31-07-2014, 03:38 PM
Drew Phipps Wrote:I'm unwilling to jump from there, to "full time accredited spy," unless I can follow the money.
OK, let's follow the money all the way to Moscow!
The WC told us Oswald saved the money to pay for his travels from his military pay in Japan and California, but failed to tell us that the bulk of that pay--from Japan--was non-convertible military scrip, spendable only at the base commissary, leaving roughly $1100 total pay from his time California to save for the "defection." However much he managed to save from his USMC pay, $200 of that total went to open a bank account in Fort Worth on 12/8/58.
With the remainder, he did the following:
He traveled from Santa Ana, California to Ft Worth, then to New Orleans, where he boarded the ship to Le Havre, France before moving on to London. Then he flew to Helsinki and stayed two nights at the expensive Torni Hotel before moving to the only slightly less expensive Klaus Kurki Hotel. As luck would have it, Oswald just happened to go to the only Russian embassy in all of Europe that could arrange a visa in hours rather than days. What foresight! He got a visa and booked a multi-day first-class private tour of Moscow with the Intourist organization.
He then travels by train to Moscow, stays at first at the Hotel Berlin, and then things start to get weird.
No doubt we're talking about 1958 dollars, but do you really think our boy saved enough from his California service to do all that? Rather than setting up all this elaborate "spy in his on mind" stuff, isn't far more logical to assume he was just a run-of-the-mill spy, involved in a false defection scheme that ultimately failed to fool the Russkies?