Authors: John Newman
Kennedy let stand the Cuban plan that Eisenhower had put in motion. On April 4, 1961, a major pre-invasion meeting took place in a State Department conference room. Kennedy, with his closest advisers attending, gave the go-ahead.16 The ill-fated confrontation on the beaches of Cuba erupted on April 16-17, 1961. The Americantrained and sponsored brigade of Cuban exiles were humiliated at Playa Giron, a tragically appropriate Cuban name."
"The Dropping of Legal Proceedings Against Me"
As 1961 opened, Oswald was in Minsk trying to close the Russian chapter in his life.'8 The KGB had the only copy of his December 1960 query about returning to the U.S. On January 4, the Soviet passport office in Minsk "summoned" Oswald and forced the issue. Oswald was asked point-blank if he still wanted to become a Soviet citizen, and this time his answer was no. Oswald asked instead that his identity card be extended for an additional year.19
As discussed in Chapter Nine, on January 26, 1961, Marguerite Oswald, having failed for a year to find her son by writing letters to the U.S. government, traveled to the nation's capital and personally appeared at the State Department to demand that they do more to find him.20 When the CIA received its copy of the department's notes of her appearance, someone placed it in Oswald's 201 file and underlined parts of these two sentences in the notes:
She [Marguerite] also said that there was some possibility that her son had in fact gone to the Soviet Union as a US secret agent, and if this were true she wished the appropriate authorities to know that she was destitute and should receive some compensation.21
Whether she believed this or not, this tactic did not work, and Marguerite returned to Texas without compensation or information about Oswald's location in Russia. The State Department did send a cable to the embassy in Moscow on the "welfare-whereabouts" of Oswald on February 1, 1961. The cable told the embassy about Marguerite's visit and her concerns for her son's "personal safety," and asked that this be passed to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs.22 As it turned out, this diplomatic maneuver would not be necessary.
Oswald finally tired of waiting for the American Embassy to respond to his first letter, and on February 5 he decided to write again. We have discussed the first sentence of this letter in Chapter Eleven. Here is the rest of the text:
I am writing again asking that you consider my request for the return of my American passport. I desire to return to the United States, that is if we could come to some agreement concerning the dropping of any legal proceedings against me. If so, then I would be free to ask the Russian authorities to allow me to leave. If I could show them my American passport, I am of the opinion they would give me an exit visa. They have at no time insisted that I take Russian citizenship. I am living here with non-permanent type papers for a foreigner. I cannot leave Minsk without permission, therefore I am writing rather than calling in person.21 Oswald's insistence about an "agreement" to drop "legal proceedings" was obviously his way of asking that he not be prosecuted for espionage. It shows he fully understood the nature of the threats he had made during his October 1959 meeting with Snyder. "I hope that in recalling the responsibility I have to America," Oswald added, "that you remember yours in doing everything you can to help me since I am an American citizen.24 This sentence seems odd because it suggests that in returning to the U.S., Oswald considered his "responsibility" to America. Moreover, his use of the verb "recall" is strange: Had Oswald suddenly remembered his duty to America or had someone recalled him?
Snyder received Oswald's second letter on February 13,25 and responded to it on February 28. After acknowledging Oswald's request to go home and informing him that his December 1960 letter "does not appear to have been received at the Embassy," Snyder offered this advice:
Inasmuch as the question of your present American citizenship status can be finally determined only on the basis of a personal interview, we suggest that you plan to appear at the Embassy at your convenience. The consular section of the Embassy is open from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Embassy was recently informed by the Department of State that it had received an inquiry from your mother in which she said that she had not heard from you since December, 1959 and was concerned about your whereabouts and welfare .16
Getting Oswald to come to the embassy was obviously Snyder's objective, an idea repeated the same day in Snyder's cable to the State Department. In that cable Snyder repeated the entire text of Oswald's February 5 letter, and then added this:
The Embassy is writing to Oswald and suggesting that he come personally to the Embassy for an interview on which to base a decision concerning the status of his American citizenship. Oswald's reference in his letter to his being unable to leave Minsk without permission may indicate that he desires to come to the Embassy, in which an invitation from the Embassy may facilitate his traveling to Moscow.27
Snyder said that he was prepared to give back Oswald his passport by mail, providing 1) that this was "a last resort"; 2) the State Department did not object; and 3) the embassy was "reasonably sure" that Oswald had not "committed an act" resulting in the loss of his American citizenship. Snyder also asked the department's position on "whether Oswald is subject to prosecution on any grounds should he enter the jurisdiction of the United States and, if so, whether there is any objection in communicating this to him."
Oswald received the embassy's February 28 letter by March 5, 1961, and wrote back that day.28 "I see no reason for any preliminary inquiries," he protested, "not to be put in the form of a questionnaire and sent to me." He said he found it "inconvenient to come to Moscow for the sole purpose of an interview." He asked that the embassy mail the questionnaire to him, as it is difficult for him to travel.29 Oswald's diary entry for this period says this: "I now live in a state of expectation about going back to the U.S. I confided with Zeger [sic] he supports my judgment but warns me not to tell any Russians about my desire to reture [sic]. I understade [sic] now why."30 Not long after Oswald began corresponding with the embassy, his monthly payments from the "Red Cross" were cut off;" Snyder testified that the Soviet authorities had undoubtedly intercepted and read the correspondence between Oswald and the embassy and knew of his plans.32
The State Department took its time telling Oswald's mother that they had found him. A copy of the letter they sent her is no longer extant, but her March 27, 1961, response was published in the Warren Commission's twenty-six volumes, and it indicates that around the 27th she received this "most welcome news" about her son's wish to come home."
As more letters between Oswald and the embassy followed,' the position of the embassy and the State Department remained firm: Oswald had to come to Moscow.35 Then, on April 13 came the answer to Oswald's request for an "agreement" about dropping "legal proceedings" against him. The department refused to guarantee that Oswald would not be prosecuted.36 If Lee Harvey Oswald wanted to come back to America, he would have to take his chances.
Lee and Marina
It was at this time that Oswald met his wife-to-be, Marina Niko- layevna Prusakova. Although accounts vary slightly on the exact date and circumstances, they evidently met at a dance in early March 1961." When they first met, Oswald thought Marina was a dental technician-she was a pharmacist," and Marina thought Oswald was from the Baltics ("because of his accent").39 Marina later explained that she and his other Russian friends called Oswald "Alex" because "Lee" was recognized as a Chinese name.40 Marina says she had not heard of Oswald before she met him, in spite of the fact that he was the only American living in Minsk.41
At the dance, Oswald noticed Marina and asked Yuriy Merazhin- skiy, a friend of his and Marina's, to introduce him to her. This accomplished, Oswald asked her to dance. Oswald wrote in his diary that they liked each other right away and that he got her phone number before she left the dance.42 The two met again at another dance a week later, at which they danced together for most of the evening.43 This time Oswald walked her home, and the two made another date, which Oswald missed due to an illness that required hospitalization.44
The hospital records indicate that Oswald was admitted to its ear, nose, and throat division, and stayed from March 30 until April 11, 1961, seemingly a long time to be in the hospital for an ear infec- tion.45 Oswald called Marina from the hospital and asked her to visit him there,46 which she did nearly every day until his release.47 Marina even wore her uniform in order to see him on Sundays-outside of the regular visiting hours. The first time she did this was on Easter Sunday, when she brought Oswald an Easter egg.48
During one of Marina's visits to the hospital, he proposed that they become engaged, which she agreed to consider,49 and he continued to ask until she accepted his proposal on April 15.1' Marina lived with her aunt and uncle, who knew Oswald was an American and did not disapprove of his many visits to their apartment. On April 20, 1961, Oswald and Marina applied to get married." It normally took about a week for Soviet citizens to get permission to marry foreigners.52 In this case it took ten days, and they were married on April 30 in Minsk.53
For her part, Marina later testified that she clearly had not married Oswald as a way of getting to the U.S. because it was her understanding that he could not return.' Oswald wrote in his diary that he married Marina in order to hurt Ella German, the girl who had refused his marriage proposals, but that in the end, "I find myself in love with Marina." The May 1 entry in Oswald's diary includes this passage:
The transition of changing full love from Ella to Marina was very painful esp. as I saw Ella almost every day at the factory but as the days & weeks went by I adjusted more and more [to] my wife mentally * * * She is madly in love with me from the very start. Boat rides on Lake walks through the park evening at home or at Aunt Valia's place mark May."
Oswald's attachment to Marina grew quickly. A diary entry for June reads "A continuence of May, except that; we draw closer and closer, and I think very little now of Ella."'
Oswald had been holding out on Marina. He had decided, probably in late 1960, and certainly no later than January 1961, to return to America, but he did not tell Marina. It was not until sometime in June that Oswald told Marina that he wanted to return home. An entry in his diary says that she was "startled" when he told her "in the last days" of June.57 On May 16, 1961, Oswald sent notification to the U.S. Embassy (which it received on May 25) of his marriage to Marina. He explained that they both intended to go to the United States.58 During June, the Oswalds made inquiries with the appropriate Soviet authorities about obtaining the proper exit visas.S9 On June 1, 1961, Oswald wrote to his mother about his marriage "last month."6" Oswald's first daughter, June, was conceived in May 1961.61
Labyrinth II: Navy Intelligence and the FBI
When last we entered the labyrinth of the FBI and CIA files on Oswald, the FBI was bifurcating its Oswald material at the Bureau and in Dallas into two compartments at each locations. The material collected under the caption "Funds Transmitted to Russia" went into the 100 file at the Bureau and into the 105 file at Dallas; the rest of the Oswald material went into the 105 file at the Bureau and into the 100 file at Dallas. It is important to keep this detail in mind because this pattern, begun in 1960, persisted into 1961. With respect to his CIA files, 1960 witnessed the incremental involvement of the Soviet Russia Division, a trend that continued into 1961.
Stimulated by Oswald's decision to come home, his paper trail during the first half of 1961 takes us down several paths, some familiar and some new. A channel opened between the Navy Intelligence field office at Algiers, Louisiana (near New Orleans), and the Dallas FBI field office. Lateral activity picked up between the FBI field offices in Dallas and New Orleans, and after an internal struggle, the Washington, D.C., FBI field office also got involved. These connections produced more intelligence on Oswald, culminating in important FBI and CIA actions in the summer of 1961, events we will discuss in the next chapter.
The FBI's investigation of Oswald in 1959 and early 1960 had "involved the development of background information" concerning him, "and the taking of appropriate steps to insure our being advised of his return" the Bureau told the Warren Commission.62 "Our basic interest," the FBI explained, "was to correlate information concerning him and to evaluate him as a security risk in the event he returned, in view of the possibility of his recruitment by the Soviet intelligence services." Given this, Special Agent Kenneth J. Haser appeared overly eager when he tried to open a new file on Oswald at the Washington, D.C. field office (WFO) of the FBI in August 1960.
On August 9, Haser wrote a memorandum to the special agent in charge (SAC) of the FBI WFO on the subject of "Lee Harvey Oswald, Internal Security-Russia."63 In the memo, Haser said he had gone over to the State Department passport office that day, where he had contacted Mrs. Verde Buckler, who gave him Oswald's passport file "for appropriate review." The Bureau had asked the State Department to provide "any current information available" on Oswald, Haser said, and "it is, therefore, recommended that a case be opened for the purpose of furnishing the Bureau and office of origin a summary of information in the passport file."
The file number of the Haser memo was written by hand: -100 16597 Sub L - 676 Newspaper Clipping."64 The person writing it was probably named Carson and probably filed this memo at the Bureau. Carson crossed out the "00 - Dallas" indicator below the subject line. In the CIA "00" was a symbol for the Contacts Division, but in the FBI "00" was an acronym for "Office of Origin," meaning the office responsible for a particular case. On September 12, 1960, Special Agent Dana Carson, following up on Haser's August 9 memorandum on Oswald, wrote a new memorandum to the special agent in charge of the Washington, D.C., field office. Someone, probably Carson, had gone back over to the State Department passport office on September 9 and looked at Oswald's file again.