New documents about the Soviet past of the Kennedy assassin declassified

The release of more than 13,000 documents was the second of two hitherto classified files related to the Kennedy assassination that President Joe Biden ordered to be released last year.

“The profound national tragedy of the assassination of President Kennedy continues to reverberate in American history and in the memory of many Americans who lived through that terrible day. Meanwhile, the need to protect records relating to the assassination has weakened over time, ”the memo released by the White House says.

“Therefore, it is critical to ensure that the United States government maximizes transparency by disclosing all information in documents relating to a murder, except when the most compelling reasons indicate otherwise.”

The Kennedy assassination sparked a whirlwind of questions from the public and researchers, as well as many conspiracy theories. Public polls have long shown that most Americans do not believe the Warren Commission’s official conclusion that Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone.

Researchers have warned that it will likely take days to scrutinize the thousands of declassified documents to see if they contain new clues related to the Dallas assassination attempt or new pieces of historical information about the operations. CIA and FBI in the 1960s.

Larry Sabato, author of The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Enduring Legacy of John F. Kennedy, told CNN that while there may be some “hidden gems” in the body of published documentation, nothing will change. “It won’t change history,” he said of the now-declassified materials. “I guarantee you.”

The expert added that if people are looking for evidence to support conspiracy theories that Oswald did not act alone in the assassination of Kennedy, or that the CIA was somehow involved in this case, they will not find them here.

“The truth is not that Oswald was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy,” says Larry Sabato. “The truth is that this murder could have been prevented, and it could have been prevented, and should have been prevented if the CIA and FBI were doing their jobs. Indeed, it is. This is serious, but you will not find the names of other conspirators here.

For its part, the CIA said on Thursday that many of its records, made public in the latest batch of declassified documents, “do not change historical records and have nothing to do with the assassination or the investigation itself.”

Despite the fact that the previously published tranches of secret documents did not change the overall picture of the Kennedy assassination, some materials caught in the sea of ​​paper “husks” attract attention. So, the records published, for example, in October 2017 shed light on interesting details – from how the CIA rummaged through the garbage of the Cuban embassy in Mexico City, and ending with materials about how Lee Harvey Oswald visited the Soviet embassy in Mexico in a few weeks prior to the assassination and met with a high-ranking diplomat. Also of interest is a memo released five years ago by former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, which details his frustration that law enforcement failed to keep Oswald alive long enough to get him to confess to the Kennedy assassination (recall, that the young man was killed in custody two days after the death of the President of the United States).

Considering that Lee Harvey Oswald spent some time in the Soviet Union, documents related to our country are of interest. For example, among the now declassified materials, one can see a typewritten and dated July 30, 1964 memo about how an American investigation collected information about … Soviet hunting clubs (why this was needed, one can only guess – but one can assume that this was done within the framework of the version, whether the former Marine Oswald did not undergo shooting training in hunting farms on the territory of the USSR). And with reference to one of the defectors named Rastvorov, it is written that he never belonged to any hunting club, but hunted once in his life, and another defector Kaznacheev said that when he was 14 years old, he knew one hunter. Further, the magazine “Hunting and Hunting Economy” is mentioned as a source of knowledge and a reference is made to the “Review of the Soviet Press” that control over hunting weapons has been strengthened in the Turkmen SSR.

Much more interesting is the memorandum for the presidential commission to investigate the Kennedy assassination, drawn up in September 1964, on the treatment of foreign citizens by the KGB. In particular, it says that one of the main duties of the USSR State Security Committee is to control and collect information about foreigners within the Soviet Union: “In order to fulfill this duty, agents and informers recruited from among Soviet citizens with whom foreigners are in contact are widely used. . For example, many, if not all, of the gibs provided to foreigners by Intourist, the USSR’s official travel agency, are KGB agents or informants. Hotel and restaurant staff are also used by the KGB for this purpose. Only a few restaurants and hotels in major cities of the USSR are usually open to foreign visitors. A high percentage of employees in these select hotels and restaurants are KGB agents or informants.”

Further in the certificate, one can see a hint at Lee Harvey Oswald, who lived in Minsk: “Foreign citizens who apply for Soviet citizenship or permanent residence in the USSR, of course, are a special category of foreigners. The KGB checks all such cases with the utmost care to determine their motivation and potential benefit to the USSR. Once a foreigner obtains citizenship or a permanent residence permit in the USSR, he becomes a subject for observation and control through such measures as periodic surveys of neighbors and acquaintances.

But in a material dated December 1966 and dedicated to American defectors to the USSR, a biography of Lee Harvey Oswald is given, which, in particular, states that the arrival of a young American who had just served in the Marine Corps in Moscow came as a shock to his family: “He never expressed any sympathy for either the Soviet Union or communism. He was interested in Cuba and South America, and his family would rather expect that if he went anywhere, it would be there. The mail sent to him was addressed to the Metropol Hotel in Moscow. He received mail in 1959, but the letters sent to him in 1960 were returned to the senders.

“The Soviets neither encouraged Oswald’s desire to obtain Soviet citizenship, nor discouraged him,” the typewritten note continues, which also states that the American stated that “regardless of any financial difficulties” he would remain in the USSR and did not want to return to the United States. But after that, a handwritten note was made in the document: “I settled in Minsk. Expresses a desire to return to the US under certain conditions… Cannot leave Minsk without permission.”