(COMMISSION EXHIBIT NO. 2606)
VIEW OVERLOOKING THE SYISLOCH RIVER FROM THE BALCONY OF THE OSWALDS’ APARTMENT IN MINSK
Moreover, it is from Oswald’s personal writings alone that the Commission has learned that he received supplementary funds from the Soviet “Red Cross.” In the notes he made during the return trip to the United States Oswald recognized that the “Red Cross” subsidy had nothing to do with the well-known International Red Cross. He frankly stated that the money was paid to him for having “denounced” the United States and that it had come from the “MVD.”[C6-222] Oswald’s papers reveal that the “Red Cross” subsidy was terminated as soon as he wrote the American Embassy in Moscow in February 1961 asking that he be permitted to return.[C6-223] (See Commission Exhibit No. 25, [p. 273].) Marina Oswald’s testimony confirmed this; she said that when she knew Oswald he no longer was receiving the monthly grant but still retained some of the savings accumulated in the months when he had been receiving it.[C6-224] Since she met Oswald in March and married him in April of 1961, her testimony was consistent with his records.
The nature of Oswald’s employment while in Minsk has been examined by the Commission. The factory in which he worked was a large plant manufacturing electronic parts and radio and television sets. Marina Oswald has testified that he was an “apprentice machinist” and “ground small metallic parts for radio receivers, on a lathe.”[C6-225] So far as can be determined, Oswald never straightforwardly described to anyone else in the United States exactly what his job was in the Soviet Union.[C6-226] Some of his acquaintances in Dallas and Fort Worth had the impression that he was disappointed in having been given a menial job and not assigned to an institution of higher learning in the Soviet Union.[C6-227] Marina Oswald confirmed this and also testified that her husband was not interested in his work and not regarded at the factory as a very good worker.[C6-228] The documents furnished to the Commission by the Soviet government were consistent with her testimony on this point, since they included a report from Oswald’s superior at the factory which is critical of his performance on the job.[C6-229] Oswald’s employment and his job performance are thus consistent with his known occupational habits in this country and otherwise afford no ground for suspicion.
Oswald’s membership in a hunting club while he was in the Soviet Union has been a matter of special interest to the Commission. One Russian emigre testified that this was a suspicious circumstance because no one in the Soviet Union is permitted to own a gun for pleasure.[C6-230] The Commission’s investigation, however, has established that this is not so. The Central Intelligence Agency has advised the Commission that hunting societies such as the one to which Oswald belonged are very popular in the Soviet Union.[C6-231] They are frequently sponsored by factories for their employees, as was Oswald’s.[C6-232] Moreover, Soviet citizens (or foreigners residing in the Soviet Union) are permitted to own shotguns, but not rifles, without joining a society; all that is necessary is that the gun be registered at the local militia office immediately after it has been purchased.[C6-233] Experts from the Central Intelligence Agency have examined Oswald’s club membership certificate and gun permit and expressed the opinion that its terms and numbers are consistent with other information the CIA has about the Soviet Union.[C6-234]
(COMMISSION EXHIBIT NO. 25)
EXCERPTS FROM A SPEECH OSWALD NEVER DELIVERED, WHICH HE PROBABLY WROTE ABOARD THE SHIP WHILE RETURNING FROM THE U. S. S. R. WITH HIS FAMILY
Marina Oswald testified that her husband went hunting only on one occasion during the time of their marriage.[C6-235] However, Oswald apparently joined the Byelorussian Society of Hunters and Fishermen in the summer of 1960[C6-236] and did not marry until April 30, 1961,[C6-237] so he could have been more active while he was still a bachelor. Oswald made no secret of his membership in the hunting club. He mentioned it on occasion to friends after he returned to the United States;[C6-238] discussed it at some length in a speech at a Jesuit Seminary in Mobile, Ala., in the summer of 1962;[C6-239] included it in his correspondence with his brother Robert;[C6-240] and kept his membership certificate[C6-241] and gun permit[C6-242] until the day he was killed. In view of these facts, it is unlikely that Oswald’s membership in a hunting club was contrived to conceal some sort of secret training. Moreover, the CIA has informed the Commission that it is in possession of considerable information on the location of secret Soviet training institutions and that it knows of no such institution in or near Minsk during the time Oswald was there.[C6-243]
Oswald’s marriage to Marina Prusakova on April 30, 1961,[C6-244] is itself a fact meriting consideration. A foreigner living in Russia cannot marry without the permission of the Soviet Government.[C6-245] It seems unlikely that the Soviet authorities would have permitted Oswald to marry and to take his wife with him to the United States if they were contemplating using him alone as an agent. The fact that he had a Russian wife would be likely, in their view, to increase any surveillance under which he would be kept by American security agencies, would make him even more conspicuous to his neighbors as “an ex-Russian,” and would decrease his mobility. A wife’s presence in the United States would also constitute a continuing risk of disclosure. On the other hand, Marina Oswald’s lack of English training and her complete ignorance of the United States and its customs[C6-246] would scarcely recommend her to the Soviet authorities as one member of an “agent team” to be sent to the United States on a difficult and dangerous foreign enterprise.
Oswald’s departure from the Soviet Union.—On February 13, 1961, the American Embassy in Moscow received a letter from Oswald postmarked Minsk, February 5, asking that he be readmitted to the United States.[C6-247] This was the first time that the Embassy had heard from or about Oswald since November 16, 1959.[C6-248] The end of the 15-month silence came only a few days after the Department of State in Washington had forwarded a request to the Moscow Embassy on February 1, 1961, informing the Embassy that Oswald’s mother was worried about him, and asking that he get in touch with her if possible.[C6-249] The simultaneity of the two events was apparently coincidental. The request from Marguerite Oswald went from Washington to Moscow by sealed diplomatic pouch and there was no evidence that the seal had been tampered with.[C6-250] The officer of the Department of State who carried the responsibility for such matters has testified that the message was not forwarded to the Russians after it arrived in Moscow.[C6-251]