Did the LAPD Send Lee Harvey Oswald
to Russia?

In the book, Chief: My Life in the L.A.P.D., Daryl Gates writes that the Los Angeles Police Department had a special intelligence unit that ran a program which sent American spies to Russia, totally clandestine and under deep cover. This was during the during the same period when Lee Harvey Oswald made his strange trip to the Soviet Union. A natural question arises; was the accused assassin part of the program?

A few words about Daryl Gates are in order. Gates went to University of Southern California on the G.I. Bill. He worked closely with the infamous Police Chief Bill Parker. Gates is a notorious right winger. He was in charge during the Watts riot that occurred five days after the Voting Rights Act passed in1965. Despite his failures during the riots, he was considered an expert on riots and riot control and helped prepare other police chiefs for the riots that would occur in other parts of the country. He worked with the Marines at Camp Pendleton to find the best snipers. His policies were viewed as racist and led to the Rodney King beating and many other abuses of police power. He was also in charge during the second Los Angeles riot. Even someone as famous as Peter Ueberroth was not afraid to ask the question, “Is it true that Daryl Gates is a Nazi?” It was Gates who started S.W.A.T, Special Weapons and Tactics, which put military weapons into the hands of the police. He was behind the Drug Awareness program for kids called D.A.R.E which educates kids in the inner cities about drugs and how to use them.

Two interesting facts emerge when studying Daryl Gates. The first one is how interested he was in Lee Harvey Oswald and the JFK assassination. Just a few hours before Oswald was murdered by Ruby, Gates was on the phone talking to the Dallas Police Department. The second one is that he was in charge of Robert Kennedy’s security at the Ambassador Hotel the night of RFK’s assassination. Actually, there was no security. Gates kept the police away claiming somebody told him Bobby didn’t want the LAPD there. The Los Angeles Police would burn most of the photos related to the assassination before Sirhan’s trial began. Then Gates kept the case secret for twenty-five years. When he was forced to release the files, he had destroyed most of the evidence.

Many have made the claim that Lee Harvey Oswald was sent to Russia by the CIA, when it could be as simple as a group of private citizens or a local agency like the LAPD behind it. The LAPD was extremely anti-Communist in those days. It had secret divisions investigating subversives which kept huge files on private citizens. If Oswald was recruited by the LAPD it would show him to be a right wing operative, not the communist many claim him to be.

Aaron Dahl

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