JFK Assassination Forum
JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion & Debate => JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate => Topic started by: Tom Graves on March 26, 2025, 07:24:01 PM
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Lance asked: "Would what Oswald did have made sense if the CIA were under the control of the KGB?"
My reply (not realizing that Lance meant specifically in Helsinki):
The CIA was under the control of the KGB in the sense that the father-figure-requiring Chief of Counterintelligence, James Angleton, was manipulated by a probable KGB "mole" (Bruce Leonard Solie) who was aided by other probable KGB "moles" (e.g., George Kisevalter).
What did Oswald do?
He starts teaching himself Russian while still in the Marines.
He gets out of active duty several months early.
He goes to Moscow via probably-expecting-him Golub in Helsinki. (At 10:57:21, this sentence was edited to include "via probably-expecting-him Golub in Helsinki")
He walks into the American Embassy and tells the probably-expecting-him Consul (and probable CIA agent) Snyder and the KGB's hidden microphones that he's going to tell the Soviets about Marine Corps radar and what he knows about the U-2.
He works in a radio factory and lives comfortably two blocks from a KGB school in Minsk for two-plus years.
He marries a former KGB "swallow" and probable KGB informant.
He returns to the U.S. with his wife and young daughter.
He starts his own chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
With or without encouragement or logistical support of the KGB, he tries to kill Edwin Walker.
He tries to visit Cuba and ostensibly move back to the USSR.
With or without the encouragement or logistical support of the KGB, he kills JFK.
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The CIA was under the control of the KGB in the sense that the father-figure-requiring Chief of Counterintelligence, James Angleton, was manipulated by a probable KGB "mole" (Bruce Leonard Solie) who was aided by other probable KGB "moles" (e.g., George Kisevalter).
What did Oswald do?
Lance's rebuttal: Well, OK, but little if any of this is relevant to the specific issues I raised in this thread [about LHO in Helsinki].
He starts teaching himself Russian while still in the Marines.
Lance's rebuttal: I'm not sure that's true in terms of the Marines being where he started. He had a longstanding interest and was receiving Russian newspapers and magazines, so trying to learn Russian isn't too mysterious. In the ASC application, he optimistically described himself as having the proficiency of one year of schooling, and the Marine test he took not long before defecting rated his Russian as poor. Sure, trying to learn some Russian is consistent with a plan to defect, but not inevitably so and I don't see his efforts as particularly mysterious.
He gets out of active duty several months early.
Lance's rebuttal: OK, why? What was the necessity? Why add that complexity instead of just wafting a few months to fulfill his enlistment? Perhaps he was just fed up with the Marines. What I see from many CTers is an ad hoc, after-the-fact overlay of mystery and intrigue on actions that to me look no more mysterious than simply Oswald Being Oswald.
He goes to Moscow.
He walks into the American Embassy and tells the probably-expecting-him Consul (and probable CIA agent) Snyder and the KGB's hidden microphones that he's going to tell the Soviets about Marine Corps radar and what he knows about the U-2.
He lives two blocks from a KGB school in Minsk for two-plus years.
He marries a former KGB "swallow" and probable KGB informant.
He returns to the U.S. with his wife and young daughter.
He starts his own chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
With or without encouragement or logistical support of the KGB, he tries to kill Edwin Walker.
He tries to visit Cuba and ostensibly move back to the USSR.
With or without the encouragement or logistical support of the KGB, he kills JFK.
Lance's rebuttal: This is all way beyond the scope of my posts. I do have my own views of all of it, all them consistent with Oswald Being Oswald.
FWIW, I've been to Oswald's apartment (not in it). I've been to the big yellow KGB building (not in it) and photographed it. "Two blocks" is a bit misleading. Oswald's apartment is separated from the big theater in Minsk (I've attended the ballet there twice) by a park, and the theater is separated by a river from the business district where the KGB building is located. To suggest he was popping in and out of some "KGB school" is misleading. My wife lived in Minsk as a municipal administrator for decades, and she says no one had any idea what went on in the KGB building nor did she ever hear it described as a school.
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The CIA was under the control of the KGB in the sense that the father-figure-requiring Chief of Counterintelligence, James Angleton, was manipulated by a probable KGB "mole" (Bruce Leonard Solie) who was aided by other probable KGB "moles" (e.g., George Kisevalter).
What did Oswald do?
Lance's rebuttal: Well, OK, but little if any of this is relevant to the specific issues I raised in this thread [about LHO in Helsinki].
He starts teaching himself Russian while still in the Marines.
Lance's rebuttal: I'm not sure that's true in terms of the Marines being where he started. He had a longstanding interest and was receiving Russian newspapers and magazines, so trying to learn Russian isn't too mysterious. In the ASC application, he optimistically described himself as having the proficiency of one year of schooling, and the Marine test he took not long before defecting rated his Russian as poor. Sure, trying to learn some Russian is consistent with a plan to defect, but not inevitably so and I don't see his efforts as particularly mysterious.
He gets out of active duty several months early.
Lance's rebuttal: OK, why? What was the necessity? Why add that complexity instead of just wafting a few months to fulfill his enlistment? Perhaps he was just fed up with the Marines. What I see from many CTers is an ad hoc, after-the-fact overlay of mystery and intrigue on actions that to me look no more mysterious than simply Oswald Being Oswald.
He goes to Moscow [my edit: via probably-expecting-him Golub in Helsinki].
He walks into the American Embassy and tells the probably-expecting-him Consul (and probable CIA agent) Snyder and the KGB's hidden microphones that he's going to tell the Soviets about Marine Corps radar and what he knows about the U-2.
He lives two blocks from a KGB school in Minsk for two-plus years.
He marries a former KGB "swallow" and probable KGB informant.
He returns to the U.S. with his wife and young daughter.
He starts his own chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
With or without encouragement or logistical support of the KGB, he tries to kill Edwin Walker.
He tries to visit Cuba and ostensibly move back to the USSR.
With or without the encouragement or logistical support of the KGB, he kills JFK.
Lance's rebuttal: This is all way beyond the scope of my posts. I do have my own views of all of it, all them consistent with Oswald Being Oswald.
FWIW, I've been to Oswald's apartment (not in it). I've been to the big yellow KGB building (not in it) and photographed it. "Two blocks" is a bit misleading. Oswald's apartment is separated from the big theater in Minsk (I've attended the ballet there twice) by a park, and the theater is separated by a river from the business district where the KGB building is located. To suggest he was popping in and out of some "KGB school" is misleading. My wife lived in Minsk as a municipal administrator for decades, and she says no one had any idea what went on in the KGB building nor did she ever hear it described as a school.
Dear Lance,
What do you mean by "Oswald['s] Being Oswald" when you say, "I do have my own views of all of it"?
Regardless, I guess my best answer to your original question, "Would what Oswald did [IN HELSINKI] have made sense if the CIA were under the control of the KGB?," is "It would depend on whether or not LHO realized he was being sent to Helsinki / Moscow by a KGB 'mole' in the CIA, or if he mistakenly believed he was on an exciting 'I Led Three Lives' mission for the 'regular' CIA."
-- Tom
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Wow, I've been immortalized with my name in a thread title! My life is now complete. (There were similar threads at the Ed Forum and Greg Parker's forum, so I have now achieved the JFKA Trifecta of Infamy!) Seriously, Tom, I've always enjoyed your posts.
By Oswald Being Oswald, I simply mean (1) this was an intelligent but idealistic, frustrated and alienated young guy who was desperate to be taken seriously; (2) he particularly enjoyed the shock value of being Marxist Me whenever this would have the effect of being shocking, although I do believe he was sincere in his idealistic notions of Marxism; (3) I believe he was sincere in his defection and sincerely hoped to find recognition as a deep thinker in the USSR; (4) I think Snyder was a savvy guy who recognized Oswald was basically a mixed-up kid and dealt with him gently (I love Snyder's ironic warning that if Oswald was a Marxist he was going to be a "very lonely guy" in Moscow); (5) I believe the KGB quickly realized he was a loose cannon and assigned him to a backwater like Minsk where he was unlikely to cause too many problems; (6) I think he married Marina simply because it would be cool and "Russian" to have such a wife (I know the feeling!); (7) I think Marina married him for the same reason and was genuinely enthusiastic about escaping the USSR for her notions of America - I just don't see her as a KGB operative at all; (EIGHT - it keeps inserting some goofy emoji when I put the number) despite what might look to us like the best life he'd ever have in Minsk, he was thoroughly disillusioned with the Soviet system and realized he was not ever going to receive the recognition he thought he deserved; (9) he now thought he would receive recognition in the U.S. as a returning defector with important insights but found himself still a nobody with nothing but menial jobs; (10) what might appear to be the suspicious circumstances of his return were simply the USSR being delighted to be rid of this potential problem child and the U.S. being gentle with a mixed-up goofball (in LBJ's famous phrase about Hubert Humphrey as V-P, it was better to have Oswald "inside the U.S. pissing out than outside the U.S. pissing in"); (11) upon his return to the U.S., his marriage absolutely went to hell, even Cuba (his last idealistic hope) rejected him, and he found himself living in a boarding house, rebuffed by his wife, and working at the absolutely most menial of temporary minimum-wage jobs; (12) then Fate seemingly handed him an opportunity for recognition on a golden platter in the form of the JFK motorcade; and, lastly (13) he seized the opportunity, which I believe he hoped to maximize with a trial that would be months of Marxist Theater and reveal his political genius.
So that, off the top of my head, is Oswald Being Oswald - an intelligent and idealistic but chronically dissatisfied goofball but not an International Man of Mystery or anyone's idea of a CIA or KGB operative.
Anyway, I'll look more deeply into the Bruce Solie stuff.
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I will address the points you enumerated -- the trick in avoiding the emoji is to type it with a space between each parenthesis and the 8, like this: ( 8 ) -- later.
By Oswald Being Oswald, I simply mean
(1) this was an intelligent but idealistic, frustrated and alienated young guy who was desperate to be taken seriously;
(2) he particularly enjoyed the shock value of being Marxist Me whenever this would have the effect of being shocking, although I do believe he was sincere in his idealistic notions of Marxism;
(3) I believe he was sincere in his defection and sincerely hoped to find recognition as a deep thinker in the USSR;
(4) I think Snyder was a savvy guy who recognized Oswald was basically a mixed-up kid and dealt with him gently (I love Snyder's ironic warning that if Oswald was a Marxist he was going to be a "very lonely guy" in Moscow);
(5) I believe the KGB quickly realized he was a loose cannon and assigned him to a backwater like Minsk where he was unlikely to cause too many problems;
(6) I think he married Marina simply because it would be cool and "Russian" to have such a wife (I know the feeling!);
(7) I think Marina married him for the same reason and was genuinely enthusiastic about escaping the USSR for her notions of America - I just don't see her as a KGB operative at all;
( 8 ) despite what might look to us like the best life he'd ever have in Minsk, he was thoroughly disillusioned with the Soviet system and realized he was not ever going to receive the recognition he thought he deserved;
(9) he now thought he would receive recognition in the U.S. as a returning defector with important insights but found himself still a nobody with nothing but menial jobs;
(10) what might appear to be the suspicious circumstances of his return were simply the USSR being delighted to be rid of this potential problem child and the U.S. being gentle with a mixed-up goofball (in LBJ's famous phrase about Hubert Humphrey as V-P, it was better to have Oswald "inside the U.S. pissing out than outside the U.S. pissing in");
(11) upon his return to the U.S., his marriage absolutely went to hell, even Cuba (his last idealistic hope) rejected him, and he found himself living in a boarding house, rebuffed by his wife, and working at the absolutely most menial of temporary minimum-wage jobs;
(12) then Fate seemingly handed him an opportunity for recognition on a golden platter in the form of the JFK motorcade; and, lastly
(13) he seized the opportunity, which I believe he hoped to maximize with a trial that would be months of Marxist Theater and reveal his political genius.
. . . . . . . .
I just now did a little research and found out that the KGB Higher School in Minsk in 1982 was on Vayskavyy Proezd "near Victory Square."
Scroll down to page 20.
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32989481.pdf
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I just don't see [Marina] as a KGB operative at all.
Have you heard of KGB Major Pyotr Deriabin?
He defected to the U.S. in 1954 and went to work for the CIA.
Two days after the assassination, he wrote that Marina had to be at least a low-level KGB informant to be permitted to marry Oswald and leave the USSR with him.
Which reminds me -- in the early 1970s, CIA Counterintelligence analyst Clare Edward Petty determined by reading some WW II VENONA decrypts that George DeMohrenschildt was very probably a long-term KGB "illegal" because he matched the following descriptions:
1) He was born in "Poland" (he was born in Mazyr, Belarus, 300 miles from the Polish border).
2) He had emigrated to the U.S. before WW II.
3) He lived in Mexico (with his girlfriend Lilia Pardo Larin) during WW II.
4) He was a real "wheeler-dealer."
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I just now did a little research and found out that the KGB Higher School in Minsk in 1982 was on Vayskavyy Proezd "near Victory Square."
Scroll down to page 20.
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32989481.pdf
OK, thanks. That is the yellow KGB building I photographed. My wife says she never heard it referred to as a school but likewise never had any idea what it was for other than simply KGB. We had an amusing incident on our first date. She kept pointing out the building and saying "KAY-GUH-BEE" (KGB). Since she spoke no English, I guessed she was trying to say "cafeteria." She finally called her daughter, who speaks English, who explained to me that this definitely wasn't a cafeteria and I shouldn't be too obvious in photographing it.
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OK, thanks. That is the yellow KGB building I photographed. My wife says she never heard it referred to as a school but likewise never had any idea what it was for other than simply KGB. We had an amusing incident on our first date. She kept pointing out the building and saying "KAY-GUH-BEE" (KGB). Since she spoke no English, I guessed she was trying to say "cafeteria." She finally called her daughter, who speaks English, who explained to me that this definitely wasn't a cafeteria and I shouldn't be too obvious in photographing it.
The CIA document said it was founded in Gomel in 1945 or 1946.
In all honesty, I don't know if it was already in Minsk by 1959.
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Have you heard of KGB Major Pyotr Deriabin?
He defected to the U.S. in 1954 and went to work for the CIA.
Two days after the assassination, he wrote that Marina had to be at least a low-level KGB informant to be permitted to marry Oswald and leave the USSR with him.
Which reminds me -- in the early 1970s, CIA Counterintelligence analyst Clare Edward Petty determined by reading some WW II VENONA decrypts that George DeMohrenschildt was very probably a long-term KGB "illegal" because he matched the following descriptions:
1) He was born in "Poland" (he was born in Mazyr, Belarus, 300 miles from the Polish border).
2) He had emigrated to the U.S. before WW II.
3) He lived in Mexico (with his girlfriend Lilia Pardo Larin) during WW II.
4) He was a real "wheeler-dealer."
OK again, but this is a little like saying someone was a CIA informant when damn near every businessman and tourist who visited Russia during the Cold War was at least approached by the CIA. If Marina said "Sure, I'll keep my eyes open" to the KGB as the price of being allowed to leave, would this necessarily be of any significance? I have studied both Marina and de Mohrenschildt extensively and just don't see much basis for dark suspicion. It becomes a little like the "Seven Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon" thing - pretty much everyone in America has some remote connection with the CIA and everyone in Russia has some remote connection with the KGB. I once mentioned on the Ed Forum - truthfully but jokingly - that one of my relatives was Lorenzo Dow Baker, a founder of the (later) CIA-affiliated United Fruit Company, and that my wealthy grandmother was on good terms with the Dulles family. All of which has nothing to do with me or my life, but to a rabid CTer I would immediately become the object of dark suspicion (as I should be, but not for those reasons!).
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OK again, but this is a little like saying someone was a CIA informant when damn near every businessman and tourist who visited Russia during the Cold War was at least approached by the CIA. If Marina said "Sure, I'll keep my eyes open" to the KGB as the price of being allowed to leave, would this necessarily be of any significance? I have studied both Marina and de Mohrenschildt extensively and just don't see much basis for dark suspicion. It becomes a little like the "Seven Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon" thing - pretty much everyone in America has some remote connection with the CIA and everyone in Russia has some remote connection with the KGB. I once mentioned on the Ed Forum - truthfully but jokingly - that one of my relatives was Lorenzo Dow Baker, a founder of the (later) CIA-affiliated United Fruit Company, and that my wealthy grandmother was on good terms with the Dulles family. All of which has nothing to do with me or my life, but to a rabid CTer I would immediately become the object of dark suspicion (as I should be, but not for those reasons!).
That's one (rather Pollyannish) way to look at it, I guess.
Do you presume to know KGB protocol better than KGB Major Pyotr Deriabin did?
FWIW, Marina had allegedly been a KGB "swallow" in Leningrad, and, like my first girlfriend in Brno, she understood English a lot better than she let on.
https://oswaldsmother.blogspot.com/2009/10/from-marina-prusakova-with-love.html
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I just now did a little research and found out that the KGB Higher School in Minsk in 1982 was on Vayskavyy Proezd "near Victory Square."
Scroll down to page 20.
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32989481.pdf
I believe my wife has solved the KGB Higher School mystery.
"Vayskavyy" is an old Belarusian/Polish word that translates simply as "military" or "army." The word is now Voyskovy.
"Proezd" describes a short connecting way between streets and translates simply as "passage" or "lane."
Hence, Vayskavvy Proezd would be something like "Military Lane."
This building is the only one that would meet the description of being about two blocks from Oswald's apartment, which it indeed is. In one photo, the building of Oswald's apartment is visible in the background. The idea that Oswald would ever have studied here is fundamentally absurd.
https://aml.university/en/uchastniki-aml/akademiya-nacional-noy-bezopasnosti-respubliki-belarus
This is translated from the Russian, so a bit awkward:
Minsk, Voyskovy Lane.
Nearby on the corner is the National Security Institute Minsk, Address: Zmitraka Biaduli Street, 2.
On December 27, 1946, by order of the Minister of State Security of the USSR No. 00563, a special school for training operational personnel for state security agencies was created in the city of Lvov. For a long time, the school was one of two educational institutions, along with the Higher School of the KGB of the USSR named after F.E. Dzerzhinsky, which trained personnel for territorial state security agencies. In December 1954, by decision of the government, the school was relocated to Mogilev.
In August 1961, the school was transferred to Minsk. According to the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated September 18, 1964, the Minsk Special School was transformed into the Higher Courses of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR for the training of operational workers for territorial state security agencies with a one-year training period. In accordance with the order of the Chairman of the State Security Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated November 13, 1964 No. 0321, the Minsk Secondary Specialized School of the KGB (School No. 302 of the KGB) was reorganized into the Higher Courses of the State Security Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR for the training of operational workers for local state security agencies.
Do you presume to know KGB protocol better than KGB Major Pyotr Deriabin did?
No, but I know a whole lot more about Marina. The effort to turn Marina into a Woman of Mystery, like the effort to turn Oswald into The Most Interesting Man Who Ever Lived, is (IMHO) conspiratorial, agenda-driven nonsense.
FWIW, Marina had allegedly been a KGB "swallow" in Leningrad, and, like my first girlfriend in Brno, she understood English a lot better than she let on.
Marina came from a difficult childhood and was a tough, smart, ambitious cookie. As for understanding English, she acknowledged she understood it better than she could speak it. This is a fascinating article with photos most people have never seen about a Michigan church bringing Marina to the University of Michigan to study English in late 1964: https://heritage.umich.edu/stories/the-assassins-widow/. The professor says he was surprised at her aptitude: "'I’m sure Mrs. Oswald could conquer English in any school in America. The reason she is here is that we can teach her more in a shorter period of time,' said Catford, the Institute’s director. He said he was 'frankly surprised' at her command of English."
When I met my wife, she didn't know ten words of English - literally not ten. And she was 54 years old, not 21. Nevertheless, I was astonished at how quickly she reached a functioning level of English with no formal schooling whatsoever.
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The effort to turn Marina into a Woman of Mystery, like the effort to turn Oswald into The Most Interesting Man Who Ever Lived, is (IMHO) conspiratorial, agenda-driven nonsense. She came from a difficult childhood and was a tough, smart, ambitious cookie.
Why do you think the Soviets described her as being "stupid and a bad Communist; we were happy to get rid of both of them"?
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Why do you think the Soviets described her as being "stupid and a bad Communist; we were happy to get rid of them both"?
Stupid? She was working in a pharmacy and is anything but stupid. I would assume the Soviets' statement was for the same reason that The Donald dismisses everyone who leaves his administration as an incompetent idiot he never should have appointed in the first place. Marina's enthusiasm for leaving the USSR was a black eye to the myth of a Soviet Utopia.
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Stupid? She was working in a pharmacy and is anything but stupid. I would assume the Soviets' statement was for the same reason that The Donald dismisses everyone who leaves his administration as an incompetent idiot he never should have appointed in the first place. Marina's enthusiasm for leaving the USSR was a black eye to the myth of a Soviet Utopia.
Didn't she have to receive permission from the government to marry her Handsome Prince Charming and leave The Worker's Paradise with him?
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Didn't she have to receive permission from the government to marry her Handsome Princ Charming and leave The Worker's Paradise with him?
Certainly. I believe the Soviets wisely decided it was better to have Lee and Marina out of their hair than pouting and potentially stirring up the masses. What possible good could come to the Soviets from Lee and Marina remaining, and Lee had said he wouldn't leave without her. Where you see "KGB mystery" I see nothing but "Good riddance" on the part of the Soviets. "She was a loser anyway" was the explanation for the masses. No mystery to me at all.
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Certainly. I believe the Soviets wisely decided it was better to have Lee and Marina out of their hair than pouting and potentially stirring up the masses. What possible good could come to the Soviets from Lee and Marina remaining, and Lee had said he wouldn't leave without her. Where you see "KGB mystery" I see nothing but "Good riddance" on the part of the Soviets. "She was a loser anyway" was the explanation for the masses. No mystery to me at all.
Dear Lance,
I think you're naive as all get out (pardon the pun).
Questions:
Do you think the KGB and the CIA were equally devious, evil, and efficient during the Cold War?
Do you think . . . gasp . . . maybe the CIA was worse?
Do you really think the Soviets let Marina leave because Oswald pouted, "I refuse to leave without her!!!"?
Why did they let her marry the sharpshooting U-2 radar operator in the first place? Hmm?
Why not bundle Oswald up and drop him off at the American Embassy with a note pinned to his shirt saying, "He's your problem, not ours"?
Do you believe Yuri Nosenko when he said that he, as Oswald's KGB case officer (really?), wanted to expel Oswald after his "suicide attempt," but the most powerful woman in the USSR, Yekaterina Furtseva, demanded that he be allowed to stay and that he NOT be recruited by the KGB because [I forget her lame reason . . . I'll look it up and fill it in later.].
The following is what former CIA officer and probable KGB "mole" Leonard V. McCoy wrote in his review of Edward J. Epstein's 1977 book, "Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald."
My comments are in brackets.
In his extensive coverage of Oswald's biography, especially his military service, as an argument as to why the KGB should have been interested in his background, Epstein is following the thinking of Nosenko's [evil, evil] handlers. While he mentions the fact of Oswald's suicide attempt in Moscow as possibly causing KGB doubts as to his reliability, there is no mention of the fact that Khrushchev's close friend, Minister of Culture Furtseva , with her reputed strong influence over the KGB, had [allegedly] forbidden their interviewing Oswald.
[Interestingly, Furtseva’s KGB officer son-in-law, Igor Kochnov, contacted the FBI in 1965 and then, without the FBI’s or Kochnov’s informing the CIA of the relationship between himself and the Bureau, called new CIA Director Richard Helms at home in June 1966 and offered to “work with” the CIA – which nine year on-again-off-again “collaboration” ended in disaster when Leonard V. McCoy and probable KGB "mole" Bruce Leonard Solie managed to “lose” CIA’s spy and former GRU defector, Nicholas Shadrin, to KGB kidnappers in Vienna in 1975.]
-- Tom
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I think you're naive as all get out (pardon the pun).
Questions:
Do you think the KGB and the CIA were equally devious, evil, and efficient during the Cold War?
Do you think . . . gasp . . . maybe the CIA was worse?
Do you really think the Soviets let Marina leave because Oswald pouted, "I refuse to leave without her!!!"?
Why did they let her marry the sharpshooting U-2 radar operator in the first place? Hmm?
Why not bundle Oswald up and drop him off at the American Embassy with a note pinned to his shirt saying, "He's your problem, not ours"?
I'm not going to play Twenty Questions indefinitely.
I'll turn your characterization of me as naive around on you: Having spent decades working for federal, state, county and municipal agencies, I think you are naive about the extent to which incompetence, laziness, confusion, office politics and all the rest permeate every bureaucracy, including the CIA and KGB. Folks hung up on CIA and KGB-oriented theories constantly find dark meaning in things that in my opinion have no meaning at all and attempt to connect with dark speculation dots that really have no connection at all.
With that, there have been WAY too many posts from me on this forum in recent days (I'm housebound with a bad foot) and I'm going to go haunt the religious forums for a while.
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I'm not going to play Twenty Questions indefinitely.
I'll turn your characterization of me as naive around on you: Having spent decades working for federal, state, county and municipal agencies, I think you are naive about the extent to which incompetence, laziness, confusion, office politics and all the rest permeate every bureaucracy, including the CIA and KGB. Folks hung up on CIA and KGB-oriented theories constantly find dark meaning in things that in my opinion have no meaning at all and attempt to connect with dark speculation dots that really have no connection at all.
With that, there have been WAY too many posts from me on this forum in recent days (I'm housebound with a bad foot) and I'm going to go haunt the religious forums for a while.
Dear Lance,
Unfortunately, I was evidently still editing my post when you replied to it.
Here's the rest of it:
Do you believe Yuri Nosenko when he said that he, as Oswald's KGB case officer (really?), wanted to expel Oswald after his "suicide attempt," but the most powerful woman in the USSR, Yekaterina Furtseva, demanded that he be allowed to stay and that he NOT be recruited by the KGB because [I forget her lame reason . . . I'll look it up and fill it in later.].
The following is what former CIA officer and probable KGB "mole" Leonard V. McCoy wrote in his review of Edward J. Epstein's 1977 book, "Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald."
My comments are in brackets.
In his extensive coverage of Oswald's biography, especially his military service, as an argument as to why the KGB should have been interested in his background, Epstein is following the thinking of Nosenko's [evil, evil] handlers. While he mentions the fact of Oswald's suicide attempt in Moscow as possibly causing KGB doubts as to his reliability, there is no mention of the fact that Khrushchev's close friend, Minister of Culture Furtseva , with her reputed strong influence over the KGB, had [allegedly] forbidden their interviewing Oswald.
[Interestingly, Furtseva’s KGB officer son-in-law, Igor Kochnov, contacted the FBI in 1965 and then, without the FBI’s or Kochnov’s informing the CIA of the relationship between himself and the Bureau, called new CIA Director Richard Helms at home in June 1966 and offered to “work with” the CIA – which nine year on-again-off-again “collaboration” ended in disaster when Leonard V. McCoy and probable KGB "mole" Bruce Leonard Solie managed to “lose” CIA’s spy and former GRU defector, Nicholas Shadrin, to KGB kidnappers in Vienna in 1975.]
-- Tom