16-11-2015, 04:59 PM
We all know the legend: Loser/loner "Lee Harvey Oswald," an ex-U.S. Marine communist, saves up his non-convertible military scrip so he can "defect" to Russia via first-class hotels and expensive private tour guides in Moscow (who say he didn't speak a word of Russian). Soviet authorities don't buy his professed love for Mother Russia, but his self-inflicted wrist wounds perhaps convince them of his earnestness. Moscow doctors suspect he secretly understands Russian, but no one finds this suspicious.
Moving to Minsk, things get weird. Marina Prusakova, an attractive babe with a pharmacology degree and a yen for American "defectors," soon falls in love with our boy, not long after meeting with Robert Webster, also an American "defector." Marina lives with her uncle, a colonel in the Soviet MVD (similar to our FBI), and apparently no one is suspicious when the ex-Marine communist "defector" begins spending time in the Soviet intelligence officer's apartment.
Harvey and Marina are married a little more than a month after they meet. A month after that, Harvey tells Marina it's time to move to the USA, and Marina is fine with that. Russian authorities and the U.S. State Department are fine with that too. Marina is granted her Russian exit visa on Christmas Day, 1961. The U.S. loans the Oswalds money to travel to the U.S.
That's the official legend, so far. To me, the obvious truth is this: "Lee Harvey Oswald" was a low-level U.S. intelligence operative and the Russians knew it. The KGB undoubtedly instructed their asset (Marina Prusakova) to contact Oswald in the hope romance would develop and she could travel to the U.S. on the wings of True Love.
With this honey trap in mind, the fact that Russian intelligence dealt with Oswald the way it did instead of torturing him to death to find out what his job entailed and what else he knew (U-2 specs, for example?) may not be as unreasonable as it seems. But what REALLY doesn't add up is that our CIA also for the most part kept hands off the young couple. By contrast, consider how the CIA spent years torturing Yuri Nosenko when he arrived in the U.S. soon after the assassination to announce that "Lee Harvey Oswald" was NOT a Soviet agent.
The CIA surely knew that Marina's live-in uncle was a high level Soviet intelligence officer, that Marina actively sought audiences with not one but TWO U.S. "defectors," and that as an attractive young woman with an advanced pharmacy agree she could undoubtedly have had her choice of many different men. But apparently they weren't suspicious enough to detain her for any significant time.
The people around Clay Shaw in New Orleans and the White Russians in Dallas and Ruth Paine were almost certainly told to keep watch on this couple, but it sure is amazing how they were managed with such a light touch by two notorious intelligence armies engaged in an enormous Cold War. Does this strike anyone else as strange?
Moving to Minsk, things get weird. Marina Prusakova, an attractive babe with a pharmacology degree and a yen for American "defectors," soon falls in love with our boy, not long after meeting with Robert Webster, also an American "defector." Marina lives with her uncle, a colonel in the Soviet MVD (similar to our FBI), and apparently no one is suspicious when the ex-Marine communist "defector" begins spending time in the Soviet intelligence officer's apartment.
Harvey and Marina are married a little more than a month after they meet. A month after that, Harvey tells Marina it's time to move to the USA, and Marina is fine with that. Russian authorities and the U.S. State Department are fine with that too. Marina is granted her Russian exit visa on Christmas Day, 1961. The U.S. loans the Oswalds money to travel to the U.S.
That's the official legend, so far. To me, the obvious truth is this: "Lee Harvey Oswald" was a low-level U.S. intelligence operative and the Russians knew it. The KGB undoubtedly instructed their asset (Marina Prusakova) to contact Oswald in the hope romance would develop and she could travel to the U.S. on the wings of True Love.
With this honey trap in mind, the fact that Russian intelligence dealt with Oswald the way it did instead of torturing him to death to find out what his job entailed and what else he knew (U-2 specs, for example?) may not be as unreasonable as it seems. But what REALLY doesn't add up is that our CIA also for the most part kept hands off the young couple. By contrast, consider how the CIA spent years torturing Yuri Nosenko when he arrived in the U.S. soon after the assassination to announce that "Lee Harvey Oswald" was NOT a Soviet agent.
The CIA surely knew that Marina's live-in uncle was a high level Soviet intelligence officer, that Marina actively sought audiences with not one but TWO U.S. "defectors," and that as an attractive young woman with an advanced pharmacy agree she could undoubtedly have had her choice of many different men. But apparently they weren't suspicious enough to detain her for any significant time.
The people around Clay Shaw in New Orleans and the White Russians in Dallas and Ruth Paine were almost certainly told to keep watch on this couple, but it sure is amazing how they were managed with such a light touch by two notorious intelligence armies engaged in an enormous Cold War. Does this strike anyone else as strange?
HarveyandLee.net
Chief Justice Earl Warren: "Full disclosure was not possible for reasons of national security." – 1964
CIA accountant James B. Wilcott: Oswald received "a full-time salary for agent work for doing CIA operational work." – 1978
HSCA counsel Robert Tanenbaum: “Lee Harvey Oswald was a contract employee of the CIA and the FBI.†– 1996
Chief Justice Earl Warren: "Full disclosure was not possible for reasons of national security." – 1964
CIA accountant James B. Wilcott: Oswald received "a full-time salary for agent work for doing CIA operational work." – 1978
HSCA counsel Robert Tanenbaum: “Lee Harvey Oswald was a contract employee of the CIA and the FBI.†– 1996