Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    This passage makes it clear that the second of the two Robert Oswald telegrams arrived in the consular office between the second and third of Marie Cheatham's phone calls to Oswald's hotel room-that is, between 9:30 and 11:05 A.M. that Monday morning in Moscow.
    The situation of the Oswalds in Dallas was unenviable. All immediate efforts to reach Lee in Russia had failed, and the local press in Texas did not look favorably upon defectors. There had been one press report in the Corpus Christi Times a week earlier profiling a string of defections to the Soviet Union. The article said:
    As far as we are concerned, any American citizen, male or female, who renounces his citizenship in favor of the Soviet Union, is entitled to the protection of this government in two particulars only. The State Department should ask him two questions: Was he drunk or sober when he did it? Did he seem to have all his marbles with him at the time?
    Having settled these questions to its own satisfaction, the government and people of the United States should wave him goodbye and see to it that his name is wiped off our national books forever, and he never be allowed to set foot in this country again, dead or alive.50
    This newspaper clipping, which had been sparked by the recent defection of other Americans, would, by mid-November 1959, become the first official record in Oswald's FBI headquarters file- 105-82555.55 By that time there would be more than the Corpus Christi Times complaint to put in Oswald's file.

    An "Intelligence Matter"
    Snyder recorded the details of Oswald's defection, fully documenting his bizarre performance in the embassy that day. Snyder's complete account was typed by his secretary, Vera Brown, and sent to the State Department in a lengthy dispatch two days later, Monday, November 2. It included this assessment:
    Throughout the interview Oswald's manner was aggressive, arrogant, and uncooperative. He appeared to be competent.... He was contemptuous of any efforts by the interviewing officer in his interest, made clear that he wanted no advice from the embassy. He stated that he knew the provisions of U.S. law on loss of citizenship and declined to have them reviewed by the interviewing officer. In short, he displayed all the airs of a new sophomore party-liner.'
    These observations weighed heavily in Snyder's abiding impression that Oswald's defection had been carefully planned.
    In a November 1963 memorandum, Snyder's colleague McVickar said it was possible that Oswald had read books he did not understand. Nevertheless, McVickar argued,
    ... it seemed that it could also have been that he had been taught to say things which he did not really understand. In short, it seemed to me that there was a possibility that he had been in contact with others before or during his Marine Corps tour who had guided him and encouraged him in his actions.57
    McVickar argued that there seemed the possibility that Oswald "was following a pattern of behavior in which he had been tutored by person or persons unknown."38
    Who were these "persons unknown," and how did they know what Snyder would or would not do? Something about the way Oswald was using pat phrases about Marxism along with his reference to "papers to sign" led Snyder and McVickar to conclude that Oswald had only incomplete knowledge of such intellectual and legal matters. Snyder says he retains a "strong impression" that Oswald "used simple Marxist stereotypes without sophistication or independent formulation. `9
    Both Snyder and McVickar thought at the time that Oswald might have been "tutored" before appearing at the consulate, and both today continue to believe that Oswald's performance that October Saturday in 1959 was carefully planned. Oswald's stated intent to turn over military secrets should be considered in this context. If someone did help Oswald plan his defection, this someone might also have told Oswald to threaten to reveal military secrets.

    Oswald's