Buried in the 2025 release is an overlooked State Department communication from 1960. It contains the earliest recorded internal confusion over the identity of Lee Harvey Oswald - and it didn’t happen in Dallas or Mexico City. It happened in Geneva. The clerk flagged the mistake. Her name was blacked out for 60 years.
🗃️ The State Department Cable That Started It
A newly unredacted cable from February 1960, classified as part of State Dept. File 1304/62, was addressed to the U.S. Consulate in Geneva.
The cable mentions a “Mr. Oswald” attempting to confirm travel to the USSR - not from the U.S., but from Belgium.
The cable is marked:
“Reference individual requesting expedited clearance for Soviet entry based on prior U.S. military status. Applicant shows inconsistencies in personal record.”
This was three months after Oswald had allegedly already defected to the USSR via Helsinki.
🧾 The Handwritten Note On The Printout
Attached to the cable is a scanned internal routing sheet, long redacted. The 2025 release finally shows the note in the margin:
“Not our Oswald? This DOB doesn’t match Dallas file. Travel record missing. Request secondary check.”
Initialed only as “L.T.”
L.T. was Lorraine Taylor, a clerk in the Western Europe Visa Division. Her name had never appeared in any prior JFK investigation.
🧍♂️ Two Men Named Oswald
The cable file now sits in a box labeled “MISID RECONCILIATIONS 1959–1961” - a State Department category used when identities, visas, and military service records conflicted across applications.
Within the same folder: a secondary report noting a “duplicate identity flag triggered at Langley, March 1961.”
That flag was resolved without an explanation. It references an internal memo marked “DO NOT RETAIN.”
There’s no record of a follow-up.
🕳️ What Was The Point Of The Confusion
Either someone was using Oswald’s name to test foreign visa systems…
…or multiple government agencies were dealing with two different men attached to the same military service number.
And Lorraine Taylor saw it first.
Her only other mention? A 1964 personnel record stating she was “relieved of duty without citation.”
👤 The Clerk Tried To Flag It The File Was Closed Instead
In a pre-digital world, losing a name was easy.
Especially if the system was never built to remember it in the first place.