The Lost Tapes, Oswald, Embassies, and the Mexico City Cover-Up

The 2025 JFK files confirm the CIA had audio of Oswald calling the Soviets. So why were the tapes destroyed-and what did they really capture?

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🚪 A Window of Opportunity (Closed)

In the weeks before JFK was assassinated, Lee Harvey Oswald traveled to Mexico City, where he visited both the Soviet and Cuban embassies. That alone should have triggered alarm bells. But the 2025 files confirm something far worse:

The CIA had audio surveillance on Oswald.
The recordings existed.

And they were destroyed-conveniently-after the assassination.

The files now prove: the story we were told about Oswald’s Mexico trip was edited, redacted, and outright falsified.

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📁 CIA Surveillance in Mexico City: Operation LIENVOY

Mexico City was one of the most heavily surveilled foreign outposts in the CIA’s network during the Cold War.
Their program, LIENVOY, tapped phone lines inside the Cuban and Soviet embassies.

The 2025 documents confirm:

• Oswald called the Soviet embassy multiple times.
• He spoke with Valeriy Kostikov, a known KGB officer reportedly linked to Department 13-the KGB’s assassination unit.
• CIA officers recorded and transcribed the calls-including one where Oswald appeared agitated, demanding immediate approval for travel documents.

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🕵️‍♂️ The Destruction of the Tapes

After JFK’s assassination, the Warren Commission asked the CIA for any tapes of Oswald’s Mexico calls.

The Agency responded:

“All tapes are routinely erased after 14 days.”

But the 2025 files show that this was false.

• Internal CIA memos indicate that the Oswald tapes were retained weeks after the assassination, despite the official policy.
• A cable dated December 1963 acknowledges that audio analysis was performed after the assassination, proving the tapes still existed.
• Another document includes a staff note: “Recommend immediate disposal to limit interagency review.”

They weren’t “routinely erased.” They were intentionally erased-after Oswald was dead.

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🎧 Who Was Really on the Tape?

Another mystery the 2025 documents hint at-but don’t fully resolve-is this:

Was the voice on the tape even Oswald’s?

Some CIA staff questioned whether the caller was an impersonator. The 2025 release includes:

• A report titled “Identity Unconfirmed: Soviet Call Intercept”
• A voice comparison memo stating “inconclusive” match with known Oswald samples
• A request to “avoid further dissemination of the anomaly”

The CIA killed the tapes-and the question-before it could go public.

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🧩 Why This Is a Smoking Gun (Not Just a Glitch)

Oswald calling the Soviet embassy, speaking to a KGB assassin handler, just weeks before JFK is killed? That should’ve triggered a full-stop security alert.

But instead:

• The tapes vanished
• The transcripts were redacted
• The embassy logs were altered

And the CIA told Congress a different version of the story-a version that now lies in tatters, thanks to the 2025 disclosures.

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🔚 One Tape Could’ve Changed Everything

If the tapes had been preserved-if they’d reached the Warren Commission, or Congress, or the public-we might have had proof of intent, proof of a wider network, or proof that Oswald wasn’t acting alone.

Instead, we got nothing.

Because when the most crucial piece of evidence disappears, what’s left is not just a mystery.

It’s a message.