not handle LITAMIL-7, and LITAMIL-9. I did handle,

Mr. Goldsmith. Who handled LITAMIL-7?

Mr. Shaw. I think that it was Ray Swider, but I am not sure. I did not meet LITAMIL-7 until Ray Swider left the country.

Mr. Goldsmith. You nevertheless have had access to the information that this individual gave to Swider?

Mr. Shaw. I would normally have seen copies of contact reports which were reports that we wrote -- any of us who were
case officers wrote -- after station meetings, and it would have been normal for me, for example, to see any information of consequence that LITAMIL-7 produced, just like it would have been normal for any other case officer in the Cuban section to see my contact reports on meetings with LITAMIL-9.

Mr. Goldsmith. In light of that, do you know what information LITAMIL-7 gave concerning the Cuban government's reaction to the death of the President?

Mr. Shaw. I do not recall, and I do not recall the specifics of anything. You may have something in your files with my name on it; I do not know what LITAMIL-9 produced. I do have the recollection of the sense of feeling on the part of those people that there was no exultation or jubilation or happiness whatsoever inside the Cuban Embassy at the assassination of President Kennedy.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did the penetration agents ever indicate that Oswald had been to the Embassy and had stated that he was going to attempt to kill the President?

Mr. Shaw. No, not that I know of.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did any of those agents ever indicate that Oswald had had contact with the Agency -- with the Embassy, rather?

Mr. Shaw. I should imagine that LITAMIL-7 probably did -- I do not recall it. But since she was in the consulate, and --since it was my understanding that Oswald's contact with the
consular field rather than with the Embassy field, I should imagine, given the discussions that undoubtedly took place in the Cuban Embassy after this assassination, that she probably spoke about it. I do not know.

Mr. Goldsmith. What was the name of LITAMIL-7?

Mr. Shaw. I'd rather not give names.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. Goldsmith. Mr. Shaw, in light of your response, I am certainly aware of the sensitivity of this issue and of your concern for sources and methods, and I would also make two points. One is that under the letter, you are free of your secrecy obligation. At the same time, I am not about to rely upon that letter to compel an answer out of you, because you are here voluntarily today to help us. And, as I said, because I understand your concern for a sensitive source in this case, I am not going to ask you to state for the record the name of either one of these individuals.

Mr. Shaw. May I say something at this point?

Mr. Goldsmith. Yes.

Mr. Shaw. It is my understanding that both of these people are, if they are still alive, are living in Mexico and I do not want to be in a position of revealing a name which could harm either of those people. I notice here that it says--

Mr. Goldsmith. You are referring now to the letter from Mr. Carlucci?
Mr. Shaw. Yes.

"To provide the affected person the opportunity to receive guidance from me or my designees on the applicability of this authorization, particularly to questions which are asked."

I would like to get Frank Carlucci to tell me that I would reveal two names of agents, if it is necessary -- or you can find out from the file, probably, who they are.

Mr. Goldsmith. Mr. Shaw, I understand your position. I want to make sure you understand mine. I am in no way forcing you to reveal a name. Once you had demonstrated a reluctance to, then, as far as I was concerned, then the matter was terminated.

Mr. Shaw. No problem?

Mr. Goldsmith. I will say that we will pursue this by contacting the appropriate people at the Agency.

Mr. Shaw. I think if you requested the Agency for those two names, it would probably produce them. I wouldn't want to be the guy to say it.

Mr. Goldsmith. I understand your position perfectly. I hope you understand mine.

Mr. Shaw. I do.

Mr. Goldsmith. I would not want you to go back to the Agency and say that the staff of this Committee attempted to compel an answer out of you.
Mr. Shaw. I will not say any such thing.

Mr. Goldsmith. Fine.

For the record, would you spell the cryptonyms of these penetration agents?

Mr. Shaw. One of them was LITAMIL-7 -- L-I-T-A-M-I-L - 7.

The other was LITAMIL-9.

Mr. Goldsmith. Are these two agents still active?

Mr. Shaw. Neither one is active. I am quite sure that neither one is active.

Mr. Goldsmith. For purposes of clarification, LITAMIL-7, was that agent working out of the consulate?

Mr. Shaw. That agent was an employee of the consular section of the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City. LITAMIL-9 was an officer of the Embassy.

Mr. Goldsmith. Mr. Shaw, on the question of the identity of these two agents, when you go back to the Agency, could you raise this question with the appropriate individual, appropriate superior authority, and we will do the same so that some time this week we can get together on that?

Mr. Shaw. I do not see any reason for us to get together. You can get it from them, I am sure. It is just that I have a rather strong feeling about protecting anybody who has cooperated with us.

It is not that I consider you do not have a right to that information, if you feel that you need it. It is just that I
cannot bring myself to reveal the true name of an agent unless I am required to do so.

Mr. Goldsmith. I understand that concern. I certainly respect it.

(Pause)

I have been informed by my researcher, Dan Hardway, that the Agency is in the process of looking into this issue.

Mr. Shaw. Okay.

Mr. Goldsmith. At this time, I would like to get into the area of the telephone taps that were in operation in 1963 against the Cuban Embassy and consulate. My first question is, what responsibility, if any, did you have with regard to the telephone tap operation?

Mr. Shaw. No responsibility. I saw the product, usually.

Mr. Goldsmith. Who was the individual who was in charge of that tap?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know whose responsibility it was. I rather suspect that it may have been Ann Goodpasture's, but I do not know for sure. I do not remember.

There were two telephone operations, two tap operations. One of them was unilateral and one of them was joint with the Mexican government.

Mr. Goldsmith. Which one was the unilateral one? By that, I mean which phones were covered by the unilateral one?
Mr. Shaw. There was a mix, and I cannot recall which
were which. It may well have been that we were tapping some
Cuban Embassy phones unilaterally, and some of them were being
tapped jointly. I know that there was coverage on the joint tap
operation, which I believe was called LIENVOY. I am not sure.

Mr. Goldsmith. That is correct.

You indicated that you think Ann Goodpasture may have been
responsible for the telephone tap operation against the Cuban
operation. What basis do you have for that?

Mr. Shaw. Responsible in the sense of picking up the take.
I am not sure of that, because I know she did some of that kind
of work. I am not sure who did it. We used to get copies of
the transcripts and I remember -- I am sure I saw some of the
Cuban stuff on joint taps. And then, of course, taps that
were run by the Mexican government.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did you review the transcripts that came
in as a matter of regular routine?

Mr. Shaw. Yes.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did you read all of them?

Mr. Shaw. No.

Mr. Goldsmith. Which ones would you read?

Mr. Shaw. I would have been interested primarily in the
Cuban ones, and what they called the resuma -- it was sort of
a Spanish word for resume -- the resuma was a distillation,
if you will, of the digest of the joint tap that was prepared,
I believe, for the Mexican President. You look at the resumé, which may be two pages, and you may have the gist of what might be a whole bunch of pages of tap.

Mr. Goldsmith. Normally, you read transcripts of conversations that took place on telephones of the Cuban Embassy, is that correct?

Mr. Shaw. Normally, I read some of that stuff. I do not remember whether I saw it all or not, because quite a bit of it was processed by other people. I do not know who they were, people on the outside, I suppose. And I read summaries of what appeared on these things, but I remember also, at times, seeing the verbatim -- Man Outside says so and so; Person Inside, Woman Inside, says such and such.

Mr. Goldsmith. Sometimes you would get summary transcriptions of the summary conversations or English and sometimes you would get verbatim translations, is that correct?

Mr. Shaw. Yes. I would see them, I would not get them. They would go past me. I would see them.

Mr. Goldsmith. Was it more likely that what you would see in verbatim form, conversations that took place, for example, in Russian and had to be translated before you received them?

Mr. Shaw. I certainly would not see any conversations in Russian, because the Cuban Embassy did not have any Russian conversations. I cannot really answer that question. I am not really sure I fully understand it. I do remember seeing
a variety of take, what we call take, from the various tap
operations. This take sometimes was processed into English.
The stuff that appeared in the resumé was in Spanish. Sometimes
the conversations were typed out in Spanish and translated into
English. I prefer them in Spanish, because I am at home in
Spanish.

Mr. Goldsmith. How many people reviewed the take from
the surveillance operation of the Cuban Embassy and consular
telephones?

Mr. Shaw. I have no idea. I assume there were quite a
few. The stuff was widely passed around.

Mr. Goldsmith. As a matter of routine, how many people
would review them?

Mr. Shaw. I have no idea.

Mr. Goldsmith. How many people were in Cuban operations?

Mr. Shaw. I would guess five or six.

Mr. Goldsmith. Who were they?

Mr. Shaw. Dave Phillips.

Mr. Goldsmith. We are talking now about the period 1963?

Mr. Shaw. That is right. Dave Phillips, myself, Ray
Swider. I am trying to think of the girl's name. We had
various secretaries in there. I do not know who was the secre-
tary in '63. Peggy Magert. I'm not sure she was there at
that time.

Of course, Allen White would see it. Winn Scott would see
Mr. Goldsmith. They would not review every transcript or summary that came in, would then? Allen White or Winn Scott?

Mr. Shaw. I imagine Winn Scott; I do not know about Allen White. Winn was pretty much, he tended to review almost all of the paper that came in and out of the station.

Mr. Goldsmith. Are you saying that there was no routine procedure established for who was to review the take from the Cuban telephone surveillance operations?

Mr. Shaw. I am saying that, when I got there, the case officers in Cuban Ops saw this stuff that was routed around through the station and that persisted during the time that I was there.

Mr. Goldsmith. I am not sure that the answer --

Mr. Shaw. How that was routed, I am not sure.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did you customarily see every conversation that came in?

Mr. Shaw. I doubt it. I doubt it.

Mr. Goldsmith. Who would have seen the conversation and decided that it was not important enough to merit your attention?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know.

Mr. Goldsmith. Who brought in the take from these operations to the station?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know that either, but it was my
understanding that non-official cover people on the outside picked up the tapes -- don't consider this gospel, but this is my understanding -- picked up tapes from the various listening posts, some of which had been processed by people in the listening post; some of which had not. But they, in turn, either processed those tapes or took them to people to continue the processing in case they had a foreign language in them, or something, and then turn them over to the station.

Somebody went out from the station, probably with a little attache case or something, and picked up takes again. It is my understanding that the person primarily involved in that was Ann Goodpasture, but I do not know for sure.

Mr. Goldsmith. Who was the first person that the transcripts would go to upon their arrival at the Embassy?

Mr. Shaw. I rather suspect Winn Scott, because I remember great numbers of those white pages that came across our desk had P numbers written on them in black ink by Winn Scott.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know how many lines were being tapped at the Cuban consulate and Embassy?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know.

Mr. Goldsmith. You reviewed the transcripts and summaries of these conversations for two years and you have no idea how many lines were tapped?

Mr. Shaw. No. This was fifteen years ago. I can give you a guess.
Mr. Goldsmith. Sure. A best guess would be helpful.

Mr. Shaw. I would guess three or four lines. The primary interest was in the Soviets. You had far more converage.

That is a guess.

Mr. Goldsmith. Understood.

Mr. Shaw. I would guess, off-hand, two lines in the Embassy, one line in the consulate.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know if the Cuban consul's telephone was tapped?

Mr. Shaw. If the consulate line was tapped --

Mr. Goldsmith. It would have been his?

Mr. Shaw. Probably it would have been his, but they may have had a direct line in there. I do not know.

Mr. Goldsmith. How would a telephone tap actually work? I am talking now about the actual mechanics of the tap.

Mr. Shaw. I do not know. I never had anything do do with them. I know they used to take some of their taps at what they call the junction boxes. These would be the boxes out in the street where lines came in to be fed into this central -- I would rather suspect that the joint operations were mostly done at the central, since the Mexican government simply could have issued orders, you will tap such and such a phone.

Mr. Goldsmith. My question is oriented towards the following. Once a tap has been placed on a line, would that
mean that all calls, ingoing or outgoing, on that phone would be picked up, so long as the tap is in effect?

Mr. Shaw. So long as it is in effect, yes. Whether those would appear in the transcripts is another matter. If it was like a wrong number, or somebody saying pick up three rolls and bring them home for lunch, probably it would not appear on the transcript.

Mr. Goldsmith. Who would make that decision?

Mr. Shaw. Whoever transcribed the tapes.

Mr. Goldsmith. How much time would pass from the moment that a call came in until the transcription passed across your desk?

Mr. Shaw. I cannot answer your question with any precision. There was a system in the Embassy whereby if you had a fast-breaking situation, or something like that, you could -- I sure would like to get the transcripts of such and such a line fast, and that information would be processed and funneled back in to the Embassy or into the station on a priority basis.

I would guess, offhand, that it ran -- again, this is a guess -- five, six, seven days.

Mr. Goldsmith. What about the high priority cases?

Mr. Shaw. Sometimes you can get that pretty fast.

Mr. Goldsmith. Within a day?

Mr. Shaw. Yes. We could have somebody looking for a
certain call, and I do not recall ever doing that. But it was my understanding that if you expected some situation, that you could levy a requirement -- for example, let me give you a for instance here.

Let us suppose that we, the station, someone in the station was going to make a recruitment pitch to a Soviet officer. It would have been possible for the station to have organized things so that there was a live body and not just a machine hanging over phone calls coming in to the Soviet Embassy in case the guy called up and said, let me tell you the discussion I just had, or something like that.

This would be a little far-fetched, because a Soviet would not be likely to handle it by phone. But in a case where you are looking for something fast-breaking to protect yourself, being on top of the situation -- it would not apply much to Mexico, but if you had a revolutionary situation breaking out someplace, surely there is a possibility of getting information very quickly off any given line.

Mr. Goldsmith. Would the transcripts be reviewed by you in chronological order?

Mr. Shaw. I got them in batches and I would review them just in the order in which they came. I might have shuffled them in chronological order, yes. Quite often they came in four or five or six pages stapled together.

Mr. Goldsmith. Would they tend to come in chronological
order so you read a transcript from the 15th before the 16th?

Mr. Shaw. Generally yes, right.

Mr. Goldsmith. What happened to the transcripts after they were reviewed by you?

Mr. Shaw. They were usually routed. They had a routing sheet on it, and they would go on to somewhere else. Where they went, I do not know. Sometimes we would mark them for files. Of course, if there were a transcript in there that had specific information on somebody that we were interested in, we would mark a copy for the files and it would go into that person's -- either their P-file, which was their personnel file, or into any operational self-file that would we make, building up background information on a person, the little things like whether an officer's wife was unhappy with the maid or with living conditions or the cost or what have you of the drugstore. These little bits and pieces were built up and those came from transcripts.

Mr. Goldsmith. Would these transcripts eventually get sent to headquarters?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know. I will say that it was unlikely that Winn Scott ever threw anything away. It was somewhere, probably, in the file room.

Mr. Goldsmith. What about the tapes? What would happen with the tapes after a conversation had been transcribed?

Mr. Shaw. Again, you are getting into an area where I
never had any personal experience. It is my understanding that tapes were erased and reused, and they were used over and over again. Otherwise, we would have ended up with a room full of tapes and there really was no reason to keep them.

Now, I would also assume that if there was something important on a tape that they might have held it. I do not know. I do not recall ever saying, hold that tape for me. The transcript usually sufficed as the record.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know if, at the time of the assassination, that the station had a tape recording of Lee Harvey Oswald's voice?

Mr. Shaw. No, I do not know if they did. I think they did not. It was my understanding that what they had was a transcript of some guy calling, again, it is my understanding. I believe he called the Soviet Embassy from the Cuban Embassy, or the Cubans called the Soviet Embassy, I am not sure. But as far as having the tape with Oswald's voice on it, I seriously doubt it.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. Goldsmith. I would like to show you now what was marked here as CIA No. 197 and, for purposes of the record and for your information, the Agency has provided us with its documents. Each page has been assigned a number. The reason it has been assigned a number is so that the Agency can make sure that everything given to the Committee is returned. For
reference purposes, we simply use those numbers for a witness when we are going through this pile of materials.

Now I would like you to take a look at CIA No. 197, the second paragraph.

(Pause)

Mr. Shaw. Okay.

Mr. Goldsmith. The second paragraph indicates that the station is unable to compare the voices, as the first tape was erased prior to the receipt of the second call.

Mr. Shaw. Yes.

Mr. Goldsmith. Does that suggest to you that at least one tape was still in existence on November 23rd, the date that this cable was sent? Otherwise, the second paragraph would have said the tapes had been erased, routinely, whatever.

Mr. Shaw. It could indicate that. It does not definitely state that. That is an interpretation, certainly.

Mr. Goldsmith. Does that refresh your memory as to whether or not there was a taping system?

Mr. Shaw. I do not have anything in writing. This did not refresh my memory at all. This probably would have been considered. Was this after the assassination?

Mr. Goldsmith. Yes.

Mr. Shaw. No, I do not think it necessarily indicates, but I am surprised that it does not say that they were both destroyed, or both erased.
Mr. Goldsmith. Please take a look at CIA 208.

Mr. Shaw. 208.

Mr. Goldsmith. And read paragraph number four. Read it to yourself, please.

(Pause)

Mr. Shaw. Yes.

Mr. Goldsmith. According to paragraph number four, it indicates that it seems a voice comparison of some kind was made.

Mr. Shaw. Yes, or it could well be that this guy, Fineglass --

Mr. Goldsmith. Mr. Tarasoff?

Mr. Shaw. Remembered the poor Russian of the first tape and the poor Russian of the second tape and figured that it was the same guy.

Mr. Goldsmith. How long were tapes normally retained prior to being erased?

Mr. Shaw. I have no idea. It would seem to me if you had a very productive tape, you probably would not keep it very long, once you transcribed it.

(Pause)

Mr. Goldsmith. I would like you to read the CS comment on CIA 239.

Mr. Shaw. I have read it.

Mr. Goldsmith. According to that, it indicates that the
normal time lag would be two weeks. In other words, the tapes would normally be retained for a two-week period.

Mr. Shaw. That is what it seems to say, yes.

Mr. Goldsmith. Is that consistent with your memory now, at the time?

Mr. Shaw. No, I do not have any idea. I was not involved in tape pick-ups or tape erasures.

Mr. Goldsmith. The Oswald telephone calls, as we will see later on, came in within approximately four days of each other, if, as CIA 239 indicates, the tapes were normally retained for two weeks prior to being routinely erased. Does that suggest to you that the Oswald tape was, for some reason, treated in an unusual manner, because either the first call came in, let's say September 27th. By the time the second call came in, the first tape had already been erased.

Mr. Shaw. No, it does not suggest that to me. — what is this number here — because this message came out 9 December 63. What it suggests to me is that, subsequent to the assassination, is that the station was to hold tapes for a minimum of two weeks.

Mr. Goldsmith. Please read into the record what 239 says.

Mr. Shaw. CS comment: station to erase routine tapes, Soviet Embassy, keeping normal two week lag.

Mr. Goldsmith. Does that suggest to you that the normal lag would not be two weeks?

Mr. Shaw. This was not addressed to me.
Mr. Goldsmith. I understand that.

Mr. Shaw. There is no reason for me to read this anymore than there is reason for you to read that. The words stand by themselves.

Mr. Goldsmith. That is right, and you have just given an interpretation of those words, suggesting that that the meaning is prospective in intent. In other words, after December 9, 1963, the timelag for retention of tapes prior to erasure would be two weeks.

Mr. Shaw. I think it could read that, yes. I do not know what went on between Winn and the station as far as periods for keeping these, but I think what you are trying to do is lead me into a situation of pointing out that the station was remiss in destroying tapes, and I do not believe that is the case.

Mr. Goldsmith. I would like to indicate to you, and also for the record, that what I am trying to do here is go over questions that are raised by the documents and the Committee has no predisposition, one way or the other, to reach any particular conclusions.

The truth is that unless these questions are asked of you, both the Agency and the Committee will be criticized by people in the future who review these documents and say, why were not these questions asked of you.

Mr. Shaw. I can understand why you are asking the questions. I am simply not in a position to tell you, from memory
or anything else what the normal station procedure was regarding retention of tapes, although, as I did indicate earlier, that the tapes were routinely erased and used over again. As far as the time lag, you know as much about it, and probably more than I do, by now.

Mr. Goldsmith. What responsibility, if any, did you have with regard to the photo-surveillance operation against the Cuban Embassy and consulate?

Mr. Shaw. I had no responsibility for that operation until after I reassumed the Cuban Ops section which would have been the day Phillips left for Mexico, probably a year or two down the road. I do know, however, that the operation -- there was a Cuban photo, or a photo operation against the Cuban Embassy.

I do not remember why, but I think that observation was not active in the period when Oswald was in Mexico. If I remember correctly, the man, to the best of my knowledge who handled that, who was actually the inside case officer, if you will, was the little guy who was snapping the pictures, was a fellow by the name of Robert Zambarnadi, and I believe he is retired and living in Mexico. I do not know.

Mr. Goldsmith. Who was the station case officer responsible for running the photo-surveillance operation against the Cubans?

Mr. Shaw. As far as I know, it was Robert Zambarnadi,
who was the technical officer of the station. He was a technically qualified man.

Mr. Goldsmith. There was no one overseeing him?

Mr. Shaw. I do not believe so, but maybe Dave was. I do not know. We used to get batches of pictures. One of the things that I would do with the agent that I mentioned earlier was that I handled was take batches of these pictures to him and sit down with him and say, did you ever see this guy, or who was that? And he'd say, that's a courier, or that's the new officer who just arrived, or I do not know who this guy was, but he came in and talked to so and so, that sort of thing.

We used to try to identify people with those pictures.

Mr. Goldsmith. How many photo bases were there taking pictures of the Cuban consulate and Embassy?

Mr. Shaw. To the best of my knowledge, there was only one photo base. At times, the consulate was not covered and the Embassy was. If I may draw you a picture, this would be the block, the compound block. The Cuban Embassy was the big building up here, and there was a little gatehouse down here. I do not remember whether it was in or out.

This was the consulate, on the corner. People who would want to get visas would routinely appear here and they would send them down the street and they would go into the consulate. Sometimes they knew where they were going and they came in here,
or they asked a cab, take me to the Cuban consulate, they
would probably be delivered here.

This is a block, a city block. The house from which the
photographs were taken is over here on this corner. The
photographs were taken long distance down here and here. This
was not always covered. This was considered more important,
because it was routine -- either there was a lot of routine
visa stuff here.

Later on, subsequent -- gosh, it must have been a year
later. I do not remember just when -- we developed a system,
or somebody up here in the states who developed a system
whereby the camera would be triggered automatically. That is
movement -- sort of like a photo-electric cell or something --
movement up here in the picture that the camera was to cover
would cause a series of photos to be taken, maybe four or
five, zap, zap, zap, something like that.

But I believe that, at the time Oswald was in Mexico City,
not only was this down for some reason and not functioning,
but I believe, had it been functioning, that it would have
been individual picture snapping. I do not think that auto-
matic equipment was in Mexico at that time. I could be
wrong.

Mr. Goldsmith. I am not going to be able to introduce
this diagram into the record, so I am just going to describe
it as best as I can.
You indicated that on one block, on one corner of that block was a consulate building for the Cubans. The other side of the block was the Embassy building.

Across the street was the photo base.

Mr. Shaw. This was all wall. This was a compound.

Excuse me, if I may interject. There was another building back here that had a theatre downstairs and had offices upstairs.

Mr. Goldsmith. Was that within the compound also?

Mr. Shaw. Yes.

Mr. Goldsmith. Three buildings within the Cuban compound?

Mr. Shaw. Yes.

Mr. Goldsmith. The photo base was located across the street. If was closer to the consulate than it was to the entrance of the Embassy?

Mr. Shaw. That is correct.

Mr. Goldsmith. From the diagram that you drew, it would seem that the location of the camera was closer to the consulate than it was to the Embassy entrance, yet you also indicated that most of the people of interest would have been entering the Embassy, not the consulate?

Mr. Shaw. That is correct.

Mr. Goldsmith. Was not the placement of that camera in an inappropriate position?

Mr. Shaw. I imagine that camera was placed wherever we could get it. Getting real straight across from one of those
embassies was very difficult.

I know, had we had our druthers, we would have placed that camera closer up here and the Soviet Embassy had a similar sort of situation, a camera over here and one down here. I believe the closer the better, yes.

Mr. Goldsmith. How many photo bases were there operating against the Soviet compound, without drawing a diagram?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know, but I think there must have been two or three.

Mr. Goldsmith. Are you sure you were not the case officer overseeing the surveillance operation against the Cubans?

Mr. Shaw. I certainly am.

Mr. Goldsmith. So Mr. Zambarnardi was not working under you?

Mr. Shaw. I did not consider him working under me, at that time. Later on, when he was replaced and I am not sure whether Dave Phillips was there or not, I did move into this operation. I am trying to think of the cryptonym for the operation. I cannot recall.

And the chap who then handled it was Zambarnardi's replacement, I think his name was Humphrey. That was the surname. Lou Humphrey, I think. I am not sure.

Mr. Goldsmith. What was the purpose of the photo-surveillance operation?

Mr. Shaw. Primarily to identify people in touch with the
foreign embassy.

Mr. Goldsmith. Would everyone's picture be taken?

Mr. Shaw. No, no way.

Mr. Goldsmith. Whose picture would be taken?

Mr. Shaw. For example, that you would normally in an operation like this be limited by time available for the photographer. You would be limited by daylight. You would not photograph a milkman, or a mailman or somebody who would be there repeatedly. You would not photograph a staffer of the Embassy if once you knew who he was, unless he was walking with somebody.

You would not photograph a regular visitor to the Embassy, if you knew who he was.

Mr. Goldsmith. Would you photograph all foreigners?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know. I would have to say the answer is no. I never photographed any of them. Do you mean would all foreigners be photographed? I would say, given the limitations that I have enumerated, namely how long a person can sit there and watch, and they have to take a break now and then, daylight, Sundays they probably did not photograph because there is little activity. I am sure there were considerable down periods in this sort of operation.

No, I would say all foreigners were not photographed.

Ideally, you would like to have a picture of anybody who went in and out of there, surely.
Mr. Goldsmith. I understand that.

My question is, while surveillance base was in operation, would a primary purpose of it be to take pictures of foreigners?

Mr. Shaw. Yes. That would have been a primary purpose. Not necessarily foreigners, but people you do not recognize. Foreigners or Mexicans; Mexicans are foreigners to us, of course.

Another thing they did, by the way, was they tried to photograph the license plates of automobiles that came to these embassies.

Mr. Goldsmith. During what hours were these photo bases in operation?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know. I would say most likely during business hours and proper daylight conditions, when the photographer was available to do the job.

Mr. Goldsmith. Would you read back that answer?

The Reporter: "Question: "During what hours were these photo bases in operation?"

Answer: "I do not know. I would say most likely during business hours and proper daylight conditions, when the photographer was available to do the job."

Mr. Goldsmith. As a matter of routine, when would photographers have been available to do the job?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know. I was not involved in these operations. I used to see quite a bit of coverage.
Mr. Goldsmith. What were your primary responsibilities when you were down there? You were not involved in the photo-surveillance operation; you were not involved -- excuse me for interrupting you.

Mr. Shaw. Go ahead.

Mr. Goldsmith. You were not involved in the photo-surveillance operation and you were not involved in the wire tap operation, so, my question is, what was your primary responsibility?

Mr. Shaw. My primary responsibility was to try to effect penetrations of the Cuban government. I spent a good bit of time with Cubans of the non-Castro persuasion, attempting to identify Cubans of the Castro persuasion that we might go after.

By "go after," I mean attempt to recruit.

I spent a lot of time collecting information from the Cuban asset on the outside to process into the intelligence reports on what was happening in Cuba.

We had a system set up in Mexico City under an agent called AMSAIL who was the representative of the exile community. He would arrange to meet, help, debrief, Cubans who were arriving constantly from Cuba on the way to the United States or to Mexico or to somewhere else in the world, people who were exiting Cuba.

Mexico did not break relations with Cuba as did the other
countries of the Hemisphere. The OAS recommended that; Mexico did not do it.

So, when the refugee flow dried up in Florida, we probably had one of the most productive operations there in Mexico City regarding information on what was going on in Cuba.

I spent a lot of time with AMSAIL on that.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did you ever try to recruit Eusbio Ascue?

Mr. Shaw. His name is Eusbio Ascue.

Mr. Goldsmith. Yes.

Mr. Shaw. A-s-c-u-e. First name, E-u-s-b-i-o.

I did not try to recruit Ascue. That may have been attempted prior to my arrival, in which the man who would know about it, if it had been attempted, would be Mr. Thomas Hazelit.

Mr. Goldsmith. What about Teresa Proenza?

Mr. Shaw. No, I never made any attempt to recruit Teresa Proenza.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know if anyone ever did?

Mr. Shaw. I know we had an officer in Washington who had formerly served in Mexico City who was very interested in Teresa Proenza. That officer's name was Charles Anders.

Mr. Goldsmith. Is he still with the Agency?

Mr. Shaw. It is my understanding that he is.

Mr. Goldsmith. What about Guillermo Ruiz?

Mr. Shaw. That does not even ring a bell. Ruiz is a
very common Spanish name. Do you want to tell me who he is or if you have anything on him? Maybe it might ring a bell.

Mr. Goldsmith. Apparently, Mr. Ruiz was a Cuban intelligence officer at the Embassy, Cuban Embassy.

Mr. Shaw. I do not recall him there when I was there.

Mr. Goldsmith. What did you say that Mr. Ray Swider's responsibilities were, if you said?

Mr. Shaw. I did not say. I used his name -- he was another officer, like I was, in Cuban operations.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know whether he had anything to do with the photo operation.

Mr. Shaw. I do not know. He may have; I do not know. I do not think he did. He may have.

Mr. Goldsmith. After your arrival in Mexico City, did anyone attempt to recruit Ascue?

Mr. Shaw. As far as I know, there was no attempt made to recruit Ascue after my arrival. My memory could be playing tricks on me. I know I never went after him.

(A brief recess was taken.)

Mr. Goldsmith. I would like to get into the number of people who were in Cuban Operations in October of '63, September, October of '63. Could you tell me again how many?

Mr. Shaw. If you could show me a list of the people at the American Embassy at that time, I think I could pretty well quickly, in the station -- if you have such a list, I probably
could very quickly identify those that had some connection with Cuban Ops.

Mr. Goldsmith. The Agency has not given us that list today to have for this purpose.

Mr. Shaw. Do you have one lying around?

Mr. Goldsmith. No.

So far, according to my recollection of appearances, we have Mr. Phillips, yourself and Mr. Swider.

Mr. Shaw. When I arrived there, Tom Hasbrook would have been there. He would have been gone by that time.

John Zambérdi would have been involved in the technical ops.

I am not sure whether Peggy Magret was there or not.

Mr. Goldsmith. How many case officers were there in Cuban operations?

Mr. Shaw. Probably just three, three or four, I am not sure.

Mr. Goldsmith. There were three case officers, probably four?

Mr. Shaw. At least three, yes. Dave and Ray and myself.

Mr. Goldsmith. Was there a fourth?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know. I cannot recall, offhand, who else was there.

Wait a minute. Lorna McKay was there, as a researcher -- what was it called? Research analyst.
Mr. Goldsmith. I am interested now only in case officers. I do have a list here, referred to as CIA 169-70, which has a list of Agency employees. Would you please examine that list?

(Pause)

Mr. Shaw. Okay.

Perhaps there would have been myself, Ray Swider, Dave Phillips and Lorna McKay.

Mr. Goldsmith. Was Lorna McKay a case officer?

Mr. Shaw. Lorna McKay was not considered -- yes, I guess she was a case officer. I do not know what cases she handled. She did more of what we call INTEL analyst work. She had officer rank, I believe. I believe she was a GS-9 or -11 or something. I do not remember.

But Peggy, the girl I mentioned awhile ago, was not there until 1965. That was about it.

The ranking would have been David Phillips, myself, Ray Swider, Lorna McKay.

Mr. Goldsmith. How did you divide up your responsibilities?

Mr. Shaw. Let me interject. Jack Stewart was there, but he was not in Mexico City. He was in Yucatan, in the consulate.

Mr. Goldsmith. Fine.

How did you four divide up your responsibilities?

Mr. Shaw. We were given certain agents to handle and we handled those agents, and Dave Phillips would decide what
other activities he would pass around. I notice --

Mr. Goldsmith. Which were those other activities?

Mr. Shaw. Anything that might come to light that Dave would -- an ad hoc requirement, or something like that, he might ask any of us to help out, or somebody else might ask us to do something. I went out and helped surveil a meeting one time for one of these guys down here. It had nothing to do with Cuban Ops.

Mr. Goldsmith. What procedures did the four of you establish for reviewing photographs?

Mr. Shaw. The only procedure that was established was route the photographs and show them to any agent, personnel, who might be in a position to identify the persons in the photographs.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did any of you identify all the photographs in the Cuban Operation Branch?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know.

Mr. Goldsmith. Was there a system to this?

Mr. Shaw. If there was, I did not set it up. When I got photographs, I would show them to LITAMIL-9 and have him tell me who they were and I would write a contact report and submit it to my Chief, who was Dave Phillips.

I would assume that Ray Swider probably did the same thing with his agents.

Mr. Goldsmith. Mr. Shaw, unless there was a system for
reviewing the photographs, you had no way of knowing that all of the photographs were being reviewed by you and other Cuban Operations case officers?

Mr. Shaw. I had no way of knowing. I was seeing all the photographs, that is true. I assumed I did.

Mr. Goldsmith. You had no way of knowing that?

Mr. Shaw. Not unless I would have gone to pick them up from the man who took them and developed them, which I did not do.

Mr. Goldsmith. With regard to the transcripts, did you have any procedure for insuring that all of the transcripts were being reviewed?

Mr. Shaw. Did I have a procedure? No. The station routed the transcripts to the various officers. Winn Scott quite often routed them. I notice you had a transcript somewhere here --

Mr. Goldsmith. We will look at the transcripts later on.

Mr. Shaw. Winn Scott quite often routed those to a specific officer.

Mr. Goldsmith. Were all of the transcripts pertaining to Cuban operations that were sent to the station reviewed by at least one of the Cuban operations case officers?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know.

Mr. Goldsmith. Was Mr. Scott a very demanding man?

Mr. Shaw. What do you mean by "demanding"?
Mr. Goldsmith. Did he expect his employees to work hard and to perform thorough, competent work?

Mr. Shaw. I assume he did. He never said so in so many words.

It was my understanding that until he was remarried he worked long hours in the Embassy, before I got there. Sometimes he had people in there at 9:00 o'clock at night.

Mr. Goldsmith. Compared to other station chiefs that you had worked under, was he more demanding or less?

Mr. Shaw. I would not say he was any more. He expected work out of his people and got it.

Mr. Goldsmith. Is it fair to say that the Mexico City station had one of the biggest telephone surveillance operations in existence?

Mr. Shaw. Certainly in Latin America.

Mr. Goldsmith. Any CIA station?

Mr. Shaw. I don't know about any CIA station. Certainly in Latin America. It ate up a lot of man hours.

Mr. Goldsmith. In light of the fact that Mr. Scott apparently was a demanding man and that you had one of the largest surveillance operations in effect in Latin America, your testimony today is that you do not know whether the Cuban operations case officers reviewed all of the transcripts?

Mr. Shaw. I do not think that the prefacing was necessary. The latter part of that, in which you asked me if I am aware
that all of the transcripts of the Cuban Ops were examined
by the Cuban Ops section, I would have to, again, say I do
not know.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. Goldsmith. We just went off the record for a moment
because Mr. Shaw had a question about where his car was parked
and whether there would be any problem about that, and I
indicated that I did not think there would be a problem.

Mr. Shaw, do you recall who delivered the photographs
to the station, the tape from the surveillance operation?

Mr. Shaw. It was my understanding that the technician
picked them up. Bob Zambernardi would have picked them up
from the agent.

You are talking of the Cuban Embassy now?

Mr. Goldsmith. Yes, and consulate.

Mr. Shaw. It is my understanding that he would have
picked them up from the agent who took the photographs. The
agent who took the photographs developed them, printed them,
and turned the prints over to Mr. Zambernardi. That is the way
I think it worked.

Mr. Goldsmith. How would you actually get to review the
photographs? Who would bring them to you?

Mr. Shaw. Usually I do not remember who brought them to
me. I have the impression it may have been Lorna McKay, but
I could be wrong. Maybe Bob brought them to me. I do not know.
But I would get a batch of photographs to go through.

Mr. Goldsmith. Who had reporting responsibility for passing along the information that had been obtained from the photographs and the transcripts?

Mr. Shaw. There was little reporting that came out of the photographs. Usually, it yielded what we called operational information rather than intelligence information, to enable us to develop a better understanding of who was in the area, of who was in the Cuban Embassy, and what they were up to.

As far as reporting intelligence that came from those, it probably was reported by the reports section of the Embassy. Next to Winn Scott's office was the CA Chief's office and, next to that, I'm getting in the new embassy now. I don't remember where the report section was in the old embassy.

We had reports officers who actually repaired most of the reports from raw reports, if you will, reported by the case officers.

Again, I would like to point out that these photographs yielded very little reportable intelligence. It was mostly operational intelligence.

Mr. Goldsmith. Understood.

Who was George Monroe?

Mr. Shaw. George Monroe was a former agent, Special Agent, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who retired or resigned, I do not know how he left the Bureau, and worked in Mexico
City on the outside, as a non-official cover asset for Winn Scott. Ann Goodpasture, I believe, had a lot of contact with George Monroe. I very seldom saw George Monroe. I had nothing to do with him operationally.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know what his responsibilities were?

Mr. Shaw. I believe his responsibilities had to do with dealings with the Mexican government, liaison responsibilities. I think George was used by Winn because George had good contacts in the Ministry of Interior, which would have been sort of the equivalent of the Department of Justice here and out of that Ministry came, for example, the man who became President of Mexico. He was the station asset, contact, not agent.

Mr. Goldsmith. You mentioned earlier, Mr. Charles Anderson, is that correct?

Mr. Shaw. Yes.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know why Mr. Anderson had an interest in Eusbio Ascue?

Mr. Shaw. No, I do not believe it was. I think it was Teresa Proenza. I do not think he had any interest in Ascue.

Mr. Goldsmith. Who was the individual who had the interest in Ascue?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know. I said if it had been before my arrival, I would suspect it was Tom Hasley. He was carrying the ball down there and was responsible for that sort of
activity. I do not know that he did, but if it happened in, say, late '62 or somewhere in there, it probably would have been Tom who would have done that.

Mr. Goldsmith. What was Anderson's position at the Embassy?

Mr. Shaw. He was not at the Embassy then. He was at the Embassy back in 1965. I do not know, for a number of years. At that time, Charlie had gone back to Headquarters and he was involved in Cuban operations from Headquarters, the details of which were not made known to me. Whether they were made known to Winn Scott or Dave Phillips or others, I do not know.

Mr. Goldsmith. When would he have made an effort, if he did, to recruit Teresa Proenza?

Mr. Shaw. I am not sure that he ever tried to recruit. I am merely saying that he had a lot of interest. I do not think anybody ever tried to recruit her. If they did, they were wasting their time.

Mr. Goldsmith. Why were they wasting their time?

Mr. Shaw. She was a pretty tough nut. I never saw -- if I can remember -- I do not remember any vulnerability of Teresa Proenza.

Mr. Goldsmith. What was the nature of Mr. Anderson's interest in her?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know. Some Cuban operational interest, maybe trying to get some information from her through a third
party. I have no idea.

Mr. Goldsmith. When did he spend time in Mexico City that he would have had an opportunity?

Mr. Shaw. He visited Mexico City quite often.

Mr. Goldsmith. Even though he was not stationed down there, he visited often?

Mr. Shaw. That is correct. He made trips in and out of Mexico City.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know what Teresa Proenza's position was at the Cuban Embassy or Consulate?

Mr. Shaw. I think by that time she was out of the Embassy, was she not? I do not remember. She left.

Teresa Proenza was a Mexican. She was not a Cuban. And I am under the impression that by the time I got there, Teresa had left the Embassy. I may be wrong. I think that she was involved in cultural activities.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know whether Mexican intelligence would have had any penetration agents at the Cuban Embassy or consulate?

Mr. Shaw. I think they would have tried. I do not know how effective Mexican intelligence was. I did not deal with it.

It would be assumed that they made every attempt, the Cubans were gradually removing Mexicans from their employee, from the Cuban Embassy. I think it highly unlikely that the
Mexican government, given its position, was the only government in the Western Hemisphere which maintained relations with Cuba, would have been -- it would have been highly unlikely for them to have tried to pitch a Cuban national.

On the other hand, I think it would have been likely, and would have been expected of them, to have tried to find out from any Mexican working in the Cuban Embassy what was going on.

What this comes down to, of course, is gardeners and secretaries.

Mr. Goldsmith. Why do you make that distinction between a Cuban national and a Mexican?

Mr. Shaw. I make that distinction because of the flap potential. If the Mexicans had attempted to pitch a Cuban and the Cuban had not accepted that pitch and had reported it to his superiors, the Mexican Foreign Office then would have had a problem with the Cuban Foreign Ministry.

Mr. Goldsmith. Of course, the Mexican government was also taking a risk by being involved in the liaison operation or the Agency as well.

Mr. Shaw. One could assume that they had measured their risk, yes, certainly. There is an element of risk in every operation. Do not get me wrong. I do not know whether they had anything going or not. I would assume, just based on my experience, that they would not have tried to pitch Cubans,
that they would have tried to exert subtle coercion on
Mexicans working there to report in the interest of Mexican
national security on what is going on in that Embassy.

Mr. Goldsmith. Who would have been in a position to know
if the Mexican government successfully penetrated the Cuban
Embassy or consulate?

Mr. Shaw. The President of Mexico would have known.
The chief or chiefs of the Mexican service or services.

Mr. Goldsmith. Any American?

Mr. Shaw. Not that I know of.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know whether there was any coordina-
tion between the telephone tap operations and the photo
operations. For example, if a conversation of interest came
up on the tap operation, would the people monitoring the call
be able to contact through an intermediary the photo bases
to warn them or indicate to them that someone is coming of
interest?

Mr. Shaw. It is my understanding that such a system did
not exist, and I do not believe that the guys monitoring the
telephone tap intercept bases were made aware of photograph
coverage.

However, I would assume that a man running a technical
operation, if he heard something exciting on the line, as
opposed to a tape several days later, would notify his case
officer right away and then it might be possible for the case
officer, assuming a quick reaction capability, to crank up
the people at the photo house to take pictures. This was in
the most perfect of all worlds. Usually things did not work
that way and you end up out on the street, in the middle of
the night two days later, contacting whoever it is taking
photographs.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know whether the Mexico City
station ever obtained a photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald?

Mr. Shaw. To my understanding, they did not. I never
saw anything down there that looked like Lee Harvey Oswald.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did you ever hear an allegation that
Charlotte Bustos, at CIA Headquarters in Washington, found a
photograph of Oswald, or someone she thought to be Oswald,
in the Headquarters files shortly after the assassination?

Mr. Shaw. No, I have never heard such a story. Knowing
Charlotte -- not knowing her well, but having known her over
the years, I would assume that had she found such a thing
she would have rung a big loud bell and say, hey, look what
I found.

Mr. Goldsmith. With regard to the photo operation, let
us assume for a moment that you come across a picture of
interest. Did you have any way of determining on what day and
approximately what time the picture would have been taken?

Mr. Shaw. Very definitely.

Mr. Goldsmith. How would you have done that?
Mr. Shaw. The photographs were squared off and were annotated. We knew the day. We knew, usually, morning or afternoon, a.m. or p.m. Sometimes you could judge by the sequence.

Furthermore, sometimes the actual time of the person going in and going out was actually annotated, if the person operating was operating manually, he would no doubt, the guy with the red-checkered Hawaiian shirt went in at 10:05. He would note that in a little log.

I do not know whether he would note it on the photograph or submit the log with the number keyed to the log in the photograph. Quite often we knew to the minute when a person in a photograph came in or went out or stood in front or walked by.

Mr. Goldsmith. I see.

So, to your knowledge, there were photo-production logs that could be checked?

Mr. Shaw. To my knowledge, such logs did exist, yes. Whether the logs were kept after the information was noted on the photograph, on the back of the photograph or wherever it was noted, I have no idea.

The photographs, quite often came in the form of 35 mm. contact strip prints and then blow-ups of a number of those.

I recall -- I had not thought about it all these years, but usually you knew when a guy, you certainly knew when he went
in on Tuesday morning, the 16th of May, whatever that date was.

Mr. Goldsmith. Who would make the notations on the back of the photograph or contact print as to the time?

Mr. Shaw. In our case, I believe it was the man taking the photographs because he took the photographs, developed the photographs, printed them and turned them over.

Mr. Goldsmith. If he were to put the time on, he would have to go to his log and see what the time was and then make the entry?

Mr. Shaw. Right. He probably made a little notation to himself like I mentioned, the bright shirt or something. Then he would recognize that person in the photograph and make that notation.

(Pause)

Mr. Goldsmith. When was the first time that the name Lee Harvey Oswald came to your attention?

Mr. Shaw. It would have been the evening of the day of the assassination.

Mr. Goldsmith. How did that happen?

Mr. Shaw. We listened. We had a radio. I think it was one of those Zenith Trans-Oceanics in one of the Embassy offices.

I was out at an agent meeting when I heard about the assassination and I came back to the Embassy and went upstairs
and we sat and stood around that radio and I believe it was in Pat Johnson's office -- her name was something else in those days. I can't remember her married name.

And they said something about the police said it was Lee Harvey Oswald, or something. I do not remember. That was the first time that it came to my attention.

Mr. Goldsmith. I would like you now to take a look at CIA No. 13 which is a transcript of the conversation allegedly involving Oswald, a conversation taking place on 1 October '63. Would you please read through that?

(Pause)

When was the first time that you saw that transcript, if you have ever seen it before?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know whether I have ever seen it or not, but I may well have. I was aware that he had called the Soviet Embassy, was made aware after the notoriety of the man was established, but I do not recall ever seeing this before that.

Normally, I would not.

Mr. Goldsmith. Prior to the assassination, did you see it?

Mr. Shaw. No. If I did, I did not pay any attention. I do not believe that it was on a Cuban line.

Mr. Goldsmith. No, it was not.

Mr. Shaw. Sometimes you can tell who saw these things by
the initials up top.

Mr. Goldsmith. There are no writings or notations on that one, however.

Would you please read CIA 177, which is a cable from Mexico City station dated October 8th?

(Pause)

Mr. Shaw. Yes, this is typical where they try to identify somebody that was in the Embassy at the same time. Of course, that does not sound like it.

Mr. Goldsmith. This was the famous cable that has given rise to some of the issues that the Committee was concerned with. My first question is, did you have anything to do with the writing of this cable?

Mr. Shaw. No, I did not. I would not have had.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know how the photograph referred to in paragraph number two of that cable was in some way linked to Oswald?

Mr. Shaw. I would assume, my answer to your question is no. I would assume that this was an effort on the part of the person drafting the cable to help Headquarters identify Lee Oswald, the man who had made the call.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know how she made that conclusion that the photograph reflected Oswald?

Mr. Shaw. No. I do not think she did. I think she merely says that we got a guy who looks like he might be an
American going in, and maybe this is the fellow. I do not see from this cable any conclusion that that is Oswald. I rather suspect they never got a picture of Oswald. This is the one that appeared there, that looked like it could be an American. Therefore, an effort was made to help Headquarters by saying a man who looked like he might be an American entered the Soviet Embassy at that time.

Mr. Goldsmith. I agree with you, Mr. Shaw. Certainly, the cable does not say that the photograph is a photograph of Oswald. At the same time, though, it gives the information in paragraph 1 on Oswald and the second paragraph makes reference to a photograph taken of someone who appears to be North American.

Certainly they would not have sent to Headquarters simply a cable indicating the existence of a photograph, so by putting the photograph in paragraph 2 immediately below the information on Oswald, although the cable does not say that the photograph is one of Oswald, it does in some way suggest that they are related.

Mr. Shaw. It suggests to me that they know an American who claimed to be Lee Oswald called at a certain time, and then they went to the photographs to see if they could find anybody who looked like he might be an American, and the photo they found was of a man apparently 35, athletic build, about 6 feet tall, receding hair line and so forth; and they
submitted this on the off-chance that this might have been the man who made the call.

Mr. Goldsmith. I understand your answer. I am hopeful that you understand that I am not suggesting that the cable definitely says the photograph is one of Oswald.

Mr. Shaw. No, I do not see that it does at all.

Mr. Goldsmith. Would you please take a look, now, at CIA 183?

(Pause)

Mr. Shaw. All right, I have read it.

Mr. Goldsmith. This is a cable, is it not, from CIA Headquarters back to the Mexico City station responding to the earlier cable from the station reporting Oswald's contact?

Mr. Shaw. That is what it looks like to me.

Mr. Goldsmith. The fifth paragraph of that cable requests that the station keep Headquarters advised of any further contacts or positive identification of Oswald?

Mr. Shaw. Yes.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know whether the station ever sent any additional information to Headquarters concerning Oswald?

Mr. Shaw. No, I do not, and I do not recall ever seeing this cable, either.

Mr. Goldsmith. Today is possibly the first time that you have seen that cable?

Mr. Shaw. It could well be, yes. You may have one with
my initials on it, but I doubt it.

Mr. Goldsmith. Looking at CIA 183, there is an arrow pointed to the word "Henry", "Lee Henry Oswald." Adjacent to the arrow it says "sic," s-i-c.

What do you think Mr. Scott was intending to indicate when he wrote "sic" next to the "Henry" in "Lee Henry Oswald"?

Mr. Shaw. I would rather suspect that he wrote this on here subsequent to the assassination when the word came out it was "Harvey Oswald" rather than "Henry Oswald" unless there is something in here that says "Harvey." Is there any?

Mr. Goldsmith. No, there is none.

Mr. Shaw. I would imagine that is something he wrote on later so that they would get the file in the right name. That would be my guess.

Mr. Goldsmith. Would you now take a look at CIA No. 14. You may also want to take a look at CIA No. 15 at the same time.

(Pause)

Would you identify the document that you just reviewed?

Mr. Shaw. What it looks like is a normal LIENVOY transcription. I see my name up here, but I don't see anything that indicates that I ever saw it. It looks like Scott and Goodpasture made checks on it. There is my name, but there is no indication, no initial on my part. Probably I did not see it.
Mr. Goldsmith. What is the date of that transcript?

Mr. Shaw. 28 September 1963 is what is listed on here.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you recall whether you ever saw that transcript before?

Mr. Shaw. I do not recall. I must have seen it afterwards, because I know Sylvia Duran was a person who had dealt with Oswald.

Mr. Goldsmith. When was the first time that this transcript was linked to Oswald?

Mr. Shaw. I have no idea.

Mr. Goldsmith. Let us backstep for a moment. The transcript that appears at CIA No. 13 contains a notation in brackets by the transcriber that this is the same person who called a day or so ago.

Mr. Shaw. To the Soviet Embassy.

Mr. Goldsmith. Yes.

Oswald also said I was there last Saturday. The transcript you just looked at, September 28th, was for a Saturday.

Do you recall whether anyone ever came to you and asked you whether you were aware of a contact by Oswald?

Mr. Shaw. I do not recall that anybody ever came to me, and I do not think that they did. This sounds familiar. I would have heard about this after the assassination, because I remember Sylvia Duran was the person being a Mexican citizen inside the Cuban Embassy who I dealt with.
Mr. Goldsmith. In other words, the point I was making on the October 1st transcript, it refers back to something that happened a day or two earlier, possibly Saturday, and I wondered if Herb Minnell, when they were discussing this, came to you to discuss this matter?

Mr. Shaw. I do not believe they did. Barbara probably would have processed this, but I do not recall that anybody ever came to me about it.

Mr. Goldsmith. Fine. Would you please now take a look at CIA Nos. 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20?

(Pause)

Mr. Shaw. Here you have one that I saw. Those are my initials -- No. 19. I did not see this one.

Let me see what we have got here.

(Pause)

I have read it.

Mr. Goldsmith. Mr. Shaw, you have read through CIA document No. 22.

Mr. Shaw. Yes, I have not read them carefully, but I have looked them over.

Mr. Goldsmith. Taking a look at CIA No. 16, could you identify that document?

Mr. Shaw. This is a LIENVOY transcript.

Mr. Goldsmith. Is it a summary or a verbatim transcript?

Mr. Shaw. It is a summary.
Mr. Goldsmith. What is the date of that transcript?

Mr. Shaw. According to the thing in the margin, 27 September '63, 1963. This is really the same darned thing here.

Mr. Goldsmith. The same as the transcript that appears on CIA No. 17?

Mr. Shaw. It appears to be.

Mr. Goldsmith. Approximately what time was this phone call received?

Mr. Shaw. It looks like something put on by pen, "Five minutes after 4:00 in the afternoon." MF means a woman -- is that MF?

Mr. Goldsmith. Do not worry about that.

When was the first time you saw this transcript?

Mr. Shaw. I do not remember.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did you see it before the assassination?

Mr. Shaw. I have no idea.

Mr. Goldsmith. Your name appears in the right-hand corner.

Mr. Shaw. My name appears there. However, it is not crossed out. If you turn over a couple of pages, you will see my initials on another thing which deals with the same period.

Mr. Goldsmith. I will do that in a minute.

Do you know whether this transcript was linked to Oswald prior to the assassination?
Mr. Shaw. I do not know whether it was or not. I gather it was not.

Mr. Goldsmith. Why is that?

Mr. Shaw. It does not say. There is no mark on it, Oswald on here anywhere.

Mr. Goldsmith. What are these numbers on the bottom right-hand --

Mr. Shaw. That is the file number.

Mr. Goldsmith. What file would that be?

Mr. Shaw. That says subject file. 50-8-10-6. I do not know off-hand what that is. I think the 50 stands for Mexico. 8-10-6 would be a subject file.

Probably, possibly someplace where they put information on people where they are trying to travel to the Soviet Union. I do not know; that is a guess.

Mr. Goldsmith. Let's take a look at CIA No. 19.

Mr. Shaw. Okay. CIA No. 19, 27 September, that looks like my initial. It is very similar.

Mr. Goldsmith. In the upper right-hand corner?

Mr. Shaw. I cannot imagine anyone else putting it there.

Mr. Goldsmith. This is the conversation that took place later in the day, is that correct?

Mr. Shaw. 27 September 63, right.

Mr. Goldsmith. Is it fair to say that this conversation took place sometime around 4:26 in the afternoon, according to
the documents?

Mr. Shaw. There is an indication there.

Mr. Goldsmith. When did this document first come to your attention?

Mr. Shaw. I have no idea, because there is no date up there. I do not know when it was circulated or anything.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know when it was first linked to Oswald?

Mr. Shaw. I do not.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did Herbert or Barb Minnell ever come to you to discuss this transcript or conversation with you in reference to the transcript dated October 1st?

Mr. Shaw. Not that I remember.

Mr. Goldsmith. At the bottom of CIA No. 19, it says copy Oswald P-file. Essentially, do you know when that notation was put on?

Mr. Shaw. I do not know.

Mr. Goldsmith. Turning back to CIA-177, there is a notation on the left-hand side of the page. It says, D:200-5-41. Do you know what that would refer to?

Mr. Shaw. I have no idea what the D stands for. The 200-5-41 sounds like a file number.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know for what?

Mr. Shaw. No, I do not, but I would assume, again, that maybe that would be -- if it is in the 50 series, it would be
a Mexico City file. But it may be a Headquarters -- is this
a Mexico City document, or a Headquarters document?

Mr. Goldsmith. This is a Headquarters document.

Mr. Shaw. That is a Headquarters file number. I have no
idea what the D stands for. It does not look right.

Mr. Goldsmith. I have asked this question before, but
for the record and purposes of clarification, I would like to
ask you again, to your knowledge, after the Mexico City sta-
tion received the cable from Headquarters dated October 10th
or 11th, did the Mexico City Station ever send any additional
information concerning Oswald to Headquarters?

Mr. Shaw. To my knowledge, they did not, but I would
have no way of knowing.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did you ever speak to Herb Minnell about
this?

Mr. Shaw. No.

Mr. Goldsmith. Barbara Minnell?

Mr. Shaw. No.

Mr. Goldsmith. Dave Phillips?

Mr. Shaw. No.

Mr. Goldsmith. What, if anything, do you know about the
arrest of Sylvia Duran shortly after the assassination?

Mr. Shaw. I remember that Sylvia Duran was arrested.

I do not know why. I could have suggested that myself, but I
do not remember.
I do remember sending a message to Winn Scott suggesting that, right after the assassination, that the Mexicans put in a ring of guards around the Cuban Embassy and question everybody going in and out. I remember that idea coming out of my head.

I know that Sylvia Duran was arrested. She was fair game because she was a Mexican national and the Cubans -- she did not have any Cuban diplomatic immunity.

I would have thought it would have been a good idea to question her very closely. As to whether I said that she should be arrested or I had anything to do with that, I do not know. I was perfectly capable of making such a suggestion.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know why Headquarters was upset about that arrest?

Mr. Shaw. I have no idea.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know why Headquarters did not want any Americans to confront her or to interview her?

Mr. Shaw. No.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you have any reason to believe that Oswald may have been an agent of the KGB?

Mr. Shaw. I have no reason to believe it.

Mr. Goldsmith. How about an agent, asset or source of the CIA?

Mr. Shaw. I would think that that would be completely out of the question.
Mr. Goldsmith. For purposes of the record, could you explain why you think that would be out of the question?

Mr. Shaw. Because I think it would have come to light immediately had he had any CIA connections.

Mr. Goldsmith. In what manner?

Mr. Shaw. Somebody would have revealed this fact.

Mr. Goldsmith. Had he been an agent of the CIA, asset or employee, is it possible that someone would have been able to cover that fact up?

Mr. Shaw. I do not think anyone could have covered up.

Mr. Goldsmith. Why not?

Mr. Shaw. Had he been an agent, then it would have been on the record somewhere.

Mr. Goldsmith. Is it possible that the record could have been erased or purged in some way?

Mr. Shaw. I seriously doubt it.

Mr. Goldsmith. Could you give a reason?

Mr. Shaw. Just my belief in the integrity of the organization. It stands on that, and the people in it.

Mr. Goldsmith. Does the Agency, to your knowledge, have any safeguards to prevent records from being erased or purged?

Mr. Shaw. Nowadays, of course, we have laws which say you can't destroy material. I would say that the safeguards again come back to the basic integrity of the people in the organization. When you lose a President, you do not mess
around, and I think everybody would have turned over every possible stone to find out anything they could that would be useful in determining the responsibility for that assassination.

I know I would have. I was a Kennedy man, and I imagine there were a lot of us in the outfit who identified very closely with the President.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did you ever know anybody by the name of Maurice Bishop?

Mr. Shaw. No.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you know whether David Phillips, or anyone else, ever used the name Maurice Bishop as an operational alias of some kind?

Mr. Shaw. I am not aware that they did, but I would have to answer your question no. Dave Phillips does not seem like a Maurice type, somehow.

Mr. Goldsmith. Did Headquarters ever criticize the Mexico City station in any way for its handling of the Oswald matter prior to the assassination?

Mr. Shaw. Not that I am aware of.

Mr. Goldsmith. For that matter, after the assassination?

Mr. Shaw. Not that I am aware of. I must add that criticism would have been conveyed to the Chief of Station rather than to the case officers.

Mr. Goldsmith. When Oswald returned to the United States
from the Soviet Union, would it have been standard operating procedure for the Agency to have interviewed him or debriefed him in some way?

Mr. Shaw. No. I think that it would have been more likely for the FBI to interview him.

Mr. Goldsmith. Why is that?

Mr. Shaw. Because he was an American citizen in the United States. That was the FBI's territory.

Mr. Goldsmith. Even though Oswald worked for several years -- not for several years, but for some time -- in a radio factory while he was in Russia?

Mr. Shaw. I was not aware that he worked in a radio factory, but the fact that he had been in the Soviet Union, the fact that he had been in the United States Marine Corps, would indicate to me that if he had been interviewed, he would have been interviewed by the FBI.

Mr. Goldsmith. Does not the Agency have a Domestic Contacts Division, or service, which customarily interviews people who have been abroad in Communist countries?

Mr. Shaw. The Agency has the Domestic Contacts Division. It used to be called O/Q Contacts. I never worked with those people.

It is my understanding that what they do is routinely debrief, if the person is willing, businessmen -- in the old days, tourists -- who had visited the Soviet Union, or to
debrief a man who might have other involvement in the Soviets would not, I believe, have fallen within the purview of the O/O Contacts Branch.

Mr. Goldsmith. Do you have any knowledge of the operational activity of the CI/SIG Branch of the CIA?

Mr. Shaw. No. I do not know what SIG means. I have never heard of CI/SIG.

CI is Counterintelligence staff. I don't know what SIG is.

Mr. Goldsmith. Mr. Shaw, I would like to thank you for your testimony today. I especially would like to thank you for spending all of this time with us. I know that you have been here since approximately 3:00 o'clock or so and it is now about 7:30. You have been very patient.

Customarily, whenever a witness testifies before the Committee, the witness is given an opportunity to make a statement for the record. This is not a hearing, but I would like to give you the same opportunity, if you would like to take advantage of it.

Mr. Shaw. Well, I might take advantage of it. I had not thought about it until you mentioned it, but harkening back to what I said a little while ago, I do believe that our organization was made up of, like Bill Colby has on the cover of his book over there on the next table, of honorable men, and I do not think that anyone in the organization would have
allowed any cover-up or any destruction of evidence which might
shed some light on the assassination of President Kennedy.

I might add a little vignette. We had what it called a
Libra Pecima which is a book that the people signed when
they come to a funeral or something. You may have run into
something like this in the states, when you go in and sign
in at the funeral parlor that you were there or something.
You express your regrets -- pecima, in Spanish, means regrets,
or sorrow.

We had a book down in the lobby of the Embassy building
and when I came out one day shortly after the assassination
somebody in the crowd yelled Spanish for Bob, and I went over
and it was the Governor of the State of Sonora, which is
a big state up in northwestern Mexico. I had known him some
years earlier. He was the son of the General who was the
outstanding military leader of the Mexican Revolution from
about 1913 to about 1920.

His father had been President of Mexico. His father was
assassinated, having been elected to a second term. He was
already elected; he had not taken office.

I was profoundly touched by the presence of this son of
an assassinated President in the lobby of our Embassy to, in
turn, express his sorrow to us for the assassination of our
President.

That does not prove anything one way or another, but it
made a tremendous effect on me.

As I mentioned very early in our session today, I am not aware that there was any exultation, satisfaction, or happiness inside the Cuban Embassy over the assassination of the President. And I think, and my personal belief is, that everything points to Lee Harvey Oswald having done it, and done it alone.

There is nothing I have ever seen or heard which would lead me to accept, for one moment, any complicity on the part of my Agency or any other agency of the United States government.

Mr. Goldsmith. Thank you, Mr. Shaw.

I would like to add that as soon as the transcript of this deposition is available, we will be in touch with you so that you can have an opportunity to review it for accuracy and again, I would like to thank you for your time and help today.

Mr. Shaw. I thank you, gentlemen.

(Thereupon, at 7:30 p.m. the Executive Session recessed.)
CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER

I, Rosemary C. Tascione, the officer before whom the foregoing deposition was taken, do hereby certify that the witness whose testimony appears in the foregoing deposition was duly sworn by the Notary; that the testimony of said witness was taken by myself, stenomask reporter, and thereafter reduced to typewriting under my direction; that I am neither counsel for, related to, nor employed by any of the parties to the action in which this deposition was taken, and further, that I am not a relative or employee of any attorney or counsel employed by the parties thereto, nor financially or otherwise interested in the outcome of the action.

Rosemary C. Tascione
REPORTER