Intelligence

The spy who knew Oswald

Forty years ago on Saturday, Lee Harvey Oswald killed John Kennedy. Two months before, Oswald had arrived in Mexico, hysterically demanding a visa to the USSR. The ex-KGB agent who dealt with him talks to our correspondent.



IN NOVY ARBAT STREET, Moscow, Oleg Nechiporenko sits at his desk. Now silver-haired, he is still visibly the man pictured in the world press in 1971 when he was expelled from Mexico for allegedly plotting to overthrow the Government. The CIA called him “the best KGB agent in Latin America”.
At about 12.30 on the afternoon of Friday, September 27, 1963, Nechiporenko was in his office at the Russian Embassy in Mexico City. He was about to go to lunch when his secretary put through a call from a fellow KGB officer, Valery Kostikov. “Listen,” said an agitated Kostikov, “some gringo is here, asking for a visa to the Soviet Union. Supposedly he already lived there, married one of our girls. They live in the States, but the FBI is harassing them. Come and get to the bottom of this. I’m in a hurry.”

When Nechiporenko arrived at the embassy’s consular office, Kostikov said: “Those are his papers . . . he might be of some interest to you. I’ll see you later. If there is anything to this, leave a note.” The American was ushered in and introduced. To Nechiporenko, the visitor seemed physically and mentally exhausted. Suddenly he became more alert, giving Nechiporenko the impression of being somewhat neurotic.

Nechiporenko looked over the documents and noted that the young man, Lee Harvey Oswald, had left the Soviet Union on an exit visa the previous summer, along with his Russian-born wife, Marina. Asked why he wanted to return to Russia, Oswald claimed that FBI harassment prevented him from getting a good job and that his situation had become intolerable.

Nechiporenko asked why Oswald had not gone to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, in line with visa application rules, rather than to Mexico City. Oswald replied that he feared he might be arrested there, so had travelled instead to the nearest foreign country.

Trying to steer the meeting to a conclusion, Nechiporenko told the American that in accordance with Soviet rules, all matters dealing with travel to the USSR had to be handled by the embassy or consulate in the country of an applicant’s residence. But to hasten Oswald’s departure, the KGB man said that an exception could be made and gave him the necessary papers to fill in, which would then be sent to Moscow. When he emphasised that a decision was unlikely to be made for at least four months, Oswald became aggressive. Slowly leaning forward over the desk which separated them, he practically shouted into Nechiporenko’s face: “This won’t do! For me, it’s all going to end in tragedy!” Nechiporenko shrugged and stood up, signalling the end of the meeting.

Dealing with eccentric American visitors to the embassy was not a new experience for Nechiporenko. Not long before the Oswald meeting he had interviewed a visitor who handed him six thick notebooks full of illegible handwriting. Nechiporenko had to struggle hard to keep a straight face when the visitor told him that the notebooks were a record of his continuing talks with the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Before the KBG man could think of a suitable response, the visitor suddenly cocked an ear and said: “Just a moment, Khrushchev is speaking to me again!”

Later that day, Nechiporenko related the gist of the Oswald meeting to Kostikov, and they decided to send a routine report to the KGB’s Moscow centre.

Nechiporenko particularly recalls the next day, Saturday, September 28, because a volleyball match was scheduled between the KGB and the GRU (military intelligence) in the embassy grounds. Just before the game was due to start at 10am, a visitor turned up at the embassy and was taken to the office of the consul, Pavil Yatskov, who, like Nechiporenko, was about to prepare for the game.

Nechiporenko, in an adjoining office, recognised the rising hysterical voice — it was Oswald’s —— and began listening at the connecting door. Sobbing, Oswald cried: “I am afraid they will kill me. Let me in!” He put his right hand into his left-hand jacket pocket and pulled out a revolver. “See,” he said, “this is what I must now carry to protect my life.” By now, Kostikov was also in Yatskov’s office. He casually took the weapon and gave it to Yatskov, who opened the chamber, shook the bullets into his hand and put them into the desk drawer in front of him.

A glass of water was given to Oswald, who took a sip and placed it in front of him. The rules regarding the visa application were again explained to him. His state of agitation was now replaced by depression. He took his revolver and put it back in his jacket, along with the bullets that Kostikov returned to him. As they escorted him out, Oswald again launched into a diatribe about the FBI and exclaimed menacingly: “If they don’t leave me alone, I’m going to defend myself.”

After he had gone, Nechiporenko, Kostikov and Yatskov discussed their strange visitor. The three KGB men agreed to send another report to the Moscow Centre immediately.

Like many people, Nechiporenko remembers clearly where he was when he heard of John F. Kennedy’s death: sitting in his embassy office in Mexico City. It was later that day, however, that Kostikov flew into Nechiporenko’s room in a state of shock: “Oleg, they’ve just shown the suspect in Kennedy’s death on TV! It’s Lee Oswald, the gringo who was here in September! I recognised him!” Dashing to the first-floor lounge of the embassy, where the entire staff was gathered around a TV set, the two KGB men pushed their way to the front to watch the screen. They saw the suspected assassin, surrounded by police, at Dallas police HQ. Neither Kostikov nor Nechiporenko had any doubts that it was the man they had interviewed two months previously. They ran back to their compound immediately to send a report to Moscow.

After witnessing Oswald’s death at the hands of Jack Ruby on the same embassy TV set, Nechiporenko was at first convinced that a conspiracy was behind the bizarre events in Dallas. As a conspiracy theory started to spread, the idea that the CIA had somehow been involved in JFK’s death was seen by the KGB as an opportunity.

Deciding to target the Watergate burglar and former CIA officer Howard Hunt, they used the repository of Oswald letters and documents in his KGB files to forge a handwritten letter seemingly from Oswald to Hunt and dated November 8, 1963, in which Oswald asks to meet Hunt to “discuss the matter fully before any steps are taken by me or anyone else”. So good was the forgery that it even contained the same dyslexic errors that frequented genuine Oswald correspondence. Photocopies of the letter were sent to leading conspiracy theorists in America, with a covering note from a “wellwisher” saying that the original had been sent to the FBI Director, Clarence Kelly, who appeared to be suppressing it. To Nechiporenko, himself a victim of a similar set-up by the CIA, such a tactic was all part of the game played between the two organisations.

With hindsight and the benefit of a detailed study of Oswald’s KGB files, Nechiporenko has become convinced that Oswald was a lone assassin. As evidence of Oswald’s mental state and his capacity for taking unpredictable, violent action, Nechiporenko reveals a little-known fact from a 1962 KGB observation report. When he was in the USSR, and clearly frustrated at the delay in obtaining his exit documents from the Soviet Union, Oswald had constructed a home-made bomb in his Minsk apartment. Before he could use it his permit came through, and he dismantled the device and threw it away among the household rubbish, much to the relief of the KGB observation officers. According to the same file, Marina Prusakova’s main goal was to marry a foreigner and leave the country with him. Nechiporenko still wonders whether Oswald was ever anything more to Marina than an exit visa. After his death she married another American rather than return to Russia.

Despite the end of the Cold War and a decline in high-profile political assassinations, Nechiporenko considers the world more dangerous than it was 40 years ago. Though political leaders are better protected than ever, according to 21st-century risk analysis, civilians are more vulnerable.

Drawing parallels between 9/11, Bali and the siege of the Moscow Palace of Culture last October by Chechen rebels, Nechiporenko sees international co-operation between intelligence services as the key to combating terrorism. The August arrest in Newark, New Jersey, of a British-based arms dealer, accused of trying to procure Russian missiles for Muslim extremists, is a textbook example of what Nechiporenko has in mind. The sting, organised by the FBI, MI5, MI6 and the Russian FSB, and sanctioned at the highest levels, led to arrests down the chain. The intelligence agencies remain tight-lipped about the operation. Nechiporenko, at least, is encouraged that old enemies have finally joined hands to fight a common foe.

November 23, 2003 at 12:43 AM in CIA | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home