The relationship Oswald surely had with the CIA is one of the enduring mysteries of modern American history. One of the intersections between Lee Harvey and the "company" occurred during his service at Atsugi Naval Air Station, Japan in 1957. Stationed there as a young radar operator, Oswald had access to top secret material. The station was a starting point for secret U-2 spy plane missions over the Soviet Union. It was also a location for the CIA's experimentation with LSD as an interrogation tool, and for doping agents to be sent overseas on dangerous missions. Author David Talbot wrote in his Devil's Chessboard biography of spymaster Allen Dulles, that some investigators of Oswald's bizarre life think he was subject to this experimentation as a young Marine at Atsugi.
One of the documents released last week is a memo refuting the allegation that Oswald was recruited by the CIA at Atsugi. This claim was made by a former GS-4 finance clerk who served the agency in Tokyo in 1960-64. James Walcott Jr. told the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 that the CIA hired Oswald. Recall that this period of time was the height of the Cold War, yet nine days after his discharge from the Marines the broke Oswald sailed to England and hitched a ride on a military aircraft to Finland. He stayed two nights in expensive Helsinki hotels before boarding an overnight train to Moscow. There Oswald requested asylum, and eventually renounced his American citizenship, He was given a job in a radio factory and met his wife. This sojourn is astonishing, but not as astonishing as his return to the US two and a half years later. Could a recently discharge enlisted Marine with top secret knowledge of spy flights make such a trip without the cognizance or even the cooperation of the CIA? US Person thinks that scenario very implausible, if not impossible. It makes more sense that, indeed, Oswald was working for the agency.
Oswald may even have had a control by the name of George de Mohrenschildt, a sophisticated businessman, who became Oswald's unlikely friend in the months before the assassination. That Mohrenschildt was a CIA asset is known, but two documents in the release show the CIA conducted searches of de Mohrenschildt as he traveled to the East Coast in the Spring of 1963. CIA's Domestic Operations Division covert arm was then run by E. Howard Hunt, who later went on to be head of Nixon's "plumbers" unit responsible for the Watergate break-in. Later in his life, Hunt allegedly told his sons he knew of a high-level conspirarcy involved in the Dallas ambush. Hunt is not a credible witness. Nevertheless, a majority of Americans believe that Kennedy was the victim of a conspirarcy that went far beyond Lee Harvey Oswald. He was at work in the Book Depository Building on February 22nd, but he did not fire the killing shot. Available forensic evidence suggests that shot came from the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza. A third of Americans think that the CIA or its personnel were involved. Even Oswald himself told Dallas police that he was only a "patsy" before being killed by mobster-affiliated Jack Ruby in the basement of police headquarters. Dead men tell no tales, and the secrets are still being kept.