Why were CIA and KGB so nice to the Oswalds?

[Magda Hassan]

We all know the legend: Loser/loner "Lee Harvey Oswald," an ex-U.S. Marine communist, saves up his non-convertible military scrip so he can "defect" to Russia via first-class hotels and expensive private tour guides in Moscow (who say he didn't speak a word of Russian). Soviet authorities don't buy his professed love for Mother Russia, but his self-inflicted wrist wounds perhaps convince them of his earnestness. Moscow doctors suspect he secretly understands Russian, but no one finds this suspicious.


Moving to Minsk, things get weird. Marina Prusakova, an attractive babe with a pharmacology degree and a yen for American "defectors," soon falls in love with our boy, not long after meeting with Robert Webster, also an American "defector." Marina lives with her uncle, a colonel in the Soviet MVD (similar to our FBI), and apparently no one is suspicious when the ex-Marine communist "defector" begins spending time in the Soviet intelligence officer's apartment.


Harvey and Marina are married a little more than a month after they meet. A month after that, Harvey tells Marina it's time to move to the USA, and Marina is fine with that. Russian authorities and the U.S. State Department are fine with that too. Marina is granted her Russian exit visa on Christmas Day, 1961. The U.S. loans the Oswalds money to travel to the U.S.


That's the official legend, so far. To me, the obvious truth is this: "Lee Harvey Oswald" was a low-level U.S. intelligence operative and the Russians knew it. The KGB undoubtedly instructed their asset (Marina Prusakova) to contact Oswald in the hope romance would develop and she could travel to the U.S. on the wings of True Love.


With this honey trap in mind, the fact that Russian intelligence dealt with Oswald the way it did instead of torturing him to death to find out what his job entailed and what else he knew (U-2 specs, for example?) may not be as unreasonable as it seems. But what REALLY doesn't add up is that our CIA also for the most part kept hands off the young couple. By contrast, consider how the CIA spent years torturing Yuri Nosenko when he arrived in the U.S. soon after the assassination to announce that "Lee Harvey Oswald" was NOT a Soviet agent.


The CIA surely knew that Marina's live-in uncle was a high level Soviet intelligence officer, that Marina actively sought audiences with not one but TWO U.S. "defectors," and that as an attractive young woman with an advanced pharmacy agree she could undoubtedly have had her choice of many different men. But apparently they weren't suspicious enough to detain her for any significant time.


The people around Clay Shaw in New Orleans and the White Russians in Dallas and Ruth Paine were almost certainly told to keep watch on this couple, but it sure is amazing how they were managed with such a light touch by two notorious intelligence armies engaged in an enormous Cold War. Does this strike anyone else as strange?

Yes. Much strangeness about it. But mostly on the US side. Clearly Oswald isn't the lone nut communist marine genuine defector as the official version goes. The soviets would never have tortured Oswald. Of course they knew he was not a genuine communist, they would have know and checked, and he was not a genuine defector either as there are established ways to do that which he didn't use. So, yes, the alarm bells went off about him and I am sure they would have considered he was a false defector especially as there were other strange arrivals in the same period from the false defectors program being run. At his age though very low level with minimal information of use if any. He gave some thing to them any way. As he said he would. Their own intelligence sources were very good any way. Best to shunt him off to the provinces and keep him busy with a job and new friends and have him minded by Marina (and others). The Webster thing is very odd. Lends to her being some sort of minder. Wittingly or not. She wouldn't have been the only minder though. She was in good standing with the government and not in important employment so there is no reason for them not to allow her to go live with Oswald in the US. Presumably with the expectation of more information later down the track. Oswald's return is paid for by the US. This itself is suspicious given his statement when defecting to give all secrets (even if they were really not very valuable ones) to the Soviets. But if he was a false defector they would want their agent back. As far as CIA interest in him/them it it is only strange if we think of the CIA to be one monolithic entity with all of its personnel working towards the same cause. Which it clearly isn't. So one part knew exactly who and what Oswald was and Marina but not other sections.