A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination (110 page)

Commission staff lawyer Wesley “Jim” Liebeler’s decision to grow a beard outraged Chief Justice Warren, who ordered that it be shaved off. Over time, Liebeler would establish himself as the commission’s in-house contrarian and most determined rule-breaker. Although married, he boasted of his many female conquests while working on the commission staff.

Silvia Odio, a Cuban refugee in Dallas who seemed credible in her insistence that she saw Oswald in the company of anti-Castro activists weeks before the assassination, complained to congressional investigators years later that Liebeler had invited her to his hotel room and tried to seduce her.

In December 1965, American diplomat Charles Thomas (
far right
) was told by noted Mexican author Elena Garro de Paz (
center
) that she had encountered Oswald at a dance party in Mexico City weeks before the assassination. Garro claimed that her cousin, Silvia Tirado de Duran, a Cuban embassy employee, was also at the party and had briefly been Oswald’s mistress. At left is Garro’s daughter, Helena, who also reported seeing Oswald at the party. The man between Garro and her daughter is unidentified.

Thomas and his wife, Cynthia, at a party in Mexico City in the mid-1960’s.

Charles and Cynthia Thomas on the steps of their Mexico City hacienda, with Charles holding the couple’s daughter Zelda, who was born in Mexico in 1965.

Silvia Duran, a self-proclaimed Socialist who was a Mexican employee of the Cuban consulate in Mexico City, had been under surveillance by both the CIA and the Mexico government for months before the Kennedy assassination. In a police surveillance photo, Duran (
center
) is seen with her husband, Horacio, a Mexican journalist, and an unidentified woman.

Duran’s mug shot, taken after she was arrested by the Mexican police at the request of the CIA.

A smiling Duran in the 1970’s in a photograph obtained by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which interviewed Duran.

CIA “mole hunter” James Jesus Angleton pushed aside an agency colleague to take control of information shared with the Warren Commission.

CIA Mexico City station chief Winston “Win” Scott, in a home movie of his 1962 wedding, which was attended by Mexican President Adolfo López Mateos, shown far left with Scott. In next photo, CIA operative David Phillips is shown left of López Mateos; shown right of Scott is future Mexican president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz.

American ambassador to Mexico Thomas Mann, in conversation with President Johnson, was convinced that Cuba was involved in the assassination.