On June 22, 1962, an intelligence official drafted a memo summarizing a letter intercepted between Lee Harvey Oswald and his mom. The memo was made public way back. But for 60 years, the title of the letter opener was stored secret.
Now it could possibly lastly be informed: According to an unredacted copy of the memo launched lately by the federal government, the official who intercepted Oswald’s mail for the C.I.A. within the months earlier than President John F. Kennedy was assassinated was named Reuben Efron.
And meaning — what, precisely? A tantalizing clue to unraveling an advanced conspiracy that the federal government has sought to cowl up for many years? Additional proof that the C.I.A. knew extra about Oswald than initially acknowledged? Or a minor element withheld all this time due to bureaucratic imperatives irrelevant to the query of whether or not Oswald was the lone gunman on the fateful day?
The thriller of Reuben Efron, who has been lifeless for 3 many years, might by no means be resolved to the satisfaction of a few of these devoted to finding out the assassination. Thirty years after Congress ordered that papers associated to the killing be made public with restricted exceptions, President Biden has declared that he has made his “final certification” of recordsdata to be launched, despite the fact that 4,684 paperwork stay withheld in complete or partly. Going ahead, companies will resolve any future disclosures which may be warranted by the passage of time.
The president’s certification, issued at 6:36 p.m. on the Friday earlier than the lengthy Fourth of July vacation weekend, when it could not draw a lot consideration, has pissed off researchers and historians nonetheless targeted on essentially the most sensational American homicide of the twentieth century. But they suffered a setback on Friday when a federal choose refused to dam Mr. Biden’s order.
Jefferson Morley, the editor of the weblog JFK Facts and the creator of a number of books on the C.I.A., stated the belated identification of Efron indicated that intelligence companies nonetheless had one thing to maintain from the American public.
“If they hid this guy’s name for 61 years and they’re still hiding other stuff, I would say they’re still hiding sources and methods around Oswald,” Mr. Morley stated. “Why else did the name remain secret for 61 years? The C.I.A. is trying to slam the door now, and Biden’s gone along with this.”
From the opposite aspect of the spectrum, Gerald Posner, the creator of “Case Closed,” a 1993 ebook concluding that Oswald killed Kennedy on his personal, stated he doubted there was a smoking gun within the remaining recordsdata.
“Everyone is focused on the C.I.A. documents still withheld,” he stated. “What we have learned from the C.I.A. files released this year is that they either have nothing to do with the assassination, or are only tangentially related.”
While he and Mr. Morley diverge on the historic proof, Mr. Posner agreed that Mr. Biden’s resolution was “an abrogation of responsibility under the 1992 law” mandating launch of the paperwork. Trust within the authorities being what it’s, he stated, the general public won’t ever settle for official reassurances that there is no such thing as a gorgeous revelation within the papers.
“I don’t think that’s there,” he stated, “but you’ll only know when you have all the files available.”
The intense curiosity in Kennedy conspiracy theories prompted Congress to move the 1992 regulation mandating that paperwork associated to the assassination be launched inside 25 years besides those who might do “identifiable harm” to nationwide safety that outweighs the worth of disclosure. When the deadline arrived in 2017, President Donald J. Trump, who has dabbled in conspiracy theories in regards to the assassination himself, bowed to stress from intelligence companies to grant extra time. After taking workplace, Mr. Biden signed two memos doing the identical.
Of roughly 320,000 paperwork reviewed because the regulation handed, 99 % have been disclosed, in line with the National Archives and Records Administration. But 2,140 paperwork stay absolutely or partially withheld on account of Mr. Biden’s motion, officers stated, whereas one other 2,502 stay withheld for causes exterior the president’s purview, like court-ordered seals, grand jury secrecy guidelines, tax privateness limits or restrictions imposed by individuals who donated papers, and 42 for a mixture of each.
A overwhelming majority of excluded paperwork have truly been launched however with sure components redacted, officers stated, together with names of individuals nonetheless dwelling, addresses, phone or Social Security numbers, or areas of intelligence services. Officials stated they had been assured that not one of the withheld data would change the important understanding of the assassination.
While Mr. Biden’s June 30 order means he’s completed, the archives and companies have arrange “transparency plans” so remaining redactions might be lifted sooner or later, comparable to upon the loss of life of somebody whose id was protected.
The Mary Ferrell Foundation, a company already suing the federal government over the recordsdata, sought an injunction in opposition to Mr. Biden after his newest order. But Judge Richard Seeborg of the Federal District Court in Northern California rejected it on Friday night time and dismissed different components of the unique lawsuit, although he allowed some claims to proceed.
Lawrence Schnapf, a lawyer for the muse, denounced Mr. Biden’s motion. “It is simply unfathomable to me that a man who has a bust of R.F.K. in his office and who voted for the law would cave in to the incredulous claims of the national security bureaucracy that 60-year-old records pose such a risk to national security that they cannot be released,” he stated.
The Justice Department declined to remark however maintained in its filings that the federal government had complied with the regulation. The C.I.A. didn’t reply to requests for remark. “This completes the review of records required by Congress and fulfills the president’s commitment to maximizing transparency related to President Kennedy’s assassination,” stated Adam Hodge, a spokesman for the White House.
The assassination nonetheless has huge energy to arouse suspicion. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has embraced conspiracy theories on vaccines and different issues and is now difficult Mr. Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination, stated lately that the federal government had orchestrated a “60-year cover-up” in his uncle’s killing.
“There’s overwhelming evidence that the C.I.A. was involved in his murder,” he informed the radio host John Catsimatidis in May. “I think it’s beyond a reasonable doubt at this point.”
Mr. Trump, for his half, vowed to do in a second time period what he didn’t in his first. “I released a lot, as you know. And I will release everything else,” stated in an interview in May with The Messenger, a brand new on-line news web site.
The last 1,103 paperwork launched days earlier than Mr. Biden’s order and people made public in previous months supplied new data that hardly appeared price conserving cloaked so lengthy. In April, as an example, a file was launched with names of staff within the C.I.A.’s Mexico City station, principally secretaries and translators. Another doc listed 27 beforehand unreleased C.I.A. workers members’ names; for no matter it’s price, the C.I.A. director John McCone’s secretaries had been named Marguerite Beard, Betty Davis and June Irish.
Whether any of the withheld paperwork would shed extra gentle on Reuben Efron is unknown. His title on the mail intercept memo intrigued Mr. Morley. The memo was despatched to Betty Egerter at a C.I.A. unit generally known as “the office that spied on spies.” On the day of the assassination, Egerter’s boss informed the F.B.I. that the C.I.A. had no data on Oswald, who actually had been monitored when he moved to the Soviet Union. A doc launched way back confirmed that the company opened Oswald’s correspondence from Nov. 11, 1959, to May 1, 1960, and once more from July 1, 1961, to May 25, 1962.
Curiously, Efron was beforehand listed as being within the room when the Warren Commission interviewed Marina Oswald, his Russian-born widow, in February 1964 — the one one current whose title and position weren’t defined. Mr. Morley suspects Efron was monitoring the fee’s investigation for James Angleton, the legendary C.I.A. official, basically his “eyes and ears inside the room.”
Efron was born in Lithuania in 1911 as Ruvelis Effronas and arrived within the United States through Cuba in 1939, in line with immigration papers that described him as a 5-foot-3, 135-pound “merchant-salesman.” In addition to English, he spoke Russian, Lithuanian, Hebrew, Yiddish and German, and served within the Air Force throughout World War II as an interpreter. His obituary stated that after the battle he was “a specialist on the Soviet Union and consultant on foreign affairs” with out saying for whom.
In a harmonic convergence of conspiracy, Efron reported seeing a U.F.O. in 1955. He was touring with Senator Richard Russell, Democrat of Georgia, and an Army colonel on a practice journey by the Soviet Union when all three noticed what a C.I.A. report known as two “flying saucers.” Skeptics later prompt they had been Soviet plane. Russell was among the many Warren Commission members within the room for the Marina Oswald interview that Efron attended in 1964.
As it occurred, Efron died on Nov. 22, 1993 — the thirtieth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. His spouse has died too, and he had no recognized youngsters. Efforts to achieve different members of the family had been unsuccessful.
“People say there’s nothing significant in these files?” Mr. Morley stated. “Bingo! Here’s the guy who was reading Oswald’s mail, a detail they failed to share until now. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to think it’s suspicious.”
Mr. Posner finds it much less suspicious however understands why others may. “Many of us have made up our minds,” he stated. “Some of us have made up our minds that there was a conspiracy, and some of us have made up our minds that it was Oswald.
“But in the end, we all want to see these files.”
Alain Delaquérière contributed analysis.
Source: www.nytimes.com