The first President of Belarus taught Oswald Russian in Minsk

[Lance Payette]

I picked this up from one of my old posts at City Data Forum. I had forgotten about it.

Stanislau Shushkevich, who became the first President of Belarus after the collapse of the USSR, had been assigned to teach Russian to Oswald at the radio factory in Minsk (where my wife's sister and brother-in-law worked at the same time).

This is a long and pretty interesting interview from 2013 by Radio Free Europe. Shushkevich and the other instructor were, for some reason, under unbelievably strict orders as to what they could discuss with Oswald. Nevertheless, it sounds like they had a fairly informal and pleasant relationship. It sounds like he found Oswald a pretty dull and uninteresting/uninterested character.

When Norman Mailer visited Belarus and asked to see the KGB files, he (as President) asked the chairman of the KGB if he needed to be careful. The answer: "Absolutely not. Show him everything."

After the JFKA, he visited the Dallas area for other reasons. He's a CTer! "It is my absolute conviction that they found a passive, calm, compliant boy, and used him as the guilty one. As for the conclusions of the Warren Commission, I don't believe them one bit. I have studied them and I don't think [the assassination] was the work of my student."

https://www.rferl.org/a/interview-transcript-oswald-shushkevich-belarus-soviet/25172632.html

[John Corbett]

I always love when CTs accuse "They". They don't require any evidence to do that.

[Lance Payette]

Assorted pretty good Radio Free Europe materials about Oswald's time in Minsk from people who knew him. Just as with the disconnect between the Oswald who was in Irving on 11-21 and the Oswald who shot JFK, the disconnect between the Oswald in Minsk and the Oswald who shot JFK is stark and unsettling.

https://www.rferl.org/a/jfk-oswald-minsk2/25173073.html

https://www.rferl.org/a/markava-interview-oswald/25172997.html

https://www.rferl.org/a/oswald-interview-yahkliel/25173118.html

https://www.rferl.org/a/kennedy-oswald-savodnik-interview/25172812.html

[Lance Payette]

I always love when CTs accuse "They". They don't require any evidence to do that.

More knee-jerk inanity from the master of knee-jerk inanity. The guy taught Oswald. He knew him as a human being. Like virtually everyone who knew Oswald in Minsk, he finds it inconceivable that the young man he knew would have shot JFK. My reference to him being a CTer was jocular, Mr. Knee-Jerk Apoplectic Mirthfulness. I seriously doubt he had a "conspiracy theory." 

[Benjamin Cole]

LP--

Thanks for posting.

There are sure a lot of amazing facts surrounding LHO, and that LHO's Russian teacher later became the president of Belarus is one of them.

Of course, this passage needs to be taken with a grain of salt: When Norman Mailer visited Belarus and asked to see the KGB files, he (as President) asked the chairman of the KGB if he needed to be careful. The answer: "Absolutely not. Show him everything."

Well, the files could have been laundered by then. Likely by Nov. 23, 1963.

The KGB head in Minsk regarded LHO as an asset for a while.

LHO as the nice guy? The evidence strongly suggests LHO took a potshot at General Walker. Whether to scare Walker, or with dread intent...I don't know.

[Lance Payette]

Of course, this passage needs to be taken with a grain of salt: When Norman Mailer visited Belarus and asked to see the KGB files, he (as President) asked the chairman of the KGB if he needed to be careful. The answer: "Absolutely not. Show him everything."

Well, the files could have been laundered by then. Likely by Nov. 23, 1963.

Could have, sure. But this is the problem with the conspiracy mindset. Everything that doesn't fit is fake, altered, etc. Nothing is ever what it seems - at least if what it seems doesn't mesh with the conspiracy theory.

The KGB head in Minsk regarded LHO as an asset for a while.

He did? What is the evidence of this? Insofar as I know, Oswald was deemed useless before he was sent to the quasi-Siberia of Minsk, and the KGB in Minsk was only trying to figure out whether this seeming goofball could possibly fit into an American intelligence scenario - i.e., some new twist where we send a guy so obviously not intelligence material that perhaps he actually is intelligence material. I've mentioned before Peter Vronsky, who went to Minsk fully expecting to make a documentary that blew the WC out of the water. He talked to a lot of people and came back realizing there was no "there" there and that "the WC basically got it right."

LHO as the nice guy? The evidence strongly suggests LHO took a potshot at General Walker. Whether to scare Walker, or with dread intent...I don't know.

But again, this is the disconnect - virtually a Jekyll and Hyde (or Harvey and Lee!) dichotomy.

[Benjamin Cole]

Of course, this passage needs to be taken with a grain of salt: When Norman Mailer visited Belarus and asked to see the KGB files, he (as President) asked the chairman of the KGB if he needed to be careful. The answer: "Absolutely not. Show him everything."

Well, the files could have been laundered by then. Likely by Nov. 23, 1963.

Could have, sure. But this is the problem with the conspiracy mindset. Everything that doesn't fit is fake, altered, etc. Nothing is ever what it seems - at least if what it seems doesn't mesh with the conspiracy theory.


Well sure.

OTOH, I have reasonable doubts that intel agencies anywhere release what would be damaging files, especially in Russia.

A general skepticism is not necessarily selective bias confirmation.