Revealed: How Lee Harvey Oswald planned to escape after killing Kennedy

Lee Harvey Oswald visited embassies in Mexico apparently planning his escape before he assassinated president John F Kennedy, according to newly declassified CIA documents. The former US Marine went to the Cuban and former Soviet Union embassies in Mexico City three months before the shooting, Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B Johnson, was told in a briefing. But the documents provide few clues for those who believe Oswald’s claim he was a patsy in a wider conspiracy behind the killing in Dallas, Texas, on 22 November 1963. A second briefing among the 19,000 documents refers only to a favourite poem of the late president, which read: “Bullfight critics ranked in rows/Crowd the enormous plaza full/But only one is there who knows/And he’s the man who fights the bull.”

These are an incomparable window into how a president thinks. When we’re reading these, it’s a mirror image of what the president’s concerns were

Security expert William Inboden

The release of the documents, posted on the CIA website, follows a 2009 executive order by Barack Obama that all classified material is released after 25 years. Many of the documents are stamped “For the President’s Eyes Only” and were delivered to the White House. Known as the President’s Daily Brief, they are tightly guarded rundowns of CIA intelligence from around the globe. The latest batch also contain insights into the Bay of Pigs crisis and the Vietnam War but many remain partly blacked out. Oswald was arrested 45 minutes after the president was shot through the head but was himself gunned down by Jack Ruby in a police station days later.

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