Given the large number of files and documents the HSCA requested from the FBI and CIA, one might expect that there would be some confusion and problems in retrieving the right one. Today’s note note looks at one such file that still has a couple of whole page redactions (WPRs), as well as numerous shorter redactions on pages which are present in the file.

HSCA looks at the State Department

Oswald’s visits to the American embassy in Moscow during his defection have always attracted interest. The HSCA interviewed several people who worked in the embassy during the time Oswald was in Russia, including consul Richard Snyder and vice-consul John McVicar.

Snyder, it turned out, worked for the CIA for less than a year, in 1949–1950, before resigning to join the State Department. One of the ARC records released in 2017 was in fact Snyder’s personnel file. He also had a 201 file, available as an “old CIA file” at MFF here. This file was later released as individual documents and is apparently now open in full.

There is no mention of any CIA employment or contacts for McVickar in the HSCA reports or records. It was therefore a surprise to see a 201 file on John A. McVickar released in 2018. Adding to the mystery, the words “wrong file” are scribbled on the file’s cover sheet. Wrong how?

The McVickar 201

Most of this file dates from 1949 to 1950, when the Paris Station was interested in McVickar: “Subject is ideally suited and located in cover job which brings him into contact with many potential agents and valuable contacts. Subject would start as ‘spotter’ and perhaps recruiter.”

Apparently McVickar was a sales representative for some American firm, name still redacted. Most personal details of McVickar are also redacted, but it seems he was about 40 when the station was interested in him.

A review of this 201 file was conducted in 1976, which classified the subject as “potential witting collaborator never contacted.” Poking around in file, it seems McVickar left Paris in 1950, meaning he was no longer of interest as a spotter to the Paris station.

Reading through the file, the details begin to sound more and more off. If this were the McVickar of the Moscow embassy, he would have been almost 50 when Oswald arrived in 1959. It would be unusual for a 40 year old salesman to wind up as a Foreign Service officer 10 years later, and there are other incongruities as well. Could it be that “wrong file” means “file for the wrong person”? How to verify that?

ARRB interviews McVickar

The answer is in the notes to an ARRB interview with the Moscow embassy McVickar done in 1997. The ARRB memo shows that the embassy McVickar is John Anthony McVickar. The 201 file is for John Augustus McVickar Jr.

John Anthony joined the State Department in May 1949. John Augustus was about 40 then, so they are probably not father and son. The ARRB memo indicates there is an extract from John Anthony’s personnel file in Michelle Combs’s files if someone is interested in looking further.

My two cents

When the HSCA requested “name traces” from the CIA, they often provided few details, perhaps wishing to play their cards close to the vest. CIA offices in turn frequently responded with comments like “more information needed,” or “insufficient detail provided.” Such exchanges sometimes left HSCA researchers suspicious and CIA components irked.

As the “McVickar 201” shows, it was a legitimate concern. McVickar is not the only “wrong file” in the ARC, and such files certainly raise issues for declassification.

The McVickar file now redacts some, but not all, of John Augustus’s personal information, including information on his father, brothers, sister, wife, and daughter. (No mention of a son, another reason for thinking that John Anthony is not a relative.) It redacts the company he worked for, his education, employment details, financial info (probably bank name and account number), passport number, and references.

There are two WPRs in the file (under “Employment History“)

Yet ARRB/NARA have treated this file as an assassination record. Why? It was provided to the HSCA, and reviewed by researcher Bob Genzman. Had I been the ARRB, I would not have treated it this way.

Anyway, zero JFK relevance.