by Jim Marrs
This is particularly interesting because this Navy program sounds exactly like Oswald’s experience.
While Oswald was in Russia, the State Department was engaged in studying US defectors to Russia. Otto Otepka, the official in charge of the study, said one of its goals was to determine which defectors were genuine and which may have been US intelligence operatives.
In June 1963, five months prior to the Kennedy assassination, Otepka said he was ousted from his job and, in fact, barred from access to his study material on defectors, one of whom was Lee Harvey Oswald.
Asked by a researcher in 1971 whether Oswald was a real or fake defector, Otepka replied, “We had not made up our minds when . . . we were thrown out of the office.”
This incident is especially troubling, for if the shutdown of the State Department investigation was because of Oswald, this is strong evidence that someone within the US government had prior knowledge of Oswald’s role in the upcoming assassination.
A Phony Defection
Oswald’s attempted defection to Russia was as fabricated as many other aspects of his life.
The Marion Lykes arrived in Le Havre, France, on October 8, 1959. Oswald arrived in Southampton, England, October 9 and, according to the Warren Commission, set off for Helsinki, Finland, arriving and checking into the Torni Hotel that same day.
However, in Oswald’s passport, the British immigration stamp reads, “Embarked 10 Oct. 1959.”
This presents a real problem, since the only direct flight from London to Helsinki that day did not arrive in time for Oswald to have checked into the Torni Hotel at the hour shown in the hotel’s register.
The discrepancy in times has led some researchers to believe that Oswald got to Finland by some means other than public transportation—perhaps in US military aircraft. But this possibility, of course, smacks of intelligence work and was not officially investigated.
Another oddity: Throughout his life, Oswald was tight with money, usually staying in cheap rooming houses and apartments. However, once in Helsinki, he registered in the Torni Hotel, then moved the next day into the Klaus Kurki Hotel, two of the city’s most expensive and luxurious lodgings.
The Warren Commission claimed Oswald then visited the Soviet consulate in Helsinki and obtained a visa in two days, which must have been some sort of record, as the Commission also determined that the shortest normal time for obtaining a visa was one week.
Oswald’s visa was issued October 14 and the Commission said Oswald left by train the next day for Moscow, arriving on October 16.
However, the leading Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheters reported three days after the assassination that Oswald failed to get his Soviet visa in Helsinki—information that since then has been confirmed by Swedish intelligence. The paper said Oswald instead went to Stockholm, where he obtained a visa at the Russian embassy after two days. Curiously, neither the Warren Commission nor the House Select Committee on Assassinations mentioned this side trip.
Whatever the facts, the speed and ease with which Oswald journeyed to Moscow gives the impression that more was motivating this young man than the simple desire to experience a communist state.
Arriving in Moscow by train, Oswald was taken in tow by a representative of Intourist, the official state tourist agency, who placed him in the Hotel Berlin, where he registered as a student. The next day Oswald went sightseeing with his Intourist guide, a young woman named Rima Shirokova, and promptly informed her he wanted to defect.
Despite his proclamation that he was a “communist” wanting to live in Russia, after several contacts with Soviet authorities Oswald was informed on October 21 that his visa had expired and he had two hours to leave Moscow. Faced with deportation, Oswald reportedly cut his left wrist in a suicide attempt. Conveniently, this was done just before a meeting with his Intourist guide. She found him in his hotel room and took him to a hospital. This act accomplished the same end result of the Marine shooting incident—he was out of sight in the hospital for eleven days.
He was released on October 28 and, accompanied by Shirokova, checked out of the Hotel Berlin and into the Metropole. The Warren Commission concluded, “The government undoubtedly directed him to make the change.” Oswald had indeed been in touch with Soviet government officials from the Pass and Registration Office.
He remained in his hotel room three days, apparently awaiting orders from someone. He told Shirokova he was impatient, but didn’t say why.
By Saturday, October 31, 1959, Oswald was ready to make his move. Striding past the Marine guards at the US embassy, he plopped his passport down in front of a receptionist and declared he had come to “dissolve his American citizenship.”
He was directed to Richard E. Snyder, the second secretary and senior consular official, who tried to dissuade the young ex-Marine from his planned course of action. Oswald handed Snyder an undated, handwritten note that displayed a sophisticated knowledge of the legal subtleties concerning the revocation of citizenship. It reflected the same type of knowledge that apparently had allowed Oswald to make his journey to Moscow in a most unorthodox manner.
The note stated:
I, Lee Harvey Oswald, do hereby request that my present citizenship in the United States of America, be revoked. . . . I take these steps for political reasons. My request for the revoking of my American citizenship is made only after the longest and most serious considerations. I affirm that my allegiance is to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Present with Snyder was John McVickar, another senior consular officer. In later years, McVickar said he felt Oswald
was following a pattern of behavior in which he had been tutored by a person or persons unknown . . . seemed to be using words he had learned but did not fully understand. . . . In short, it seemed to me there was the possibility that he had been in contact with others before or during his Marine Corps tour who had guided him and encouraged him in his actions.
In later years Snyder himself came under suspicion of aiding Oswald in an intelligence mission when it was revealed that he had worked for the CIA—although the agency claimed it was only for a brief time in 1949.
When the House Select Committee on Assassinations looked into the matter, investigators found that Snyder’s CIA file was unavailable “[as] a matter of cover.” The committee found this revelation “extremely troubling.”
According to the Warren Commission, Snyder did not permit Oswald to renounce his citizenship. Since it was a Saturday, Snyder explained that Oswald would have to return on a normal business day to fill out the necessary paperwork. Oswald never returned and, therefore, technically never renounced his citizenship. On November 3, Oswald sent the embassy a letter protesting its refusal to accept his renunciation of citizenship. However, he never showed up in person to pursue that act. And when embassy personnel attempted to contact Oswald, he refused to see them.
His widely publicized defection never happened.
Could the three-day wait in his hotel room have been because he had been coached not to defect unless it was on a Saturday? How could a high school dropout know all of these legalistic subtleties without being briefed by more knowledgeable persons?
Even American newswoman Priscilla Johnson, who interviewed Oswald a few days later in his hotel room, thought he “may have purposely not carried through his original intent to renounce [citizenship] in order to leave a crack open.”
During this time, Oswald granted two newspaper interviews, one to Aline Mosby of UPI and the other to Johnson, who said she represented the North American Newspaper Alliance syndicate. Oswald harangued both reporters with his fervent support of Marxism and its ideals and both dutifully reported his comments in newspaper articles that appeared back in the United States.
Johnson (now Priscilla Johnson McMillan) would later write the book Marina and Lee, which supposedly “reveals the innermost secrets of [Marina’s] life with the man who shot JFK.” McMillan once was an assistant to Senator John F. Kennedy and went
on to become an acknowledged expert on Soviet affairs. It is McMillan who has been primarily responsible for much of the information concerning Oswald’s personal life shortly before the assassination.
There has been much speculation over the years that McMillan was operating on behalf of US intelligence when she was in contact with Oswald. She has testified that she never worked for the CIA. However, the House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that she had applied to work for the CIA in 1952, had been “debriefed” by that agency after a trip to Russia in 1962, and in fact had provided the CIA with “cultural and literary” information.
Suspicion about her increased with the release of an FBI memorandum dated November 23, 1963, in which a State Department security officer informed the FBI, “One Priscilla Johnston [sic] and Mrs. G. Stanley Brown also had contact with Oswald in Russia. Both these women were formerly State Department employees at the American Embassy and their contact with Oswald was official business.”
By December 1959, Oswald had dropped from sight in the Soviet Union and was not heard from again for more than a year. During that time, most of what is known about Oswald’s activities comes from his “Historic Diary,” supposedly a day-to-day account of his life in Russia. Life magazine had obtained a copy of the so-called diary from Dallas Morning News reporter Hugh Aynesworth. Some accused Aynesworth of pilfering the document from Oswald’s belongings while others thought someone passed it to the reporter to solidify Oswald’s procommunist background. Aynesworth, who earlier had tried to join the CIA, has refused to reveal the diary’s origin. The diary appeared to have been written long after the events described.
Even the Warren Commission had trouble with Oswald’s diary, noting, “It is not an accurate guide to the details of Oswald’s activities. Oswald seems not to have been concerned about the accuracy of dates and names and apparently made many of his entries subsequent to the date the events occurred.”
For instance, Oswald notes in his entry for October 31, 1959—the day he visited the American embassy—that John McVickar had taken Richard Snyder’s place as “head consul.” This change did not take place until two years after that date, at a time Oswald was preparing to leave Russia.
In later years, experts hired by the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded the “diary” was written entirely on the same paper and was most probably written in one or two sittings.
This fact further fuels the charge that Oswald, even while in the Soviet Union, was acting on orders from someone else. This charge was even voiced by Warren Commission general counsel J. Lee Rankin, who told Commission members in executive session, “That entire period is just full of possibilities for training, for working with the Soviets, and its agents.”
Aside from the “diary,” there is precious little documentation about Oswald’s stay in Russia. But in early 1964, the Soviet government did provide the Warren Commission with fifteen pages of documents, including copies of Oswald’s passport, a job application from a Minsk radio factory, some hospital records, and a supervisor’s report from the factory.
Comrade Oswald
Although much about Oswald’s life in Russia is unknown, several tantalizing pieces of information tell a decidedly different story of his sojourn there from the one previously told.
After spending New Year’s Day 1960 in Moscow, Oswald reportedly was then sent to Minsk with 5,000 rubles. The money supposedly came from the Red Cross, although Oswald himself wrote that the money actually came from the Soviet MVD (the Soviet secret police) after he “denounced” the United States. He reported that he was greeted in Minsk on January 8 by no less than the mayor of the city, who promised him a rent-free apartment.
And what an apartment it was—a spacious flat with a separate living room, tile floors, and modern furniture, accommodations far beyond the means of the average Russian worker. Two private balconies overlooked a picturesque bend in the Svisloch River.
It was here that Oswald entertained his newfound Russian friends, such as Pavel Golovachev. The son of General P. Y. Golovachev, a “hero of the Soviet Union” and a man who reportedly traveled in Minsk’s highest social circles, Golovachev was pictured in some of the snapshots Oswald made in his Minsk home.
Oswald was assigned duties as a “metal worker” in the Byelorussian Radio and Television factory. Here, between his wages and the continuing “Red Cross” allowance, Oswald reportedly was making more money than the factory’s director.
Oswald wrote about affairs with at least five local girls, whom he would take to nearby movies, theaters, and opera. As he wrote in his “diary,” he was “living big.”
On a darker side, it should be noted that Minsk, along with being a somewhat cosmopolitan city by Russian standards, also was the site of an espionage training school made known to the CIA as far back as 1947. It provided a convenient red herring for those hoping to distract from Oswald’s homegrown intelligence connections.
In testimony to the Warren Commission on May 14, 1964, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover said:
Just the day before yesterday information came to me indicating that there is an espionage training school outside of Minsk—I don’t know whether it is true—and that he [Oswald] was trained at that school to come back to this country to become what they call a “sleeper,” that is a man who will remain dormant for three or four years and in case of international hostilities rise up and be used.
Almost adjacent to this spy school is the Foreign Language Institute. In a manuscript about his life in Minsk, Oswald admitted, “I was in the Foreign Language Institute.” Perhaps realizing his slip, Oswald edited this remark to read, “I was visiting friends in the Foreign Language Institute.”
In addition to his money and lavish apartment, there is other evidence to suggest that Oswald was living a privileged life with his Soviet hosts. Although officially he never left Minsk and he pointed out how most Soviet citizens were prohibited from traveling far from their home, Oswald apparently traveled extensively in Russia.
Jeanne DeMohrenschildt, who along with her husband, George, befriended Oswald after his return to the United States, said he was quite interested in photography. She said he had photographs of various locations in Russia that he showed her with great pride. He also told her about his enjoyable weekends hunting. And found among his possessions was a Soviet hunting license showing he had been a member of the Belorussian Society of Hunters and Fishermen, which carried with it the privilege of owning a 16-gauge shotgun, another feat impossible for the average Russian.
About the only fact that can be stated without question concerning Oswald’s life in Russia is that he lived well beyond the means of the ordinary Soviet citizen. To most researchers, this abundant life indicates some sort of special relationship with Soviet officials. The exact nature of this relationship is still unknown. However, many assassination students believe two things: one, that Oswald’s fake defection to Russia may have had something to do with the downing of the U-2 spy plane on May 1, 1960, and second, whatever the purposes of his intelligence mission to Russia, it had nothing to do with the subsequent assassination of President Kennedy except to paint Oswald as a communist operative and force the Soviets into covering up any connection with the accused assassin.
Although Oswald was not heard from in Russia between December 1959 and February 1961, the wheels of the US bureaucracy were turning.
As early as November 10, 1959, the FBI, upon learning of Oswald’s attempted defection, placed a “flash” notice on his fingerprint card. This served to alert bureau officials should Oswald’s fingerprints turn up in any FBI investigation. It also placed his name on a watch list used in monitoring overseas communications.
By the summer of 1960, the FBI was fully alert to Oswald and to the possibility that some sort of espionage game was being played out, even to the extent of someone posing as Oswald. On June 3, 1960, FBI director Hoover wrote to the State Department’s Office of Security, warning, “Since there is a possibili
ty that an imposter is using Oswald’s birth certificate, any current information the Department of State may have concerning subject will be appreciated.”
About this same time, the Marine Corps, informed that Oswald had offered to tell military secrets to the Soviets, took action. After failing to reach Oswald with certified letters, the Marine Corps officially changed Oswald’s “honorable discharge” to “dishonorable” on September 13, 1960.
But it was Oswald’s mother who seemed to get the swiftest reaction from queries about her son. After phone calls to the FBI and letters to her congressmen failed to turn up information about her son, Mrs. Oswald spent her small savings on a train ticket to Washington. Arriving on January 28, 1961, she called the White House wanting to speak to President Kennedy, who had been inaugurated only eight days before.
Failing to reach the president, she asked to speak to Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Instead, she was granted an immediate interview with Eugene Boster, White House Soviet affairs officer. Although she had not heard from her son in more than a year and his trip to Russia allegedly was made entirely on his own, Mrs. Oswald quoted Boster as saying, “Oh, yes, Mrs. Oswald, I’m familiar with the case.” As before, she charged that her son was working for the US government and demanded that the government locate him in Russia.
