A single page in the Duran files hints that the files of the Direccion Federal de Seguridad (DFS or Federal Security Directorate) once held more provocative information that has not been made public. It is page 43 and shown at the bottom left of this posting. It is a redacted photograph that is labeled "Alvarado Ugarte" but is in fact Gilberto Policarpo Lopez. As will be explained, Gilberto ALVARADO Ugarte was thoroughly investigated, and his claim was deemed a fabrication. (Spanish convention puts the surname second and the mother's name last. To avoid confusion, American intelligence services put the surname in all capital letters. By American convention his name was Gilberto Ugarte Alvarado). In contrast, suspicions about Gilberto Lopez were never investigated by American intelligence or the Warren Commission. However, this one page suggests Mexican authorities may have investigated him.
The story of Alvarado is legend. He showed up at the U.S. embassy in Mexico City on November 25, 1963, with a wild tale of being in the Cuban consulate on September 18, 1963, and seeing a Cuban pay Oswald to kill Kennedy. Despite the fact that the FBI and CIA knew Oswald was in New Orleans on September 18, President Lyndon Johnson received in-person briefings from CIA Director John McCone on the latest developments on the Alvarado matter for several days. Later, Alvarado retracted the allegation and even later retracted the retraction. Nonetheless, the allegation consumed a great deal of CIA and FBI time and resources in the days after the assassination.
Lopez's story is different. He came to the DFS's attention at about the same time as the sole passenger on a commercial flight to Cuba on November 27, but the flap over Alvarado may have distracted American and Mexican authorities from investigating Lopez more aggressively. He had been raised in Cuba but was an American citizen. He moved to Florida as an adult and was living in Tampa on November 18, 1963, when John Kennedy visited. Two days later, he obtained a tourist visa from the Mexican consulate in Tampa and headed west.
The border between Texas and Mexico was closed upon word of Kennedy's assassination on November 22. When it reopened around midnight, Mexican authorities recorded that Lopez entered Mexico as a passenger in private car. They would later give the FBI a list of the drivers of those cars together with their make and engine number. (While engine numbers are harder to change, they are not as useful for investigators as license plates). Nothing was ever done with this information. The FBI made no attempt to determine who drove Lopez across the border that night.
Lopez arrived in Mexico City in the late afternoon of November 25, the same day that Alvarado showed up at the U.S. embassy. Two days later, on the evening of November 27, Lopez flew to Havana as the only passenger on a Cubana airlines flight with a crew of nine. The CIA and FBI first learned about Lopez on December 3, and on December 5 Mexican authorities gave the CIA a photograph of him as he was about to board the Havana flight.
Inexplicably, except for a check of U.S. files on Lopez, the CIA and FBI let the matter drop. Mexican authorities seemed concerned however. The very purpose of closing the border on the afternoon of November 22 was to prevent Kennedy's assassin and any accomplices from escaping to Mexico. For this reason, Lopez's entry that night aroused suspicions. Mexican authorities also reported to the CIA that they had "lost" track of him between the time he entered from Texas and his appearance at the airport five days later.
In late February 1964, Mexican federal police (not DFS) told the CIA that Lopez had been "involved" in Kennedy's assassination. Strange at it seems, the CIA did not ask for details. However, it finally began asking the FBI to investigate Lopez's life in Florida. Among other things, the FBI learned that Lopez had been at the house of the head of the Tampa Fair Play for Cuba Committee on November 17, the day before Kennedy's visit to the city, waiting for a phone call from Cuba that would give him the go ahead to return. FBI investigators were not told the reason for the investigation, i.e., Lopez's possible connection to the Kennedy assassination.
This brings us to page 43 of the Mexican Archives' file on Silva Duran. That page is below on the left. It reads Alvarado Ugarte and Gilbert. It shows a man in a shirt or jacket with a checked pattern and hands on a counter. His face has been redacted. The CIA photograph of Gilberto Policarpo Lopez taken before he boarded the flight to Havana on the night of November 27 is on the right. Comparing the checked pattern of the shirt and the collar line reveals the two images to be the same. The CIA image has simply been cropped from the original. The question is what more do DFS files in Mexico contain on Lopez that has not been made public. Did DFS save the passenger manifest of the flight? It usually did. Did the CIA tell DFS that Mexican police said Lopez was involved? Did DFS investigate?
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| Mexican Archives Redacted |
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| CIA Gilberto Policarpo Lopez |
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