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

the National Archives will take years to process, and the references to these materials in the footnotes reflect the shape and size of the "chunks" of records as they were initially released from contributing agencies. For example, if the footnote states "CIA January 1994 (5 brown boxes) release," researchers will know to go to the five large brown boxes that became available on that date. The Record Identification Form (RIF) numbering system used by the Archives was used in this book whenever possible, but some of the early RIF numbers may no longer be valid. With few exceptions, however, all of the CIA and FBI documents referred to in this book should be easily retrievable at the Archives.

    There is something to be said for going first. It is humbling to look at two million pieces of paper. Several disciplines in the social sciences will have enough case study material to last for decades. Pulled forward by our curiosity for the unknown, yet unsettled by the fear of what we might find, we can enter these boxes and finally discover for ourselves. No matter our convictions about the case, to finally look inside those boxes in pursuit of the truth is a liberating experience.

     

OSWALD AND THE CIA

     

CHAPTER ONE
    Defection in Moscow
    "There's a man here and he wants to renounce his citizenship," Jean Hallett announced to American Consul Richard Snyder.' Jean, the receptionist for the American Embassy in Moscow on this particular Saturday morning in October 1959, then produced the man's passport and laid it down on Snyder's brown wooden desk. Snyder looked up; it was a little after eleven A.M., and on Saturdays the embassy always closed at noon. "Well, send him on in, then," Snyder replied.
    Meanwhile, out in the lobby, an interesting group of people bumped into each other. The lobby at the entrance to the building was the only way to the elevator that ascended to the other sections of the embassy and the living quarters for the Americans working there. Twelve-year-old Carolyn Hallett had come out of the elevator and down the three steps into the lobby after her mother had disappeared into Snyder's office to announce Oswald's arrival. Carolyn found her mother's chair empty, but not so the couch-two young men were sitting on it. The one that fascinated twelve-year-old Carolyn was Lee Harvey Oswald. His countenance seemed to be anything but normal, and a curious little girl was probably the last thing he wanted to see before carrying out his plan to defect. At this particular moment he was working himself up for what he later referred to as a "showdown" with the American consul.'
    Sitting on the couch next to Oswald was Ned Keenan, an American graduate student based in Leningrad who was there that day seeking the embassy's assistance on visa matters.' "I saw him sitting on the sofa when I arrived," Keenan recalls, "and I sat down next to him." Like Carolyn, Keenan also thought Oswald looked odd. "He was a memorable character," Keenan says. "He was strangely dressed-I remember him being lightly dressed above [i.e. on top]." Jean Hallett came back out from Snyder's office and found there were now two visitors on the couch as well as her daughter staring at Oswald, who was undoubtedly happy to be extricated from this scene.

    As Lee Harvey Oswald confidently strode across the old wooden office floor behind Jean, he passed the other American consul, John McVickar, on his way to Snyder's desk. Oswald was dressed immaculately, in a dark suit with a white shirt and tie-"very businessman-looking," Snyder later recalled! But Snyder soon noticed odd things, like the fact that the man had no coat or hat on this brisk October thirty-first morning in Moscow. And then there were those thin, dressy white gloves that he wore into the room and removed rather deliberately as he came to a halt in front of Snyder's desk. Snyder, who was typing a report, was struck by the "humorless and robotic" quality of Oswald's demeanor. "Please sit down,"