Among the 2025 document releases is a confidential CIA cable marked “URGENT – PARIS STATION” dated December 2, 1963. The content?
A lead on a man using the alias “Michel Roux” - described as a French national believed to be trafficking sensitive communications between Cuba and Mexico in the weeks leading up to President Kennedy’s assassination.
🇫🇷 Who Was Michel Roux?
The cable reveals a cross-agency surveillance request sent from Langley to CIA’s Paris Station, following a tip from the Office of Security (OS) and Western Hemisphere (WH) Division. Roux was described as:
“Previously flagged asset-handler type, likely ex-Deuxième Bureau, now freelance. Suspected conduit for restricted telegraphy.”
According to the document, Roux had entered Mexico via Madrid just days before November 22, 1963.
Surveillance reports indicated he was in contact with “known commercial radiogram firms operating unofficial Havana-Mexico circuits.”
🔄 Why Did Langley Want Him Shadowed?
The cable states Roux was believed to be physically transporting coded summaries of communications between Cuban intelligence agents and a “non-state handler” in Mexico City.
One line jumps off the page:
“Roux contact circle includes [REDACTED], previously considered for utilization under HT/LINGUAL but dropped for political reasons.”
HT/LINGUAL was a top-secret program that intercepted mail destined for the Soviet Union - one of the CIA’s most sensitive domestic espionage efforts at the time.
✂️ Then the File Went Quiet
In the margin of the same cable is a chilling scribble:
“Do not escalate. Handler advised to close loop and seal. Notify OTS to suppress contact verification.”
That was the last time “Michel Roux” appears in any known CIA file - until now.
There are no follow-ups.
No arrest records.
No final report.
The 2025 release is the only surviving record.
🧩 What Was He Carrying?
The cable references one suspected packet “containing six leaf-style encrypts” carried by Roux and transferred to an unnamed courier in Lisbon.
It also warns that the content may have included material referencing Dallas, but provides no specifics.
It does mention one crucial detail:
“Field note implies inclusion of Kennedy itinerary fragment. Poss. ref to Houston segment removed.”
That sentence alone hints at a wider net than previously thought.
🧨 A Foreign Intelligence Link They Buried In Europe
This isn’t a theory. It’s a CIA-authored cable.
And it suggests that in the days before JFK’s assassination, a French freelance intelligence officer:
📌 Was moving between Madrid and Mexico City
📌 Had Cuban contacts
📌 Was carrying intercepts tied to Kennedy’s travel
📌 Was scrubbed from agency follow-ups - and buried