On this day 55 years ago, a strange American visitor appeared at the Soviet and Cuban consulates in Mexico City. His name would soon be world famous: Lee Harvey Oswald. Within 24 hours, a joint US-Mexico intelligence gathering operation received wiretap reports on his unusual actions.
The story of what happened next is told in Bill Simpich’s groundbreaking new book, “State Secret: Wiretapping in Mexico City, Double Agents, and the Framing of Lee Oswald,” which is being serialized by MaryFerrell.org.
In a season of JFK sotries distinguished by ill-informed experts, bogus revelations, and a Fox News fibber, Simpich’s book qualifies as the most important piece of JFK scholarship to be published this year.
An attorney in San Francisco, Simpich sidesteps the tired debate over conspiracy (and anti-conspiracy) theories for a granular and factual account of how the CIA’s upper ranks responded to Oswald’s visit.
Using the latest JFK declassified records, Simpich lays bare a story that has long been obscured by official secrecy: why senior CIA officers concluded that someone impersonated Oswald seven weeks before the assassination of President Kennedy. You don’t have to agree with his interpretation of the causes of the assassination to recognize that he has established a new factual foundation for understanding Oswald’s mysterious trip to Mexico City.
The book’s preface is available now and new chapters will appearing weekly.
In the preface Simpich notes, “The JFK case is not an insoluble mystery, but more of a steeplechase. What we need is access to our history and a passion for tough-minded analysis.”
Why you should buy this book: because it is about facts, not theories.