2-10-15 Mouse Report

The Kennedy assassination came as no great shock to most of the people at Tokyo Station in Japan, a class A Station of the CIA. It seemed a logical culmination of the steadily building anguish and discontent over the Bay of Pigs fiasco and 'commie sell out' of the Kennedy Administration that was the prevailing sentiment. This one was particularly true of the higher echelon operational people. The branch chiefs and deputy chiefs project intelligence officers and operational specialists viewed Kennedy as a threat to the clandestine services. The loss of special privileges, allowances, status and early retirement that come with the CIA cloak and dagger job were becoming a possibility, even a probability. The prestigious portions of the bureaucratic dominions, ambitiously sought, might be no more. Adjustment to a less glamorous job in a common profession, could be the result.
Politically, at the station, as in CIA generally, strong anticommunist conservative views were dominant. To openly support the "Kennedy liberal" position was not wise as promotion and job advancement was at stake. By November 22, 1963, we had all come to understand this quite well. "Treason" and "dupe of the USSR" were commonly applied during the heated political conversations concerning the September 1963, Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Administration support of integration and "Kennedy's personal crusade" against the oil depletion allowance were also seen as an attack on free enterprise. Greatly feared, also, was a winding down and eventual pullout in Viet Nam, with a political settlement, rather than an all-out military onslaught to win. More frequent and more bitter, however, was the charge that Kennedy had reneged on his secret agreement with Dulles to support the Bay of Pigs invasion.
There was a group of Kennedy supporters; the so-called "Kennedy liberals", mostly all from the lower grade positions. My wife and I were of this group, as were all of our friends with whom we had regular social contact. Our political discussions took place outside the building, in our homes or at the base clubs and the night life spots in and around Tokyo.
Oswald was recruited from the military for the express purpose of becoming a double agent assignment to the USSR. It was said that they had some kind of special "handle" on him. Perhaps, went the speculation, they had discovered that he had murdered someone or committed some other serious crime, during a routine lie detector test. In any case it was a very risky assignment. CIA taught him Russian and it was said that he had been to the farm (CIA's agent training camp, Camp Peary, Va.) although probably not in one of the regular agent training programs. He may not have even known that he had been there. (That was often done with very special cases. They would be put to sleep and wake up in a strange place and be told that it was some other place than the farm). Although they said that he knew he was, working for CIA, he was kept rigidly compartmented from any of the normal contacts that a regular CIA employee would have. The operational people that I knew never admitted that they were working on the project, although some hinted at it. Jerry Fox, an SR agent who purchased Soviet information, may have been one of them. The Deputy Chief of SR, (first name was Dave, I've forgotten his last name) may also have been one, too. (We went drinking once in Shinjiku with a small group of other people). More than once, I was told something like "so-and-so was working on the Oswald project back in the late 50's."
Conversations with the SR people were not numerous, however. Very few took place and were short. While Support, Korea Branch, China Branch and Japan Branch people talked more SR was quite tight-lipped about it. This was once offered as proof that there was such an SR project. It was, also, not a topic of continual or loose discussion or chatter. I was somewhat cautious in talking about it except with my closest friends and then always away from the building. Some others would say that this was a subject that was better not discussed.
It was said that they had many difficulties with Oswald, the exact nature of which has been forgotten. Critics said that it was a stupid project from the start. They should have known that the Soviets would never buy the story. He was a poor subject for such a deep cover operation. There were too many compromising facets to his background, which would make it a difficult story to sell.
When Oswald returned from the USSR in June of 1962, either on his way back or after he got back, he was brought back to Japan to either Atsugi or Yokosuka for debriefing, it was assumed. At one point, soon after Ruby shot Oswald, I was talking with someone, I can't recall whom for sure and I expressed disbelief about Oswald even being a CIA project. I was told something like "Well, Jim, so and so drew an advance sometime in the past from you for Oswald "or" for that project under such and such a crypto. It was a familiar cryptonym to me at the time, which I have since forgotten, as well as the time that the advance of funds were drawn.
Among the close circle of friends with which I discussed all this openly, there was no doubt that Ruby was paid by CIA to do away with Oswald, and Oswald was a patsy. Information from other rather tight social circles would occasionally come our way and we would seize upon it and try to fit it into our own version of the scenario. There was no doubt that CIA was in "as thick as thieves" with the Dallas Police. Several different individuals or firms in Dallas had been involved in one way or another with acting as cutouts for arms shipment to Cuban exiles for the invasion. This we concluded from putting various pieces of information together. I remember hearing about some CIA people, who had somehow helped the right-wing Minute Men in Texas to get arms, originally intended for the invasion.
One of the reasons given for the necessity to do away with Oswald was the difficulty they had with him when he returned. Apparently, he knew the Russians were on to him from the start, and this made him very angry.
After one discussion we had, it seemed quite likely that the original assassination project may have been to kill Kennedy and blame it on Oswald, who would be solidly linked to Castro as a pretext for another invasion attempt or build up.