Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (26 page)

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
U.S. military aircraft. But this possibility, of course, smacks of intelligence work and has not been 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 information-which since has been confirmed by Swedish intelligence-that Oswald failed to get his Soviet visa
in Helsinki. The paper said Oswald instead came 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 leaves one with the impression that there was more 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 told her he wanted to defect.

Despite his proclamation that he was a "Communist" desiring 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 had him taken 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 Rima Shirokova,
he 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, in fact, 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 U.S. 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 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 ". . . (asi 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.

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 someone much more knowledgeable?

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 J) in order to
leave a crack open."

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.

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." She once was an assistant to
Senator John F. Kennedy and went on to become an acknowledged expert
on Soviet affairs. It is Mrs. McMillan who has been responsible for much
of the information concerning Oswald's personal life shortly before the
assassination.

There has been much speculation over the years that Mrs. McMillan was
operating for U.S. 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 Johnson grew in light 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 come from his "Historic
Diary," supposedly a day-to-day account of his life in Russia.

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. In other words, it was
intended as a chronicle of his time in Russia, but was by no means
contemporary.

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 Soviet, and its agents.

Aside from the "diary" there is precious little documentation about
Oswald's stay in Russia.

In early 1964, the Soviet government provided the Warren Commission
with fifteen pages of documents, including copies of Oswald's passport, a
job application form from a Minsk radio factory, some hospital records,
and a supervisor's report from the factory.

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 that has previously been told.

After spending New Year's Day 1960 in Moscow, Oswald reportedly
was then sent to Minsk with five thousand 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 Hero of the Soviet Union General P. Y.
Golovachev 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.

In his "diary," 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.

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.
Oswald in a manuscript about his life in Minsk wrote, "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 evidence to
suggest that Oswald was living a privileged life with his Soviet hosts.

Although officially he never left Minsk-in his manuscript, Oswald
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 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 was indicative of 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 the accused assassin as a Communist
operative.