Original subtitles

[tense music]

*

- A man may die,

nations may rise and fall,

but an idea lives on.

[cheers and applause]

[gunshot]

[people screaming]

[gunshots]

[siren wailing]

*

- It's not an easy thing to kill the president

of the United States.

But according to the official report,

one man pulled off the crime of the century

completely on his own.

I've never believed it.

One man can't plan this without support.

[dramatic music]

Now declassified files show

that Oswald met with our main enemies,

then came back and assassinated the president.

*

If someone wanted to join ISIS and traveled across the border

and then came back...

[loud explosion]

And committed mass murder,

can we really say he acted alone?

*

male narrator: Bob Baer spent 21 years as a CIA agent

investigating assassinations and running covert operations.

His interest in the Kennedy assassination

became an obsession while still working inside the walls

of America's most secretive organization.

- When I was still at the agency,

I made a request for files concerning Lee Harvey Oswald

and the Kennedy assassination.

I took it all the way to the director, George H.W. Bush.

He gave his approval, but when I went to retrieve the files,

I was told they were all lost.

Nothing the CIA does is random.

They don't lose information; they conceal it.

I know, because I've done it myself.

narrator: Now those missing files have been declassified

along with over 2 million top secret documents

pertaining to the assassination.

- Over the last 50 years, this case has become

all about conspiracy theories.

I don't believe in conspiracy theories.

I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman

in Dealey Plaza,

[gunshot]

But I always believed he had a network supporting him.

With these declassified files, I'm going to prove it.

No one can hide in the shadows forever.

[light music]

54 years ago, the president of the United States

was murdered down there.

I, for one, have never been satisfied

with the record on this.

- This case has been contaminated by conspiracy,

by movies; it's become part of our landscape, you know.

It's the JFK assassination.

We need to step back,

and we need to look at this objectively.

narrator: As Bob launches his independent investigation,

he's joined by Adam Bercovici.

A former lieutenant of the Los Angeles Police Department,

Bercovici led the elite special investigations section

supervising hundreds of high-profile homicide

investigations over the course of his 30-year career.

- Take away the conspiracy.

Look at this as a murder investigation

- Adam's experience will help me get at the questions

all the other investigations didn't know to ask.

He thinks like a cop, and that's exactly what I need.

The Warren Commission clearly had a political agenda,

as we know.

President Johnson does not want to chuck us into a war

that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour.

narrator: One week after the assassination

of John F. Kennedy,

newly appointed president Lyndon Johnson

orders Chief Justice Earl Warren

to investigate the events at Dealey Plaza.

From the start, Johnson is concerned about the potential

involvement of Communist enemies

at the height of the Cold War.

He warns the Commission that evidence implicating Russia

or Cuba could drive the world into nuclear war.

In the end, the 888-page report concludes that Oswald acted

entirely alone without the assistance

of any accomplices.

- The Warren Commission was ordered to avoid

any conclusion that would lead to war,

so they ignored important questions.

Who else would have benefitted from JFK's murder?

The Russians, the Cubans.

It's hard to believe he didn't have support.

The Warren Commission report

drew on thousands of pieces of evidence.

But the fact is, there were millions upon millions

more pieces of evidence

the Warren Commission didn't have access to,

because the CIA and the FBI withheld information.

More than 2 million documents

have been declassified in this case.

But there is one document that jumped out at me right away.

This is a classified conversation

between President Johnson

and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover

on November 23, 1963,

the day after the assassination, in a meeting about Oswald.

Here's LBJ.

"Have you established any more

about the visit to the Soviet embassy in Mexico in September?"

J. Edgar Hoover:

"No, that's one angle that's very confusing."

This is extraordinary.

This evidence puts Oswald in the Soviet embassy eight weeks

before the assassination.

- The fact that that's not been looked at closely,

I don't get it. I mean, this is the Cold War.

This is 1963.

This is at the height of the undeclared conflict

between the Soviet Union and the United States,

and he makes it to Mexico City,

and he goes to the Soviet embassy.

That's a big deal.

Today if you substituted the Soviet embassy

with the Islamic State in Syria,

this is enough to get somebody arrested

as a material witness.

- Absolutely.

- This is 100 times worse than what we're seeing today,

because this man killed the president of the United States,

and he made contact right before with the main enemy.

Let's see what else there is about Oswald's visit

to Mexico City.

narrator: To analyze more than 2 million declassified

documents gathered over a 54-year period,

the team utilizes an enhanced neural network,

running state-of-the-art analysis algorithms

to uncover hidden links between seemingly unrelated documents.

- In this case, there hasn't been one giant document dump.

The documents have been released

strategically little by little

making it virtually impossible for people to piece it together.

This is what the CIA does.

I did it myself.

No one's taken the time to put them all together

and look at them as a collective.

Look at this.

After the assassination, John McCone, the CIA director,

tells employees not to answer questions

about Oswald in Mexico City.

- This is not how a criminal investigation is conducted.

They were telling people not to tell the truth.

- Something happened in Mexico City the CIA didn't want

the Warren Commission to know about.

- We're gonna need more evidence.

- Yeah, we've got to get down there.

This is ground zero for this whole investigation.

narrator: When Lee Harvey Oswald assassinates

President John F. Kennedy, he's only 24 years old.

Born in New Orleans, Oswald is raised in Dallas

without a father, who died shortly before his birth.

At age 19, he attempts to renounce his American

citizenship and defect to the Soviet Union.

His efforts to become a Soviet citizen fail,

but he remains in Russia for three years until 1962,

returning to the United States just one year before

his trip to Mexico City.

[dramatic music]

- Mexico City in the '60s was a hotbed of espionage.

Because of the close proximity to the United States

and Mexico's soft stance on communism,

America's enemies used the city as a hub of intelligence.

It's no coincidence that the biggest crime

of the 20th century could have been planned here.

[dramatic music]

*

- Bob, good to see you again. - Good to see you.

- Let's go get after it. - Yeah.

narrator: Joining the team in Mexico City

is former army ranger Marty Skovlund,

a veteran of five Middle East deployments

to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

- Marty specialized in covert operations

during his time in the military.

His knowledge of terrorist networks and assassinations

will be invaluable to this investigation.

[tense music]

Oswald's six days in this city are absolutely crucial.

They were never looked into by the Warren Commission,

because they didn't want to know.

All through the declassified files, there's smoke.

What I want to do is find the fire.

If the CIA is telling people not to answer questions,

those are exactly the questions I want answered.

- During the 1960s, right on the doorstep of the U.S.,

you have a hotbed of Soviet espionage

right here in Mexico City.

So we have Oswald, almost 24 years old,

walking right through those gates into the Soviet embassy.

- Essentially meeting with the enemy.

If we look at it today in terms of that context,

a 24-year-old meeting with ISIS or al-Qaeda, it stands out.

I mean, it's a big deal.

It really is.

- All spy operations were run out of here.

The CIA had it completely covered

from observation posts and listening posts.

What I want to do is get into these buildings around here

and find out, if we can, where the CIA listening post was.

I'd like to see the vantage point they used.

narrator: Back in the 1960s and even today,

the CIA employed covert surveillance stations

known as listening posts in strategic spots

across the globe to gather intelligence

from foreign enemies.

Situated near embassies and government buildings,

these sites utilized long-range microphones and telephone bugs

to document activity at sensitive locations.

- Let's move.

I want to find the listening post

the CIA used to observe Oswald's visit.

My suspicion is that U.S. surveillance

might have been too intense

for the Russians to discuss anything sensitive

with Oswald inside the embassy.

But I can't say for sure until I've put eyes on the sight.

It's this building right here.

narrator: Utilizing his network,

Bob gains access to what he believes is a former CIA

listening post along the embassy's perimeter.

- Come in. - Thank you.

So you've lived here a long time.

- Quite for a while.

When we moved in, we realized that there was something

pretty weird about this apartment.

There was this safe, there were some monitors.

- Yeah. - And also that door over

there, as you can see, it's made of metal, so...

- Look at this door.

That's a safe room.

- Yeah, look at the lock on here.

- The door that we came in over here, that's no normal,

ordinary apartment door either.

I mean, you've got a cage on the outside.

Whoever was staying in here wanted a very secure apartment.

- We were told that there were some people,

perhaps spies, for several years.

- I've kicked a lot of doors in my career.

and I've never seen one like this.

- Yeah, you're right next to the Russian embassy.

This was definitely an L.P., a listening post.

But this place is a fortress.

Any American walking into this embassy

is not coming here for high tea.

He's coming here to do damage to the United States.

[dramatic music]

Oswald going into the Soviet embassy

is what's called a walk-in...

*

People that come in willing to betray their country

and give up what they know.

As soon as Oswald enters the Soviet embassy,

he would have met a Russian diplomatic official,

but in fact, he's probably KGB.

That's the way it works.

This is something that I spent a career doing.

As Oswald makes his way through the embassy,

this whole process would look like it was a visa interview,

but in fact, that's just the cover.

He's going to be ushered into a walk-in room,

where he's gonna be met by other KGB officers.

They would have quickly sized Oswald up

to see if Oswald would be of any use.

I've run dozens and dozens of these things

where you bring in L.P., and the major thing is,

the Russians know it's here,

but that doesn't keep the CIA from watching who's coming in.

- I mean, you just imagine sitting here in '63.

This is where they probably watched him walk in.

Eight weeks later, President Kennedy's dead.

- We have to assume at this point that Oswald

intends to commit political murder.

Two months later, he kills the president of the United States.

The chances of his coming into this embassy

and proposing political murder

in the United States are pretty good.

Better chance is that the moment he mentions that,

the Russians are gonna say, "All right,

let's take this outside."

The Russians have to assume their embassy is wired

and all conversations inside that embassy are monitored.

And what I want to find out is, when he left this embassy,

whether there was recontact, and also,

what were the Russians' intentions?

If the Russians were involved in the assassination,

I don't believe they would have talked about the murder

inside the embassy.

They were simply under too much surveillance,

and they knew it.

And you just look at this L.P. here

and how close we are.

The Russians wouldn't have taken the risk.

And they just wouldn't do it here.

After finding this listening post, I now feel confident.

The Russians would have met up with Oswald

at a safe location outside the embassy,

someplace that they could speak

where they weren't being surveilled.

We need to look for evidence of that covert meeting.

The red flag has already gone up for me.

narrator: Convinced that Oswald and the Russians

would have never discussed Kennedy's assassination

inside the embassy,

the team divides to look for evidence

of a second meeting.

While Bob and Adam dig back into the documents,

Marty meets up with local investigator Eric Ceballos

and heads to Lee Harvey Oswald's Mexico City hotel.

- You're saying this is not really a tourist area?

- No, no, no, it's actually pretty sketchy.

It's dangerous for sure.

- Do you think it was that way back in '63?

- Yes, this part of the city, yes.

- Yeah? - It's not a touristy place.

narrator: The Warren Commission reports that Lee Harvey Oswald

checked into the Hotel del Comercio

within one hour of his arrival in Mexico City.

- Okay, it's just up here, guys.

narrator: Located in a high-crime area

with a reported cartel presence,

Eric instructs Marty to utilize a phone camera

to film the hotel.

- [speaking Spanish]

- [speaking Spanish]

- The first thing that jumps out at me is,

this is off the beaten path.

It's run-down.

It's just not the typical spot

that you would come to as a tourist.

It's very functional.

I worked as a member of a unit that was bringing down the most

sophisticated terrorist networks in the world.

This is the kind of flophouse terrorists hide in

to stay off the radar.

And he gets off the bus in Mexico City

and goes straight for this hotel.

When you look at Lee Harvey Oswald's patterns of behavior,

they raise all sorts of red flags.

You know, he's claiming to be a tourist,

but he's not acting like a tourist at all.

He's not staying where a tourist stays.

He's acting in a very deliberate

and planned-out manner

that's consistent with somebody that's on a mission.

- Anybody that walks into a Soviet embassy

in a country where it's a hotbed of espionage,

he's not a tourist.

I tell you, if I were in that embassy

and I were assessing him,

I would give him a walk-in package.

It's the way it works.

When I was at the CIA, I ran hundreds of walk-ins.

If a walk in comes into the embassy,

the protocol is very clear.

[dramatic music]

If the Russians wanted to meet Oswald outside the embassy,

they would have given him coded meeting arrangements,

a so-called walk-in package.

It would have looked like ordinary papers,

things that would look completely benign

to anyone but Oswald.

Even the CIA would not have immediately recognized them

for what they were.

These papers would have pointed Oswald in the direction

of another location and time,

the meeting outside of the embassy.

narrator: In the wake of the assassination,

the FBI catalogued all of Lee Harvey Oswald's

personal effects.

Among the items listed in the Warren Commission

were a Spanish-English dictionary,

a tourist guide, a city map, and multiple postcards.

- We have a map; any tourist could have had this.

We've got a dictionary, a Spanish-English dictionary.

We've got postcards.

- You know what I don't like about the postcards?

Here's a guy on the edge.

Would he come down here and buy a postcard?

What possible reason?

Do people do that that are about ready to commit a crime?

The Warren Commission missed this.

These postcards were not looked at with any expertise.

Like the rest of the stuff

Oswald walked around Mexico City with,

the postcards could easily be written off

as something a tourist would buy,

but having spent 21 years in the CIA,

this screams tradecraft to me.

narrator: During the Cold War, the Soviet KGB

perfected the art of covert communication

known as tradecraft.

In 1961, Colonel Oleg Penkovsky of the Soviet military

used postcards as a mechanism to pass intelligence

during clandestine operations.

The landmark featured on the front of the postcard

is the desired location of a secret meeting.

There is no set time for this meeting.

Instead, the KGB surveils their asset,

waiting for him to visit the landmark.

Agents would then make their approach.

- Sending Oswald out of an embassy with a postcard

outlining what the meeting is gonna be,

the tradecraft is identical to the tradecraft used by the KGB,

absolutely secure, doesn't implicate,

and it's the absence of evidence

that is evidence itself.

narrator: The postcards in Oswald's possession

feature four prominent Mexico City landmarks,

the Revolution Monument, the Torre Latino,

the Angel of Independence,

and the Plaza de Toros bullring.

- So what do you think?

- I think, yeah, we've got four locations.

What I'd like to do is go and visit all four

and reconstruct the most logical place

to make a meeting.

We know from the documents the CIA observed

Oswald going inside the Russian embassy

and meeting with our main enemy.

After the meeting, the CIA would have been keeping track

of Oswald around the city.

If one of these places would have been used to discuss

killing Kennedy, it would have had to have been a place

where you can't be photographed, where you can't be surveilled.

narrator: The team splits up to see which of the four locations

is viable for a covert meeting.

[dramatic music]

- So what we're looking for is a place that Soviets might have

had what they're calling an iron meeting.

narrator: The first of Oswald's postcards

features the Revolution Monument,

a landmark opened in 1938

to commemorate the Mexican Revolution.

- The bottom line is, is this a place that we want to have

a clandestine meeting?

It's the kind of meeting that can't be compromised

by counter surveillance.

- The KGB at that time,

they were among the best in the world

at doing this sort of thing.

They're not gonna pick a place

that leaves them vulnerable at all.

*

- I mean, you've got a meeting spot up there,

but you've got one way up and one way down,

essentially no escape route if you're trying to beat

a surveillance.

- Up there is a terrible place to conduct a meeting,

but it's a great place if you're the one

running surveillance on a potential meeting.

narrator: In 1963, both KGB and CIA operations

assume the enemy is always watching.

The KGB strategically select meeting locations to dodge

the CIA, avoiding places like the plaza around the Revolution

Monument, where the CIA could easily watch

from the monument's elevated perch.

- We need something that's easy to get in and out of,

something that's easy to counter-surveil,

and this is not that place.

*

narrator: Across town, Bob is joined by local investigator

Eric Ceballos to survey the second location

featured on Oswald's postcards.

- So this is the Angel of Independence.

- Let's see what we can see.

narrator: Known commonly as El Angel,

the Angel of Independence was built in 1910

on a roundabout of a major thoroughfare

in downtown Mexico City.

- I've worked against the KGB for many years,

and I can tell you right now,

they are not gonna pick an open location like this

so you've got 360-degree coverage.

They can't control it.

The CIA was watching everything they did there.

narrator: The Angel of Independence sits

on an isolated roundabout,

making a meeting visible from all directions

and offering no escape route for KGB agents

or Oswald if spotted by the CIA.

- I'm quite certain that whatever this postcard means,

it did not mean meeting here.

That makes no sense at all.

[tense music]

narrator: With two sites left to investigate,

Adam and Marty head into the heart

of Mexico City's financial district.

A postcard featuring the skyscraper

known as El Torre Latino was one of four found

among the personal possessions of Lee Harvey Oswald.

- This building right here, this Empire State Building-looking

thing, in 1963, this was the tallest building in Mexico City.

The one thing that really strikes me,

and I'm sure it hasn't changed that much,

is the volume of people here.

Even in our major cities like New York,

we're just not gonna see this type of volume of people.

It's more similar to, like, in India or Bombay or something.

What do you think in terms of a meet location?

- Big crowds are an excellent place to be able to lose people,

get lost in the crowd, be able to duck in and out of alleyways.

You want to be in a place where you can make a quick

escape if you need.

The tall buildings like this are exactly

what you don't want around.

[tense music]

They had long lenses back then.

You could put multiple people up in these buildings

with a long lens, and they're gonna take

all the pictures they want.

narrator: Outside El Torre Latino,

there are no distinct meeting spots

on the chaotic sidewalks

for KGB agents to intercept Oswald.

Inside the building, CIA agents could easily surround them

and monitor conversations from neighboring structures.

- This is not what I'm looking for if I'm setting up

a meeting like that.

narrator: The last potential site of Oswald's covert meeting

with the Soviet KGB,

the Plaza de Toros Mexico,

the world's largest bullring.

- And when you get a ticket, do you actually get the number

of the row you have to sit on?

- Yes, you do.

- This looks amazing.

[tense music]

*

This looks really, really interesting.

*

Wow. Look at this place.

*

This is an ideal location.

narrator: The bullring is the perfect site

for a secret meeting with the KGB.

The question remains, was Lee Harvey Oswald here?

- All of these seats, and the number of tunnels,

you would never be able to surveil anybody.

It'd be nearly impossible.

narrator: In Mexico City, former CIA agent Bob Baer

is investigating the Plaza de Toros Mexico,

a bullring where he suspects that Lee Harvey Oswald

had a secret meeting with the KGB

just weeks before the Kennedy assassination.

*

- If the KGB met with Oswald,

they would have specifically chosen a meeting location

where they couldn't be watched by CIA operatives.

This bullring could be perfect.

Did many foreigners come here?

- Yeah, it's kind of a tourist attraction too.

- So an American showing up, a gringo...

- He could mingle in easily.

- He could mingle in.

It's a logical place for Oswald to go.

He's in Mexico City.

"Well, I'll go to the bullfight."

- Mm-hmm.

- But the other edge of the sword is,

it's the perfect place to make an introduction.

If Oswald were given tickets,

he could go to the stadium,

sit in the seat the ticket indicates,

some guy sits next to him, and they can sit here and talk.

It's foolproof. - Mm-hmm.

- This would be a classic KGB operation.

Of all the locations in the four postcards,

the only one that makes sense to me is the bullring.

The other three were probably decoys.

The KGB would never risk putting Oswald

in a meeting outside of the embassy in the other locations.

*

This is what it boils down to.

It's gonna do you no good to come here and meet

with nobody in the stadium.

What we need is to determine whether there was a bullfight

when Oswald was here, because if there was

no bullfight, there was no meeting.

[dramatic music]

Do you think there are records of this here?

- Yeah, it's car copy.

narrator: Bob and Eric make contact with Jorge Sanchez

at the National Archive

to examine bullfighting records from Oswald's six-day trip

to Mexico City between September 27th

and October 2, 1963.

Yeah, this looks like the right dates.

[suspenseful music]

*

Oh...

- Yeah. - Same as the card.

- For me, this is key.

Oswald goes into the Russian embassy on the 28th,

he ends up with a postcard of the bullfighting ring,

and then the exact next day, there's a bullfight.

You just start adding this stuff up.

Every piece of evidence we have

points to an iron meeting at this stadium.

*

We checked the archives, and there was a bullfight

during Oswald's visit.

I mean, this is kind of tradecraft

that the KGB is known for.

- This place offers what none of those other places did

narrator: Bob Baer reunites with former police lieutenant

Adam Bercovici and former army ranger Marty Skovlund

to pressure test the team's working theory

that Lee Harvey Oswald met with KGB operatives

at the Plaza de Toros Mexico

to avoid detection by the CIA.

- Okay, here is what I want to do.

I'm gonna run a little test here, play a little spy game.

I want to show you how a meeting can take place there

right under your nose, and you don't see it.

I'm gonna go in there, and I'm gonna meet up with our fixer,

Eric, and I want to see how hard it is for you guys

to keep track of me in there.

The only way how to figure out how these things work

is to test them.

[dramatic music]

narrator: To simulate the role of Oswald,

Bob will proceed into the stadium alone

in an attempt to meet undetected

with a KGB operative

played by the team's local investigator Eric Ceballos.

*

With Eric in position and Bob on the move,

Adam and Marty set out to track them down,

simulating CIA surveillance of Russian activity.

This test should have been done 50 years ago.

This the kind of detail that you really need to get into,

because it's something the Warren Commission

never looked at.

They never went to the bullfighting stadium.

They just dismissed the evidence.

If I manage to evade their surveillance

and make my secret meeting, we'll be one step closer

to proving that the Russians could have been

involved in the assassination.

[cheers and applause]

- [speaking Spanish]

- I'm about seven rows up, and I don't see him anywhere.

Over.

- Roger that. I'm headed towards seven.

I'm gonna go ahead and see if I can take a look down there,

see what I can see.

narrator: In 1963, approximately 40,000 people

attended fights at the Plaza de Toros Mexico,

filling more than three tiers of seating.

2 main entrances and more than 20 interior tunnels

create a labyrinth of concourses

within the concrete structure.

Tonight there are approximately 10,000 people in attendance.

*

- A big part of my career was involved

in the surveillance world surveilling some of the worst

criminals on the streets of Los Angeles.

It is one of the hardest things to do.

It's not like the movies where you're locked up behind them.

It is a hunt.

narrator: The manhunt begins.

- I'm moving over to the next tunnel, over.

narrator: And the team will soon find out

if Lee Harvey Oswald could have met undetected

with America's most dangerous enemy.

- In 1963, the Soviets were our main enemy.

Oswald meeting with a KGB officer

would be like someone meeting with a member of ISIS today.

[tense music]

narrator: Bob plays the role of Oswald,

attempting to meet undetected with a KGB operative

played by local investigator Eric.

Adam and Marty set out to track them down,

simulating CIA operatives spying on the Russians.

- All right, Adam, I think I've got Bob over here

between sections one and seven.

- That's gonna be a negative. That is not Bob.

That is not our target. Copy.

- All right, we need to figure out where he is.

We're running out of time.

*

[cheers and applause]

- I've got about two sections to clear.

Gonna do nine and ten, then just take a look down

towards the center of the stadium.

- Roger.

*

There's a lot of people here.

This is a little bit more difficult than I was expecting.

*

A stadium's a big place, even for a trained person.

This presents a lot of challenges.

In today's day and age, we've got a lot of technology

that aids this.

But we're kind of putting ourselves back

in the 1960s here, so it becomes physically

very difficult to conduct a thorough reconnaissance

of this area and tail somebody.

[phone rings]

- Hey, Bob, what's up?

- Hey, Adam, Marty.

- Negative, we did not, negative, we did not.

- No, we did not see you.

- Thought so.

It's too hard to pick up anybody in here.

*

- The stadium wasn't full tonight,

but it would have been back in 1963,

and surveillance would have been even more challenging.

The result of this operation has a huge impact on this case.

*

In my mind, it proves that Oswald

could have met with the Russians undetected.

But this is just the beginning.

We need to dig back in the files and find the smoking gun.

Question is, if he did go to the stadium

to meet somebody, who was it?

- [silently] - What do we have here?

Oswald... put the dates in there.

Do you see any name that pops up

from the Warren Commission records?

There we go, Mexico City, Oswald meeting Soviet Union.

You've got a letter from Lee Harvey Oswald

to Russian embassy in Washington, D.C.

"This is to inform you of recent events since my meeting with

"Comrade Kostin in the embassy

of the Soviet Union in Mexico City."

- Who's Kostin?

- I don't know.

When I used to meet walk-ins in embassies,

I never gave them my true name.

Let's strip all the parameters out,

except Kostin, and let's just see if there's

a Russian in Mexico City with a variation of Kostin.

- Let's see what we've got. Here we go.

- Um...what do we have here?

Look at this.

"Information developed by CIA on activity

"of Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City.

"There is no official of the Soviet embassy in Mexico City

with a name resembling Kostin, other than Consul Kostikov."

"There is firm evidence for the conclusion that Kostikov

is a Soviet State Security officer, KGB."

Change the search, Kostikov.

[tense music]

*

Okay, here we go. "Contact of Lee Harvey Oswald

"with a member of the Soviet KGB.

"Kostikov is an identified KGB officer.

"He was a case officer in an operation

"which is evidently sponsored by the KGB's 13th Department,

responsible for sabotage and assassination."

- I mean, I don't know how much clearer it gets than that.

- I've been entrenched in the JFK assassination for decades,

and I've learned not to come to conclusions too quickly.

But the fact that the head of the KGB's assassination squad

was in Mexico City at the same time as Oswald

is something that I have to take seriously.

I don't believe that's a coincidence.

- What are the chances of Oswald going to Mexico City,

getting to see the KGB, which is not an easy thing to do,

and then ending up with the guy in charge

of assassinations for North America?

This is one of these coincidences

that I don't think is a coincidence.

narrator: Department 13 was reputed to be

the Soviet KGB's assassination squad.

Reportedly handling operations known as "liquid affairs,"

the department utilized untraceable poisons,

car bombings, and abductions to achieve their goals.

Valery Kostikov publicly worked as a diplomat

at the Soviet embassy in Mexico City.

But CIA documents reveal

he also covertly headed this notorious section of the KGB.

- What we don't have is an explanation

of why Kostikov agreed to meet with Oswald.

Why did the CIA not reveal this to the Warren Commission?

This is either colossal incompetence

or an organized cover-up.

This whole thing is very suspect.

There's some sort of relationship

which was established from Oswald's time in Moscow.

I want to find out what that relationship is.

And that's why I need to get to Moscow

to get their version of events.

This is evidence like we've never seen before.

Wars have been started with less evidence.

Somebody in Russia knows exactly what Oswald's connections

with the KGB were.

narrator: This season on "Tracking Oswald"...

- It was a strategy of Oswald.

- The Warren Commission never came to Russia

to investigate this for themselves.

- My first meeting with him was 27 of September.

- Two months before he assassinated Kennedy.

We just want to come in and talk for a few minutes.

- Shooter ready.

- Send it.

[gunshot]

- Sometimes clues are left behind.

Most people don't know he tried to commit suicide.

This is the first time you've ever spoken on camera?

- This is all being covertly done right in our backyard.

That's pretty shocking.

People were out here training.

- The pieces are starting to come together.

- Every piece of evidence we've been following has led to this.

- Five minutes down the road is a sleeper cell.

He had accomplices.

[dramatic music]

- Sometimes you can be eaten by your

own monster that you created.

- Oswald headed out saying, "I'm going to kill Kennedy for this."

This memo is signed by J. Edgar Hoover.

Hoover is saying, "I believe this."

This document could finally reveal

Oswald's motive for the assassination

of John F. Kennedy.

- Holy [bleep].